Podcasts about atrantil

Ever wonder what insights could be gained from small intestine bacterial overgrowth testing when you've got IBS gut symptoms?Last week, Dr. Ken Brown and I discussed various reasons why Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a problematic diagnosis that has become a “catch-all” for any digestive symptoms. We also spoke about how SIBO inflammation can spread to other body systems including skin rashes like rosacea.In today's episode, we will dive into the reason why small bacterial overgrowth testing should be run by gastroenterologists. AND how it can lead to clarity on the type of SIBO you're struggling with (and may explain your constipation or diarrhea). Plus, SIBO constipation can lead to unwanted side effects that, unfortunately, worsen long-term constipation!And if you are struggling with SIBO symptoms and want to know how to get better, we'll also dive into conventional and natural SIBO treatment options.My friend and SIBO expert Dr. Ken Brown is back for Part 2 of this interview! He's a board-certified gastroenterologist and has been in practice for over 15 years with a clinical focus on inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Known as the host of the podcast “Gut Check Project”, Dr. Brown's mission is to bridge the gap between medical & natural science, leading to attainable improvements in quality of life for all.For over a decade, he conducted clinical research for various pharma companies but is now focused on natural solution product development for KBMD Health and KBS Research. Dr. Brown has a clinical and research practice based in Plano, Texas. And he is the creator of ATRANTIL, this FIRST proven solution for IBS and bloating, now available in over 20 countries.In This Episode:Methane versus hydrogen gas production (and associated SIBO symptoms)Can laxatives improve SIBO constipation?Can you become addicted to laxatives?Conventional and natural SIBO treatment optionsBenefits of polyphenols in a SIBO dietHow Atrantil could help your SIBO symptoms (as an alternative SIBO treatment option)Quotes“If somebody comes in and they sound like SIBO, and they eat a meal, and they bloat, that tells me that there's SIBO going on in the small bowel.”“If we were to look at what makes vegetables and fruits healthy for you, we know that they have insoluble fiber, they do have some vitamins, but the primary reason is these polyphenols, the things that make the fruits and vegetables colorful.”LinksFind Dr. Ken Brown Podcast | Instagram | TiktokGET ATRANTIL HERE!!TRY DR. BROWN'S SIBO SUPPORT KITHealthy Skin Show ep. 332: SIBO Symptoms Trigger Rosacea, Psoriasis + Eczema w/ Dr. Allison SiebeckerHealthy Skin Show ep. 019: SIBO-Rosacea Connection w/ Dr. Leonard WeinstockEfficacy and Safety of Over-the-Counter Therapies for Chronic Constipation: An Updated Systematic ReviewEfficacy of a Quebracho, Conker Tree, and M. balsamea Willd Blended Extract in a Randomized Study in Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome with Constipation

This is a 2-part interview coming next week so stay tuned!Did you know that many people diagnosed with IBS actually have SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth)?SIBO is unfortunately a rather under-diagnosed condition impacting your gut that often leads people to struggle for very long periods (sometimes several years!) without a clear answer of what's going on beyond just being told “you have IBS.”To be clear, digestive issues like bloating and diarrhea are not normal and can make you miserable. And being told that irritable bowel syndrome explains everything away isn't really all that helpful especially if you experience severe bloating, diarrhea, constipation, and/or gas – all of which can wreck your life and create food fear (as you try to avoid whatever triggers an issue).While small intestine bacterial overgrowth is slowly but surely becoming more accepted amongst doctors, we're still learning more about the different triggers of SIBO symptoms and how it can impact other body systems like your skin (especially for those dealing with rosacea).My friend and SIBO expert Dr. Ken Brown joins me today! He's a board-certified gastroenterologist and has been in practice for over 15 years with a clinical focus on inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Known as the host of the podcast “Gut Check Project”, Dr. Brown's mission is to bridge the gap between medical & natural science, leading to attainable improvements in quality of life for all.For over a decade, he conducted clinical research for various pharma companies but is now focused on natural solution product development for KBMD Health and KBS Research. Dr. Brown has a clinical and research practice based in Plano, Texas. And he is the creator of ATRANTIL, this FIRST proven solution for IBS and bloating, now available in over 20 countries.In This Episode:Why IBS is a total junk diagnosis (and what you more likely have)Fascinating research on small intestine bacterial overgrowthHow overgrowth of SIBO bacteria is an inflammation triggerUnpacking methane production in SIBOHow food poisoning triggers gut (and skin) SIBO symptomsAntibodies that worsen gut + skin SIBO symptomsQuotes“People are walking around with this benign diagnosis called irritable bowel syndrome. And when people come to me, they're like, well, I'm told I have IBS. I'm like, IBS, in my mind, should be viewed as the warning sign. And the most common symptom is bloating. So what I tell my patients is the bloating you're experiencing, although you think it's normal, because it's been normalized either by you accepting it or a doctor saying, it's perfectly fine, you have to live with it, that's the warning sign that you have gut inflammation.”“The skin is the outward manifestation. The skin is another warning sign, including acne, eczema, rosacea, psoriasis. All of these things can actually start in the gut, and the skin is trying to say, hey, it's not right, something is wrong. And I do see a lot of people with skin issues. And I have treated a lot of people that have seen dermatologists, and we fix their gut and it gets better.”LinksFind Dr. Ken Brown Podcast | Instagram | TiktokGET ATRANTIL HERE!!TRY DR. BROWN'S SIBO SUPPORT KITHealthy Skin Show ep. 332: SIBO Symptoms Trigger Rosacea, Psoriasis + Eczema w/ Dr. Allison SiebeckerHealthy Skin Sho

Dr. Kenneth Brown is a private gastroenterologist with a clinical research division at Atrantil. Dr. Brown shares his journey from traditional medicine to a more holistic approach, blending natural therapeutics with traditional methods to treat gastrointestinal issues. He also discusses the advantages of being a generalist, how to care for your microbiome, and the need for more education about the link between gut health, brain health, and overall wellbeing.  Guest links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kennethbrownmd/ | https://atrantil.com/ Charity supported: ASPCA Interested in being a guest on the show or have feedback to share? Email us at podcast@velentium.com.  PRODUCTION CREDITS Host: Lindsey Dinneen Editor: Tim Oliphant Producer: Velentium   EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Episode 021 - Kenneth Brown Lindsey Dinneen: Hi, I'm Lindsey with Velentium and I'm talking with MedTech industry leaders on how they change lives for a better world. Diane Bouis: The inventions and technologies are fascinating and so are the people who work with them. Frank Jaskulke: There was a period of time where I realized, fundamentally, my job was to go hang out with really smart people that are saving lives and then do work that would help them save more lives. Diane Bouis: I got into the business to save lives and it is incredibly motivating to work with people who are in that same business, saving or improving lives. Duane Mancini: What better industry than where I get to wake up every day and just save people's lives. Lindsey Dinneen: These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary work, and this is The Leading Difference. Hello, and welcome to The Leading Difference Podcast. I'm your host, Lindsey, and I am excited to introduce you to my guest today, Dr. Kenneth Brown. Dr. Brown is a private gastroenterologist with a clinical research division. In his practice, Dr. Brown uses a mix of traditional medicine and natural therapeutics to treat patients suffering from gastrointestinal issues. He hosts the Gut Check Project podcast where he and his team address topics surrounding gut health, healthcare economy, patient safety, nutrition, and more. Thank you so much Dr. Brown for joining me today. I am so excited that you're here and welcome. Dr. Kenneth Brown: Thank you so much, Lindsey. I'm super excited getting to be a guest on The Leading Difference podcast. Awesome. I typically am always asked to do medical stuff, so this is a little bit out of my scope, but very exciting nonetheless. Lindsey Dinneen: Great. No I'm very excited to have you and talk with you, and I would love if you would start by just telling us a little bit about yourself and your background and how you got to where you are today. Dr. Kenneth Brown: Yeah, absolutely. So I'll take you way back. I was in medicals, I basically raised in Omaha, Nebraska. I was in medical school scraping ice off my car and realized one day, "I don't have to do this." And so I immediately drove down to Texas as quickly as I could, did my residency and fellowship, and became a gastroenterologist and still residing in Texas. I seemed to like the warm a little bit more than that scraping ice off cars. So I started my practice about 20 years ago. Initially, I started doing clinical research specifically for the pharmaceutical industry. And I was helping launch some small biotech firms that were developing products. We were doing research for them, and in that time I realized there was this unmet need. In other words, no drug was being developed, or no drug existed for this big space called irritable bowel syndrome. I started to do research for the first drug that was trying to address this when I was in training. IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, was considered more of a psychological diagnosis and literally I was taught that if you do tests on people and everything is normal, then more than likely, it is a psychological thing. We used to think the same thing about ulcer disease. Whenever it was 50 years ago, if you got an ulcer, it was because you were too stressed. You need to back off work, do something like that. Then we found out that it was probably due to a bacteria called Helicobacter, H Pylori. And the person that discovered that got a Nobel Prize. That same massive paradigm shift was starting to take place when I was doing this research about 15 years ago. And that was that a doctor had shown that irritable bowel syndrome is actually caused by bacteria growing where it shouldn't be. And that's called small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. So it's just that bacteria growing where it shouldn't be. And I was doing the clinical trial for them to look at treating people that had irritable bowel with diarrhea and in passing, I was having a conversation with the lead investigator and he said, unfortunately we'll never be able to help the bloated person with constipation because the type of bacteria that is causing it is a very old, ancient type called archaebacteria, and no modern antibiotics affect it." And that was kind of interesting. And and he said, "the issue is that this type of bacteria produces a gas called methane." So I'm writing on my whiteboard in my office, "archaebacteria methane." And I start thinking, I started the story in the very beginning, 'cause I said I was raised in Nebraska and I scraped ice off my car to come down in Nebraska, the prime export would be agriculture. And what they were trying to do is mandate that these ranchers and farmers give different feed products to the cattle to decrease methane production that they're admitting for the Greenhouse Effect. And I looked at that and I just went, "they've been trying to do this in Nebraska for a really long time. What is it that they're giving these cattle and can it be transferable to humans?" And so that sort of started the "aha!" moment of a bloated cow producing methane could be something eventually that might help the millions of people, and I mean millions, like 20% of the US population suffers from some form of irritable bowel syndrome and many more suffer from bloating and have never been diagnosed. So I spent the next several years, me and my research manager, and we were looking at all the data in animals, and then we came across this combination of three large polyphenols, which are the molecules that make vegetables and fruits colorful. And realized that one of the major ones in there is something called Quebracho Colorado that had never been used in a supplement before, but it is used in wine making and beer making and many other things that humans are already consuming. Went through some trouble of trying to get some Quebracho. This is in the like, weird things that happen with entrepreneurs. The only place that it is being developed is Argentina. And I happen to be half Argentinian, so I'm emailing, I'm calling, I'm trying to do anything to get hold of somebody to get me some of this product up just so I can do a clinical trial on it. And nothing was happening, I'm getting no response. And so I actually called a cousin who's a physician in Argentina. She physically drove to the manufacturing facility, walked in an office and said, "there's a doctor in Dallas that's needs your product. He thinks he found a reason to give it to humans." And so that started this whole domino effect. And then eventually I get this shady bag of material sent to my office and I had to spend a lot of money to have analyzed and everything because they're used to working in the agricultural business where they would just send bags of stuff. And so I was able to get this analyzed and all this other stuff, and then we encapsulated it and then put it with a few other things, and then ultimately did two clinical trials and found that it was remarkably successful in this patient population. And, we were able to launch this company called Atrantil. And that was about seven years ago that we were able to actually launch the company. And we have just been learning more and more about the science of all of this. I've been fortunate enough to do this at the exact time where you and I were talking off air about where there seems to be this push for more awareness about nutrition, more awareness about doing things naturally, and not always relying on drugs to do everything. So I feel like I'm very fortunate to be in this great space, learning a ton. And being able to help millions of people at the same time. So that's where we're at now. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. I love your story. Thank you for sharing that. There's a few different things that really stood out. First of all, I'm curious, did you always want to be a doctor? Is that something that was always a bit of a goal for you, or what made you decide to go into the medical field? Dr. Kenneth Brown: I don't know how detailed you want to get into this, but I will tell you another quick story since this is, that one's very specific because, when I was in eighth grade, summer of eighth grade, my childhood friend got severely burned when he was on vacation with his mom. Third degree burns, ICU, whole nine yards, both him and his mom. And I get a call, you know, I was in touch with him, this is back before cell phones, so it's landlines. I get a call from him and he goes, "they say that I need to get outta the hospital because, mom needs to stay in here a little bit longer." Like they were in the ICU for a long time, so he had skin grafts and everything. And I said, " just come live with us." And didn't even ask my parents and I just said, "Junior's gonna come live with us." And so he came and ended up spending a year living in our house and I was changing his bandages and all this other stuff. One night, at like 8:00 PM at night, doorbell rings and it's a guy-- introduced himself, his name was Leonard Woods. He said, I'm a physical therapist. I hear you have a young man who could use little help. I'd like to volunteer my services. So he just basically rehabbed and then we all became friends, all of us. And of course I'm watching this guy that comes over and volunteers his time and I for sure am gonna be a physical therapist now. And I'm like in ninth grade, go through high school, always kinda shadowing and then during college doing some internships and stuff. And this guy saves my friend and he's this super cool dude and this is what I'm gonna do. And then he pulled me aside and he just said, "Hey, I know that you think this is what you should do, but I really think your calling is to be a doctor and I think you need to apply for medical school." So I went, "okay." I just, at this point, I'm gonna do something in healthcare, just to help people. And the fact that your hero slash mentor is telling you to not do the job he's doing that he loves, I'm like, "okay, I guess I'll apply to med school." And then I ended up graduating college early, so I got a chance to spend a year, and I worked officially for him and he knew I was going to med school and then he spent that year teaching me how to manage employees, teaching me how to manage patients, how to run a busy clinic. And he just said, " dovetail me so that you can see how the business side of this stuff works." And I was fortunate enough to go to medical school already having some idea of how I would do this and then I thought I would be a surgeon and then quickly realized that's a horrible lifestyle. I think I need to shift gears and was internal medicine. And then found gastroenterology and that fit me like a glove. So a gastroenterologist is an internal medicine trained doctor, so they already have a predisposition for a little bit of intellectual curiosity, but you get to do procedures. So you get to get in and immediately fix or help or prevent various diseases. And so as a gastroenterologist, you basically are treating things from the esophagus to the anus. So I got into fellowship to be a gastroenterologist. I'm loving it. And then that's when I started realizing, "wait a minute, all health begins and ends in the gut." I was seeing all these people, they had gut issues years before they had something else. Everybody would complain that they had something else, and so, when I started private practice, that's how come I was drawn immediately after just a few years, I started the first research division of our company and I did research for about 10 years and it was just this beautiful sequence of events that led up to that point where I'm thinking about a bloated cow. I mean, it took a really nice physical therapist to show up and then physical therapist to tell me to do something different-- possibly more, depending how you look at it-- and me to realize that all health begins and ends in the gut. And I basically continued that with that complete curiosity. And I'm continuing to learn all the time as everyone else is, as we're all learning that the gut is probably the root of disease and health. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Thank you for going to that story. I love hearing the why, what prompted somebody's interest or passion in what they're doing, and it really struck me-- both kind of stories you've shared with me so far about how synergistic from an outsider's perspective your life has been in a few different ways where like, seemingly no connection. So grew up in, in Nebraska and just you didn't like the snow, which I totally relate to by the way, side note. And then drawing from that experience is what helped you translate that into your work more recently. And that, that seems so disjointed, but it actually was this synergistic connection. And then you also have something like, you mentioned the one random place in Argentina and you had the connections, and I just love those stories when what's meant to be comes together in such a way that you could never predict. Dr. Kenneth Brown: For sure. And the other thing about it, you say the story, but I look back and it was months and months of just radio silence. But I knew that we had something there. So it was me asking around, call my mom, "do we have anybody in this part of Argentina?" And so it took that continual pursuit of doing that. It wasn't just, oh, dumb luck. It's there, but it's the knowledge that it's there and it's the knowledge that you have an angle and it's the knowledge to utilize your network to try and get there. The story sounds like it just kind of fell in place, but I think with every entrepreneur that you speak with, there's that classic line, "it only took 10 years to be an overnight success." There's so much more that happens back over here. And I look at this and I realized that some of these decisions that were made-- I don't know if you gave me another shot at this. Do you ever think about this? I mean, you have this incredible dualistic career of being a ballerina and then being in the medtech, entrepreneur space and marketing and it's funny 'cause you love your life and you've got this great situation that you have going, when people say, "would you ever do it again?" I'm like, "no, no way. 'cause I don't know if I would make the right decisions, even though I know what decisions I made. I don't know if I would make the right decision to get exactly where I'm at right now, 'cause I kind of feel like I'm just beginning about where we can go with all this." Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. But that's the fun part, right? So it is kind of an interesting exercise to look back and think about the "what ifs." And if you were to redo it, would you make the same decisions? I've thought about that many times with different aspects where I chose between two seemingly really good options, but I'm so thankful I went with the one I did because that got me to where I am now. But you know, I was chuckling about your overnight sensation comment and I have thought about that so many times where, agree-- from an outside perspective it always looks different-- but I've always appreciated the quote, something like, "the harder I work, the more luck I have," or something like that, Dr. Kenneth Brown: Exactly. Lindsey Dinneen: I also think there's something to be said-- you talked about drawing on your network and the months of work that it did take. But I do think that there is something to be said to being open to possibilities that you wouldn't ordinarily pursue, or opportunities that you wouldn't ordinarily consider, because sometimes those, again, seemingly random, disconnected moments, somehow do all come together. And it might not be this overnight thing, but... Dr. Kenneth Brown: Have you heard of a book called "Range" by David Epstein? Lindsey Dinneen: Nope, but I'm writing it down. Dr. Kenneth Brown: So the book is called "Range: Why Generalists Triumph In a Specialized World." It's really interesting because it's an analysis-- who's looking like business leaders and things like that, and generalists that learn a little bit-- it's always thought like in medicine it's " jack of all trades, but master of none." So it's that whole thing of jack of all trades, but master of none. And so in my field, you wanna become the most specialized of subspecialists that just, you're the expert. And I think because of my path coming in, there was never this devotion to this one thing immediately or I'm gonna be the experts' expert. I'm a generalist in life and I eventually end up in this space of a specialized world. But I seem to be better off 'cause I was a generalist. And what I mean by that is in his book, what he describes is that when you have lots of life experiences-- if you've been in marketing for a little bit, and then of course you did have that, brief minor in accounting during college, and then you dabbled into sales over here-- and what he showed is that if you are adept at looking at this and you're still passionate about everything, you make the neural connections between these different experiences so you can see a connection between something where others are not. And almost by definition, that's kind of what genius is, where you can continually see things and go, "yes, this idea over here relates to that article that I read five years ago." I see where this happens, and that's how you end up having an electric car company and a rocket company and a whatever that Elon Musk does, right? He's just pooling from all this knowledge and forming something. So I think that is probably the most important thing, and I'm, and I say all this because my massively transformative goal for the rest of my life is to cure something that to me is the, like, the worst thing that can happen, which is robbing you of your memories. So dementia, it's an epidemic and it continues to go on, and I feel like what you lose when you have any type of brain trauma, even minor trauma, CTE, when you have toxins, when you start developing Alzheimer's and things, you lose the dendritic, meaning the connections between the neurons that allow that use of prior knowledge to now be integrated with new knowledge. And so that's why I think it's so important to protect the brain through the gut. Is any of that making sense? I feel like it just went down a rabbit hole. Lindsey Dinneen: No, I love rabbit holes, first of all, so that's great. But also I think that is such a fantastic goal and it's so important and actually very encouraging to hear people working on these kinds of things, and the losing your memories and not being able to recognize people you love but realizing that maybe there are ways to slow that process or reverse or cure, that's a wonderful, hopeful thing. Dr. Kenneth Brown: So that's the thing. Nobody's talking about that, but there's so much evidence out there. So one of my most frustrating things being in this space-- so what's happened since the-- I did, traditionally trained gastroenterologists, and then I'm doing pharmaceutical research and then I figure out that there's this space where maybe natural products can start filling the void, and that has really just shifted me to what I would consider myself more of a functional gastroenterologist. I still do traditional gastroenterology stuff, but I sure would like to find a more natural solution before we just knee-jerk and put you on drugs. And one of my most frustrating things when talking to colleagues is, and I'm not throwing any individual under the bus here, but I start talking about, "oh, did you see this?" For instance, "hey, I just read a great article on the neuromodulatory effects of flavonoids, polyphenols, my world and gut microbiota through the gut brain access and how we can ultimately start healing our brains by having the right microbiome plus flavonoids. So that's an article. Just reviewed it. Super cool. Neat." And discussing that amongst my colleagues would be like there's no data on that. And I went to a meeting recently and I was preparing to give a talk on, if you keep your microbiome young, you'll stay young. And, and it's all about manipulating your microbiome. And there's evidence to show that our supercentenarians, the ones that live past 95 or whatever, they actually have a microbiome, the microbiome is the collection of bacteria in your body, the collection of bacteria primarily in your colon that they have their own genome. You and I have a 99% identical genome, but we could have a 90% different genome in our microbiome, which may be one of the reasons why I age quick and you don't, one of the reasons why I get cancer and you don't, got it? The microbiome, it's the collection of the bacteria in our body. So I was in a meeting, so I'm already preparing for this talk about the microbiome. And so I'm going to Croatia to give it. So I'm like really excited and it's, it's motivating 'cause I'm learning and everything. And I go to a meeting where a professor emeritus is gonna give a talk on probiotics and he gets up and the actual title of the talk was the "Probiotic Guide to the Gastroenterologist in 2023." And he said, "I think we can finally agree to this," and this is his words, "that the data does not support the use of traditional probiotics and we need to move away from this, and this is data. So some people do well in probiotics, but the data really is showing that probably traditional probiotics don't survive the digestive tract." And he said, "but what we really need to start thinking is we need to work on our microbiomes, but unfortunately, there's no data out there." I'm in the audience and I have a folder of about 200 articles and a Mendeley. Mendeley is a journal repository on my computer of like another 300, and I'm like, "no data out there?" And it just got me thinking. I'm like, unless you have a specific desire to go look at something, the data that you're referring to is when a drug rep shows up at your office and gives you a detail piece 'cause that's how we're being reminded that there's new research. Here's the new drug, not are there any new, because this is like bench research that's going on all over the world. Now we live in unprecedented times. I can find an article that hasn't even been translated in English yet, translate it from some postdoc candidate in Thailand doing crazy work on the stuff that I'm working on. And this is a true story. This is exactly what happened, and it's helping me develop more products because I'm like, "Oh, this person did do the heavy lifting already." And it was done 10 years ago and nobody's probably even heard of this. It's out there. It's just, do you have the motivation and the time to go look for things? Right now doctors are super busy and the time that they have is the five minutes they get with the person that brings them lunch. Lindsey Dinneen: Wow. Yeah. So pivoting just slightly. I'm so thankful again that there are people like you doing this research and analyzing this data and helping us live healthier, fuller lives. So first of all, just thank you for that. I am curious if there are any moments that stand out to you throughout your career as really affirming that this was the right career path for you. Dr. Kenneth Brown: Yeah. There was a-- I can't call it "aha moment" or anything. It is a, " you cannot not do this" moment, is what it came down to. So I'm an adult doctor and a woman who quit her job brought her 18 year old, severely autistic son in to see me. And I don't have any particular specialty in autism or anything like that. And what she said to me is, she goes, "I need help, 'cause he's now a young man. He's big and he's strong." And she said, "Nobody will take him. Like nobody will babysit him because he can be aggressive. And he's getting much worse with his autism and things are very rough on me, I had to quit my job. I have to spend all my time with him at home." And I said, "I'm just curious, why here?" Now this is years ago, so it isn't like I was really deep into the functional medicine yet. And she said, "I've noticed one thing. I've noticed that when he eats, he's much more combative, and he's non-verbal so his communication is just really limited." And she said, "There has to be something with his gut if it's doing this." it didn't take very long to realize that he was getting super bloated after he ate and his belly hurt and he couldn't say, "I'm hurt, I'm hurting." And so now we're in my wheelhouse. I started doing some research real quick and it's very evident that people on the autism spectrum disorder can have dysmotility or changes in the motility of their intestines, which can predispose to developing bacterial overgrowth, which is exactly my space now. And so we treated him and we treated him with both an antibiotic and my product and then changes diet. Changed lifestyle, change his diet, just made some changes. No processed foods. Don't open a bag. It's whole foods. I personally, with the way that we grow our crop, I really try and get patients to avoid gluten as well. I think it's very neuroinflammatory. And so she came back three months later and she was crying. And she was so happy. And this young man was calm. He was talking. She's like, "he can eat." She's like, "I haven't seen him like this in 10 years since he was like a little kid." And I'm like, "Okay, this is the n-of-1 that tells you, the brain and gut are connected and you have to keep pursuing that." And so that was oof, I dunno, six, seven years ago or guess well, like shortly after we launched. So I guess about, yeah, I dunno, six years ago or so. Yeah. So when you say that, I always think about that, if that's ever a case. I've heard that many other times since then and I don't think it's just the product or the antibiotics, I think it's the lifestyle change as well. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. And how it all comes together to support Oh my word. Wow. Thank you for sharing that story. That is really powerful and I can see why it would be such a moment that would make you say, "yeah, this is what I'm meant to do, this is the impact I can potentially have on changing someone's life." There's nothing quite like that. Dr. Kenneth Brown: Yeah. And then the more that you get into it, it just more reaffirming. So then it just becomes all consuming. You're like, you have to do this. And I think everybody that owns a business or is an entrepreneur-- I'm the visionary. We need an implementer to make things run at the company and all this. So if I had all the time and all the money in the world, it would just be 24/7 trying things out, looking at these natural products. The beauty is we're learning that the modulation of the microbiome, the gut microbiota, the thing that seems to positively affect them the most are these large, stable polyphenols. And it's these large, stable polyphenols that get broken down into smaller phenolic compounds that work in an anti-inflammatory way and can cross the blood brain barrier, which is what I think is happening. Just go ahead and name any neuro-inflammatory disease from anxiety, A D H D, dementia, autism spectrum. There's different neurologic mechanisms primarily excitability and overactivity due to inflammation, creating all of it. So knowing that's the root cause, where does most of the inflammation come from? It actually can start in the gut. So knowing that, how do we stop that inflammation? And then how do we improve the microbiome to produce anti-inflammatory aspects that then heal the brain? And the science is mapping out there. I think the traditional scientists will say that we don't know enough about it. And that's true, 'cause you can't manipulate it in a way that people wanna manipulate it, but, I'm kind of taking that functional approach. Let Mother Nature figure it out. Just give your body what it wants, give it the foundation. Make sure you have a good sleep. Make sure that you socialize. Make sure that you exercise a little and make sure that you eat the right foods and all of it will sort of work itself out If you have your foundation right. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. So last year, I had the opportunity to spend a little bit of time in Puerto Rico and there was this beautiful rainforest that we did a hike in. And it was really interesting, our guide was telling us that with the hurricane that they had just a few years back, had destroyed like, I wanna say maybe 80%, it was a very high percentage of the flora and fauna of the rainforest. And when we were there, there was no way we would've known that had she not pointed it out. And it really struck me how resilient living things are. I think about this with humans as well. And when you intentionally try to nurture and cultivate and take care of yourself or other living things, how much we can bounce back from and how much we can heal and regenerate and make new, and I just thought of that when you were talking about the possibilities that if we can heal our gut, maybe we can heal our brain and heal some of these other things that come from, from that inflammation. Dr. Kenneth Brown: Yeah, for sure. So let's use that same analogy with the hurricane, because what we do to our microbiome is a tropical forest. Exactly what you are walking through. There's trillions of bacteria. There's thousands of species. The more diverse it is, the healthier it is. Just like the rainforest you were walking through. Now you take antibiotics, you eat a highly processed diet, you do something to disrupt it. That's equivalent to that hurricane disrupting the rainforest. The difference is we continue to do that and what we try to do is, we try to take control of it and take drugs or take different things to try and say, "oh, I'm gonna heal it with this." So the equivalent would be, when the rainforest was knocked down, somebody comes in and goes, "the rainforest was destroyed, but what I'm gonna do is I'm going to plant anything, name it, corn. I'm gonna plant grass, anything." And so now you have a big lush field of grass. Now on the one side is just grass, and on the other side is a dense tropical forest. The dense tropical forest is the healthier version. We tend to focus on one bacterial species. That's where the science is. It's like, how do we grow more of this? How do we do more of this when it's the diversity that has to happen? They left the rainforest alone and it figured it out. And grew back quickly. The more that they would intervene with that, the slower that process would be. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Thank you for taking my own thoughts and putting it in, into exactly what we're talking about 'cause I appreciate that. Okay, so I am gonna take the conversation slightly differently, so just for fun, imagine you were to be offered a million dollars to teach a masterclass on anything you want. It could be in your industry, could be related to your work, but it doesn't have to be. What would you choose to teach and why? Dr. Kenneth Brown: Oh my goodness, it's gonna be so boring 'cause it's, I mean, the masterclass would be this exact same topic. It's, you can protect your brain through your gut, would be what it is just because there's too much evidence that so little people are talking about it. And would it be a masterclass, 'cause I'm still learning? You'd pay me a million dollars and we would have to share it, 'cause it would be a group learning session. That's what it would be like. Everybody that attends, we all teach each other and share the million. Lindsey Dinneen: There you go. You can use part of it to further your work because you were saying, if you had unlimited resources, how much more could you do? So, we can share the love. Dr. Kenneth Brown: Yeah, I just, immediately was thinking, "my ego would not allow me to accept a million dollars to give a class". I'm like, "oh my gosh." What kind of a, like, there's my PowerPoint. Could never be that good deserving a million. Lindsey Dinneen: Oh, yeah. Like We'll just give it to your organization and I'm sure you could find good ways to use it. I'm sure that would be a worthwhile masterclass to take, and it would be just a good learning experience for everyone. So, good answer. What is the one thing you wish to be remembered for after you leave this world? Dr. Kenneth Brown: I wanna be remembered as a curious and kind person. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. I like that. And then final question, what's one thing that makes you smile every time you see or think about it? Dr. Kenneth Brown: Dude, I'm so boring on these questions. Like my knee jerk is like, oh, my family. I want to give something cooler than that. Oh my gosh. I try to practice some mindfulness type things. Have you heard of neurolinguistic programming? NLP? And so you know how there's an anchoring technique so that you can get yourself excited or happy? I will say that my happy memories would be, I took my family to Spain and we went to a Michelin star restaurant and had a chef's tasting menu there. And just thinking about that is my, anchoring to be happy. And then this summer, we went to Portugal and did the exact same thing, except the kids are older and all this other stuff. And so something that makes me smile immediately. Alright, there we go. It doesn't even have to be me. Something that makes me smile immediately is when people are loving and caring and they're breaking bread with each other over a nice Mediterranean meal. Lindsey Dinneen: That is a great answer. Yes. I would have to say that I, I can fully support that. I love both Spain and Portugal, and some of my fondest food memories would have to be there too. So see this. Dr. Kenneth Brown: It's just that feeling of, just openness and enjoying and discussing. There's something primal about breaking bread with other humans in a way that is, I don't know. And of course, it's a chef's tasting menu, so you don't know what's coming. There's that dopamine anticipation, and then it gets put down and it's like nine courses. It's just stuff like that that's awesome. Lindsey Dinneen: Oh, I love it. That's amazing. Thank you so very much for joining me today. This has been such a great conversation, and I learned a lot. I'm very thankful for the work that you do and just all the ways that you finding to help people live their best lives. I just wanna, again, say thank you for your time and as just a small token of that, we're honored to be making a donation on your behalf to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which is dedicated to preventing animal cruelty in the United States. And we just appreciate again, your time, your efforts, and we just wish you continued success as you work to change lives for a better world. Dr. Kenneth Brown: Thank you so much, Lindsey. Thank you so much for having me on. And I really enjoyed this and I enjoyed our 10 minute off the record banter and I feel like you would be a great guest on the Gut Check Project, my podcast, and we can talk about the ballerina days and all that. Let's do it. Lindsey Dinneen: That sounds amazing. Alright, well, thank you also to our listeners for tuning in and if you're feeling as inspired as I am right now, I'd love if you'd share this episode with a colleague or two and we will catch you next time.  The Leading Difference podcast is brought to you by Velentium. Velentium is a contract design and manufacturing firm specializing in the development, production and post-market support of diagnostic and therapeutic active medical devices, including implantables and wearables for neuromodulation and other class three indications. Velentium's core competencies include electrical design, mechanical design, embedded software, mobile apps, contract manufacturing, embedded cybersecurity, OT cybersecurity, systems engineering, human factors and usability, and automated test systems. Velentium works with clients worldwide from startups seeking seed funding to established Fortune 100 companies. Visit velentium.com to explore your next step in medical device development.

There's plenty of rabbit trails to follow on this one! We've got Chad Miller with us. Chad's the owner/operator of The Chief Cigar Lounge in Decatur, TX. Topics include religion, cigars, public institutions, politics / politicians and the state of the country. Conspiracy Corner returns with a lengthy discussion about the challenger mission. Also last but to least, Birds are racist and also still not real.For our Atrantil promo follow this link! atrantil.com/whiskeybros

Are you ready for 5 star shits? A healthier microbiome in general? We're checking in with the Gut Check Project to convey all the advice and information on how to fix your gut health. Indeed your general health starts with your gut health. Also a conversation involving goats and all the typical shenanigans you've come to love and expect from your favorite unprofessional podcast

Welcome to the 7th episode of The Synthesis of Wellness podcast! Today, we have Dr. Ken Brown, a board-certified gastroenterologist and world-renowned expert on all things gut-health! He developed Atrantil, an all-natural & clinically proven answer for IBS & bloating, including SIBO! Furthermore, due to the amazing success of Atrantil, Dr. Brown has developed another supplement to complement Atrantil, called Atrantil Pro. All-in-all, he is bridging the gap and providing research-backed, natural solutions for people all over the world! You DON'T want to miss this information-packed episode! Topics: - Atrantil and Atrantil Pro - Dr. Brown's recently-launched, daily supplement pack for SIBO - A follow-up to Dr. Dempsey's episode: Microbiome deep dive - Polyphenols are used by gut microbes to produce smaller beneficial, anti-inflammatory metabolites that the body uses to maintain optimal health. - These metabolites have a range of benefits: gut motility, inflammation, brain health, immune health, and more - A poor microbiome (ie. dysbiosis) leads to harmful metabolites - The microbiome takes a little time to build up and diversify - Large & stable polyphenols are metabolized by the microbiome to produce metabolites we commonly supplement with such as quercetin. Therefore, a restored microbiome will provide you with those metabolites without needing to supplement. - “Sporebiotics” vs. Probiotics - How exactly do sporebiotics work? - Sporebiotics are emerging and could be an ultimate gut health biohack - You can buy hundreds of supplements OR you can optimize your gut and get the same benefits - Genetic diversity of the gut microbiome - Fecal microbial transplant research - Rebuilding the gut microbiome - We share our microbiota with those around us! - The effect of “polyphenols vs. polyphenols + exercise” on the microbiome - Sporebiotics don't work like probiotics and, therefore, might be okay to use even in SIBO cases - The microbiome is the key to unlocking the potential of your supplements - Dr. Brown's 1 piece of advice for health and happiness --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/chloe-porter6/support

Today, in the Scheer Madness Podcast, Rachel interviews the hosts of the Gut Check Podcast, Dr. Kenneth Brown (MD) and Eric Rieger (CRNA). Ken is a board certified gastroenterologist that turned his private practice into a hotbed of innovation. He has long been intrigued on how to best care for his patients. He challenged big pharma and developed an all natural solution (Atrantil) for bloating and symptoms of IBS. Eric is Ken's business partner and actually met Ken while delivering anesthesia to his patients in 2012.Eric enjoys science and research swell, and has a passion for helping people find sensible means to take care of themselves, but always armed with the best information. The trio discuss the importance of keeping our microbiome young and what this entails for our overall health, diversifying our intake to enrich the gut's good bacteria, and the role microbial diversity plays in our gut health.  Here is my 10% discount link for Atrantil: https://atrantil.com/?rfsn=2452322.bf5041850For more information about working with our team at Rachel Scheer Nutrition, book a free 30-minute call at www.rachelscheer.com/application  Listen ON:Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scheer-madness/id1490423541 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5OLd9BtesW7Oe4nSH0QF9W Chapters:00:00 Intro03:20 Keep your microbiome young09:58 Socialization: Why people tend to live long 13:58 Microbiomes break down what we eat18:46 How do we select the right kind of foods?22:20 How probiotics work25:45 Migrating to a healthy lifestyle31:00 The short-term diet - a healing protocol34:32 Microbial diversity37:40 Circadian rhythm41:39 What would your microbiome say?44:50 How to diversify your diet49:09 Artificial sweeteners wreak havoc in the gutCheck out Gut Check Project:https://www.instagram.com/kbmdhealth/https://www.facebook.com/KennethBrownMD/https://kennethbrownmd.com/ Gut Check ProjectConnect with Rachel:Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube

This episode covers:YOUR digestion questions answered!A paper about something that doesn't have calories that causes obesity.A product Megan uses every single day.Links I mentioned during this episode:Join the Revitalize Health Accelerator: www.thelyonsshare.org/revitalizeWhat is Bloating and How to Improve Digestion: https://www.thelyonsshare.org/2021/03/08/what-is-bloating-and-how-to-fix-it/Episode 88: 7 Toxins in Your Home (and what to do about it): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wellness-your-way-with-megan-lyons/id1531030448Episode 78 with Dr. Wendie Trubow: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wellness-your-way-with-megan-lyons/id1531030448Acid Reflux tips: https://www.thelyonsshare.org/2018/11/27/how-to-prevent-acid-reflux-with-food-and-lifestyle/Probiotics (and prebiotics) info: https://www.thelyonsshare.org/2021/01/24/probiotics-vs-prebiotics-whats-the-difference-and-do-i-need-to-take-both/Atrantil: https://amzn.to/3JZTPXsDigestive enzymes: https://amzn.to/3d76VmdProbiotics: https://amzn.to/2ZRqpmIActivated Charcoal: http://amzn.to/2xSfgokeBoost POW: https://amzn.to/3T8ffpwWhat's in Your Energy Drink: https://www.thelyonsshare.org/2019/06/04/whats-in-your-energy-drink/Obesogens paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006295222001095?via%3Dihub#s0180 How to take action after listening to this episode:Check-in on your digestion.  Are you feeling regular? Going enough? Is it comfortable? Ask yourself - Am I eating enough fiber? Am I drinking enough water?

What would your microbiome say? In this episode of the Love Your Gut Podcast, I talk to Dr. Kenneth Brown, about treating IBS with spore-based probiotics, the bacteria that contributes to gut symptoms, and developing Atrantíl. Dr. Brown received his medical degree from the University of Nebraska Medical School, and completed his Fellowship in Gastroenterology in San Antonio, Texas. He is a Board-Certified gastroenterologist and has been in practice for over 18 years, with a clinical focus on inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome. His mission is to bridge the gap between medical and natural science. For over a decade, he has been conducting clinical research for various pharmacological companies. Dr. Brown recognized an unmet need for something natural that could help his IBS patients find real relief. After developing the only all-natural and clinically-proven answer for IBS and bloating for 6 years, Atrantíl launched in the summer of 2015. Dr. Brown developed Atrantíl to help those suffering from symptoms of IBS, which we now know are caused by bacterial overgrowth. He continues his researched in finding natural solutions based in science, with the intent of providing affordable, effective solutions. Tune in to hear more about IBS dieting, pelvic floor issues, and the ways that we can best love our guts.To purchase Atrantil or Atrantil Pro use this link: https://us.fullscript.com/welcome/drheatherfinleyI would love to connect on Instagram or drheatherfinley.co

Welcome to the Less Stressed Life, where we help women and families overcome fatigue, food sensitivities and inflammation the goal here is really to help you heal yourself.  If this you find this show or episode helpful, repay the favor and share it with a friend or leave me a review on the purple pod app if that's where you listen. Leave us a review: https://reviewthispodcast.com/lessstressedlifeYou can submit your own questions or case for review @ https://www.christabiegler.com/questions In this episode I answered listener questions from Mary and Jordan:  Mary is wondering about parasite testing and symptoms of moodiness, poor sleep, loose bowels, hair thinning, dry skin and frequent post nasal drip. CASE REVIEW: Jordan gives us a little more information and shares her case in more depth: History of eczema throughout my whole life, but only on arms and legs. Have had since I was a child. Presented as red, itchy bumps on legs and back and as flaky and itchy red patches in creases of elbows mostly during summer)Started having Increased flares starting in summer of 2020 with itchy bumps and red patches covering most of body. Additionally, developed new type of severe eczema on my face, neck, hairline that had never occurred before. Before this, had never had any eczema on my face. Flares got increasingly worse over the next ~6 months.Dermatologist gave 10 day taper of oral prednisone and topical steroids to help "heal eczema (Jan 2021) and then started on Dupixent (injections every other week). Stopped injections in Feb 2022.After stopping injections had small amount of eczema on body, only small itchy bumps, nothing on face.  Face had another severe flare in July-August 2022 requiring topical steroids to heal again.Additionally, only have 3-4 BMs per week. Do not use any stool softeners/laxative. (but uses motility support!)Feeling very fatigued in the afternoons, trouble getting out of bed in the mornings for a long time. New issues of waking up in the middle of the night and occasional muscle cramping.Saw functional MD who did blood work and Gut Zoomer stool test (Vibrant wellness).Stool test with gut commensals high for leaky gut, moderate for SIBO and other categories. Low for cardiovascular health and IBD. MD gave supplement regimen and SIBO diet for 30 days.  Abnormal labs: OmegaCheck 3.0 (low), AST 31 (high), Vit D 33.4, B12 246Current supplements: Magnesium citrate, Motility Pro, SBI protect, Atrantil; have been taking for 2 weeks, no supps before this.  controlJordan also asked: Do you have specific probiotics you recommend?How to get away from relying on long-term supplement use for regular bowel movements (currently taking 450mg Mg each night, Atrantil, and Motility- pro)What is your experience with using Low Fodmap or a SIBO diet for healing your gut/have you seen them be successful in the long-term with people able to add most foods back in?I also give a bit of context to different ways you can look at an issue with the "healing triad". WHERE TO FIND CHRISTA:https://www.christabiegler.com/On IG:instagram.com/anti.inflammatory.nutritionist/Shop our Favoriteschristabiegler.com/shopAre you a practitioner curious about labs?A special thanks to our VIP sponsor RUPA Health, our lab concierge service that helps our clients get standard bloodwork 2/3 off retail direct to consumer lab test pricing. Let them know I sent you w

Dr Laurens Maas has long been on my wish-list of guests for the Health Home Hustle podcast! Laurens is the co-founder, and Lead Clinician, of The Maas Clinic, a multi-disciplinary holistic health practice with locations in West Sussex and London. Laurens is a world-renowned osteopath, Functional Medicine Practitioner and Doctor of Integrated Medicine, homeopath, NLP master, health entrepreneur and author. Laurens is also a husband, father of 3 and avid surfer. To further expand on Laurens' accolades: he has over 25 years' experience and has worked closely with celebrities, pro-athletes and—at the time of recording—thousands of clients. Laurens' methods fuse extensive scientific testing and analysis, with holistic therapies and treatments to create bespoke programmes, which focus not only on an individual's symptoms, but on the root cause of issues. Laurens is truly a genius in his field, and I'm so excited to welcome him onto the show to share his extensive knowledge with you. We'll be chatting about stress and gut health, how the two are interlinked and general tips for improving both. This episode is perfect for anyone struggling with stress, anxiety, gut heath issues or all of the above! Let's get into it! Show Links @MonicaBeatrice MonicaBeatrice.com @TheMaasClinic TheMaasClinic.com Laurens mentions: Magnesium Sulphate, Epsom Salts, Magnesium Malate, Atrantil and Activated Charcoal

Bloating, Abdominal Discomfort, Changes in Bowel Habits are symptoms that many are experiencing in this day an age. Dysbiosis aka Bacterial overgrowth problems have led to many digestive health problems. IBS, IBD, SIBO, and SIFO are affecting more of the population every year. Pharmaceutical solutions aren't effective for  many of these chronic conditions. We are still learning more and more about the human microbiome and how all these bacteria play a symbiotic role with one another. Good thing for us nature has provided solutions backed by science that can be part of your game plan to find balance in your gut.   Dr. Ken Brown received his medical degree from the University of Nebraska Medical School, and completed his fellowship in gastroenterology in San Antonio, Texas.  He is a board certified gastroenterologist and has been in practice for over 18 years with a clinical focus on inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome. Dr. Brown declared that his mission is to bridge the gap between medical & natural science. For over a decade he has been conducting clinical research for various pharmacologic companies. Dr. Brown recognized an unmet need for something natural that could help his IBS patients find real relief.  After developing the only all-natural & clinically proven answer for IBS & bloating for over 6 years, ATRANTIL (ahh-tron-teel) launched in the summer of 2015.  Dr. Brown developed Atrantil to help those suffering from the symptoms of IBS which we now know are caused by bacterial overgrowth.   He continues his research in finding natural solutions based in science with an emphasis in using cannibidiol in addition to Atrantil. LEARN MORE ABOUT ATRANTIL

Hello Gut Check Project fans. Welcome to Gut Check Project and KBMD health family. I'm Eric Rieger here with my awesome co host, Dr. Kenneth Brown. We have another special show. We just keep we just keep outdoing ourselves with smart people. I'm like I normally I've well I'm becoming very comfortable being the stupidest person on these zoom calls right now this is like this is the new norm, me being the absolute dumbest person on the screen right now.If you're the well, that's thank you. That's really weird. And and if you're the dumbest, then this is gonna be a really, really intelligent show. So today, Episode Number 52. We have a special guest. This is Dr. Charlene Van Buiten. She is an Assistant Professor of food science and Human Nutrition at Colorado State University. Hello, Charlene. How are you doing today?I'm doing well. How are you guys Doing great. We're doing great. I'm not going to introduce the paperwork that we're going to get into. But what I am interested...before we get into some incredible information about your research around celiac disease, and how essentially people can stave off long term inflammation. We always like to get to know a little bit about you. But we did print off your resume. And it looks to me like from all of the stuff that you do in the CV, that you started sometime in the womb getting things done.So you've been like publishing papers in utero somehow.Yeah, yeah. It's it's a really rare skill. So.So where are you? Where do you Where are you from originally?Originally I'm from Connecticut, grew up there. And then did my bachelor's degree at University of Connecticut in nutrition.Nice. And how long have you been at Colorado State?I've been at Colorado State about a year and a half now. So I got about six good months before everything shut down. Still happy to be here. It's a nice place to be locked down in at least.Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. The northern part of Colorado. It's it's definitely beautiful up there. So before you read Colorado State, let's see where else you were a postdoctoral fellow, obviously. And then, is there any other stops along the way that really leapt out to you and ended up pushing you into Colorado State to do you know, good nutrition for human?Um, yeah, I would say probably the most important step in my whole academic journey was at Penn State where I did my PhD in food science. That's kind of where all of the research that we'll talk about today was really conceived. It was just kind of a one off idea that my PhD advisor and I had just one day, you know, oh, what if we looked at interactions between gluten and tannins, and then, you know, I kind of went back to my office, first year PhD student really excited. And all of a sudden, it was like all of these ideas just in terms of the chemical interactions and what this means for nutrition just designed this whole project. And in a really rare case of circumstances, everything I had designed in my first year of my PhD ended up being what I eventually did over the course of the next five years. I don't think anybody is ever that lucky. Yeah, and the project turned into what you all were able to read before inviting me here. We will definitely dive deep into that. But I'm really curious. So I've, we have the CV here that shows your academic pursuit. I want to know why Charlene, Dr. Charlene, Dr. Charlene decided to do the study of food science and nutrition. Let's just start from there. And then I get the passion once you've latched on to something, but I'm always curious how people find their way like, like, how you how you got there.Yeah, I think I discovered Food Science a little earlier than the average person. Most people will get into it in college, having followed a path of chemistry or biochemistry, and then realizing they can apply all of these concepts to food. But I actually was in the Future Farmers of America when I was in high school. And I thought that I wanted to be a vet, and then realize that I was not really into like blood or sick animals or anything. And one of my teachers was like, we have this competition. It's called food science. you design a food product, you talk about safety and everything. And I was sure sounds cool. And the first day that I met with that team for this competition, we got a textbook chapter on canning. And I was reading about canning, and I was like, I was really interesting. Like, if you can something it'll last a really long time. Or if it's done incorrectly, it can be so dangerous that it can kill you. Kind of dichotomy there. I was like, food science is crazy. And just from there was like obsessed with it. And, yeah, I was for nutrition, grad school for food science.This kind of reminds me of the whole mycology thing that we were talking about before. Where like you might find a brave food canner and you might find an old food canner but you won't find them in the same person. I'm going to just dabble in some aggressive food canning and see what happens. They don't walk around anymore. We were we have Paul Paul Stamets was talking about that. And then the other mycologists, we've talked to mycologists that actually discuss that they feel the same way where it's like, look, you can have a mushroom that will save you. But if you prepare it wrong, or eat the wrong one, you're gonna die. If you have food canning, you can have food forever. But if you do it wrong, you can die. Well, that is awesome. So reading your article, or reading your paper, which is a review of your thesis, which tells me that you know this essentially better than anybody in the entire world because you did a thesis on something that I have been searching for for a very, very, very long time. I developed Atrantil to help people with bloating and irritable bowel syndrome. And then we started learning I late started learning about these effects of polyphenols came across your article, your review, which is titled gliadin sequestration as a novel therapy for celiac disease, a prospective application for polyphenols. This is the thing that really I've been looking for for a long time, we've known the benefits of polyphenols, but you're the first person that has been able to explain why I'm gluten sensitive. And once I start, once I started taking Atrantil whenever I would eat gluten, I didn't have issues, and I really couldn't explain it. We've had patients that say, when I, you know, when I take these large polyphenolic compounds that are in Atrantil, I can eat wheat. Why is it I didn't know I couldn't actually say from a molecular reason. And then I came across your paper. And this is absolutely fantastic. It's 32 pages of incredible material. And 185 references my goodness, you put some work into this congratulations on putting together what I think is the most comprehension review of polyphenols in the setting of celiac disease. So once again, if anybody listened to this, know somebody that has celiac disease, or has a family member, or has celiac themselves, this is something that really we need to share as a community. We need to get this out there and your work is really pivotal to explain the science, which is so cool. So let's jump into it. Because it's awesome.Yeah, I don't even know where to start. Because you you described multiple different mechanisms of action on why polyphenols begin to work. So what drove you to to put these two associations together? Why celiac disease and why polyphenols?So at the time that we came up with this project, I had recently joined my graduate advisor Ryan Elias at Penn State, I joined his lab, and he was doing a lot of work on wine quality. So as a food chemist, you know, we're looking at oxidation of polyphenols, how that can affect wine astringency, etc. And so I was, you know, showed up to grad school thinking I was going to work on wine. And then we found these papers that were studying protein polyphenol interactions using tannic acid with peanut allergens. And so that was an interesting paper doing a little bit more reading, thinking about that. And then thinking about, you know, still wine. And I came across these papers that were using gluten as a fining agent and red wine. So fining is the interaction between polyphenols and wine and a protein that will actually precipitate those polyphenols and take them out of wine to kind of soften the mouthfeel. And so I saw that and knowing that gluten is this immunostimulatory protein, I was like, why are they doing this? That seems crazy to me, and Is it hurting people and you know, it's not labeled, because it's something that's not technically in the product, because it's falling out as a solid. And that was just sort of the the end of the string on that ball of yarn that we kind of started to unravel. Um, and looking at that in terms of a food processing aid, I thought, what if we looked at this from the perspective of a nutraceutical? So if we know these interactions are happening already. Can we flip this around and put it in the human body? Can these interactions still occur? What is happening to the protein? How does that affect the actual mechanism of the disease? And, you know, we just came up with all of these questions from there, but it really started with gluten as a fining agent in wine.That's incredible. That is a that is a lot to peel back as you're starting your sort of academic career to take this on, and then suddenly go down a rabbit hole and you end up over here with a disease. That is, and thank you. I mean, that is crazy to take on that. You just discussed layers and layers that I imagine you were looking at an article that then led to another one led to another one and then you finally went, oh, this is way bigger than I thought.Yeah, there's 185 references on the paper. It's just like the tip of the iceberg.Well just to reset for everyone to those who suffer from celiac disease, obviously know about gluten and want to avoid gluten, but maybe not everyone understands why gliadin specifically, is what it is, is what we're concerned with with its blog. So why don't you explain a little bit about gliadin itselfto ours. So gluten is a heterogeneous protein made up of two subunits. So we have the gliadin, as well as glutenin. And those two proteins will come together forming inter and intra molecular bonds in order to form this gluten protein kind of as a whole. But it's the gliadin that has these repeat motifs in its amino acid primary sequence. And it's usually a prolene. That's one amino acid away from a glutamine, that's going to get recognized in the human body by an enzyme called tissue transglutaminase, or transglutaminase. Two, and that gets a deamidated. And then that's the area of the protein that's recognized by antigen presenting cells. So it really comes down to the amino acid sequence in the gliadin, versus what's typically seen in glutenin. So step back, what you just described is exactly what happens to 1% of the population because celiac disease is the most prevalent autoimmune situation, or autoimmune disease that's there. And what you just described was the amino acids, the prolene, and the glutamine actually form the gliadin. My hearing that right, so those two forms of gliadin.Right, so they're found within the structure of gliadin. So gliadins really are a class of proteins. There's alpha, beta, omega. And then within that alpha one, alpha two, alpha three, there are so many types of gliadins. But sort of this consistent pattern that we see in those gliadins is a really high percentage of prolene, as well as glutamine.Okay.So, in your article, you did describe something that I was I wanted to clarify on this, you described the prolamin glutamine residues and the sulfurus component a pro amine assisting in the ability to find these disulfide bonds, all of that, is that why gluten makes things spongy, because of these disulfide bonds is used in so many things.Yeah. Yeah. So disulfide bonds are formed within the structure of gluten over the course of hydration, oxidation and mechanical kneading. So that's what you see when you're making like bread or pasta, and that dough sort of starts to really come together. That's a result of the formation of disulfide bonds.Nice.Which is what makes it yeah, which it's that texture that everybody that we're that's which is why when you get gluten free bread, you're like, no. Not the same.Yeah, it kind of forms that balloon structure to leavening.Yeah. So I'm gonna I have actually sent back some some gluten free pasta. Can I have some more disulfide bonds in here?Yeah, they don't have that in a shaker Ken. It's not there.That is that is impressive. So what why why gliadin. Why gliadin because we know that gluten is formed of of these two different proteins. But why gliadin being the more problematic protein in the in the gluten molecule.So gliadin is more problematic, because as I mentioned, that higher frequency of the amino acid residues, the prolene, and the glutamine just found in that particular order prolene, something else, glutamine is what's going to make it more recognized by the body. It's also this high amount of prolene results in almost like an unraveled protein structure. And that is something that's recognized structurally by the body as being a problem, it's more difficult for enzymes to break down gliadin because of all of those prolenes, because of that unraveled structure, and then that unraveled structure allows it to be it allows it to interact with that tissue, transglutaminase enzyme as well.So let me stop you right there. So you said something, and that's kind of what I wanted you to say is that gliadins are resistant to digestive enzymes. So you have this thing that your body can't readily break down. So as a scientist, my patients ask, what's the deal? Why is celiac on the rise? Why is it exponentially in the rise? Why are more people saying that they have gluten intolerance, whether or not comedians will make fun of that like, like, it's like, it's something that's in your head, but I am very gluten intolerant, but I don't have celiac disease. So why do you think we're seeing more of it?There are quite a few ideas as to why we're seeing more celiac disease and I know that one of the prevailing hypotheses is kind of based on exposure on whether people have been exposed to gluten at certain times in their life, it's also associated with an overall increase in autoimmune disorders worldwide. So I think that there's probably a link there for sure.So you talked about this, and I'm jumping ahead, but you did show how gliadin can actually create some paracellular leakage, so, so to speak, or that so I see a lot of my patients that will have celiac disease and then show up with another autoimmune disease. So the question is, do we really is one of the reasons why we're seeing so much autoimmune disease like Crohn's and ulcerative colitis could it be precipitated by an inflammatory process in the gut, beginning in the gut? And I just bring this up, because maybe you're at the tip of the iceberg on possibly one of the causes of why we are developing so many autoimmune diseases. What's your theory on as on how we raise these crops, and how gluten has sort of or the wheat has changed over the years from the amber waves of grain to short, stocky plants?Well, in terms of the molecular profile of the gluten itself, I'm not as familiar with that research as probably some other more agronomy focused individuals are, but in terms of actual food products, so what we end up seeing in bread and pasta, the overall gluten content really hasn't changed over time.Really? Okay. That's actually something that I think I was, I've told my patients wrong. I've told them that we're probably getting more gluten, which is one of the reasons why we can have thatNo but I found it interesting, though, because you did reference the alpha beta and omega different gliadin subunits. And then even from there, there's sub sub units of one, two, three, and four, possibly, and as you said, I don't want to press you on this. But maybe maybe the the expression is just simply different from all of those different units over time, depending upon the mean, GMO, or not GMO or hybrid, or, who knows, it's hard to it's hard to say.Yeah, it's also difficult when considering whether there are differences based on those individual gliadins. Because that prolene x glutamine pattern shows up in all of them. repeatedly. Yeah. And in my, in some of my papers, I've focused on alpha two gliadin as one of these specific proteins. And that one just happens to have many, many overlapping at the topes in terms of recognition and celiac disease, but it's certainly not exclusive to just that one subunit.Can you comment on these different subunits? And in your paper, you discussed the the starting point of causing an inflammatory cascade with interleukin 15? I believe it was 15 Have you? Can you comment on that, and that's in the relationship for my gastroenterology colleagues, to lymphocytes because we always look for intraepithelial lymphocytes. And I think you show the mechanism through IL 15.Right, so in the celiac disease inflammatory cascade, we start with the recognition of gliadin by the CXCR3 receptor on intestinal epithelial cells. And that's one of the prevailing hypotheses in terms of pathogenesis is that the CXCR3 receptor will stimulate the release of zonulin zonulin will then trigger that paracellular leakage that you mentioned earlier. And as the gliadin passes through the laminapropria, then we see this release of IL 15 from the intestinal epithelial cells and that IL 15 is what's going to recruit those intraepithelial lymphocytes. And so that infiltration of those lymphocytes into the intestinal barrier is one of the Hallmark one of the Hallmark traits of celiac disease from the clinical perspective, as I'm sure you're very familiar with Marsh scores. For example,Let's back that up. Because that is a key, everything you just said. But I want my colleagues to understand this because as somebody who is a strong believer in intestinal permeability, aka leaky gut on Google, but intestinal permeability, from talking to my colleagues leading to other things, let's let's walk it back. You discussed how gliadin binds to CXCR3 which is fancy and everything but dumb it down for me really quick gliadin leads to this which leads to zonulin which leads to this so that I can tell my patients and my colleagues can tell their patients. This is this is the process of why I want you to avoid or to avoid gluten to avoid gliadin.So I guess what you would tell patients is basically that their intestinal lining is extremely sensitive to this individual protein and when they take in this protein their body is it's it's mounting a response almost as if there is an invader an immune response to this protein if that is helpful.And you showed it is helpful because zonulin is something that I look for I actually found a lab that can order that so I can look and see, okay, I believe that you do have some intestinal permeability. We know that infection, bacterial overgrowth, and in talks that I've given, I say that high ingestion of gluten does this lead to increased zonulin. I didn't have a mechanism how it did, but now we realize it. You just explained it. So it makes it like every time you dial it down a little further, you're like, no, I believe it more now. So I've been saying that for a long time. Yeah, that is really cool. So yeah, so you, in your science have shown that zonulin leads to intestinal permeability.I was not the person to discover that. But there there is a I believe...You have the opportunity to own it right now. Nobody else has stuck their flag in it.I'm not gonna take credit.You can credit for everything you want. Until somebody else calls me right now and says "that's mine!"Brilliant, man. Yeah, yeah, there there is the mucosal immunology lab at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Alessio Fasano who headed that work. Yeah, I would love to take credit for it, but I think that would follow my career in a negative way.Alessio Fasano basically, I would fly and just listen to him lecture and then leave the whole rest of the, you know, the lecture yet Alessio Fasano is one of my heroes. So yeah, for sure. That's that that's why I thought it was funny. If you claimed it. He seems to have relaxed a little bit over the years, he needs to get back at it. That is awesome. Um, let's talk a little bit about the whole section that you have on treatments, because you did a great job of summarizing different treatments that pharmaceutical companies different people have tried to do. I'm very keen to well, anyways, I'll let you get into it, because he did a great job of reviewing all of it and to show what has promise what doesn't what's there, what has failed in clinical trials, before we even begin to discuss the polyphenols because then the rest of your paper is about, I believe that this is probably the best mechanism. So do you remember some of the stuff that you have in the paper about a few of the different mechanisms that different pharmaceutical companies are looking at?Yeah, for sure. So they can kind of be broken down into two major classes. So I think of them really as patient focused versus protein focused and the patient focused therapies are going to be kind of your immunomodulators things that are affecting the individuals the individual's immune response, that inflammatory cascade through for example, Nexvax was a vaccine that was I think it got to phase two trials and then eventually was, was shut down. We have larazotide acetate, which is a zonulin inhibitor. That one is in I believe, phase three trials now, which is pretty exciting. And those that target the immune response. I also I have to mention my favorite, which is the hook worms. So a hookworm infection can actually mediate immune responses, then take down what would be this overactive immune response and celiac disease, immunosuppressive effects of hookworms have been.So we have looked at trying to use worms for Crohn's disease for the same for the same reason. How does it do it in celiac disease?So in celiac disease, it just dampens the immune response. And what they've shown is that in vivo, individuals who've been infected with hookworms have a decreased IL 15 release upon stimulation with gluten.Interesting. That's the thing where we always say that in third world countries, you don't see autoimmune diseases. A lot of us argued that as to why. Yeah, so that's probably my favorite that I haven't done. But then we have the the protein focused therapies, which I think the most notable are the enzymes. So if you're orally taking in an enzyme that will help break down gluten further, that's one that's been shown to be effective, also some antibodies that will bind to gluten and prevent its digestion. So it's kind of a similar mechanism to what I talked about with polyphenols and those protein focused are basically going to either break down or further sequester. gluten from digestion. .Yeah, you got into a little bit about how these proteins bind and how there's different mechanisms with polyphenols really quick. The nexvax, was that, was that ImmusanT? Do you know the company that was doing it?Yes,So years ago. So Bob Anderson is a guess is a PhD gastroenterologist out of Australia. I had hooked up with him when we were just beginning the whole concept of using polyphenols to treat IBS. And, and it shows how difficult it is to really take a concept. And take it all the way through to something you can get through the FDA because it was like 8, 10 years ago that he was working on this, and it started a company. And then when you said that I was reading your paper, I was like, oh, it didn't work. That guy put his life. I mean, put his heart and soul into it. And so shout out to Dr. Anderson, who really kind of, I think, hopefully his next version will be able to do this. So we can have a vaccine. Everybody's talking vaccines right now. So we'd love to have the old vaccine.It's a hot topic.That's awesome. You wanna ask anything about that? About all of that? Yeah. Man, you must be tired. Thanks, Ken. That was awesome. No, I find it incredibly interesting the way that you've had this pathway to to figure out what proteins are the biggest threat. I was surprised from what you had written specifically about hookworms. And I was just thinking about the, you know, those who who wouldn't have an inflammatory issue because they weren't wearing shoes. Isn't that how you transmit hookworms is through the soles of the feet?I do not remember my parasitology right now, do you know Charlene?I'm not sure I'm pretty sure they were orally administered, at least in the studies.I'm sure in the study they were. My version was the was the old version. We're gonna see if hookworms work here, everybody take your shoes off. That vat right there has placebos or that vat has hookworms just jump around and see what happens.So remember before we recorded and started this episode, we told you we'd leave all of the all of the mistakes in that joke didn't work. And that's fine. It happens occasionally.But I think it's really important because leading up to that you're discussing all these different ways that pharmaceutical companies are trying to do it and people are trying to figure it out use it's really not always like the hookworms oral ingestion, not soles of the feet. But I do think hookworms happen because you get exposed to it. So then this is when you propose why polyphenols. So now this is the peeling back where now you're going to discuss polyphenols. So looking at all those different mechanisms, why do you 30,000 foot view, why do you think polyphenols will be beneficial, and then we'll dial down to the different steps, you've got some great charts and steps A through F on how it works and some incredible science on everything. So why did you think the polyphenols would do this in the very, very, very beginning?So in the very beginning, it seemed like there was probably a pretty good chance that polyphenols would be able to be beneficial because we knew from those studies with using gluten as a fining agent in wine, that there would be an interaction between gluten and these polyphenols. And then we have sort of this added benefit of knowing that polyphenols are generally safe, you know, people consume them every day, as long as they're eating fruits and vegetables. And we know that they have these other beneficial effects for so for example, they have these antioxidant, anti inflammatory effects that are occurring when these compounds are not interacting with protein. So we know that they're already generally a pretty good thing. And protein polyphenol interactions are just kind of this natural phenomenon that we see all the time in many different contexts. So just starting out it seemed like it was probably going to be a slam dunk.That's awesome. All right now, oh, where was it page for this page 19. That little picture sums ups a lot of important things that little picture right there sums up about 15 or 12 pages of material. So this is the your graph here shows stepwise why you can demonstrate how a and then we'll get into this after you go through this but a large polyphenolic compound with more branches can do some of these things. So this is kind of the steps A through F on how these polyphenols may help us deal with gliadin. So on your first part right here, can you please explain the physical sequestration of native gliadins.So with native glutens that's going to be your gliadin before it interacts with any of your digestive enzymes in your gastrointestinal tract. So that would be the form of gliadin, that's going to show up in, for example, a slice of bread. So these are going to be higher molecular weight proteins that are fully intact and haven't been digested at all. And these are able to interact with polyphenols through a variety of molecular mechanisms. So we see a lot of hydrogen bonding, we see ring stacking, one of my earlier papers really gets into the weeds in terms of the types of bonds that are formed from but we see these interactions and the formation of this precipitate and solution. So if you were to combine a solution of polyphenols in a solution of gliadin, you would see it actually form a solid and start to fall out of solution, which is a pretty good indicator that there is a physical interaction going on. So it's kind of the first step. And we see that also with gliadins that have been digested by pepsin and triptan which are two digestive enzymes.What what polyphenol did you start with specifically, what type of polyphenols?So I specifically first was interested in Epigallocatechin Gallate, which is the primary catechin found in green tea. I was interested in egcg because because of its prevalence in green tea, and we know that it has all of these other beneficial effects, it was being studied, in terms of its anti obesity and anti inflammatory effects by another group at Penn State at the time. So it seems like the one to target and some of my later more applied work used green tea extract. So that would also combine other types of catechins and smaller phenolic compounds.Nice. We're gonna get into that and a little bit here. All right, then in your beautiful little graph here. Step two hydrolyzed gliadins.Yeah, so what I just mentioned hydrolyzed gliadins, that would be those which have encountered pepsin and triptan. So breaking those proteins down into smaller digested fragments. And we see the same sort of precipitation forming the same kind of haze formation when we combine those in solution.So basically, we're talking about a larger gliadin molecule versus a smaller one. Regardless, the polyphenols are going to suck up, grab it, and sink down to the bottom. What was that called in wine again? Would you consider this fining also, even though it's not in the wine industry? Can we use theIt is the same molecular mechanism. But it's, I mean, fining I think, refers more to the processing. But we do see protein and polyphenol interactions similar to this in a lot of different areas of science. So again, in wine, because it's sort of the root of this project, we see interactions between small prolene rich proteins and polyphenols in astringency. So like if you take a sip of red wine and you kind of get that drying sensation on your tongue, that's actually the polyphenols from the wine, precipitating your salivary proteins, which are also rich in prolene.So that was I always wondered that also. So okay, so quick question, which is interesting. So if it well, I'll save it for later because I want to go through the mechanisms first. So that's two mechanisms, but I got so many questions for you related to all this stuff. Then there's the aspect of digestive enzyme inhibition.Right. So um, this is actually I think one of the one of the really interesting parts of this study is polyphenols have been noted for anti nutritional properties and the prevention of protein digestion, and a few different studies in the past, showing that individuals have a high intake of polyphenols, they actually can sometimes have issues with protein absorption. So one of the reasons is the direct interactions with protein like we just mentioned, between the polyphenols and gliadin. But another is the fact that these polyphenols can directly inhibit the action of digestive enzymes through either binding directly to the enzyme and kind of changing the shape of the enzyme preventing it from being able to preventing it from being able to hydrolyze its substrate or binding in that same binding pocket for the enzyme and preventing the substrate from even getting in.So that's fascinating. So there's there is a little bit of a debatable thing because when working with scientists in the cattle industry, there's actually some data to show that when you give sheep and cattle large like tannins, they actually have improved nutrition and but they're ruminants and then people try extrapolates the ruminants over here. And then we've worked with some scientists that have actually said, well, the binding, if it binds to the protein, not necessarily the protease or the lipase, or whatever pancreatic enzyme it is, that when it gets since the actual large tannin does not get absorbed, it stays intraluminal, the body can digest the protein off, and then the tannin keeps going. So there's it's interesting because I think that there is some debate a little bit where like you have people like Anna Hagerman that are talking about how it can be an anti nutritional thing. And then you've got these other people in sports nutrition saying no, actually, you can improve the overall nutritional value of foods by taking it with a polyphenol. And so it's it's a fascinating area. And I think that it's kind of a moving target we have seen in clinic in my clinical practice, and in the studies that we've done, we've seen beneficial results using polyphenols. And I think that's why it can do some different things like work as a fasting mimetic molecule and things like that. That's That's really interesting. I did not know that it has the potential to bind to the digestive enzyme. I had not come across that before wild. So...Yeah, because enzymes are proteins. The next one, improved barrier integrity and transport and decreased transport. So um, there have been some studies that have shown in individuals with leaky gut or intestinal permeability, that polyphenols are able to just directly affect intestinal barrier function. And I showed in one of my studies actually, in our untreated controls that we saw an increase in barrier integrity, when we just use green tea extract, compared to the control, so in the absence of gliadin, we still saw an increase in transepithelial electrical resistance,Improved leaky gut, do you have a mechanism for that when it's not related to gliadin?Um, so in terms of improving it, when it's not related to gliadin, it's most likely just related to the inflammatory cascade. And, you know, the gut is kind of just always in flux, and always producing, you know, interleukin 6 810, just everything and kind of mediating that response, I think, can expose potentially some underlying permeability, that it can then reverse.I love that you say that because we talk a lot about other things that create intestinal inflammation like high fructose corn syrup, polyunsaturated fatty acids, like soybean oil, and things like that, that have been shown to create an inflammatory response. So you said something really interesting. We're talking about gliadin here, but you this also shows that it can help with the leaky gut, intestinal permeability, whatever you want to say, when it doesn't even it isn't related to gliadin it can actually do that related to the inflammatory cascade, and we talk a lot about inflammation on the show all the time. inflammation is good when you need it. Bad when it stays there all the time. And unfortunately, our diets I think that we tend to keep it inflamed, if you eat the typical, you know, American diet, the sad diet, you're gonna you're gonna have an inflamed gut, you need to protect it. Definitely. And you haven't gotten to zonulin yet have you?We talked about Zonulin a little earlier.No, like during during the cascade that you had written down with your hand. The reason why I say that is because you had long before in conjunction with the leaky gut protection. You had mentioned that zonulin contributes to leaky gut. And since we had mentioned it earlier, and he hadn't put it on there, they're probably controlling the, or keeping the decrease of zonulin, after having enough polyphenols would also lend toWell, now that he brings it up. So you wrote that gliadin binds to myd88, which ultimately releases the zonulin. So does it prevent the binding to the myd88? Is that how it prevents zonulin from from being released?We don't know the precise mechanism in terms of what interactions it's actually preventing. So where it's really targeting that inflammatory cascade, it would make sense based on our data, that the polyphenols are sequestering the gliadin and preventing it from binding to anything else. But in terms of studies where we actually pinpoint that mechanism, those haven't been done yet. So I think it would be really interesting to do some of this either in vitro or ex vivo if we were able to get tissue cultures to see how that affects really the zonulin release because that's kind of the the linchpin in that mechanism.So that's fascinating. So I've had you know, I've always I treat a lot of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth SIBO patients and I will check them and they will have increased levels of zonulin. I assume it's related to the bacterial inflammatory cascade and we treat it and it goes down. Treat them with Atrantil and it goes down. And I'm assuming it's I got rid of the bacteria, but you just brought up something interesting. There may be something more nuanced going on.Or SIBO I mean a lot of a lot of different options.Yeah. So that's, I think that's, that's another angle. It just shows how much I think there's so much cool chemistry, cool physiology, cool applications of this, that you're that you're really tapping into. And you're, you're bringing up your own questions, you're gonna have a long career chasing your own thoughts. So. And then, we already talked about the anti inflammatory activity, NF Kappa beta, and things like that, that you basically discussed, which is the overall decreasing of the inflammatory response. And then the final one that you discuss in this in this in this figure is the transglutaminase downregulation. Can you explain that that one I was struggling with.Yeah, so that actually is from a really recent paper by a group out of Louisiana State University. And they found that when treating intestinal cells in vitro with Coco polyphenols, they saw a down reveal a down regulation of tissue transglutaminase. So when we have this exposure of gliadin, to our intestinal cells, transglutaminase is released kind of as a response to epithelial damage. It's an enzyme that is found in everyone's body that's associated with wound healing. So when the intestinal when your intestinal barrier is kind of infiltrated by intestinal epithelial lymphocyte, intestinal lymphocytes, sorry. When you see that infiltration, and that damage that's occurring, that's when transglutaminase is released. And what they found in vitro was that we're not seeing that release of transglutaminase when polyphenols were added to that culture.That's super cool. You probably don't have a direct MLA on that yet, but it's definitely been noticed as a as a decrease. Is that what you're saying?Right, yeah.Okay. Now that that's very, very cool, though. I don't think I'd ever heard that before at all.No, that is really cool. And the mechanisms that how you're going to all of this is just absolutely incredible. Alright, so let's dumb it down real quick, for me. I need my prolene and my saliva. And now I understand why, so can you tell me how fat...so like if I eat a ribeye and then take a big, bold Cabernet? Why the Cabernet doesn't have that astringency while I'm eating a fat I've always wondered...Yeah, so fat will coat your tongue. And it's basically creating a layer between the proteins that are in your saliva and inhibiting that binding.So it's, it's making the tannin just slide over the prolene is what you're saying?Um, yeah, you could explain it that way.Well, that's, I'm gonna explain it that way to myself. I'm not gonna get more complex. I'm just gonna go you're just doing this to let it slide over. I liked the way she said, "you could do that."Alright, so in theory, we have done I mean, it's, it's not fining because it's the but but you need to come up with your own term when when polyphenols bind gliadin and sink to the bottom. So shining, Charlene fining and it's Charlening. So when you're Charlening gliadin down in there and then if I take so if I put a bunch of gliadin in this cup and then I put a bunch of polyphenols in there and it it Charlenings it down Charlenings, can I turn that into a verb? Yeah, you did. You just did!So when I'm Charlening the gliadin to the bottom of the cup, and I mix it up and I swallow it. This is the other concept I'm trying to think of does the body then it goes down. I don't feel the astringency because it's already bound to the gliadin or whatever. It's I'm not getting that but will the body then break off? Will the enzyme since the polyphenol is tied to the gliadin? Will my body break off that Charlening molecule? In other words, will it can it still digest the protein that is attached to it?So in terms of whether it can still digest the protein, our data says that it will not so doing an in vitro digestion of polyphenols and gliadins that have been sort of pre combined before all of the pH fluctuations before the introduction of pepsin and trypsin. We've found that that complexation will prevent The digestion of gliadins of native gliadins. And it will prevent the formation of the smaller molecular weight fragments that stimulate the inflammatory response.So since it binds so strongly to the prolene, glutamine aspect, if you have a protein that doesn't have that, do you think that there will be less affinity and it will come apart?Well, that's definitely something we're interested in, in looking at. Now that I have some grad students working on this project, we're really interested in seeing how kind of the matrix effect of everything else in the gut can affect these interactions and affect the stability. So one thing that I think suggests that we'll still see some success with this nutraceutical treatment is the fact that polyphenols generally have a greater affinity to bind to proteins that have a high frequency of prolene. And the high frequency of prolene that we see in gliadin is is fairly unique. We don't really see that much in other food proteins. So it's something we'll need to investigate, but there's definitely a chanceWhat are some other high prolene foods that we typically eat?High prolene foods that we eat? I think you got me on that one. But in terms of the kind of major food proteins that we study, in the lab, so I remember doing some sort of preliminary work with like beta lactam globulin and some casein when I was in grad school. And just to kind of look at precipitation, those definitely have less prolene than than gliadins do. In terms of others that have high amounts of prolene, I'd have to look into that. I remember looking once as to why everybody did why there's a lot of soy issues. And I did see that soy has high prolene compared to other proteins. And so I'm wondering if that's one of the reasons why a lot of people have issues with soy also. I don't know,I that's definitely something that's that's worth looking into. Because it is the high prolene content that kind of gives gliadin that unraveled structure that makes it difficult to break down enzymatically. That's definitely something to look at, but not something I have I've heard or read.You've been slacking CharlenePoor CVs only 17 pages long.You know, you sit there you, you come up with the term Charlening, and you're just resting on your laurels making money off that Trademark. All right. Now my favorite, favorite part of this whole thing you said in your article studies into mechanisms have shown phenolics with large branching structures with greater potential interaction have greater affinity for interacting with gliadin. So that's something that a lot of people don't really understand is that these polyphenolic compounds come in varying shapes and sizes. I this is I'm setting this up, because the scientists that we've been working with in South America, the quebracho Colorado is one of the largest stable polyphenols that we the original research I was doing is because it's both acid stable, and its basic stable, which means it can stay intraluminal in the in the intestine, and then the scientists we've worked with one of them in an in vitro digestion showed that when this becomes fermented, in other words, with our microbiome, that it actually she did a gas chromatograph and showed all these different molecules that came off, one of them being egcg, and other one being quercetin and another one being rutin. And you're like, holy cow, wait a minute, these large building blocks actually have all these smaller phenolic molecules in it. And all the studies have been done on smaller phenolic molecules, because the prior studies were done on that. And you're going to grab a molecule that's already been done. I forgot his name but the but the gastroenterologist that uses egcg to look at ulcerative colitis, and then that guy, because somebody else did it, and that's the proof of concept. What is really interesting is this whole science is using these large if I gave you the largest, most hydroxyl bond, you know, molecule, would this be the thing that would work that I guess your paragraph implies that,Yeah, so it's actually really interesting. And some studies that I've completed that we're kind of working on getting out there at the moment, sort of take this idea of size versus actual shape. So when we talk about polyphenols and their and their structure, we're taking into consideration the molecular weight, but also the branching like you mentioned. So if we compare molecules like Thea Flavin, which is found in black tea versus egcg, which is found in green tea, they have relatively comparable molecular weights. But egcg has this hydroxylation that almost makes it from like arms. And it has this more flexible bendable structure.You lost me though. Would you show that one more time? What does it do?Yeah. So it kind of has these arms that are almost able to wrap around a protein whereas Thea Flavin has, if you look at the structure of this Benzotropolone ring, which is just as large, bulky, sort of ring structure, and it doesn't have sort of that same flexibility as egcg has. So even though Theo Flavin actually is a little bit larger, egcg is able to bind better. So it really comes down to the structure dictating the function of the molecule, which kind of brings it to my lab and my fascination with all of this the food structure and function lab. Yeah, figuring out how structure can affect the function of these molecules with...Oh! That's why you called it that. Food structure and function. Your website. I was like, that's an odd name for website, foodstructureandfunctionlab.com. And now it makes sense, not just the food, or the structure, but it happens to be that the two combine to make a function.Those are really interrelated and biochemistry andFood structure function lab. Sorry, I want to make sure everybody hears that food structure, function lab.comStructure and function lab. Okay just say it one more time.Foodstructureandfunctionlab.comThere we go. Sorry to interrupt. I just want to make sure that peopleNo you're fine. But yeah, conceptually, that is something that I just think is so fascinating how the structure can really affect the function in terms of health. SoSo as a, butt doctor, the thing that's going to blow, take that all up to another level is how the microbiome is involved with us, then we're, like, everything you're doing is fascinating. It's so cool. And then you start fermenting it and seeing what happens, and some pretty incredible magic happens. SoRight, yeah, so fermentation, but then some of the work that I did, during my postdoc at Rutgers University, we were looking at alternative mechanisms for polyphenols to affect the gut microbiome, because we saw with, um, I believe it was cranberry polyphenols, as well as Grapeseed, extract someone before me, and found that supplementation of those polyphenols to an individual with diabetes resulted in the increase of this growth of akkermansia ophelia. And so we're trying to look at how this can why this happens, you know, like, what is the mechanism? And so one of the things that we really got interested in was the potential for polyphenols to act as radical scavengers in the lumen. So whether they're being broken down by the gut bacteria, whether they're scavenging radicals, whether they have an antibiotic capacity, I mean, there are so many options, and it's so fascinating. So, yeah, sorry to go off on that tangent,TThat's pretty much the world I live in because I see my goal. What we have seen through fecal studies, actually, is that when my patients take a either a diet large and polyphenols, or they supplement with Atrantil we have seen an increase in microbial diversity. And then once you have an increase in microbial diversity, you start having different species of bacteria which can do these beneficial things like the anti diabetic, anti obesogenic and then you have the anti. And then people are now looking into that. And that's sort of this whole new field of science called the postbiotics. It's like, what does the so we're almost describing that these become prebiotic, like, we're just something that is not digested and then your own microbiome, but what we're seeing is, is that it's not a one to one, you have to have a diverse microbiome to get the full benefit of these polyphenols. So you can have the structure and function but you also have to have the ability to produce these postbiotics, like have you ever heard of a molecule called urolithin urolithin a urolithin B, you know, things like that. Lactic acid gets, you know, kicks off and we know that that helps, you know with apoptosis and Mitophagy and there's a lot of there's a lot of stuff to uncover. This is a lot of really cool things. What do you think? Alright, so just sum this up. Sorry about that. We covered so much material. So to sum up your whole paper here and in just a couple sentences, because there's a lot that we just talked about, and I want to hear it in your words. How would you describe what you just what we just talked about in just a couple sentences?So overall, we are focusing on developing a nutraceutical approach to treating celiac disease via the natural phenomenon of protein polyphenol interactions, and keeping gliadin from being digested and being recognized by the immune system.She did it in one sentence Ken. Yeah she did. Wow. All right, what's your lab gonna do next? What are you guys working on?We are continuing to pursue this project. It was kind of on a hiatus as I did my postdoc working on a different project. But now that I have my own lab, but I have a couple of graduate students who are really targeting that sort of structure and function angle, we're looking at extracts from different polyphenol rich foods for their ability to basically elicit the same effects that I observed with green tea extract. And we're also trying to kind of target those downstream mechanisms that I discussed in the paper. So what is the impact of polyphenol supplementation on for example, the activity of tissue transglutaminase? What is the impact on the recognition of these proteins by antigen presenting cells? I'm kind of trying to go downstream and sort of look at this. The potential of polyphenols from really every angle of celiac disease.That's awesome. You said you have two graduate students working for you right nowI actually have four right now. Yeah, I have a few that are working. I have two that are working on the celiac disease project. And then two more that are working on another project based on protein polyphenol interactions. We're looking at using novel plant proteins as delivery systems of anthocyanins. Oh, wow, that's awesome. Can you do me a huge favor and subtle debate between me and Eric? Can you just take two of those and have one of your graduate students swallow hookworms have the other one just walk around on hookworms to seeWe haven't even had a hiatus to have this debate.I have a student who an undergrad who really wants to work in my lab, so I'll pitch that project to him.Poor undergrad doing anything. to get into graduate. Hookworm internship. Nice. Well, Dr. Charlene Van Buitin. Thank you so much PhD as Assistant Professor of food science and Human Nutrition at Colorado State University. I can't thank you enough for coming. Oh, yeah. Without I want to repeat your your website foodstructureandfunctionlab.com correct? Everything will be listed in show notes will have links to your study as well as your own personal website and Ken, any closing remarks?Your social media hashtag, there's no way you're as smart as I am. Do you have any social media or anything? Do you want to get out there? I'm on Twitter, cbvanbuitin. If anyone has questions or is interested, I don't share that much science on there. Mostly insight to working in academia. But yeah, that's that's really all I'm on.So if you want hard hitting political opinions. Go to her Twitter account. Not at all. Thank you so much. Don't go anywhere once we wrap up the show. But gut check project fans, that is going to be episode number 52. Be sure and check show notes. So you can connect with Dr. Van Buiten. And, again, if you have anyone in your life or yourself suffer from celiac disease, we think that this information could be of just huge, great consequences for you and your family. 100% and this is why we do this this is we get an opportunity to meet brilliant people like you, thank you for taking the time to do this. And hopefully this will this will get somebody to call you lab. Hopefully we'll be able to do some sort of collab, I would love to collaborate with your lab. We can we'll talk more about that. But maybe another scientist goes, Oh, this is a little piece I was looking for. This is how we help each other as a community. I'm a clinician, you're a bench researcher. I'm going to apply whatever you tell me and see if it works and just thank you for doing everything that you do.Thanks. Thanks so much for having me.Absolutely. That's episode number 52. We'll see y'all next time. Like and share. See you next time. Bye bye.

SIBO Post C-Section, Colonoscopy Prep, Quality of Intestinal Gasses on Probiotics, Practicality of Bulking on Keto, Thoughts on Anti-Histamines? Make your health an act of rebellion. Join The Healthy Rebellion Please Subscribe and Review: Apple Podcasts | RSS   Submit your questions for the podcast here   Show Notes: News topic du jour: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/27/china-starts-using-anal-swabs-test-covid-high-infection-areas 1. SIBO Post C-Section [11:39] Jaimie says: Hi Robb and Nikki! Love your passion and information for this podcast! I'm looking for some help with diving through the endless research and information on SIBO. A little background: I'm 34, and in January had my second baby. This time around I had to have a c-section due to a previous abdominal surgery. I have followed a pretty holistic lifestyle for the last 10 years, and typically eat a paleo diet. I couldn't tell you the last time I had antibiotics until this surgery.  A week post op my incision ended up getting infected, and I took another round of antibiotics. I'm not one to take pain meds, but did rotate Ibuprofen and tylenol for pain post op. Of course, this all reeked havoc on my gut. I never had gut issues and started to notice a lot of things changing postpartum. A month ago, I saw a functional med NP who did some labs and I did a stool sample. A few weeks ago we reviewed the results. I have sibo- methane predominant, as well as H. pylori... there were other things like E. coli, parasite(EEEK!), and other digestive enzymes that were off. Basically, the NP said that for right now because I'm breastfeeding I can't really take anything for the SIBO, but to try and just focus on my diet. Being the perfectionist that I am cannot settle for that :) I've been researching some things on SIBO and came across a podcast by Kresser. They were discussing the supplement ATRANTIL. They discussed some case studies on it and the positives, but I'm curious if you are familiar with this product and what the research says? Also, What are your thoughts on taking this while breastfeeding? Of course it hasn't been studied, but if Nikki had SIBO what would you do? :) Thanks so much and keep up the great work!   2. Colonoscopy Prep [15:04] Eric says: Robb and Nicki, Thanks for all the hard work you guys put into this community.  I have been following Robbs' work for many years now.  I did stop eating a whole food diet slowly over the last 6 years.  I am getting back into it and love how I am feeling and doing. On to my questions: I am scheduled to have a colonoscopy next month. Do you have any recommendations for the prepping for the procedure?  I was thinking about using LMNT instead of the sports drink recommendation would this be ok?  Also, any recommendations on things I can do after the procedure to improve my gut? Information about me 40 years of age 5' 10" 225 pounds   3. Quality of Intestinal Gasses on Probiotics [17:59] Michal says: Hi Robb! I've been a huge fan of your as well as your podcast for some 4 months now. Listened to almost all archive talks of yours and read Wired to Eat. The only reason I haven't yet subscrive to the Healthy Rebellion is I'm a loner and don't really dig communities. The reason I am writing to you is the recent finding of mine. I had a bad gut microba for years. I didn't need any hard research on it, neither did I test it. I just knew it was bad by how I felt all the time not to mention how I felt after eating most things. Bloated, gassy with impossible acidic reflux and often loose stool. I knew I needed to improve my gut health and invested in probiotics (namely NOW's 25B portion). On top of that I also bought myself pickled veggies: a mix of salads, pickled kimchi, pickled carrots and whatnot. To my surprise I am way less bloated, less gassy and with firmer stool. The biggest surprise, however, is the quality of those gases. I am not a fart expert, by any means, but the change is visible. Until I picked up massive ammounts of probiotics, my gasses were frequent, smelly (af) and kind of soft. Like a 'puff' sound. Now they are less frequent and less smelly but more pronounced. They are shorter in duration, a bit louder and, sort of, trumpet like. It feels great. My guess is the last thing you want in your email is reading about some guy's in Poland gasses but I thought you might have some insights into this. Is it normal? How come my gasses changed just by adding microbiota and live bacteria to my gut? I'd love to learn more, especially since I heard that gut is being thought of as our second brain (sometimes the first) due to its influence of and regulation over, well, basically everything. Looking forward to hearing from you. Cheers from Poland. Michal   4. Practicality of Bulking on Keto [27:27] Alex says: Dear Robb & Nicki, -I am male -29 years old -5'4'' -probably around 11% body fat (at the time of writing this) -relatively strong: can squat and pull a little more than 2x bodyweight, strict muscle-ups, etc., etc. My question is about the efficacy of bulking with a ketogenic diet. I am not currently following a keto diet. I have never done any kind of glucose monitoring, but I'm assuming that I tolerate carbs pretty well because I would not feel noticeably worse if I were to consume a ton of carbs. Now, I would really like to get as jacked as possible, and I hate the traditional bulking and cutting cycle. Robb frequently mentions the Ketogains folks, and I know Luis Villasenor talks about this idea of "gaintaining" - or continually building lean mass, which sounds way more preferable to me even if the progress is dramatically slower than a conventional carb-heavy bulk. I would love to just stay lean year-round and not have to do maintenance and cutting cycles. I understand it is also perhaps a little more challenging to bulk on keto because the food is much more satiating. I've been using the RP Diet app for the past couple of years and I like it a lot actually, I'm pretty happy with my body composition - but if this "gaintaining" thing is a real option I would be seriously interested in trying it. I follow Power Athlete's Jacked Street program and I know John has this "you don't need more carbs than you need" philosophy, but he has also said carbs are pretty much essential for bulking, and that dude knows a thing or two about bulking. With the conventional bulk/cut approach I often feel like I'm taking one step forward and then 9/10 of a step back. It just occurred to me that I think I forgot to include my bodyweight in my initial question. It's currently about 141 lbs, don't know how relevant that is. My goal is to get down to about 10% body fat so that I can attack this bulk with everything I've got. P.S. - I LOVED the Salty Talk on the Great Barrington Declaration. I do find what you guys do to be valuable and listening to you on a weekly basis is extremely cathartic. You two are the voices of reason in this absolutely insane time we live in. You've mentioned the mental health consequences of this Covid lockdown many times and I don't know that I could have managed without this podcast. Thank you and keep up the amazing work. XOXO, Alex   5. Thoughts on Anti-Histamines? [34:35] Craig says: Hey Robb and Nicki! A couple questions on anti-histamines (Benadryl or Zyrtec) for allergies - do they have broader effects on reducing inflammation? Is there a danger around taking antihistamines regularly? Thanks in advance! Craig https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/physrev.00043.2007 https://www.healio.com/news/pediatrics/20191116/antihistamines-part-ii-longterm-adverse-effects#:~:text=Commonly%20used%20first%2Dgeneration%20antihistamines,the%20risk%20for%20developing%20dementia. Share the episode! If something in this show helped you please share the episode with your friends! Sponsor: The Healthy Rebellion Radio is sponsored by our electrolyte company, LMNT. Have you tried LMNT electrolytes yet? If not, this is the time to do it. Until January 31st, 2021 you can get a FREE 8 count sample pack (just pay shipping!). You’ll get: 2 sticks each of citrus salt, raspberry, orange, and RAW unflavored. Click here to get your free LMNT sample pack Transcript: Download a copy of this transcript here (PDF)

0:01  Hey, gut check project fans and KB MD health family. This is Eric, I'm here with my awesome co host, Dr. Kenneth Brown. And this is Episode 48. I don't have a clue what we're gonna talk about.0:12  Well, I think that Okay, so if you did not see Episode 47, we put a lot of work into that one. Yeah, we've gotten a ton of great feedback on that. And it's just the beginning, because because of that episode, we've been contacted by a lot of other scientists, a lot of people. And we're gonna be having a really special PhD on to describe her research soon. And it's, you know, thankfully, it's pretty cool. Yeah, it's0:34  really, really cool. We actually got a lot of feedback not only in the traditional sense, thank you all for who've been emailing in and messaging. But the two patients who came through and watched it right before we scoped them, I was impressed to how many of them tried to do what you did to me and made me list everything out. And so that was that was pretty interesting. So0:53  just a recap of 47 it was important because we've uncovered a lot of important research showing how the polyphenols like polyphenols in atrantil can actually help your innate immune system. And it's, it's the tip of the iceberg because I've been contacted by out both allergist epidemiologists, some PhDs going wow, that is exactly what my research is in. I'd like to talk about it more.1:16  What about just this morning, we had that discussion with somebody over in the UK who is specifically utilizing guess what polyphenols for athletes and elite athlete training. Never met the guy before has an incredible program. What do you think of that? Oh, that's1:31  great. It's actually Aiden Goggins. And he he wrote the cert diet, which is the I believe it's the diet that Adele lost all her weight on and it's all about the benefit of polyphenols turning on these sirtuin pathways. He's he agreed to come on the show also great guy super smart. That was awesome hanging out with him this morning. So what's going on with you? Let's let's get let's make this more casual this time. The last couple of podcasts have been so intense with the immune system and stuff. Let's change it up a little.1:56  Yeah, man. I chatted with gage this morning. He scores out of tech he's loving School, which is great. And you know he's he's enjoying his time as a freshman. His most college kids who are freshmen should be doing Mack is in midseason basketball. He loves it. He just He scored his 106 point where this basketball team is last week. He's super pumped about that. Okay,2:20  let's let's clarify that. So he scored his 106 documented point or he scored the 106 I2:25  scored the 106 which is the high watermark for his current code. That's awesome. That's awesome joints. He joins his brother who was the first person to push a coach over 1002:34  Yes, that's awesome. So the reader brothers doing proper to the basketball team.2:39  Their dad's terrible. I know. I got a shiner got a little shiner. Here you go look at the camera here. Yeah, look at the mirror image of me. Yeah, we're doing little remodeling on the house. And unfortunately, the middle of the night I tripped over a box and face planet. So as I was telling my patient I walked in and we're gonna put him to sleep. And he's like, Whoa, Doc, he's like, do a get a little tussle. And I'm like, no. And he's like, well, it'll probably only affect your modeling career for a bit. And I'm like, Well, I'm actually a hand model. So that's why I protected myself with my face. Yeah, why don't you show that fingerand see how good of a handball you are?3:16  Well, I played I play the before picture and all hand model. A bunch of Orthopedic Surgeons jabbed me they're like, hey, yeah, can I use that in an ad?3:26  I specialize in ring finger. Yeah. We're gonna straighten it out.3:32  Oh, guess what I signed up for what? I signed up for the Wim Hof breathing. Wow, awesome. I'm doing the Wim Hof if you don't know who Wim Hof is, he's this crazy guy that has this incredible breathing course which we're gonna talk about that I read. I read James nesters book called breath, the site the lost science, and everything is all over there. Oh, dude, it's because we're all just like, Whoa, you can change your life by breathing. And that's what the Wim Hof Method is just breathe. And it's so I've been doing this every morning for we're going on two weeks now. And the problem is it also involves cold exposure. So every morning instead of waking up and doing my Yani coffee and warm hot shower, I'm breathing a ton and then jumping into a cold shower so we'll see4:16  feedback on it. Okay, well, just real quick, since I don't know where we're going with today's show. I'm just gonna go ahead and ask is this one of those things from Wim Hof where he is having you breathe in at a certain interval breathe out a certain interval so that you can achieve something and then it can you can you shed a little light on them?4:32  Yeah. So the Wim Hof Method in a nutshell is a cyclical breathing where you, you over inflate and then you exhale to atmospheric pressure. So you go above atmospheric pressure to atmospheric pressure. You do this in a cyclical way, almost like a wave and you train yourself to breathe in a cyclical way. And what that does is that increases your oxygen saturation of the cells decreases your co2, and I know where you're going because last time we I started talking about putting physiology, we ended up doing a whole podcast on that. Check out COVID episode three or four. But what that does is that actually raises your pH because the co2 retention will increase the pH. Okay. So in this book, in breath, I got really into that because we realized that in our stress society and the more stressed you are, we tend to shallow rapid breathe, which actually is the improper way to do it. So when you want to relax, you breathe six seconds in six seconds out, that should be the proper tempo. This is a different method. This is to supercharge your parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system interesting. And then you do 30. In this case, you can do like 30 cycles of this. really deep breathing and then it on number 30, you exhale, and you hold your breath. So you and you time it and it's really funny because I'm following him on the course. And he's this very, he's been on Rhonda Patrick show and always been a me Joe Rogan. And everybody and so he's so funny, because he's the same all the time. I think he's always Wim Yeah. And so he's been on Ben Greenfield and stuff. And so he's, you know, you feel like this bond, because I'm like, holding my breath. And he's like, it's okay. You're good. You can do longer. You're,6:12  I mean, the guy is a physical walking experiment. He's done everything, especially when it comes down to this controlled breathing situation.6:19  Yeah, he holds like 20 world records and stuff. Yeah, but but it's all but it's all based off science. It's not like and that's what he tries to tell everybody. He's like, anybody can do this. So that's what I'm, that's what I'm going to experiment. We'll6:28  see if I can interesting. I'm curious how how they're explaining to lay people because that's probably what this is written for. From lay people all the way down to the science. So maybe that would be a topic that we will get into after you experiment with it a6:40  little bit. Yeah, 6:40  I'm really interested. 6:41  But we want to keep this episode light. Okay, this is just gonna be a fun, easy episode. Or we're just gonna relax. Gosh, I was sitting there with Dr. Ackerman in the office. And I got a quick question for you. Because uh6:56  have a quick question for me after talking to Steve6:57  Yeah, okay. Because it says cuz Stu, and I kind of disagreed on something. And I was like, Are you insane? We got in this discussion about carbonated water and he actually likes Waterloo over Bella VB. Like more like I couldn't even believe it. I'm like, Are you insane? Okay, well, wait, who's7:15  insane? He's insane for liking for liking Waterloo.7:18  Like how can you like Waterloo? Over Bell v. I mean, it's a apparently, well,7:25  I never questioned the fact that you are a doctor until right now. Because apparently, Stu is on the right side of history. And you're on the wrong side of history. 7:33  How can you even say that? I mean, the bubbles in this are more effervescent, the flavoring is better. I mean, I have7:40  a feeling that you're way more prepared for this talk than me. I'm just going to tell you that Waterloo kicks ass. Because I think Waterloo labor looks really cute7:48  is delicious. We can argue about this calories,7:50  no sugar. I don't know how many of these are crusher day, but I think they're awesome.7:55  I don't want to spend this whole podcast arguing about which carbonated beverage is better? I do I do have a real question for you. Okay, because I was totally forgot this. And I know that you and I've done this. Would you mind explaining to me? Because I know you're really like theoretical mathematics. Can you explain to me again, the Yang Mills existence and mass gap in mathematics?8:15  I would but it would take way too long. Okay.8:17  So I mean, you're super smart. And I realized that that would normally be just like a no brainer. I don't want to tell you that Yang Mills I love not being patronized back. Alright, so the whole reason for that set up. Was I I've been talking to a lot of patients and a lot of patients that have had COVID are having lingering symptoms and brain fog and things like that. And so you call them the the long haulers. Well, I see that all the time, because we see that people that have gut inflammation, end up having other things going on. So I was like, wow, you know, what, what, what is happening there? And then I started going down a little rabbit hole and Angie and I looking up articles and then you know, found this article where we thought Oh, when we initially when COVID first came out, it's like oh COVID infects the brain. And then I think you and I even discussed the possibility of the vagus nerve being a conduit where viruses can get up and it was all theory and everything. And so then I started thinking Wait a minute, if we end up with all these long hollers, what's the effect on the brain and then on the effect on the brain, I went down a little rabbit hole. And then I'm like, Well, wait a minute. If we end up with lots of neuro inflammation, how does that impact our psychiatric help?9:34  Health health? Yeah,9:35  because I'm, I really believe that we're gonna end up in another pandemic. So many people are suffering from depression and anxiety. And we may end up you may end up in a situation where if you had this infection, you could end up having a little bit more anxiety, OCD, different things. And so neuroinflammation then that got me thinking, Wait a minute, how does how will this affect spouses and families and things? Because divorce rates through the roof and I'm like, What if whoa, wait a minute, what if all this inflammation and the stress is leading to psychiatric changes, but not even something really tangible that you can sit there and label a DSM for diagnosis on? What if it actually affects your cognitive ability? And so then,10:20  let me just stop there. How could it not?10:22  Right? Totally agree, except this is this is a podcast where we try and make sense of things. Sure, that that are like that. So that's the rabbit hole that I went down. And now I'm going to bring it back. So what's interesting is I did I do want to discuss one article that looked at damage in dissected brains and people that died of COVID. Okay, and it's not as straightforward as you think. Okay. And then I started thinking, well, if there's the inflammation that's there, then I found an article that actually discusses neuro inflammation, psychiatric illness, followed by here's what happens in our brain when we disagree. And ultimately ending up on disagreeing takes up a lot of mental real estate. So that was a really long setup to ask you a mathematic question, to pretend like I tied up your brain arguing over carbonated water. I'm sorry. I was trying to figure out how to set up how we're gonna talk about today's episode, which is all about the brain. Okay. It's all about neuro inflammation, the brain and the fact that we're still in the middle of this pandemic. It really wasn't to bring you on the show and argue about water and then ask you a theoretical math question that I just googled 30 seconds before we came on the air11:35  live is fine. I'm just glad that I wasn't up for the challenge, either.11:39  You would have freaked me out if you would have noticed.11:42  It is would have been a random Google experience to be interesting. So if I understood what you just said that you're saying that we we probably waste far too many resources metabolically and over our brain trying to disagree with someone. Well, it's Yeah,11:58  that But let's get back to the inflammatory process. Okay, Episode 47 was the innate immune system. And it makes sense why we have all this inflammation. So I guess what I'm saying is, let's prepare ourselves for the possibility that more than the usual number of people may be behaving in a way that they may not, or they may behave an extreme way, because I just heard a podcast this morning on med cram, that he was discussing that an article came out on the online version of ama, where they were looking at these, they surveyed, like a bunch of 170 people, and a shockingly high number had residual symptoms, three to six months after actually being diagnosed with COVID. And of this group, they were all really mild. And so what, what we're now realizing is, is that we may end up having a lot of these young people that had really mild COVID end up having symptoms of they're just fatigued. Brain fog is super common. Sure. shortness of breath, it's common. Sure. So I think that we need to start preparing for this, I guess, is what I'm getting not only preparing for, here's, here's something that we don't know. So you just said three to six months. I mean, the the full on onset of COVID, still wasn't even one year ago. So if we're looking at that number, there, we're not even looking at like a threshold for this to end, right. Because we don't know that yet. There's not enough time has passed. We're saying three and six months, because that may just be as long as that infection has existed for13:32  that number of people. 100%. So13:34  let's jump into these articles. But I like where you're going with this. Because this is what I want to do is prepare for what makes sense of things before it actually happens. I'm actually quite proud of something. And I've heard this from several people that whatever, nine months ago when we did COVID one and two, I'm sure yeah, we actually still stood the test of time. Yeah. Because one of my friends was actually talking about this, the fact that he's hearing he's going back and having fun looking at podcasts at the beginning. And now it seems absurd the things that were saying, and I got scared. I was like, we're totally absurd. And we were actually pretty pretty spot on.14:10  Yeah, but I mean, I think quite honestly, in a lot of this has to do with the way that people who've communicate with us we, what we approach it isn't politically motivated. It's, I think that we're trying to always lean on what research says, and what research means. And so you can actually filter off, sometimes the stuff that's just noise. And that's what we try not to do here is deliver noise, we want to see if we can bring some context to what we think is real.14:37  So what I would like to do is let's talk about this and let's look at this from a future neuro inflammatory process. And it all comes down to one thing that we've said a million times on this show inflammation. Sure. All right, so the first article that I came across, and these are all obviously very recent articles, some of them just a few days ago actually. Study uncovers blood vessel damage and inflammation in COVID-19 patient brains, but no infection. So this is a surprise that they did an in depth study and how COVID-19 affects patients brains, and they consistently spotted hallmarks of what they consider damage in an MRI while the patient was living, okay. And then they ended up taking a sample of 19 patients that actually died, and then they did an autopsy on them, okay, assuming that they would find necrosis clots. Because we've been talking about clots during this, oh, you're gonna have these thrombosis factor five lied and gets kicked in, and then you're gonna have you know, clots happen. And so what they found was now the exact opposite was happening in these brains. What they did is they found these bright spots contain blood vessels that were thinner than normal blood vessels. Yeah, they gave up integrity, didn't they, they gave up integrity, they had leaky vessels. And this appeared to leak proteins, like fibrinogen, the brain, which triggered an immune reaction locally, sure. microglial cells, these spots were surrounded by the innate immune system T cells trying to control it. And what that ended up happening was that the brain's own immune cells, tried to shut this down, created inflammation, which ultimately led to the neuro inflammation seen on these MRIs.16:20  Yeah.16:21  So the fascinating thing about that is controlling the inflammation may have prevented these lesions from forming. That's not why these patients died. But it does give us insight as to why people will be having brain fog in the future.16:33  Without question, then guess what? That processes, even though it's specific right now about COVID-19? These things cycling out of control that that's not new, though, right? I mean, people have had these kind of problems before. And it's just like you said, it all goes down to inflammation. So what can we do to help control inflammation that doesn't get out of control?16:54  So what you just said, This isn't new? Yeah, you're exactly right. An article in 2013, in the Journal of neuro inflammation, shows that there are multiple lines of evidence to support the pathogenic role of neuro inflammation in psychiatric illness. why that's important is because neuro inflammation can lead and then they go on to describe all these psychiatric illnesses. Now, one of my friends had a recent zoom, 50th birthday parties, a football player and some other football players were on there. And so, you know, you start looking at all these, the players that played a career in that, and that's what I was thinking. I was like, you know, neuroinflammation, how do we protect all these? And then I started thinking about, you know, veterans and things like that. Looking at this article, we've known that inflammation does this for a very long time. So I'm like, well, recently, let's see what's happened. Let's see if they tied it to very specific diseases, do a Google Scholar shirts, and you will see that there's a link between neuro inflammation and depression, aggression, fatigue, obsessive compulsive disorder, addiction, anger, chronic pain, all of it. The the scientists return to today, he checks inflammatory markers in his athletes. Yeah, he trains a lot of MMA fighters, a lot of pro boxers and things,18:09  guess what he's checking, TNF alpha, interleukin six.18:14  So we already know from prior podcasts that eating functional foods will help with inflammation. So what I want to do is take a different turn. And like I was kind of prepping, let's prepare for the possibility that we may be dealing with more people that have neuro inflammation. So how do you handle it, there may be more mental illness coming towards us. Sure. And mental illness can be a spectrum, mental illness just might be a few. If you've ever suffered from anxiety, even a little bit of anxiety that that can incapacitate you. And that goes all the way to complete debilitating, OCD or schizophrenia and things. And it looks like it's all coming down to inflammation, let alone now we're just talking about the short term, let alone dementia, Parkinson's, and so on, which is, once again, inflammation is the cause of that.19:09  Yeah, absolutely. And I like that at the very beginning, you were at the very beginning. But about a minute and a half ago, you were talking about how do we protect these people like you saw on Jr's zoom call? But also, what do you do for those who are sustaining an assault right now or inflammation right now to heal them to help bring them back? Because I think it's both of those things. Let's say that someone's having an anxious problem, long term anxiety. Do you really think that having a long term poor diet along with that is going to help them with their mental state and recover it's not you still have to give your body the tools to give it I mean, a mechanic can only fix the car with the tools and you have to give your body the tools to help your brain heal.19:55  So when you have inflammation, there's a possibility that you are Maybe have a little more anger, which could lead to arguments. So now let's get into the physiology of arguing. I mean, I could see how heated you got when I was insulting Waterloo there. And I know. So this is a study that actually was published in in the Journal of nature and neuroscience. Basically what they did is they looked at people during an argument, right, and they tried to see what actually goes on. And so in a heated disagreement, generally speaking, you may lose respect for the person that you're talking to, you know, whether it's about something real heated or whatever, but if you're passionate about it, you will lose respect and whether you feel appreciated or not, a lot of times what is described as that the other person is ignoring them, or they feel ignored. And so there's a concept here where you're passionate about your thing, I'm passionate. When when I walk out of the room, I feel like I've been ignored, like you have not heard anything, and you feel the exact same way. And then there may be some truth to that. There could be Did you ever wonder what's going on in the other person's brain that could explain that? So understanding when you're looking at somebody, and you're like, I'm talking but you don't really seem like you're hearing me?21:12  Can I kind of guess on what you heard this may be going? Sure. So as a as a younger person engaging in an argument, I oftentimes would find myself, let's say that you and I were having a true disagreement. And that your your first approach to me was to tell me why you felt something that I was doing, or that I thought was completely wrong. So the first thing I hear is, he doesn't like what it is. And while you're talking and making that point, I'm really just fortifying my position. Really not even listening to anything that you would have said, however, as a, as an older adult, I would imagine, and you learn this as a parent to really go to the child or the person you have a disagreement with. And try to find an area where we already agree or even compliment the other person. So that you're really beginning to build a bridge and make it look like your point of disagreement is you're arriving at it that there's a problem that we have together.22:14  That is correct. From the top. Okay, now let's talk about what's actually going on in the brain that leads to that. Okay, so to get to that point, so that you can take control of it. So have you ever been in a heated argument? All right. So what they did is they took 21 pairs of volunteers, and they asked them to make financial decisions, decisions in particular, they each had to assess the value of real estate, then they had to bet money on there a second. All right, so each volunteer, terrible, I know, each volunteer laid in a brain imaging scanner while performing the tasks, so that the scientists could record and the volunteers had to agree on the price of real estate. If they agreed, each of them became more confident, and they bet more money on it. Which makes sense, because that's the tribalism if you affirm what I'm believing Well, yeah, we're both right. Are you kidding me? You need to buy some GameStop.Yeah, then we get really excited.23:27  I love this Reddit group.23:29  That's, that's exactly what it is. Yeah. So stop and think what Reddit is, when you do a sub group, you've already positioned yourself in a tribe. And when you say something, and you get up voted, you're just like affirming exactly what's going on. So that's totally cool. So I agree with you that I'm more sure that I must be right. Now what's going on is the activity is in the brain region called the posterior medial medial frontal cortex, which is also known to be involved in cognitive dissonance. And it's the part that will track the confidence level in the person that you're with. So there's a section of the brain that lit up when they agreed. And it was associated with the fact that they were agreeing and they had more continental cortex. No, no, no, it's not. It's the posterior medial frontal cortex. Okay, so wherever post posterior medial frontal Let me think about that. neuroanatomy is ridiculous. It's hard. It's like where is it? It's in the back. Middle. upper part. Yeah. On the lower. I mean, southwest corner. Yeah. All right. So anyways, so they found that the more competent one volunteer was, the more confident the partner became and vice versa. It and once again, it gives the feeling of why we joined tribes and why we seek out people with similar opinions. Okay. However, the interesting part is this when people disagreed, their brains became less sensitive to the strength of others opinions. Remember that the posterior medial frontal cortex when they agreed it tracked the content So I'm sensitive to exactly what you're saying. So what they're saying here, when people disagreed, they became less sensitive to the strength of others opinions. And after agreement, the post your medial frontal cortex cortex, could no longer track the partners competence on the scan when they disagreed and went, yeah, and went away. Consequently, the opinion of the disagreeing partner had little impact on people's conviction that they were correct. Regardless of whether the disagreeing partner was very sure in their assessment, or not at all, they doubled down. They went, Oh, no, they disagreed. So this one shut off, and perceived no lack of confidence in the other person. Does that make sense? Like it's, it's, it's not even a conscious thing going on very much sense. Blood went away from that part of the brain. And so pretty interesting. When they tested the volunteers memory, so a lot of times you'd say, Oh, they just didn't listen to me. They just didn't, they didn't remember it. clearly didn't remember. Because I feel that way a lot when you walk away, and you're like, well, they didn't listen, they won't remember anything. That's not the case. They actually tested the volunteers memory of their partners assessment and bets. Rather, it seemed that contradictory opinions were more likely to be considered categorically wrong. And therefore the strength of those opinions was unimportant. Yeah, that's right. So you can understand how we end up in this polarizing society, if that's going on. It's super complex, multi layered reasons for all this stuff. But how can we increase our chances, you said it best right there. So the end of this article was, well, if this is going on, do something First, find someplace to agree on first, because when you get to an agreement level, if you and I are agreeing, then I assess your confidence, and I automatically a part of my brain gets turned on. If we're finding the common ground, then I'm that part of my brain is ready to see if we can do this. So it's a subconscious thing. We don't know what's going on, it's going on on a physiological level, that that part of the brain kind of gets lit up. And so in the midst of a heated disagreement, just take a step back, find a common ground, and be like, Hey, I know that you're super passionate about Waterloo, and you're part of that subreddit, our Waterloo kill all other, you know, bubbly, but you know what, you know, what's really good? Doesn't matter the brand. I just like the effervescence, right?27:26  Yeah, it's all about the effervescence, as long as it's waterloo.27:31  So I'm the one that found the common ground, so I was prepared to accept your opinion. But you didn't, you didn't join me on that.27:38  The way it started 20 minutes ago.27:41  So the whole reason why I asked you the math question. So, um, it started out with Oh, my gosh, we're gonna have a lot of people with neuro inflammation. Oh, my gosh, they'll be arguing How do you prepare yourself for these arguments? How do you tell, like many things, I do better when I know, oh, I'm behaving like this. My body's doing this. I'm tachycardic. My blood pressure is rising, because I'm letting my emotions have a physiologic effect. Okay, so same thing. So you get an argument go, Oh, why am I being so dissonant here? It could be because blood is going to the wrong part of your brain, instead of where it should go. So that's step one. And then the reason why I asked you the math question, because this is the article that came out on January 14. disagreeing takes up a lot of brain real estate. This one is fun to me. Because much like the adage, it's easier to smile and frown. disagree, is exhausting mentally.28:36  I mean, think about it, you you have a great encounter with a friend, it feels good. And you don't want it to end if you're locked into a disagreement. Think of people sweat sometimes when they're when they're just having a verbal disagreement. And I've got Yeah, that's not even surprising. It's it's not surprising, but28:56  what is always surprising to me is when scientists can prove it, and they have tests to do it. Oh, for sure.29:02  Sure, your brains lit up on that one. So29:03  this one's really cool. So they is defense though, right? Well, we're gonna get into it right here. Check this out. It's more than just defense, something really unique. And it's fascinating. This comes out of Yale. So Yale, researchers devised a way to peer into the brains of two people simultaneously, while they are engaged in discussion. So when two people agree, their brains exhibit a calm synchronicity of activity focused on the sensory area of the brain. I'll say this, again, a calm synchronicity in the sensory area of the brain, okay. This was the sensory area. They didn't get into the exact place but it could be the amygdala, it could be you know, various areas. However, so many other regions of the brain are involved in higher cognitive groups. But when they disagree, so when you're agreeing, you synchronize in the area of the brain, that is the sensory area, okay? In other words, I can feel and see your social cues. Okay? So when we disagree, however, many other regions of the brain involved in higher cognitive function become mobilized as each individual combats the other's arguments. So say that again. So if we're arguing, instead of me just sinking into almost a Zen state of, we're in the sensory area right now, my brain knows that we're arguing. And so my brain shifts blood to the frontal cortex, where there should be higher cognitive functioning, and it's trying to prepare and figure out how we're going to do whatever and come back at it. And so it just, it just lit up and these people, so our entire brain is a social processing network. However, when you disagree, you lose the social processing cues, because you get away from the sensory aspect. I believe that so it becomes all trying to wrap your brain around the logical thing, why in the world, would you like Waterloo, and I'm, you know, so it becomes this, the state and you don't have any, any control over it. So to test their theory, they looked at 38 adults, and after they match them up, based on their responses that the researchers used, they put them in this really cool imaging technology called a functional near infrared spectroscopy. And what they were able to do is record their brain activity while they're engaged in face to face discussions. So remember, the last one, they were kind of in this functional MRI, and they were kind of arguing over a thing. This one specifically allowed them to do real time where two people could like, get in their face and be like, are you you know, like a argument or whatever it is. And what they found is pretty cool. 32:04  Yeah, so if I am.32:06  So if we agree, we are in sync? Sure. If we don't, then I'm trying to use my brain to figure out how to get you to do what I want you to do. So when they were in agreement, the brain activity was harmonious and tended to be concentrated on sensory areas of the brain, such as the visual system. thought this was super cool. Okay, think about when you used to date. And you could tell we're all of a sudden, it's like, the data is going well.32:33  Why is she walking away?32:39  So your date, your dating life? Was that bad that she actually showed up? You're like, oh, when she's leaving, or she's leaving to32:47  what am I doing?32:48  Well, you're, you're not in sync with the sensory areas. Yeah, learn that. But I thought this was fascinating. But the visual system as a sensory area gets in sync. And the visual system, presumably in response to the social cues from the partner.33:03  Okay. Makes sense, though. Because you're almost trying to complement what it is that the person there is doing. Right? That's Yeah,33:09  exactly. So like, I just think it's interesting. When you're like, man, I really, it's that classic thing. Oh, yeah, I know that person. Yeah, we had a great, really cool, we really connected or, you so easy to get along with or, you know, it's33:21  seen as kind of a bad thing, whenever, whenever it's highlighted, because a wrong decision ultimately is made. But there, I think it's just somewhat natural for people to long term when they are jiving with someone else to develop certain confirmation biases. And it's not necessarily always wrong. The conclusions, it's just highlighted when a confirmation bias turns out to be the wrong decision. Doe s that make sense? Because maybe when people are agreeing, and they're working together, it's actually fostering teamwork. And people need other people, wolves are in packs, etc. It's like part of that has to happen so that people feel comfortable working together. But if they're disagreeing, it's like you said, I'm your brains working this puzzle? How am I going to effectively remove myself from this guy's opinion or this thought? Because it's not working out for me. So you really don't care that the visual cue is telling you that the other person is uncomfortable. So you don't you're not tuning in to the fact that they're wanting to pull away? In fact, you're kind of glad.34:25  Yeah, that is totally true. The first article showed the activity, the blood flow, sure, this art or I'm sorry, that basically the blood flow, this article shows the actual activity and however they do it. So it makes sense that once we start disagreeing, I start shifting blood to the the cognitive region of my brain, and it just starts bouncing around trying to figure out how to do that if two people are34:47  agreeing, you're almost allowing yourself to trust the other person to help you in figuring it out. So you're a little bit more relaxed, it's not requiring as much as you begin to disagree. I just wonder if this plays into Little bit of biology like, Well, look, we're in disagreement, we're not working together, I've got to assume more responsibility of this thought this process this conversation.35:10  And then you know, these these guys looked at that, and they're like, well, meanwhile, if they're disagreeing activity, increasing the brain's frontal lobe, your home of higher order executive functions and filtering, and but that's a necessary evolutionary response. Yeah, because if I'm actually in a disagreement, like my like this could escalate, I need to start thinking and planning ahead. The problem is when you start having disagreements over stupid stuff, or things like that, or you have the same disagreement, let's say with a spouse, like you know, I don't know, it's really random, but like, clean up your bedroom, you're so messy, when you come home kind of thing, just random. And fortunately, since I disagree, I'm able to cognitively avoid that. You know what, never mind I realize I'm just going to go home and be in sync from now on and just be one with my mess. Sure, and just allow it to happen. Yeah, or I don't consider it a mess. Yeah, just said, I actually don't consider it that. So what knowing that we've got this synchronicity when this happens when two people agree that brains exhibit calm synchronicity, focused in the sensory areas of the brain, and discord, the brains engage in emotional and cognitive resources. Now, here's the cool part, if we're both disagreeing, and this is both going on, when we're in synchronicity, we're playing a symphony together. When we're disagreeing, and your cognitive functions doing this, and minds doing this, we're both playing symphonies in our heads, but they're different. Trying to play him at the same time. It's36:36  like a jazz band.36:40  So you're, you're equating jazz to cognitive dysfunction.36:44  drummers playing one song bass players playing another. I love jazz music, but it's wild.36:49  So the bottom line is, when you're actually in agreement, you have less cognitive engagement, you have more brain power to do other things. I thought about this, because when you're really like, well, like when we scope like, when I'm scoping, you get into this flow state. And things are good, just, it's just things just your brain just goes. And37:08  so over the years, we've worked together now several, I mean, really, I think the first time that we worked together as in 2012, and in that time, we've seen certain technicians in the room, right, come through and and work with you right now. And we, you've had several great technicians. But over the years, I've seen us where maybe you didn't have the one that caused them not that they were bad, but one that didn't compliment the way that you scope, or the pace that we have in the room, something like that. And right now, we're really fortunate because pretty much every technician that we have right now is really, really, really good. That being said, interesting, that when we're all on the same page, and we can have a we can have a day with several patients, but we catch every problem. patients feel great. They wake up awesome. turnover. Time is awesome. And we're all37:58  we're never behind. Oh, all those things still happen regardless, but we're just smiling more in those days. Yeah.38:05  Thanks for a great day other than I'm out of here.38:08  You know, what's funny about that? Now, that really brings up a good point where I have, I have a lot of surgical friends that do really kind of like neurosurgeons and things. Yeah, and wow, at what I would consider now where I'm like, man, they're so sad. They gotta have that same anesthesiologist, they gotta have those texts, they gotta have that certain music going. They gotta have that. That's not OCD. That's them getting in sync.38:28  Yeah. But it's, but it's kind of a home, right? Because everyone's agreeing with this environment. This scenario, and I do that same thing with Eckhart, when I'm doing is eyes, you know, I mean, it's, we've got a great pace. But some of that, honestly, it's kind of overused term, it's kind of curated, right, we have a playlist that we listen to, that the patients will relax to, but it's good for us.38:50  Yeah, that's gonna be a whole separate thing about the what happens when, you know, you played certain music, and they'd like now now knowing that you can, like examine the brain while they're doing you don't have to be hooked up to things. I don't know how this test was done. So I just thought it was kind of interesting thing, I went down a rabbit hole where I'm very nervous about the possibility of varying degrees of long haul or symptoms. I don't like the term long haul. Because we've seen this with other viruses. I see it all the time. I mean, we've seen it with EBV, we've seen it with,39:19  which is really new. And we don't have enough data, especially because you said it from the very beginning. They got people who've been exhibiting these symptoms for three to six months. And if you look at the timescale for how long this has been out, that could technically be for as long as they've had the problem.39:34  And then if you're one of these people, you're like, Hey, you know what I had COVID and nothing's happened. So I'm sure I'm clear. That's cool. be on the safe side. Do the thing that we I was talking about eat functional foods. Take in polyphenols, avoid fasting. Yeah, avoid fast food. And, you know, if you do find yourself in an argument, and you're like, Hey, you know what, this person probably has a lot of brain inflammation. find some common ground, get a box of Atrantil set it there and be like we both need to calm down. I need to improve my microbiome and you need to block that neuro inflammation that's making you so mean towards me.40:06  Yeah, they'll totally be receptive if that's the first thing. I'm sure.You look angry.40:14  You look angry. Have you had your ? That should be a commercial? We do. Yeah. Two spouses fighting. Somebody shows up.40:21  I mean, anyone loves being told that it's your significant other The first thing out of your mouth, how was your day? You look angry. Everyone responds to that.40:31  You look like you. Your frontal posters. cerebral anterior cortex is not firing. And40:37  yeah, just start off with a cotton that just anything nice shoestrings today?40:42  Well, thank you find that common ground.40:44  Yeah, start start with the shoestrings and then see if we can grow from there.40:48  Alright, so you can disagree. So So the moral of this podcast is that, number one, find yourself in an argument, first of all, give somebody the benefit of the doubt that, hey, they could be having some inflammation going on in their brain. And if you've heard this podcast and understand that, then you can stop and go, Okay, now I understand that blood is being shunted someplace else. So it's going to be very difficult to continue this path. Let's take a second, find some common ground and start there and see if you can work your way back.41:14  It makes sense. And it doesn't have to just be COVID. If you have someone that's in your life, and you're they struggle with anxiety issues, and you always wonder kind of why they're on edge, it may not really be their fault.41:25  Yeah, I mean, it all comes down to the inflammatory process that's going on. And if you've got neuroinflammation because of God because of other things, it's from a science standpoint, it's always real you can I think it's easier to see the other person's perspective when you can, when it's easier for me to always understand somebody's perspective, if I can break it down to a soul level, you're short of breath, that means that your co2 is you know, like, I can go Okay, that's cool. I'm not gonna say why are you short of breath? We only ran one lap.42:04  Yeah, it's this is what's going on. It's so weird to say to somebody. Yeah, well, I think it's a really good point. And I'll, I'm gonna pull the curtain back here a little bit. And it's not exactly just an anxiety, inflammation of the brain. situation, however, it is a brain situation. And it was somebody who was close to me that started acting a little strangely. And for a while no one really knew. But my dad, who was always happy go lucky. For a brief period in his life, there was 24 months or so where he was irritable. And nobody really knew why, however, me included, everybody, unfortunately, hadn't had an exchange with my dad. This is several years ago, where we would probably have like an argument where I'm never even heard just the guy growing up, really. And it turns out, he had a brain tumor. And once we got a treated, and he was back to us back to, you know, normal dad. But oddly enough, I'm just thinking of situations where you just have to have enough empathy that if you feel like someone's on edge, I love the way you said it, give them the benefit of the doubt, find common ground. If you've always been running into recall, someone just find the common ground, because who knows, you may actually help them. You'll certainly get further in your conversation. And I wished it. Did I known that even back then. I mean, of course, it we were we were over it quickly, when we all figured out what was what was going on. But it was something that he couldn't control at all. And but yeah, it's worth giving someone a bit of a doubt.43:44  The brain is so fascinating to me, because when you say that he couldn't control it all whether it's a tumor or whether when people I was listening out, man, that fighter that's on Joe Rogan's most recent episode. Oh, what's his name is? Justin Ren. Justin read.44:01  Yeah. Is it just an idea? He does the in Uganda? Yeah.44:06  He does such an incredible job of explaining addiction and depression. He's been through it in a way that you're just like, Whoa, yeah, like I did not know it got like that. And even Joe was like that. I'm just the kind of guy that can walk away from things. And guess what, some people could have walked away from everything that he struggles to walk away from. It's just not how it worked for him. And it's how his brain is wired. And it helped him to understand he actually said that flat out he's like, once it was explained to me that I have less dopamine going on. And once I take this, it hits me different than it hits other people. And finally learning that allowed me to realize this is not a mind over willpower kind of thing. This is strictly when I do this. This is what's going to happen. If you're a diabetic. And I'm like, Eric, I got the greatest donut. You're gonna love it. It's amazing. And you look at that and go well, if I eat that my blood sugar will spike and I will end up Possibly, you know, an hyperglycaemic crisis. It's that makes sense, right? Yeah. But we never talked about the brain, we never say, oh, if you drink the day before, maybe the following day, you may end up with your GABA receptors depleted, and therefore you'll have increased anxiety. And that can lead to panic attacks. Yeah, things like that.45:19  My cousin, psychiatrist and years and decades ago, I remember him telling me that one of the most difficult things to deal with in psychiatry is that it's not like orthopedics, you can see a broken bone and want to fix it. You just can't see the brain, you just see the resulting things of people's behavior. And that's kind of hard, because it's all when you're little, you're told to behave, Oh, of course, behave, do the right thing. Whatever. If someone misbehaves so many times, it's attributed Well, they've chosen to act poorly. But maybe, maybe some things are just in a process of inflammation where they're making. Yeah, they're making bad decisions, but maybe they're arriving at the decision, not really, how they wanted to get there. And then, you know, we46:07  talked about what we've, I mean, CTE is a relatively new thing. But CTE is now showing up. And not just in football, it was discovered there. But now we're seeing in MMA fighters, which we thought MMA was safer than boxing, because, you know, you didn't get hit 20 times. But now we're seeing some of these fighters do some different things we talk about some of the very, you know, some very sad and horrific suicides, and some things like that have gone on with people that have had long careers in professional wrestling is one and that and you're just like, Whoa, and people want to block your players.46:39  Oh, really? Yeah. head butting? Oh, yeah, knocking that46:43  knocking the ball around. It's great. It's crazy. And so it all comes down to inflammation. And so it's it's sort of, it's sort of my life's mission, you know, the brain gut access, decrease the inflammatory process in the gut, and the brain and the same thing, and we can do it all the time. You know, increase your NRF two pathway, decrease your your TNF alpha, your interleukin sector and liquid ones. And those are those are fancy words for just saying, Let's stop the inflammatory process.47:09  Yeah, that's it. It's crazy. But it's all it's not it's all but so much of disease and chronic disease is just tied back to inescapable long term inflammation.47:20  And that's so good. Circling all the way back to the very first thing that I said the whole Wim Hof thing as I started reading about it, actually one of my patients who's suffering a lot from a multitude of symptoms, kind of like a systemic inflammatory process. And it's really kind of struggling to come out of it. And we've tried a lot of different things. He's like, he's like, Doc, it's like, I've been doing this thing called Wim Hof Method now for a couple months. And I was like, I'll try anything. And then as I started looking at it, it actually, because you control the parasympathetic system, which is the vagus nerve, which is the great highway from the gut to the brain, you actually do change the whole, well, I don't know the exact aspect. But if you're affecting the parasympathetic nervous system, you're going to decrease neuronal activity in areas that you don't want it to be hyperactive. So breathing, that's how come calming breathing increases parasympathetic, exhaling, and that's how come there's so much meditative yoga. And there's so many things like that there's a physiologic thing that goes on if you do it, right. Which also brings up an interesting point, because I just thought of this, just now, every time I've ever done yoga, like a yoga class, and I've done quite a bit, it's mainly just to kind of get it out of the way. It's like, I'm gonna go do my stretching thing. And when they say home, and they do this, and I had cognitive dissonance, I was like, I was gonna argue the fact we don't really need to make these weird sounds, can we just stretch? And now I just realized, and here I am, I did that. I went in there with a disagreeing attitude of why we have to do these other things I just wanted to get my stretch on. And I'm at fault for that. I just realized, I just noticed that there it is,49:03  you know, even when someone's intubated in surgery, in your right eye when you're applying the yoga and the humming or whatever, because basically, you're creating resistance for the air to leave the lungs, etc. The hyperinflation of the lungs. Well, guess what we do someone's intubated and we need a valsalva maneuver, we basically just hyper inflate the lungs, but we're just doing it mechanically. And it's because it's been proven time and time again that that is going to stimulate the vagus nerve and get the acetylcholine from the Vagus,49:34  man. See, this is what I liked that book so much. They went into that where they said that if you slow exhale while humming through your nose, you actually increase nitric49:44  oxide in the blood as well. Yeah, because you need the veza dilation to bring in blood that's been metabolized or the blood it's been bringing the metabolites co2 back to the lungs be breathed off. I mean, it just goes in that cycle over and over again. And it's kind of cool because this is This is really why I want to do this show, I think because later after you do some more Wim Hof, because I'm really curious on how they explain it to the layperson. Maybe we could lay down a little bit of physiology that way that if someone's sitting there, sitting on the edge of Wim Hof, or nesters ideas, we can actually show physiologically why what they're saying,50:20  actually makes a lot of sense. And there's a lot of science on this. I think that a lot of academic institutions have used him as a guinea pig because he allows it because he's not only a believer, he is the example he Yes, and then they can show all these different physiologic changes, but it's really cool. So like, I'm thinking, you know, practice, practice what we preach here. I don't know like next time I find myself in an argument with somebody have something locked and loaded, that you can agree on just so that you can almost like press the reset button. Possibly. Yeah. Oh, wait, hold on. I know that you're doing this. But if you're noticed, and then just something that's kind of that everybody will agree on me. Of course, everybody likes Jolly Ranchers. Yeah. You know, that's high fructose corn syrup. Yeah. I was just thinking of things that people would normally like. Yeah, normally.51:11  Yeah. Honestly, in today's climate, I don't know that there's any one thing other than you could say oxygen is good to breathe. And Sun is good most of the time.51:20  I know that the Lord is gonna call you up be like Eric, what happened? Every time that I want to tell him to go clean his room or something? He says that that don't you think that my hair looks pretty? It's it's become a weird tick. I51:35  think we need to scan as bright as the common51:39  that's common ground.51:40  Yeah. Well, man, awesome. Awesome. Surprise there. I love I love the topic.51:47  But we're good. We're gonna get sciency Yeah, we're gonna have some guests on that can can kick some knowledge on their books and on the on the research that they're doing?51:53  Yeah, keep an eye out for Olivia and Aiden to be joining the podcast here really, really soon. Sweet. I'm excited about that. And we're still not finished with the installments on on the immune system, literally. Keeping up with the email over the last episodes, as well as preparing for a couple of other things. Just the new year is etc. We've had a really bizarre shake up in our schedule at the info center. Whether we're full or not full of random times. There's news. Yeah, life still goes on here too. Hey, we52:26  got a new president of the United States.52:30  Oh, yeah, that's right. I forgot about that.52:32  So there was immediately executive orders, which were like, Oh my gosh, how's this gonna affect us? And52:36  did you know what we have to work? We still have to put gas in the car. So take care of the kids. Ultimately, all politics is still local. I still gotta be nice to everybody around the house. You know, you said52:48  you put in order gas in the car then kids and I know deep down USA stuff to work got to buy my Waterloo. Oh, Bill, the gas52:57  that's given. It's like taxes,52:59  Episode 48. So next time, if number one, hopefully you will never get COVID if you do get COVID and it's mild. Keep an eye out that there appears to be a low level inflammatory response which could lead to other things so control the inflammation by controlling your diet eating a very colorful plate. Top zinc Yeah, takes a vitamin D. The polyphenols in our trunk to have been shown to help with the innate immune system. See Episode 47 your sleep? Absolutely. pillars. So any parting words hurt53:30  now? Thank you all for for I mean, seriously, the the last two episodes the amount of email sharing. Thank you. Yeah, and I appreciate it.53:40  Yeah. So please, like subscribe, the usual stuff, share it. We want to try and get the word out and if there's any questions or anything, email them, we try to get to it. We have Angie Coker secret weapon who will find any article anywhere in the world at any hour.53:57  Yeah, he gets some sleep.54:01  All right. Thanks, everybody. Bye bye. It's54:02  Episode 48 till later

0:00  Hello, everyone, welcome to the gut check project gut check project fans, KBMD health  family, how are you doing? It is now time for episode number 47. I'm here with my awesome co host, Dr. Kenneth Brown. 0:13  What's up Episode 47. This is part two of our immunology. So this is I'm pretty excited. Because just this morning, you said you better check out Joe Rogan this morning because Dr. Mark Gordon is on there. And this dude was saying everything that we've been talking about, but I feel like we even have it to the next level. So we're talking to scientists that understand the whole concept of functional nutrition, functional things that I felt like he was saying, everything that we've been talking about now for quite a while like yours0:45  is no doubt the coolest thing is another thing that we'll we'll get to it in a moment. But it's it's all about eating right. having great nutrition, he used an incredible example of India, where Let's face it, a lot of people don't have the economic means that we do here in the United States. However, they're facing COVID, they have the same health issues that we do here, roughly, and they've got a large population. So when comparing apples to apples are talking about nutrition, and there's some specific things in that nutrition when you say,1:17  oh, and we're gonna get into that, in fact, I got an article here that we're gonna go over and I'll spoiler alert for you. But it's exactly what what what we're talking about right now. So we got some feedback. I apologize to everyone the last podcast we did, we were trying some unique things. And we didn't have such good sound quality, but that's what you get when your sponsor is lousy Lavalier comm so we had LousyLavalier.com Yeah, so we dropped them. And so I'm happy to announce that we got a new sponsor, which we did get a new sponsor, and this is awesome. It's actually a hot dog company. They're called diarrhea dogs. And their slogan is, we're not sure what's in the dog, but we know it will give you diarrhea. Yeah. who's who's betting our sponsor?2:05  The cool thing is, is it's a it's a host specific sponsor, so I'm looking for you to tell me how I2:11  know seriously, who in the company is? Is it Mike? is Mike getting sponsors for us, Mike, because I've already cashed a check. We got to keep talking about diarrhea dogs.2:18  It's, I can't this can't keep happening.2:20  We had lousy Lavalier as a sponsor, then we followed up with diarrhea dogs, yeah. Oh, my goodness,2:25  this is not working out.2:26  We're gonna have a little talk with Barry Weiss. How you been man?2:30  doing well, so we're into a brand new year now. What brief amount of time had a great vacation with the family? And it really just in time, right. I mean, there's, everything's kind of limited on what you can do. Yeah. But we it was, it's good to always have the older son come home spend time with him. We started building some furniture over the last couple weeks. So it's a great bonding experience with me and the boys. And of course, Maria is telling us what she wants us to look like. So trying hard to make it. Yeah. But you know, it's it's been a lot of fun. Mac is in the swing of basketball. And so life, normal life is starting to take on a new meaning. But it's it's good.3:09  Yeah. What about you? Well, for us, um, you know, the, the whole COVID lockdown, you start looking at your house a little bit. And so loida kind of convinced me that maybe we should start considering making a few little changes. And it started out with the master bath. And she's like, you know, shoot, can I do a few other things? I'm like, Yeah, absolutely. So I'm really busy with work and come back. And then you know, next thing I know, the builders or the contractors there and he's like, Look, okay, so this is what we've designed. Here's the plans, bla bla bla bla bla, and, you know, he's like, we're gonna buy the neighbor's house and we're gonna, you know, tear, tear this one down. But I mean, it was just I'm like, Whoa, we're doing a lot of work here. So I'm already in it. We're gonna be in this house for a long time. It's a great area. You notice everybody's moving to Texas. They definitely dragons bringing everybody down here. So following him. So at3:54  any point, did you have a spreadsheet that said, redo house or simply burn house?4:01  Well, then it's like one of those shows. Like once you see the plans, you're like, Oh, yeah, I want it to look like that. But you know, and oh, guess what I did today was that guess what I did? 30 seconds ago. Oh,4:12  I know what you did? Yeah, you got into crypto.4:15  So as we're setting up to do this show, we started having a conversation about cryptocurrency and Bitcoin and people have been telling me to get involved. So in a spur of the moment, while Eric was setting up the mics and everything I bought some Bitcoin Yeah, go Bitcoin.4:29  Yeah. And and we need to probably have a disclaimer that we know nothing about cryptocurrency. Oh, absolutely. Nothing nice. But yeah, it was really kind of cool to watch you do it.4:36  Yeah. So we've covered our sponsors. A little word with the person that's choosing them in the future. And so let's jump into the immune episode part two. So even if the audio is a little bit off on that last one, I encourage everyone to look at our last podcast, because I do a detailed explanation in or at least detailed for a simple country butt Dr. That's living in Texas for the innate immune system, and I actually rewatched it when we were getting the comments great information, audio bad. And at the very end, I go, so that covers the adaptive immune system. I'm like, No, I should have no it was the innate, we did not cover the adaptive yet. There's a reason why that's coming, because then we're going to lead into the vaccinations for COVID and things. Right. So that was the innate. But here's what's really cool. We're gonna talk about what Dr. Mark Gordon was talking about on Joe show. And it's super cool. Like we've been on top of this the whole time. It's been it's it's actually huge, huge news for everyone.5:36  I think a lot of people can learn a lot about what they can do just to protect themselves. And let's small preface, you don't have to just apply the knowledge that you'll pick up today to COVID. COVID actually can begin to fit into other viruses with this talk that we're going to have today.5:52  Yes. And specifically, this is not a COVID talk. We're not saying that at all. What we're saying is we're gonna talk about how to optimize a well running immune system. Yeah. And so when I talked to some of my colleagues and people discuss different things, Angie, and I were talking that she's like, have you looked at our Mendeley account? So Mendeley is where we put all our articles, and I just did a quick look. We have over 1000 articles regarding immune health and how to optimize it through nutrition and lifestyle. Yeah. So even that is science backed. Everything we're talking about here is completely science backed. In fact, one of the things I wanted to discuss because I think it's really cool is this article that just came out in 2020. It's called the antiviral functional foods and exercise, lifestyle prevention of Coronavirus. That's a very boring title. And those are the kinds of things that I read. And it was published in the Journal of nutrients. What's fascinating about this is that they discuss the things that other people are now just finally starting to talk about. Yeah, so I want to review this article really quick. Then I want to get back to the whiteboard. And hopefully sound a little bit better.7:06  We're gonna use headphones today.7:07  Yeah, we're gonna try and use headphones. I got a new mic attached to a hemorrhoid bander because I feel very comfortable holding hemorrhoid banders. Yeah, so that is dry tone right there. That is right there. 7:20  that's almost as good as the Bob Barker microphone from the remember the little skinny one that he had on7:28  the show? Yeah, when they tell you to go spay and neuter your dog.7:31  Yeah. spay and neuter your dog spin the wheel. Drive. I can't wait. I had a hard time of that. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Great show.7:37  So basically, on this article, it's really interesting. Not actually not interesting. For us. It was it just reiterated everything that we've kind of base talking about. What they looked into was functional foods. They called it functional foods, and physical exercise. So the exercise part was a brief part than 90% of the article was talking about functional foods, which they described as functional foods being polyphenols.8:02  Incredible.8:02  So the functional foods are polyphenols because of the various mechanisms that they do in the body. We got contacted by an author of the sirt diet. That's sirtuins. And he noticed that we've been talking about polyphenols and said, Wow, you guys are on that. So the whole thing about Adele's diet that she lost all that weight, that's called the sirtuin diet or the sirt diet. And then I've watched it on Dr. Oz. And I was like, there's something about polyphenols, polyphenols. And the reason why is you're gonna see on this whiteboard, how many different ways a functional food like a poly phenol can benefit you definitely. And so the cert diet just means that you turn on certain genes, it's an epigenetic thing. So really quick on the exercise. No big surprise, as it turns out, exercise is pretty good for you. Sure. So they looked at different aspects of it. And what it does do is it does activate natural killer cells, and will induce monocytes to become antigen presenting cells like dendritic cells. If you go I don't know what that is. We talked about that on the last episode. And we're going to get to it again here. So don't worry. That being said, super extreme exercise, which we have talked about this can actually lower your immune system. So many times when people train super hard, and we're talking about like, marathons and triathlons and marathon running. I've had so many patients that get very sick after they really train for something, they go all out, and then they get sick. And it's because I didn't even realize this, that you produce so many reactive oxygen species. This damages cells, which leads to inflammation, you're gonna hear this term over and over again. And then it actually adversely affects your white blood cells ability to fight off infections. Yeah. So the real idea is that regular exercise is really good for you. It gets rid of old immune cells that don't work very well. And you actually stimulate young healthy cells that can actually have a young, healthier immune system. It has been shown that highly conditioned athletes have a much better functioning innate immune system, as opposed to sedentary people. Yeah. So when we're sitting in a viral season, and if you're sedentary and you're overweight, and you got diabetes and high blood pressure, your immune system doesn't work as well. And there's reasons for this in this paper. So then they kind of went through that they're like, yeah, okay, so exercise is good. And then they go into 90% of the rest of the article is discussing polyphenols and the multiple areas that these functional foods benefit our immune system. Okay. And, oh, we're probably jumping ahead. What's a polyphenol?10:40  Oh, what is it polyphenol? Yeah, tell everybody what a polyphenol islittle compounds that are found. And fruits and vegetables. Generally they are what can be responsible for the coloration that's inside those fruits and vegetables. And they they're naturally occurring. Some of them are large, or small. But in essence, our bodies love them.10:59  Absolutely. So I always refer to them as mother nature's secret weapon. This particular article goes into great detail about how the flavonoids, terpenoids alkaloids in the polyphenols, so they can go into that are actually bio active, they can influence genes have peptide qualities, and are broken down by our microbiome into potent anti aging, anti inflammatory, anti cancer metabolites.11:25  Right. You know, I was thinking about this, how do we bring validation to this part of this study, or the I'm sorry, the discussion, I guess, whenever we're talking about this to people, because I started thinking about, if someone years ago when you were when you were young, and someone said, you probably need more calcium to make your bones strong, you didn't just go to the store and buy sack of calcium, you generally just started drinking more milk or something similar. Or if you were an athlete, and you knew that you needed to make sure that you didn't get cramps, you ate bananas, or ate spinach, all of that stuff, you didn't go and just buy the little element, those elements are naturally occurring in something that you're eating or drinking. That's essentially what we're trying to talk about with polyphenols is there are small little things in there that your body craves, just like your bones want calcium, the these are the vehicles, these are the foods that will deliver what your body wants to maintain health and keep you healthy 100%. And they mentioned how versatile polyphenols are.12:24  Oh yeah, meaning they function in many different ways. Number one, they can have potential influence on your gut barrier, where they improve the immune system of the gut barrier, the first portion of that, then they actually have epigenetic phenomenon. Most important is that your microbiome will break these things down to beneficial products. And that's going to be something that we've talked about post biotics before, I'm very excited. We've contacted this a PhD in Argentina, who has one of the most amazing articles describing the post biotic effect. And they actually demonstrate that the larger, more complex polyphenol is the best way to consume it. In other words, yeah, you don't want to take the one little molecule. So that's pretty much what they said about polyphenols, because we're gonna talk a lot more about that. And then it kind of like briefly go over Oh, and then there's vitamin D, which is pretty good for y'all. So vitamin D deserves its own show, because it's more like a hormone than it is like a vitamin here. And then they look at a couple other things like vitamin C and stuff, and they kind of gloss over it. And then they come back to the polyphenols. And they're like, and then they reference to the viruses. And they show how there's so much information out there about how these polyphenols actually influence the destruction of multiple viruses like influenza, Zika, virus, HSV, and Corona.13:45  And there's a mechanism to and there's13:47  a mechanism for each one of these. So the conclusion is, and this is, I hate to say Joe Rogan, for the third time in about first five minutes, it'll validate what we say. He's always said, why aren't we discussing ways to improve our immune system, prevent ourselves and do this, these guys end the whole article, and by the way, it's thick 20, some pages with references and everything they end it with the conclusion is, this is a pretty cheap and simple way to improve your immune system or optimize, get some exercise, eat some polyphenols and get a little sun. Yeah, that was the combination of it. All right. And and these people put a lot of work into that. And that that's a spoiler alert.14:31  I think I might have said though it's really, really important is that there's a lot of work. There's a lot of research, there's a lot to take in here. However the solution if you really think about it, it isn't that difficult to adhere to this to keep to keep people healthy. That's actually the coolest part. The summary of it all is polyphenol, sleep exercise. You're off to an incredible start just with that and don't i don't think you should shy away from Rogan at all. He supports tons of other podcasts gives huge mentions to other people. They're doing the same thing. When I heard Dr. Mark on this morning with him, I just I liked it because it not only was somebody else talking about the same subject, but he was doing it in such detail that we like to talk about it, that I encourage you, we're not the only ones who have this level of research and are seeing these kinds of results with people.15:22  Oh, it's so cool. And now because we're in these circles with these PhDs, I'm getting preliminary data on different studies where it's humans, where they're looking at what I'm going to talk about here. Yeah. So what I thought we could do is try and do round two, you put some headphones on, 15:37  I'm going to have to,15:38  I'm going to grab my Bob Barker mic right here. I'm going to turn this one15:46  that was kind of quiet. And now I'm going to come back like this. There he is. This is why we have headphones. This is15:52  why we have headphones. And now I'm going to switch the cameraprobably should have you looked at the computer to make sure that I'm in focus and everything. And now, let's do a recap of the last. And that's not a window of the last podcast that we did. This is a kind of quicker version of what we did. And this is to get everybody up to speed because when we talk about polyphenols, we need to make sure that you understand exactly what's going on and why there are functional food. So just to recap, the innate immune system is your response to any type of damage, whether that damage is through physical damage, whether that damage is through infection, whether that damage is through repeated poor diet choices, your body is going to try and repair itself. So let's walk through what happens. The first step, step one, let's just assume that you have an infection. If you have a virus or bacteria, what it will do is it will attack a cell. So that cell no matter what it is, sounds an alarm. And it notifies its neighbor, which is kind of its bodyguard, the mast cell. The mast cell then releases what is called braided cinan. This is really neat, because if you ever sprained an ankle or done anything, this is what's going on. The braided cinan send different proteins or cytokines to the blood vessel. First step is the blood vessel. And what it does is it actually normally the blood vessels have very tight seals, what it does is the blood vessels pull apart a little bit to allow fluid to come out. Well, the reason for that is is that you want the swelling to contain whatever's going on. You sprained an ankle, you go oh my gosh, look at my ankle, it's so swollen, well, it's there for a reason, because that fluid is trying to concentrate what your body needs in the same area. So the fluid starts coming out step to these braded cinan, and different other cytokines send up little flags, just like Velcro sticks. And these are called intercellular adhesion molecules. And what they do is they grab white blood cells that are swimming by so these white blood cells have these little hooks and they get hit and they stop and they go, Oh, what's going on all the fluids going out that way, I'm gonna go out that way. So then the white blood cells join this little party over here. This is what ends up causing redness, swelling and pain anytime you have any type of infection, anytime you have any type of injury. So now we have these white blood cells, what they do is they go, Oh, that mast cell told us to go that way. And so the white blood cells head over to what's going on. And then this allows your body to fight the intruder that's doing this. So that's step one. So now these white blood cells come around. You heard me say in that other study the antigen presenting cells. So one of these types of cells, which is a phagocyte, will actually first thing it does is it swallows the invader, bacteria, virus, fungus, whatever it is, swallows it, and the reason why does it it digests it, and then it breaks it apart and goes, Okay, this is what it looks like. So it puts wanted posters on its outside. So this guy said, I know what's attacking us now, this, this guy right here. So these antigen presenting cells, put it on the outside, and then they do something else. They release cytokines, specifically, multiple cytokines, but the important ones are TNF alpha, interleukin six, interleukin one, interleukin eight, and you're going to hear a lot more about this, because I'm talking to scientists all over the world. And people are now studying specifically how we can use functional foods to control this response. So TNF alpha, does a lot of things. It's a pro inflammatory cytokine. And so we know that TNF alpha is used in very expensive drugs block that for rheumatory arthritis for Crohn's disease for ulcerative colitis for all of that. So TNF alpha does something kind of interesting that I found unique is it actually goes to the hypothalamus and it increases your core body temperature. So when I say these are bad, they're really good for you in small amounts, it's when it becomes too much that it becomes bad. So TNF alpha hits the hypothalamus increases, and that's how you get fever, interleukin six, it goes to the bone marrow and increases the white blood cells. So this is why you have that achy feeling if you've ever had the flu, or if you're gonna get a vaccine, and you go, Oh, my gosh, I had a vaccine, that kind of hurt, I feel like I have a low level flu. It's because the bone marrow is producing more white blood cells. interleukin one goes to the liver to produce acute inflammatory reactance, which goes into something called the complement system. But that inflammation is what we measure in people. In fact, cardiologists use this all the time they look at C reactive protein, yeah, because when you have inflammation, the liver produces this. So people with coronary disease will have increased levels of that, and then interleukin eight.Fascinating, it basically produces more of those little Velcro hands. So then we come all the way back to the blood vessel. And now we've got dilation, fluid coming out. And every white blood cell that's coming through gets grabbed. So when you have the white blood cells producing here, you've got the fever, which increases the amount of blood flow heart rate is faster, everything. It's an phenomenal and just beautiful little system. Yeah, it is. And when it works great. It's exactly what we need. It's exactly what you need. In the acute phase. Definitely the innate immune system is here to protect you in the first phase. So now step three of the innate immune system out of you, but that's the antigen presenting cell, the one that we were talking about over here, sometimes they sometimes they get overwhelmed, and the virus actually wins. So the poor little guy dies. It's that's a good cartoon. Yeah, so the poor guy dies here. So the antigen presenting cell dies. So it leaves rubble, so it's comes out and the body even gets that. So reactive oxygen species are left behind, that's known as oxidative stress. That's good in small amounts, because that will kill other things around it. Assuming that this guy got overwhelmed when he dies. Maybe other cells are being overwhelmed, and then that oxidative stress will kill it. Yep. This is known as a reactive oxygen species or reactive nitrogen species. But when that goes on for a long time, that's what actually causes chronic disease, like heart disease, cancer, aging, this is actually why we age, reactive oxygen species, autoimmune disease, dementia and obesity. Nobody ever thought that you can become fat because you have low level chronic inflammation. And I've talked about this on other episodes. 22:56  Definitely.22:57   So final step here is the thing you didn't know about, which is the toll like receptors, right? Okay, so toll like receptors is just another layer of defense, where if these toll like receptors are actually activated, they do very specific things. For instance, the toll like receptor number seven, is very specific to release certain things to fight RNA viruses. You can go through these others, there are ones that are built to fight bacteria that are flageolets flageolets. Yeah, I think we're both saying that wrong, but that's okay. fragilities, flageilities. And they also do something that we have talked about before, I want to say we talked about it. On at least three episodes, I can think of the epigenetic phenomenon of nuclear factor Kappa beta NFKB. So when the toll like receptors turned on NFKB goes up. And NFKB is the one that we talked about with the broccoli episode, right? with David Roberts and john gilday. On Yeah, this is the one that actually has a what's called plio trophic phenomenon. So it affects many different things. So when NF Kappa beta is turned on, then you go through a huge surge of our old friends, TNF alpha, interleukin six, right? So he has more inflammation with inflammation, the common theme of inflammation, right? So inflammation, what does inflammation lead to? Oh, this dementia, autoimmune aging, cancer, heart attack na, so this innate immune system is here. The other thing that I did not mention was that when the toll like receptors get turned on, like this toll like receptor number seven, which is for viruses, one of the things that releases is interferons. interferons, actually, are molecules that directly destroy cells that have been infected with viruses. So if you were to get a virus, you breathe it in through your nose, let's say it goes to your lungs, a cell is being attacked, it can actually send a signal to a healthy cell says We're under attack, you need to be ready for this. And that's the little cell that waits with a gun at the door. So when the virus rings, the doorbell goes and shoots it. That's not proper technique and how you shoot it. We've25:21  seen actual footage of this going down at a microscopic level. So yeah,25:24  it's it's fascinating. Yeah, absolutely. It's like watching an old Western, just like oh, my gosh, and the. And it's totally true. Because the viruses that show up, they always wear black hats every time every time. Yeah. So that's a recap of very quick recap of what we talked about last episode. Yeah, I get it a little bit more detail. How's it? How's the sound quality?25:47  The sound is much better than last time.25:49  Okay, good. So hopefully, we'll continue with this. So how do we describe how functional foods work? Because our big thing last time was improve your immune system do this, but nobody talks about how, why?26:05  I've got a question for you. So when we look at this, and I think this is a reasonable question, you look at it, and we're talking about all the bad manifestations that happen. When there's too much TNF alpha, or aisle six or aisle one, we have too much row s, or I'm sorry, reactive oxygenation, species, ultimately, too much inflammation. But I needed all of this to happen. So, Dr. Brown, what is it that I'm missing? That would help me not have the system that I need? That keeps me alive and safe, run out of control? And basically, ultimately destroy me anyhow?26:42  Absolutely. So what we're talking about is how do you optimize? Yeah, well, running immune system. Definitely. One of the theories right now is that why do younger people not get sick with the current virus that's going around, is because they have a very good innate immune system. As we age, as I mentioned, as we age or you become sedentary, possibly, this happens. And so you go, Oh, well, I still don't get that. We'll imagine this. Imagine quietly, this attack happens, virus, bacteria, anything, and your innate immune system is kind of slow to react. And by the time it realizes, Oh, my gosh, something's going on. Many cells have been infected. Which means when these cytokines go up, it's a huge amount. If you have a really healthy innate immune system, you catch it at the first cell. Yep. So let's talk about functional foods. functional foods, functional foods, polyphenols, so I'm going to use these little brand. These little hexagons. Yeah. Demonstrate functional six added. Yes. Excited. Whatever you go.27:50  All right. Now hexagon, you're27:52  right. This is all based off of science. All based off of very detailed documented, I want to thank every PhD out there who goes through this kind of trouble and probably gets no recognition. Because this is Sony. And, you know, we're talking about so when Dr. Mark Gordon was on his show today, he didn't really understand why course it's an or why tumeric does this. Let's talk about that. Let's do that. All right, step one. So this will represent the different stages that it actually happens. Step one, intestinal gut health, intestinal gut health, that's your first barrier. Anything that comes in, you're going to make sure that you have a good healthy working gut, healthy work in gut. Step two. We know that it has potent antiviral activity. I mentioned earlier in the other article about how these functional foods can actually destroy viruses on contact.28:52  So we've got gut and the virus itself.28:54  antivirus itself step. If the virus makes it past that, inside the cell itself, is the M protease that allows the virus but bacteria do this also. It has to attach to the cell. Well, what does it do? It prevents it from attaching then, oh my gosh, this is a really tough virus and it made it through all these lines of defense already. Yeah. Well, as it turns out, bunch of foods polyphenols actually work zinc Ionafores and prevent the replication29:35  Hmm. Blocking replicase 29:37  replicase correct. Nice actually blocks the replication.29:42  So So right now we have four tags up and we're still on number one of the innate immune system. That's29:47  why it's so important to understand the innate immune system. Yes. And why nobody's talking about this. I'm going to keep going. Yeah, and this is not once again, this is not my opinion. Yeah. We've got 1000 articles to To show all of it, right? Okay, so now we got our friend, the mast cell over here and everything that I'm saying is not an on or off switch, it's the optimized way to do it. If your body needs it, these functional foods help it ramp it up. If it doesn't, it does it. Alright, so the mast cell that releases the braided cinans that go to the blood vessel, oh, the mast cell actually gets stabilized by functional foods, polyphenols, nice. So it doesn't overreact or under react, then it's almost like, really, truly Mother Nature's secret weapon, then the blood vessels which release the fluids, there's something called or I forgot what the actual enzyme is, but it actually attenuates the enzyme that creates the leakage. So it controls the amount of fluid that comes out. And in the same line, what it does is it actually controls the amount of the adhesion molecules, so all those little hooks that grab that, right, it actually does the optimum amount for that. Okay. So getting back, this is why Dr. Mark Gordon was like, Oh, we have shown that it helps with inflammation, I'm going to tell you exactly where it helps, right whole pathway. Okay, so we've now blocked the little adhesion molecules so that only the right amount of cells come out, only the right amount of cells come out. And remember, when I said that it monocytes become our antigen presenting cells, it helps them mature. Oh, it's like steroids for those guys.31:35  So it activates them. It's a growth hormone, right? So we're allowing these phagocytes to now do their role. And by having the right amount of polyphenols available, it's going to do it quicker.31:45  Exactly. So we're now heading to step two. So what does it do? Oh, yeah. It helps the antigen presenting cells, taking the vacuoles and put those different proteins on the outside quicker, because it's already made these more mature. And then we get to the real important part, it tells the antigen presenting cell, yo, be a little careful how many cytokines you send out. Hmm. So there's multiple studies looking at each one of these. And so I'll do this real quick. While you're32:19  putting those up there, I'll just add that Dr. Gordon spoke today specifically about how high circulating cytokines lead to insomnia and an inability to rest enough because it causes neural inflammation, which is just building on it. That's32:33  right. He did, he talked to specifically about that. And that's that brain gut connection and percent inflammation, that's what we always talk about. So as it turns out, it tells the antigen presenting cell, Hey, be careful what you do, then just to make sure as another safeguard, it specifically will control how much TNF alpha, how much interleukin six, how much interleukin one and how much interleukin eight is actually necessary. And these are all documented on specific studies. And I know that these are being done in humans right now, because I'm getting preliminary results. And they're showing very specific in vivo, meaning people that have this kind of situation, actually decrease these different cytokines. So it's not just a total decrease. It's the right amount. So if you need more white blood cells, then there's no reason to shut it off completely. Right. Like we just can't You can't be smarter than Mother Nature. Yeah, comes down to Okay, how am I sounding sound good. All right. Now, let's go to it's a lot better than last week. So so let's go to Step three, the antigen presenting cells that do this, also do another job, briefly, which we will get into in some other episode, or will bring a better person to do it. Some of those cells go to the lymph system, where they then activate the adaptive immune system where they form antibodies.33:56  Very, very important,33:58  relevant right now, because if everybody's running out getting a vaccine, that's what you're working on worthless unless you have this optimal.34:04  Yeah. 100%.34:06  So we won't get into that. But guess what functional foods polyphenols do?34:10  Oh, you don't even tell me that. They also work on that side. They also work on that. It's almost like your body wants polyphenols.34:16  It's almost like your body wants polyphenols. And of course, while we're at it, I mean, it's like it's almost like no, no, now he's just going overboard. No, no, I mean, it's, trust me, I read every article. It's like I feel like I'm making stuff up. Now. It helps produce interferons. It helps control the toll like receptors.34:43  So means you're just a side note. interferon if anybody's ever dealt with early stage, melanoma, I mean, there are various cancers that you actually had to end up getting injections for interferon.34:54  I did I really thought you're gonna go if anybody's ever dealt with herpes. Now I'm dead serious. Yeah, like Libya isn't interferon?35:02  Absolutely. It isn't interferon. I'm just saying I guess what I was going is, is that35:07  if you've ever dealt with herpes, you kind of looked at me like, no.35:11  That's how I felt.35:16  But this is true. So drugs do this. You're exactly right. chemo drugs and drugs like a cycle of beer. They're their interferons. Yeah, because they block viruses. So polyphenols help increase the amount of interference when it's necessary. Correct. And by blocking the toll like receptors and controlling that. They actually decrease nuclear factor Kappa beta nfkb. We had that talk with Brocelite. So polyphenols and sulforaphane block, NF Kappa beta. So35:46  I was making sure that you're making contact with the people in the room. Do you think I was I was waving over somewhere else?35:52  I thought you were having a hallucination. So all right, so we blocked NF Kappa beta, which ultimately we know does the most major thing inflammation. So we've been saying a long time that the Mediterranean diet is an anti aging, anti inflammatory diet. Yes. This is why when Adele did her sert diet, this is why it works. You decrease overall inflammation, definitely the whole process. And because, oh, I skipped a little step here. But one thing that we always talk about is the potent antioxidant effects.36:33  Yeah, I'm glad you're getting this part because we're going to augment this little section here, too.36:37  Yeah. So tell me what you got to say about antioxidant.36:39  What is it immediately takes me back because ROS is something that Joe botel and we've referenced her on the show multiple times. But when she was talking specifically about long endurance athletes and how they get injury, and how certain people who are high performance athletes get injured and have a difficult time recovering, it's often because they don't have good control of their RMS or reactive oxygenation species. you're pointing at something, but I'm not on camera. Oh, I am now. So there we go. I didn't know that. There's no red lights in here, by the way. But I find that to be a really big key aspect about rlms. And what polyphenols do because she specifically said to it to decrease healing time and increase optimal athletic performance, high polyphenol concentration, or normal amount is a must, and that our bodies are simply waiting on enough polyphenols to do this job.37:34  Yes. 100%. So now the final part here is more of a vague, you get a picture camera now to fix the camera. You can't take me by surprise anymore. I mean, we can hire Mike to find our to find our podcast sponsors, but we can't even hire a good audio visual guy.37:50  I don't think that hot dog company comes with that.37:56  Alright, so we get down to this last thing here, which is chronic disease. So what we talked about low level inflammation. This is how you can protect yourself against heart disease, cancer, aging, autoimmune dementia and obesity. And I put this one up as a general one, because we mentioned it a little bit, I want to talk about it right after this, about how large stable polyphenols I found an article that showed the more hydroxyl bonds on the outside, more beneficial is. That's why when we initially were developing Atrantil, and Dr. Bruce Burnett looked at this and said you picked the perfect poly phenol to be the most bioactive and most diverse.38:37  That's all he does. There's there's more points to do stuff. It's like more surfaces. It's more38:41  surface area. Exactly. And then in addition to that, we know that in all these articles, so if you're somebody you're like, Oh, I already take tumeric. I already take quercetin and that's awesome. Keep doing that. Yeah, keep doing that. But you have to understand something tumeric and quercetin don't get directly absorbed, they actually have to go to the microbiome where they get broken down into the metabolites. I've got articles to show what is the effective metabolite, of quercetin. So when Dr. Mark was talking about that, I want to tell him, that's awesome. But you better make sure that you have a good microbiome. So what this represents is the prebiotic ability of polyphenols to diversify your microbiome so that when you take these things, you're getting the appropriate we're gonna call them the appropriate metabolites. I call them post biotics, but we're gonna call him the appropriate metabolite.39:31  It's a honestly it's kind of like if, if you look at the way that he talked about ecgc, and, and tumeric, and trying to enforce it and etc. He broke all those down and talked about their beneficial natures as it pertains to inflammation. But what you're describing, if I can kind of put it into layman's terms, it's almost as if that is great. And you can get an Uber to have that delivered to somewhere and you hope it's a great car and you hope It gets you there comfortably. But in order for it to be effective and get there on time you want a private car you want the limousine. The limousine is the larger molecule, the all natural, larger parent molecule, if you will, kind of like what's in Atrantil and abbraccio to do that,40:17  exactly. So what you want to be able to do and what we're saying is not just supplements. Now, this is why you want to have a very colorful plate. That's why you want to have lots of fruits and vegetables. Yeah, continue to do that. Try to do every non GMO foods and vegetables. But when we're talking about polyphenols, very few things concentrate polyphenols, so when you're like, Oh, I heard Dr. Oz talked about reservatrol polyphenol. Oh, I heard someone so talk about Kirsten, polyphenol. Oh, but you know what? I drink green tea, polyphenol. Yeah. And they all get broken down. Here's what's fascinating. And I can't wait to do this. When we have Dr. Sylvia on her research is showing that you can produce quercetin egcg, which is green tea extract. You can produce the metabolites of curcumin and all these things from larger tannins. Yeah, that's what I mean, this is so fascinating, and your body knows how to do it. And you know what? I mean? Do me a favor, when you get done watching this, go to COVID? episode number two, because we did that in March. Yeah. And we were right, because we talked to scientists all the time. We're always doing this. So Sofia said, You know what, I'm gonna challenge you not to we will share the mic even though the You and I both been tested, like yesterday. Yeah, for COVID and we're negative, can you walk through and just explain what each one of these days does really quick, 41:30  I'm going to try Okay, so that a right there is going to prevent the virus itself that a if there's for the gut microbiome, that a I believe is going to prevent it from binding to that set of cells, that one is going to function as a zincionafor prevent or allowing zinc to go in and stop the replicates that is a mast cell that's going to help control the number of goodness gracious, I guess those little inflammatory markers that are going to go to the blood vessel braided cinans kind of There you go, and then be circulated which of course, we're going to regulate the amount of fluid that's going to leave the bloodstream and we're going to stop the amount of flags are gonna pop up as appropriate. Orders one, Oh, that one is a phagocytes, that's going to improve the the maturation of the phagocytes the one just below it is going to help the phagocytes since they are maturing more quickly, it's going to allow the them to display quicker and then it's going to regulate the number of cytokines which is TNF alpha, IL six, IL one and il eight. And I don't know if I'm gonna go through the mechanisms of those but that's okay. Oh, yeah, good, quick. TNF. Alpha is for the brain. IL six is for the bone and it's because of white blood cell maturation IL one is for infection and inflammatory things that come from the liver and i l eight, is what is going to basically start the cycle all over again, where the fluid is, is being summoned and redness, swelling and pain.42:55  Excellent. Stage three.42:56  Okay, that's the presenting. Yeah, it is. And that's where the cells dying, we get to oxygen a oxidative stress. Yeah, it says that. But we need to control our ros because it's not the RO S is bad. Too much ros, though, can lead to long term heart disease, cancer, aging, autoimmune dementia, obesity, and adaptive antibodies, we aren't going to go all the way through there. But essentially, aside from the innate immune system, we need help in the adaptive immune system as well.43:28  It would be fascinating to see what the antibody levels of people that are vaccinated if you're scientists out there on your on your cool study will supply you with some big polyphenols and see if people mount a better antibody response. If it lasts longer. These are all just fascinating questions. What's this?43:45  So when we get over here to TLR, we this is what is going to function as another flag zone, where we're going to signal the liver to then produce interferon, which functions to fight cancers and all kinds of different things like that. And then we have NF kb. We've talked about this extensively, whenever we had Brock elite on the show, both john and David was gonna say, Robert, but it's David Roberts on the show. And essentially, what we want to do is not have this gigantic burst of TNF alpha, and IL six because it's just going to turn into more inflammation. And again, Polly finos once again, aren't going to abandon you. They're still going to work even on that end. Okay.44:32  You're so much smarter than I thought you were. Nice job.44:36  I just remember a lot.44:38  Can you hear me on this one?44:39  Yeah, yeah, that was never good.44:41  You can probably take the headphones off now to show everybody. So did that make sense? I44:47  think it makes a lot of sense. I mean, it's a lot of information. Not everybody is going to just readily walk away, like we just did from it, but watch it several times. I think though, really what we're trying to show here is that We don't want to just say that we don't want to just say that polyphenols they'll work with with viral or bacterial infection. This is something that I wish more people would do you tell me that something works. Just explain how show me how how do you know that it's going to work? And I'm not saying that people don't have markers or blood enzymes or circulating things that they measure, they see things go down. That's important that lets you know that we're on the right track. But this kind of stuff, this kind of research that you've been sifting through with Angie, is just awesome. Because now it's almost like putting a name to the face. We can see how it's working. Exactly. So I think it's important. 45:41  And this doesn't just stop here because you know, Angie's episode, people, it's really being shared a lot. Oh, yeah, just people if you have pots or Ehlers danlos or CBOE or anything, people thousands of downloads on the podcast, by the way. Yeah. And she describes how when you have NF Kappa beta up, yeah, you're gonna have decreased acetylcholine when TNF alpha like this is all the balance in that. Yeah. The key is to see the colon whenever Yeah, but that's a whole separate conversation. This is strictly on the innate immune system, right. And so I find it fascinating. I find it fascinating that when I listen to another doctor talk about this, and I'm like that I very much like, very much like me, like, I'll listen to stuff and the patients will ask me, they're like, hey, do you know about this? And I'm like, I don't have the bandwidth and the time to do it. That's awesome, which is why I kind of tasked or I didn't task. She did it on her own, which is why Angie learned so much about dysautonomia, like I just don't have that in me right now or the time to do it. And she crushed it. Yeah. And one of the what we've been emailing, she's been emailed by so many people, she's gonna keep going, she's gonna end up writing a book and probably saving a lot of people. And so this is this is first step, innate immune system. I tell all my patients, let's exercise a little I don't care what you do, just get up off the couch and move around, right? Doesn't really matter what, don't eat highly processed foods, like high fructose corn syrup, soybean oil, anything, you're open in a package, read the label, because that breaks down that Mary, Mary Mary first step, which is gut health. All health begins and ends in the gut, definitely. And then get your polyphenols, get a little sun, get some sleep. Do you do that? That's better than what's better than most are doing.47:32  I mean, it really is. And it's, it seems complicated. And but in the end, the actionable items really aren't that complicated.47:41  I mean, when we're in some weird times, I mean, let's be honest, we're taping this episode. The day after we had that weird thing that happened last night or yesterday where47:51  you didn't get your change back at the store. I didn't47:53  get my change back. I'm still upset about that. The lady was clearly distracted, because apparently our government was overrun by48:02  Oh, yeah, that was a big deal. Yeah.48:05  And so these are stressful times. Yeah, we got to keep the inflammation down. There's nothing to cause inflammation. Yeah, don't, don't bring it upon yourself. Don't eat bad. Don't lose sleep, and make sure that you get your polyphenols.48:17  To my knowledge, polyphenols won't directly help bad politics, but maybe those politicians could use some more polyphenols and they wouldn't act so crazy.48:26  Oh my gosh, don't even get me started. Because what I want to do, and I believe that this will be the future we're gonna be sitting here 50 years from now we're gonna look the same because of the anti aging qualities of polyphenols. The 50 years from now we're gonna be like, wasn't that great that they put psilocybin in the water so that we all treat each other nice. You know? It's so you're just gonna pull up instead of Starbucks, you're gonna pull up to MDMA cafes? And I'm not kidding. Like the research on that is like, we're gonna go there also. Yeah, there. Somebody joined at baby bathwater Dr. Raven, I was reading his profile, really cool. And we're gonna I'm gonna try to bring him on here. But he's got a device called an Apollo device, which vibrates when you're not breathing appropriately, which means if and we're gonna do a whole episode on breath work, and we got our we just got all kinds of cool stuff to do. But you can't, you can't leave this hanging like, this is important. Look at all those. Look at all those one last time here. Let's just look at the amount of places.49:29  Places I'm just counting right now. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 19 20 looks like there's almost 20 things out there49:40  that I found in a guy like Bruce Burnett, sitting at home, he's like, there's 38 you're missing the critical ones. 38 on line one. I know. Well, this is this is what you get when you let a doctor try and try and try and describe this.49:54  Yeah, but seriously, I think the takeaway here is that we can put there's no Muscle behind the message there, it really does work. And this is not specific to any one virus or any one bacteria. This is what your body needs in order for your immune system to work efficiently just so happens, that it works really, really well for what a lot of people are concerned about.50:18  It does and you just came up with a whole new idea. But as we close this out I think I'm gonna attach this next time I do a hemorrhoid on a patient so we can hear50:27  the hemorrhoid. Be sure that requires some type of consent. But yeah, I think it's awesome.50:34  All right. So thank you, everyone, for listening to this. I hope that this is something that makes some sense, please share it, subscribe to the YouTube channel. Subscribe to the I guess all the other platforms, iTunes and Spotify and 50:52  we are honestly the run on Atrantil at the KBMD store has been kind of intense over the last two months. So number one, thanks for everyone for sharing all the information here recently we're doing all that we can to bring that part back online but we'll have an associated discount probably with this particular show. Just in general with with the immune system. Yeah, and as soon as that rolls out, then we'll make that available and all the show notes etc.51:15  Totally and thank you diarrhea dogs for this episode go to diarrhea dogs.com put in code Mike for a 98% discount.51:26  I can't wait to find out what people email in and say what's it diarrhea dogs.com.51:33  Remember, it's code Mike, for 98% discount.51:39  I think it's probably gonna do it for us. Thank you all for joining us on the gut check project please like and share and we will see y'all with 48 with some continuation on the immune system. Talk to you then51:49  bye bye. Thank you.

0:00  Hello KBMD health family and gut check project fans welcome to episode number 44. This episode's very special because we have is many of y'all know with my co host here, Dr. Kenneth Brown, he's only selected three products to be a part of his own store Atrantil, and CBD Of course, which has his own KB MD CBD label on it. But today, we're actually only going to talk about one. And that re ally was shot through seeing. So see that but this is0:32  Broc Elite today.0:33  It's all about Broc Elite. These are stable sulforaphanes. And we are joined with David  Phd. No, David Roberts, John Gildea, saying that's why that's why I have a co host. That's why he has me one of the to David Roberts and John Gildea, john, good day being the PhD for Broc Elite. And Welcome, gentlemen, thank you all so much for meeting us this afternoon.0:56  That's your tip. 0:57  It's good to be here. Thanks for having us.0:59  So john, is if you're looking at the YouTube is the first voice that you heard in the purple shirt. And then David is the one in the buttoned up. So hello, there's David. So, Dr. Brown, you want to take us into the fourth year of introducing these two?1:13  Absolutely. So all the only reason why I have three products on my website is because it's three products backed by science we do certificate of analysis and all these things we were introduced to Brock Elite through baby bathwater networks. And we had our first zoom call many months ago where I have been so excited about sulforaphanes as a supplement and finding out that these two brilliant men figured out how to actually make what I tell my patients is the world's first stable sulforaphane developed in science and been able to show clinically and through laboratory testing that you can increase the NRF two pathway. Now you and I did a whole episode on NRF. Two, in anticipation of trying to get these two guys together. Correct, which like typical entrepreneurs, and typical PhDs, they got a lot going on. And john did inform us I'm sorry, john, do you go by Dr. Gildea? Do you go by john? Do you just go by Dr. Brock elite?2:23  My dad was a physician. So I I'm fine with a PhD John. Not a physician. So yeah, the doctor.2:34  So when you write that when you write PhD, John, do people come up to him and go, John, John, your appointment is now available?2:44  Yeah, some some some of my students call me dr. john. But that's, that's just them being kind of silly.2:50  Well, this is something that is not silly at all. And what I'm really excited to talk about is how you guys got here, how you guys got to know each other. But I know that we have a little bit of limited time with you as the PhD. What I want you to at least explain while we have some availability with you, is why you decided to help David, develop this product and the lab that you have that?3:21  Yeah, absolutely. I think the at least the crux of it was that when, during a commercial adventure that we're trying to do to figure out how to do personalized medicine. We have an arsenal of of compounds that we would try by culturing the cells from New grown from the person who had the cancer and then and then putting these bevy of pharmaceutical compounds on the, on the cells. And pretty soon after we have been doing that for a while. Sulforaphane kept on coming out really high on on the on the list, and it's because it attacks a specific type of cancer, cancer stem cell. And I know that's not even on people's minds right now. But that is the cell type that goes on to create metastasis. And we're all surprised that there wasn't a sulforaphane product out there. And so that combination of seeing this gigantic need, working with people had these cancer stem cell driven, driven cancers. We weren't we we knew that you know, you can buy the $650 for five milligram sulforaphane from from Sigma but that way, you know, one treatment would have been, you know, 1200 dollars to give person that. And so that was when we started trying to figure out how to make it and stabilize it. We grew up broccoli sprouts for a long time, got really good at that. scaled it up enough so that we could help help out one person at a time really. But, you know, from that we started down the journey of trying to figure out how to make it into a pill. Because a lot of people can't can't eat, you know, the, the cup of broccoli sprouts, that's necessary to get the right dose and, and so worked on that for a long time and then and then figured out how to stabilize it.5:30  If you don't mind just to kind of paint the picture here. If everyone's not caught up. Brock Elite i derives its name because it's from broccoli sprouts, and it's elite because correct me if I'm wrong, john, but you essentially have the only stable so fear of fame delivery system available in capsules, in other words, and in other terms you can find so if you're a fan of different supplements, etc, on various platforms, some that rhyme or sound like a jungle, and they probably aren't the same. or certainly don't perform actively, like what we would find your broccoli does that correct?6:09  Yeah, so the this sort of, I would guess the marketing hitch here is that they re coined an old name. The precursor to sulforaphane is called glucoraphanin. Correct. And so they changed the name of that to6:29  sulforaphane glucosinolate. Yeah. Okay.6:32  So that is the new marketing term, okay, because we're gonna I went, when I tell my patients, the first thing that they do, I say, Listen, I really think that for whatever reason, and I have a bunch of medical reasons why I want their NRF two pathway to go up. First thing they do is go I went on Amazon, and I found this sprout product that's $12. And I'm like, that's glucoraphanin and then that takes me down a rabbit hole. Can you just explain really quick, why glucoraphanin is not the same thing as so perfect.7:00  So glucoraphanin is stable, and it's waterside long. It's relatively easy to isolate. And has been available for a long time, but you have to convert it through an enzymatic reaction. In order to make sulforaphane but then the sulforaphane is unstable. So you can make it all you want, but it's only going to stick around for you know, a day or so. So you can't put it in bottle and package it and get it out there. So that was that was sort of the magic because it is making the stable sulforaphane. And also along the way we were we're testing lots of other cruciferous vegetables and sort of the the added benefit was that we found that process that we landed on actually stabilizes all the, the isothiocyanates that's the term for all of the ingredients in in these cruciferous vegetables that are good for you. So like, you know, bok choy and, and watercress and, and cabbage, they all have their own individual combination of isothiocyanates. And so we found in testing in the laboratory that sulforaphane and another isothiocyanate from watercress called PITC act synergistically. And we basically used the most stringent test that you can do in order to measure for synergy. Just dilute the dilute the one compound sulforaphane until you see no response. And then you you dilute the PITC. Until you see no response. And then if you combine the two, and you see your response, you know that it's synergistic. So actually, the two primary compounds in our product acts synergistically. So even if someone else had a for fame, stabilized product, ours is going to outperform it.9:05  That's awesome. So the beauty of this is we're leading with the science first because we're going to spend the rest of the time talking to David about the history how this all came to fruition and everything, which I find to be a very fascinating story. But it's a rare opportunity to talk with somebody with your knowledge about how you discovered to do these tests, and which is what I it's just it's so exciting to me that I could sit there and say you did these tests, first in a lab. So as you started to do this, did you have access to the lab immediately? Did you build anything as the business was being developed? How did you augment from a scientific standpoint, the whole process to try9:49  probably ferret out within more but9:52  we have a lab in my house.9:55  I really get really9:58  not That's10:00  actually Eric actually makes propofol in his bathtub. And that's what we use to sedate our patients so fully understand that. That's not true as a joke.10:15  It does not say that on the permission slip.10:19  We actually, when we were doing wanting to do personalized medicine and not the shotgun approach, we purchased a decent amount of equipment we had in order to do cell base studies. And we did this actually moved all of my boys, my boys play room, they were three and five. And we moved their toys out in the lab in the playground. So10:51  I'm sorry, I'm sorry, David. JOHN, just real quick, I know that I just wanted to grab you before you left. But chemically and speaking as a PhD, obviously, the reason why you've turned to broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables is because of what they had inside of them. Correct. And so if people consume broccoli, or cauliflower or Brussel, sprouts, etc, they essentially are a part of that same family. But what happens specifically, if someone were to want to eat them, whether mature or youngest sprouts, and then whether they be cooked or raw? And then tell us a little bit why it's kind of an incredible discovery to be able to put sulforaphanes into something like broccoli?11:37  Yes, there's a lot of papers that delve into the try to optimize getting sulforaphane from broccoli, where, you know, they talk about how many minutes in, in a, in a microwave or, or steamed for a certain amount of time and things like that. And suffice it to say it's just a, it's a give and take. So the enzyme that will create sulforaphane needs a bunch of cofactors for it, and there's that forward reaction, but there's also reverse reaction, and you're always in a compromise. So it's being created, and it's being destroyed all the time. And, and sort of without getting into the specifics of it, we figured out how to make it only go to the right and, and and then afterwards, it's it's stable. So anytime that you're eating any cruciferous vegetable, you have to crush it and eat it so that you're releasing the precursor glucoraphanin to get in contact with the the enzyme12:52  morosa burns from Myrosinase12:54  Marissa. And then. And then the problem with that is that as soon as you eat it, they're your digestion will destroy the enzyme. And that's the same problem with consuming a pill that has the enzyme. And the precursor is that you know, a good portion of that enzyme is destroyed, because it's a protein and most proteins are digested in during digestion. So there's not much Myrosinase around to convert into glucoraphanin precursor into the final product. So yeah, that's the that's sort of the Battle of everyone is is doing and you do get some and but it's it's that reverse reaction that's kind of really blowing it for everybody.13:44  Well, something that sounds really interesting to me is is that I know from talking to you earlier that y'all basically put put it to the test where we can theorize how things work in vitro, but you're able to deliver and use broccoli and tell us about how you're able to actually test the levels of the bioavailability of severe things. That way, we know that it's actually getting to where we want it to work.14:08  Yeah, I've read at least I think I've read just about every paper out there on sulforaphane. And I never saw a paper that actually shows that it's working in a person, you know, other than whatever the clinical study that they're using. They saw, you know, changes in the clinical study. But the actual about chemistry test is to see that the interest to the active molecule is to accumulate NSL and translocate into the nucleus. So the test that we did was we took just a normal dose of of our Brock Elite product, and then in a couple of hours, we isolated cells from the cheek swab and then did beforehand and after after taking the product. And measuring by immunofluorescence, the cumulation of NRF, two in the nucleus and showed that the dose that's in our pill actually caused an induction of NRF. Two in in cells and a person. And the nice thing about it was that you can take those same cells and do an invitro assay in a dish, and then put on the pure sulforaphane, you know, the $650 per gram, five gram from from Sigma. And then do this thing, do a titration. And say, how much sulforaphane at that cell creates this response. And actually, the, the amount of sulforaphane that was put on the cells, five, Mike, five micro mole produced the same amount as our oral Brock Elite that we took. So we actually know that the amount of sulforaphane that gets to the cell, or the sulforaphane equivalent is at five micromolar, which is an amount that has been shown in you know, thousands of papers to be functional.16:14  So in essence, they were able to show that they could activate NRF2 pathway.16:17  Yeah, so dr. john, let me ask you, when you did these studies, and I, I know that you even tested yourself when you were taking it and you checked it, what was the timeframe like the the area under the curve when it finally popped up? And you were able to show that so I'm thinking from a gastroenterologist standpoint, where does it get absorbed? How much it's broken down? That kind of thing?16:38  It's been it's been a little while since I did it, but I think it was, is either two or four hours, two hours. And from the literature, you people have measured sulforaphane in the bloodstream. Fahy group has done it from serum a number of times and measure the actual molecule in blood. And, you know, its its peak is around, you know, two to four hours. So we knew that that would be a good place to start. And so we saw a really robust response. And the first time we did,17:15  and I don't remember if it was a fakie article, or one of your articles, but you did show that the second dose had a more, as you say, robust response. Can you discuss the big dosing?17:29  Yes. So the notion behind that is really interesting. There's a number of mouse studies that show that not only just get interrupt to induction through, you know, the separation NRF two from keep one, so that it's it's enough to become stable, or it's blocked from being degraded. But one of the things that people don't know is that NRF two, regulates its its own gene products. So when you get an RF to induction, it goes and turns on the transcription of NRF. Two, that's a It's a unique molecule on that, when NRF two is turned on, it goes back to its own promoter and self promoter. And even beyond that, after you get this induction that stays on for as long as 72 hours. There's even another level on top of that, which is epigenetic, just kind of where the name of our lab came from. episodul ABS it's an epigenetic I mentioned. Nice. Yeah. interrupt to stays on as long as as much as six months after taking it for18:43  weeks. Just really quick. Just explain what epi genetic response means.18:48  Yeah, so genetics is, in general, what you would think of is, say you had a mutation and Gene, you get a phenotype in the DNA? Well, a lot of biology is actually created by the expression of the RNA of the whole plethora of genes expression in sort of the orchestra of what a cell is supposed to do. And epigenetics is the maintenance of transcriptional on and off states of a cell. So you can change the, the on and off state of a whole bunch of cells for the long term after you stimulate sulforaphane for just a matter of weeks. So that's kind of one of the brilliant things about NRF two.19:35  So you had we had discussed this and you use the term I believe it was pleiotropic. we're describing because it almost seems too good to be true. But now when you say it's an epigenetic phenomenon, when you turn your NRF two pathway on, there are lots of downstream positive effects that can happen. And do you believe it's the epigenetic phenomenon or is it just turning Get on with the body, then does the it has so much it's um, you know, the NRF two pathway, we did a whole episode on it because it is it. It's something that nobody's talking about you guys are discussing it on a cellular level, which is amazing, which is why I really like everything that you have done, you started with a lab with the science working your way back, and now it's become a product in a bottle that I can give to people. So the whole aspect of my saying it right, pleiotropic? Or is that the right?20:34  Yes, pleiotropic is a term used to cover this idea that NRF two turns on numerous classes of genes. So it turns on a whole bunch of genes that regulate detoxification, and it turns on a whole bunch of genes that are antioxidants. And then yeah, there's there's numerous groups of genes and, and then inflammation as well. So NF Kappa b. So being able to turn on those three different pathways that are all in all three of them are involved in many, many, many, or maybe all chronic diseases. This is sort of the magic and the juice. And that I think the other the other aspect that a lot of people don't realize is that, you know, the reason that reactive oxygen species became famous was that it did long term damage, and everyone knew that it was involved in chronic disease. Well, now in sort of hindsight is when you get hydrogen peroxide, or a lot of these reactive oxygen species being turned on I it at times, like viruses are known to turn off interested. So the actual thing that is broken, that is causing the chronic disease in the first place is low NRF. Two, and then turning it back on, obviously should should help a lot of those states.22:03  And I love that you describe the whole how you figured out that murasame as the the enzymatic pathway can go forward or backwards, very similar. If there is chronic inflammation, it can shut down the NRF. Two, when really when you have chronic inflammation, you got to figure out how to get that up to stop the chronic inflammation. So I have this discussion with my patients that have either the propensity for autoimmune disease, or they have an autoimmune disease. And I try and explain it that I really would like a combination of a polyphenolic blend plus Brock Elite so that we can tip that scale back. So your NRF two can come up. So that it's sort of the seesaw of that. So that's the way you describe them Ross is going back and forth. It's a fine line. And as a society, I feel like we're all chronically employed.22:53  Yeah, that's for sure. And then that that balance that's going on, that's pretty well established in the autoimmune disease world is that there's, there's some event that precedes autoimmunity. And whatever it is, whether it's you know, have a season without sleeping, or you have a viral infection, or you're, you know, someone in your family died, you know, they're all manifests the same way they it's, it's a genomic instability, inflammation, in all these processes that are involved in basically every chronic disease progression. And what's interesting is those those exact things are the things that you have to address to reverse any chronic disease. So, you know, a good baseline to start from would be to activator and f2. And like you said, you know, probably just following it would be NF Kappa b and inflammation.23:58  One One quick, hopefully, it's quick, but it may not be. There was a paper or study that came out last year that the Ken and I both ran across that talked about that some cancers, try to essentially commandeer the NRF two pathway to basically kind of shield themselves from from destruction, and that way they kind of hide what kind of role would so if you're a vein supplementation, play in this where the NRF two pathway gene, or that expression is somewhat mutated, is there? Is there a role where severe pains can basically return us or? I don't know You take it from there.24:40  Yeah, I've thought a lot about that. That role in general is, you know, the selfishness of a cancer. And, as opposed to a normal cell, which is, you know, thinking globally, it's, it's, it's trying to protect the whole organism that you surfing of f2 is, is basically, if you can ramp up your detox of a single cell, basically, the reason that that is, is such a bad thing is because you're throwing toxins at it to try and kill it. But if that cell is now robust, in that, you know, those two man, you know, detox machine at that point, then you know, those toxins that that's how you define successful, you know, treatment of cancer is that cell is, is not killed by the thing that you're throwing at it. That's how you define it. But basically, you know, we haven't found a cell line yet that if you throw so forth, and added it doesn't kill it so so that that specific scenario that you're describing is very true. And, and is part of the mechanism of cancer progression. But it isn't, it isn't this in a holistic way, NRF two works in a normal cell. So all the normal cells are going to be fighting to get rid of that cancer as well. So now on both fronts, it kills the cancer and it's making the cells that normally are working against the cancer, or better your immune system, your support cells,26:21  especially the cells that are not tainted are the ones who are able now to better defend themselves by having a stronger interest is mutated on26:30  that whole, that whole business of, of, you know, hijacking, blocking the immune system from getting to the cancer. So is also another aspect of of, you know, having a really brilliant immune system if you're trying to fight cancer.26:46  Sure. No, that makes sense.26:49  It's interesting, because as I've been using this in patients, the comments that have been told to me, so I'm trying to tell my patients you've got you're at risk for XYZ, cancer, autoimmune, and then I've had people come back and they purchase more, because they're like, you know, it's really interesting, giving it to my husband who has early dementia, and he appears to be doing better with it. And I'm like, that's interesting, okay. And then I can say, well, that would make sense from an if you increase in RF too. And once again, we're not saying that if you take a supplement this happens, but we do know that if you can increase a pathway known as the NRF, two pathway, then this can do certain things. So I'm seeing success with my patients in neuro inflammatory processes, which is a lot of things. I kind of got a giggle a little giggle out of this, because I heard David on a podcast, and he was talking about sleep and increased dreams. And I am a total believer in that. It's part of my sleep routine. And I'm putting people on it for sleep. And I don't I don't wear my aura ring anymore. I used to but because now I just I wake up and I'm like, Whoa, those are some cool dreams. Yes. And so they're asleep. And I'm like, how in the world does that play into that? And then from a gastroenterology standpoint, I've got two patients that failed multiple rounds of heavy antibiotics to treat H. pylori. And then ultimately, I'm like, Look, if you want to try something natural, and we do atrantil to plus Brock Elite, I'll try and teal is a poly phenolic blend that has some antimicrobial activity. And then broccoli when I heard who's the guy he just mentioned at Hopkins, that Fei Fegi, he had discussed that they have done some research on directly with H. pylori, and I've got two people that failed multiple rounds of traditional antibiotics that are now clear. Oh, okay, this is really cool. Like, this is some really neat stuff that's going on. And as I'm listening to you, I love it. Because although it may be it may be a little overwhelming for somebody hearing this or it's just like, okay, I just want the public to know how much work and how much science went into it before it ever became a product in a bottle. And that's so commendable. And so cool. And I, you know, you are where'd you get your PhD? It was a school heard of John's Johns Hopkins? Is that hope instead of college? I think they've, I don't know, I'm not really sure if they play football. I'm gonna have to look at that because of a football. So you're so so you got your PhD at Johns Hopkins, which is no joke and all the people that have done a lot of the research on sulforaphane like fe II have done a lot of that and when you were talking about the cost of stable glucose, stable sulforaphane, that even they admit that they can't do a whole lot of studies on it because it's just cost prohibitive. So what you've done is you've put lightning in a bottle and Very impressive. That is so cool. And you guys continue to do research on this, right? I mean, thinking of synergistic molecules to put with it. That's nuts.30:11  Yeah, so definitely, always, always marching forward slowly. And definitely that target of NF Kappa V is a big one. We have our our list of compounds we really want bioavailable. So,30:26  just really quick, you've said NF Kappa b a couple times we hear about NF Kappa b when it comes to inflammation, and certainly in this pandemic, that we're in NF Kappa b plays a big role, can you just explain what NF Kappa b does downstream30:41  instead of NF Kappa b is the is the master regulator of inflammation. So inflammation is important in fighting, fighting a know your bacterial invasion, you get you you recruit your entire immune system to to attack a site and take care of an infection. The problem in the chronic disease state is that you get NF Kappa b. Induction, which leads to this cytokines released. And so even though there isn't an infection in this chronic inflammation state, your immune system is going and and invading that organ. And so the way the immune system works in that, in that case is it does a lot of damage just does bystander damage, inflammation and fiber optic response as well. So that's the that's the target is to try and keep this inflammatory state the chronic inflammatory state at bay that needs to be pushed back slightly. And sulforaphane does inhibit NF Kappa b. We measured it in, in urine and a clinical study measured interleukin six, which is a canonical target for NF Kappa b. So supporting does inhibit NF Kappa b, but there are molecules more powerful. curcumin is kind of high on high on our list.32:19  Yeah. I can talk more about that. I we should probably let John go. Given his32:25  Yeah, that that that we only have john for five minutes turned into a 20 Minute. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I32:32  don't want to get him in trouble.32:33   Yeah. So much. It was great.32:36  JOHN, it was it was great. Again, thank you so much, and super impressed with all the work you're doing. And I love that you too, have teamed up you and David to produce something which I think is going to do remarkable things for people. It's certainly doing incredible things for my patients. So32:50  yeah, thank you. Yeah, it's, it's a, it's something that fell into our lap was the correct circumstances, where, you know, it's always comes from, you know, a need, and then someone who's precious to you, and I mean, a lot of powerful things happen from that.33:07  That's awesome. It's PhD john Gill day. Thank you, PhD, john. We appreciate it. And we're gonna hang out here with David with with rock elite as well, and certainly appreciate it. We'll have you back on again here shortly.33:21  Thanks. Awesome. Thanks, john. Appreciate your time. Yeah.33:24  Well, David, I've just been sitting there all quietly I know.33:27  So now this is the now though. Now the backstory? Yeah, let's figure out how in the world you got that guy to sit next to you in the first place.33:39  We're gonna be situate33:45  around centering the camera. Nicely done. Done. So David, all that science didn't happen for no reason. Yeah, here there is that there's a large story that brought you near and dear to what it is that you did to to basically found what is now Brock Elite. I don't care how far back you want to go. But just34:06  yeah. And and just for the record, I can't I do have a background in science, not like John's, but I can talk probably a decent amount about about Sulforaphane. But from because that's we talk about all the time, so and the backstory. My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012. And she was very determined to to treat it naturally. And at least not doing chemotherapy. And so we did a lot of reading and actually met john the first week, some of providentially and would talk to him regularly lay about papers I was reading. Anyway, fast forward. In March, our Mars cancer spread. And we're realizing that what we were doing wasn't working. And so we really decided we can't like, we get an excuse, we can't do a kind of a shotgun approach, we needed to know that something was working. And so we end up getting some cancer cells growing them in this lab we put together and and then john created this battery of supplements, to and what he would do is he put the supplements on normal cells, the renal proximal to the cells that we purchased, and then also the cancer cells that he was able to grow. And the goal was to kill the cancer without killing the normal cells. And so and so, yeah, software affine was was a top three and killing Maurice steps cancer, went to buy it, and then realized it didn't actually, it wasn't out there. So that was when we started growing. A lot of broccoli sprouts, brought broccoli By the way, Eric, you said, it's broccoli sprouts that we that that brought broccoli comes from the seed, so we don't actually sprout? Because it's, it's a it's a pain. Yeah,36:46  I've actually tried to grow it and it makes your whole house smell like.36:49  Yeah, it's, it's crazy. To be committed. So. But anyway, yeah, so. So we did that. And we would do some actually. So we have probably enough, we had enough sprouting material to probably 10 families. And so when you would use them with carrots and ginger and Apple, probably not Apple, but but everything was fresh. We threw some we actually all the the seat seats that we sprouted, we actually sprouted radish too, because it's back and radishes high and naturally high moroseness, which converts it. Yeah, everything converts. And then. So yeah, we did that for a long time. And, and, and it's kind of John's goal had been to stabilize this because as he says the literature was crying out for a stable form of the molecule. And so he kind of you would meet for lunch regularly. And just like, yeah, I think I have a stable form of it. And so can we get a test? I was like, yeah, so we get it tested at a third party lab, and found that we had it, you know, that he had stabilized it. And at that point, my wife was still alive and was like, we gotta, you know, this is amazing. We got to get this out to people because she knew how, you know how many people really needed it. And so yeah, that was that's kind of a, a portion of the backstory.38:40  So thank you for sharing that with us. So in 2012, Mara, your wife, yes, diagnosed. And then as you were trying to treat as a team, meaning husband, wife, she said you need to keep doing this. And during the, during her cancer process, you were trying to figure out this stuff. That's pretty, it's pretty emotional and pretty tough.39:05  Yeah. She did banned me from bringing journal articles to bed. I did that for several weeks. And she was like, Ah, so But yeah, I mean, you know, I have a science background. So it was it was it's, you know, she was going to she want to do it that way. You know, I wanted to support her the, our promise to each other was that it had to be backed by science. It couldn't just be loosey goosey. And and so, yeah, and that that's kind of how actually the our, our first supplement company or store was was founded, because we met the doctor who gave it to us and, and we were like, he was like, take this and like, well, what is it? It's like water. I don't know. But it's good for And I'm like, gosh, like, you know, I don't I just met you. So, so actually, john was able to figure out what it would what it did. And so we I bet it would be, first of all that what wasn't poisonous, you know? And then second of all, that actually is really good for you. So that was that was kind of the genesis of that as well. So So this all your endeavor into the whole supplement industry started with that, or were you part of the Restore company before or stars founded through what I just said. So basically, it wasn't even a story. It was a it was a, it was a white, unlabeled bottle that with a sharpie worked on it. And there's like, take this, and I'm like, dude, like that this goes against what we promised each other. This is like, there's no science. Sure, you know? And so, you know, you, you sound nice. But I'm going to figure out what this does before my wife takes it. Yeah. So then we found out that it was actually amazing. And then actually, that that comes with that company was formed.41:27  So were you the CEO, that company41:29  net. Okay, were you invited on personally, and then hope to get it off the ground.41:36  Because I also on a, there's there's a scientific aspect, which is really fascinating. To me. There's the emotional personal aspect, which is equally fascinating. And then as somebody who also is involved on a business side of a supplement company, that's also intriguing to me also, so the, how, how I made this sort of thing is exciting. from that aspect, going from there to here, going from there to have this that I can hold. Yeah, there's always,42:08  but yeah, we would. We would, you know, so you you got sprouts, they're strong, they're bitter. They, they're awful, actually. But they're potent, right. And so they're really good for you. And we would use them. So it wouldn't just be like a little it would be like, a ton. of and so it's like a massive dose. And, and once John, you know, figured out how to stabilize it, we would basically make these little basically would have a 15 lm a it was it was a liquid first. It was and and like a shot. It would Yeah, 15 ml, and this liquid extract, and then we put 15 ml of Lime juice and a packet of stevia, just shake it up, and then just down it. Like, I mean, and then we had actually another friend of ours, really could have benefited from that. I mean, she was really sick and couldn't take it. Mark could she could she could take it for the longest time. And then it just it but it's just, it's It was awful. So we knew we had to transition it into a capsule. But unfortunately, that happened after after Martha died in September of 2017. So we at that point shortly after that, you know, after we were kind of shell shock, kind of got it together and then figured out how to dry it and stay you know, in a stable risk. Yeah. So yeah, if you guys come to Charlottesville, you have to see a walk in and walk through when people walk through like, like, no, like, we made everything out like nothing. It's it's all unique. So44:19  so that's what makes it so unique and hidden sort of the proprietary thing and how it's stabilized is because you guys actually develop the equipment to do this and figure out the process and all44:30  that more process and piecemeal equipment it's already around Yeah.44:37  First of all, I'm sorry that your wife passed away and I'm commend you to sticking true to your path and having this as her legacy and the millions and people that you can help because this all started. Yeah, out of out of the goal to help.44:55  Yeah, I mean, we're we're hopeful that people are getting helped. And we do get a lot of testimonials not probably as many as you guys, but they they're starting to come in and yeah, and it's just like, Alright, that's, that's, that's really amazing to hear people and what they, you know what they, how it impacts them.45:22  So Brock elite itself, you're talking about the number of testimonials, the brand the label the the name when did this actually take foot in and get into this bottle for to be available?45:35  Yeah, that was we went to market in April of 2018.45:41  Okay. So roughly two years we're is we're in the late part of 2020 on this particular recording. And so in two years, you've, you've obviously linked up with with Brown and his clinic we've got, I don't know how many patients who've begun to take it now. sleep better, feel better. Do better top to bottom? What where do you see? How do you see getting the message of broccoli and the importances of sulfuric veins as it empowers one's NRF? Two pathway? Because it's a lot. I mean, it's unfortunately it's a it's a lot of it's a lot of words and letters and not everybody talks about.46:21  There's a we talked about this, there's so many similarities where first you have to explain a very complex, unique pathway that people aren't talking about. And we talked about this today, we're like, Why in the world? Aren't we talking more about the NRF two pathway, especially in the setting of immune health. And then the second thing is how in the world you climb over this giant wall of 2000 supplements that claim to do it. But we know just like dr. john mentioned that glucoraphanin is not a stable sulforaphane. So that's hurdle one is I need to explain why this can help you hurdle two is I need to explain why the $6 bottle from XYZ company is really not the same thing. And then hurdle three is this is a long play for you. So it isn't that your immediate ankle pain will get better, which is it's the Society of immediate gratification. So there's lots of similarities when when I deal with medicine, and I'm trying to get patients to stick to a regimen or something for a long time. From a business perspective. I'm curious how you're approaching that.47:35  Yeah, well, I mean, the great thing about broccoli is a lot of people take it feel the difference. B and john alluded to the kind of clinical a pre clinical trial we were doing where we did on aisle six. And so basically, we did a three day study, we did baseline, day one proceeded to, and then broccoli, day three is is blinded. And to fit your ends into basically from in, there's no change in our six levels from baseline to placebo, but there was basically 24 hours from taking the one dose of Brock Elite, a 30% decrease in Aisle six, in 24 hours. So that's enough, you can feel and that was one dose48:31  one goes decreased. So aisle six is interleukin six, which happens to be an inflammatory cytokine, which sets off a cascade Yeah, that currently, many pharmaceuticals are trying to block in this pandemic that we're in because we know that that could be the first cytokine that can set off a cascade. So it's fascinating that by increasing the NRF two pathway, it just puts everything kind of in balance.49:00  So So yeah, it works. I mean, they're they're, they're related, they're but they're two distinct pathways. So it works with NRF. Two, what does work with NF Kappa b as well and which is upstream from or downstream from IO sticks. And so, yeah, it works in both and but that's in the literature. And you know, we we have done our own internal but the great thing about so karafin is all the little I mean, there are already 2000 articles out there so it's like we don't have to really do anything I'm unlike with store, we had to we had to do everything you know, but with software event, it's already out there. And so you don't have to, you know, believe us we just can shoot we just Schmidt our main portal is showing that it's actually we have so paraffin in the in the bottle and the capsule and from you know from a marketing standpoint We're about to get over I think we've, it's, it's, we don't have a lot of the product because it's really backbreaking hard, it's hard to make. It's and that's why it costs so much, because it's we're kind of what we do most everything by hand. And we're transitioning as we grow. But, you know, it's, it's hard, it's difficult to make and, and stabilize, but it, but yet we're doing it and we're slowly figuring out how to scale it. But right now, like, we don't want to market time, because we can't, we don't have enough. You couldn't even supply our city, let alone and you know, and so. So yeah, right now. We are, you know, making it as fast as we can. And, and so yeah, the the drying process is is is for going through, look at the solid is difficult, and we think we've cracked the code on that is not a patented process. It's we decided to keep it traces trade secret ID six trade secret process. So that's hopefully was a good decision. But we figured, you know, it had been around for a lot of smart people for a pretty long time. So it's probably pretty safe.51:36  So something else to think about. And I don't want to make you talk off label about the brand, because we know that's not the kind of trouble that anybody wants. So let's just talk about sulforaphanes specifically. There is a different product, I believe it's used over in Europe, correct that they use for prostate, prostate cancer. Yes, prostophins. And then there's also some, some pretty deep studies that talk about lymphoma, there is the diffuse B cell lymphoma, as well as follicular lymphoma, which actually I've got a cousin who was recently diagnosed with that. So if your offense have been shown in repeated different clinical trials or studies to essentially activate that NRF two pathway to help those who basically have a managed cancer status. Is that something that else that kind of drew, maybe John to it whenever he began to test those cells, the cancer cells with the normal cells to make sure that so if you're if it was one of those compounds,52:44  is that what your question is?52:47  Kind of rambling? I just don't realize that. Like that.52:51  All right. Let me give the backstory today. We were sitting there talking, a cousin contacted him it was recently diagnosed with follicular lymphoma. And then his initial response was, Oh, my gosh, can taking sulforaphane help that Ben we found some articles which said specifically the treatment of certain Hodgkin's lymphomas and flicklock almost not not non Hodgkins. Sorry, non Hodgkins lymphoma. They have looked at sulforaphane looking at that. And so then it was one of those things. It's like, Oh, so I called up a couple oncology friends. And they were unaware of this. They're unaware of that pathway. And so for a friend being there, and it just it, it gets us, you know, talking where it's like, wow, this is something that the literature is out there, you just have to go digging a little bit somebody has done it. And it's, it's, as in this space, with the FDA regulated type thing. It's as you know, you cannot say certain things, but the, but the pathway is there, you're not53:56  doing laughing because he knows that it's hard to get rid of talk. This is what leads to rambling questions. I'm just gonna help Ken out, because now he's rambling54:06  down and you're like, why don't you? Yeah.54:13  So, you know, I can say that every cancer is different. And that's the bottom line. You can have two non Hodgkins lymphomas, you can have two, you know, breast cancers which are described medically the same that are completely different, right? They just are I mean, and so you know, John's put, you're talking about still purifying as a chemical that he got from Sigma Aldrich and then talking about cancer cells, not people you know, he's put a decent amount of stuff sheriffin Cancer cells and, and they typically it's not 100%, but they typically respond pretty well. And, and pathway wise. You know, there's, when you have cancer, you feel really bad, and there's a lot of inflammation that's going on that canister is shedding. And just just from that product that can help with inflammation would be great. If that was just it. That would, that would be it. You'd feel better, you know,55:34  really like how you said that reset each cancer, even if it has the same name can behave completely different because oncology friends, they've got protocols, and it's, you know, this is this protocol, oh, this person got cured, this person did not do another protocol, oh, this person did this. And then you start going down. I've never thought of it that way that just because we're calling it colon cancer, not all colon cancers are going to respond. And so you're exactly right. Each individual is completely different. I love the way that you guys started the business as a cell specific line. And can we make it as an individual treatment by taking the cells the fact that you took more cells, put it there with the renal cells to make sure it's non toxic first, then let's see what works. That's brilliant.56:23  that was John. So yeah. Yeah, I call John the cell whisperer, because he can grow like nobody, nobody, I really believe. I mean, this is not an overstatement. Nobody can do what he can do. And that the fact that he has a, he's just kind of manufactory. Yeah, to coat people swab and measure. And after he came up with that, you there's no nobody like you can read about NRF two be measured. But if you read how they're doing it, it's like an ordeal like, and he has a very quick, quick procedure that he came up with. He came up with the, his background before he went to Hopkins. He actually, if you guys remember the anthrax scare back in the early 2000s,57:13  mailing of the an anthrax,57:15  it came out he himself designed the five minute anthrax test, you could try, you can measure it. So that's sort of his, what he enjoys doing what he's good at is tests. So57:31  what do you enjoy doing?57:34  Wow, I love what I'm doing here. People are like, What's your dream job? This is it. I love the science, I love doing something that's worthwhile. And we're kind of peeling an onion, you know, because we know a lot probably, you know, we know quite a bit. But we're learning every day, every day about sulforaphane and you know, different things that we want to be doing with it.58:12  Instead, it's just very exciting. The smartest people are always on a quest for knowledge. It never stops. Yeah, never ever stops. But I will say, I'm going to pull the curtain back a little bit here, David, and that is that for every guest that we have on the show, we send out a questionnaire and ask various things like favorite drink and favorite band and different things like that. David left both of those blank. So I'm going to assign that your favorite drink is flavored Waterloo, which is mine also. And just simply because of John's work, I'm going to say your favorite band is anthrax.Yes.58:53  Awesome. So as you're peeling this onion recently went to your website, you got a few other products pretty cool you guys using similar technology and a few other which would typically be very on absorbable molecules, you're doing something cool. We got the perk elite, the berberine elite, and my missing one.59:19  Those those are ones that we're we've been working on. We're just plying for the patent for the curcumin one. So that will hopefully it was approved, your patent will start releasing that it's currently not for sale. But then, yes, and that that's really exciting. And the berberine so Berg leads, which I think we're going to rename but we'll see is a burn as with that because that but it's for you know, blood glucose. So you know people Kido just from my background with Mara, I was like the sugar Nazi. I mean, every bit of sugar was counted, you know. And so the goal was to have less than 20 grams a day. And so we early on people hate stevia, but, or stevia how everyone loves it. But uh, yeah, we, and we didn't like it very much. But now it's just like, it's what my kids have grown up with. And we don't just no sugar, no sugar, so the sugar is evil. So we're, we're just the berberine, especially at night is important because melatonin blocks your ability to if you have a night meal flexibilities for the, for the glucose to process, so that I'll just drop it. And so that's, you know, exciting. So we're, we're actually had that on the market and are doing some more testing to refine it right now. So it's not currently for sale, either our a little bit1:01:11  cellularly you're referencing sugar isn't? Didn't they say that? They don't have to gene actually can be mutated more rapidly with with refined sugars being present, isn't that correct?1:01:24  I've not read that. So yeah, I don't doubt it. I'm just saying I'm not. I'm not familiar with that study. So, so yeah, I mean, it's pro inflammatory. A lot of the refined sugars, if people ask me, there's one, you know, because the cancer with my wife, if there's one, one food that you just one that you recommend, stop eating and love, and I get that an ordinate amount? Like, I love the question because it's quick. It's just like high fructose corn syrup. 1:02:09  high fructose corn syrup1:02:10  there's corn syrup, the one thing I would say if you worry about cancer, don't don't eat things with high fructose corn syrup. And a close second is soybean oil, soybean. And that's in everything to so that today I just had ordered a organic hamburger from one of my favorite places and trucks. So I said hold the muster or hold the Manet's and hold the pickles. Pickles have hyper source corn syrup Manet's is made with with soybean oil. If you the reason why salads are so bad for you, it's not the lettuce, it's the dressing dressing less, it's organic, it's made with soybean oil. And so when the question comes, you know, I give them one thing, but I also go through things. And the reason both of those items soybeans, and corn from Tim, that makes high fructose corn syrup are genetically modified, the jag modification is there so that the plants can receive a roundup and not die. And that kills the weeds and allows in theory for a better yield of the plants of the crops. And most of the glyphosate gets washed away in the rain and stuff, but trace amounts get left on the plan. And that actually, because, you know, if you if you have one small amount of glyphosate, it doesn't matter, but it's in everything. And so there's this bio accumulation effect from being exposed to it non stop, and it actually your gut, your gut guy. It's insidious with the gut. A lot of actually had some friends move from Lebanon. And now that was like, watch out what you eat here. Because the food that you eat here, even though it's called the same thing, you're going to have got issues and they did. They're like, David, how, and then they get got issues. And then I'm like, seriously, and so they actually started watching what they're eating and refined. But glyphosate, the amount of glyphosate you can get in one fast food meal. It can drop your inner tube pathway 30% we mentioned that boom, that 30% basically turns off your ability to detox. So glyphosate is basically the mother of toxins that makes every toxin more toxic. And so That's, that's one of the pieces of research that john did. Like I said, also, we're talking about the ability for cells to connect, and, and can communicate through gap junctions. And each cell in the body is connected to other cells through a communication network called gap junctions, those gap junctions allow cells to be functionally coupled, they act like an organism versus individual cells. And so that's when cells lose their way, and become cancerous and that sort of thing, those cells don't communicate, and they lose their ability to act like in the organism. And so john also showed that the glyphosate reduces the ability of the gap junctions to communicate by 30%, or 30%. So that's enough that that lack of communication, all sorts of things can go wrong.1:06:11  So we don't need to eat anything that's GMO, we don't need to eat anything with high fructose corn syrup. We don't need anything with soybean oil. These are things that essentially what you're saying, David, if I understand correctly, these are things that could exacerbate or even introduce or stimulate cancer growth and cancer cell. The the the oncogene gets activated, basically, when we consume these kinds of foods.1:06:37  There's a Yes, yes. Yeah.1:06:41  It's bad. It's bad news. Yes. Well, David, thanks for fighting through about three technical difficulties on here. And thank you to Paul for who put all this together and make it seem seamless. What What an awesome product, I couldn't be happier for this to have been only product number three that we've brought to KB MD health. And it's something that I know that can I both firmly believe in? We love what it does, for those who who use it, including me and my family. And just thanks so much for the time, and thanks to you and your wife for having the the passion to do what you did here.1:07:20  Yeah, well, it's my pleasure. And looking forward to coming back on another point I do want to throw in, I will be talking about glyphosate. The reason we're doing that research was to show that sulfuric fen actually negates it brings or brings in our to back. So let's say depresses enough to but if you do play the glyphosate and so parafin brings it back to normal level.1:07:57  So if I go to McDonald's, and I say, hold the pickles in the mayonnaise, and then I just opened capsules of Brock Elite over the actual hamburger, I should be cool, right? No,1:08:12  no, we're not gonna but but and then also with gap junctions, that communication is reestablished with software offensive that the gap junction function gets re established so the that's the reason we were doing that those studies was to show the the insidiousness of the state but also that not to use it the way you just described that is actually a big deal. So but yeah, it's great to be here. Thank you guys so much for what you are doing in promoting health too and it's a it's a1:08:49  you know, it's it's really fun to talk to bench researcher like dr. John to talk to you that has an extreme passion to get this out there for the right reasons doing the right science behind it with the right motivation and then me as a clinician getting to see the one to one responses that I get from my patients it's it's it's an honor for me to look my patients in the eye and say, I know these guys did their homework. I feel like we at KBS research really try and science up the whole nutraceutical thing and make sure that otcs have a lot of science and you are both you guys are shaming me because the science you guys do is insane, Wow, yeah, that is awesome. I want to thank you for everything. Where can where can people connect with you? Where can they find Brock Elite, and so on. Yeah.1:09:44  So BrocElite.com and can go on there and we have an online store. So go ahead and buy it there. And we'll it's the best way to doBrocElite.com1:10:06  Yeah. And so I will tell everyone that's listening that as a clinician, I see tremendous effects with this. I am a little bit scared when you were saying it's a laborious process. And when you invited us down Do you intend us to put us to work when we come visit? Like you invite people to help with the laborious process?1:10:26  No, no, we'll just take you to some, some of our favorite restaurants that have clean eating,1:10:32  nice, clean eating and no and no mayo. Nice.1:10:36  Yeah, man. So yeah, and hopefully, as people are listening to this, maybe we can do a coupon code we talked about that as well.1:10:48  Absolutely. Yes. If you're if you're catching this podcast through video, or just if there's someone shared it to you go to KBMDhealth.com. Or just gut check project calm and you can connect not only with us, but David and dr. john Broc elite. We'll have all of those things available both in coupon redemptions, more information, data, data, data is what drives everything that David and John do. David, thank you so much everyone, like and share gut check project, Episode Number 44Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Eric Rieger  0:00  All right, it is now time for the gut check project with the COVID file installment number 11. I'm Eric Rieger, with your co host, Dr. Kenneth Brown. Dr. Brown what's happening today?Ken Brown  0:10  What's going on Eric? I love you sticking to your roots and the hair just keeps getting bigger and bigger this COVID do that. Yeah going on it's starting to starting to really rock right now.Eric Rieger  0:20  You can you can see roots you can see some gray Kevin but yeah, roots. Whatever it takes. Ken Brown  0:27  How have you been? What's going on with the family? let's get let's get caught up on that stuff. We're not doing enough personal stuff lately.Eric Rieger  0:33  Man family. It's funny. You mentioned that. Yeah, considering what we're going to talk about. But this weekend, I get to go and see my oldest he is in his first semester at Texas Tech. He's loving it, but I'm not seeing him in over a month can't wait till this weekend for us to say hello to each other and youngest Mac has got basketball this evening. They're doing tournaments. And of course, both of them are having to do this readjustment obviously around COVID. And Marie, I couldn't be more excited to to obviously go and watch the boys play. And then go watch or go catch up with gage this weekend. And she and I just remain busy. So it's a it's it's the world we live in now. It's prefaced by my COVID. What about yourself?Ken Brown  1:23  things are going really good with the family. We're trying to figure out how to get back at some of these tennis tournaments, as they put them on, and they cancel them and so on. So talking to mom a lot and trying to be very proactive about speak with mom trying to figure out how I can get my 79 year old, very Spry mom who's feeling better now than she did when she was 69. So and then 59. I think she's feeling better now than she has in 20 years. And so I started thinking about that I started thinking about family and how important that is. And this is what I want to kind of get into today today's I kind of threw you a curveball, I initially said we're going to talk about something and then I started going down these rabbit holes of research. And rather than rabbit holes, I'm gonna call them vole holes, the prairie vole holes. Alright, I'll explain how that ties in. But when we're looking at this, I'm sitting there talking to my mom, and she sounds great. And we're trying to do this. I've got, you know, we did some some zooms with some other friends around the country. And I'm like, wow, this is an interesting time. And I then started thinking about my practice. And I'm like, and my practice is really busy right now, like people are really struggling, and they're very desperate. So I started down this whole path. This is where it began. And this is going to end up being Angie Cooks podcast, because she's going to come on and I'm challenging her to be the expert in this, because I just got done doing Chris Kresser's podcast where he agreed, we need to bring this one thing out in the open. What we're seeing and what I'm seeing with patients is a consistent deal where if people have some sort of gastrointestinal problem, specifically CBOE, I can trace it back. And then you have these people that are showing up with dysautonomia, they've got pots. Ehlers Danlos and which comes first chicken of the egg did something cause that, if those terms don't mean anything to you, good. If they mean something to you, then you know what I'm talking about, because it's this. It's this constellation of symptoms that nobody has put together before, which is gut something happens to your gut, then suddenly, you're diagnosed as having Ehlers Danlos. And then it's postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome called pots. So for all those people that have this, and there's actually way more than we realize, that's what I started with this, I was like, Oh, I'm going to do a, I'm going to do the preface, the the sort of general 30,000 foot view of why we have this and then I started thinking, Wait a minute, why is this why are we seeing more of this now? Why are we having more gastrointestinal issues, which conceivably can lead to chronic long term stuff. And then I had a wake up in the middle of the night moment where I went COVID people are recovering from COVID. But then they're having chronic issues. And it's really all over the map. Now, cardiac issues, pulmonary issues, some some nerve issues, are we going to end up with a whole new wave of almost post Lyme, chronic infection type things that the immune system is turned on? So then that got me thinking, I'm like, Oh my gosh, we got to figure out this whole motility deal. And during this really busy time, I've got all these people and then I got a article was sent to me by the Journal of American Medical Association, this month, September 2020, that signs of depression have tripled in the US since COVID 19 pandemic So 28% of the people surveyed had at least one symptom of depression, you compare that to 8.5% pre pandemic. So it's not just the number, but the severity of depression is increasing tremendously also. And there's actually a significant number of people that have been diagnosed with serious depression. When you fall into that category, you start really worrying about suicide, you start really worrying about breakthrough of other problems. And it usually requires a ton of treatment and different things to try and get this under wraps. So there's very little research going on right now discussing this. So we've got this COVID problem, even if you don't get COVID. So if you get COVID, it's possible, you have to worry about a long term consequence. We know it can infect the gut. And then even if you don't, we're seeing the next wave of impending pandemic of depression that we're going to have to deal with. SoEric Rieger  6:00  No joke. I was just going to add that the I guess the the syndromes that you're describing Ehlers Danlos, and POTs, etc. It is reminiscent to the time when you were addressing IBS and bloating, okay, because those were somewhat seen as throwaway trashcan diagnoses. And that's really kind of stealing a lot from you. That's what people felt they're like, well, I don't know, it's IBS, I don't know. It almost feels like it, we're we're now sustaining a wave of POTs and Ehlers. And we're seeing these people come through and they don't really know who they can turn to. And little bit by little bit, it seems like maybe we're making a little bit of headway. So drawing this connection really pulls me in, and others who may actually have happened to suffer from this, or who have witnessed family members suffer from this kind of stuff, because there has to be a way out. And there's usually a cause and just kicking it under the rug and pretending like it's not there is not really going to work. And if we know that COVID is setting us up to experience syndromes similar to this, then more than likely, we can walk backwards and figure out what was it that COVID did to put these things in motion? And what can we do about it? If we become infected to hopefully either curve it or not experience it all together?Ken Brown  7:23  Well, I think one of the biggest things is that if you are in a situation, you cannot have a healthy immune system without a healthy gut. So what I'm saying is that we do have evidence now that when you have a something that affects your gastrointestinal system system, like an h2 receptor, where spike protein can bind to it, and then that's where the, the whole disease starts, that could lead to a domino effect of more chronic problems. And so I'm sitting, I'm just like, wow, okay, this is daunting, my practice is full, we're getting all these people showing up with these, I don't, I can't give them a good answer. On the whole, you had got problems. Now you've got these other long term issues you have to deal with, and this JAMA article comes out. And so this is where I start going down some balls, like man, I really want to be able to help, like, what is this connection, it says there. And then I started looking down this and I was like, wait a minute, let's look at this. Depression essentially is a form of reaction to some sort of stress. Stress, we know causes a sympathetic response in the body, right? We understand that a fight or flight response is the sympathetic response that affects intestinal motility. And we know through all of our other podcasts that we've done, and and other people and guests that there's a tremendous brain gut access. So as your co-host of the gut check project, co COVID, files number 11. I'm at least gonna try and do my part, which is if all this is going on, let's at least protect the gut. And we know that if you were to change the motility, you can develop cebo then you can get leaky gut, and then you can develop these other problems. So I was like, Okay, wait a minute. Now we're seeing that these covered people are having heart issues, brain issues, there's all different kinds of things. I'm like, I can't just get on there and say, well, we got to protect the gut. So I found an article published this month, and I went, Oh, this is what this episode is going to be about. It's going to be about give your neighbor and Atrantil and a hug. Give your neighbor just a little bit of powerful nature's polyphenols and a hug, huh? Yeah. Kudos to Chris Kresser. Because he mentioned this study, in which he went Oh, did you see that thing? So that means like, this study just came out like last week and I was like, Man that stays on top of it. Yeah, a recent study. This is where we're gonna end up. And this is why giving somebody a hug could be very important for your gastrointestinal health. Okay, this is what's gonna be about it given to you in a hug. Okay, so a recent study with rats looked at gastrointestinal motility in the setting of stress. So what these researchers did is they showed that when rats are exposed to acute or moderate amounts of stress is that they were able to show that the rats developed gastroparesis, they did not go into why gastroparesis is slowing of the stomach. I'll explain to my patients that when you go through amount of stress, the sympathetic nervous system slows your intestines down. And were to develop bacterial overgrowth, you have a reflex from your small bowel to your stomach, that slows it down. I get all these people diagnosed as gastroparesis. And when we fix their cebo, the gastroparesis goes away. So these guys were saying, okay, we know that these rats when we expose them to stress, they develop gastroparesis, but we don't really have a way to help them. So then one of them, I really like to see how they decided on this one particular thing, then they decided to check something that has not actually ever been reported before. Someone was that somebody had the wherewithal to say, let's check the oxytocin level. You familiar with oxytocin?Eric Rieger  11:24  Yeah, I am familiar with oxytocin and, and or pitocin. oxytocin, I think is the endogenous form of pitocin. Correct?Ken Brown  11:33  Correct. Yeah, it's also known as the hormone that mostly is associated with pregnancy and giving birth. Right, the pitocin part of it, you as a crna. You, you know, you do the epidural and somebody and then you start the pitocin, drip and it and there's lots of contractions,Eric Rieger  11:49  causes uterine contraction, you get the baby If someone's been induced, and that's what we're doing is we're giving them that hit or pitocin through their IV.Ken Brown  11:59  Yeah. And so the way that I learned about oxytocin was mostly through my gynecologic rotations, where you're looking at stuff like this. Well, as it turns out, it's a really cool little neuropeptide slash hormone, you made it dead and just have one use that we isolated for our own convenience doesn't just have the one use and then everybody thinks about it. It's been, it's been labeled as the love hormone, the cuddle hormone. It's what helps moms develop their lactation when the baby cries, it's an oxytocin response, all this other really cool stuff. These guys said, hey, what if we got their oxytocin up higher? conceivably, what if the stress decreased their oxytocin raise their vasopressin. And maybe that's why they're having GI issues. Nobody's ever put the link together before where it's like, Look, we just say that, oh, when you're under stress, you're you have gut issues. How, hence the vole hole. So what they're able to show is that these rats with higher levels of oxytocin recovered from the stress and improved gastric motility. their guts recovered when they can raise their oxytocin level. Okay. And then they took these knockout rats and what knockout rats and mice are is that they genetically raise one that is incapable of producing something that they want. So then they raise these rats that were incapable of producing oxytocin, and their gastric motility and their GI tract was horrible. So their data showed that oxytocin directly influences the neural pathway of the stress response. Why is that relevant? Because when we have Angie on and we do our motility, deep dive, maybe a couple different podcasts, and Kresser agreed with me on this one, it all comes down to motility, we have to fix the motility. And this is a particular it's known as a neuropeptide. A lot of people refer to it as a hormone that actually affects the neural motility. Eric Rieger  13:59  RightKen Brown  13:59  And I went, Oh my gosh, I have not heard of this before. So now what we're talking about is oxytocin as a stress adaption that could actually help motility. So rather than just immediately build a cuddle room in my clinic, where patients come in and they get rain and Amber and Andy and my all my other staff will rotate cuddling with patients to improve their oxytocin level. I thought I'd look into the science a little bit more before I just jump into that. And then I it got me thinking with not only is COVID creating all this depression is it is some of the problem because we're isolating ourselves. I mean, I still want I mean, I still don't like the zoom way that we're doing this, but at least we have some interaction but is it conceivable that one of the reasons why we're having so much depression so many of these other issues that are we ignoring our oxytocin?Eric Rieger  14:58  Hey, you know, I had to quick things one is quick. And that is, I think that now we've established especially with the with the mice or the rats, that oxytocin is not a gender specific marker or a hormone, right? So males and females are going to benefit from this. But a side note long, long ago, I was watching a special and they were talking about some of the side effects that happen to people who happen to be imprisoned, and who were put like into isolation, for whatever reason, you know, down in the hole. And one of the early issues that occurs with them is GI distress. So I kind of feel like, maybe we're going, I mean, beyond the depression beyond the the the things that could just simply drive someone crazy in their own mind by being isolated. A lot of it was just simply inability to have normal functioning GI tract. SoKen Brown  15:56  anyway. And so let's, let's just keep on that for a second. You have stress, you are able to muscle through some of your gastrointestinal issues. Instead, just have to have to keep the stiff upper lip and keep moving. What you don't realize is that if you're not taking care of your gastrointestinal health, then this could lead to a cascade of other inflammatory things. So how do you improve the inflammatory aspect of everything? That's the really, that's the really interesting thing. Now we have talked improving your immune system by mitigating your inflammatory response using polyphenols. We've talked about improving your NRF two pathway which decreases the inflammatory response. So now I'm going to give you the trifecta of let's go down some vole holes and talk oxytocin. And why do I save vole holes? Because I found this incredible scientists. She's a neurobiologist named Sue Carter. And she's internationally recognized as this behavioral neuro endocrinology PhD. She is the director of the Kinsey Institute, which looks at this and all her work has focused on oxytocin. And she found the what was presumed to be the only mammal that had a monogamous relationship, the prairie vole. So when I say I went down vole holes all the research on oxytocin has actually been done on Prairie voles by this badass scientist named Sue Carter. Yeah, and her work is really cool, because when you read some of this, she studied oxytocin and voles. And the reason why is because they were they were presumed to be the most social mammal and monogamous and they really don't care about their environment. So you can take two moles that love each other, and put them anywhere, and there'll be just as happy because as long as they're socializing, they're, they're super cool. And her first discovery was, voles are not monogamous. In fact, female voles will actually go and mate with a random male vole, and then fight with them afterwards to kick them out to basically come back and be with her lifelong mate. So they have lifelong mates. But the vole will actually go out. And she explained that this is probably it's not like it's a super what's the term for when somebody sleeps around a whole lot? And but the appropriate term is going promiscuous. Eric Rieger  18:34  Thank you for rescuing. Yeah. None of which we're going to be appropriate for today. But yeah, good save.Ken Brown  18:43  So it wasn't that these that these female voles were promiscuous, it's that there's a genetic reason for doing this, that if you can have a genetic pooling, where you have more genes, but it's the family rearing aspect, and so what she was able to show is that it doesn't have to be the original Mother/Father, as long as there's a family unit or some sort of unit. And then, you know, she references a lot of psychological studies in humans, which this has been shown multiple times that, you know, this is where it's at. So the vole has a very similar oxytocin response to humans. So it's the perfect mammal to actually study. And at this point, that's why I'm going down boltholes. Now we should probably define really, what oxytocin is on a little more scientific level. oxytocin, it's an evolutionarily ancient neuro modulator, and hormone produced in the hypothalamus where it's pumped directly into the brain and into your circulation. So very complex way to say this thing has been around since the dawn of time, to help us adapt to our environment. And in fact, oxytocin, which is the love hormone is known as the cuddle hormone. It's associated with childbirth and women. But now we realize it's in everybody. When it goes up, that really means that you're in a time of abundance, that means that you're in a time, this is a time to love, this is a time to do things. And when that's up, it actually does all different kinds of things. And we'll get into that in a second. But one thing it definitely does is it improves your immune system by decreasing inflammatory markers, very similar to how the NRF two pathway functions. When there's types of stress, All right, now, your oxytocin goes down, your vasopressin goes up, and you send signals that you're under duress. Does that make sense?Eric Rieger  20:46  It does. And so basically, if you it just sounds to me, like if you're under a lot of stress, it's hard to love. And if you aren't receiving love, you're probably going to find yourself in a lot of stress.Ken Brown  20:59  Yes, so here is the thing that nobody's talking about, we've got a massive amount of depression going on, because of COVID. And then we're saying everybody stay away from each other. Yeah. When the reality is what we're going to do at the end of this podcast is talk about how we can increase our oxytocin levels. But just to show how important it is, what was she was able to do just a few of the things it enhanced memory production. It has been shown to increase muscle mass. So it has been shown to help heal wounds quicker. So they can show when your oxytocin levels up. You have less serious infections, you actually can learn things better. You can develop more muscle, it's like kind of a, it's one of those like, that does too much. Well, it's that important. It's one of these homeostasis type hormones. oxytocin vasopressin, she was talking about all different kinds of studies that perhaps one of the reasons why there's a cycle of teen pregnancy in certain lower socio economic areas. Could be that when a mother is stressed, she sends a signal to the baby that's in her. Oh, hey, we got hard times. Yeah, baby. Down regulates its ability to produce oxytocin. Oh, my. So it comes out. guns blazing, not ready to cuddle? Yeah, baby has been sent a signal that says you are being born into hard times. And when that happens, then you can end up with a sequence of events. And it's just tip of the iceberg about where she was going with it. And she showed it with these prairie voles, she had certain moms that were under stress, well, then the baby would have lower oxytocin levels throughout its life. They go so far. Yeah, it's really wild stuff. Super, super wild. Because I'd never really thought about oxytocin before. I've always thought of as a pregnancy thing. And now I'm like, whoa, wait a minute. So what it helps you do is it helps you adapt to a changing environment. I was thinking of a Time Suck. With what? Dan Cummins, Dan Cummins. And I just had to laugh about it. Because he he almost describes this when he was doing the Genghis Khan, he's just like, Yeah, can you imagine being born in this is a kind of like, you're born into this horrible world, and you're just about money. And I'm like, oh, that oxytocin was really low in poor Genghis. Yeah. And yeah,Eric Rieger  23:29  it really, really was.Ken Brown  23:31  And so a lot of the oxytocin levels in a community can be manipulated by the strength of the community, and learning from others. So part of what makes the oxytocin go up a little bit, is the reward aspect also. So when you learn from somebody, and you don't have to fail a bunch of times your oxytocin goes higher. So each generation, if done right, should have slightly higher ability to have the oxytocin because you're learning from the next group in front of you. And then it it's, it's a safety thing, the more control you have, the more abundance you have the higher abundance, meaning you're not fighting for your life, not Lamborghini, whatever, I'm pretty sure that, you know,Eric Rieger  24:20  in a weird anecdotal way, if you think about just growing up and being in a classroom, it seemed like that, in certain subjects, you would have friends that were just more adapt and and better at listening and getting instruction. And so as a lesson progressed, they didn't seem to stress about subject matter. So their ability to relax and learn and take in information. They had a comfort zone with that. So they may have had some amounts of oxytocin being released, which allowed them to take up the material and then they didn't stress as the material is reintroduced. They were tested on I mean, it's, it's a cycle, right? So it's probably there's probably a pattern there, too. Where we can, we can help our young kids and children, etc, by learning how to get comfortable learning, learn how to learn.Ken Brown  25:07  Yeah, absolutely. Now the good news, Eric, you don't have to worry about this at all, because as we've discussed in multiple different ways, Big Pharma is super excited to be involved in the oxytocin rush here.Eric Rieger  25:20  Yeah, I'm sure that they've, they've got our best interest at every dollar.Ken Brown  25:24  So they've got multiple animal studies showing that you can kind of manipulate the oxytocin in an animal. They've got nasal sprays in Europe with just straight oxytocin, we've got this synthetic one pitocin. Well, she's also got a ton of ton of work about how that will never work. Now, it will never work. You cannot play Mother Nature in somebody's body with something so intrinsic and delicate and complicated. So unfortunately, at least in human studies, when they have tried to do this and develop a drug where you just take a shot of oxytocin, and your immune system improves and everything, your body, surprise, surprise, starts to down regulate some of the oxytocin receptors up regulate the vasopressin receptors, because it goes this is weird. This is something's odd, and so then the body automatically offsets it. So then when you stop, you've got all this vasopressin, which is your fight or flight, workplace and when you beganEric Rieger  26:21  gonna be stressed out to the hilt, it's it's it's no different than when someone over for a long period of time consumes steroids, and then they don't produce their endogenous steroids anymore. I mean, that the adrenal fatigue or they shrivel up, they don't do anything. So it's a it's a real problem.Ken Brown  26:38  Yeah. So here we are, in this pandemic, the vole hole was I'm I'm worried about chronic conditions, and dysautonomia, and gi issues, which then led to finding the study on the rats, which then used oxytocin to look at. And so here we are, in this pandemic, depression is super high, we're socially isolated. We know that when we're stressed, we're going to have lower levels of oxytocin. It's that seesaw. If you're really stressed out, you're basically telling the vasopressin to go up and oxytocin goes down. Easier said than done, right? Don't be stressed, you'll be fine. So we know that right now everybody's stressed. So your oxytocin is lower, this can lead to my perspective, the GI tract will be affected. So a neurologist will tell you what it will do in the brain. a cardiologist will tell you what it will do in the heart. But we do know that oxytocin affects gi motility. Gi motility, in my opinion, is the underlying reason why all these chronic conditions are actually developing. So you're gonna have poor intestinal motility, you feel bad, which actually leads you to want to be more socially isolated. So a lot of the stuff when people are like, man, I just, I'm unhappy. I'm depressed, but I don't want to be around anybody. Yeah, give you a neuropeptide reason why that is your oxytocin is low. Your vasopressin is saying this is not the time to be cuddling. You know, we are flight thing going on. Right?Eric Rieger  28:10  It is getting to these, there are many, many examples it seems in life where we you can easily fall into these catch 22's, where you're, yeah, you're heading this one way. But for you to recover, you almost have to break the bounds and force yourself to do something that will allow you to get better. Otherwise, you're just going to stay unfortunately, in this cycle.Ken Brown  28:31  Yeah. So if you're listening to this, and you do have a little, any type of depression, any type of anxiety, we need to get your oxytocin up. If you have irritable bowel, if you've got cebo. If you've got any other gastrointestinal issues, we need to get your oxytocin up. Oh, if there's a slight possibility that you could be exposed to a virus. You need your oxytocin up so that your immune system reacts appropriately. Now let's get to oxytocin and the immune system is that oxytocin does exactly what our NRF two pathway does. They all work together, polyphenols, decrease interleukin six, which helps mediate your response. Yeah, it turns out oxytocin mediates the body's response so that you don't overreact. It's all about the thing that we talked about the endocannabinoid system, it's about being in balance. So oxytocin actually helps your immune system, which could be one of the reasons we said it during the NRF two, podcast but you can almost say, well, maybe a little bit of oxytocin's taking place because when you're NRF two is down. That means that you have higher inflammation. Once you have higher inflammation, that means your oxytocin will go down. So it's that you're exactly right. You got to break a cycle here.Eric Rieger  29:50  Yeah, you got to you've got to go against intuitively what's Unfortunately, the pattern that feels like that, that you're on the path that you're on, right. You ever think about it? When you've got your friend and you're, you're growing up and your friend, he just broke up with his girlfriend, or if you're a girl, it's your girlfriend, or boyfriend, they're really sad. They don't know what they want to do and feeling really down, but you convince them to come and hang out with the friends, etc. And almost every single time, by the end of the evening or the outing, whatever it is, that particular person is ecstatic that they were, they're surrounded by people that cared about them, they loved them. It sounds like it's a lot of this community that you're describing, because it helped them get through something, right.Ken Brown  30:34  So this is the crazy thing. So I've talked to patients that been going through a lot, they start going through depression, they start gaining weight. They're like, I don't know, I'm even now I don't want to be around anybody I've put on, you know, 40 pounds, since it's COVID. Oh, I hate to break this to you. You're gonna put on weight if your oxytocin is low. Why? Because your vasopressin goes up, which is your fight or flight, which is your cortisol. So every time that you said, Well, I'll start mingling, once I lose weight. So as a weight loss product, we're going to tell you how to get your oxytocin up. In fact, I was talking to a patient today. Wonderful, just love to see people when they round a corner, and they're just really happy. Yeah, a patient of mine I've had for 17 years, and looks phenomenal. Did his COVID hair looks great. And it's his disease, underlying disease that he sees me for is under total control. And I start finding out, got remarried, has a new social circle. They have a they have a process where they, every Sunday, they have dinner together every whatever. And I went that is it right there. Because in every single medical study, listen to this one more time in every single medical study, a support system and social interaction will outperform drugs and diet. Now, there's a lot of people that would go No, no, no, no, no, you're insane. But if you look across the board, and you start really realizing that and you start teasing out some of these factors, actually people that do have a support system, and it was always theorized, oh, well, they have a support system, because their family members help them make sure they stay on their drugs. Oh, they have a support system, because they've got this and that could be oxytocin. Yeah, it could be this one thing that nobody's talking about?Eric Rieger  32:29  Yeah, definitely. No, I agree. I mean, just take an inventory of the people that you know, best. And not I mean, probably not every time someone will have a different example. But usually, your happiest friends, your happiest family members are those who are in touch surrounded by not only support, but they give support and they receive it. And I'm just thinking of just several people. Yeah, that's who they are.Ken Brown  32:56  So the oxytocin's every night, this Volvo was really big this that Sue Carter has dedicated her whole career to it. And the science behind it is all her data. And it's really big. It's the first time I started looking into it. But of course, I got to do what we try and do, which is bridge some bridge some gaps. So we will try and give you some tips on how to increase your oxytocin naturally. But I also want to look at a couple other things, we always seem to find that when you start looking at Mother Nature, secret weapon polyphenols, is there any data with this? So I really struggled to find a direct one to one, but there was a couple small studies looking at breast breast milk production, through the elevation of oxytocin. And this particular study showed that the combination of two different polyphenols, one of them being reservatrol, increased milk production through oxytocin release. So that was one of the only times that actually found that polyphenols directly increased oxytocin. And they were looking at it to try and stimulate more milk production. Okay, and then there was one randomized trial on delivery. And they were looking at, interestingly enough deal extract and its effect on oxytocin. And they showed that it actually showed a randomized trial where when you added the dill extract, which is a polyphenol, then it improved the delivery process. So smooth muscle contract, contractility, etc. And then I found this one, which is a little bit interesting, it makes a little bit more sense. Because we know this, we say this all the time. This article comes from the journal of probiotics and health, microbes, oxytocin, and healthful longevity. In this particular tastes, they showed how our microbiome interacts and through decreasing what they believe are different inflammatory mediators. We know that Do it has a direct effect through the vagal nerve directly on the hypothalamus to oxytocin levels. So, all of this is kind of extrapolating Dr. Carter does most of her work on these voles and amazing on family units and stuff, that one right there that nobody's really looking into as do these polyphenols also have an effect on the oxytocin level couple small studies, but we do know that these polyphenols increase the microbial diversity. So the reason why I said take out Ron teal and give somebody a hug, is because we know that the polyphenols, stable large molecular polyphenols, increase the microbial diversity. And we know when you have that, that a lot of other beneficial things happen. These guys in this paper showed a direct vagal mediated oxytocin response, meaning the vagus nerve, the great highway is a motility thing, we keep circling back to the same things. So other than make sure that you do the usual stuff that was talking about get some good sleep. I believe that polyphenols probably increase x increase oxytocin levels. And we know that at least in a couple small studies, that you can increase oxytocin through several different smaller polyphenols. And then this final one was that if your microbiome is diverse, you will produce more oxy tosun. That's really cool. That's really nice. Here's what's the best. It's called the cuddle hormone for a reason.Eric Rieger  36:39  Now, hugsKen Brown  36:40  let's quit being so sciency get our accion. Oh, no, no, don't I actually googled that. And I started to type in how to increase oxy. And it was like cotton levels were to get. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,Eric Rieger  36:57  no. Yeah, yeah, you don't you don't want that of your teenager how to increase your oxy acne wipes, you know, so.Ken Brown  37:07  But it's kind of interesting, because you because you, you look at these little voles, and you realize it's probably, the more the more that you love and share, the more that you open up, the more that you allow your body to increase the oxytocin receptors, so that they can be saturated more, and you're getting away from that sympathetic response. So what's your favorite way to raise your oxytocin?Eric Rieger  37:30  Ah, man, I can tell you right now a hug from a from wife and or family member friend. And any of that it sounds to me would be the most fun way. And then favorite way to to raise my own oxytocin. Alright,Ken Brown  37:46  so there's lots of ways to raise your oxytocin. And this is a this is a quiz for you. Eric Rieger  37:53  Oh, no.Ken Brown  37:54  Yeah. So we know that exercise raises oxytocin. Okay. We know that listening with your eyes, meaning real eye contact with somebody can increase your oxytocin being intimate with someone will increase your oxytocin. Okay. And basically, the whole cuddle aspect is there. So if you can incorporate all those different things, is there one particular act that would really knock the socks out of the oxytocin ballpark? If you could exercise be intimate? be close with somebody share a moment? Oh, oh.Eric Rieger  38:37  Probably, man. It's rolling dice here. All those are things that hopefully everyone's getting the opportunity to do daily. I would say getting close to somebody would be the one that raises the most, maybeKen Brown  38:50  you and I think differently.Eric Rieger  38:55  I guess you're about to break out a barbell not really sure.Ken Brown  38:57  No. Eric Rieger  38:58  Okay.Ken Brown  38:59   Exercise, being intimate. Being close. Having human contact. sex. Sex is amazing for raising oxytocin. SoEric Rieger  39:08  Oh, yeah, no, I mean, um, maybe, maybe. You're what? Maybe I was getting too g rated.Ken Brown  39:17  I'm just saying that, that do not underestimate the power that that being intimate with a close partner. A company accomplishes all those things at the same time.Eric Rieger  39:26  Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, I get it.Ken Brown  39:29  You say another way. Another way to increase oxytocin is to have an orgasm. So okay, having but you know, but they've also shown that by having a close intimate partner, the oxytocin goes up much higher. Your body knows you can't fake it, you know? Sure. It's so that's so alright. So, exercise, social gatherings. Listen with your eyes, have sex. Oh, give a gift. being generous will actually bump your oxytocinEric Rieger  40:00  Interesting now that that actually is is is awesome. So sorry but I guess the the noble rewards in life tend to tend to be associated with doing good deeds right? Because you share love with someone and that's so good deed you're letting them know that you care about them you you know you foster your relationships with with your friends then that that's that's a good deed you're helping them out. So yeah, I mean to me it makes sense. Yeah, it's funny you didn't you didn't mention that, that using businesses as a reason to screw somebody over increases oxytocin. You didn't mention that theft or isolation increases oxytocin, it's all of the it's all of the opposite things that we all say that we want to do for Yeah,Ken Brown  40:48  so next time you're in traffic and somebody kind of a jerk and cuts you off. Don't just sit there and get super upset. Just go, oh, that person's oxytocin is low. They're not doing the things to cultivate their oxytocin levels.Eric Rieger  41:01  Yeah, put your car in park and then look at them and listen with your eyes.Ken Brown  41:04  Yeah, listen with your eyes.Eric Rieger  41:10  Maybe not. That may not be the right.Ken Brown  41:12  Yeah, maybe that's not the right way. You could also I had to laugh. So a deal I was I was talking to her deal yesterday, my, my, my wonderful Scheduler. And I was trying to describe what I want to talk about today. And I was like, hey, do you know that like, heading a dog has been shown to increase oxytocin levels? And what about a cat? I have a cat and I was like, No, no, never.Eric Rieger  41:35  Not a cat.Ken Brown  41:36  No. Only dogs. I think cats also i'm not sure the study was done on dogs. So it just got me thinking I'm like, Okay, look, we're in this COVID environment. There's so many things against us. And yet we have a few things under our control. So listening to music, playing music can also raise that but waking up every day and saying, Okay, I'm going to try and figure out how to raise my oxytocin, which means that I'm going to try engage with somebody a little bit more, which means that I'm gonna try and take care of myself a little bit more if I'm going to be easier on myself. Because when you're hard on yourself, you raise your vasopressin level, which decreases your oxytocin. So give yourself a break. If anything, do it for your intestinal motility. Say, I'm, I'm going to make a concerted effort to which is why I said at the very beginning of the show, I'm trying to call mom more because we need to keep each other's oxytocin up, but you know, she lives alone. And I want to make sure that, you know, she's able to keep that oxytocin up. So this is a this is the vole hole called How to Increase your oxytocin kind of out of left field, I started down a motility path and we're going to come full circle because once we start really hitting that motility, this may become standard of care for a gastroenterologist to help patients.Eric Rieger  42:56  I mean, kind of a cool intersection now, I mean, we do a lot of things whenever people come through and use everything from diet to behavior to recommend exercise, why not just start saying be sure that you give a hug to your family members everyday or a close friend every day? Yeah,Ken Brown  43:13  and that's the problem is that we're in COVID. So that was one of my theories, that the isolation could be controlled Yeah, massive increase in depression, no doubt.Eric Rieger  43:25  No doubt at all.Ken Brown  43:27  got me thinking. So I would like to check oxytocin levels on you guys that do jujitsu because there's there's lots of hard cuddling going on during jujitsu if you call it cuddling, choking someone, for instance, which I think has kind of a has an oxytocin bump, but also a vasopressin fight or flight going on. I'm wondering if jujitsu people I'd need to check with Ricardo Abreu and see we just need to monitor his oxytocin levels as he's as he's smashing peopleEric Rieger  44:04  as he is if he uses the same tone as he aggressively went after you as a polyp. I don't know that I want to help him raise his oxytocin levels.Ken Brown  44:14  Yeah, that's true. Maybe it's Yeah, maybe it's low. So um, you know, we we keep coming back to the same thing we keep coming back to intestinal health is the root cause of all health. And now we're finding these different things that are really subtle that we can do in a holistic approach. You can increase your NRF two levels by doing certain things, you can increase your oxytocin. And all of this will play into the immune mediated aspect. I start thinking of people that are diagnosed with a pretty serious, you know, chronic situation, and it's depressing and it's sad and they're maybe in pain and all that just keeps lowering that oxytocin. If you could just get that back up. Maybe it'll break the cycle and you could start on a road to recovery.Eric Rieger  45:01  Yeah, I don't know, either. But it would make sense. I mean, maybe having people isolated in a hospital, for instance, especially during COVID where we're not allowing people in there is actually stunting their ability to overcome disease. I mean, think about that when how many people and stories have we heard of firsthand so and so had to go in for surgery, we don't really know how they're doing that but they call and said that they're just going out of their mind you're stuck there and it's taking longer for them to to be released from the hospital. I mean, it could have a profound effect as we're trying to stem the the the spread of the virus, but at the same time, we're not allowing other people to heal. You know, at the rate that they should, I don't know, it's it's pandemics present lots and lots of problems that areKen Brown  45:49  not been trying to figure out there. There used to be there was a gastroenterologist in my community that when he retired, he, he loved dogs. And so he had like these show dogs, he would bring them as animals and just allow patients to pet the dogs. Yeah. And now I look back, I'm like, wow, I'm like, let's take it up a notch. I mean, if we know that these prairie voles really raise their artsy tosun levels, then maybe we should have some variables and just like let them bite people and just inject the oxytocin and I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to talk to Dr. Carter about that one. I'm not really sure that's gonna work. Yeah, you just made oxytocin a venom. So the hard part is you got to get the prairie voles super happy and comfortable, then you gotta piss it off enough to bite yourEric Rieger  46:35  budget. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, I don't I don't think that's the avenue but that's okay.Ken Brown  46:41  And I do believe that they have the full science on the half life of it also. So it's not like it happens. And then unlike the NRF, two pathway that stays elevated for some time, the oxytocin is much like an Endocannabinoid like, like an amide. It comes out and it works and it comes back. And it just is as needed when it comes. So what I'm saying is you got to get that parallel the prairie vole to bite you really quick, because I think the half life is only like 30 minutes. It's gonna be hard.Eric Rieger  47:10  Yeah, I it's, it's going to be hard to, to prove to even see your ideas worth anything. You know, I don't know.Ken Brown  47:19  What we're doing here laughing a little bit that's raising our oxytocin also. So even if just at least make some jokes about prairie voles, and maybe that'll raise yourEric Rieger  47:28  venomous prairie voles. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of jokes in there. But yeah, that would be weird and strange. But, yeah, maybe you'll get happy out of it, too.Ken Brown  47:40  So that's the vole hole I went down. So can you summarize all this for me really quick, because I realized I was kind of all over the map on this one. But that's not I think it allEric Rieger  47:48  over the map at all. I mean, he just gave more reinforcing evidence that the fact is, is that can paint the reason why we don't like being isolated is because we're not supposed to be but one of the many reasons that a pandemic really stinks and, and not being able to see your friends why people are longing to get back and seeing their families because we're meant to be social. So when it's safe, and you can figure it out, by all means be as social as possible. Find the people that you care about the most embrace them, tell them that you hug them, it's it's not just enough to see them on camera, it's not just enough to, to just hear them on the phone. You You really want to go embrace and hug and let somebody else know. And then I like the other one, too, listening. Look at someone hear them. That's one of the most empathetic things that you can do for someone is just be quiet, don't talk over them. And let them voice whatever is on their mind, happy, sad or indifferent. And it's actually going to work to your benefit to do it. kind of crazy.Ken Brown  48:53  Are you actually talking about oxytocin or the fact that I do interrupt all the time, and this is just a polite way to tell me to just listen,Eric Rieger  48:59  so you didn't do it? Right. You're supposed to sit there and just keep staring in one of these days. I'm just kidding. Yeah, now? I do. I do think it's kind of cool. There's a lot of lessons in there if you just want to be happy and healthy. Scott Golden Rule stuff, treat people as you want to be treated. You want to be hugged, give you you need a little help do some charity. Yeah, it's it's, it will all work to your benefit. Well,Ken Brown  49:19  we know that giving a gift works. We know that improving your microbiome works. So your sign behind you your bloating relief, it's what we do. I'll try until what you should do is buy a bunch of Tron to and give it away as a gift and hug that person. And then you're going to bump your oxytocin way up and you're going to help that person bump their oxytocin.Eric Rieger  49:42  I don't see how you can go wrong with that. You can'tKen Brown  49:44  go wrong with that. Give Atrantil and give a hug. That's awesome.Eric Rieger  49:50  Yeah, that's a much better summary summary than what I was working towards.Ken Brown  49:54  Now, I didn't have time to look into how the endocannabinoid system plays with oxytocin but you know, that's tied And also, because this is all this just shows how complex humans are tied in, we'll eventually get to how improving your endocannabinoid system. But it seems like everything that improves everything that I just said for oxytocin actually decreases the sympathetic response, we get back to the same thing over and over and over again, inflammation creates disease, inflammation does is the root cause of the disease process. When you have inflammation, your NRF two pathway goes down and your oxytocin goes down. So you at least need to take the reins, stop some of the inflammation through a proper diet, eating polyphenols, taking a proper CBD to improve your endocannabinoid system, and then maybe your body will adjust by rising these other systems, these other molecular processes.Eric Rieger  50:49  Yeah, oxytocin, ultimately, not just a pregnancy hormone or peptide. It's quite important for us throughout our entire existence. So unfortunately, I mean, we mostly in the medical community, at least allopathic Lee only talk about oxytocin as it applies to the maternity ward. So way more important than that,Ken Brown  51:10  it's way more important to that. And you know, that we really can't have animals in the endoscopy suite. But I'm gonna ask a small favor since your hair is really grown out. Okay. I think we should let stressed out patients just pet your head as they're waiting to go back for their colonoscopy.Eric Rieger  51:24  Yeah, day after hand sanitizer, I guess. Again,Ken Brown  51:29  or somebody that's super stressed out here. Would you mind letting them pay?Eric Rieger  51:34  As long as I don't have to lay down and kick my leg several times across?Ken Brown  51:40  Well, that's awesome. Yeah. oxytocin, we just keep throwing curveballs at you.Eric Rieger  51:44  Yeah, well, hey, listen. For the listeners out there. I think that we keep hitting hinting at it but pretty soon we need to dedicate a series or a show to the vagus nerve and we have actively been looking and talking to a few different people will have a vagal nerve expert on here pretty soon and I'm excited about it. It really ties into exactly what Ken is talking about with oxytocin and everything that we can do to help out our parasympathetic nervous system which is the relax the love the feel the the rest and digest mode, I guess, if you will, for our bodies. Yes, it's quite a bit I thinkKen Brown  52:26  we're gonna end up so we're gonna let Angie run point on this because she has done so much research on the dysautonomia, which is the the dysregulation of your neurologic processes in relation to different organ systems. And that's the whole Potts, maules, cebo relation, Ehlers Danlos, and all these other things. So we'd start with that. But I think if we can figure out the motility aspect, it helps so many people, it's all it's all connected. And it's an it's almost like you can't just do the one thing, you can't just, it's like you got to do it all. You got to get socialized, and you got to feel good about yourself, you got to be happy or try to be happy. Anyway, that works for you meditate, everything start working on that, though, you will start losing weight, then we can start the healing the gut it all, it's all coming together. And if we could develop some sort of really nice rationale why people are having issues they are. And I think that alone helps people to start on the road to recovery. Because just being told it's all in your head is doesn't cut it.Eric Rieger  53:43  No, not at all. Not at all. Well, Ken, I think that the instructions are hopefully clear. Go hug somebody. Go hug somebody.Ken Brown  53:53  Yeah, so as always, this is a medical show, but I'm not giving medical advice. I'm a medical doctor Eric delivers anesthesia for a living. But just speak with your doctor. If we said anything that looks like you need to question it, but we're in social isolation. So don't randomly go up and hug people. But you can certainly you can certainly improve your oxytocin by sharing this episode, possibly liking this episode that will increase your oxytocin level.Eric Rieger  54:24  Yeah, absolutely. Well, I can share I can share. This is obviously code file installation number 11. I'm Eric Rieger here with the awesome co host, Dr. Kenneth Brown. Thank you all for the continued email and shares that we get. I don't know. I'm amazed every single week that we have more and more people who write in and say, Hello, thanks for doing the show. So as long as we get those will, will keep meeting up and hopefully we're we're covering topics that they interest youKen Brown  54:53  know, I want to send it when we send this email out to let people know that we've published this I'm going to send a virtual hug know what virtual hugs Come on back at us just just take just just just take a little video of you just hugging.Eric Rieger  55:04  Oh, yeah, yeah, hugging. Oh and quick shout out to Sheila Unger, she she actually you asked about the family earlier she sent a a free complimentary sample of a Texas Tech face covering out the gauge. That's awesome. Cool. Yeah, awesome.Ken Brown  55:23  So they're right there. She raised her oxytocin level he didEric Rieger  55:26  that was that wasn't a charitable gift. Absolutely. Okay. I think that's gonna do it for this episode. We will see you all next time. Stay safe. Give a hug. Listen to people. And don't forget to like and share and we'll talk to you all soon. Right onTranscribed by https://otter.ai

Eric Rieger  0:00  Hello It is now time for the gut check project KBMD health fans and those at the Ken Brown clinic. I'm here with my guest host, Dr. Kenneth Brown. We've got an incredible special guest with us here today Dr. Tom O'Brien joins the show. Like and share of course, Dr. Brown once you take it away and introduce our awesome guests. Ken Brown  0:19  Well, I'm so excited because Dr. Tom, you and I have been running in similar circles. And every time I bump into somebody including different lab companies, including different mindshare people, everybody's like, Hey, you and Dr. Tom need to hang out. I'm like, I keep missing him. I'll go on a summit and he'll be like before me or after me. And then I'm just like, Oh, this is awesome. So we finally got you, wrangled in, you've got so much stuff going on. You're an author, you're a doctor, you obviously do some incredible deep dives. And what I love about you is everything that I've seen you on a webinar on a summit is science backed and that's exactly what we do. So I'm just thrilled I I have no agenda for this. You got a ton of information. If we ended up talking about something that I need to learn about, I'm just going to peel off and say, Wait, explain that. And that's, that's for me. So I'm not trying to question you, but like, sure, where I've read some of your stuff. And it's pretty cool. We're talking the same stuff, fix your brain through your gut, that kind of thing. That's all about us. So, welcome. So excited. Dr. Tom O'Brian  1:18  Thank you. Thank you so much. And I'm thinking a place to start if I may. The Alzheimer's Association came out last year and said one out of three elders dies with Alzheimer's or another dementia. So that means between the three of us, one of us is going down in our brain function, and it ain't gonna be me. Ken Brown  1:42  It's gonna be Eric. It's gonna be Eric.Eric Rieger  1:43   This is unfair.Dr. Tom O'Brian  1:44   I feel like I understand. But that's a reality check. And with a reality check like that, whether we like it or nobody likes to talk about brain function, no one does. You know, we all know someone that had a heart attack and survived. They changed their diet, they started exercising, they lost 25 pounds, they look better than they've looked in years. Most of us know someone diagnosed with cancer that went through the recommended protocols. And they're doing better than they've done in years. No one knows anyone diagnosed with a brain deterioration disease that's doing good. It terrifies us. And so we avoid the topic. So I want to talk about first the reality check that our healthcare system is not quite working the way we want it to and more people are getting sicker, especially if we talk about the brain and kids with autism and the numbers are skyrocketing and all that, but how can we look at our health care if our bodies aren't working the way we want them to right now? What's the big picture view of that? How do I get a big picture and I want to suggest this concept because I have found that this works really well. When I moved from Chicago to Southern California in 2010 I needed a map. How do you get from Chicago to San Diego? You need a map, you know, and I may know how to get to Denver cuz you just get on I 80 in Chicago, it takes you to Denver, right? You know, I may or it actually doesn't, it takes you close and you have to go up and 94. But I don't know how to get to San Diego, you need a map. When your body is not working the way you want it to you need a map. You can't just look for a better form of vitamin C, or what brain nutrient Can I take to help my brain function better? We have to have the map and what is the map in healthcare. The map is understanding at a layman's level, how I got to where I am and if we don't. To understand how we got to where we are right now, we are just like a dog chasing its tail trying to get somewhere else. So the question about brain dysfunction, or the question about auto immunity is, why is the immune system attacking my own tissue? Why is my brain not functioning the way it's supposed to, and you have to do a deep dive. And you don't need to be a geek and know the science because there's lots of information out there now. But we have to be willing to be uncomfortable for a little bit of time in being overwhelmed with knowledge. And we take it just one step at a time. That's why the subtitle of my most recent book, you can fix your brain. The subtitle is just one hour a week to the best memory, productivity and sleep you've ever had. And it's not cutesy subtitle It is the only way to be successful at changing the direction your brains going. Because as you learn more and more about the things that you didn't know, you mean that little bit of mold on my shower curtain there, it secretes spores into the air every time I take a shower, and I'm inhaling those spores and they go right up to my brain. And the number one type of Alzheimer's of the five types is called inhalation Alzheimer's, meaning what you're inhaling is causing the inflammation in your brain killing off brain cells. Yes, change shower curtain, you know, or whatever the trigger is. People don't know what the trigger triggers are. So they don't know what to do and they're hoping for a magic pill. You need the map. How did I get to where I am, so you then can make the corrections over six months to a year that turn your health in a new direction.Eric Rieger  6:00  I agree with that. I think that with where you're where you're beginning here in our discussion, many of the things you listed there, there's a lot to unpack, but many of the things that you listed there are, I think some huge tenants that that we discussed here on the go check project. One of those is that gut brain access, Dr. Brown talks quite a bit about the relationship for brain health and how it begins really with systemic health, which obviously originates in the gut. And then you're talking about issues of, of nerves and obviously the brain is a bundle of nerves but neural health and so what is it specifically that we need to do to protect our bodies from I would assume you're getting to long term inflammation what what the caveats are there that are initiating those inflammatory responses? So is there something that you wanted to kind of peek at there were Ken Brown  6:51  Yeah, so love where you're going with this. I'm um, as a gastroenterologist what I'm seeing is an exponential growth of autoimmune disease, Crohn's all sort of colitis are those celiac disease. Those are the ones that I deal with. And we're seeing this huge exponential growth. What you're describing is one in three people getting Alzheimers, we are seeing that autism is increasing. there's a there's a common theme here. And it's this upward hockey stick that's going on with chronic diseases. I love everywhere you're going and you I'm my bandwidth is only so large, where I have to kind of focus on how do I improve your gut to improve your brain and now you're talking other aspects. I want to get into that, but I want to know more about the guy. I'm a real big fan of how I built this. So I want to know more about the guy, the doctor Tom, how did you end up deciding that you were going to go down this path? I've heard a lot of your lectures so I know that you're super smart. I know you're very well read, but I don't know you. So let's talk about you for a moment. Dr. Tom O'Brian  7:52  Sure, sure. When I began my medical education in chiropractic school, very first week, the very first week I knew absolutely nothing. You know, we're working on a cadaver. I've just seen a dead body for the first time learning how to work with cadavers and genetics classes. There was a sign Dr. Sheldon Deal. Mr. Arizona was coming on campus to give a talk on Wednesday night. My very first week. This was the first week of January 1978. And I thought I'll go listen to this guy, Mr. Arizona bodybuilder, he's going to be a healthy guy. So I go to the talk. He has a color television on a stand in the room and back then color televisions were pretty new. And so to see all those colors, you know, he had the television on but the volume offand he walked over to a desk opened his briefcase to pick out a bar man, an iPhone, walked up to the color Television holding the iPhone like a flashlight you know policeman holds a flashlight up Hi, walks up to the color television with this bar magnet, the picture turns upside down and walks away. It goes right side up and walks towards it goes upside down. walks away it goes. Right? In attic pollution does to your brain and your nervous system. It's called neurological switching. These are people that say right, when they mean left, they write the number three backwards. they they they just are confused. And it was the first evidence in my mind the first introduction to electromagnetic pollution Ken Brown  9:51  1978 he was talking about in 1978. That's crazy.Dr. Tom O'Brian  9:55   Yes, because he he was talking he was talking about batteries in a watch and because they were fairly new, and when you put a battery next year body and this was a watch that it can for sensitive people, not for everyone but for sensitive people. It can be the straw that breaks the camel's back. And it impacts on their neurological organization, and how their their brain and their nervous system functions. Nowadays, we take it for granted Of course, we wear watches with batteries, and we put ear pods and our years we put batteries next to our brain. And, you know, we're using headphones that are remote wireless, so more batteries next to the brain. You know, I'm a strong advocate that we never put a cell phone next to our head. You either use the speaker or you use a corded earphones so that you're not putting especially for children whose skulls are thinner and these electric magnetic waves penetrate through a thinner skull of a child. And now there are so many studies on that. That's why in the book, you can fix your brain. I talked about the pyramid of health. Remember, we're still looking for a map here. How did I get to where I am? So in a pyramid, we think there's three sides to a pyramid. No, there's four. There's also a base. So the base is structure. That's the home of chiropractic and osteopathy, and massage and pillows and orthotics in your shoes and is your car seat tilted back. So you're driving like this all the time. That's, that's structured the base, then there's the biochemistry, the one that we all know about. And that's what we eat and drink the air we breathe. Then there's the spiritual or emotional and then there's the electromagnetic. So whenever you have a health concern, you have to look at all four venues to see, where are the triggers that are contributing to my body not functioning the way it should. So that was my introduction in January of 1978, to healthcare. And from that, I started looking in the literature and I found some children living within a quarter mile of high power tension wires had higher incidences of leukemia. That was 1979. I think I found that first study. And by the early 80s, mid 80s, there are many studies coming out about high power tension wires, and people's health if they live near that. So that validated for me, that for some people, electromagnetic pollution was a problem. Not for everybody, but for some people. And the same is true about structure. For some people. That's the problem. For some people, it's stinking thinking, the emotional or spiritual side and You can see the studies on stress hormones inflaming or triggering type one diabetes and triggering autoimmune diseases was what we think that or how we respond to stress and the hormones we make that set that up. For some people. That's the trigger. It's all about finding the map. So my entire career has been based on always asking my first mentor, no, my second mentor. My second mentor was Dr. George Goodheart, the founder of applied kinesiology, the muscle testing that some doctors have seen. Practice night have hundreds and hundreds of hours with Dr. George and he would always every weekend in our seminars, and usually they were at the Marriott Hotel at the airport in Detroit. So people fly in from all over the world to listen to Dr. George and the the podium that he's stood on was a wood podium. And he would do this all the time. He would say, lift up his right knee and his right arm and go, Why doctor and slam his foot down really hard. So we all kind of jumped in our seats now, because that would stage would just like bounce a little bit. Why do they have what they have? Why is your patient complaining of dot dot dot? And he would consistently drill into us Why? So my entire career has been based on why is that happening? You know, for example, why is it? We've all heard that it takes 20 minutes before the hormones in your gut. Tell your brain that you've eaten enough? How come you don't feel full right away with the volume of food you take in? How come you have you eat a little bit more and they say, Oh, I'm really full. How come that messaging is delay. I don't really know. But doctor Ken , you might, you know, we could have some discussion about this. I just made this up. But I think it's because we have the same body as our ancestors thousands and thousands of years ago, bodies function exactly the same. And a primary concern for our ancestors was getting enough food. They didn't get three meals a day, they ate when they found food. So even when they're full, maybe they should eat a little bit more because they might not get it next time. And so they get an extra few 15-20 minutes of eating the berries or eating the nuts or a little more meat on a harvest they made because they might not get a meal for a day or two. And I'm just making it up as to why I've never seen anyone write about why that is that that happens. But that's that was my thought about it, but always why. So I've been asking why my entire career.Ken Brown  16:01  So the why this is really interesting. So the when was 1978? The How is these mentors that have come to you? And then the Why is how do I do this? So then the how I built this, where did you go from? Okay? I am learning a lot from these experts, I have decided to shift my career focus and put in you've put a ton of time into developing summits into writing books into I mean, your your website is just got blogs that are just stacks and stacks deep. So when did you make this decision to go, I'm going to really commit to this aspect. And I'm going to become a thought leader and a teacher about these kind of things. Because clearly, you're passionate. But the as, as a physician myself, it's finding that time it's saying I'm going to take this, this leap off this dock, say I'm going to commit to this. I feel so strongly about it that I'm willing to put myself out there.Dr. Tom O'Brian  17:01  My third mentor was Dr. Jeffrey Bland. Who I heard Dr. Bland first talk in Chicago in 1978. And he is the Science Guy. Ken Brown  17:15  78 was a big year for you.Dr. Tom O'Brian  17:16   It was a big year. It was a very big year, married in 77. Went to school graduate school in 78. met these incredible mentors. You know, I think my angels just guided me to these guys. It was unbelievable. And but Dr. bland would say now this doctor in the New England Journal of Medicine said this and oh here three years ago, in the British Medical Journal, they said this and right here last week in the Journal of American Medical Association, they've said this, do you see how these pieces come together? And Dr. bland has always been about asking why and understanding at a deeper level why things can occur from a science level. So Dr. Goodhart was all about clinicians and being a clinician and finding out how things work. And sometimes he made up the reasons because he wasn't as much of a science guy, as Dr. bland. so bland is talking why from the science goodheart is talking why from the results. And so what happened? Was I just with every patient, I just kept looking to see, why is that happening? Or if they're not getting the results that I think they should have gotten? Why is that not happening? What am I missing here? What am I missing? And so I kept I keep looking and looking and looking. I'm not content when they feel better. And I mean this with the greatest of respect, I don't really care how they feel. They don't come. They come to me because of how they feel. But they're really coming to me to have their bodies function better so they live a long and vital life and how they feel is transient. So whether I get them feeling better right away is secondary to identifying the mechanism behind why their body's not functioning properly, Ken Brown  19:11  love how you said that, so that how they feel is transient. And the first thing I thought of is how many people come to me. And they're on multiple anxiolytics and multiple antidepressants, right? And I read the notes from the other doctors and they're like patient reports of feeling less anxious. Plus, check. Beautiful, there it is. But now I'm dealing with side effects of eight different drugs. And so I like how you said that how you feel is transient. I need to know why. I love Dr. Tom O'Brian  19:38  Yeah, yeah, and of course, all of these drugs, the antidepressants, the anti anxiolytics. They're all approved and designed to be used for a short period of time. None of them are approved for the rest of your life. But they're given to people so they continue to feel less symptoms. Ken Brown  19:56  They're approved to be given for short periods of time, but the pharmaceutical and I'm not passing the pharmaceutical industry. Many of these drugs if you try and get off of them create a tremendous amount of their own side effects. So knowing that, so Eric Eric's former life, the way that he paid for his crna school was actually as a drug Rep. So he's got some pretty interesting stories about how to make sure that you move some product.Eric Rieger  20:19   Yeah, no comment, but I don't work there anymore. So that's probably the most important takeaway. No, but I do agree with that. And I do think Dr. Tom, one of the biggest issues that I never liked about certain aspects of pharmaceuticals, which were intended for short term, to become long term is they're missing a very, very important piece. Once I've taken this to alleviate whatever the symptom or the feel, as you put it, there's no exit strategy. There's no way for me to break this dependency that I've now formulated to make me now feel this new normal. And that's, that's something to fear. I would, I think, to engage long term with a pharmaceutical that's just simply going to function as a feeling band aid. is taking care of the issue.Dr. Tom O'Brian  21:02  You're absolutely right. You know, and we've got so many cases of people on high blood pressure medication or on antidepressants. And we always say at the very beginning, now look, here's what's going to happen. There are some side effects to the medications you're taking. And you may have heard some, but I'm just want to make sure you know, these are the potential side effects. But we're going to address why your body has high blood pressure right now. So it's great to be taking these medications. You absolutely take them when you need them, and you need them right now. But as we address the underlying why your need for those medications is likely to go down, which means you're going to stand up and you're going to start getting dizzy because your blood pressure is too low, because you've got too much medication now. So I want you to call your cardiologist or the doctor who put you on that medication as soon as you start noticing any symptoms like this, this, this or this and say, Hey, I'd like to come in, and you come in and you say, you know, I'm getting a little lightheaded when I stand up now, and I never did before, but I've changed my diet. I'm exercising, I think I need less medication. Can you monitor me and we meet down when you think it's appropriate and safe. But just gradually wean me down so that I don't have any complications as my body's getting healthier. And every doctor is willing to do that every doctor and if they're not find a new doctor to monitor your medications.Ken Brown  22:36  So I'll stop you right there. And this is more for teaching me and with your style of practice. You have somebody that comes in you know that they've got the diabesity triad or whatever. And you look at them you go Okay, we need to start someplace. Do you start diet do you start environmental toxin do you start sleep, because I think those are kind of the three pillars might leave least knowledgeable aspect of that is environmental toxin because it's just something that I've not gotten into yet. And when you mentioned the breathing in the spores, I'm like, Yeah, I've got a lot of patients that got really sick when they moved into an older home and they renovated and then they've never been right. Since I've definitely believe that mold has a big role, but it's just the amount of time. So when you look at this, I'm challenging you to say this is where I start first, where is it? Dr. Tom O'Brian  23:25  Really easy, really easy. There is a great program that's been developed called the living matrix. And the living matrix is a, I don't know 30-40 page questionnaires. And it's going to take you, Mrs. patient, it's going to take you a day or two to fill this out. You'll come back to it and fill out some more of it. Someone's going to say how is the health of your mother during your pregnant pregnancy with you? And he will say, Oh, I don't know my mother passed. That's all right. Call your aunts. Call your aunts and find out. Did mom take any medications during the pregnancy with me, you get as much information as you can, and when you have a completed living matrix, this is the computer model, the program sets it off into eight different categories. And it becomes obvious which categories are the most out of balance. And that's usually the place that you start. And we'll start with maybe two or three of those categories, depending on the individual. Some people, it's clear, their auto immunity happened within three months of their divorce, or within three months of being sexually abused. And it's clear, they've got to deal with that energy. And so that person needs to include in their protocol, a therapist that they feel really good working with about this particular topic, because that's not my category. But if it's not address, it's going to thwart the progress radically. Ken Brown  24:59  That is so interesting. That's that insult to injury that I have to have that discussion with so many patients where I have somebody that comes to see me and they're like, yeah, it's unfortunate. I went to this horrible divorce. And then I started bleeding out my rectum and then I diagnosed them with raging ulcerative colitis. So like, what is the bad luck? I'm like, I hate to attribute it to bad luck. I attribute it to a sequence of events. Dr. Tom O'Brian  25:22  Yeah, exactly. Right. I agree. Yeah, that is totally agree fully agree. And and the tool called the living matrix of every patient fills that out. I have lots of people, you know, we we did a docu series called betrayal, the autoimmune disease solution. They're not telling you is that out yet? Okay. It is it is. And we've actually had over 600,000 people watch it. When I make the living matrix available to people and I think probably four to 6000 people have filled it out. You know, it's great because it's hard to read until you understand how it works, but it gives you a lot of information. And all of our patients fill it out before I'll ever see them if they don't fill it out, or they fill it out halfway. I don't see them. If I if I see that it's only half done. I call my staff because I'm virtual now, you know, so I do virtual consultations. But as I'm looking at the results here, and I'm looking at the screen and living matrix, you know, if it's not filled out, I call my staff and I say rescheduled or they put the time and I'm not putting the time in until they do if they do it half ass, I'm not going to do it half ass, and so cancel them, and don't charge them just cancel them. And if they want to come back, do it right. You know, you just don't put up with that. And I talk on stage all the time to doctors. You can't put up with someone who's putting their toe in the water. They're either going to do a deep dive with you, whatever your skill set is or they're not and in our practice, we represent that our goal is to help them see the map of what's happened to them. And so if they can't, they can't see the map. If I don't know the history, it's not possible.Eric Rieger  27:16  Well, that's actually pretty, pretty impressive because in a different in a different way when we've had patients who've come through the clinic, and then we've, we've prepped them to, to scope and I'm addressing anesthesia and of course, Dr. Ken over here is discussing with them what to expect as they continue on their journey. Something I've heard him address is, it doesn't matter necessarily what led to where you are right now, whether it be your fault and all of them or none of them. But it is your responsibility to engage with the change that's going to make you better. And you've had that conversation with with plenty of patients and it really just doesn't matter what to this point we can identify the triggers, which of course helps finding the solution. But ultimately, there's going to be self responsibility for one's own health. And you've got to be able to commit to whatever that change happens to be. And I would say that really the the gut check project that this whole the whole reason for this podcast was, we felt that there are better solutions than just taking the old didactics from the pharmaceutical industry and antiquated medic medical school iidx to solve problems. Mother Nature has lots and lots and lots of tools that we don't all, you know, use which are free available. And if you just have the discipline to stick with it for your own interest, you'll find in most cases, a better health, healthy living style, I guess you could say, Dr. Tom O'Brian  28:48  well, you guys are in a unique situation that you have to do the tests to identify where they're currently at. You've got to be able to clearly say you've got ulcerative colitis, it's at this stage and it's in this area of your colon and Okay, so we need to calm down this fire, calm down this inflammation while we look to see where it came from. So you you guys have both areas that you have to address and I do this on stage a lot and you know doctors laugh at it, but I've had a number of people come back to me years later and thanked me that they implemented this. When I I tell patients that my favorite patients are the ones that say I've been to Mayo Clinic and they don't know what's wrong. And I'll say that's great. Congratulations. And they look at me kind of startled. You know, they heard I'm a nutcase. But Congratulations, that means you don't have a disease. Because if you've got a disease, Mayo Clinic would find it. You've got dysfunction, something's not functioning right. So the test we're going to do or not the same test that we're looking for disease, we're going to do functional tests. And I hope that we find some functional tests, and people will and sometimes their insurance won't pay for it. And then some patients will say, Well, I can't afford that. And I say, Okay. Oh, okay. And then I write down in their file. Patient refuses this recommended test due to finances? And please sign this. Well, why? Why would I sign that? Because you're asking me to work with one hand behind my back. And I'm going to do everything I can to be of service to you. I will do my very best, but I'm not responsible anymore. If a problem occurs that I miss something, because well, no, no, that's okay, Doc, I'll sign it. Okay. Or no, no, no, I'll do the test. I'll do the test. Okay, good. Because I've seen so many people that say I can afford it. And two months later, I see him in the shopping they've got a deep tan because they just spent three weeks in Mexico, on vacation. It's just a priority thing. And if someone really can't afford what they need, well, our services will always reduce our services for finances if it's true, but we need patients to take ownership and responsibility to be actively involved with us. as we're going through this process. Ken Brown  31:28  When you started this, you open with Alzheimer's and it's funny because I kind of do that with my patients where you said that one in three people will now develop Alzheimer's. And then you tell me Alzheimers Association says that Alzheimers Association, so and then you talk about a patient that cannot afford to do X, Y and Z but you see them with a deep tan. So I use the let's fix your gut to protect your brain later in life. Because I'm I personally and I try and teach my kids this. I've got a 15 year old, a 13 year old. And my wife and I are on the same page where I personally prefer to purchase memories, as opposed to things. So I'm perfectly willing to take us on a trip, have some incredible meals, have some great pictures that we'll revisit. And rather than purchase something else, and what I mean by that is what is that memory worth? That memory is worth so much more than that object to me. And then if you were to say that I'm going to take away all those memories, meaning I'm going to take away your life, that's the panic moment with me, that's when I want to sit there and say, I want you to change your diet, I want you to change your lifestyle, not even so much is it so much a physical thing. It's not so much so that you can have the Beachbody, it's not so much you can do this. It's so that we protect your brain later. It's so that the same concept of osteoporosis prevention in your 30s so that we're not dealing with it and you're 60 so you're not busting a hip in your late 60s. And then now thing, what you're talking about, it's so true that you, it's hard to get people to think big picture like that. But you've always done this. So 1978 you have these mentors that do this. When did you decide to really say I'm going to be part of the movement? And I'm going to develop this website? I'm going to spend, I mean, you've been prolific. You've written books, you lectured you do some crazy summits. Man, you're gluten summit. Some of the people you have on that are like my heroes. I mean, Alessio Fasano, I mean, I've been following that cat since you know, early on in his career and a lot of you get some some pretty heavy hitters. That's pretty impressive. How did you go from, I now need to make a difference. On a greater scale, I guess is what I'm saying. You've mentioned multiple stages and stuff like that. When did you go it's less from one to one it's more from one to many.Dr. Tom O'Brian  33:53  January 2013 my friend, I think our friend I believe, you know, JJ Virgin. I've known JJ for many, many years. And she used to call me or I'd see her and she said, I just went to this weekend seminar was fabulous. You know, they're talking about this marketing concept of how to get information out to people in sales. He she said, You should come and say, Oh, yeah, thanks. Thanks. And then she hired a consultant, Allie, and he called me and said, I just signed the contract and I'm working with Allie. I'm gonna learn how to do this at a bigger scale. Come do it with me. Yeah, how much? $10,000 it ain't happening here. It ain't happening. Right. And then JJ grew and she grew. She applied to Princeton. Ken Brown  34:45  JJ is pretty convincing. when she gets passionate predicaments. Dr. Tom O'Brian  34:49  Yeah. And then she called me and said, Look, I'm having a seminar. I'm having I'm hosting a seminar, you're going to be there. I'm going to hire somebody to come grab you by the nape of your neck and bring okay, okay. Okay, welcome. So this is January 2013, dropped my jaw to hear how the participants there would do one thing that they prepare a webinar or something. And they would have 200 people attend, or 400 people attend just drop my jaw of the impact factor that was magnified by learning how to use the internet. And so I made a declaration that weekend. I said, you know, I'm a geek, and I just read a lot of science and I know these guys are I've been in their seminars where I've seen them at symposiums. I'm going to interview a number of geeks from around the world. And I'm going to put it online. Would you everyone here in the audience helps support me in this by send out announcements. And they all said yes. So my first interview, you'll really appreciate this Dr. Ken. My very first interview ever was Professor Michael Marsh, and our the marsh Godfather, the Godfather, celiac Marsh one Marsh to Marsh three, the Godfather, and he and no one had ever interviewed him. He was 74 no one had ever interviewed and he took me by the arm and walked me around Oxford and said, Tom, that's, that's right, right where I stood, and that and I received my medical degree in 1962. So that's great professor or took me down in the bowels of the library from the 1800s and that's where he sat to study every day. And you know, so Marsh, the Godfather and Professor Fasano, Harvard and so many others from around the world. Umberto Volta chairs the celiac Society of Italy. And I interviewed all these people. And everyone who's a JJ's event, sent announcements out to their people. We had 118,000 people attend Luton summit in November of 2013. It was the first online. The first online health summit ever was the gluten summit. And we made it up. Ken Brown  37:25  And that was when 2000 what? Dr. Tom O'Brian  37:27  November 2013. Ken Brown  37:30  I mean, thousand of those people were still doing dial up. Yeah.Dr. Tom O'Brian  37:35  That's right, you know, and the weekend I came back from making that declaration, I mean, I was fired up. I get a message. And this guy emails me and says, Hi, my name is Bob Roth. I am the social media director for the University of Chicago celiac center, and I'm out in California. I'm wondering if you did have time for breakfast, and I said, You i'm sure so we had breakfast and Bob said, you know, Dr. O'Brien, everyone's University Chicago thinks you're a nutcase. You talk about you talk about gluten sensitivity outside of celiac disease. And but I watched one of your presentations was recorded, and you're just talking science. I said, Yes. You said, you're actually correct. And I said, I know. I know. He's and I said, Listen, Bob, I just made this declaration. I'm going to do this thing. I'm going to travel the world. I'm going to interview these guys. I know who to interview. And I'm going to interview them. We're going to put it together and we're going to do this thing online. Come join us. So Bob left the University of Chicago celiac center, and came to Southern California and was our social media person. And then we found a guy to who knew how to run this program I learned about in jjs weekend called InfusionSoft, which puts puts all the data together into one package and sends it online. And we hired Bobby from Tennessee. And we put on the gluten summit. And the next day, I mean, so many of my friends call him said, How did you do that? What did you do people like Deanna Minik and Mark Hyman and so many other my friends, how did you do that? And I said, Well, my friends helped me here. And they said, Oh, can can are my staff and we just made it up. When there was a problem. We made it up. And they said, can I talk to your staff. And I said, Sure. Then my staff came to me and said, Hey, Doc, they they want us to do this for them. We should start a company to do this. And I know man, that's not my thing. That's not my passion. You guys go ahead if you want to. That was the formation of health talks online which is hosted 10s of millions of people in the last seven years in different summits all over the world, they of course, that's where it came from.Eric Rieger  40:09  Sorry about that. I didn't mean to talk over you. But of course, you wanted to have people that were interested in what it was that you were offering. You also find some inspiration in the fact that there were that many like minded people who were essentially as you probably assumed, but now you confirm they're kind of starved for that information.Dr. Tom O'Brian  40:27  Oh, I knew I knew from the day I opened my practice about the frequency of weed related disorders outside of celiac disease. I knew it. The testing was just not accurate enough at the time to confirm it. But I put people on gluten free diets and they get better again and again and again. But it was a component of a treatment program, not just gluten free diet, but it was a prerequisite you have to do that. Sure, guys, I see that the battery on my computer's at 5%. I have to run into the other room and get the charger So I'm going to come right back to you. SoKen Brown  41:04  we're gonna love this. I love this conversation. So what's really cool about Dr. Tom is just how honest he's being. He's just like, Hey, I met this guy. He taught me something. I met this other guy. He taught me something, I met this, JJ comes up to me and says, Hey, come over and do this, and just pulls the trigger and says, I have a message that I interview out there. And the digital marketing era was really in full swing. Right then.Eric Rieger  41:30  the thing I felt the reason why I asked Darshan that last question was, to me it was it was eye opening, even when we met JJ is just seeing how many people were now gaining access to topics that simply were not being addressed when when we were young, or going through school, etc. And basically what I feel like Dr. Tom just illustrated here is technology has allowed us to take what has been either ignored or hidden messages out to the masses and then helping people where they couldn't find help before. Ken Brown  41:59  Yeah. Are you back with a Tom?Dr. Tom O'Brian  42:02  I'm back with you. And as, as, as you were talking about technology absolutely correct, you know, for years and years that they thought I was a nutcase because I would talk about wheat related disorders outside of celiac. And now we have the testing available that's very, very accurate 97 to 99%, sensitive and specific. And so with those kinds of tests, the test is called the wheat Zoomer, could you zoom in on problem? And with those kinds of testing, people see for themselves that their immune system is trying to protect them, whether they get sick when they eat it or not.Ken Brown  42:43  So you've said this three times now, which means that it has clearly been a part of your career you said they said I'm a nutcase. They said I'm a nutcase. They knew I was a nutcase. So you've stuck by this, but will you explain a little bit when you say that, they say I was a nutcase. That meant that as a chiropractor discussing these other aspects infringing on people's territory, was it that you were just so far ahead of the curve that nobody was discussing? I want to know why you feel why you Dr. Tom feels that other people viewed you as a nutcase?Dr. Tom O'Brian  43:20  Oh, it was obvious. It was spoken about. But the the point in that is, you know, when when you know, that science is on your side, but technology just hasn't caught up yet to confirm it. And you know, it's on your side, because you see the results again, and again, and again and again, and you keep seeing the results, but you the technology just hadn't caught up yet. Then either you go by the status quo, with all of these unexplained applications, and people Don't get well, they're the way they're supposed to, or are you willing to break new ground and say, you know, oh, no, as is negative, when they give up wheat, they feel so much better. Why don't you try it for three weeks, and let's see what happens. Well then, and they get better. Their their child's attention deficit gets better. And the teacher say the new drug, you've given your child's working really well. And it was just a gluten free diet. The other parents say, Oh, we, we didn't give them any drugs. So he's on a gluten free diet. And you see that again and again and again. I can't let what other people think of me get in the way of the service that I can do for my patients.Ken Brown  44:50  Because you took a really bold let's, let's dissect what you just set about that. You knew that certain people in health care, we're not saying the nicest things about you. And then you dove in when you said I don't want to treat a patient that just sticks their toe in the water, you dove into a digital marketing world where keyboard warriors love to play also. So you went from I know that some people are going to say not nice things, too, I'm going to embrace it on a level that nobody ever has. And I'm gonna teach online, which is a very, very bold thing, because not a lot of people have the guts to do that right. To be pushing the envelope. I mean, it's, you know, I mean, you talk about I've been talking about zonulin for years before we test it. And you said we'd Zoomer and that's how I got involved with vibrant wellness. I was like, Ah, you guys figured out how to check zonulin? Yes,Dr. Tom O'Brian  45:49  yes, yes.Ken Brown  45:51  Yeah. And when I talked to my colleagues, I mean, even when I talked to gastroenterologists, they looked at me like you're What are you? Are you one of those? nutjobs talking leaky gut. You're one of those weirdos talking gluten sensitivity. Um, you know, fortunately, I fortunately did not discover the internet early enough so I didn't have to put myself out there and have a successful career writing books and doing stuff like that. Fortunately, I still have to stick my finger in people's butts to make a living and occasionally interview somebody who's smarter than me that decided to put it out there on the internet and do things and do summit so that's a but it takes guts to do that. So are you there. Dr. Tom?Eric Rieger  46:35  Did he freezeDr. Tom O'Brian  46:37  sn Ken Brown  46:38  you froze there for a little bit.Eric Rieger  46:41  We can hear you. Okay. You guys go. How about that?Ken Brown  46:45  Okay. There we go. Okay, back now.Dr. Tom O'Brian  46:47  Okay. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, you're absolutely right. You know, you asked me why and how did I do this? A home that I have in every one of treatment rooms. Can Can you hear me? Okay?Ken Brown  47:13  Yeah, you're going in and out a little bit, but I think it's all right. Oh, we should go ahead and muscle through it. That's right.Dr. Tom O'Brian  47:19  Okay, okay. There's a poem that I when I read it I just resonated deep deep in my being. It's by George Bernard Shaw. This is the true joy in life, being used for purpose recognized as the Mighty One. The being a force of nature. Instead of a selfish, feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining The world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole and it is my privilege to do for whatever I can, life is no brief candle to me. It's sort of a splendid torch that I have a hold up for the moment and want to make burn as brightly as possible before passing it on to future generations. So that's my creed.Ken Brown  48:18  I love it. I love it. It's awesome.Dr. Tom O'Brian  48:20  And and from that place, if you know about zonulin, and you know about leaky gut and you think a patient's got it and you don't address it, because of what our peers may think, in my mind, it's Shame on you. And I do that on stage with doctors all the time, who cares what your peers think? I'll give you an example of that one, and you'll appreciate this one 1986 Australia. gastroenterologist says, You know, I think that sometimes ulcers are caused by a batch said you are a nutcase. Everybody knows ulcers are caused by too much acid and you have to give antacids so what did this guy do? He does an endoscopy, puts a camera down into his stomach takes pictures of the healthy pink tissue of his stomach. And then he drinks a beaker of beaker of a bacteria called Helio backer pylori. waits for days until he's as sick as can be, does another endoscopy takes pictures of the many ulcers that are starting in his stomach, and then he takes the antibiotics to kill the bacteria waits about a week until he's feeling better, does another picture of the healing of the ulcers. Then he publishes that paper, then everybody knows he's a nutcase. But he proved the under shadow of a doubt sometimes, ulcers are caused by a bacteria and the World Health or I thought that was so important. They sent that paper to every medical society on the planet. Why? Because at that time, stomach cancer was the number one cancer killing people. And it often comes from a helium backdoor infection. So, this guy didn't care. You know, he didn't care. He done his work, and he still was kind of thought of as a weirdo out there. Dr. Barry Marshall. 21 years later, he wins a Nobel Prize in Physiology. And the Nobel committee says and this is the exact quote, who with tenacity, and a prepared mind challenged prevailing dogma and that's what every one of our patients needs.Ken Brown  50:49  a prepared mind. I like that exact word mind if you if you're tenacious, but you do your homework, you burn the midnight oil, the prepared mind with tenacity is an unstoppable force. That's awesome. That's love thatDr. Tom O'Brian  51:05  is just one hour a week. That's tenacity every Tuesday night after dinner every Sunday morning after services whenever it is, but every week, you're going to spend one hour learning more about reading the map of how you got to where you are just one hour a week. And in six months, you've changed the way you think you change the way you live your life. You challenge prevailing dogma, and your health is the benefit that you get from it.Eric Rieger  51:34  I love that. Ken Brown  51:35  I love it. IEric Rieger  51:36  mean, it's interesting that you use Marsh as that example, because when this guy sitting to the right of me developed Atrantil and went on to talk about why polyphenols are so incredibly important. I guess we're going on six years ago now. He used that example. And that it's okay to think outside of the box which is essentially what he was saying to challenge dogma is to go outside of this box that we have built around ourselves. If it weren't for someone venturing outside, we never would have made innovation. Ken Brown  52:08  And the beauty of the technology that has allowed you to have this stage where 600,000 people sign up for summon at one time, also allows us to share globally information in a way that we couldn't before. So when I sit there and meet with some of my colleagues, and they're like, oh, there's no science on that. I'm like, Oh, really, let me pull up my Mendeley account. Really, here's 8000 articles on what we're talking about. Why don't you start reading that and when in my world traditional medicine world especially in Texas, I think that different states a little more progressive, like California has always been a little more open to the functional medicine side but Texas, not so much coming around. But when the drug rep to my left over here when doctors say there's no science on that what they're saying is somebody is not brought me lunch with a detailed piece explaining what I'm supposed to say. That's really what I'm saying. And we're all really busy. And that is what it is. But it just happens to be just like you. You go, um, you know, I'm tenacious, but I'm armed with science, therefore, I can walk into this battlefield and hold down, even if they even if they call me crazy.Dr. Tom O'Brian  53:17  Yeah, cuz that's exactly right. Last week I did an interview for a neuro psychiatric psychiatry group. And the doctor who coordinated the interview, she said, you know, Dr. Brian, I heard you speak three years ago at our conference, and you yelled at us on stage. No one's ever yelled,at us on stage before your neuropsychiatrist they're the cream of the crop in their own mind. You know, they're legends in their own mind. Right. AndKen Brown  53:48  voices in their heads.Dr. Tom O'Brian  53:50  Yes, right. Good, catch. Good, good. But what I said to them if you aren't spending one hour a week, reading the current literature Cutting Edge literature in your field of expertise, shame on you. You're outdated, one hour a week. And nobody's got time for any of this. But if you don't do that you're outdated within a year. Yeah. And, and she thanked me. She said, You know, I took what you said to heart because it made sense. I didn't like how you said it, but I liked what you said. And the result is I've completely changed my practice in three years. Thank you so much. I really want to acknowledge you here on the microphone in front of all of my colleagues, that was such an excellent recommendation to us and i and i say that to everyone. Whether you're a general public, or a health care practitioner, one hour a week. That's what it takes to have 10 that's tenacity and then prepare your mind to challenge the way you think so that you can read the map of what's happened to your body so far,Eric Rieger  54:58  don't you one of the reasons why really enjoy doing our show is that I'm a better doctor because of it because I prepare for different things because I have to research a lot of stuff. When we talk about topics. You're the exact same way you have gone. You started with the gluten and the you went to the brain. You're looking at this now you've got different you've got the whole erm. Dr. Tom O'Brian  55:20  bottle immunityKen Brown  55:21  Yeah, but what's the name of the of the program again?Eric Rieger  55:25  betrayal, Ken Brown  55:26  betrayal, betrayal. Yeah, I was I was trying to think of that. So when you do that you automatically your passion will have you read this. So I'm going to ask for your help. Maybe it's not you. Maybe it's some other people that you meet, but we're running into something. So when I say my Mandalay account, I have a graduate student that I work with and she finds everything If you need anything, let me know just email me She will find it and get the articles and so we can sit there and look at some of this but I'm seeing something and I think that you're probably seeing it also and it is This weird it becomes down to a nerve, dysautonomia motility type situation that can be the underlying cause of a lot of gastrointestinal issues which then lead to neuro inflammation. And now we're getting to the vagus nerve and we're talking about this I've got some really sick people that come to me and they're they've all been to the Mayo Clinic they've all been to the Cleveland Clinic and they all have been told that it's functional this and that, that it's in their head and they all say you should start taking Prozac but these are really intelligent people really type a people that had very successful their attorneys or accountants and this and that. I'm seeing a trend here that the chronic disease is affecting the nerves that is it acetylcholine Do we need to start working on the you know, the, the vagus nerve, I don't know. But I it just feels like more and more people are showing up there. They're really trying what's your what's your take on that? Because if we can figure this out. That's it.Dr. Tom O'Brian  57:00  This is this is a PhD discussion that we're now getting into that is at the core of the answer to your question. Arguably the number one journal in the English language for children's health is the journal Pediatrics put out by the American Academy of Pediatrics. They published a policy statement, which means it's not an author, you know, if I were to get an article published in pediatrics as an author, I've scored top tier difficult journal to get into I've really scored but this is a policy statement. That means it came from the board of the Academy of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and they said the toxic substance Control Act failed miserably to protect our children and princes and adults. And it is The governing legislation at the federal level for all chemicals introduced into our environment. This was passed in 1976. It's still the regulating guidelines for all chemicals introduced into our environment. It the the guidelines are so cumbersome, that in 40 years, they've only regulated five chemicals or classes of chemicals in 40 years. Because the lobbyists were so successful in paying off the senators and the representatives to pass this legislation that has no teeth. The legislation says you have to show that the amount of whatever chemical a person is exposed to is toxic to them. When you pump gas and fill your tank with gas, can you sometimes smell the gas? Sure, of course. you're smelling benzene,Ken Brown  59:09  right? Oh, yes.Dr. Tom O'Brian  59:10  Benzene going up your olfactory nerves right into the brain triggering inflammation killing off brain cells right now. Right? It's killing brain cells. But there's no evidence that the amount of benzene it's inhaled while pumping gas is toxic to humans. There's no evidence you can't. There's no evidence that it causes a problem. But give me 30 years of smelling benzene once a week and how many millions of cells you've killed off. I'm warming up now. 2017. papers published that came out of Chicago 346 pregnant women and the eighth month of pregnancy They did urine analysis they measured Phthalates five Phthalates Phthalates are chemicals used to mold plastic. Most of us have heard of Bisphenol A or BPA Corona is one of the chemicals. They measured five chemicals. There are hundreds of chemicals but they just measured five. they categorize the results into quartiles, the lowest, the next, the third and the highest quartile. They then follow the offspring of those pregnancies for seven years. When the kids turned seven years old, they did Wechsler IQ tests on the official IQ test. There's not much in medicine, that's all or every This was every every child whose mother was in the highest quartile of Phthalates eats and urine and pregnancy compared to the children in the lowest quartile of Phthalates and urine and pregnancy. Every child in the highest score tile, their IQ was seven points lower than the kids in The lowest quartile of Phthalates seven points. That doesn't mean anything to anyone until you understand one point difference is noticeable. A seven point difference is a difference between a child working really hard getting straight A's, and a child working really hard, getting straight C's, right this kid in hell because his brain never developed properly. And then just go to Google and type in Phthalates and neurogenesis, nerve growth. Here come all the studies, how balades inhibit nerve growth. And you see this and you wonder why Autism is going up and attention deficit is going up. You see this and then you go back to the pediatrics article and you read that is 247 pounds of chemicals manufactured or imported into the US United States every day for every person in America 247 pounds, that's 27 trillion pounds a year, take the population of the US multiplied by 247 times 365 days, it's 27 trillion pounds.Every newborn child in America has at least 200 chemicals in their bloodstream at birth that aren't supposed to be there. Many of them are neurotoxins, brain time. You wonder why we're seeing this increase in disease. We all are walking sewage dumps, excuse me, but we are we all are because it's in the air. You if you sit in a room and you can see the sunlight coming through the window, sometimes the right time of day the angle and you see little dust in the air. That's what you're breathing. That dust is the family lychee From the plastic lines in the windows, they leach out family chemicals into the air for years. It's the scotch guard on the sofa, leaching out those chemicals into the air for years. It's the formaldehyde in the kitchen cabinets. If they're not solid wood, they're pressboard. They're soaked in formaldehyde, and the bathroom cabinets leaching out into the air for years. And we were exposed to all of this, all of that and we're walking sewage dumps. You wonder why degenerative diseases are going, why Alzheimer's and the number one type of Alzheimer's is inhalational Alzheimer's, it's what's your breathing. This is so overwhelming for people. When you get when you look at this map. When you see what's happening. It is so overwhelming. That's why you have to operate from the platform of one hour a week. Yes, because and so one week When you learn that the leftover chicken from dinner, you put it in a plastic storage container in the refrigerator. The next day the chickens got phalates in it from the plastic. When you learn that one week, you take that hour you go into my book and there's the three URLs to order glass storage containers, and you go to miles, kimball.com and Amazon, whatever the third was, Oh, I like those. And yours three round ones in two square ones and one for the eyes. You pay with your credit card, you hit send, it took an hour, you're done for the week. Like that. Never again, will you poison your family with minute amounts of foul aids from leftover food in a plastic storage container. Now, there's no evidence that the amount of families that leach out of plastic storage containers is toxic to humans. That's how they get away with that crap it is. That's how they've gotten away with it. And it's the it's the The indoor and just read the science indoor air pollution is much worse than outdoor air pollution in most areas of the country. Because we don't think about our homes we don't think about the formaldehyde, the benzene, trichloroethylene that we're inhaling, then you go to my book and there's the study with the graph that the study from NASA that shows to six inch house plants, and there's the list of all the house plants that do it to six inch house plants and a 10 by 10 room absorbs up to 70% of the toxic chemicals in the air.Ken Brown  1:05:37  warmer times. This is the front so now you're scaring the snot out of me, but now you're giving me a solution. So you're saying when your book can gotDr. Tom O'Brian  1:05:43  a Kleenex, hand him a Kleenex to get the snot and to six inch houseplants, and there's about 12 or 14 different types of houseplans six inch houseplants absorbable To 70% of the toxins in the air in a 10 by 10 room, they're absorbed through the leaves, they go down into the roots, the microbiome of the soil breaks that stuff down. They produce oxygen and put oxygen into the air to 10 by 10 to six inch houseplants for a 10. By 10 roomEric Rieger  1:06:17  solution.Ken Brown  1:06:18  Yeah, it's a solution I'm all about so and so your book is not just teaching people what to worry about, but you're like, this is the solution. So the one hour a week is I'm going to give you one hour a week solution. And if you continually do that, by the end, you're going to be a healthier person.Dr. Tom O'Brian  1:06:35  You know, everybody wants solutions. Nobody wants to hear about the problem. But there's no way you will have the tenacity to do this. And at a pace that you can do it and not be overwhelmed. That's why it's one hour a week understanding. You are going to be overwhelmed, but you're going to do bite sized pieces pieces of this. And in six months. You've got it. You've changed your life. Your husband Using the Tupperware containers to store nails in the garage, right? I mean, you've got all the the dishwasher, you'd never run the dishwasher during the day. Because the toxic chemicals that come out of the dishwashing detergent, when they get heated up to 160 - 170 degrees, they leach out of dishwashers are not airtight. They're watertight, they're not airtight, and those chemicals are in the air, you're sucking those fumes. You only run the dishwasher at night when everybody's sleeping. And you've got to learn all these little things because the paradigm that we've accepted the prevailing dogma that we've accepted about the way to live life and about our homes is killing us. It's slowly killing us. This is why your patients are coming in with more confusing results is because they're loaded full of all of these toxic chemicals. How many of us have been watching the chem trails? For years to say, Oh, that's really something you know that that's too bad. Yeah, I wonder what that stuff is. And we've never done anything about it. We're sucking the fumes of all those heavy metals that were being spewed into the air.Eric Rieger  1:08:12  Yeah, well, I do want to add something here. I know that we've been it didn't seem like until just looked. But we've been talking for a good while. And I need to also give you some praise since you were the first to utilize the digital internet to reach so many people. You also have one of the most kick ass URLs I've ever seen. Yeah, so what is it? We do? SoKen Brown  1:08:34  we haven't ever joked about this? I was like, how in the heck did that guy get that URL?Dr. Tom O'Brian  1:08:39  1996Eric Rieger  1:08:42  the URL to link up with this very Dr. Tom O'Brien is the doctor.com and I want to say that one more time the doctor.com but you have the Dr. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, you're the Dr. calm. So Dr. Bri ER doctor abbreviated v dr.com. dr.com will connect you with Dr. Tom O'Brien. But you also also have two specific programs for our listeners. One is to do that with a / betrayal to get on to the train of exactly the training that you're talking about and the other one, and I'll put, I'll put this in show notes, everyone, but the other one is thedoctor.com/kickstart. And if you want to do a quick rundown on exactly what kickstart is, that way, everyone in our universe can hop over and learn a little bit more from that from that with from you. Just tell us a little about thedoctor.com/kickstart.Dr. Tom O'Brian  1:09:36  You bet that Thank you. The kickstart is a number of handouts for you. They're going to talk about how to detox your house, how to reduce electromagnetic pollution in your house. What are the house plants that will suck up toxins? There's there's a handout for the kitchen there's a handout for the bathroom. There's a handout for the bedroom, all a number of different handouts so that you've got Steps to implement right away and you take them at your own pace, you'll get the plastic storage containers out of there, order glass storage containers, things like that.Ken Brown  1:10:10  Dr. Tom, I want to interrupt you real quick because you've hit a nerve with me here this is I just don't have the I'm always I spent a lot more than just an hour a week. But I spent an hours a week looking at the stuff that I'm interested in. And I have a blind eye to what you're talking about. And what you just said is I'm going to give you solutions. You can put a handout up, you're just going to go do this, this and this, because I believe you and I, I don't want to read a whole book about why I should get rid of my plastic just Just tell me how to how to fix it. That's what I like. kickstart seems like a really cool program for that.Dr. Tom O'Brian  1:10:46  Oh, thank you very much. And if you were my patient, I'd be all over you. That you can't do that because it's wanting solutions that has gotten us into trouble. Oh, gotta understand. All of you. The map of what happensKen Brown  1:11:01  this where you start yelling at me like you did on stage.Dr. Tom O'Brian  1:11:06  Because if you don't understand that mold can be a huge problem for Mrs. patient. When you go on vacation for a week or two, when you come home, you have to open the windows to air the house out. Oh, yeah, you got mold. You have to have the house remediated, you have to have a professional come Well, I don't have a problem. When I'm here. I don't feel anything. It doesn't matter if you feel it or not. If you're inhaling it, it's going up to your brain. And it's the number one trigger for the development of Alzheimer's is in halation, Alzheimer's, it's what you're breathing. So if your brain ain't cooking the way it should be, it's cooking in the wrong direction, you're too much on fire. You have to identify where it's coming from so you can get all the house plants you want. But if you still got mold in your bathroom, well it's not too bad on the tiles there. You know, it's just on the grout in between the tile that's not too bad. We'll Put that on your tombstone. It wasn't too bad. You know, it's critically important that we change our paradigm so that we understand what our individual map is, what has gotten us to where we are, because that map is going to change, you're going to get better because you implement the things in the handouts. That's great, you're going to get better. But a year from now, two years from no

Eric Rieger  0:00  All right, welcome back to COVID files. This is actually an extension of COVID files number nine, so we used to call them 9.5. When we brought in Dr. Ackerman, we just call it nine plus,Ken Brown  0:12  man, I think we ought to call it COVID file 10. It actually deserves its own thing. Now I understand that you've gotten some, some listeners that maybe were a little bit dismayed by how we ended the last podcast. Can you go ahead and get everybody up to date in case they didn't see it?Eric Rieger  0:28  So there's there's actually a lot of things to attack number one, we had covered phone number nine, and COVID File Number nine, we talked specifically about the NRF two pathway. And we laid it all out there leading people up to the fact that how do you supplement the NRF two pathway because of how beneficial it is. If you've missed that. Don't watch this episode yet. Go back check out episode number nine. It's going to really lay the groundwork for this episode of COVID file number 10. Second thing, this is our first time this is my co host by the wayKen Brown  1:00  But why don't you can write a long time since we've been together this close without without a mask on? We work together with a maskEric Rieger  1:05  No kidding. Ken Brown  1:06  But you know, thank goodness, it's easy to get tested now. So at least I know as of this moment your test was negative. My test was negative, we can be this close together. Eric Rieger  1:13  at least for as good as the test was. Yeah, it says that we're negative.Ken Brown  1:17  And I'm super excited that you're able to multitask during this podcast. Oh, yeah. With you being so Eric, as you can see by the headphones, that he is a dual timing is a air traffic controller. Is that correct? You're getting feedback there. Is that why you're wearing headphones? And I'm not that is why I'm wearing them. Go ahead and raise your altitude.Eric Rieger  1:37  Bet Yes, that's we're doing a little bit of double duty. Here we are in the studio. But we're all alone. We don't have anybody helping us. Paul is still doing a fantastic job of doing the production after we get finished recording. But for right now, we're keeping our exposure to a minimum because this is the first time that we've been this close. Ken Brown  1:54  Yeah,Eric Rieger  1:55  We've got a mask onKen Brown  1:55  It really is. And you and I have worked together this whole time. Yeah. Several times a week. But we have a Had a 95 mass on and so at some point you got to start to, you know, push the boundaries a little bit, we've got to get the studio, let's go ahead and do this. And why do I feel comfortable about this because what we're going to talk about today is an extension of last podcast, check it out. It's about the NRF two pathway. We'll recover that really quick, just briefly go over it. But I'm going to tell you how the NRF two pathway can be very effective in overall health right in multiple ways, but also the possibility that there is compelling evidence to show that if you do not have a healthy NRF two pathway, then you are at risk for getting COVID-19 Eric Rieger  2:39  Yes. Ken Brown  2:39  So you and I are trying to do everything in our power to make sure that we have optimized our bodies in case we get exposed. Last episode we talked about how Joe Rogan's always saying why don't healthcare workers talk about how to prevent getting it that's what that whole show was about? Definitely. So it was about the last episode we talked about the NRF two pathway. And so today, what I want to discuss are some papers that I have found that show how to use certain natural products to improve your NRF two pathway. And that's right where we ended, we ran out of time last time, but specifically how this could be a new target to actually prevent SARS cov. Two, which is the virus that causes COVID-19 and reduce oxidative stress and inflammation while improving your immune system overall, and down regulating these two receptors, so it's kind of crazy, because it's like the panacea when we start talking about this pathway. And I started looking into these different papers. I'm like, why isn't anybody talking about it? Right? And I think that frequently, you and I have kind of pushed the boundaries a little bit and talked about stuff before everybody else was because we're, well, because we're just two turntables and a microphone. Because we have the access to some microphones.Eric Rieger  3:52  It's just yeah, access to microphones. But even more importantly, it's science based. What we're doing is we're staying true to the whole order. Have the origination at origin ation origination of the program which is we're finding compelling evidence to talk about as it applies to not only our but your healthKen Brown  4:10  yeah and so I think something that we have the ability to do is that been in healthcare and having access to wonderful people that help us out like Angie cook where we can get these articles that say Angie I want to talk about NRF you know, just unloads incredible articles on me and then we go through and sift through this. It's essentially what we're not making any claims. We're not saying anything to run out and this is what's what you should go do remember the disclaimer is, although I'm a doctor, or crna, we are not your crna and your doctor if you do have anything unusual going on if you have that weird rash or if you believe that you need to dogmatically look at something that we're talking about here and say I'm gonna do this, it's gonna protect me that's not what I'm saying. Talk to your doctor. What we're giving you is information. We're giving you science backed information. You do with that what you want. Ideally, I want you to take it to your doctor. And say, look, these guys are talking about this right? We should be talking about this. Right? So that's sort of the disclaimer right there, but it's all based on science. So, recap. We did talk about the NRF two pathway and we discussed how ridiculous the acronym is the acronym is nuclear factor, e two factor related related factor. I'll say that one more time nuclear factor, e two factor related factor, hence the f2, which is really funny. All right, it's the master regulator of cellular health, and it detoxifies all your cells. It stimulates cellular defense, and if any type of insult starts happening that protects the cell, specifically when we're talking about SARS, cov two, it actually down regulates the h2 receptor which allows the SARS cov to to attach and I'm gonna throw in a new term that we did not talk about last time because now it's relevant. The in normal conditions your NRF two pathway remains suppressed and kind of controlled like a cage using something called the cytoplasma repressor protein keep one that is the KE AP one. Talk about bad acronyms that's ever decided the NRF two decided that the keep one. The acronym stands for kelch like erythroid cell derived protein with CNC homology associated protein one cannot make that up. Like whoever was discovering this did not go to any acronym training at all. Now, we thought the NRF was bad. Now I'm going to tell you that there's something called the keep one protein, which doesn't allow your NRF to become activated. This is going to be relevant when we get into the next interesting. And so in response to any type of damage or attack or oxidative stress, the NRF two will actually separate from the keep protein which is controlling it, dive into the cell, hop into the nucleus and then turn on On 250 jeans, that's what makes it so amazing. Wow. So it says one thing that does this. That's why it's the master regulator. So in the last episode we discussed about how the role of the NRF two pathways beneficial in brain inflammation, cancer prevention, autism, environmental toxins and pollution, all based on studies and we discussed all that anti aging, dementia. In addition, we discussed about how if you do not have a properly functioning NRF two system, this can lead to obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and we know that if you are obese, older have high blood pressure or diabetes, you're at significant risk of having a bad outcome from SARS COV2 COVID-19. Yeah, Eric Rieger  7:45  And don't forget premature agingKen Brown  7:48  and the whole premature aging I thought. On our last episode, we discussed how obesity comes down to cellular oxidative stress. You may be a little overweight because your cells are struggling to get rid of the oxidative inflammatory process early on, right. So all right. So we also discussed how SARS COV2 make ourselves more vulnerable, because that nasty little virus, the pandemic that's screwing us up, actually works to suppress the NRF two pathway, it knows that NRF two is going to kick its ass. So it does this whole thing where it tries to overwhelm your NRF two pathway. That's why we believe that certain people are at higher risk for having bad outcomes. It it's a bully it picks on you know, I'm going to find somebody with a weakened NRF two pathway.Eric Rieger  8:38  What was the what was the analogy? We came up with cutting the phone lines before you break into a bank? Basically, we're stopping the ability for the rescue mechanism to work. We're not allowing it to work.Ken Brown  8:49  Yeah. So the biggest question we have here is that all these people are being exposed. Why do some people go through these horrific things? Why do some people have long term residual bad outcomes like pulmonary fibrosis and stuff, right. And now I'm learning step two that nobody's talking about. The virus seems to do this much more effectively and have much more deleterious outcomes when people have these other diseases, which could be related to the NRF two pathway. So in other words, NRF, two super important, and now we're going to bring it into 2020. Right now, during a pandemic, how does this affect us? SoEric Rieger  9:25  that's a lot,Ken Brown  9:26  but it's that's what the whole episode was about before.Eric Rieger  9:28  Yeah, that was just the summary. So we just crammedKen Brown  9:30  a full hour into just there. So Alright, so now we ended the show with saying, Okay, this is your NRF two pathway, hopefully, you listen to it. If not just know that it's super important. You can keep listening to this, the NRF two pathway master regulator and will at least have some built in mechanisms to fight viruses that are going on. So I want to talk about two natural ways to keep your NRF two pathway in great shape. Okay, let's do it. All right. So first one. This is very very dear to me. This is why I like how everything starts coming together at some point. first topic sulforaphane, sulforaphane. I have talked about sulforaphane for years. Yes. All thanks to Rhonda Patrick and a YouTube video and her going on Joe Rogan and discussing it. I've gotten super into sulforaphane. It is one of my favorite topics. Briefly, sulforaphane. If you're a geek, and you want to really know what's going on is an isothiocyanate. And what this is, is the molecule that is found in cruciferous vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower, things like that. And when these cruciferous vegetables are in their sprouted form, meaning it's a little teenager, a juvenile, okay, a juvenile broccoli, they tend to have much higher amounts of these precursor of the precursor that our bodies can then make sulforaphane and we get in So this was actually really exciting discovered by doctors at Johns Hopkins in 1992. Since then, thousands of articles have been shown documented the beneficial effects of sulforaphane and they have shown 39 distinct health mechanisms including blocking inflammation, like we talked about promoting brain health, promoting anti aging, General glossy things, but there's so many studies on this. The problem is this. The precursor to sulforaphane is a molecule called Glucoraphanin Glucoraphanin and then become sulforaphane. When the broccoli sprout is chewed, it releases an enzyme called murasa kinase. So basically the broccoli sprout sitting with this molecule called Glucoraphanin. Okay, when you eat the broccoli sprout, you release this enzyme called murase kinase, which converts glucoraphanin to sulfur a thing. Easy enough right? So far, so Bottom line is we have known that the second that sulforaphane was discovered by Johns Hopkins, people have been chasing that idea because they're like, that's something that nobody else has tapped on.Eric Rieger  12:11  It sounds to me like what we're alluding to is a little bit of a stability issue probably long term and how to deliver this if someone isn't going to directly eat juvenile or adolescent broccoli sprouts, right?Ken Brown  12:24  Correct. So what has been shown by the Johns Hopkins people is that the amount of glucoraphanin which can actually be absorbed to then be converted, right, so now we're talking about just absorbing the glucoraphanin and then converting it is somewhere around two to 15%. Eric Rieger  12:41  Okay,Ken Brown  12:41   so extremely poor bio availability. And the biggest problem is that sulforaphane is extremely unstable. So you can't just get a bucket of sulforaphane and just put it there. Yeah. So if you go to Amazon, and I've done this, because when I was looking at sulforaphane got super excited until I started listening to a bunch of other doctors describe all this in scientists, you're gonna find a ton of products out there that say broccoli sprout extract, or they're gonna say sulforaphane. You read the label, it says gluco raffin. Right. Some of them will throw in murasenase and so on. And Johns Hopkins did testing on a lot of these. And Surprise, surprise, most of them did not have even glucoraphanin, let alone sulforaphane. So they came to the conclusion that it's really, really difficult. And we've got these products that are out there, but probably people are wasting their money on most of theseEric Rieger  13:36   breaking this down. Isn't it possible that maybe even some of those companies that wanted to have the rossin Ace and the gluco would have always butchered Ken Brown  13:45  glucoraphaninEric Rieger  13:46   glucoraphanin. If they wanted to have those available in a delivery system, the instability of these delicate molecules, even if it was tested and shown, it wasn't there, it's probably already changed. It's probably just not stable enough to survive the packaging. Ken Brown  14:01  Correct. And so even these guys even went so far as to say, Okay, well, maybe the rate maybe they're trying their best maybe they're raising the broccoli sprouts and then they started looking into the broccoli seed business. Eric Rieger  14:11  Oh, okayKen Brown  14:12  oh yeah super cool on this one also. So, Rhonda Patrick goes on a YouTube video and describes all this and says you need to make your own broccoli sprouts. So everybody ran out and started doing this. Awesome. I've even done it myself. Try to do it. And then you find out that Oh, a lot of broccoli seeds that are out there. Don't even have any. They're even not broccoli seeds. They're actually like alfalfa, sprout seeds and really cheap ones. So it comes into that whole thing again, one more time, the supplement industry when you talk about this, unless you're doing third party testing, and looking at that there's a high likelihood that what you're taking is a marketing ploy.Eric Rieger  14:47  That's unfortunate.Ken Brown  14:48  Yes, super unfortunate.Eric Rieger  14:50  It's wastes a lot of people's time. They're trying to get healthy and they're given the wrong thing. Yeah. Now what we want to do here,Ken Brown  14:55  all right, so this is what gets really exciting. So now really cool. So all of this has been going on up until 2017. So there happens to be one stable sulforaphane product in France called prostu Fein. It is considered a drug and it is used to treat prostate cancer. Right? So in 2017 the only real way to get sulforaphane was to eat broccoli sprouts. Now we have a mutual friend David Roberts, who unfortunately, he is extremely intelligent man with very close ties, but his wife Maura got breast cancer, Eric Rieger  15:29  yes.Ken Brown  15:30   And so he took her breast cancer cells took it to his good friend john Gill day and I won't get into the story of this because we're going to have them on as guests right? So I'm just gonna say briefly, why this got developed. It was developed in the most altruistic and cool way they took her breast cancer cells, and they realized that what natural molecules could actually help curtail the cancer, what could kill the cancer and one of the molecules they found was sulforaphane, right? So then it was that's great. So David went out and did the same thing that I would have done he bought a bunch of them. And then since he has the capabilities, he tested them and found out that none of them had sulforaphane. Right. So his good friend, PhD, john Gill day, figured out a way to make the world's only stable and bio available sulforaphane product, which is on the market. And in fact, they have shown through third party testing, that is exactly what they say. They have done this with every single batch and they have the ability to check. This is what I love about this. They have the ability to check on themselves on coworkers on anybody that will come in what the effect was in the bioavailability was and so john, when we met with him, he said, Oh, no, we were checking the dosing, I would just check to see what my NRF two level was. And it would go up within an hour which shows the bioavailability of this. It's doing what you wanted it to do. And what's so cool about this is that it isn't like oh, I took it. It isn't like caffeine where you take it and get an hour's worth of bite. Hit. They showed that when you turn this on, it stays on. Eric Rieger  17:03  Yes. Ken Brown  17:03  So what it's like a sinusoidal type wave where you're going to keep this thing going as long as you start supplementing, so that was amazing. And then they started looking at individual markers. So when we talked to john, we said, well, what else have you guys looked at? He's like, Oh, we looked at interleukin six. interleukin six is one of the cytokines which starts the cytokine storm in COVID-19. is like it actively decreases this and we checked it in many different ways. It lowers something called NF Kappa b. Nf. Kappa b is the start of the inflammatory process by controlling that you don't allow a cytokine storm to happen. Obviously, they're looking at things which are related to inflammation. Sure, and then he threw out one little curveball there he's like, Oh, did I ever tell you that it increased BDNF, brain derived neurotrophic factor another dear to my heart molecule,Eric Rieger  17:51  definitely neuroplasticity, Ken Brown  17:53  neuroplasticity, and they were able to measure the rise in NRF2 directly at different dosing at different times. So the science is just absolutely beautiful. And then if you start looking at sulforaphane regarding COVID-19 It is well known that sulforaphane, specifically down regulates the docking protein called tmprss two, regardless, the docking protease because right now we're talking protease inhibitors, right? What sulforaphane has actually been shown to do in vitro definitely in vitro is that it can actually prevent if the virus sees the h2 receptor, and it comes here, it has to get close. And then it needs this thing called the TMPRSS to to actually touch the virus and then dock it to the h2 receptor. It Down regulates that.Eric Rieger  18:53  So it gives the virus less opportunity to infect the cell.Ken Brown  18:58  It gives the virus less ability to Land, right? It's just like the virus is going around doing this. So keep that in mind because it's super cool. So when the NRF two pathway is on, then you have all aspects of your innate immune health, meaning your immune system starts paying very close attention. So if you have an invader, it knows what to do immediately. So it increases your immune health. It mitigates the cytokine storm by decreasing aisle six, NF Kappa beta and all these other things, right? And that's how you end up protecting your organs. That's how the when the NRF two pathway goes up, this is so cool. So the NRF two pathway sees it and goes, wait a minute, this virus is attaching to the h2 receptor. Everybody downregulate h2. I mean, you want to talk about like a cool sci fi movie. Yeah, go down, follow the NRF two pathway into the cell. It's almost like the Star Wars style where it's like they're actually we are being invaded. We have got tie fighters coming in. They are all able to enter through the h2 receptor downregulate, always to receptors.Eric Rieger  20:05  So part of the problem of getting sick is when a bunch of cells, they encounter a pathogen quickly, right? And they all become inflamed far quicker than the body can effectively respond, right? That's when things kind of spiral out of control. Correct. So I could I could if we could all picture like the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium, we call it new, because it's 10 years old now. But all 100,000 people want to go inside. They all need to get inside, they all have a ticket. They're ready to go inside. But suddenly, let's just pretend that the stadium is the cell and all of the people come in to watch the game happened to be the virus. Suddenly, the Cowboys say, No, no, no, all of these people might get sick. Let's shut down all of the gates to maybe one or two. And now if you had to funnel all 100,000 people, not from the 60 gates that are all around but just through one or two doors. That's downregulation that's what What our cells are doing in NRF? Two is taking away the availability for that that virus to get into the cell.Ken Brown  21:06  Yes, that's exactly it. So now imagine you're in a stadium, and you've got 10 entrances, and there's 100,000 people trying to come in. And the stadium happens to be somebody that the stadium does not have a properly functioning NRF two pathway, which means before the game even happened, the stadium probably is bloated and obese. Sure, with some hypertension, sure. I don't know stadiums could do that. And then this one does. And then so what ends up happening is instead of having just 10 designated entrances, yeah, they've just got holes everywhere everywhere.Eric Rieger  21:39  There's no one's taking tickets,Ken Brown  21:39  no one's taking tickets you just walk in whenever you want. That's what it is. And that's why when people have unregulated amount of h2 receptors, then that's how you can end up getting so sick so quickly, so fast. So your I love your analogy. The first episode was cutting the the phone line to a bank and this one is football. I don't really know how your mind works, but that's just allEric Rieger  22:01  I don't know either. No one knows how this mind worksKen Brown  22:04  I'm so getting, you know, kind of like I mentioned we're gonna have David and Jonathan we're gonna let them really geek out about this Eric Rieger  22:11  Great guys tooKen Brown  22:11  Great guys but the bottom line is that is not sulforaphane is just a molecule that I love. They developed a product called Brock elite BROCELITE which I need to talk to them about that because I recommend it to so many of my patients, and especially when I'm doing telemedicine visits, I say I really need you to just pick up some BROCELITE we need to do this. And without fail, they'll be like okay, Dr. Brown told me to get this broccoli How much do I do? And I'm like no, it's Brock elite. I need to talk to those guys but Brock pause elite Yeah. So but we're gonna have them on to talk about that. So what I love about this show, Eric is that we do these shows and I just start going down these rabbit holes but I'm I'm a better doctor because of it. I learn a lot more because of this. Angie sends me just by Get some buckets of articles. And so I can go through this. So it just got me thinking, like, wait a minute, whenever we talked about the NRF two pathway, whenever anybody's ever talked about it, it's always sulforaphane.Eric Rieger  23:13  Is there anything else that could help that NRF two pathway?Ken Brown  23:17  I'm really glad you asked. Because if you didn't, then I'd have nothing else to talk about. Eric Rieger  23:21  Yeah, we can talk about golf, because you teed it up.Ken Brown  23:27  Alright, so no more dad jokes. All right, so, um, and so every single show we learn more and more with this, but then I started going down the NRF two pathway and working backwards and deconstructing this, found this incredible article that talked about and this is the actual title of the article published just last month, the potent anti viral effects of the NRF two pathway and how to naturally raise it using polyphenolic compounds. Eric Rieger  23:55  Okay.Ken Brown  23:56   All right. So what this article showed is that they first and we've done discuss this on the show. They looked at the potent antiviral effects of polyphenols. They looked at compounds like quercetin and green tea extract. Specifically, they wanted to know that although these polyphenols we've shown multiple times do amazing things to mitigate your immune system. They too are anti aging molecules. And they actually are potent antioxidants. They said, Well, what if some of the benefit of polyphenols is actually due to the NRF two pathway?Eric Rieger  24:27  That's interesting.Ken Brown  24:29  Yeah. Interesting. I'm over here. Everyone's looking at sulforaphane. And these guys are like, well wait a minute, which we just got done describing anti aging effects, anti blah, blah, blah, of the NRF two pathway. And what if some of the benefits that we're seeing with these other molecules like polyphenols, right can actually increase the NRF two pathway so these guys looked specifically at that. What they wanted to know is if these polyphenols can increase the NRF two pathway, which will help fight COVID-19 bold statement, love these guys. It's huge. What these researchers were able to show is that these polyphenols can increase the NRF two pathway by blocking the keep one repressor protein. In other words, they allow they get the Think of it this way your NRF two is tied up by a security guard by I don't know, your your the analogy guy, what would it be here? Eric Rieger  25:29  It just seems like that this is now a second instance of where polyphenols have demonstrated that they run. They're blocking they're blocking for things to continue to happen beneficially, because it also blocks that that particular enzyme that breaks down CBD and or I'm sorry, Nandamind, right. Ken Brown  25:52  Oh, Eric Rieger  25:52  and so if we're blocking there, we're also blocking this.Ken Brown  25:56  Oh,Eric Rieger  25:56   this little guy here. Keep one.Ken Brown  25:58  Oh, so cool. I'm glad that you made that leap so quickly. Your mental agility sometimes just impresses me, and just just sports sports analogies. Alright, so I'll say this again, these guys looked at it and they said it does definitely raise the NRF to pathway. We believe it does it in a different way that sulforaphane does. So for fame directly releases NRF two through this crazy biochemical wave. And definitely it is the most effective way to turn on the NRF two pathway. sulforaphane, but these guys showed, hey, when you add polyphenols to it, they take care of the security guard that's holding on to your NRF two and they go, Hey, come here, and they hug they hug the security guard. And so it allows the NRF to to get free, hop in the cell and turn on 250 genes. That's right. When you're under stress, chronic stress, you have more security guards you have more keep one, the more inflammation you have when it Hips, the scale, a little bit of inflammation turns on your NRF to too much inflammation. And for whatever reason the keep one doesn't let the NRF two out. So you spiral downhill quickly.Eric Rieger  27:11  Interesting. It's almost like a medical term. It's called a negative feedback loop. It's almost enhancing the bad effect, almost enhancing the bad effects.Ken Brown  27:20  And in addition to the antioxidant properties that they showed with the polyphenols, by keeping the reactive oxygen species lower, that negative feedback loop doesn't happen because the keep one protein doesn't realize that there's chaos going on. So in other words, the polyphenols go, Hey, come here, go ahead and give me a hug. And then the other polyphenols go clean up the mess, clean up the mess. So this guy doesn't get all eager and be like this over aggressive bouncers, security guards. Eric Rieger  27:48  What a great compliment though, so now we not only know how to enhance the activity of the NRF two, but now we also know how can we allow the NRF two wants the pathways activated to do its job. Better. Oh yes.Ken Brown  28:01  So if you haven't put it together yet, I'm giving you a secret recipe on how to turn on your NRF two. So once the NRF two is turned on, it'll maximize the effectiveness. And especially when the polyphenols are around and they take care of the antioxidants, the NRF two doesn't have to worry about that. And it turns on more cells saying just go down. Let's let's get all these cells in line, let's really ramp it up, we are ready to do battle. So in conclusion, what they said was the author said that we should be taking certain polyphenols to work as both a direct antiviral, a direct anti inflammatory, and for the first time ever written in literature directly increased the NRF two pathway. That's amazing. It's the first time I've ever come across this. Ultimately, the authors are quoted as saying these results may provide a new method for discovering NRF two activation.Eric Rieger  28:57  It's just it's quite impressive because we we are feel like we're pressed for information right now because we're living in a pandemic. And we're all trying to find our ways to return to normal. But this stuff doesn't end with the pandemic. This is this is protecting your health and your life and the cells from over inflammation. Anyhow, it just so happens that they're saying, keep this system in your body enhanced, it still works for you do these things. It's still here to protect you.Ken Brown  29:23  Absolutely. So that was one incredible article. So kudos to those authors. They said, Hey, does does the NRF two pathway help with COVID? Yes. Oh, what are other things that we can do to take this? because very few people even understand that brocelite exists, right? So you've got all these people buying broccoli sprout extracts, which is doing nothing. And now they're saying okay, since now we've got this ability to have a stable so for pain and now we have this ability to have this polyphenol which can actually help free up the NRF too. So it got me thinking, is anyone else looking into this? And as it turns out, I found another super cool publication. Specifically on I'm gonna love this olive oil and wine polyphenols. And it's modulation of the NRF two pathway. That's nice. That's good. That is awesome because these guys showed significant increase in the NRF two activity from the polyphenols in olive oil and in wine. These are the polyphenols that that we work with because they're large, stable polyphenols. The first article was looking at smaller phonology compounds, meaning they're looking at very little small branches, coarse attends a small branch of a larger polyphenols, right, and green tea extract. ecgc is a smaller branch of this large green tea molecule. These guys said, Hey, you know what? We're seeing the same thing. The conclusion is that it's not just the antioxidant effects of these polyphenols that make them incredible, but it's the ability to turn on the NRF two pathway is a novel and new concept that needs to be further investigated. I kind of feel like we're saying stuff. Like, I don't think other people reading these articles because this is nuts what I just said, I just said that large stable polyphenols can turn on your NRF two pathway. Nobody has ever said anything like that to me.Eric Rieger  31:15  No, I haven't heard that either. But it made me think of something though. We talked about what constitutes a high level CBD source. And one of the things that we've that we've not only talked about, but we've seen clinically, is that full spectrum. CBD tends to be the best method. This is almost like we're endorsing a natural full spectrum, polyphenol source.Ken Brown  31:39  Ooh, we're gonna get to that. All right. So now at this point, I'm just like, there's no way I'm preparing for this show. I could stop right here and say this is the mic drop, pow. There it is. But I'm like, No, no, there's when you start going down these rabbit holes of research. Then you start looking at the references that other people do and then you start looking at the author's and then Andrew will be like, you're not going to believe it. Check this out. Then she sends me this one, that she found an article looking at alcohol induced liver damage in mice. And if improving the NRF two pathway will help attenuate that. Now this one is relevant. It's relevant for this discussion because although it's not about COVID, these authors are looking at improving the NRF two pathway to improve a chronic disease, alcoholic liver disease. So what these researchers did is they did the same thing that most researchers do when they look at polyphenols they looked at using curcumin curcumin is a polyphenol well known and Baicalin and BAICALIN. Bruce Burnett, which is a PhD that has worked with us. That was one of the molecules he worked with. He's probably saying you're saying it wrong. Probably saying that. Sorry,Eric Rieger  32:49  sorry Bruce.Ken Brown  32:50  Yeah, baicalin. I don't know. Whatever. It's something. Those are two small polyphenols and what they showed is they were able to induce alcoholic liver injury tomorrow. And I don't know how they did it. I know what you're gonna say is, I don't know. I don't know what they like to drink. I don't know if it's tequila 512 probably tequila 512 the favorite, the favorite tequila of mice. So tequila five one to check it out. That's Eric's other company. So, what they did is they looked at this and they were shocked to see that each one of those increased or, number one, the mice that received the polyphenol compounds had protection against liver disease, from the alcohol, huge. Then they said, Well, is it the antioxidant effect? Or is it the NRF? Two, then they checked NRF two levels, and the ones that had the most protection had the highest rise of NRF. Two interest huge, then I'm so glad this researcher did this. What if we use both of them? Yeah, so the nine they combined, and guess what they saw better exponential growth of the NRF two, exponential decrease in inflammation and this comes back to something that you and I have talked about so many times, whole plant versus molecular pharmaceuticals.Eric Rieger  34:07  It's been we've seen it time and time again from from isolated pharmaceuticals, on and on and on. And now we're talking about really just small natural derivatives but still better in their larger state. Right.Ken Brown  34:18  That's exactly what it is. And so we have talked about this, that we have a very hard time beating Mother Nature. Yeah. And you know, and I realized that the pharmaceutical industry continually does this or they say that molecule does this, we can mass produce it. And I think that in many ways, it works extremely well. And in other ways, I think that we have we're just not smart enough to do this. This is a great example. So I'm gonna throw out a concept here that I don't think a whole lot of scientists are thinking enough about this. The whole plant or the large stable poly phenol. So the large stable poly phenol, knowing that this other study looked at two smaller polyphenols, they said hey, what if we put them both together? Hey, there, we have that look. A study that looked at Whole olive oil polyphenols, which contains many of them whole wine polyphenols, which had tremendous increase in the NRF. Two. So we've got a friend, Sylvia, who's a PhD in Spain. And she published in her thesis, this incredible article where it looked at large table polyphenols like to borracho and then chestnut, to bracha and chestnut. And then she showed what happens when it becomes digested. And then she took those same polyphenols and she put them in a, I guess, a theoretical microbiome. She fermented them, right allowed bacteria to do this. And then she did a mass spectrometry. I'm saying that right about the molecules produced. And it's really cool because guess what happens when they have a large stable polyphenols, you end up producing ecgc which is green tea extract, you end up kicking off course at the end, you end up kicking off these larger tannins which then get broken down in other words, give yourself body, the largest template, let your body decide what it wants to do with it. And so that's kind of my take on this. So kind of kind of thrilling. I think the future of this research is going to be large, stable polyphenols, let your body do what it wants. And it's going to increase the NRF two pathway.Eric Rieger  36:18  I think that's awesome. And it makes sense. And it just so happens to continually fall in line where Mother Nature knows the answer. They know she knows the way.Ken Brown  36:27  So here we are, we know that the NRF two pathway is the master regulator and probably one of the major defenses against COVID-19. And we are slowly meeting a whole lot of very influential, important people in this field and one of them is friends with Dr. Fauci. And you said, Man, we need Fauci on here, I want to pin them down and be like, Why? Why aren't you talking about the NRF two pathway or something like that? Just you know? Just why aren't we talking about IVFEric Rieger  37:00  idea. It's unfortunate that it took until the last year and a half for us to have these kinds of discussions. Yeah, I mean, but it's it's technically a relatively new discovery compared to other things that everyone's more familiar with. However, I think it's a critical discovery on how we control disease going forward.Ken Brown  37:19  Yeah, right. And you've probably looked at me like why did you just throw in that weird sort of Southern accent like you don't really in what I like to do around much smarter people is just really hit the I just want to just act like I know absolutely nothing, so I don't have to live up to anything. Yeah, so if Fauci ever came here. I'd be like, wait, why aren't you talking about the NRF pathway? He's like, What in the world? This guy's a doctor.Eric Rieger  37:40  Yeah, it's interesting how you turn into ross perot.Ken Brown  37:44  Alright, so anyways, we know the NRF two pathway is a master regulator. It may significantly help fight COVID-19 sulforaphane directly stimulates NRF two polyphenols stimulate NRF to buy in. I didn't Spoiler alert, where you're going there, blocking the inhibitor protein called keep one. Then I went into more detail because I just went down a quick rabbit hole. Guess what else it does was that it up regulates the keep one esterase enzyme that breaks it down. Okay? So just like when you brought up FAAH Yeah. Where polyphenols decrease that this one increases that. Like it's crazy how smart Mother Nature is just crazy. So bottom line is we've got sulforaphane, which directly stimulates NRF two pathway, we've got polyphenols which decrease the inflammatory pathway, same, same sulfur thing. But the polyphenol goes oh look there. So first thing, I'm going to tie up the security guard and let sulforaphane do its job and allow the NRF to to go up. In other words, my question is this. What is my NRF two levels I would love to call up john Gill day Say, let's check mine because nobody's done a study. I just showed two three different studies on polyphenols. Nobody has shown a study on what if a guy like me who's been taking regularly atrantil which is stable polyphenols, and I take brocelite, which is a stable sulforaphane. What is my NRF? Two level? Pretty excited to see what that would be? Because theoretically, I'm, I'm, I've got it ramped up.Eric Rieger  39:30  What a crazy concept. It kind of made me think of something like an application, you made the reference to the protection of the liver. Right? And for people who have alcoholic induced hepatic issues, so what if, and I'm just throwing this out there, college kids, for instance, what if part of a wellness check was to keep tabs on a college kids in our future? pathway knowing that they if they've already admitted they probably consume alcohol, but you're giving them a barometer saying, look, I, we know that you're young and you're doing this partying, but you need to make certain that you are having this level of protection. Because it seems like a lot of a lot of people understand to protect your liver. Don't don't consume too much Tylenol, for instance. Well, knowing that whatever in your back pocket you also knew, okay, yes, I do hang out with friends, right? enjoy an occasional drink every now and then it may actually consume a little too much. But I need to know that I'm giving my body the defense's, it's necessary to protect my liver that maybe it'd be interesting to use a test like that and make it where it was just the same as checking blood pressure.Ken Brown  40:41  Oh, I mean, I like where you going with it. But I'm just going to take you to a grander scale right now. Everybody's going back to college. Wouldn't it be amazing if we had some sort of rapid NRF to test and it's like, hey, look, your NRF two is really low. Yeah, I Why don't we Why don't you or before you come to Why don't you Why don't we work on getting that up because you will stand a better chance of not having a significant bad outcome if you were to get exposed to source code toEric Rieger  41:10  say it's like a pandemic seatbelt almost it's almost like it's it's it's your it's your shield to go back out into the world and give yourself the best protection possible in addition to the mask.Ken Brown  41:21  Oh, speaking of best protection, pross possible you were hinting towards the FAAH, FAAH? Ah, we've done a whole podcast on that. That is the enzyme that breaks down your body's own inanda mind right, we can get into that so Oh, yes. found an article went down another rabbit hole now. Yeah, as it turns out, an annamite into ag guess what they do, they turn on the NRF two pathway.Eric Rieger  41:43  So we want thatKen Brown  41:44  we want that. So you need a properly functioning endocannabinoid system. You need some polyphenols to help the sulforaphane do it. I mean, if you were to take theoretically, if you took it Broccoli, and KBMD health CBD. It's almost like a great bio hack.Eric Rieger  42:08  It's not like a great bio hack. I think it is one. I mean, it is anecdotal but everyone I know that takes those almost daily doesn't have COVIDKen Brown  42:23  to truly truly anecdotal but now all that being said, I mean think about this. So just to sort of recap this the first episode was about how important the NRF two pathway is. And it is super important and we get into the science of it. This one specifically discusses natural products which even if they didn't affect the NRF two pathway are extremely beneficial for you they're extremely or other anti aging anti inflammatory antioxidant we can get into the the polyphenol aspect of how it improves health performance. He increases nitric oxide. Oh no time on this one here but yeah found some articles how certain polyphenols increase BDNF in other words all polyphenols that are checked increase BDNF, BDNF we're going to do a whole episode on that because that's another one of my favorite things to talk about that is something to improve everything's about brain gut to me in everything is burned out if you protect the gut, you protect the brain. And you know, we're going to have a you know,Eric Rieger  43:24  it should do and we were we've been pretty good about doing this but yes, we do. We do know quite a bit about artron to broccoli and KBMD CBD, but to be fair sources of getting sulforaphane obviously, just like he said, natural real broccoli sprouts, right. The next thing for polyphenols you can get it from fresh fruits and fresh vegetables, polyphenols are those really colorful or the things that make your fruit really, really colorful, and then of course, a reputable CBD. So what I'm saying here is even if you don't use any of the stuff, take that knowledge, find those to supplement your diet daily so that you can arm yourself and be safe. If you can't find one of these for some crazy reason, if you're listening this you should be able to but if you can't find the foods that Mother Nature is providing us all with. And really what we're trying to do is make certain that you're getting your daily dose of all three of those things. Yeah,Ken Brown  44:19  so if you're sitting there if you have a rainbow light plate, and some sprouts, by the way, sprouts are super easy to grow. This is so if you're not into supplements, you're into the food. A lot of people have great evidence. A lot of people have great tutorial videos of how to make it. I've done it, it's super easy. You just have to make sure that you get the right seed. If you go to the Brocelite.com website. They actually have seeds that they have tested. So they can tell you which brands if you want to get to this kind of a fun thing to do. You got to cut them at around nine days I believe. And that's where it's at because of my lifestyle. I try to eat a healthy diet, but I also understand science like this. So Ah, augmented a little bit. And I try and just push the needle in a healthy direction by taking certain supplements. And the supplements that I take on a regular basis are polyphenols, atrantil, and broccoli, and a few other things that we've discussed on the show to help for viral illnesses, illnesses and such. So the cool thing is that everything that we're describing, about five or six months from now, somebody else will talk about, and then it'll be novel. Yeah. Is it the same thing that happened early on with when I went on wellness Mama, and we were talking about all that stuff? And it was so novel. Yeah, cuz I was like, Oh my gosh, I feel like I'm saying stuff that nobody else is talking about. I'm gonna be this pariah. But I'm standing behind the science and just, it's all about science. I'm not saying Atrantil to Brocelite or KBMD CBD does anything. What I'm saying is the molecules of sulforaphane and poly phenol have been shown to increase the NRF two pathway. That's what I'm saying. What does the NRF two pathway do? Whole lot watch the last episode that we did.Eric Rieger  46:02  Yeah, I mean COVID file number nine. incredibly important, and honestly, probably we should revisit it post pandemic and just dig even deeper into NRF. Two.Ken Brown  46:11  I wish we had deeper pockets so that we can just go to certain like right now with all these students going to college we could just show up and be like, well, this college all got Broc, they'll get the biohack combo. AndEric Rieger  46:23  I'll just compare like a large scale campus justKen Brown  46:26  yet just because right now we're seeing all these kids go back to college and they're being sent back home UNC Notre Dame saying that it's anybody back but they're making them basically do the, you know, dorm schooling at Texas Tech, I just wrote a check. So if you want to offset some of that, just by asking us to participate in that, that'd be really cool. I just had a student or I just had a patient that goes to tech today and she said that they had a bunch of cases. So she's not going back Texas Tech is gonna have to every school is gonna have to do this. They're gonna have to play this game.Eric Rieger  46:56  Wow. Yeah, it's gonna be kind of wild. Hopefully we can just do what we can to give, give ourselves and our family the best opportunity to not get sick.Ken Brown  47:07  So recap this episode for us, Eric.Eric Rieger  47:12  Number one, watch episode number nine. Number two, we need our n NRF two pathway to be fully functioning and healthy, just like we talked about ECS hundreds of times, in order for us to be in the best position possible to fight off disease, specifically things similar to COVID-19. And essentially, with a highly functioning NRF two pathway, we can stave off that disease, we can decrease the inflammation and we can actually shut down the ability for things like COVID-19 to make its way to infect our cells. In addition to that, in order for the NRF two pathway to work well. You have to make the conscious decision to take either the supplements or the correct foods to arm your body to give it the tools to make that an Our f2 pathway work. Yeah, really what we said,Ken Brown  48:02  we're going to be talking to different guests, we're going to be talking to Dr. Tom O'Brien about different diets to protect your gut to protect your brain. What I really like is that our messages is not new. It's not unique, and people are starting to starting to realize it.Eric Rieger  48:16  Yeah, definitely.Ken Brown  48:17  So, alright, so part one and RF two, part two. Oh, boy, we've got Natural Ways to Increase your NRF to new to me super excited that I have this information now. And I hope it's exciting for you all. I think it's really important that everyone should share this, please, that we're getting into some very scientific I get that I get it can be a little difficult to listen to, but the gist of it is you need your NRF to improved to lead a very healthy life, you stand a better chance of undergoing some sort of insult including a viral insult. Your body will deal with it better if you have a proper functioning NRF two, so like, share, get this out there.Eric Rieger  48:58  Wait the way you kind of just said that. Maybe You think of this, we can't sit here and tell you that they a fully functioning NRF two pathway augmented by poly phenol. So if your veins and CBD is necessarily going to stave off all your disease, but I can tell you quite confidently that if you don't have a well functioning enough to pathway, your chance of being really really sick when you're exposed is probably significant.Ken Brown  49:22  Yeah, and it's significant and if you don't have a functioning NRF two pathway, then your chances of becoming diabetic becoming hypertensive becoming obese, developing cancer, although they definitely do.Eric Rieger  49:33  So.Ken Brown  49:34  Awesome. Well, I'm glad that we close this out. Now you have different ways to increase your NRF. To read more about this look at the polyphenols and ultra until these are the stable large polyphenols that we talked about. Look at the science behind Brocelite. That is the world's only stable bioavailable sulforaphane, which we know that we trust these guys. They do third party testing they do everything that we do with atrantil. So that's how come we become Good friends with them and hope to continue to utilize their science they can utilize ours we can help each other we're going to augment everythingEric Rieger  50:07  Raka lead also has a professional version which is only available if there is a physician on board and it just so happens that at KBMD health this guy is the KB and the KBMD. He is authorized to distribute the professional version of Brocelite. So if you go to KBMD health.com go to the store, you'll find everything that Dr. Brown has laid out available as a supplement to help you build up your NRF two as well as your ECS at KBMD health.Ken Brown  50:36  Yeah, and the broccoli plus they're smart guys, they actually have another isothiocyanate in there that they figured out helps absorb and they threw in curcumin, polyphenol, right so like when when john hears this, he's just like I've been talking about this for 10 years.Eric Rieger  50:53  Thank you, john.Ken Brown  50:55  But that's awesome. Everybody, take care stay safe and yet like share Just get this word out. We, our biggest thing is if we can help one person if we can. I hear it from my patients all the time. Like I feel way better. I'm like, that's awesome. I love it. AbsolutelyEric Rieger  51:10  like and share. That's it. That's gonna do it for COVID number 10. And, well, sorry for the break between also nine and 10. Lots of information. He really was on call last week for the hospital. So when we broke, it just happened to be at that point in time. Anyhow, we'll we'll see y'all next time around.Ken Brown  51:27  We're good. We're good. Everybody. Stay safe. Much love. Get your sleep, eat well.Eric Rieger  51:32  Oh, yeah, sorry about the weird offset here. Again, we're in the studio by ourselves. So obviously, it looks kind of odd to me just kind of off the side, rock and fade in and out. But we'll be back next time.Ken Brown  51:41  Well, fortunately, if you're watching this on YouTube, what you will see is what looks like a mane of hair coming into the picture and then eventually a face joins because Eric has yet to have a COVID haircut. Now I'm not going toEric Rieger  51:53  wait to see what happens.Ken Brown  51:55  All right, everybody. Take care.Transcribed by https://otter.ai

“If inflammation and the presence of reactive oxidative species can turn on a disease process like osteoporosis, it can turn on different processes like Alzheimer’s, dementia, and autoimmune disease.” - Ken Brown, MD Dr. Ken Brown received his medical degree from the University of Nebraska Medical School, and completed his fellowship in gastroenterology in San Antonio, Texas. He is a board certified gastroenterologist and has been in practice for over 15 years with a clinical focus on inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome. Dr. Brown declared that his mission is to bridge the gap between medical & natural science. For over a decade he has been conducting clinical research for various pharmacologic companies. Dr. Brown recognized an unmet need for something natural that could help his IBS patients find real relief. After developing the only all-natural & clinically proven answer for IBS & bloating for over 6 years, ATRANTIL (ahh-tron-teel) launched in the summer of 2015. Dr. Brown developed Atrantil to help those suffering from the symptoms of IBS which we now know are caused by bacterial overgrowth. In today’s episode we delve into the causes of bloating and IBS and what can be done. We also discuss how we can reduce inflammation and improve our bone and overall health with Atrantil. Links Affiliate Disclosure* Get Atrantil here! Timestamps [00:35] Introduction [05:39] The origins of Atrantil [10:23] Gas, bloating, and polyphenols [19:55] Atrantil as a post-biotic [26:40] What actually is IBS? [31:52] SIBO and testing [33:15] Who should avoid Atrantil? [39:38] Polyphenols and osteoporosis DISCLAIMER – The information presented on this podcast should not be construed as medical advice. It is not intended to replace consultation with your physician or healthcare provider. The ideas shared on this podcast are the expressed opinions of the guests and do not always reflect those of Margie Bissinger and the Happy Bones, Happy Life program. *In compliance with the FTC guidelines, please assume the following about links on this site: Some of the links going to products are affiliate links of which I receive a small commission from sales of certain items, but the price is the same for you (sometimes, I even get to share a unique discount with you). If I post an affiliate link to a product, it is something that I personally use, support and would recommend. I personally vet each and every product. My first priority is providing valuable information and resources to help you create positive changes in your health and bring more happiness into your life. I will only ever link to products or resources (affiliate or otherwise) that fit within this purpose. 

Welcome, everybody, KBMD health family and gut check project fans. We are back now with episode number 37. And we have an incredible guest. This is Gabrielle Grandell. She's gonna be joining us here in two minutes. But of course, this is the gut check project with your host, Dr. Ken Brown. Can you want to introduce Gabrielle for us?Yeah, absolutely. I'm so excited about this. We were introduced through a mutual friend Gabrielle Grandell. She is currently practicing at living well Dallas, a certified health coach certified in functional med as well. And she calls herself an integrative dietitian. Why am I so excited about this because I would love to be sending her people like all day long. This is so cool. And my goal is that she has enough fun that she's a recurring guest slash co co host, because I think she's gonna really elevate all of our games and fill in a lot of gaps that that I need some education on because even though I got a degree in gastroenterology, we do about this much nutrition and I'm learning about it a ton. So thank you so much for joining Gabrielle.Hi, everybody. Glad to be here. Thank you guys for having me on. Looking forward to chatting today.Definitely. So Gabrielle, you are at living well Dallas, correct?That is correct.So tell us a little bit about what it is you do at living well Dallas because I have a feeling that with your experience, something that Ken and I've talked about is how we see there is a stark difference between our allopathic ideas behind nutrition and the approaches to nutrition. But really, there's this whole other world that's really started to gain steam, even though it's been around for a few decades. And that's the functional medicine approach to nutrition and how to help out with patients who have some some pretty hairy questions. So kind of tell us a little bit about living well Dallas and what you do there.Yeah, thank you. So living well Dallas is the first Functional Medicine Center in Dallas. Oops, I hit some thing here on my screen.It's okay. We all, sometimes we always do things.So it's the first Functional Medicine Center in Dallas. And so functional medicine, right is is about thinking about the medicine sort of why. Why are things happening? Why? Why are these symptoms talking to us? And not just what is going on? But why is it happening and what can we do about it? And so functional medicine is, that's, you know, there's lots of different providers in the center that offer help and treating the whole person because it might be different, different things that they're dealing with, that they need support in. But where I come in is helping people with showing them how nutrition and what they're eating, their lifestyle, their environment, how all of that is helping or hurting them. And so most of the time, what's going on with these folks, whether it be digestive concerns, or headaches or hormonal issues or blood sugar dysregulation, we see all different kinds of people. But the different symptoms that they're experiencing, are usually as a result of what they're putting in their body and what they're putting around them, right, which is nutrition and lifestyle and you know environment. So I help people we have when they when people come in, they fill out a good deal of paperwork, which gives us a really good understanding of their history, kind of their goals, their readiness, we have a readiness assessment, which is really nice to try to gauge where people are coming from in terms of if they're ready to change their diet or their exercise or their sleep patterns or whatnot. We have them fill those things out. That gives me a good understanding of how they came to us and what they're ready to do what their diet history is like. Again, their environment, relationships, things like that purpose. And so we have them fill those things out. And then I'm going to go through that with them in their first visit. And we're going to talk about all the different ways that their body is speaking to them. What has worked before, what hasn't. One of the main differences, I think, between allopathic and functional for what I do is the amount of time that I'm spending with people. So before I was at the center, one of my other positions was at the hospital doing Clinical Nutrition and seeing, you know, 25 to 30 people in a short period of time, all over the hospital,Which so you were in a major hospitalBUMC at Baylor University Medical Center. Yeah, in Dallas, whichSo, I love this. So you went and the reason why is Eric's heard me complain about this. And I've talked to my patients about this. Whenever I do hospital work, I am just absolutely shocked at how many bad things we do to patients. Like, let's not let them sleep, let's check their blood glucose at 2am. And no results. Let's do vitals just so that we can check a box. And then somebody that's in the cardiac rehab unit, they're eating their cardiac diet, which consists of pancakes, syrup, you know. But, it's low fat!Oh, it's just as long as it's low fat. Yeah, exactly. So that's awesome. I did not know that you did that. This is this is fantastic. Okay, keep going. I didn't mean to interrupt, but that is that that shift of being a nutritionist in a hospital system to doing what you're doing is you cannot get more polar opposite.And Gabrielle before you have to go too deep on on why I completely feel like the association for what Ken's looking for for his patients. And then what it is that you provide the audience may or may not realize that allopathic medicine itself is just traditional medicine as we view it today. And even though the word itself means scientifically based, I think that what has really appealed to Ken and me and others, like, like all three of us is that functional medicine has not forgotten the ideas behind applying new science to improve upon old methods. And the intake that you're talking about, traditionally, 15 years ago, there wasn't always a nutritionist who was experienced that took the time to one on one walk a patient through what's affecting them generally. I'm sorry, specifically, they were more general in approach.Very yeah, nothing was was individualized. And you know, I think that I don't think there should be really a monopoly on who can provide health information and who can help people right...their their husband but hopefully that changes as time goes on. So yeah, so doing the doing the intake paperwork and taking the time is very different than at the hospital where we'd see 25 or 30 people and we'd, you know, it's almost, you know, no disrespect, because I know that there's a lot of dietitians and there's a lot of people in the hospital that are making a difference and, you know, really helping out but it's almost like glorified lunch ladies, like we don't we're talking about calorie counting, we're talking about, you know, tube feed all this stuff is important, but what about the quality? You know, there, there's not enough emphasis on quality of food and again, an individualized approach. And so, so I think that's number one. One of the main differences is just the amount of time so it's like 90 minutes for a first visit. And then after that, which sounds like a lot, but really once you get the people talking and you know you are understanding what's going on And then you start talking about their, their goals and things. Time goes by really quick. I often, you know, struggle with keeping it to that time.You have...sorry, Eric really quick, just one of the best quotes I've heard in a long time. What I do is I find out what the symptoms are talking to my patients about you said the symptoms talk to us. Way different from my perspective, where you have a symptom, I treat it, it's saying something and we're ignoring what they're saying many times.Exactly. Yeah. And you know, if our hormones I'll just use as an example are talking to us as ladies around our cycle. It's not is the answer to take birth control pills, you know, and suppress that, or try to figure out what else maybe we can do to get things in balance in our in our lives, you know, and there's a lot of examples like that, I think,Well, I was going to say that there's also in addition to the client base focus, I would say that even in addition approach that a functional medicine or a functionally trained nutritionist is already approaching certain patient subsets differently than they did traditionally. Ken, the one I'm thinking about specifically how you talked about all of the most recent data that we know about what can make a heart disease patient, or someone more susceptible, and how the type of diet has changed over time how we care for them. Yet when we go into a hospital setting, or specifically what you saw, most recently, you you can't believe what there's sending somebody who's status post CABG, and it's all of the things that we wouldn't be feeding them anyway. It's it's in essence, a an inflammatory diet, and I was kind of curious Gabrielle  do you find your training generally prepares you to handle either a neurology patient or a cardiology patient, different than the allopathic training?I think, right, I think over time what I've been learning, you know, because I've been blessed to really work alongside some pretty intelligent mentors. And you know, I've been blessed to go to conferences and learn from a lot of a lot of people. I think that what I was taught I've had to expand it quite a bit, you know, and sort of unlearn some of the things that I was was taught right. I mean, biochemistry is the same and things but but we I never realized how much influence big Ag and big food and pharma has on the dietetics industry,You know you're right there because the reality is that as as an allopathic physician, it seems like when I talk to my colleagues, unless in my field unless a drug rep shows up and hands them a detailed piece, there is no literature on that. But then when you go look at it, and you realize there's so much literature on this and then when we look back, my son and I were talking about About how we have our diets have changed, like over time as we evolved, and we have developed these different problems based on different food changes based on different things. And then you could see it track over hundreds of years of what's going on. I was just listening to a podcast on on breathwork and breathing and that kind of thing and about how so many of us have, you know, poor ability to breathe, and it's because of our anatomy is changed because of the food that we did. It just gets really complex. But the one thing that we have control over is what we put in our mouths. And, you know, we're telling people from at least in my perspective, when I see people I don't do this big intake thing like you do, but it is pretty funny every once in awhile walk into when we used to be able to see patients in the office and somebody will have a McDonald's cup right there. I'm like, yep, there's the problem. Don't even know who you are, what you're here for. I don't care. That's the problem right there.It's contributing for sure. Yeah,How in the world you go from the hospital and say I'm gonna make a complete change here and be a holistic or basically an integrative dietitian.Yeah. So it just wasn't as rewarding as I had anticipated it being you know, I felt it was, it was I was making a difference, which is part of why I chose to get into nutrition in the first place. I was making a difference with some of these people, but to your point, they their families, and you know, they bring back McDonald's and fast food to these people and the diabetes, you know, people they'd be in there the next month, and then the next month, and it's just anyway, so it became less where I felt like I was really making a difference and that anyone was really listening to anything about nutrition and it was such an emphasis on surgery and such an emphasis on medication and my role was very seemed more like data entry almost. And so I just wasn't making the difference with the clients because I didn't have enough time to help them out and really talk through them. And, you know, we get trumped by those other things in the hospital. And so it was a good experience. But I just started looking into just started reading and started looking found functional medicine and thought this is really interesting. This is really, they're really getting to the root of what's happening, which often is there's people's diets, you know, there's these other factors of course, but this is really cool. And so back when Craigslist was kind of a thing. I recently got on Craigslist and was looking for a job you know, I had a job I was fine, but I thought I want to see if there's anything else out there. And I came across a position in a small boutique functional medicine office working with the MD obgyn, who had her private practice. And the idea was always that I was going to do nutrition consulting, but I kind of started off doing more office kind of running her office and helping explain things to clients and stuff. And then she ended up taking off into a bigger center and I started growing more skills and was able to take these consults on and learned, you know, by shadowing and stuff, I learned a lot of how to interpret tests and you know, help people with, with how to, to make those changes that they needed to make.That's awesome. Just to let you know, I just got on Craigslist right now and there's no jobs for functional...That was totally a godsend thing. Like, I didn't even look very long. I think I was one of the only people she interviewed like it was meant to be. It was meant to be but it's funny how I found it.You also have some, some experience with functional lab testing as well. How did you how did you make that leap to do that now not all functional dieticians do that.Yeah. So it really you know, it's just as again a blessing of kind of shadowing these doctors and these, you know, people that have been doing this for a long time, they really taught me a lot of what I know about interpretation. I didn't learn it in school, or any of the certifications, you know, that I've done, except for one that's kind of more recent. So I just started shadowing in on appointments, and listening and learning and taking notes and studying and understanding, you know, that these are the actual ranges that we want to look for from a preventative standpoint, and why and how conventional ranges are based on sick population of folks and for the most part, and that there's a lot more that we can look at, versus just some blood tests. I think blood tests are valuable. You know, and urine tests can be valuable, but there's so much more that we can explore and understand through looking at the function of the body, you know, because the body works really hard to keep keep the blood clean, and you so looking at urine and looking at its stool test and looking at saliva to lesser extent really opens up a lot of a lot of areas and helps it be that much more individualized and focused. So that's the other really great thing is that with functional medicine we're always so with functional medicine, we we get to make it personalized and by asking all these questions, and diving deeper into their life and what's going on, helps us determine what direction we want to go.Okay, so I have a patient and I'm treating them for this is whatever I'm treating the for anything, ulcerative colitis. I say you know what your I don't think that your diets on point I think your whatever so I send them to you what would be some typical labs that you're talking about that you would want to look at that, that me using the do ologies of quest lab or lab core, you know, the two largest ones that have the standard ranges, you're saying that you can dive deep Just give me an example of the, the elevated care that you can do from at least a lab perspective.Yeah, so like, if it was a digestive patient, you know, and they hadn't had any stool tests done anytime soon. I always like to look and see what they've got what they had done, right. So we don't rerun something that we don't, you know, is not necessary or helpful. But I would want to look at a stool test and beyond what most stool tests show, which are just some of the pathogenic bacteria or some of the pathogenic parasites or something maybe pretty limited, you know, and with a stool test, we can actually look and see who's all living in there, right, because we know how much the microbes play a role. So it's bacteria fungus viruses, worms, parasites, all those things plus digestive function. So looking at, you know, bile acids, pancreatic elastase looking to see how those organs are functioning, and then and then also inflammation and different markers from the immune system, I think is really helpful to put it all together and then use nutrition and supplements and lifestyle like mindful eating and, and whatnot, you know, to help them to eradicate those things. So like a colonoscopy or endoscopy or biopsies can be helpful, obviously, you know that and for structural findings and different things like that. But with a stool test, we can most often figure out Where's that? What's that is the source of the inflammation, you know, a lot of times so what, how can I help kind of coach people through understanding that they can have all these things going on without even having gut symptoms your person but you in your recommendation, you know, obviously would, but there are several people that I see that that I, I do stool tests with because what we know about the connection with immunity and neurotransmitters and you know, just overall health and in vitality metabolism, so that would be one might be, I might want to look at nutrient and vitamin levels through blood and urine. So, there's a really cool test from Genova called a Nutri eval. I don't know if you guys have heard of that before. But it looks at vitamin and mineral levels. It looks at a snapshot about neurotransmitters so some of the organic acid metabolites. It looks at heavy metals in whole blood. So that's kind of cool, you know, to show people cool i guess is a relative word. I got a lot of mercury.Any chance that you've been eating paint? Bad news? Good news. I figured it I found it. Hey, I've got a question for you Gabrielle when in utilizing these functional medicine tests because I think that we all know that they are on they're on the the early stage of really figuring out and they're learning each month on what new parameter matters most and then and we've all three of us seen where they thought the emphasis would be here and sometimes they dial it back only to find out that it's actually in this direction. Have you seen or ballpark? I guess I know you've seen it, but can you ballpark about how many people do you have an initial study on that after good guidance, good counseling and obviously adherence or compliance to what you lay out for them...how many how many or what what percentage roughly come back and then in six months or 12 months have shown an improvement a desired a desired improvement in those tests?And then before you get to that, also, if you can figure out what happened to Eric there, we had that Pettit mal seizure where he slowed way down and then sped way up. You could fix that also. Is that is that not something that y'all wanted?We're both staring at you in slow way down and then.Yeah, yeah, I dialed all of that in.So I don't know. You know, I wish that we had something a little more concrete, you know, to offer. No one's doing any real research on any of that in our office. But I would say I don't ever have anybody not get better. It's just to what degree did they get better and how fast so yes, I like to kind of set the stage of depending on what's going on. Most people are not going to fully eradicate the situation, you know, sooner than six months. But they're going to start feeling better within a couple weeks if they really start changing their diet,You could say an improvement in those at least correlates you're seeing correlation between improvement in quality of life happiness. And I would assume that certain symptoms would always include the general anxiety, sleeplessness, etc. as those things begin to improve, even though this is somewhat relatively new science, you're seeing a correlation to improving the quality of life, as well as an improvement in these these essays or these deaths.Right, more so what I'm kind of measuring is this Yeah, the conversation that we're having what they're telling me is going well and you know, what their mood is, but I also have a symptoms questionnaire that people fill out that rates different body systems and different symptoms within those body systems. So like, there might be mind or emotion or digestive or skin or whatever. And so then they put a number out next to the side of it, and I'm always looking when they come in for the next visit. Did those symptoms go down? Right, did they get better? That's always the goal. And then if there's an outlier that didn't get better, right, like their sleep still stinks or something, then we're going to talk about that, you know. But so yeah, I think everybody is always getting better. Just some people need more therapies or more intense, you know, surgery or medications or something that absolutely happens, you know, but, but more often than not, the folks that are coming to see me are people that have actually seen a lot of other people with no to no avail. Because no one was really looking so much at their nutrition and lifestyle, because that's really where the money. You know, that's really where the money is, for most people. When they can change those things and get ahold of them. Things get better. Did I answer your question?No, totally. I mean, because I think that it's such a relatively new approach and a new science in Canada. I've had some pretty extensive discussions on even something as, I say simple but people talk about all the time. It's fecal testing, and what out of all of the different things and there's various different labs that come and pitch his clinic on the services that they can provide. When it gets down to it, there are certain elements that people feel very, very dialed into on what those results may mean and a lot of the others, I think you were very honest, it's it's new, it's it's how are we collecting this data to make certain that we're heading in the right direction? Ultimately, a patient who doesn't feel well once they begin to feel well, you're at least solving some of the issues if they're sleeping better than you're solving insomnia, if they have decreased anxiety, then we're at least solving their anxious issues. So it makes sense to me that if we're starting to find correlating trends, then we're there we're at least beginning to crack the code on a lot of this functional medicine testing there, frankly, 15 years ago just did not exist.Let me ask you that question from a from a clinical standpoint, so what I get away I get a lot of second opinions and a lot of people have actually found me through a functional medicine route, where they went allopathic. And then they went through a bunch of functional medicine style. Like all practitioners, there's good bad, there's things and then they end up spending quite a bit of money. And then they'll show up and they'll have five different stool studies from different places, Genova vibrant, wherever, and they'll just hand this big packet to me and go, what's this? And I remember listening to some different practitioners talking about stuff like this, they're like, look, we can analyze the stool, how we manipulate it is kind of or how we get it better is sort of the hard part. Being able to get a genomic sequence is the easy part. The hard part is what you're going to have to do with that. So what would you typically do? And I said, I was turned on to it. You know, we developed Atrantil for bloating and stuff like that. And I remember I was asked to give an IFM talk, the local Dallas IFM group and Betty Murray was there and a bunch of the other functional medicine doctors were there. And somebody had mentioned that they checked stool studies. And then what they wanted to see afterwards they checked it after treating with Atrantil which has the polyphenols, like in your little Facebook post great. And they, they said that it increased the microbial diversity. So from a integrative dietitian, what would you do with those stool studies? Because I'm flat out, I look at my patients, and I go, I don't really know what to do with this. So how would you and it's almost always the same thing, dysbiosis gluten intolerance, candida overgrowth, and then you have a disproportionate growth of these different bacteria. You know, we have 100 trillion bacteria there. So it's always it's always hard for me to look at somebody that's spending $800 on each one of these stool tests, and go I don't know what to do with it...yet. We're learning first step is being able to, to look at it. Second step is figure out how to manipulate it. So how would what would you do with those stool studies and this is less of an interview question, more of an advice.And I think it's really great to that you're just you have mentioned that we don't know everything that we're always learning, but everything is always growing. You know, I think that that's a real sign of intelligence. And something that functional medicine kind of prides on is is evidence based and just continuing to grow that one size doesn't fit all, right. And so yeah, I think that there's some of the similarities that would happen across the board from different stool tests, no matter what it was, and you mentioned several of them. So, depending on what we find, you know, we might, I'm going to use supplements and food and lifestyle. So let's say, you know, again, if it's an overgrowth situation of bacteria, and if they're having gas and bloating and distension type symptoms, then I may offer the low FODMAP, you know, food plan, which you guys are probably familiar with, just you know, looking at particular starches and fibers that helped to starve out those bacteria and try and work with them on that. If they...How long would you let somebody be on a low FODMAP diet?That's a good question. I really don't try and do it very long. I really try to do it at least for a month. But I don't do it much longer than that, depending on their situation. Now, if they're not somebody that's compliant with taking some of my antimicrobial supplementation or gut repair supplements, or they're not doing you know, a lot of other things then I might keep them on it longer because they're probably still having the symptoms. And I think at least we're starving out those bacteria. But where I'm trying to meet people where they are because another thing to always think about when you when you're giving food plans, or diet protocols around stuff is people's ability to make that food, write their resources, their flavor preferences, their schedules, etc, etc, right and so I can show them this FODMAP plan and say this is, you know what, why this will work and here's the foods and you know when to eat those foods, but then I'm going to take that time to really break down how they can make that happen. And that also determines the timeframe of how long and whether we make any exceptions or not, you know?So this gets into your so that you're the integrative dietitian, but then you have to put on your hat. The coaching hat, yeah.Then you have to do that, because you have to change habits here.That's right.You got to educate and then get them to believe in it. AndYep, educate them and tell them the why and then figure out what their why is and then help them do the things you know. And so, like I like to say it's biology to behavior change. So, you know, depending on what we find.Do you own all these cool quotes that you're throwing out there. Like have you trademarked them? I'm about ready to make some t-shirts.I haven't. We can all use them. We can all share them. You make a T shirt now that you can you can have it that'd be cool. So, as long as you let me wear one. So what else would I do supplement wise? It depends, you know, because it depends on what we're dealing with. But it's Yeah, it's it's helping them to, to take ownership around what they found here and how it got created and then try to help them see that it doesn't. changes can happen without all happening at once. They can happen as the people are ready. So it's all on their on their timeline. And I can give advice and I tell them, I'm never going to steer them in the wrong direction. But they're in charge. Right. And I think that's where the coaching, the functional medicine specific kind of coaching comes in. And why I decided to, you know, to do those certifications and then become national board certified because I really believe that functional medicine, just health coaching in general, but specifically functional medicine is going to be really where the life change happens for a lot of these people, because skill sets like your skill set would be more utilized in doing the actual procedures, explaining to them about the results, you know, and but then they need, they need help doing the protocol to address the results. And so so that's why I think coaching is so vital because it's going to really allow for practitioners to partner with coaches to be able to help the client with their success and their their health because a lot of people just don't have the time or, you know, that really, a lot of times it's the time to take with with people to really invest in that as much as you might be interested in it. You know, you're you're busy doing this and you're doing this and then. So partnering with a coach is can be really helpful to help hold that space for the client. Yeah, I think that's amazing. And I I'm under utilizing health coaches right now in my practice, and part of it is just because the, the demand, that's the, you know, it's a high volume, I get very, you know, second third opinions where we're trying to go through some different stuff. And so as a, as a coach, what I, what I at least tell my patients is that I try and take some of the burden off of them, because what you have is somebody that feels guilty about how they're eating fast food, and they're driving home and they're, they're tired, and I try to explain to them that sometimes it's not you. It's the fact that you've cultured these microbiome that are sending signals to your brain to do a follow up on that. So what I want to know as a health coach are one of the terms that I are one of the things I try and do with my patients is create friction on the bad habit. Meaning let's find a way to make it more difficult for these kind of things to happen. That's kind of how we got people to quit smoking. We just tax the snot out of it and people stopped. So creating some friction. Do you ever have you found little techniques to help your clients overcome? Because it's that first hurdle, that sugar crash the way that I mean, I, I truly believe that a lot of those people, they intellectually want it. But it's it. That's how they grew up. That's where they're at. It's I mean, we can talk about different cities. I was just in a small town in East Texas and my son and I were trying to eat healthy and that was not possible. Just period.Right? Yeah.What are some of your tricks as a coach? Some of your secrets that you win?Um, I think my secret is being mindful and intentional and really trying to be there and present with them to hear what it is that they need. Because everybody is truly different. I really don't even like if we use the sugar craving, you know example. There's probably about 10 different reasons I could come up with right now that people have for why they have sugar cravings. So I think it's taking the time, I think one of the tricks I have is taking the time with them, to build that rapport, to help them understand that they can trust me, that I'm authentic, that we can be honest with each other. That, that I'm going to give them informed consent. So I'm going to tell them pros and cons about things. But I want to understand more about like you said, they intellectually might know that they don't want to eat this, you know, cookie, but then they keep finding themselves coming back to the cookie. Well talking through their day and what else surrounded that and kind of helping them to let me in a little bit to the scenario helps me figure out where I can guide them where I can coach them. It might not be you know, while I think it's helpful to share with them that maybe their yeast overgrowth is contributing to their sugar craving, I want to also spend time talking to them about how what we're doing is helping to get rid of that that threat. And what other scenarios can we do in our life that that also could contribute to sugar cravings? How can we kind of be proactive about not putting ourselves in that situation? So it's kind of similar, where we create a friction, we make it hard for them to do that, that habit, sometimes I go that route, but some people need other types of encouragement or there might be, you know, it might be that really, the reason why they go to that cookie is because they had an argument with their spouse that they have almost every night. You know, and so what needs to be addressed over there? Or is it that they didn't eat all day long, you know, and maybe that's why or whatever, you know, there's various different things. So I don't know if that's the kind of a long answer to your question about what are my like specific tricks because everybody I just try to kind of feel them out. And I probably have a couple of one liners as you can tell, you know, that I throw in and mix those in. But I just want them to know that I'm there for them. And that help is really a cool thing where it doesn't happen in a black and white all in or nothing kind of scenario. It's all every step you take helps you get there, right and figuring out why you're doing it and then coming playing back into that motivation can keep them on track along with education.It seems to me like that such a such a key part in so many things on changing one's daily habits into better habits is just simply recognizing what puts you where you are. And you hit the nail on the head. We've we've talked about certain different things, maybe not necessarily in terms of just health coaching, but I completely agree with you Gabrielle, if you can identify what is triggering you to do something that you already don't want to do, then obviously, that's not the way to deal with the thing that you don't want to do. So it's, it's more or less, can you improve a different part of your life...it sounds to me, can you improve a different part of your life or change your routine that's going to allow you to not necessarily feel the need to, to break the trends, is that kind of right?Yeah, I think and I think we all need partners. I think we all need help and coaches and support and guidance. You know, I don't think any of us have anything all figured out 100%. So, the coaching can come in and help you shed light on on things that you may not take the time, or have the ability to break it down and see it that way. You know, see it from a different angle,Eric's pretty close though about having everything figures out.Well, that's pretty obvious. So we can all learn a lot from from Eric. I myself. I don't have it all figured out.That's a ridiculous claim. But thanks for playing along with Ken. That makes me feel really well.I mean, are you kidding? I said in the very beginning, I'm learning how to breathe. I haven't even mastered that and I've been doing that for almost 50 years, so.Okay, so I've got something I've got something that Gabrielle shared in our intake Ken and I'm just curious if you can name any of her so we've heard the way that she scientifically thinks through a few things, etc. Ken and I, whenever we scope together we have different days different playlists, we try to listen to pretty much everything. Can you just out of thin air pick one of her top five bands, she's listed five on here I believe no actually she listed six. She doesn't follow rules very well, but she listed six and none of them didn't debut before the year 2000. So all of these looks like they were in in in the 90s. And all of them are are bands I listen to can you name one of them Ken.Yeah so this this should be pretty easy because everybody I've ever met that serves Craigslist loves Metallica.So close but no not even there not even not there.See? She threw me off with the Craigslist thing.Yeah. I know. Her first band listed and I love this because we were just...last week is rage against the machine. Oh, that's awesome. Cake is definitelyCake is a good one. Yeah, Metallica is a good one too.Eric and I are big I basically well we basically always have music going at all times. And so it's a it's just part of our existence. It helps the patients patients come in. If you're a patient listening to this, you know that there's always some music and then it's funny. Because I've had patients for so long that they'll come in and be like hey, you had like whatever hardcore rap playing last time and now you've got some some funky soul going on and I'm like yeah I evolveYeah right like we shouldYeah but check this out, her span is large really because even though these are somewhat related to actually they hit a lot of stuff it's it's Rage Against the Machine she listed Soundgarden which of course is that great Seattle sound then you have sublime, which is a huge...Are you kidding me? I don't like the Santeria buddyAnd she gets into some quest love and she she put on here the roots, then the fugees and no doubt so I Holy cow if I just actually would. I was trying to be funny about the Craigslist, but I probably would have said thoseWe're all in good company here. Absolutely. And there's a lot out there. So you know it's just I was saying trying to think bands specifically right I feel like there's not.This is perfect this is inside these are to me these are not throwaway band names This is they you didn't you didn't go with in the last 20 years you were with people who typically write their own stuff. Lots of bass, heavy, very talented bands. So no, I'm into it. I think that's awesome. Cool, me too. Well, Ken did you have anything...I got I got I got one of the things I want to throw this at you Gabrielle what are the top three things you tell your coaches or that you tell your clients as a coach, non nutritional that you have them do to their lifestyle?Mm hmm. Well, I talked about quality, quality of air quality of water quality relationships, quality of food. But I tell them to move, tell them to move their bodies find something that they likeI thought you said you need to move out of your house You need to move. I tell them to move because it's toxic. And they gotta get out of there, I tell them to move their bodies go outside, get in the nature. If they can do one in the same with that, then that's really, that's really a sweet spot, to get some sleep, to know their worth.That's awesome. It actually seems like it all augments on everything else that you're trying to teach them.I hope so I hope that's the message just to empower them. That's really what I want to do is I want to empower them to know that their choices are super significant, to live a healthy, happy life that they're proud of and show up in the world the way they they want to. And hopefully I can help them you know, accomplish that.You've said the word empower several different times. And I like the way that you're talking about this because you've talked about relationships a few times empowerment a few times, self worth. So I'm seeing a theme here that how many of your clients coming to you, and they do not feel good about themselves. So therefore, it's hard for them to treat themselves well.Yeah, I would say a good percentage. And it doesn't always come out in the first visit. Sometimes I have to dig dig around and I find that but it's not just females, it's males too. And the younger the, unfortunately, some of the younger generation of kids. Yeah, some teenagers that I see.Yeah, so that's that people like you are so important. And clinicians like you are so important, because what I'm seeing a ton of right now is I get people with irritable bowel, Fibromyalgia, fatigue, and they're on four different antidepressants. They're on anti anxiety and they're 22 years old. It's very hard for me to sit down, look at that and go over the side effects of your drugs alone are going to be the uphill battle of how we get you feeling better. So I think that more people are taking that approach is awesome. Were you going to say something Eric?Yeah, actually, I think that's what I'm gonna build upon what she said what you just said. And when you you listed specific In fact, you listed four different things. But the last thing you said was know your worth. But the first three things were actionable. And knowing your worth is a hard thing to do, because now there's instructions on how to know your worth. And then when you ever you said young people in Ken said that your position is very important. I'm just curious if you're trying to coach someone who is young. One of the newest devices that is effective is the cell phone. And do you ever have to find yourself telling someone hey, possibly, if you're looking at your screentime registry per day, which is I think on iPhones, you can set it so that each week it tells you how many hours you've spent average each day on your phone if possibly driving down the pervasive or social networking thing might help them get over some of the driven anxiety or different things like that. Is that something that you ever have to coach someone on?Totally yeah. And so not only from a comparison standpoint and constant stimulus standpoint, but also from a Wi Fi you know, radiation standpoint too. All of that stuff can be contributing to their to their mood. Yeah. So we talk about it from both angles. Hold that thought, I'll be right back.Hey, while he's stepping away, I was gonna say did you did you happen to see that there is a US representative or senator but here recently, they Just came out with a clip where they are introducing legislation to ban Tik tok, for instance, from being used on any governmental devices, especially for anybody in the Pentagon because it is an addictive app that is essentially recording keystrokes, everything so now they're they're cataloguing your passwords. They're cataloguing what you do all day. And it's it of course, it's it's preying upon your emotions, your anxiety, making you feel as if you have to use it over and over and over again.Yeah, they say data is the new oil. Right? So we're everyone's looking to capture as much data and the more devices we have on us all the time, you know, the easier it is for them to do that.So I'm late to the game with the whole EMF thing because Eric and I've been part of several, I don't know what do you call them entrepreneur groups, and there's a lot of functional doctors part of it. About Wi Fi EMF. I got myself a volt meter.Oh yeah. What are you finding? Well here's why I'm trying to do some earthing and some grounding. So I got a silver embedded sheet that I'm now doing it, I can, I can plug this with my volt meter and I will grab my phone and the volts just go up and you're like, ah! And then I was watching a video where some guy walks closer towards a power line and it just starts going up.Off the chart.Yeah. And I'm like, Oh, so I need objective data. So that's kind of my thing. Like if you say that you go EMF Oh, that's quackery. And then I go get something to prove or disprove it. And you're like, oh, man.Oh, wait, there's something to thatWait a minute. There's something to that now I start thinking about putting my phone in my pocket. I'm like, that's a little too close to the nether.Right. Yeah.It's it's funny because when I talk to my colleagues and stuff, and just it just, we're inundated with so much information and you're right, the phone is certainly one of them right now. But when you're talking about this stuff, it's like, if you vomited all that at once at somebody, then you almost discredit yourself. It's like they're all over because you do get a lot of people that that have this passion and when you have a lot of passion about something I do, I tend to vomit and talk about it all the time. I'll listen to a podcast Eric will hear me talk about we need to breathe everybody cover your right nostril, now your left nostril we're gonna. But your ability to develop the relationship with your clients is what's really going to make the difference and your ability to take the time to explain these things validates the actual field. So thank you for doing that. That's awesome.Yeah, my pleasure. I really feel blessed to do it. And it's nice to, you know, see people's people that people to be able to step into, you know, what they want to be and what they're kind of called to be. Not that I'm, you know, my guru healer or something, but I think we all play a role in that and it feels really nice to to encourage people in that way.Well Gabrielle I know that what if people go to livingwelldallas.com that's livingwelldallas.com they can find you as well as the clinic itself is there. What else can you tell everyone about how they would like to connect with a Integrative Health Coach like yourself?Um so I'm on all the social media platforms as well under Gabrielle Randell and then I have a YouTube channel where I have some some videos on there some helpful tips and I plan on continuing to add to that and and yeah on the website you'll be able to see my information and then my email is Gabrielle@livingwelldallas.com. So what I would really like to encourage this was more of a get to know you. Let's just showcase Gabrielle we've got this incredible person in our city. Hopefully we'll able to reconnect in the studio and be more in person. What I would like to see is anybody listening shoot some questions related to this and then maybe we bring her back and it's like a ask me anything episode. We get her kickin some knowledge and stuff like that.Ama. Ama Gabrielle Grandell with ama on GCP. It sounds really good.Yeah, I'd love to come back.Well, that'd be awesome. That'll be easy, easy to do. We'll have all of your connectivity stuff listed in the show notes. Of course, in today's show be listening on the audio platform just go over to gutcheckproject.com. Look under Show Notes for this episode number 37, with Gabrielle grandell, and you can connect with her as well as shoot us a question and we can set up the AMA. Let's see here. You had one of those Pettit mole seizures again, that's so funny. It sounds It sounds so normal over here. And I guess over there, it doesn't at all, but I can tell whenever y'all are laughing halfway through me talking that something is happening.Well, we kind of look at each other through the whole zoom. You know, like when you kind of get an idea of where you're looking on the screen. And so yeah, that is that is awesome. I love where you're coming from I we're speaking the same language, I have a lot to learn. So and that's kind of so i'm i'm excited every time we do something like this, we'll learn a little bit more.Yeah, well I was excited to be here and talk with you guys. I wanted to mention that not only do I see people in my private practice, I also work with other practitioners that utilize me as their health coach. And so I have people in other parts of the country that that have health coaching as part of their program that people have purchased and then they have set amount of appointments with me. And so we do those over the phone or via video using the doxy website right now. Thank you so much for coming on. This is is going to pretty much conclude episode number 37 This is Gabrielle Grandell. Thank you so much integrative health coach and living well Dallas and I say that correct, right livingwelldallas.com?Uh huh that's right.Livingwelldallas.com and we will more sooner rather than later have Gabrielle on for as Ken's already announced an AMA episode which who knows how long that's gonna goYeah we got to figure some stuff out go to kbmdhealth.com look at the information we have the products we have there, and then eventually we're going to get Gabrielle to give us some sort of coupon code for our for our listeners to get to ama or coaching or just just sweet vibes from her just put, just put it out there some self worth VA makes you feel better about yourself.Oh, hey, last thing Ken you Ken you have to do the disclaimerOh, I keep forgetting to do that.Doctors.Gabrielle as it turns out, we're talking about a lot of medicine and things like that. But if you do have any unusual symptoms perhaps a weird rash, please do not use this show for the treatment of that we are not here to diagnose or treat. We are here to give some information and have some fun. Go see your doctor if that rash does not clear up. Anything else?I agree.That's our disclaimer.That's a very official disclaimer. All right, folks, thank you. gut check project and KBMD health community. Gabrielle thank you once again, that's Episode 37. We'll have everything up with show notes if you'd like to connect with her and we will see y'all next time. Thank you. All right Right on.Thank you guys.

Hello gut check project fans and KBMD health family We are here for what we think is going to be the last installment of the COVID files Episode 7.0. I'm here with your host, Dr. Kenneth Brown. And I honestly we, we got to a point where maybe we've just kind of COVID'd out. So we're going to book in this with some very important information simply because it's stuff that just came up. So what do you say Dr. Brown?Absolutely. I mean, I think a lot of people with everything that's gone on recently, it is just absolute overload. Part of the overload also is the amount of literature that's coming out regarding this whole COVID situation. We hear one thing we...you know, something else happens we know that all of a sudden, there's articles being retracted now and we're going to talk about that and then there's articles where this and that now it early on, if you look at our original COVID files, I really felt like we were doing a great job of staying of informing our audience and we stayed way ahead of the mainstream media. We were saying things quite honestly a couple months before stuff started getting out. And now we're finding out that okay, everybody's now starting to get or everybody you can get a preprint done, which now you can look up and you can do this and that's what we're going to talk about. I do have a kind of cool preprint whether it's true or not, but now it's almost like you have to put an Asterix next to scientific studies that are being put out there. And that's what we want to talk about today. Because as of this week, the who unfortunately got put under fire a little bit for saying some things and we want to talk about that. We want to then hopefully move on, get back to gut check project, get back to talking about food, nutrition, health, lifestyle, biohacking, all kinds of stuff that's a little bit more in our wheelhouse, but we I think we did a really good job of addressing the COVID attack that came on but I think it's, we just have to wait and see how it plays out now and then re circle back when everything's open.I'm in no, no joke. So let's let's just get straight to it. So and I'll preface only by saying this COVID file 7.0. And then we've had the half sessions where fortunately, Dr. Stewart Akerman has joined Dr. Brown to bring pertinent information for tests and interpretation. We've we've really kind of slowed down on trying to dive in much more on COVID because there's just been so much information just like what you said. And then what occurred earlier this week with some probably more misstated information than misinformation. Misstated is the way to say it, yeah, yeah, for sure. It's the World Health Organization which, by which full admission from my end you sometimes you kind of have to wonder what all of their motivations are. However, I feel that in this particular situation where Maria Van Kerkhove or Kerkhove I could be mispronouncing her name completely. I don't want to butcher it.Yeah, well, I've got yeah, I wanted to talk about that because her and I are actually pretty good friends. Yeah, I mean, like the press refers to her is Dr. Van Kerkhove, but I know as Maria Rosanna de Joseph Van Kerkhove and that's how I address her because we're close like that.That's cool, she sounded like she was from Nebraska. There's no doubtMaria Rosanne de Joseph Van Kerkhove. There's some Latin influence we've got some Italian we've got some I think de Joseph is what is de Joseph if you have a D if it's a MC, something McClanahan then you say Irish a de Joseph a D, with a little E. Large J what is that?De Joseph? I'm not really...Van seems somewhat Dutch. Kerkhove seems Scotch Romanian. Scotch Romanian Yeah, yeah. So, but it's funny because this this poor woman was at a press conference and was asked a question and she said something to the effect of basically oh, asymptomatic people probably can't transmit or it was just off the cuff. And literally, within minutes, reporters were tweeting the statement, which then became virally shared on social media, which then was immediately put on the news networks. And then we've got poor Dr. Fauci coming on going aye you know he probably call it i'm sure they're friends he's like, and I'm sure there is good enough friends as me and her are so Dr. Fauci called Maria Roseanne de Joseph Maria Rosanne de Joseph Van Kerkhove. I think and she just went I know Dr. Fauci, I'm that was at a press conference and I was just talking to a colleague. SoSo let's let's break down what she said she she basically interpreted and she has backtracked, but initially she made it sound as if acement....asymptomatic people or people who are not showing symptoms, even if infected, rarely transmit disease. Now this is this was big news because the reasons why we worked so hard to actively flatten the curve was because there was a threat of you may be spreading disease and having no idea. So in essence, what she initially said or the way it was interpreted was, well, what we thought was this massive threat. It's not that it doesn't exist. It's just not quite to the level that maybe we first were describing. And even I when I heard that I turned to you, I was like, did you hear what they just came out with?Oh, no, I mean, that's part of the problem. We're still socially distancing. But as soon as you heard her say that and you got the tweet, you drove the hour and 10 minutes to the studio and I was like, whoa, I'm like, what are you doing we're socially distancing? You're like, didn't you hear what the who said? It doesn't anymore! I'm symptomatic. We're fine. And, you know, unfortunately, you know, I was masked up wearing my body suit and stuff and I sprayed you with the hose, get out of here, go back, go back to Decatur. because we're still socially distancing. Hmm.Well, I think I just offended Eric, because he apparently dropped off this zoom call. So we've lost him for a moment. But it is true. What he's saying is that the who statement that Dr. van kerkhove mentioned off the cuff was essentially I apologize to our audience that I think I offended you when I said go back to Decatur because you you fell off, I apologize. I'm just saying will you please accept my apology and remain on this podcast with me? Yes, I will.Ok thank you. I was really, really hurt there. You're very, very forgiving man. So I was just, I was just reiterating that the doctor said an off the cuff statement that asymptomatic people. But what's really what the reason why Dr. fauci had to get involved. And the reason why it suddenly became spread through the news networks is because everything seems to become political. So that was why did we close the economy down? Oh, my gosh, let's get out there. And, you know, we were just talking on the last call that we just had with our partner, Mike logs in about how he was given the numbers in Texas. Some of the highest hospitalizations that we've had. I mean, I didn't see the article. Did you? Take a look at it? Actually,I did. And I'm going to butcher the last two digits. But essentially, the high watermark I think, was 1900 hospitalizations within one day. And the numbers that they came up with this morning, I believe, is they closed business yesterday was 2500. And change. Yeah, so significantly higher percentage wise, probably for a state of, you know, several million. Still a low percentage overall, but regardless, it's it's climbing and what's very, very important healthcare is trends, because trends are what guide us in what it is that we have to treat. So numbers, maybe not huge percentages. Certainly noticeable but the growth and the trend is is what you need to keep an eye on and currently, we are technically on an upward trend and I and by the way, I'll add that the last three weeks temperatures have been higher, which is something that was thought to be something that would help tamp some of the transmission and infection. That is, that is a great observation because, you know, a two months ago, that's that was a whole thing. China was putting publications out that showed in regions where it was warmer, the disease spread was less. And so we were all like, oh, all we have to do is make to spring and then summer's here, and it'll flatten the curve. And now we're seeing high numbers. And it's like 90 well, yeah, it's somewhere in the 90s. In Texas, at least where where we live, which is kind of northern Texas, in the Dallas area, or, and then so that I mean, I don't know, it we're all learning all of this, so.Yeah. And to be fair, I guess you could still go back to what we've also agreed with, which is the incubation time could be as long as around 14 days. So maybe the transmission happened back before it really began to warm up and maybe maybe with the sustained temperatures high temperatures over 90 in our area will, will help will help to tamp that down. But it's again something that we won't know for another two, possibly three weeks and and in addition to that, something else that's reasonable to expect we all kind of thought numbers would go up because we began to open the state up for business. So maybe this is more than an acceptable number of hospitalizations given that we've more or less begun to open up some regular commerce allowing people to get haircuts, although I haven't gotten one. And you know, different things like that Quarantine quarantine hair going on right now. Otherwise known as late 80s hair if you compare my I look like a super stressed out version of my senior photo right now. Yeah, just wow, that looks like brown. This guy looks like brown with wrinkles. He must have served a presidency term. You're seeing all those pictures where they show everything all the years later.I feel bad I look and I look like I'm just as disheveled as I was in eighth grade right around on 10 speed.Um, a couple quick things I did want to talk about before we jumped into some of the data about the who and why Dr. fauci was a little upset and everything. We did something really cool recently we did a webinar on the endocannabinoid system. And thanks to everyone that joined with that we had kind of a huge turnout on that one. It was super fun. But the endocannabinoid system we're gonna put a link in the I guess down below somewhere where people can look at that and and take a look at the webinar. No you're you're grimacing, we don't have to put a link there.I think we do. I just want to make certain that it happens and that it's functional soI like to throw you out there and just say Eric's gonna handle this and Eric will hand deliver your products.I can say that by next week we will have a page dedicated to all educational series webinars so that if you it will always be free to register and and view the content. We just simply want to be able to communicate with people who find benefit from using the information. So if you wish to share it with someone, all they have to do is become a part of the the KBMD health community and they can access and watch everything. I think that's awesome. And I just want to say that the new plan with Atrantil is that Eric will be hand delivering all orders both online Amazon and if you need it for retail, it's curbside pickup. If you see a very handsome man with a beard and large 80s hair.Much like we're trying to guess at what COVID numbers will be in two weeks. I'm going to guess that here shortly satisfaction scores for Atrantil are really gonna go down.Alright, so, that being said, super cool that we did this webinar. I'm glad we talked about something called the endocannabinoid system which can actually help boost your ability to handle stress. Watch the webinar if Eric ever figures out how to do it, if he finds time between delivering the hundreds of thousands of bottles of Atrantil so this, this poor doctor, dr. van kerkhove was at a press conference said something and Dr. Fauci. Now let's talk about let's look at the numbers. Evidence shows that 25 to 45% of infected people do not have symptoms. 45 almost half of the people getting COVID don't have symptoms. And then if you look at the epidemiologic studies, the study where disease happens in various regions, we know that you can transmit the disease without symptoms. Here's the really fine line. how thin do you want to make this slice? What is a pre symptomatic person and what is an asymptomatic person? That's the key to this thing because pre symptomatic, you're highly infective, asymptomatic, you have no symptoms. This is the really hard thing. And this is why the who statement was a little bit difficult because if you're pre symptomatic, you're very infective. If you're asymptomatic, you're half of the people and we know that epidemiologically you can still transmit this virus. So what's the difference? And now they've been going on this significant campaign to try and retract some of those statements. So we've got Eric back. Thank you, Eric, for joining us again. For anybody that's watching this on YouTube. Eric has horrible add and he'll just like space out log out and be like, oh, I was doing a podcast better come back. You got a little issue with the internet there brother?Man we've not had any issues. issues with our conference. In fact, you and I just had a meeting just before this, and we didn't have these interruptions. I'm, oh, well, you know what we knew what the topic is going to be. So I feel pretty confident in it. No, it's awesome. I just I have abandonment issues. And every time you leave I. All right. So we were I was just explaining that the Chinese study mentioned that four out of five infected people don't know that they had it. And they don't know where they got it. So it isn't like they're around somebody that was coughing and all this stuff. And you had mentioned just a few seconds ago about how the SARS COV2 the virus that causes COVID 19 has can have a lengthy incubation period, you start talking about pre symptomatic versus asymptomatic. It's a very blurred line because you can have up to two weeks of no symptoms, and then cough a little and all of a sudden you go and get checked and you've got COVID or the average duration is five days, which means for at least the majority of people, five days, they're walking around shaking hands, saying hi doing whatever, which is why the social distancing was such a big deal. And so the whole who thing, you know, kind of threw a little wrench into what was going on because there's been like three major studies that looked at viral load of asymptomatic patients are similar to those who develop symptoms. Say that, again, the viral load in the back of the throat of somebody with no symptoms, that was diagnosed with COVID. So they were PCR positive in the back of the throat, and then they ended up developing or I'm sorry, that group did not have any symptoms, versus the group that actually had symptoms went in and got it. The viral load was very similar to that, and so, to say that the who was referencing that possibly asymptomatic people are non infective. They've come back since then and have really the doctor Dr. Maria Roseanne, de Joseph Van Kerkhove, has recently over the last day come back significantly and said, look, I was referencing this is the key here. This is the key to this. She was referencing three preprints studies. And that's where I want to go with this. She was not doing anything wrong. She was saying, Oh, I saw some studies kind of like you and I do on this podcast. Oh, we read this study. That it implies this. Does this make sense? Does this follow the trend does whatever. So it's very interesting that she's come back and said, yes, they were preprints it was just said in passing in a press conference probably shouldn't have been treated. It's not who policy it's none of that. So I justActually she was even in a press conference to when she said it, I think that she was kind of more or less trying to satisfy a question that was kind of pulled off sides. In fact, Archie john from Harvard Medical, said that he feels that the scientific arm of the who is very, very, very smart, very intelligent in fact he says they put our own government's decision making kind of to shame However, he said, what they are bad at is conveying information. So he, he's basically saying that their PR department doesn't necessarily coach them well on how to make what they are examining in terms of science without, I mean, this was a firestorm, at least for those who are paying attention. Yeah, think about this. She's an epidemiologist. She's a PhD, she's an MD. I mean, this is probably like a wicked smart person. I...and you know, just got pulled off sides a little bit and just went nuts and then became a political thing. So it's a it's, it's one of those deals. So the bottom line is, basically, if you don't have symptoms, you're still infective. And it can be 14 days before and if you're pre symptomatic, and then I want to throw out a new term. Remember how we always talk about probiotics, prebiotics, post biotics. I'm gonna do the same thing with this topic. I'm gonna say that you are asymptomat...no, you're pre symptomatic, posy symptomatic and asymptomatic. So when you go back and look at this, it may be that a lot of these people said they were asymptomatic or posy symptomatic me, allergies are bad today. I would never think that if something were to happen, they'd be like, hey, you have you have antibodies to SARS Cov2. Have you ever been sick? And I'm like, yeah, because I would think of it as my normal allergy symptom. That's the posy symptomatic person.That's cool that you bring up that delineation, because even some of the fodder on some of the articles written where they were trying to differentiate between pre symptomatic and asymptomatic and it's such a I mean, that's a that's a that's a lost cause unless you have a crystal ball and knowing that you eventually will become sick, you would have no idea that you're pre symptomatic. I mean, it's, it's, it's a weird, it's a weird thing to try to predict.It's, it's super weird. And one of the terms that one of the doctors use, which I thought was really interesting, because I kept thinking about that how thin you slice the salami, never heard that term. Never thought about it before. Never thought about making a close call. How thin do you want to slice the salami, and clearly it was part of the vernacular of this person because they say it all the time. You know, that's a close call that's a thin slice salami right there. Where do they get that?No, but so, honestly, we still need to be cautious. You still need to be careful those who are highly susceptible, though, I think that we're reaching that point where we've talked about it multiple times on what type of body habitus, etc, is going to be most at risk that hasn't changed. The elderly, the obese, those with comorbidities, the risk factors for those people, especially if they become infected has not changed. If you're going to be responsible in public, you need to be conscious of doing your part. And trying to do all that you can to not infect someone: social distancing if that's that your thing wearing a mask if that's your thing. And you're also going to get to a point where people are going to become complacent with not doing some of those things because people are willing to accept certain elements of risk. That's just the truth.It totally is. And so let's I want to talk about two things. One, this hydroxychloroquine backlash that's been going on. So this is a great example of what is happening here. So there's been two hydroxychloroquine articles that have now been retracted from very prominent journals, the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. And they've been retracted and they've been used much like the who statement and like a political way, a bipartisan, let's let's just say it what it is. The bipartisan way is that there is a lot of people in the current administration that believe that hydroxychloroquine is very effective. And these two articles were retracted, which is now being used as a political motive to discuss that. Here's the deal is that when you dive deeper into it, both both authors of these articles in The Lancet, and in the New England Journal of Medicine, were using one repository of data and that company has not had a third party audit of this. So don't know how much you can actually trust the data. But the author's if I'm a, if I'm a gastroenterologist doing a study on something, and I say, I need I want to publish a study on the incidence of gastrointestinal symptoms on COVID. Well, there's companies that all they do is just gather data, so that I can go in there and say this. And when that happens, I trust them. Because I'm not the kind of person that would spend another two months vetting them hiring a third party company, nobody is. So you have these two articles that were retracted, and I feel bad for the doctors that's probably spent a ton of time writing this going over it graduate students, I mean, hundreds and hundreds of hours to get a study out and then it's just yoink and it becomes some sort of manipulative pawn in this whole process. So if you read about that, it's basically that this company called surgisphere, a healthcare firm behind all the data would not allow an independent review of its data set. And because of that, the articles were pulled. And they, I looked further into them, and they would not allow it because the people that allowed the data to be given, it's a confidentiality, HIPAA, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it's very, like, I could never let a third party come in and do a third party company outside of my organization that didn't sign all the appropriate stuff to come in and look at any of my patients' stuff. So it's, it's as gray I mean, it's so gray. On the surface, they say ha, those articles were retracted. hydroxychloroquine kills people. And then you start going further and you're like, wait a minute, we still don't know. Wait a minute. the chinese were saying, we're seeing benefit. France, was seeing benefit early on. That's why we went with it. And now, when data's being published, it's retrospective analysis on data that's collected by this company that now is being put into question because nobody has looked at their data. They may be completely fabricating everything, they may be behind some huge giant political thing. Or maybe they really can't share the data with anybody with a third party person. And this is all that we got somebody's doing the work to do this. It's just this is where it becomes COVID overload, dude, I'm just like,Well, you know, I mean, it's interesting, you bring it up, and you kind of describe it that like that, because and just for the record, I think I feel the same way. But let me see if I can summarize what you're just conveying to me. We're out here just a...you as a healthcare provider, you just want to know all that you can so that when presented with an issue, you can most effectively help a patient find a favorable resolution. Unfortunately, it's more than obvious that at certain intersections, politics will force either some information to be covered up, or the wrong elements of information to be pushed out. So that some other agenda or something else can either be satisfied or just temporarily delayed until something else occurs. And I'll only say that it sounds that way to me because I'm not necessarily a fan of any party view, if you will. But I, I just don't think that Trump has it in him to make up a drug name and just randomly assign it to a disease. He's lots of people already don't think he's fit the bill for certain things. I'm just going to tell you I don't think he's ever heard of plaquenil before someone told it to him.Yeah, exactly. So somebody somebody said do this. Now it's being thrown at him. This phenomenal I'm just gonna say phenomenal because I actually looked up her credentials and she is just a badass, like, where she went to school, she went to flew to England to study and all this other stuff, you know, she does an off the cuff off the cuff remark, and now it's being used against her. And, you know, we've got these poor authors and I say, poor in the sense that you know, time money, you know, all this stuff everybody's trying. And as a scientist myself and as a bunch of articles that I'm waiting to publish that I'm trying to, you know, keep moving. I just can't find the time to do it if I carved out this ginormous amount of time to do it. And then it just gets drug over the coals because of something that was completely out of my control. I just feel for I just feel for them. And, you know, I got that being said, I want to talk about one other thing. A cool study that I created. Just came out. It's a preprint It's awesome. But I got it. I'm trying to hold on one second. Let me this is a got a little CBD going on here I'm going to do something It's weird that you have some on you. I know, it is weird, hold on. Everybody's gonna start doing this after I tell you about this article by the way. I just gargled my CBD.He did. Did that pique your interest at all about the article? It's not the way that you normally have told or instructed patients to take CBD.No, we have talked other ways of doing CBD and we're gonna do some serious studies on that once I can gain a little ground on how else CBD can be applied. We're gonna have some fun with that and we'll be talking big time for people but so, um, it's, I mean, it doesn't matter to you, because you got vaccinated for COVID but with me oh, weren't in the White House meeting room when Yes okay for the record I did not so please don't email me that is not something that occurred this is not a hot mic I'm quite I'm well aware that this thing is on.You're the one that showed this to me. Tell tell everybody about a bit. It's a little over a month old but there was I think it was gah I don't remember what news agency it was. It was either CNN or Fox they picked up some guys getting ready getting ready for a press briefing in the White House press room. And one of them was overheard saying something I'm paraphrasing but we can remove these masks, etc, etc. Everyone here has already been vaccinated anyway. And of course, when I played it for you we both just stared at each other and said even if in jest that is really really weird, that's a strange joke.I know, I what I think is funny is that the hot mic got it, and then they put it out there. But there was I well, I mean, I rely on you to show me a lot of this kind of topical stuff that's outIt was very Wizard of Oz the way they explained it, they're like, oh, no, no, that's just how we always joke. And I'm like, I know, you know no one jokes like that...It was a joke. That's funny. We'll just call it a joke. All right. So this. So this preprint that I found, and what preprint means is that right now, more than ever, if you're a scientist, you can get some sort of traction on a journal article, before you have been peer reviewed. Once you're peer reviewed, then you get accepted into a journal. Usually they send it back to you to say, make these changes because we believe that that is hyperbole we believe that that is not you know, in reference one of our editors, one of our experts, and so that's what these that's why we say a peer reviewed journal. So this has not been peer reviewed yet. Hopefully it makes it because it's pretty awesome. The basically what they're looking at is does a full spectrum they they actually are using true a little bit of THC and they use varying ratios of THC but does a full spectrum cannabis plant and they also used below point 3% meaning so I interpreted that the title as does a full spectrum CBD product help with COVID-19 gateway tissues that was the title of the article or and does it modulate the actual title was does a full spectrum CBD modulate ace2 expression in COVID-19 gateway tissues and very, very interesting because there is a group in Canada and what they're able to do is they're able to acquire tissue human grown tissue from a company in Massachusetts that sends that uses this for studies. They took airway tissue, oral tissue and intestinal tissue, hence the gateway tissue. And basically the ways that you can become infected oral back of the mouth, which is why we swab it airway, the lungs and then intestinal, the gut. We've been talking about this and this is how this is where the majority of ace2 receptors are located. So then what they did is that they took those tissues and they caused an inflammatory response in them using TNF alpha and other inflammatory mediators and this induced inflammation. They checked the ACE two levels and they were up regulated meaning during an inflammatory process, or if you are fighting an infection, your ace2  levels pop up, which is exactly what you don't want with COVID 19 because the SARS COV2 virus looks for those, there must be some sort of beneficial effect to upregulate, ace2 and other environments. But during this pandemic, it's considered, you know, a detriment. So then they irritated these tissues, the gateway tissues, how you get infected. And then they exposed the tissues to like 22 different strains of CBD, or cannabis with CBD with varying ratios of CBD to THC. And because in Canada, remember the whole country is legal so they can they can play with THC and do stuff like that. What they found is that there was a consistent trend that the higher the CBD content, the more effective this was at both decreasing inflammation and down regulating Ace two receptors. So my whole tongue in cheek gargling CBD according to this study, in vitro, not in vivo preprint. And if you're gonna go, well, how did they figure out the ace2 levels? Pretty scientific. They did RNA polymerase for the dress. Yeah, they can actually see the ace2 receptors. And they showed this. And so they had me up to this point. This is awesome. So they speculated. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a dismount. Yeah. Well, it was because it's, it was super scientific. And then you realize that there's always a motive, or not always a motive, but there's a motive and, and as a entrepreneur, and as a doctor, I would have left this last statement out because it's basically showing the cards or whoever there whoever, because this was not done at an institution. It was done at a yeah, it's basically a cannabis company renting space at a lab. They said, therefore, further research has to be done. But speculating, looking at the ACE2 down regulation, developing a CBD mouthwash to gargle on a regular basis may be of benefit. Like, I wouldn't have said that. Yeah, you just said your business plan.No joke.So that's why I gargled but there's a really good example of a preprint I mean one week from now, if this if this gains traction and people start talking about gargling CBD mouthwash, remember it's a preprint. And it has not been peer reviewed, and there's probably a lot more that we need to learn about it and blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's at least I mean, you got to encourage the science you got to encourage everyone to get out there and try some stuff and say it.I think it's a great heads up and true and truly back when we were even talking about lung infection as it is related to inflammatory markers, and COVID I guess it was four or five weeks ago, knowing all of that and and the circulating cytokines and TNF alpha, and in the presentation of Ace2 receptors being associated with that. What we're saying is is not really that big of a deviation to that controlling inflammation with a healthy ECS is still paramount.100% which is, which is why the article made total sense to me because during that webinar, we talked about how your endocannabinoid system regulates your immune response. It makes sense that if you now what the what they did get into they just had a tremendous amount of great science in there in this article and they were talking about the full spectrum the terpenes, the polyphenols, the flavonoids that all have a inflammatory cytokine balancing proportion. And so this is another great example. They said, This is why we believe that a CBD isolate will not exact the same response, and I I like seeing companies say stuff like that, because I believe that Mother Nature grows it better, than we can actually produce in a lab soAnd that's not even just a shot across the bow. That's just the truth. I mean, in my opinion, the the natural, the natural compounds that we typically consume, they're probably assembled that way, by nature for a reason.Yeah, exactly. So kind of an interesting thing. We always want to talk about the science on the show. Um, I think that next time we get on here, we're going to be talking something different besides COVID.We shouldn't shut down COVID all the way. But I do think we need to tell the audience that we I feel that we have given the most pertinent information without a new revelation possible without just drowning everyone in the same the same news over and over again.Yeah, exactly. And it's it just becomes COVID fatigue. Yeah. And we've got we still have to help people I'm still doctor we still got to do a lot of things we got a lot of things that we're working on we got a lot of things that we're looking up we've got I mean, I want to talk to you talk about subjects in the future here I want to talk gi motility valle nerve activity, how to sleep in the best way to get your glymphatic drainage the best glymphatic I did not miss pronounce. I'm looking up articles where you can prevent dementia by sleeping in a certain position. And there's we got all kinds of stuff. So what I what I would really like is ideas. And we're to the point now where we start calling experts to help us out like we did with the post biotic lecture like we have with a few other people have been reaching out to us. We've had a handful of very nationally recognized people going I like what you're doing. Can I talk about my thing? Yeah, absolutely. Your thing is cool. That's that's where we want to go. So if you've got an idea of something, let us know we've got a repository of journal articles that is massive, unlike any other time in history that you can keep that many journal articles and it'll be fun to look back five years from now when we've got thousands and thousands and thousands of COVID articles and then you can arrange them by topic and then show the it'll be fascinating to write an article on the evolution of scientific data on COVID everything is a bell curve where it's just like the it's hot now it's not.I agree. I agree. Well, man, we actually did it. We stayed well under an hour for a whole episode, so I'll let you know what else, yeah kind of amazing.I've been writing some poetry Can I go get it and fill up the rest of the hour?Tune in next time on the Gut Check Project when we have poetry and prose with your doctor Brown.Just not now gonna hang up. Hey, thanks for thanks for staying on the longest you did on this podcast without like leaving so.Yeah at the end yeah I wanted I wanted to stop ducking out for certain be certain everyone to like and share like and share the podcast we are ready to get back into the mode of gut check project. We definitely appreciate everyone telling us your stories how you stayed safe and so many of y'all written back saying that you are finding new safe ways to get back out and about and I couldn't be happier for all of you to resume your normal living and lives and continue to stay safe no doubt.Absolutely. And as always, I'm a doctor Eric is a crna but we are not giving medical advice on this show. We are strictly doing this to try and entertain try and educate do not take any this information that we give as true medical advice, or, as it's always fun, always speak with your doctor.Oh, and just to add, we are having today's episode and it is in the midst of the seriousness that has fallen out from George Floyd. We do not take any of that lightly whatsoever. And our thoughts are certainly with all of those who are struggling to handle this unfortunate situation, top to bottom and I'm hoping for some meaningful change that benefits everyone. No doubt.Absolutely. It becomes very hard to every time that George Floyd is brought up, it becomes extremely hard to really think about anything else. And then the events that followed and we are no mine, or no way undermining any of that. There's no way that we're belittling the situation. And honestly, I'm encouraged. We're a few weeks out now. It seems that there is a movement that's going on. And one of the things that you and I both really like is we like music. And when you when you look throughout history that voter reform, women's voting rights workers unions, or workplace things, everything had a protest that sparked the interest of people that then resulted in a change. And I'm really hoping that I have a 15 year old boy and a 13 year old girl that we can look back at this in a very short period of time I was gonna say this large number of I hope it's next year that we can look back and go remember when things like this happened. Now they don't we've made changes things are better.Without question, you and I, I think have very diverse histories while we grew up, and so I think Sometimes, even though I definitely wouldn't characterize either one of us as having race relation issues, even sometimes those of us who don't, we have to be aware of the complacency that that may occur, and then strive for better change. And that's what you really should be doing that with everything in your life. That's what part what this program is about, we don't want to become complacent in healthcare. We don't want to become complacent with social issues either. So,Yeah, absolutely. Which is we've talked, you know, we work together and so we talk and it's it's just one of those things that it's disbelief. It's just disbelief. It really is. And if it and, you know, if I'm sitting around with somebody that went through World War II, like yeah, this is I thought about that. If I'm sitting with somebody went through the civil rights movement, they're like it was we were in disbelief then also. Like every time that a major change is gonna happen, disbelief happens. So I don't...If the topic is a little uncomfortable, but the truth is, if it's making me uncomfortable, it's gonna motivate change. And that's okay.Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.So well, again, everyone thank you so much for your support, like and share. Please support our sponsors, unrefined bakery Atrantil and of course, you can always check in with us at KBMDhealth.com. We have the new webinar educational series page that'll be popping up. And there's KBMD CBD, that Dr. Brown's holding up.Look at that webinar series. And then of course, order your Atrantil and have it hand delivered by Eric.That is not gonna happen. Thank you, everyone. Y'all have a great day.

Welcome, everyone. It is now time for COVID Episode 6.0. We have an incredible special guest this time, of course, I'm Eric Rieger with your host, Dr. Kenneth Brown. But today, we have Aubrey Levitt. She is the CEO of Postbiotics Plus. She's very much into research and an incredible entrepreneur certainly knows a lot of the people in the scientific community that have inspired Ken and I to dig deeper to look further. Without further ado, Ken would you like to say hello to Aubrey, and we'll get started.So you can imagine my excitement when I found somebody that was discussing postbiotics also. So Aubrey, thank you so much for coming in. Eric, do we have any...we need to shout out to our sponsors real quick? No, we don't have to do that. We just did that. You're all you're all here.So Aubrey Levitt. Oh my goodness. This is so cool. I felt like I was alone on an island discussing post biotics and then I have this little routine. I'm a very routine type person. I like to work out and go to the sauna. And I do a little mindfulness meditation. And then I just kind of scroll for the last little 10 minutes on podcasts and I just typed in postbiotics and I couldn't believe it. The CEO of postbiotics plus I'm like, not only does she know about it, she's an entrepreneur. She's smart. And she's got like, and then I went to your website, I'm like, she's got like six PhDs working for her like, holy cow, we have got to track this woman down. So I apologize that I stalked you. But thank you so much for coming on the show.No I was so happy about that. It's so nice to have somebody else on this island with me. Yeah, we put our stake in the ground like postbiotics and then echoes for a couple years, just looking back but no, it's very...So we're calling this COVID episode 6.0 because although we're gonna talk about the microbiome I want to let you in on something that you're doing. So congratulations to you and your desire to go through science first, hire these PhDs make something effective because you're going to change the world like I believe that we're helping to change the world. A article just came out this month, discussing the gut, the actual title is this gut microbiota and COVID-19 possible link and implications. And then another one just came out that said a comprehensive review on the effect of plant metabolites on Coronavirus. Plant metabolites means postbiotics and then somebody that we will get you in contact with is a PhD that we're working with her name is Silvia Molino, she did it to get her PhD. Her postdoctoral study is so cool. She actually looked at invitro digestion and fermentation of stable polyphenols. So she was able to do an in and of course, invitro means in a lab. So she was able to show the postbiotic effect once through digestion and then once the microbiome comes in contact with it. Absolutely brilliant and so cool. So COVID you're making a difference!Yeah. All across the board. No, yeah, I just want to say that one of the things that started this fascination for me was you just look at fermented foods, right, which are full of postbiotics and how much of a role they have played in every culture. And we may not have known why in the past, but when we're looking through the lens of the microbiome, we can see maybe a deeper into what's happening here. You know, I know people know probiotics and they know prebiotics of fiber. But when the probiotics eat the prebiotics, then this magic happens. And that's what's also happening in your gut, right if you have all those elements working.Yeah, totally.And I think why and what I've seen also why it directly relates to COVID is, you know, people are getting are at risk for secondary infections. And also people are getting antibiotics and whatnot. And that directly destroys the microbiome as we know, which leaves them vulnerable to being populated by whatever's there. And, and weakens them.If I'm knowing that kind of research and listening to the PhDs while y'all are constructing the studies, and or the clinical trials to find out what is actually going to work. What are some of the endpoint measures that you that some of your PhDs are examining? Is it because they're looking for what the bacteria will do with the things that you present like postbiotics, as you mentioned before, and how do you measure that, is it like short chain fatty acid stuff or what...We were looking specifically at one thing and just diversity overall, so we were looking at a point of injury. So the one because we wanted to kind of pare it down to. Okay, we know, we're researching the microbiome, and we're looking all these various things, but it's a complex ecosystem, right. And the one thing we do know is that when there is a lot of diversity that always correlates with health. And so we really pared it back to that of okay, but in our modern lifestyle, we have many, many things that affect that diversity and really, you know, strip it. So we looked at antibiotics first in our first study to say antibiotics is one of the harshest things that wipe out gut diversity and leave us susceptible in this window afterwards to either an opportunistic, you know, pathogen taking over or maybe just not recovering to the diversity that we had before. And so we did a study our initial study was to look at these antibiotics because think about it, also, people are coming in for maybe a sinusitis. So having their gut wiped out is a, you know, side effect that is not intended. It's a consequence that's not intended. So we gave them a fermented herbal product, which is full of postbiotics, because essentially, we put probiotic bacteria with the herbal components and it's breaking them down with we gave them that with some live probiotics as well. And we had a control group and we we took their stool samples to see if we are protecting their diversity. So right when they got the treatment, and then you know, all throughout the treatment and 10 days after, and we saw Yeah, so the endpoint was gut diversity is looking to see if the ecosystem was intact.I couldn't agree more and Brown we've talked about this in the past. And of course, we've seen this in the hospital. Oftentimes when people are given really powerful antibiotics and they come to the hospital. Unfortunately, the end result is often c diff, and it's exactly what it does. It goes through it wipes out all of the bacteria we and it tears down all c diff is all that's left in incredible diarrhea which persists forever so that you're certainly speaking I think that bringing up c diff is probably the most extreme version of lack of diversity because you wipe out everything but one particular bacteria that then populates so it's almost like having a neighborhood where only one family dominates and they decide what happens well c-diff kills people. It's very serious. I'm a huge as a, as a gastroenterologist, I reluctantly ever try to put anybody on antibiotics and I see So my research was in bacterial overgrowth SIBO, which is, which is a consequence of antibiotics all the time. My classic patient would be somebody that said, I got a sinusitis just like you said, five years ago, took this big round of antibiotics and I've never been right since. And that's that's the patient comes to me as a gastroenterologist.Yeah. And I was that patient because when I was a kid, I had antibiotics probably every week for years and then I had to go in and have two weeks straight of antibiotics, because I punctured a lung. And so they put you on IV antibiotics. And you know, ever since then it was just sort of this imbalance that couldn't get. I couldn't figure out how to right. And I didn't even know because that was sort of so early on. It was just this uphill battle that I wasn't aware of. So that was one of the things behind of like, you know, I could do everything perfect, but the moment too much stress would come on or whatever else would happen, I would fall back on my resiliency wasn't there, the normal resiliency that you would think you would have.So I could talk postbiotics all day, but now you just got me super intrigued about Aubrey Levitt. And how I built this, how does a woman this powerhouse CEO doing this? You just said you essentially had a very traumatic childhood, what was going on?Well, you know, it's a bit of a layered story, but it was I think it started also with this more, you know, trauma when I was a baby of someone had broken in and I actually had a memory of it, which is even weirder, you know, with a gun, but it put me on this hyper vigilant, very stressful response for years after where I was watching the window and the door couldn't sleep. And you know, this leads to an increase in illness where I was having strep throat probably every week. And I'm only putting these pieces together now actually looking backwards retrospectively, but you have these series of illnesses that which lead to pneumonia and then lead to puncturing a lung. And this is all pre second grade, you know, that happened in second grade. So you're on, you know, just a massive amounts of medication, and not compared to maybe some to what some other kids are having, but it was a lot for me at the time.I mean, I would argue that getting antibiotics that often could be one of the most traumatic things that somebody could do because you will never be able to rebuild this microbiome.Yeah, it becomes and then you only realize later how much it's really affecting you. It throws off your hormones, it throws off your immune system throws off, you know, all sorts of things that were just out of whack with without a real explanation. You know, you'd go to see these various doctors and they couldn't pinpoint what was the root cause.Wow, how are your parents through this whole process?You know, I don't think anybody thought anything of it at the time, right? They were actually very healthy and very conscious of all these things and did their best. But, you know, what are you going to do when your kid has 104 fever every other week? Right? I mean, you just don't really have a choice.Yeah. Wow. And that is wild. So I would, I would even couple that did on top of that. On top of the biodiversity that's being eliminated through long term antibiotics, you've also got, I mean, the stress of anxiety, which is obviously something that you're referencing, if you're staring at a door or window as a young kiddo, and it persists for days. I mean, the time to repair is constantly being thwarted by your body's vigilant state of trying to always be in fight or flight, there is no repair time. That's pretty wild.Yeah, and I don't think people realize how much stress wears on their, their immune system and their body and just like you're saying, it doesn't give you that rest and digest time to recover, which is very essential, you know, to bounce back. So. And I think also that got me very interested in like the gut brain response and how that vagus nerve talks between the two because you're just always reacting. Right?Okay, so we're both smiling because this is just right up Ken's ally. This is exactly whatI just think it's hilarious. This is the first time that we've actually talked. And you're literally mimicking everything that we say. We are a kindred spirit here. We've been on the same island...studying the same stuff.Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, even when we when I created this first product, I think one of the issues that I was finding is that okay, I would take these herbal remedies, I would, you know, eat these great foods, but I still wasn't able to digest them properly or really utilize them properly. And because I wasn't seeing the results I wanted and when I fermented these herbs, what what was very interesting is I actually even felt a focus and a mood difference right away, which is how I got into this post biotic work because I thought, wow, they're like, I think there's GABA or something in here that is different than what was in here when you started with the original product.So you felt it almost immediately.Yeah, I did, I did. And I felt the difference. And so then I went and tested and that there was GABA in it. And also too, if I was actually feeling that and because it was a small amount, I mean and I can't be sure that's just a assumption on my part, but that got me really interested. I started talking to these guys out of corp, you know, Ted Dinin, and they were studying this essentially how the gut communicates to the brain through the signaling molecules and these neurotransmitters that are released through this fermentation process, even if it's in your gut. And so I just went down this rabbit hole and ended up partnering with the scientists out of Memorial Sloan Kettering. Now he's at NYU, who, who was also interested in the same thing of these metabolites. And not only they also signal to the other bacteria in your gut, so there's just this constant communication going on between everything. Not not to get too in the weeds,No, totally because this perfect, this is the conversation I have with my patients all the time, is when pharmaceutical companies and I'm not putting them on blast, but when pharmaceutical companies try and do something they tend to focus on on a molecule that they can patent. And what we're learning is that the microbiome is way too complex, where we're at right now with our, with our research, so you can do these giant stool studies. And so I get all these people that come from functional medicine doctors with these, these gi DNA analysis, and they're like, Yeah, do something like that we can do the test, you don't really know how to manipulate 100 trillion bacteria. Exactly. And so what I tell everybody is, we do know that if you can diversify, they will figure it out. Meaning they when you have a proper diversification, a proper signaling mechanism where they will keep control of each other, and they send signals to your brain, we now know Eric and I did a whole episode just on the negative effects of short chain fatty acids, when they're out of proportion, meaning butyrate being real good. But yeah, if you have too much acetate, if you have too much propionic acid out of proportion, that crosses the blood brain barrier and creates that that gut brain situation. So it's all about just let your body let those microbiome, figure it out. We're not going to out think them.Yeah. And that's, that's also something that really excites me about this whole field is the ecosystem approach, I think is really an opportunity to look at medicine differently than how we've been looking in the at in the past, like this lock and key approach is doesn't work as you're saying. It's sort of the it's very complex, it requires more systems medicine approach of looking at how, if you touch this point, it affects this whole area around it. And I think it's also to me, the one area that's speaking to all different fields, you know, it's speaking to Western medicine, allopathic medicine, speaking to functional medicine, and it's kind of everybody because we don't know exactly what's happening here. But we all agree, it's important, and we all agree it matters. And that that hasn't really happened before. I mean, you guys are the you're the doctor, so maybe you could speak to that more but that's, that's what I see happening. And it's also saying we can't outsmart it. We have to work with it.Yeah. And that's where the whole, that's where I got really interested in the whole postbiotic thing because that's when I started doing. We started realizing that when, when you start decreasing the inflammatory response in the body by eating a different type of diet, I start asking why. And then that's when I started meeting scientists that said, Oh, it's because you're producing, urolithin or you're producing, you know, now a GABA. I didn't realize the GABA. So that's what's so fascinating. So I'm a doctor. And I imagine you've got what six or seven PhDs that you're in this postbiotic thing. What is how did you end up you were sick and then then you sort of jump forward and said, then I started this company. How did we get from there to here?Yeah, God, it's been a windy road. So I you know, I was a, how do I say this? So i i got obsessed with the science part because I always do have to measure and kind of look at...okay, starting with an idea of something that I may feel in myself or that matters to me, but I wanted to look at, okay, how can we measure this in a larger population? Like, it's not enough for me to I didn't want to go out there and just create a product and see what happens? And I guess Okay, so one step back, I do have a background in pharmaceutical advertising and marketing or whatnot. And so it started there. And I was working those jobs and I thought, okay, I, this is not what I'm going to look back 40 years from now and be happy with what I created. I wanted to go out there and solve a problem. And then once you create that solution, then I have to go back and measure and make sure it works. So that's what led me down the science path. And it just it wasn't necessarily the intention of starting a company. It was always coming from solving a problem and wanting to find the answer that didn't already exist. And if you're looking for an answer that doesn't already exist, then you have to test that answer multiple times before you go out there and offer it to somebody else. So, that's sort of the windy road there, I guess.Well, I'll tell you what that is, is that's you've when we you've said several times, allopathic and naturopathic boy, if there's ever anybody who I would not believe would somebody with a marketing background in pharmaceuticals that came up with a novel idea, usually its market first we'll worry about the science later. We're going to make cash on this thing. I've gotten a lot of flack for that. No, not flack at all. I'm giving you so much props you lead with science first. I mean, that is amazing. Especially because you come from a marketing background, holy cow.But to me the best marketing is truth and honesty. Right? And that speaks for itself. And so I was not interested in this...okay, you have this end product and you put a shiny package on it, and you hand it over somebody it's like how many of the layers can peel away so that you really have a clear understanding of where something starts and what the thought process is behind it and you and you just communicate that clearly at the end of it. And that's that's where I think things are going even on a marketing standpoint, but he you're just telling a clear story of why you did it and then what it is and why it works.I could not agree more I think the most stable marketing is knowing that your story is true, can be proven, can be reproducible. Generally, those who just flash in the pan the the charlatans are always revealed over time and then it's just it's just a trend or a fad that fades away but what you're doing is very much in line with what what drew me to work with Ken it's this is what I believe we'll figure out how to tell people about it later, but this is what's working and that made a lot of sense to me.And and even if it does, if it works the other way, do you is that something you really want to be a part of or like is that like I would lose interest over time. So doing it for me more than anything. And then I had to turn around and be like, okay, now how do I find a business story around that that other people get behind? Because I want to do the science for me, because that's what I need to move forward. So it really came from that place, read more than anything else. And to say, Okay, how do I get scientists that are smarter than me that are gonna think they're gonna challenge me? And then we're going to do the research around it and find some answers.There's so much similarity here. You being a CEO now, I had no business background, and now I'm in the throes of essentially, you know, I mean, it's a five year startup and I realized that Apple was a 20 year startup and Right, exactly 20 year startup and all this other stuff. So you you get that that side of it. I was super impressed with your team. I mean, you are just filled with PhDs and a couple MDs.Yeah, yeah, we got really lucky of and at this point, everybody's kind of donating their time. Like they've got on board out of passion. And that's what I think is even more exciting is that they believed in the process and we just kind of found scientists that were really obsessed with what they call this ecosystem science and looking at how these interactions happen in the microbiome. And I love the idea of ecosystem science that encompasses so much and it actually flies in the face of what Ken and I both kind of find challenging with, unfortunately, the pharmaceutical world which is just trying to find that one little bitty active molecule to try to solve all of the issues with that because it doesn't generally work that way. That being said, what are the goals with the company and utilizing ecosystem science? Where do y'all want to go? What what is what are some some pinnacle finish lines for y'all?Yeah, I mean, what's so there's two things that we have really exciting on the horizon and one we we are working now. We just talked to a doctor at Memorial Sloan Kettering and what the research they've done at Memorial Sloan Kettering is a cancer hospital. And they really looked at how diversity affects cancer patients. And that's been something that was, you know, a long term almost impossible thing for me and and the fact that we're actually pursuing being able to do that is exciting. And what they found is that so they did some FMT studies there. And they really found that if a patient comes in and they have higher diversity, then you know, when they go through their chemotherapy, and then their antibiotics and the most severe treatments, for the third, specifically working with bone marrow transplant patients, the patients who have the higher gut diversity do better. They surv...they're more likely to survive, it actually affects survival rate, and it reduces complications. And so this has sent them down the path of really looking into what can they do to protect the gut diversity and help these patients and so one of the questions they asked which I found fascinating is okay when you receive high doses of chemotherapy and antibiotics is there really anything you can do, or is your gut so destroyed at that point that it doesn't matter? And what they found was actually even a little bit helps these patients and helps their survival rate. And what that means is even if there's no intervention, so they may just happen to be someone who bounces back better than somebody else. And so, and they bounce back to a just slightly higher level than the other patients whose guts destroyed that slight increase in diversity, they do better. So that means even if they eat a better diet, they're potentially going to do better, which is to me huge because you can come in with something that is a more dietary or intervention and improve their outcomes. And so again...Very, very interesting and very congruent, Brown, with what, what you've been talking about even back to the inception of Atrantil. We, we have what we think are these incredible polyphenols this polyphenolic blend to feed bacteria. But, you know, the opposite needs to be true. Also, if if the correct bacteria aren't there to be fed in the right ratios, then we're just not going to have the byproducts, the postbiotics that we need for the body.Yeah. So Aubrey, so I'm sitting here listening to you, and I'm thinking, okay, so we talk about bio diversity and all this stuff. But the reality is, is that the bio diversity leads to this complex cascade of things that happen. Yes. And if I've got in my world, gastroenterology, I've got patients that have their colons taken out due to ulcerative colitis, due to cancer, due to different things. And we've actually talked, we've got one of my graduate students, actually, Angie will be very excited to know that you came on. I've got a graduate student that Eric and I work with carefully, and we started discussing this that well, what happens nobody's talking about If you don't have your microbiome, how can you make sure they have sufficient amounts of butyric acid? How can you make sure that there's urolithic come out there? How can you make sure that now Gaba and now we know that are they getting the appropriate amount of vitamin K, are they getting the glutathione things that we know that the bacteria break down, nobody's talking about that. And the ability to say, okay, during this acute process of getting chemotherapy, I would almost think that your particular product should be the protocol to ensure that there is something.Well, and that's what I think we got passionate about if there's nothing done to support the body to recover better when certain treatments or therapies are given and why not. So it's, you know, I mean, I think it brings me back a little bit to this COVID situation, what what's your best defense, your immune system, your own body, you know, and I think that no matter what you have, no matter what treatment you're given, your own body's going to be doing some of the legwork to get you back to where you want to be, or at least even to be able to handle the treatment better because a lot of these treatments are so harsh that they're also taking a toll on your own immune system or your own body in various ways. So, and we're not doing anything to help mitigate that or support the body as it's recovering. And that seems like an easy place to intervene and have because it's, it's gonna fall back on that on your body anyway.You know, I'm sitting there thinking about you as a young girl looking out the window, being hyper vigilant with the sympathetic nervous system, and then I'm thinking about a cancer patient that wakes up and goes, oh, shit, I have cancer. That thought sympathetic nervous system goes up. Exactly. Then a nurse comes in says, Remember you have chemo. Oh my God, I'm gonna have diarrhea, and nausea and vomiting. And I mean, you cannot think of a worse scenario, then and my, I mean, we've treated a ton of cancer, and the thought of the sympathetic nervous system going overboard the worries that are going on the financial stress, all this other stuff, it's very similar to the COVID situation. So similar,And that's our lifestyle these days, is this a high, heightened, stressful situation is we're constantly under stress. And so, and I think why, until you get something more severe, a lot of times, we're not thinking of what the effects of this are. But really the goal would be anytime you're sort of hitting a heightened stress, how do you balance that with also protecting yourself? And we're not really ingrained to think that way yet. You know, because it's having one round of antibiotics, we should be doing something to build ourselves back up to protect our gut microbiome. So that's why we looked into that in the study of like, how do you protect the diversity and make yourself and help yourself bounce back, right? Because that directly affects your immune system, which is suppressed during that medication and it's going to need to bounce back, you know, the microbiome helps with that. So that should be when you're in a stressful period when you get you know, because then we may not have it cascade into these larger problems, we start looking at it early. But then again, when you have the most extreme problem even then it helps you bounce back. And I, I just keep seeing this also vision in my head of the COVID situation of what happens when the whole world takes a break for a little bit. You saw how even like nature bounced back so quickly, right? Like the amount that we can all bounce back is actually incredible. If you just give a little bit of help...for a second.And I love how you're saying that because there's I have so many patients that when they they do something that let's say that they are...well, we've seen this. So Eric and I, we've we launched a program, Aubrey that we call the frontline program, because we believe so strongly that gut health, you cannot have a healthy immune system without a healthy gut. Because health begins there. And so we have launched a program where we're just giving away Atrantil because I know that it increases diversity. I know that it actually has anti pathogenic activity. I know this and we discussed it as a company, that we have a moral obligation to at least help the people that I'm with like I could, the thought that I could go to my hospital and find a nurse that maybe, you know, if somebody died, that maybe we could have just given them something to help, then that, that really that that drive starts getting me thinking about all the stuff that you're talking about, which is like, why can't we start doing protocols at a hospital that are essentially harmless, which is what you're talking about. There, the risk to benefit ratio, and it's insane the hurdles you have to go through. Like you had to find somebody at Memorial Sloan Kettering, you had to sit down, you had to go through meeting after meeting after meeting he had to then get passionate enough to go to the IRB to go to that. I mean, I've been there. And you're like, for God's sakes! Right. I mean, we're on the cardiac floor. The cardiac diet is pancakes and syrup and...Right, right. Yeah. I in and it's, it's kind of like Why not? You know, it's as you're saying it's why not do something that is going to do now it may help it may not in some situations, but why not?Yeah, we're going so far as we're giving away. I mean, we're losing a ton of money doing this just trying to make sure that if it does, if it can help, and we learned that it helps later, then I would look back at myself at this time and go you're a jerk for not at least trying to tell people. That's really great. That's really great.But it brings a question to my mind, Aubrey with your PhDs and we kind of set the stage here a little bit. So medicine in its early day was all it's all predicated. All the information we have is predicated on people doing experiments it's how we, we came to find everything and then ultimately which seemed like that we're at this intersection where innovation which might occur outside of, you know, the small little nucleus of companies or a handful of doctors is just summarily rejected until finally, over time, it's finally accepted because it happens to work for for someone else, or it's disproven and it doesn't work at all. But what inspires your PhDs to work with a company that's essentially helping challenge the status quo by using natural solutions? Because I know what works for Ken and I, it's because we see people smile and get real relief after trying for so long. So that's an easy one. But what is it about the PhD at that level who's like, you know what, I'm going to go to work today and keep challenging this because why?You know, that's great question. So I think a couple things I do think the microbiome has really opened the door to it's almost looking at it through the lens of the microbiome being complex, and not necessarily as much what the input is, because when you're looking at postbiotics, it kind of takes it one step away from like whether it starts as a natural product or not. I also think this next generation of scientists is they're very, the ones I'm meeting now are very interested in how can I make a difference? How can I not just stay in the lab? And how can I put something into the world and see that research be realized? And I think I happen to meet scientists that were passionate about, okay, this approach of taking the one missing bacteria, or this group of missing bacteria is not going to work. And they were willing to kind of stand on the edge and say that and my co founder who I work directly with, he did some research in Japan and you know, overseas, so I think it really opened up his eyes to hey, there are these things that have been studied for a long period of time that have been used with patients, but it just wasn't under a scientific rigor. So what happens if we look at that information and we start putting it under the lens that we look at other scientific remedies, what will we find? And it's more of just an openness to asking that question, and not really saying, okay, let's pick something more natural. It's more just like, okay, let's open our door to this wider range of things, whether it's natural or not. Let's look at what works.You know, I love how you say that. Let's open the door. Because what I've run into, which I'm sure you have run into, is what I I call cognitive dissonance. If somebody believes something, and they don't want to think about anything else, you described it as opening the door, just look outside and see and keep an open mind about that. That's really cool that you found people like that because when you get up a team, one thing that has been really neat about this whole COVID-19 issue is the collaboration of the scientists around the world. People are running with...people are just sharing data. And they're just saying, hey here, just what can you do with this? And this is, I think that the collaboration that's going on right now with you and your team is so cool, because this whole idea of opening the door and saying natural solutions and what is natural the most, you almost it has this implication that, oh, I'm going to try something unusual. And what you're saying is no, we're going to use our body and we're just going to feed it what it wants and allow the bacteria to do what they do, which is the most basic fundamental thing you can do for your health. I love that.And it's also not looking at the two extremes, right? I think, you know, just because something's natural doesn't mean it's healthy either. I think that's that's pretty clear as well, I you know, that there's, we can't jump to an extreme on either side of this. It's like okay, we can have a wider array of what we're looking at to support the body and then we test it and that's it. So what got the scientists I'm working with fully on board was our first study, we had a control group and we had results that were surprising to all of us because we went in saying, we don't know, maybe this could work. And then we got the results from the first study. So that's really what sealed the deal. Not not any kind of hope around it. Right?Yeah. Let me pin you down a little more. I know that Eric poked you a little bit here. But I'm going to take you one step further. So well, I want to know the because I'm, I'm much like you I'm into the science, but also own a company. And so I'm curious where Aubrey sees the business side of this. Where do you see that going? And you already said that science. You're correct. You're helping people. So morally, you're on the right place, but you also have to pay these six PhDs you also have and, and the beauty of having a successful company is that you can hire more people, more people can can can get insurance more people can, you know, there's nothing wrong with taking a beautiful scientific idea and turning it into a successful company.Yeah, yeah. And I and I tend to think of I prefer building a company where maybe there's a bigger hurdle upfront. And then hopefully, once you get over that, you're gonna have an easier time rather than sort of getting out the gate and meaning if you do the science, you get the credibility and you'll get people behind me and that could be your marketing that you go out the gate with. So what we're hoping is to get this next study done, which we hope we can get this study done with these cancer patients, which is more extreme scenario, right, and then we could put it as a medical food and that would be the hope and then you can also use it as an adjunct when these other medications are given because it's essentially 24% of medications affect your gut microbiome negatively, right. So really want to pay attention to when you're taking these medications, how do you protect it and I think also in these stressful situations, so the idea would be to get it as a medical food and then also take it when you take antibiotics and other things. And so it's not kind of it's when you need it right now like an ongoing every day sort of thing.Well, I see it as a not to have death by 1000 cuts, because I'm seeing going to my company, digestive health associates of Texas, I think that you have a relationship to Dr. Rogoff, one of my partners.Yep. Don't you?Yes, I do. He's a great guy. Yes.So we've got a Research Division that does pharmaceutical research. My background was in pharmaceutical research. That's how I went from that's how I discovered a a hole that they were missing and that a natural solution could fail. And that's very similar to what you did pharmaceutical marketing. Well, it would be really interesting that you got me thinking that I'm like, wow, we could easily do an inflammatory bowel disease study. And people that have had colectomies and see how they feel just a quality of life scale something super easy. Now you really got me thinking like, are they? Are they living their life with one hand tied behind their back? Because we took out their colons?Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, that would be that would be very interesting to do. I would love to do that. And I think, you know, here's the other side of it if we find something really interesting in one of these studies too to be able to take a collection of metabolites to say to really look at what are what are the predominant ones that are sort of the this lever for the inflammatory or the immune response is is a way to go, you know, because I think we can dig even deeper into so my interest is not looking at okay, these bacteria are the ones that are responsible but which metabolites are responsible in which collection metabolites that can potentially trigger the system?Yeah, fascinating that you say that because I've met with scientists that are actually working for pharmaceutical companies trying to get the one metabolite. And they're trying to get the patent on that. And I just laugh because I'm like, so you get this so does it survive in the gastrointestinal tract? Does it is it the actual one that the bacteria can you have, like we talked about on our show, Eric, you can have too much of a good thing. Your everything has to be in balance. Eric frequently will hyperventilate when I work with him because he thinks that air is good for him, and he'll just do too much. He doesn't do that.One time I realized that shoes made my feet more comfortable. So I just I just covered myself in shoes. Really, really bizarre. Well, hey, I think that, undoubtedly and away from even just this, this, this COVID interview that it's obvious that we could find some synergy between efforts, but for everybody who's listening, anybody else who's interested in postbiotics plus, how can someone else become involved, get in touch with and possibly even help you find what your goals are as well?Yeah, I think the easiest way is the websites postbioticsplus.com and send an email through there and anybody that's interested in helping us move this research forward, that's that's sort of our biggest goal right now or yeah, that's that's the easiest way to do it. I think we're trying to do it in an organized way with a formal study and then we'll go from there, soWe will try our best to do that I have an ask of you though.What...oh noThere's gives and asks, I don't remember his name, but you've got some badass person at Baylor that's head of virology and micrology, microbiology on I saw that on your team on his page. I would love to get in touch...Oh Joseph. Yeah, okay. Okay. Yeah.You've got, I mean, from an academic standpoint, you've got a pretty heavy hitter page. That was a...We've got a good group.Yeah, I mean, like, I'm a I'm a nerd through and through. And so I was like, oh my gosh, look at this. Oh, yeah. And I start looking at the research. I'm like, oh my gosh.Yes, yes, we can. We can make that happen. We can make it, have you talk to him, so...Cool. Cool. That is awesome. Aubrey. For those of y'all who may not know she's the hardest working woman in postbiotics because we're talking on Memorial Day morning. So. Oh, yeah. Thank you so much for doing this. Yeah. Thank you so much for carving out time to visit with us. This was an incredible discovery of synergy between efforts and it's I mean, to me, it's just it's not only a relief, it's exciting to find somebody else who also realizes that there isn't just one solution and to find solutions, it takes a team effort and it's different thanNow we have a club. This is awesome. So so let's start a Facebook group and other things that clubs do I'm not much into social media, but okay, we'll try it. It'll just be awkward staring at each other. Secret handshake.How did this work again? Yeah. Awesome. Thank you guys for having me.I love the work you're doing. Thank you so much for everything Aubrey Levitt postbiotics plus. We're gonna try we're gonna stay in touch. We're going to collaborate like crazy. I've got some scientists you need to meet around the world, some crazy smart people doing very similar things. I'd like to meet some of your scientists, so on and so on. And I don't think that I think that maybe a collaboration between us could probably help out this crisis that we're going through right now eventually. Not in a not in an arrogant way. But yeah, I believe that you see it also that immunity starts in the gut. Yeah, can it can I say one last thing? I know we're, but there's a study. I mean, when you think of collaborating, there's a study. I think it's at Columbia right now that's looking at fiber and inulin, of how it can prevent secondary infections in this COVID thing, and I think there needs to be one in postbiotics of how we can look at.Well, the article that, that that that Sylvia did was really wild because she showed the increase in butyric acid, and it was tenfold. It was 100,000 fold, it was nuts, that I had no idea when you start looking at this where you can actually show this and then we start to I've got this, do you have a Mandalay account, the repository of literature? No.I'll hook you up with this. In fact, we probably team up I've got a I've got an enterprise level Mendeley account where you can just put literature, download literature and put it into files so that you you can search your what you want. So I could like go right now and type in postbiotic you know Sloan Kettering and your your stuff would pop up. It's really it's just it's just a way to collaborate with other scientists that I've really enjoyed so that we can do stuff like this.Great, great. Sounds good.Ladies and gentlemen, that's, that's COVID Episode 6.0 Aubrey Levitt postbioticsplus.com thank you so much for joining us and thanks to our sponsors atrantil.com of course ilovemytummy.com KBMD health and unrefinedbakery.com Aubrey, thank you so much. Ken-any last words?No, thank you so much for taking the time and and on Memorial Day you know not being out on a boat using proper social isolation taking the time to do a podcast. Thank you guys.Have a good one. Bye. Bye.Talk to you soon, bye.Oh, she she jumped out.

What's up everyone? Here we are, again, we're on episode 5.5, I had to bring back my favorite second favorite co host, Dr. Akerman, because what we're going to talk about today is really interesting. It's the thing that everybody has been discussing in the news. It's how do we test people? Everyone needs to be tested. And then people go, Oh, well, there's these bad tests out there. Oh, with a sensitivity specificity. Nobody's explaining any of it. So as it turns out, Dr. Akerman is really smart at this stuff. And we've been working with a company because we want to introduce rapid testing here in North Texas. And Dr. Akerman has actually helped this company a ton in the type of tests that they're doing, how to explain it. And we're talking sensitivity, specificity, negative predictive value, positive predictive value stuff that I struggle with a ton, well as it turns out, the other guy on the side of the screen here is super smart at it. So Dr. Akerman, can you comment on that real quick?Yeah. First of all, Make sure you don't burn any bridges with your first favorite co hosts.Yeah, right.And, and you're right. I mean, we've pretty much turn on the TV go on the internet, and we're talking about, you know, testing, what kind of testing, is it available, how much do we need? And then you kind of hear from the other side that there may be tons of tests, but too many, and they're not as good. And, you know, you sort of take that all at face value. But what does that mean that the test is no good, what makes it a good or a bad test? And I think that's where, you know, maybe we can do a better job of explaining it to people. And you're right, it's it's super confusing. So...We did Episode 4.5, where we talked about different the mcas and the antibody testing and things. So we kind of hinted at it. But now we're getting to this point where we're saying, Yeah, but what does all that mean? Nobody's talking about it. You You and I got in a discussion John Oliver. You watched a show on that. Yeah. So you know, I don't want to sort of rehash I don't think we're going to do it justice. John Oliver with his extensive medical degree, did an excellent job last week explaining some of the differences between the tests and some of the pitfalls. But I think where we can add a little value to the discussion is to discuss why. Why is it that the test you might go get at your local, you know, minuteclinic, or doctor's office or anything, why that might not offer you the value that you're really looking for.Yeah, and we can we talked before about the pros and cons of that. We don't know that. But what we're going to talk about today is why that's why getting a test may mean something different if you're in New York or if you're in Plano, Texas,right? And you want to know the characteristics of the test the characteristics of the disease process, where you are, and what you're trying to get out of the test. And that will determine whether or not it number one makes sense for you to get tested, and how you can get a better result.Yeah, so we've been seeing that the FDA is saying that you have to apply for this and then you have to achieve a certain. Let's start with the basics, a certain sensitivity and specificity, sensitivity, my friend.So actually, what I want to do is I'm gonna I'm gonna share my screen with a couple slides here. And, you know, I want to I want to go over some important definitions. There's tons of stuff and you don't need a degree in statistics to figure this out. But it can be confusing. So I think if we sort of write it down, and might it might hit home a little bit better. SoI'm still impressed that you actually left New York I really because you seem like somebody who would be teaching at NYU or Mount Sinai or something like that. So, thank you for joining our group.I wanted to have more time for podcasts.There we go.So a couple six definitions that I want to I want to go over here. And the first you alluded to sensitivity and specificity. The best way I would explain sensitivity is what percentage of patients that actually have the disease will test positive. Right? So the true positives coming out of the, of the test. And the specificity is the opposite. It's the percentage of the patients that don't have the disease and will test negative. So the patients who appropriately test negative for this disease process. Those are intrinsic qualities of the test itself. So you can apply the specificity and the sensitivity to any different population because the test characteristics don't change. What does change and this is the difference is the positive and the negative predictive values. So the positive predictive value, are the percentage of those positive tests that are accurately positive, and the negative predictive value is the percentage of negative tests that are accurately negative to say it another way, when I get a test, if it tells me I'm positive, what are the chances that it's right? That's what I really care about. I want to know If I think I have strep, and I go get a strep test, and it's positive, should I be taking antibiotics? And will I get better? That's what we're really asking. And it is different than the sensitivity and specificity, which I will clarify in a second. The other two really important definitions are the incidence of disease and the prevalence of the disease because these are two different things. The easiest way to differentiate is the incidence are the proportion of people who actively currently have the disease. The prevalence is how many people were affected, not necessarily currently infected. So when you talk about it in terms of the test that we're talking about the PCR test looking for active viral replication, that's looking at the incidence of disease, who's got it now. But the antibody testing, looks at who's got it or who had it. And that's more a test for the prevalence of the disease.Well explained. Okay, yeah.All right. So the classic way we look at this is using this, it's called a two by two table or a two by two plot. And you basically up on the, in the in the top bar here, that's the disease or the process that you're looking at whether you have positive or negatives. And then along the margin here, you're talking about the test characteristics, a positive or a negative test. So when you want to calculate the sensitivity, you're looking at this row right here. So the people who have true positives over the total number of positives, so 80, excuse me, if you've got 100% of people ten, let's say people who have a positive test and only eight of them actually have the disease. That means eight out of ten or 80% sensitivity for that test. When you look on the, the the right column here, that's where you're gonna figure out your specificity. That's your negative side. It's the total number of true negatives, people who actually don't have the disease and tested negative over all the negative tests that's going to tell you your specificity.So I remember...Sorry?Go ahead. No, I was just gonna dumb it down to a level that this...I just remember that when I had somebody explained it to me that think of sensitivity and the specificity. If you were to look at these graphs, think of it like a car alarm, that if you make everything so sensitive, so that you could catch the person trying to steal your car. That means that a horn or a loud noise will set it off. If you make it super specific, that it only means that one method of a car being stolen. And so you have this issue of you have this trade off where you have the you want a car alarm that's super sensitive and will catch everything but you're going to get false positives all the time or do you want a specific test that only catches but every once in a while, they're gonna be able to steal your car a different way.Right. And the ideal test is going to be high at both. It's gonna be really great at ruling people in and great at ruling people out. And the question that often comes up is how do you know the sensitivity and specificity? And the answer is you have to validate every study against the gold standard test ones where you know the numbers and see how it performs. The positive and negative predictive values are different. That's looking across the rows. So if you have the percentage of positive tests accurately positive, now you're looking at of all the tests you did and all the positives you got, how many were right, how many actually are getting positive for a person who has a disease as opposed to missing it, right. So to say it a different way, the percentage of positive tests that are accurately positive, because it's how many people in there have it and showed it versus how many have it and you missed them. The negative predictive value is the bottom row, kind of similar, how many of the people who the tests that are negative, actually are negative, and you've missed and got these false positive results and people who actually don't have the disease. That's so fascinating, because once you got me thinking about this, and I've learned this for every board exam, and then I've kind of forgotten it, and then I have not applied it. And then I started thinking about this, you got me thinking, we need to be using this type of logic in the area they're at with the incidence prevalence. It's got me kind of rethinking how to look at this whole thing.Yeah, and it doesn't this is not something that's unique to COVID testing. This is true of every single test that we do. If you get flu swab if you get a strep test, a culture, everything...Oh a UA for a UTI, I mean you name it, we're you're gonna use this on every single test. as clinicians we tend to move away from this a little bit because well, we're just treating symptoms and we're kind of moving on but this is such an it's such a fun exercise and if you're...if anybody's listening to this, and they've got a child, niece, nephew, friend, anybody who's in med school, this is a great way to learn it. This is not how they teach you in med school, they teach it way harder. That's why it never sinks in.Yeah, well, I've had time to think about it and marinate for a bit. So I just want to finish this without leaving too many slides here. But what I want to do is I want to show now how the disease prevalence how much disease there is in the population that you're testing will affect the positive and negative predictive values. Okay. So to say it a different way, the more prevalent your disease is, the more chance there is of having a true positive, and therefore your positive predictive value will go up. Whereas when you have a lower incidence of disease, it's more likely that the random person you test is negative, so that's going to favor having a better negative predictive value. Okay. So as I said in the beginning sensitivity and specificity, that doesn't change that's inherent to the test. So if I tell you that there's a 10% incidence of disease, and an 80% sensitivity of the test that we're applying, eight people will test positive who have the disease, two who have the disease will be missed and test negative. For the specificity I'm using in this test, an arbitrary value of 94% I'm just telling you that that's the parameter of this test. 90 people because it's a 10% incidence disease 90% don't have it. So 85 will test negative based on a 94% specificity. And five will test positive, even though they don't have it, they're false positives. So looking across here, eight out of 13 people will test positive and have the disease that's a positive predictive value is 62%. That means if you go today, and you go get tested, and it's positive, almost a flip of a coin, if that test is accurate for you, whereas it does a great job of telling you you don't have it if it's negative, so you can feel a lot more confident in that negative study than you can in the positives. When you flip this around, and you increase the disease incidence, and instead you got 20% of people now, the sensitivity and specificity didn't change, you're using the same exact test. So I know that the sensitivity and specificity are 80 and 94 doesn't make a difference.Just to clarify. So to get the sensitivity and specificity it's usually Done where they have the known disease negative known disease positive, they go to a clinical lab and they run it. And then they can show, okay, because that's what's going on right now. Right, they compare it to a gold standard. And that's one of the issues here. We don't have gold standards, but we've got good ideas. And we know that people who are positive with the PCR testing, that's the time to check people because that becomes our gold standard. And those have a very, very high sensitivity and specificity. The assays that we've been using for PCRs, have sensitivity and specificity of 98 and 99%.Of the test, but then we can talk about technique, which is a whole different thing.Which changes, and can lower your sensitivity...part of the problem. So here in this in this example, we're gonna say that 20% of the people that you're testing have the disease process. So now, up here 20% 20 people out of 100 habit 80 don't so now 80% of them 2016 20% is for on the flip side here 75 test negative don't have it five do. So now when you calculate the positive predictive value, because more people around you have it, there's more of a chance a positive will be right. 16 out of 21 increases your positive predictive value to 76%. But the flip side to that, since more people have the disease, there's a slightly lower chance that a negative will catch you appropriately. So now 75 out of 79 give you a negative predictive value of 95%. So to summarize that one more time: the higher the prevalence of the disease, the higher the positive predictive value, the better a positive test indicates true disease. In a lower incidence population, there's less disease there. The test is much better at giving you a true negative result and ruling the test the ruling the disease out for you.Got it. Hope that makes sense. I mean, I think that...Let's, let's play around with a little bit I went ahead and pulled up an Excel spreadsheet. And if you'll let me share real quick I'll do the same thing. Let's play with this. Let's say that there's 100,000 person population. And we can change these parameters. Let's say that it's infected by SARS CoV. There's 2000 not infective. So the prevalence we are now in where are we...Plano? What do you think? What do you think our prevalence will end up being?So tough to say but there's actually data in Dallas, and our prevalence is somewhere between 11 and a half and 12%?Oh, really? Yeah, that is way higher than when I was thinking. It's published data by the Dallas department of health.Okay, so who let's say that there's a 1% prevalence, then what that means is just like you were explaining, if we have a sensitivity of 98%, and a specificity of 99,So a very ideal test.It is the ideal test. And so if you have this, the positive predictive value is literally a flip of a coin. That is, with the best test you can have. That is fascinating with what you just showed. And then of course, the negative predictive value, just like you explained is 100%. So let's say and you're part of the solution, because as we talked about last time, and as we've been working with these companies, we want to be part of the solution. We want to be able to do rapid point of care, IgG IgM tests, and we want to get that data and we want to show it but let's say that here in the state of Texas we are at 12%. That positive predictive value goes to 93% So the more that we know about how many people are infected, the more that we can help these companies with their testing, and the more that we can say things. So I want you to explain this. You have a patient that says, Dr. Akerman, I watched your podcast. And let's assume that we're going to split the difference or whatever, somewhere around 5%. So I got a positive test. What would you tell your coworker, patient friend that did this looking at that?So which tests are we talking about?Oh, we're talking about, I thought I had COVID, two months ago, and I tested IgG positive.Right. So if you've got an antibody test, that's positive, assuming all these characteristics, I'd say there is a very good likelihood you in fact had the disease but if you tested negative, I will tell you almost certainly you haven't had it or been exposed.So let's get back to those tests there. I'll stop my share. The value of doing antibody tests. Everybody on the news is talking, we need to get tested, we need to get tested. nobody's talking what type of tests, the FDA tries to say, sensitivity specificity, you just showed very clearly that it really depends on where you're getting it done. So we'll be able to gather some of this data. And as we start doing this, what are you going to tell your patients that do test positive as we're gathering the data? So that's, that's an ideal. We can play with the numbers. We don't know what the numbers are yet in each segment. So what would you say to that just so that everybody is very clear about what an antibody test is.So right now, the only thing that we can tell you if you're If you have antibodies is whether or not you've been exposed. The assumption is that there's immunity because that's how immunity works for all kinds of viruses. But the The X Factor here, is that what that means for each virus is different. How much do you need for immunity? How long does that immunity last? Can you lose that? Will it wane over time? And these are all the questions that we can't yet answer. So if you're going to get tested, it doesn't help you so much at the moment, because we don't know what it means for immunity, but it helps the population because it helps us better define how prevalent the disease is and that starts helping us then figure out well, when are we going to get closer to herd immunity because we know a certain a certain amount of the population needs to have been exposed. Right?Can you just define herd immunity really quick because that gets thrown around a whole lot by the media. But the reality is herd immunity is a very definitive or it's not a definitive thing. It's a theoretical thing. But...Right, so if you have the disease, and you're walking around, and all these other people around you that you could potentially, infect, that's not going to be great, right? And that's kind of what happened in the beginning, right? People were walking around, they didn't know that they were infected themselves, and therefore able to infect other people. But if enough people walking around you are for lack of a better term at the moment immune so they can't get infected, then the fact that you have the infection isn't as big a deal. And that's what herd immunity is that if enough people around you are immune, your ability to affect the population as a whole goes down. And that's the idea behind immunity and vaccination to create this herd immunity.Yeah, think of it like you're at a bowling alley, there's 12 lanes, 12 people the lane one person has the virus, they give it to lane two, lane two gives it to lane three, lane three gives it to somebody who has been vaccinated. It stops. Lanes 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 do not get this. So that's that's what the herd immunity is. I don't know what the it's based on R0 number, the number of exposed, I think I read someplace, it's if we can get 70% of the US either vaccinated or infected. It basically is wipes out this disease.I'll admit I've heard the same number but I don't know. I don't know the data behind it. But I have seen that quoted.Now you got me questioning data all the time. Now, you know, I'm looking at it's oh my gosh, I'm getting I actually I'm gonna take a break Eric and I worked with Eric today and I was like, dude, can we do a non COVID podcast? Can we do I don't really care what we talked about. Eric brought up, Mike Tyson looks like he's training again. And at 53 he looks like he could just wreck shop. So I'm like, let's talk boxing or something, anything but COVID right now, because the data is just bruhhh, all these non peer reviewed articles that then get chewed up and shredded by statisticians and other doctors. It's, it's hard. It's really hardIt is and it's confusing. And, you know, I think when it comes to all this COVID testing, you know, some of the things you got to remember, as a patient or someone who's looking to get tested, there's tons of tests available now, tons, and all of them have different sensitivities and specificities and because of that, their ability to tell you whether you do or don't have the disease or in the antibody testing, whether they whether you have or haven't been exposed. are gonna vary, right? And many of those tests were recalled already by the FDA and the FDA is starting to crack down on it because they, they sort of opened the gates a little too wide.  And because we don't know yet the incidence and prevalence of the disease, it makes it a little more challenging to calculate those positive and negative predictive values. And we know that geography plays a role in this because the incidence changes, right? While it definitely is higher in Dallas than we initially thought, we haven't thankfully gotten anywhere near what the incidence is in New York where in some areas it's gotten over 20%. So the same test might might tell you different things depending on whether you did it in Dallas or whether you did it did it in New York.And you know, you said it best right there that if we do this when we get our tests in because you're an integral part of this, and you're gonna, you're gonna help us try and figure this out tests that we're looking at, will upload to the CDC to help them have real time history. We're gonna have a snapshot of our area, it would be so cool to we're all in this together kind of attitude. Well, let's bring the data in together. I did have a very interesting discussion which you and I have talked about with the manager at our surgery center today, Chris, and he was like, but what do you do if you start testing employees does do you have to shut up? I mean, then all of a sudden get into these ethical, theoretical, where do we go blah blah blah, like you just just go down rabbit holes. All I know is we got to start getting some data and we can start doing it between you and I we can get our patients involved we can get people coming in if you want to get a finger prick and find out if your IgG positive. I know I will feel more comfortable going to the hospital I know I'll feel more comfortable hugging my wife. If we're both IgG positive whether I'm wrong we're just going to learn over time but there's no way to test it.Right and and some of this, you know, information that we're going to gather now, you know, will be available later that we can look back at and reanalyze. So we've got a, we've got to build that data set. And that's kind of the pitch that I would make to our patients and the community at large. You know, if someone says to me right now, should I get tested for antibodies? You know, is there value to it? I would say there is you just have to understand what that value is. And right now, there's a little bit less of a value personally, although there's definitely some, like you just said, but there's a big community impact that we can we can have. Okay, so you always end up with some great little nugget. Say that one more time right now.So, as it stands right now, you'll have some information for yourself. I can't tell you if you're immune. We can tell you if you've been exposed, which is on the mind of many people. I had that illness two months ago, they tested me for flu, it was negative. But now that I know that I know more about COVID why couldn't I have had COVID at that time? This can answer that question. But it can't tell me if I'm immune. But on a population level, it can start telling us what that prevalence of disease is, it then can feed back and make our tests better. Because now we know what the prevalence is. It has ripple effects,This is usually the stuff that's discussed in an academic institution behind ivory tower. Now we're just like, we're all in it people let's all do this. That's, that's what's cool.Yeah, and, you know, two months from now, three months from now, whatever it is, when we find out what immunity means, and what what thresholds we need for immunity, we might be able to look back at this now and say, Well, we've got all these patients that are already tested, and this is the threshold in this test. Maybe these patients are immune and now we can go back and tell them that, you know, sort of remains to be seen, but I would say that there's value in antibody testing, you just have to understand what that value is and I would also suggest that and we've discussed this as part of the parameter that we're going to employ. If a patient has a positive test, you know, partially because we don't know yet how strong that positive predictive value is, and also because IgG starts during the illness, so we don't know if you're a had a disease person or have a disease person, we're going to get, we're going to have all those people get follow up testing immediately for PCR, because if your PCR test is positive, you're actually in the disease starting to get over it. And you're going to you're going to self quarantine, and we're going to let you know and you're not going to expose anyone. And now you're going to know that you had it. And that's going to help you later on, not just now.Yeah, yeah, I know that if I when these tests come in, and I and I get tested, and I'm IgM for instance, calling up the wife and kids and I'm saying see in about three weeks go get a hotel room. Not even coming not even coming home. So...And, you know, I'll go one step ahead of you there and sort of shift gears just a little bit on my soapbox. But, you know, we had discussed a couple recent articles, you know, offline here, one of them being that article in Spain that tested all the health healthcare workers and one of the hospitals where they had really strict PPE. And they found an incidence of the disease that was almost identical to the general incidence they have in population. And it's interesting, because we both we both came to the same conclusion, as did your favorite co host, that it wasn't that the incidence was lower. It was that PPE works. And you know, you can have your own opinions. And I'm not saying there's right or wrong about the economy and all these other things that are going on. But there are ways to meld both of those ideas together. And as we start getting out of our homes and reopening the economy, and we're more available and we have more face time with people, we shouldn't lose sight of that. And these principles that that are working to decrease transmission should still be employed.Yeah, a recent study came out where it looked at ER physicians in Utah and very similar, like the incidence was much lower than you would think. What we're doing works the hand washing the masks everything. So yeah, well, that's awesome. Well, I tell you what, this is a tough topic that nobody's talking about. I appreciate you taking the time to do the PowerPoint. You've got it sorted out in your brain to help thicker brains like me get it kind of figured out. Because when we started realizing that, yes, when I talk to my patients, this is the incident. Six months from now we can say, oh, look, as it turns out, Plano's at 15% or North Texas or whatever, we can say with a certain certainty, this is what it is then. So thanks for helping the companies that we're working with. Thanks for taking the time to do this. And yeah, this is an ever evolving thing. And I think that we're in it, we're part of it, and the beautiful people behind you, and you're seeing there, this is why we're doing a lot of this stuff. SoYeah, I agree. And I would encourage anyone watching these videos, to, to ask us questions. You know, we were, we're guessing based on what we're hearing and what we're seeing what it is, that's confusing, and we can help explain and, you know, disseminate the information there. But if there's specific questions, let us know. That's what we're here for.Absolutely. And as always, please like and share, go to Dr. Akerman's website, go to my website. We got our sponsor Atrantil. We know that a healthy gut leads to a healthy immune system so everyone stay safe. Dr. Akerman once again, thank you for a fantastic point five episode.Thank you.

Hello gut check project fans, KBMD health community. This is Eric with your host, Dr. Ken Brown, installment number five COVID file. We're here to, well, you know what, I actually I'm not gonna say what we're here to do because what Brown said he said do you know what I've got in store? And I said no, not all the way he goes good, cuz I'm not gonna tell you soSo this is COVID files number five 4.5 was me and Dr. Akerman and I love our little part time co host Dr. Akerman that is a smart dude. He challenges me to tear apart the literature and it is and we're gonna do more with him because it It allows us to critically eval the literature and he is very academic in his brain and he's an incredible doctor. But the point five is kind of wearing me out every once in a while I just need like a whole number. Really bad at math and, you know, so this episode, we've been so busy doing so many things and we'll get into that right now. But this episode, I realize I'm talking to all my staff. We're talking to patients. And there's an underlying theme here across the board. And it is I'm stressed, I'm worried, how does that affect my gut. And that's what I'm gonna talk about today. We're going to talk about ways to cope and be happy. This is gonna be a fun, you know, self help episode that based on science, always based on science, everything we do is based on science. So that's what I want this to be. I want this to be all about the tricks, tips to stay healthy, to stay healthy and get happy. Because if you're happy, then your other systems like your gut and your immune system are going to be better performing. So you didn't even know that we're going to do this episode, but that's what we're doing today.Yeah, well, you know what, I'm pretty excited about it, and I can tell you one thing just off the top. Once we started doing the COVID recap, we kind of stopped a little bit as we got a little bit more serious and we abandoned a little bit talking of patients I mean our families I'm sorry, family and catching up and stuff like that. I gotta say, I know it's a pandemic and and hearts out to everybody who's suffered but for us personally been home, I got a senior who's graduating, we got to put in a lot more family time. Sophomore kiddo in the house is hilarious, wife and I got a lot more walks and bike rides in. You know, I didn't work for weeks didn't make any money. But at the same time, I feel a little richer just by some of the extra family time.So Stu keeps sending videos. So he's gotten into the whole fact of taking some videos based on doing some stuff with us. And he's got his kids doing stuff. They're doing the Akermann News Network, he's keeping them busy. And I realized I'm like, wait a minute. Both you Eric and Stu, have found a way to remain happy, keep your family engaged. And I'm like, that's what this episode is gonna be about. Because you guys did it intrinsically, you naturally are able to find that and that's what I want to talk about. But more on kind of a science level. So it was very hard to sit there and do some of those episodes when the pandemic was starting. And we're like, hey, Eric, tell me about your family. And it's like and then the next line is 1 million people have coronavirus this many people have died this. We're getting away from that a little bit now, because we realized we were in a pandemic, we're in this thing, but now it's time to realize this may be a very slow exit from here and what you did and bracing your kids and what Stu has done, where he sat with his family, and they've, he's turned little movie stars out of his daughters and they're, he's absolutely screwed because they're gonna want to go to acting school now and all this other stuff. But that is the kind of stuff because when I sit with my employees that are stressed to the hilt single moms, they're like, I'm waking up with panic attacks. Dr. Brown, how can I do something and so I was, you know, we're starting to open up the economy here in Texas or open up, your governor Abbott's letting more people get around each other. Now I'm getting all these patients calling me going I'm terrified. I have this disease. My employer now wants me to go back. How do I have to go back but I'm having panic attacks. What do I do? Well, let's do a podcast on that. That's what I thought.This, to me, I think it'd be a great idea to do exactly that because inevitably we've got to move on. We can't sit around and you just don't want to get lost in watching the counts on television or keeping up with the next the next latest fad on what was one of the crazy things I heard someone saying using a hairdryer shoving that up your nose to blast away Coronavirus? I mean, we need to be practical.Can I stop you right there? Is that seriously a fad? Because I've been doing that.Well, I want to let you know that your nose hairs are...they're beautiful.I know at the very least I've not been clipping them so at least saves them back to a presentable level.Yeah, I think we're gonna have I think we're gonna have some new fads come out of this thing. I think that some of the 70s hairstyles are going to come back. I haven't had a haircut...Oh my gosh, I am absolutely loving the crazy hair. I mean, this is awesome. My kids. Well, we'll get into it. But basically you do these workouts you get sweaty and you realize how long your hair is. I'm just like, oh, this is awesome.Well, you know, I've seen more and more people who've been wearing the mask in public Of course over time. I'm kind of curious if there's are people who generally snack it while they while they walk or why they do things. But now that they're in public, they had this maybe they'll who knows maybe maybe maybe weight loss will be inevitable because people will have a social covering where...There's all kinds of things. So one of the things I want to try with this episode so that people are looking at this and go every time you do this get so bogged down with science, and it's an hour. I talked to Stu about that. He's like, man, I love doing this, but are we capturing the audience? I'm like, I don't know. Let's try and do a little quicker and see what happens. I don't know. I personally just like sharing information and being totally honest about this this is not about trying to develop it. I mean I want my audience to be happy and we're gaining a significant amount of traction but in this particular case, let's see if we can not get too off track because you and I I do you're always perfect but I always get off track so It's kind of hard but we'll we'll see...thank you though for...So I'm gonna throw this out to you tell me something a little personal now that we're not going to get too heavy what's going on with the fam?Fam is doing great. Gage is still bracing himself they he's headed up to Texas Tech for this fall will be his, his first year in college. The orientation was moved to virtual orientation they have to do that. The level apparently trending in Lubbock currently is as it is apparently flattening out and for right now coming back down. So he'll have an online virtual orientation. Mac is is wrapping up his sophomore year at school. And he just left the house to do a bike ride and for how far who knows? Or who cares. He in his in his brother have taken off and traded out their their terms to to get some bike riding in and that's what they've been doing. Marie's remained busy for her in her business, social media is people still keep up like that. So she actually saw a boom in business over time. And then...That's awesome. Yeah. And actually, I went to work today for the first time. I didn't think it was the first time in seven weeks it was nice.Did the patient flop around and scream the whole time and be like, I'm not out.Yeah, it was a little bit of a learning curve to remember how some of the buttons work but it wasn't too bad. Well so family's doing great. We also have been doing pretty well during this whole quarantine. We've small setback, which is where the unrefined bakery comes in. Unfortunately, Loida was enjoying playing around with the kids a little bit and she hurt herself. And so we had to add a little small setback on that, but she's doing awesome and...about it and won't be able to drive for about six weeks, but we're getting through it. I thought it was really cool. I walked into the garage and Lucas was with his computer with six other of some of the top level tennis players with a trainer there. And he's watching all of them and he's training them and he's saying they're they're all in different parts of the country. It's zoom thing. And Lucas is you know, I just took a picture of it. I thought that was just so beautiful that all the all these kids are still working out the trainer still riding them. And then I go back inside and my daughter is turned it so Lucas is like doing this virtual athlete thing. And Carla is sitting on the couch. She is the world's greatest quarantine person. She was like cross stitching and becoming like a old grandma. I'm gonna just we call her. It's really funny. So she is having no problems just sort of chillin with the school online school and all that. Yeah, so and then me personally, you and I have been busy I mean levels of busy that I have never done. For instance I did wellness mama podcast shout out to wellness mama and their team. Wow, that was cool.Nice. DefinitelyDid that one and then you and I've been doing some other cool stuff you want to tell everybody about that?Just tons of research. I mean there's there's always been the idea of what you wanted to do on researching polyphenols or even just other natural compounds and how they can make a difference. And ultimately, we were just forced into a lot of free time that we just didn't know that we were going to have that we needed to dedicate to work and keep up with different things but it just turned into immense research, thrusting us all the way to just yesterday. We just received our first sample of what a point of care antibody test.Oh so because of all the stuff that we've been doing and shout out to Angie Cook I meanAngie Cook, without question...She's working as hard as we are and stuff yeah so because of this we have access to unique people that reach out to us like people that have a legit SARS CoV2 antibody test right there and what this is what is unique about this is there's a lot of bad press going on right now. But these guys teamed up with a software company called remedy and what those two QR scans are that's unlike anything else. So you can imagine it comes with a kit like this, I just poke a finger and then we can determine if you're IgG IgM positive, go back to COVID 4.5 to learn what that means, but then we get it scans straight to the CDC and that is a game changer and because of all the work that we've been doing and the contacts that you know, we are in a position to work with a company that may frame what this country is going to do when they come back to work. So I'm super excited. And we're always working really hard to do this. And there's pros and cons to it. Please listen to 4.5. That's what I love about Stu. He's a scientist. And he says, And me, I say, we will we have to be the people that are going to help develop some of this data that everybody else can do, somebody has to jump over the fence. And traditionally, you and I have been fence jumpers. And sometimes we get bit sometimes we do right. So...You know who else is fence jumpers, and really, really a lot of fun is going to be those that are on or that are part of the patient base that you've had that make up most of KBMD health that watch this show, because they've always been so, so energized of wanting to get involved, and this is going to be yet another opportunity to do exactly that. HopefullyWhen we get these and when we're cool with this, and when we're ready to do this, we'll do a zoom with my staff, we will all have this, we'll do a point of care. They'll all be in the office. So it is at an office, we'll do a thing. All you do is pop this off, prick your finger, put it in, wait 10 minutes, and then it shows if you're IgM or IgG positive. We don't know yet if the IgG positive makes you immune. We're hoping. SARSCoV1 in 2003-they were immune. But if we can start being part of the solution, that's the deal, Eric, is that we're trying to get past this. We're working with scientists all around the world. We've had zoom calls with people at the same time. I mean, technology's amazing. And that's what we're going to talk about on this show. Is that yes, we have this thing going on, but we also have all this crazy technology. We had a zoom call with like 20 people We had people in Argentina, we had people in Spain, we had people in Italy, we had all these people in United States and everybody is sharing knowledge. They're just dumping it there. What can you do for this? How do we set up a protocol? How is this and everybody on that call had a little piece of the puzzle that led to a protocol that now the Argentinians and the Italians are having a protocol using polyphenols to potentially see if it can help COVID-19 and it was accepted by both Ministries of Health. They would like us to try and do something in the United States. It is just an honor. That, yes, my job stopped. And I became busier and made zero money. But I'm thankful that I have people like Angie cook on our team. I'm thankful that we have the rest of the team on KBS, Brandy, Anthony, Mike, Chuck, to trust us that where we're heading is an incredible place. And the ultimate goal is that we may make a difference moving forward, might not, but we've got some science to back us. So that's what I want to talk about today. How do we have science to back our mood? So that's where we're at.Yeah, I love it. I love everything about it. And the cool thing is, is if we can be a part of even just the information gathering, you're not gonna get anywhere without information. And the coolest part is we've got so many willing participants who have said I would like to partake in that. Great, I want to be a part of it too. So it'll be a lot of fun. You mean like on KB MD health Instagram, where I asked Paul to post your picture holding it and then you've been bombarded by instant messages.They wanted to know how they can come and get their hands on a on antibody test and and I think everybody should call Ryan Frye. So if you're a friend of mine, you should call Ryan Frye. That's exactly you should call. Alright, so let's let's jump into this because the ultimate thing is I want to make sure that if anybody's having any stressful times over this, we're going to talk about a few things and I've been looking at it I've always tried to talk, or I've always tried to teach myself a bunch of different things to try and control my anxious brain because I run it a little higher anxiety level than most people I would say. And time like this would be overwhelming if I didn't have techniques that I've tried to employ. And so some of the things I've been turned on to somebody called Laurie Santos, who has a podcast but she also has a Yale courses, you look at our videos, and it's all based on science. I'm a big fan of reading a stoic philosophy books like Ryan Holiday, and then ultimately trying to stay logical and finding techniques to do this. So that's what I'm talking about today. We all have setbacks. We all have things that happened to us, but this particular period has turned everything upside down. People are feeling overwhelmed, they're angry, they're alone. So let's do this podcast on some tips, tricks to reframe the perspective and gain control over your own brain. That's what I want this one to be about. Let's try it. Let's see what happens.Exactly. Let's try. Alright, so I wanted to do it in a couple, three different broad categories have been successful for me, right? So I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a psychiatrist. I just want to tell everybody what's what's kind of helped me a little bit. Okay, that's all that's all this is. So number one, learning from the Greek stoics. Now, I've mentioned a few times on the podcast that I'll reference Ryan Holiday in the daily stoic and things like that Ryan Holiday's an author who has been on he's getting written multiple books. He's written the book, the obstacle is the way and the daily stoic. I have the daily stoic where next to my bed where when I wake up, I try and read something and start my day off that way. There's a guy named Bill Irvine who wrote a really cool book called the stoics challenge a philosophers guide to becoming tougher, calmer and more resilient. Now in this time, we're having to postpone things and we're having to, we got a text from Nick where he's gonna be married, so are you gonna be able to get married. Do you make a plan? Do you do this? Do you have to postpone the wedding? And that's just one stressor for somebody that's going to get married. Now what about the guy that loses his job or the man or woman that loses their job? When Loida got hurt, in the hospital, they don't allow loved ones. And, you know, she's, she's tough, she's gonna be fine. She's in shape. But what about the people that are dying of cancer that can't see their loved ones because of social distancing? I just started thinking of all that, but about all of that. And then the stoic philosophy is not about ignoring the emotion. It is about skillfully avoiding negative emotions. So a lot of people think that stoics just don't feel anything. That's not the, that's not the thing. It's about avoiding the negative emotions. We have a lot more control than we think and ultimately, you've heard this a ton of times it's been said, since we've been on Earth. Worrying about something that is out of your control is a waste of time. But we do it all the time. I do it all the time. I mean, it is so hard. And then I started thinking about that. And I remember jack aloka, the PhD that is in our group who I admire so much. He keeps referring to when your reptilian brain takes over. And what he means by that is when your logical brain gets overwritten by the reptilian brain, we have our reptilian brain, our brain stem, which tells us and keeps us from getting killed. Sometimes it becomes a wrestling match between your prefrontal cortex trying to tell you hey, dude, it's all good. And your reptilian brain going no, it's not we're gonna die. We gotta run right now. And it becomes this wrestling match. And so it's this battle between the evolved brain and where we've come from maybe 1000 years from now the reptilian brain becomes nothing. But right now we still have to deal with it. In other words, that's the fight or flight. So if you're listening to this and you're like, yeah, I'm stressed out, it's because your fight or flight is taking over. So let's talk about how we can maybe get the reptilian brain to calm down a little bit and let your logical brain kick in. Are you following me?Yeah I'm totally following you.Alright, so we have about five seconds, generally speaking, to reframe any situation that you're in. So if you get angry, then you have about five seconds to get control. So for instance, you're working in your garage, drop a hammer hits your toe, what do you do, Eric?First thing is, wow. probably say words I wouldn't say on our showAnd you should, that's the cool thing. You can do that for five seconds.I'm not gonna stop, I'm gonna do it. And younger me I think would be kind of miffed older me now I'm I was looking at...and I kind of assess the situation on how did it fall? I mean immediately because I want to find out if it's going to keep falling or something else is coming. That's awesome. Yeah, so that is your cerebral cortex suppressing the reptilian brain that's awesome.I hope that happens that when I was younger, younger me didn't do that younger me was very emotional getting kind of upset and want to move everything out of the way. Taking it out on a lot of inanimate objects, because it probably the desk is friends with other hammers that also have it in for my toe. And but now it's now it's far more logical I don't I it's, it's probably something neglectful that I did. And if not, I probably won't put myself in that situation anymore.See, you automatically have these skills. So you know, like think about road rage and stuff something happens, escalates. Now you're in a different situation. Now you're in a worse situation. There's a Buddhist philosophy that if you get hit with one arrow, then you ask yourself is getting hit with one arrow bad? Yes, it is, is two and three arrows worse? Yes, it is. Typically the second and third arrow are under our control. So you what you just said is fantastic. Younger you would have thrown the hammer through the window. Now you gotta fix the damn window, you hit the cat, the neighbor's cat. now you got to deal with that. So that is one of those things. So it's like this is training for life. I love that you literally have developed these skills without ever thinking them. You said a younger me would have done this, but me now looks for reason.Oh, yeah. Younger me was was not very well equipped to handle hammertoe.Alright, so here's the two techniques. So if you're listening, if somebody's going, I don't really care how Eric handles dropping a hammer my toe because I still throw the hammer. Here's the two techniques. Stoic philosophers describe two very common techniques to help you. The first one is called framing. And framing is when a situation happens give yourself five seconds to throw those curse words out to be the, the let the reptilian brain out there, but you'll be five seconds because more than that, then it becomes an emotion that you can't control. Five seconds then frame it immediately when something happens. And there's two very common frames and I'm not a stoic philosopher, obviously, but these are the ones that I use. Remember, this is how I try and control my my emotions. One is comedic framing. So if something happens, figure a way that it's kind of funny. Even if it's not you, it's somebody else looking at it that'd be pretty funny if somebody else saw it. If I saw Eric accidentally drop a hammer on his toe. I would be like, dude, you're okay. And you're like, yea, like, dude, you're so dumb you had like Vaseline on your hands and grabbed the hammer and you swung it, then it becomes funny immediately. Doing a comedic frame helps with that. And then the other one, which is much more in line with my personality, it's easier for me to do. It's called a story timeline. So basically, we're in a situation so the comedic framing is really good for an immediate of that hammer drops on your toe, you figure out how to fix that. You figure out how to make it funny for yourself. But we're in a pandemic. If you're in a war. If you're in a period, then this you can't just make a joke of it and move on and be logical. And one of the things that the stoics have done is that they say focus on the story timeline. How will I be able to tell my grandchild about this event that's going on right now. I want to be able to on the other side of this, how will I be perceived? Once again with my office when we sat and had a meeting, we're like, do we furlough people. And Dr. Akerman said, before we even talk about that, how do we want to be perceived when this thing on the other side, we want to be known as bosses that treated their employees well, so let's start with that, and work our way back. This is exactly what this is. This is how, how will I sit there and tell my grandkids, how I handled the war, the Stockholm paradox and in the book, good to great that you and I are reading in business, he was a prisoner of war for seven years. And he said the people that died were the ultimate optimists. He was an optimist, but a realist. In other words, I know I'm gonna get out of here, eventually. How am I going to tell my children about this story. That brings a certain amount of distance. And it allows you to have control of where it is. So when you want to give up...when you want to say I want to panic, just go, how will I be telling my grandchild...because I will get through this. How do I tell my 12 year old grandchild, that I went through a pandemic, and I lost my job, and I had friends that died. But this is what I did. And I kept going. So the stoics, use two different framings. If it's a short term, use comedic if we're going to be in it for a battle, a war, frame it so that you, you describe who you are older, telling your children that, which I thought was pretty cool. What's your thoughts on that?Actually, that is kind of transcendent to a bunch of different scenarios. I mean, I can remember before, before we had kids, right? You just thought there's the idea the concept of kids these little people that you have no idea you don't think of them really necessarily as a piece of you because they don't exist yet. They're just it's a concept. I'm a kid, I'm a kid to my parents, right? So then suddenly you have them and you go kind of through a little bit. I think most people do a little bit of a panic phase, like, what do I do with this very, very fragile thing? Then when the interaction begins, you kind of learn a little bit about each other. You quickly realize that you're creating memories. And I thought back to my parents, and how I wanted to be able to tell my kids how cool my parents were to me. But I started thinking, I want them to say how good of a dad I am to them.So you automatically so you you're you're a very funny guy. So you automatically comedically frame things and you automatically have this story timeline. And you did it with two generations. That's awesome. Think about my dad. How I was perceived by that? I want my kids to do this. You do it naturally. That may be one of the reasons why you're you're perpetually happy.I don't know, I guess so my, my parents were both kind of like that they can they can both tell stories about their families from two or three generations back as if they were almost there. And obviously they weren't right. But they and it's usually the funny stories that make its way up. Right. No. And who wants to tell the the bummers? They if those people are part of this narrative they usually probably don't show up that much. But it make yeah, I don't know. It's kind of weird. But you you begin to frame things around the idea of what do I want them to carry forward because that ultimately will shape the way that you're handling the situation of this.100% so that comes very natural to you. Now I'm going to tell you one that probably is not natural to you, but is intrinsic to me, which is interesting. We've both had some loss, and for whatever reason, this particular practice grounds me and the stoics call it practice negativism. So what you just described was this positive thing I want to create this thing. It's much harder to think about, but when you get really down on something, or if you get or if you're starting to get down on something, then imagine that it's not there and what your life would be, but not like imagine a little bit like get deep into it. So imagine what it would be like if my spouse died. And just go, no, not like, but like, think about like, it's a form of meditation is what it is. So you stop for a few moments and you think about this. I hate my job. What would it be like if I was unemployed? What would it be like if I was broke and had no job? I'm really upset at my spouse. What would it be like if your spouse was deceased, and that person did not exist? And it's an interesting thing because what it does, if you, if you really think about it, then when you see your spouse, you're just like, loving you like because every day could be the last day sort of philosophy. And you this is something that a lot of people don't like, but for some reason it resonates with me because I've had loss. And I sometimes think, you know, the job was tough today, but what if I didn't have a job? And oh shit COVID showed up, but I didn't have a job. Now I'm like, I miss my job. I miss it. I want to go back.No, that that is I don't, I won't say I have never done that. But you're right. That does not come quite naturally to me to just basically you're saying to find something that's bothering me today and just okay, well, now it doesn't exist at all. Now, where are you?Yeah, now Where are you? Cuz you'd be surprised because a lot of times that person that you think is annoying is really important in your life. That job that you are frustrated with is necessary in your life. Regardless, the goal here is to reframe so that you can take control, even if you don't agree with it. All it is taking a step back and going, these emotions are making me stressed, anxious, and so on. So that I'm gonna take a step back and I'm gonna reframe the stoics call this reframing so that you can control that. So that is the stoic philosophy of how to do this. And, like, the stoic philosophy that I have garnered, that helps me.Sure. That makes sense, though.And you're already doing it, which is interesting.What can I say?Yeah. All right. So one of the things that a few employees approached me and there's some people that are, well, they're having straight up panic attacks, straight up panic attacks right now people are flipping out and so I want to talk about why panic and anxiety is bad and as somebody who probably has a mild form? Or it could be a horrible form of panic disorder, but I have always been on the curve of having more anxiety than just being a chill chill person, let's put it that way. I think you are a little more chill. I'm a little more on the uptight, anxious side. And so I want to talk about that, like why panic and anxiety serve zero purpose.Right? And they, and they do, I don't, I really don't know what to make of them. It's not something that's really not something I've ever been accused of is being overly anxious or panicky, or someone who gets unnecessarily worked up. That's not really my thing. I don't know.Yeah. And that's a wonderful thing. And I was talking with one of our employees on Wednesday, and she was telling me that she has panic attacks and her daughter is starting to have panic attacks. And she would I loved it because she's like, I'll handle mine. But watching my daughter have a panic attack, I need to find some ways to get her out of it. So that's how come I started thinking about this. I'm like, I'm gonna do a podcast on this and we're gonnaAnd I believe they're legitimate. No doubt it's it's, uh, I just wish I wish I had more sympathy, not only empathy for the position because I don't really, I don't know. I think that when I feel something kind of getting a little out of control, then I well, my dad got sick. I knew what was going to end up happening. But I prepared myself for the bad parts of what was happening with my dad is he was dying from cancer. And I compartmentalized the bad part of being the biology of cancer, and how he couldn't out run him and when we're, nobody would outrun it really where he was. The flip of it was is it left me with all the good parts which were just hanging out with him and talking about the times that we had together the memories and just kind of reliving some things together, which was great. But I didn't, I didn't associate my time or my conversations with him while just constantly thinking about his cancer, we, we just talked about the fun shit that we had done. So I truly believe that your father had that framing mechanism in place because I know that he was in pain, but I know that he probably met with you and said, I want to be remembered like this. I don't want to be remembered in certain ways. So when you would tell me about that, even in the last few days, you guys had a great relationship. And he grew up remembering somebody else he grew up remembering tell the story so it can be told again. So I think that's cool. But for somebody that doesn't have this and if you have this I feel for you because been there. I looked up a guy named Ethan Cross and He is an expert in this and he is an expert in how emotion regulates planning. So we're in an era where a lot of people are experiencing anxiety that they've never experienced before. And it's new to them. So when you have anxiety what happens is you will over focus on something and have poor decision making. You're less logical. It's one of the reasons why everyone else brought bought all the toilet paper. I mean, what the heck, that was crazy. There's just no reason for that. We don't have a shortage of it they're there. But they didn't sit there and think, oh, in the pantry, I'm lacking this and this and this. They panicked, they went there. And this is what happens. When you're over focused on a threat there's no mental space to work on a higher level. So if you're all which is good, if you're being chased by a saber toothed tiger, it's bad if the threat's not leaving. Does that make sense?100% I mean, so, in an instant, it's okay to have quick panic. But but prolonged panic is dangerous. I agree with that.Prolonged panic. Prolonged anxiety does one thing and you know this and we've talked about this on other shows. It's the fight or flight system, which means your sympathetic nervous system kicks in when the sympathetic nervous system kicks in, that leads to chronic inflammation, chronic inflammation leads to biological systems shutting down that leads to your immune system wearing out so if there's anything you're gonna get out of this, it's that when you're panicked, you're predisposing yourself to the things that you're panicked about.What do you think that what do you think the correlation then would be between somebody who's experiencing chronic chronic anxiety or I don't know, frequent panic attacks and a lack of sleep? I mean, It's all of the above. So that's what this is about. That's what I want to talk about is as somebody who's had significant anxiety, I mean, I grew up as a stutterer. I had I answered a question on a Reddit thing where somebody said, If anybody's ever stuttered, what have you, what would you recommend? And I was like I, I did for the first 20 years of my life, and I worked through it, I tried to do it. And my anxiety led to stuttering. And then I realized I can, I will never stop stuttering unless I get control of the anxiety. And the anxiety is a thing because ultimately, you have to have emotional regulation. Everybody's flipping out right now you have to have the ability to align how you feel to how you want to feel. So if you're panicking, you need to have the skills to say, I'm panicking. I want to be in a better place. You're not trying to turn it off. You're just trying to reign it in. Like right now, it's almost impossible to shut it off completely. You can't be that like we were talking earlier about the stoics. They're not turning off their emotions. What you're doing is you're trying to make sense of it. What this is doing is having some skills to try and have emotional regulation. Because having some anxiety is important. If we didn't have some anxiety, we would have zero social distancing. And we would have a pandemic beyond any proportion. And we know this is bigger than anything that's ever happened in most people's lifetimes. So having some anxiety is important. It helps us help each other. But I want to talk about two really cool techniques. I'm going to call these brain hacks backed by science. So these brain hacks backed by science. So the first one that this guy Ethan Cross has written about is psychological distancing. And I think this is super cool. Because you and I do it to each other all the time. When we work together. We show up we're like, hey man, what would you do with this? And it's a problem that I can't fix. You're out that I throw it to you. You shopped work, and you're like, I'm kind of torn with this MAC gauge this what school blah, blah, whatever whatever thing that you're emotionally tied to, you go to a third person, and you're trying to get a different perspective. And so it's that it's that, that third person perspective, because the person you're talking to, essentially is somebody that doesn't have or they don't have the emotional baggage associated with it. So going back to the original thing, when you're anxious, you can't use your full prefrontal cortex to make a decision. Part of your reptilian brain is going, ah, I don't want my son to go to the wrong school. Ah, I want this ah, or anything, you know, everything that you're emotional about. So you go to a friend and you go, oh, I never thought of it that way. That's odd. What what's what key thing applies to everyone all over the place. planet who, who ultimately will go and get advice on it, and that is finances, financial advice, our emotion is tied up with our belongings, our ownings, our homes are things that we want to invest in our vacations, etc. But the reason why over more and more time financial advisors have become such a great person to help us is because they can look at your finances without bias without emotion. And they can help you actually probably achieve more of what you want, actually, emotionally by showing you logically, how to move and utilize the money that you're bringing in. That's a really cool thing that you just highlighted there on how you wouldthrow that to a third person. That makes sense to me. It makes total sense, right? So they've done incredible studies on this. So this guy Ethan Cross is the head of the emotion regulation department at University of Michigan, and they've done lots of studies that you're not going to believe this. When you mentally refer to yourself in the third person, you can be more objective. They did studies where they took people and they said, we want you to apply for your dream job. And you're going to be graded, you're going to be evaluated by a team of judges. But they took half the people and they said, I, they had no idea what they were doing. They signed up for a volunteer thing. Apparently, public speaking is more stressful than pain. So like you don't shock people or things like that. So they were, they said, you have 10 minutes to prepare a public speech. You're going to go in front of judges, you're going to be filmed, and you're going to be critiqued on this. They took half of them and they said we want you to start with I am going to give a speech which will determine the course of my life. The other half. Eric is going to give a speech or Ken is going to give a speech you refer to yourself in the third person. All right, Ken, you're going to give a speech. It's going to change your life. Let's see if we can do this. Shockingly, they did an incredible job when you can separate yourself and refer to yourself in the third person. So even though you go to somebody else, psychologically, linguistically, when you say Ken, how am I going to handle this COVID crisis? Okay, Ken, you're on call. You just got 10 consults. We got this using these words. internally. Don't say it out loud. Because people will find you weird that's the only thing What are you doing here? I'm here to watch Eric do some stuff. He's pretty good guy. Yeah, just out loud. Be like Ken's scoping like a beast now watch Ken take this polyp out. Yeah, no, yeah, don't do that. But it is certainly a technique. And so there's something that's kind of cool about that. Where it you separate yourself and you take control of your emotions. I am not experiencing this. Ken you're going through this problem? How are you going to figure it out? It's a very unique psychological thing that has been proven in multiple studies. So little hack. When I start when things start getting way out of control, mentally, it's all right Ken, we're sitting in this podcast and this thing is shitting the bed. What do we do now?No I do I find that to be useful. It makes sense to me, but I won't say it out loud kind of like you recommended I think.Yeah please don't but you can actually do that with like, he was talking about like in children's learning. If you have a child that struggles with doing homework and stuff, don't go up to them and say, why aren't you able to do this? Just go hey, how would Batman handle this?Let me ask you a question. So when when you were an intern and you are working, I know that you did er work do you remember how you watched yourself run your first code? Remember that?Oh yes, yeah, totally.I kind of remember getting into a system where it wasn't that I wasn't present, but it felt like I was watching myself do the training right? And systematically just calling for the things just as I had learned, but and really more of how I memorize to go through the own algorithm they taught us to do and so when I asked for things where I needed someone to chart something, or if we needed to met or we needed to change team members or anything else like that, it's a really calm conversation. It's not really heightened. It's not screened, I think we've both been a part of some, some codes that have not together but codes to get that have been kind of in disarray or kind of crazy. Yeah, those those are not desirable. you need you need to be able to have someone kind of run the code that knows what the next part is, is being that part or playing that role for I kind of just saw myself doing it rather than I'm doing it. Does that make sense?Oh it makes total sense. My first code at the VA when I was an intern code happened. A little voice next to me was just like, you know, you got this stay calm. It's time for Epi. All right, let's go ahead and do this. And let's do that. And I thought it was me. But it was the it was the senior nurse next to me the whole time. I was like, my inner voice is awesome. But basically, it was a cool, established VA nurse going do epi do this.Was it a guy or a girl?No, it was a girl. It was Janice and she was awesome. And I learned early on that they knew way more than I did. So I just did what they said.Well I didn't know if you thought that you just had a really sexy voice to...Alright. So to make sure that we stay within the 30 minute time zone here, we got to keep moving. All right. So technique number two, is temporal distancing. We kind of heard about that last time the stoics use this, basically don't think how you feel now. But how will you feel two years from now? I mean, we're in this COVID crisis, right? If I look at you and Eric, I'm like, Eric, we're gonna get through this. There's going to be vaccines, there's going to be herd immunity. There's gonna be antibody testing. We're gonna be able to fix that. You're gonna be there are gonna be answers. Yeah, there's going to be answers. The stoats took it to a new level where they said, think about the next generation and how you're going to tell your grandchild. Ethan Cross is talking about no, just think about it, like in two years from now. So you can integrate the both so right now what I'm telling myself is, Ken we're going to get through this in two years we will be stronger. So it is a we being all of us are going to be part of this. Ken, I'm talking to myself objectively and we know that this language is a conduit to control your emotions. The language is a conduit to control your emotions. So my final hack on how to do this, so we went through the stoic philosophy, we went to the Ethan cross, how to do these linguistic things in your head? Well, then I put it all together. And I realized, you know that I've been trying to have a prior to all this whenever we when I actually had free time, when I was working full time and had more time. I tried to teach myself some neuro linguistic programming NLP, right, and that's what Tony Robbins does. That's what some of these great motivational speakers do. And one of the things is that if you are prone to panic attacks, then you have the ability to linguistically train your brain to bring yourself back down and there is a technique called anchoring. Do you know what anchoring is? Did we ever talk about that?I do remember, the gentleman that visited with us in Arizona briefly talked about that, but that honestly, I don't know anymore. Oh, wait, wait. It's an emotion that you tie back to a sensation or something like that, like you pinch something when something occurs or maybe you make tap yourself on a knee. It's like a Pavlovian thing with the...something is that right?Look at the big brain on Eric. Yes, absolutely. So as it turns out, it and you can do this if you're listening to this or any of my panic attack listeners. You this is another slightly meditative technique, but it is a mind training technique. And so if you can think about an emotion so Eric, tell me about a happy memory. Oh, tell you about a happy memory. A goodness gracious. I remember. I mean a deeply emotional happ...like when you think about it, you just immediately just go, man, that was awesome. Yellowstone. I mean, you've you've told me so many stories.Like I don't want to give too much credence to one of...the young one I can still remember without question when I when my dad and my mom got me a drum set. My dad taught me how to play drums and then one, one Christmas Day, then I had one and I was pumped. And I knew that I was tying myself to that instrument forever. And I loved that moment.So if you practice and you stop and meditate on that moment, and what I mean by meditate, it's not like a difficult thing. Just stop, cut everything out and think about it. And then put a physical tie to it and I'm not an NLP specialist, but this is what I've done. So when I want to get amped up and get happy, I hit my chest, which is what I believe Tony Robbins does. So I have a particular memory in my head where when I'm want to get myself revved up, you're going to go on stage, you're gonna give a speech, you're going to do something where you want to be really revved up. I hit myself in that emotion because I've practiced it allows me to amp up my my mood immediately no matter what I'm in, because you've trained your brain to do that. So when you sit there and think about this, and you just go okay, I'm a little down now, I want to be up, then you they talk about anything, anything you do that is not too obvious. So the neuro linguistic people talk about touching their fingers together. They talk about that I hit myself because I want to make it obvious to me. So when I want to amp up, I hit here and my memory is of a very exciting memory. That's called anchoring. And if you want to calm down, then you think of another memory that is very tranquil. So my memory when I want to calm down is me and my family in Barcelona, Spain, eating at a Michelin star rated restaurant with young kids and we're killing it. And every single time I get super stressed, and I just think, oh my god, it's overwhelming. I can't do this. I rub my thigh and I just see my family in front of me. And we're eating this incredible meal. And we're in Barcelona, Spain. And it's really hard to be anxious and calm at the same time. And if I'm not there again, so that's what anchoring technique is. So it is something that has to be practiced. Yeah, I'm not saying anchoring. Like wolf of Wallstreet, like, umbaumba, that was a little too much anchoring with some. I just realized I was hitting my chest and I was like, that's not a little Matthew McConaughey right there. I need to step it down a bit. Not that I mean anchoring in a different way, where like I rub that. So if you're anxious and prone to panic, there's this technique called anchoring. And if you need it now, then there's these, these are the things that I use physically in moments that I try to make sure that if I'm aware of it, and then there's the whole breathing techniques, meditation, exercise, emotional gratitude, all these other things that are out there. But those are all practices. Those are all things that seemed general. What I wanted to do today was say, this is what I do to try and stay calm that anybody can do. And that's kind of where I'm at with it. And what I want the next episode to be is for our soldiers, our frontline workers. Oh, yeah.Because the next episode will be about long term safety. I want to dedicate the next episode to our frontline workers. Eric, would you please describe what we're doing for our frontline workers right now,Man, it's as this is incredibly exciting. So just huge kudos to to you Ken because for a really really long time, you've known the benefits of polyphenols. And we've had all this research just kind of sitting on the fringe and huge thanks also to Angie for always giving us new updates. But the the pandemic just thrust us right into the middle of we've got to start swimming through this information. And then as you began to assemble it, suddenly with the help of of Angie really digging through and finding some cool stuff. We found that the polyphenols themselves actually function as great natural antivirals and anti microbials. And it just so happens that we have polyphenols and Atrantil and it just so happens that we want to give back to people that are fighting hard for all of us. So we have a pilot program where for the people that are working in a role where they happen to be a frontline worker or frontline healthcare worker, they can simply go to Atrantil.com/frontline, let us know that. And then they tell us where they work. And we'll send them a complimentary bottle for a month. But even more than that, keep them up to date with the latest in research out applies to them, and then hopefully begin to recruit some other healthcare institutions. To help us spread this it's this is not an opportunity for us to to make money this is an opportunity for us to hopefully keep healthcare workers available to us, not just for COVID if it happens to come back, but in the future, when the next pandemic occurs when the next new virus makes its debut. We want to see if we can't make a difference and help people naturally and what better way then to arm the people they will take care of the sick.Yeah, absolutely. And once again, we as we always stayed on this show this, this show is not about to give medical advice. We're not here to tell you what to do. Talk to your doctor about everything. This is a show of information. And what we're trying to say here is we are not making any claims. We are not saying that we can do anything but the science speaks for itself. We are talking about the class of molecules called polyphenols. And these polyphenols have been shown to improve immunity. They've been shown to improve gut health. They've been shown to decrease inflammation they've been shown to mitigate cytokine release all these other things, which is why we sat there as a team, the KBS research team that developed Atrantil and I was very honored to be part of a company that I'm very honored to be part of an office that didn't furlough anybody. I'm very honored to be part of a company that said we are willing to front the costs on this and help the frontline workers. Because I'm on it. My kids are on it. My staff is on it. And we're I I have a motral obligation to say why and the you know, the reason why is because we've got science that backs it. We're gonna have this polyphenol page that will actually show it. So, next episode is going to be dedicated to the frontline workers and we're going to talk about cool things like what's your decontamination routine? I'm asking everybody so if you know anybody that is in healthcare or if you watch this show, hit us up. Tell me what your decontamination routine is. I know that Laura your your partner crna she's got a cool thing which comes in the garage and she's got a robe there and she gets naked, puts the robe on, puts the clothes in a bag, shoves it in the wash, doesn't hug her kids goes to the goes to the shower decontaminates and does this and there's a whole process a decontamination station. We want to put everybody's best advice together. Next episode will be our frontline worker heroes episode. How do we help you to help everyone else because you guys are amazing. Oh, shoot, Eric, you're amazing. You're a frontline worker, Look at you.Yeah, I don't want to take credit like that. I mean, because because Laura still spins significant time in the hospital system also. And full disclosure, I really don't have to do that that much anymore. I did for a long time and you know, avenue different avenues take us different places and then it's number one, thank you, but you actually put in a little bit more time in the hospital. I don't want to take credit away from those who are actually getting just, you know, much much more exposure and braving much choppier waters than myself.Oh dude, Stu and I were talking about that, you know, he's from New York and he's got, you know, when his friends do rotations and they think they might be exposed, they don't go home to their spouses, they go get a hotel room. That's brutal. I mean, that's, that's honorable, but when you're in it, I mean, you know, I'm just it's, I'm just happy that maybe we can at least improve somebody's gut health to improve their immune system. That's what I'm hoping for, maybe, because I'm seeing data from Argentina and Italy and different places that these molecules can do more.Definitely. That would be it would be, it would be awesome. We have a long way to go before we get to the end of the road on what's to be discovered in natural supplementation and how it can actually benefit us. Yeah, it's super cool. So this is awesome. This is our first abbreviated podcast, we went. We were aiming for 28 minutes, we went 32 minutes a little overboard. So it's, it seems like you and I can't do anything with that, but it's important. It's an hour's worth of material. Because I'm looking at the clock and I'm like, wow, we're an hour. So it is what it is. So just to recap Episode Five is all about coping and being happy. Learn from our Greek stoics. There's different techniques, you can listen to the episode on that. You can also sit there and reframe things, make it comedic, make it timeline, practice a little bit of negative negativism, so that you will miss the things and if you're anxious and panicked, you will not think right. And ultimately neuro linguistic programming will help you stay calm, a little different from what we normally talk about, but I think it's important.I think it's important to most of all, be safe, like and share. Come back and see us. Hug your family. Tell them that you love them. And we'll hopefully see you soon with some great info. Thank you so much for tuning in. Absolutely. Eric, thank you so much for everything that you do as a crna because you're you're intubating people and stuff you're right there. So thank you for what you do.Well thank you for what you do and making certain that we have have awesome opportunities to explore some science that may just benefit everyone. So I appreciate it.And I want to thank Angie Cook for everything she does for us.Heck yeah and and you know, while we're giving shout outs are going to be home. You were talking I know we're going a little bit longer here, but you were talking about stuttering.No, we're pretty much doing our normal time.Yeah, we're doing our normal stuff. Since since Ken brought up his stuttering if anybody was paying attention we lost a great icon. Right the very beginning of this pandemic and that was Bill Withers and he had a stuttering problem growing up also. And if you're just interested in just want to get caught up on his story, go to Amazon Prime I know has it you can probably find it somewhere else if you don't want to shop with Amazon. But look for his video version of still bill documentary. And that's named after one of his albums named still bill but. Incredible recap of this man who did not care about the fame as much as he just wanted to make great music he just wanted to write songs I mean he was...an awesome documentary. So still bill fought until the day that he died to help kiddos who suffered from stuttering and just really, really cool. So great pick me up anyway.All right, everybody, Episode Number COVID five a little more lighthearted. Thank you for everything that you do all our frontline workers, tune in next week. Share this with anybody who works in the hospital system because we're going to go around and work diligently to figure out how to protect everyone. Alright, y'all take care. Bye bye.

Hey, what's up everybody? Here we are on our COVID files 4.5. That means a point five we have our recurring super smart guests, my friend and colleague, Dr. Stuart Ackerman. Dr. Ackerman, would you please introduce yourself?Sure, Ken. Thanks for having me again. It's my name's Stuart Ackerman. I'm a gastroenterologist with digestive health associates of Texas. And we're glad that I'm here again to discuss more COVID type stuff.So on Dr. Ackerman and I did a COVID 3.5 Episode three and a half episode where we looked into the role of COVID in the digestive tract. Today, we're going to look at some journals and discuss the role of COVID-19 testing specifically the role of antibodies, and you're going to be hearing a lot about this. And so a lot of the shows that we're doing, we're a little ahead of the media. So that's what I'm really happy about is that every time we do a show, and then later the media kind of catches up, so. The one thing I do want to address and if you're watching this on YouTube, Dr. Ackerman, you've changed your look a little bit. I mean, you had this very beautiful luscious beard, you know Wolverine like and it's a little different is that because you're getting all the notoriety from the show or what's going on?Yeah, some sacrifices have to be made. So, as part of my practice, you know, although there's some restrictions because of COVID on doing procedures and seeing patients in person, I still I still have a significant number of emergency and urgent procedures that needs to be done and part of the protocol as recommended by all of our societies is that you've got to wear PPE these protective equipment and some of that is an N95 mask and an N95 mask when it goes over your your mouth and your nose, it doesn't fit to securely if you've got luscious locks like I did. So sacrifices needed to be made.So Dr. Ackerman did this really cool video where he's basically explained the whole process of this, and how certain sacrifices have to be made. So I suggest everybody go to his website. What is your website?It's www.stuartakermanmd.com Stuart Akerman dot comYou posted the video on your website, I hope.Yeah, it's posted on my blog on the website.That's awesome. I love the video. It's so cool. All right. So when you and I were discussing about doing this, and what I like is that you and I talk all the time. And we discuss journals and we do stuff and we kind of debate a little bit and we poke each other and you were you were discussing that, you know, hey, we should do a show on this. Do you want to do like a point counterpoint kind of thing where we should debate and I laughed because I immediately thought of airplane the movie from 1980 you're way too young for this but the airplane.I've done I've googled it.They were doing point CounterPoint. And you know, the whole point of the show is to be so obscenely on either end where the one guy so, a CRNA Jack Kerry that I'm not sure if you know him. Have you met jack? So jack would always laugh, he would use that quote whenever something would happen in the in our endoscopy center. If maybe the scopes weren't ready or a patient showed up late or something got off track, he would always say the same thing which I started thinking about about this. In the point counterpoint in airplane, the CounterPoint guy was like, they bought the ticket, they knew what they were getting into, I say, let him crash. This is not going to be quite like that. Because I think you and I will end up in the same spot ultimately when we're discussing this. So that's kind of where I thought where you and I were hoping to have a kind of a point CounterPoint. But I think we're gonna end up in the same spot. You kind of agree?Yeah, I agree. I think that it's, it's good to sort of flush out both sides of the argument so that you're more well rounded in your discussion. And I think that's kind of how we approach it, you know, that, we're we're looking at the same data. We're drawing our own conclusions, and sort of coming out on both sides of the argument. I think that's, that's good for any kind of evidence based discussion.Totally. And what we're going to talk about today is something that is super important, because it is how do we get the economy back on track? How do we use testing to do it? And we're going to take a look at the evidence based approach to this. And in fact, this is coming so fast that this morning I woke up, and I saw a couple different articles that that came out this morning. One of them was an article on a homeless shelter in Boston. And what they decided to do is do PCR testing on everyone in the homeless shelter, and what they found was that 36% of the people were positive at that moment, and we're gonna discuss what that moment means. So 33% were positive, but only 7.5% admitted to having a cough and only .7 even had a fever. The conclusion was in this article was holy cow, we need to do mass testing so that we can see who's really been infected. And then almost on cue, a New York Times article came out today, where it was a journalist that he opens with a with a classic Mark Moran. I'm a comedy fan Mark Moran line, where the the journalist says, "I know a guy. And because I know a guy and the connections I have, I was able to get my hands on a rapid antibody test. And I took the test, and I was negative. The problem is, I'm not sure it was a valid test." I'm like, this could not have been in a better time this guy did this. And that's what we're going to talk about today. You and I know guys.Yeah, we know people and this is the national and international discussion. Now if you've at all been watching the news, or reading papers or going on Reddit, you know that Italy, Spain, the United States to some degree, they're all discussing this idea of how do we figure out who has immunity? Is there a way for us to figure out who can safely come out of their homes, go back to work, and sort of jumpstart the economy again and jumpstart life? And it sounds dystopian. It sounds like it could be a great idea, it could be a terrible idea and anything in between. But what we don't have is we don't we don't necessarily know the details yet. And I think that's, that's what gets everyone confused, because there's no shortage of media outlets touting this as you know, the next great idea, but is it? I don't know. Well, we're gonna we're gonna get into that I there was an article written by I don't remember who wrote this, but it was just this just happened in the last couple days about ending the lockdown. And they interviewed a Harvard epidemiologist, and he said, well any of the lockdowns are going to be an effort with trial and error. There is no scientific evidence to this, he's like the best I can say this is we're all in a life raft. I'm not sure how we get to shore yet. What we're going to talk about is possibly how to get to shore. Because if you think about it, governments around the world, they need to triangulate the health of the people, the freedom of the population, and there's no scientific consensus. So what I wanted to do today with you, because you're a super smart guy, much smarter than me, let's kick some science. Let's go over some articles, and then play the pros and cons of each side of it. So I'll throw it back in your court. Where do you want to start with this?So I think, you know, we, we have a few articles that we definitely want to discuss as the basis for the arguments about immunity. I think before we jump into it, just to get a better sense for our viewers, we need to explain some of the terminology and the differences between the testing methods to understand what best to use to acutely diagnose someone with COVID-19 versus how do we tell that they're no longer infected, they're no longer sick and whether or not or at least to start that discussion of whether or not they have immunity.Absolutely. So let's start with what is the standard test being done when somebody shows up with a fever to an emergency room?So the standard testing when you're trying to figure out is this person currently infected and sick or...not sick, we know they're sick they're there is something called PCR testing. So in PCR testing, we actually will try to replicate the virus, right? The implication being that you gotta have virus in order to replicate it. So a negative test means there's nothing there to replicate. And therefore, you might have a fever, you might have some chills, you might have a cough, but you don't have COVID-19. On the flip side to that, if you start replicating virus, the virus has to be there. By definition, if a virus is there, you have viral infection. So PCR testing has been considered the gold standard for diagnosis of COVID-19 at this point.And let's talk about the what we did talk about on our last show the kind of pros and cons of that, because what we're learning. And what is fascinating is we're here today, what is the date? April, April 16, to April 16 2020. I mean, we may be eating crow tomorrow, because everybody, this is all changing. But what we're learning now is that a lot of people, I was listening, I don't remember who the virologist was, but he was describing the actual process. If you've had this swab done, it's not very comfortable, they get in there they try and get the cells that try and do this...it...there is some sampling error issues with this and possibly it's not in the back of the throat. We discussed how possibly could be in the stool. So there are some limitations to that particular PCR testing, and a lot of the studies we're going to refer to look at comparison to PCR.Correct. And so with this study is that in order to mitigate that risk for false negatives, they'll swab multiple areas and multiple sites to try to decrease that risk of missing a potentially positive person just because of sampling error.It's funny you say that because now after our last episode, and I'm pretty sure that they listened to our episode and this is why they did this because...I can only assume I can only assume that, that there's a Chinese doctor that saying that we should probably swab the anus and those that have recovered to determine if they have PCR positive. So before somebody is released from the hospital swab their anus,Yeah, right, I think fewer people are going to go to the hospital. We probably shouldn't publicize that.Um, you know, so the PCR testing now explain what the antibody testing is.So, when we talk about antibody response, and you might have heard a lot about this, you know, the buzz words are IGM and IGG. These are the two immunoglobulins that we talked about with infection. And once you have an infection in order to mount a response, that's really what we're talking about. And IGM is the immunoglobulin that comes up first. That's kind of the, the acute fighter for you to try to get the infection under control. And then once you're sort of getting to a point where you're starting to go towards recovery, you start creating idg and idg are more like your your memory, right? That's what that's what reminds your body and how to fight something. So when we talk about vaccinations, where we're actually providing immunity to people, what we really are doing is either providing directly IGG or giving what's called a live attenuated virus a small kind of stunted virus so that your body will see it react and create its own IGG. If I have encapsulate this in one sentence so that you remember the difference between IGM and IGG? I would say that IGM is what wins the battle for you. But IGG is what wins the war.I love that. I've never heard it. Did you...did you just, I mean, Is this yours?Yeah, that's a shower thought.I love that. You're exactly right. So, a lot of people if you've ever been checked for epstein barr virus, which is a very common thing. epstein barr virus will usually have an IGM and an IGG and people will realize that most of us are IGG positive, we've been exposed, which means you saw the virus and you carry these antibodies throughout your life. That is a I love the battle war thing that is awesome.I just think it's an easy way to remember it. And you know, similarly, you know, if you go to have a new patient visit at a primary care doctor and they say to you, well, have you been vaccinated for hep B? Have you been vaccinated for varicella, which is chickenpox. You're like, I don't know, I don't have that little card from when I was five years old. They're going to run some blood tests. And those blood tests are just checking for the varicella IGG and that and certain Hepatitis B IGG is because if you've got them, you're you're good. And if you don't you need either vaccination or boosters, right, because sometimes you might be immune, but that immunity can wane.We're seeing that with varicella. So we're seeing people actually, co host Eric Rieger developed shingles. Oh, wow. And it happens. It's happening to a lot of 40 year olds, a reoccurrence of varicalla, it's happening and so that we got into a long discussion about that when him and I were in Hawaii because he were in Hawaii, and he had a bad shingles outbreak which sort of limits going to the beach. Yeah.But it was all it was all kind of related to that. So yeah, that is a great explanation IGM wins the war. So basically, your your innate immunity The virus comes in your body reacts to it cytokines, they send white blood cells, they kill whatever, hopefully they kill whatever it is. And then they take it back to memory cells that say, look, next time this guy invades the house, make sure that we kill it before it causes any damage like it did this time. And that is initially they go, okay, we're going to send out some early troops, IGM, just in case it's out there, just look for this guy, they get a card, they have a picture, and they go out and then they mobilize the IGG which says you guys are our reserves that you will remember this picture, hopefully for the rest of your life. And if this invader comes back, you go out and handle it.Yeah. And you know, now that now that we understand that I think we can we can jump into some of these articles. And I think...yeah sorry.I was thinking...before we get into the deep aspects of these these other articles, I I was very impressed with when I threw out the Macaque study at you, and you're like, yeah, did you really read it? I'm like I read the abstract. This is a great example of what I did scientifically poorly, which was I read the abstract, and I've been quoting this article. And then you're like, yeah, read the whole article. So in the abstract, and not to sabotage where you were going, but I just want to do this that this is why we need to dive deep into the journals, because in the abstract, they described recently has been reported that discharged patients in China and elsewhere were testing positive after recovering. However, it remains unclear whether the convalescing patients have a risk of relapse or reinfection. So what they did is they gave COVID-19 to Macaque monkeys, they don't say how many they don't discuss anything. What they say is after the symptoms were alleviated, and the specific antibody tested positively, that positively the half of the infected monkeys were re-challenged half of the infected notably neither viral loads in nasal pharyngeal and anal swabs along timeline nor viral replication in all primary tissue at five days post infection was found in reexposed monkeys. And then you said to me yesterday, why don't you read the rest of the article?Right? Because if you I mean, we'll get into this in a little more detail in a couple minutes. But, you know, sort of a spoiler. This is the study. This is the study that's been quoted as the basis for immunity testing and talking about giving people immunity cards because it it's a it's a solid proof that immunity exists and you can't get reinfected. And if you read the abstract and you listen to all the pundits, you would think they they herded every monkey they had in China and created a cohort of thousands. In reality, when you read the study, they had four monkeys. They reinfected half.They reinfected two. So, not to say that the data is not valid, but you know, you have to have it with a grain of salt the size of the Rock of Gibraltar, you know? Yeah. So after I read it, I was like, oh, man, he wasn't kidding. And then they reinfected the two. And then they sacrificed them. And they call them adult Macaques. So then I went down a rabbit hole, typical Google rabbit hole. As it turns out, Macaques can live 20 to 30 years. The average age of these adults were three to five years. SoRight younger, you know, theoretically healthier,Theoretically healthier, much younger, preteens or teen style adults. And I get it that we don't want to sacrifice a whole bunch of macaque monkeys. I'd rather not sacrifice any animal or anything and have some sort of other way to test this. But this is just a great example of the media using this article me using the article and other you know, when Eric and I were talking on another episode I was bringing this up, I'm so thank you for pointing that out to me because that has to be you have to look at the articles and that's what we're going to do today is let's let's dive so I'm gonna throw it in you wherever you want to go with it, run with it, and I'll try and keep up.Alright, so before we hit that study, and we definitely want to talk about that because it's the it's the basis for the whole argument. There's there was a study or data set really published by the Chinese CDC, about the Wuhan experience, and I think it's good just to just to hear the numbers. So basically...Is it this one? Correct.Okay, great. Yeah. So this is the viewpoint characteristic of and important lessons from the Coronavirus 2019 outbreak in China is the title of the article.Yeah. and these and these numbers are current as of February which is at the end of the curve in Wuhan so they are completely valid numbers, you know, that they published. So they had 72,314 cases of COVID-19. And, you know, 62% of those were confirmed with some sort of testing. You know, a lot of those numbers came from people who just had the right clinical syndrome because, you know, much like us, they didn't have enough testing to go around, they weren't able to get all the testing at the same time. So, you know, some of those numbers are the people who were admitted and treated and may have been on ventilators but didn't have a confirmed diagnosis. But it seemed pretty likely that that that they were sick with COVID-19 and 3% of them were in advanced age of over 87. An 87%, though, fell into that 30 to 79 age range, with only 8% of the confirmed cases being younger than 30. So, you know most people fell into that fat part of the age distribution, with a very small percentage of them being on opposite ends of the young or old spectrum. Of the disease and this is where it gets really important. 81% of the cases were mild, right? So you might have had some sniffles, you might have not felt so great. But you didn't end up right, we get worried, right? We talk about ventilator shortages, we talk about, you know, overrunning the capacity of the hospitals. But the vast majority, four out of five, didn't really have much symptoms, if any. Severe cases-14% right, those are your hospitalized patients. And critical the ones that are new upper ventilators are 5%. So you know, if you break down the numbers, it's a very, it's not insignificant, but I think much like is the case in general we sensationalized the worst cases, and we got to be careful about falling into that trap.You know, just for that. I mean, right before we hopped on the call here, I had a friend call me because his father is very sick with COVID-19. So when we say that 80% of the people don't get sick If you're if you have a personal relationship, or it's you, that's 100% of the most important thing that's going on. And that's what's scary is the high infectivity rate of this. And in this in this article, the thing that stuck out to me was COVID-19 rapidly spread from a single city to the entire country in 30 days. And now we have a worldwide pandemic. So even though it's a small, the majority of people will have mild symptoms. But when you take into the account of the people that do get sick, that's how come we're taking it so seriously, but where you're going is how do we get that 80% back to work?Right. Right. And and also just having that knowledge that you know, we'd much prefer you don't get sick, but if you do, don't panic.Yeah. Yeah, everything is everything in the media right now is really bad. I've been talking to a lot of people. The New York Times article, the thing I didn't get into Was that the guy actually thought for sure he had COVID. Because a month before he had the classic symptoms, high fever, whole nine yards tested negative for the flu, and his antibody test was negative. So is it a valid test or not? And there's a lot of people that are like, you know what, I got sick in January, I got sick before we start talking about it here in the US. Has it been around? Has it been, basically, did it come to the US sooner? So who knows where this is all, we're all gonna sort this out.Right. And the case fatality rate in Wuhan was 2.3%. So 2.3% of the confirmed cases, you know, passed away, but 50% of those were critically ill patients. So it does sort of pass through that the sicker you are, the more serious it is.Yeah. And then that's coming out of China. And we have all this new data showing the people that do do worse, and we're starting to you know, partion everybody out. We know that the Italians have a much higher death rate. And then if you look at their demographic, they're older and all this other stuff. It's, we're learning. We're learning that in New Orleans here in the US, we're having a higher fatality rate higher, sicker rate, because of multiple different reasons. And you can start to predict where you're going to need more healthcare resources based on these based on these demographics,right. I mean, there were there were two specific issues that came up in New Orleans that may parallel the Italian subset in that it was a high density area with you know, Mardi Gras going on. And, you know, a lot of the case fatalities happened in a nursing home population, people had advanced disease living in close quarters, you know, so, this this may not be a new paradigm, it may actually be the same paradigm playing out in a specific way. Your audio is out. Sorry, what's your what's your take? What's your summary of this article then?So my summary of this article is that there's a really high number of people who got infected pretty quickly. This is a high infectivity virus. But of those, the vast majority of them did not get that sick, thankfully. But of the ones that did get sick, there are significant number who became critically ill and some who unfortunately even died. So it is serious. We do have to take it seriously and maintain social distancing and do all the things we can to flatten that curve. But if you do get sick, there there for most, you will you will see the other side okay.Yeah. So the other articles that you chose to talk about how does this play into this one?So the second article is answering the question of what is the true denominator? Right? How many people actually are infected, right? We're talking about these rates of infection. But the problem is in just about every spot in the world, we're choosing to because of limited resources, we're choosing to test people who are high risk- the patients who come in with significant symptoms, right? It's not just simply that you show up and say, hey, I've been coughing for a few days, I want to get checked for COVID. If you do that, you're gonna get turned around and told to go home and self quarantine, right? The ones who are sick, having trouble breathing, high fevers, those are the ones that are getting tested. So unfortunately, we're creating our own sample error. And this is this is playing out the world over so the natural follow up question is, what's the true denominator how many people actually are infected and they there's a study called the estimates of undetected rate among SARS CoV2 infected using testing data from Iceland. And they chose to look at Iceland in particular, because they have a sort of a dual phase program. They have the same exact setup as we all do, where they're testing nationally high risk individuals through their national university hospital system. But most of the population again, so they do throw in there, there still is a little bit of sampling bias, but most of the population is eligible for voluntary testing from a private company called deCODE genetics. So because they have a much larger sampling size, this became a good spot to try and figure out what that true denominator is. You know, like I said, there are some limitations because even though most people did fall into the ability to get or eligibility to get tested through this private company, they didn't get everybody. But they did get some nice demographic data. 44% of the people who went and got voluntarily tested had some mild sort of cold or flu symptoms. So these were not asymptomatic individuals by and far, many were, but not all. And based on their data, the results of both the national testing and the private testing 88.7 to 93.6% of infections are undetected infections. They're the ones that we don't know about.Say that one more time. Slowly.Yeah, so they created a range, they didn't have an exact number, but somewhere between 89 to 94% of all true infections. were being undetected to sort of flip that around the other way-we're only diagnosing about 6% of the true infections. So we're, we're leaving a lot on the table by design.Yeah. And so and I have to believe these guys. Now I know that your undergraduate degree was in economics, correct?Yeah, among others,Among others. Well, I got the biggest kick out of reading this article because looking at the math that they're doing, this is basically my insecurity nightmare. I'm like, I'm not walking around whenever I'm like really stressed, I don't have nightmares about being naked. I have nightmares about trying to take a calculus test or something. These stats are stunning. I mean, it almost looks like artwork, what they're doing, so I have to believe them that they're right. Because, it's pretty crazy.Yeah, it took me a little bit to read it and make sure that I understood what the numbers meant. And that and as we discussed it, the the first time around when we're talking about this article, I actually overstated what they were trying to say. Because I misunderstood some of the numbers. So after reading it two, three or four times, it made a little more sense to me. So...Well, I'm glad it made sense to you because it just I just looked at this and it just looks like I'm, I'm, I feel like I'm on goodwill hunting with that chalkboard and trying to solve the, whatever equation it is these things are they did a lot of math on this to extrapolate this to a nationwide thing, which means they had that they had the test. They showed how many people were being missed, and then they extrapolated it to their census.Right, and just to explain what I mean by numerator and denominator in this situation. So the numerator or the number above the line are the number of people who have COVID infection. The denominator is the population, right? So one point of bias in a study like this, that you have to understand whenever you're reading this, is you have volunteers by people who said I'm going to go get tested. You might have plenty of people who said, I'm fine. I'm not getting tested. I don't want to know.I'm not getting paid. So why should I drive over?Yeah, exactly. Maybe I'm gonna get exposed because I'm hanging out with all these people. So the true denominator, the population might be underrepresented. So even though we're saying that 6% of the people are the true and 94% are being undetected, might actually be a smaller number. But I think what you can take away from this is that we're only seeing the drop in the bucket. The question is, how much is that drop?So we have to figure out how much of the population has already been exposed. Because what it comes down to is what this study is telling us.Right.Yeah. So how do we get to the denominator here? What are some different ways to do it?So probably one way to do it, which hasn't been done yet, but is under discussion is random testing, right? Because if here you're saying the selection bias is in that only certain people are coming to you...well, maybe if you go to them, you'll be able to get a better sense of a smattering or a cross section of the population. And this has been one of the discussions now in the media, about in the United States, in particular about certain counties, getting access to testing, and setting up random testing protocols. And some of the discussion has been about mobile command centers, right, going out to people so that you decrease that selection bias.So if you're going to do something like that, it has to be a test that is easy has to be a test that is sensitive and more important to be...Gotta be cheap.Yeah.Gotta be cheap.It's gotta be cheap. You have to have a certain level of sensitivity and specificity. Can you explain to everybody what sensitivity and specificity is?Sure. So harking back to my medical school days, I remember this little, this little memory game that you play to try to remember the difference between sensitivity and specificity. And we call it spin and snout. So when you talk about sensitivity, sensitivity is the number or the percentage of ruling out the disease, whereas specificity is ruling in the disease right, so we want to talk about it. In other words, or another part of that is, if you have a positive test, do you actually have it? What are the chances that that that's a true positive, and you actually are infected? And on the flip side to that, if you have negative exam, how confident are you that you don't have it and we didn't miss the fact that you have it?Yeah. If you want an update on this, I went to Peter Attia MDs website and he does a whole thing on how to get people back up to speed with this epidemiology and in stats kind of terms, because it is confusing, but bottom line is, if you have a high sensitivity, high specificity, it's a good test.Right. Is what it comes down to.Yeah, any screening test you want to have, you want to know that it's picking up the right people and casting away the right people and not telling people incorrectly that they have something. And also not letting us lose the ones who truly have who we don't know.Yeah, so think about this: if we do a test, and it says that I am positive for the antibody, meaning that i have IGG, and it is a false positive, then I go around the world thinking I'm, I'm bulletproof, and I could be infecting people. And then I put myself at risk. If we take a test, and it is a false negative, then we're putting people in saying you don't have this yet, go back in your home, keep quarantine, you can't go back to work and all this other stuff. And that's kind of what we're going to get into right now.Right. The risk of it is it's the antithesis of social distancing.Yeah, yeah. So you pulled up another article, or this is the diagnostic value and dynamic variants of serum antibody, Coronavirus disease. What was your take on this article?So it's an interesting article for sure, but I would caution that when you read it, kind of similar to the monkey article, which we'll discuss next, the numbers are small. And you always have to be careful whenever you're trying to interpret data in a small data set, because the smaller it is, the higher the risk of bias, the unintentional but but bias in the numbers. So it was the first published data that compared the PCR testing, versus well, rather, they took a bunch of patients who were all being tested for COVID with PCR, and the ones who tested negative and therefore were known to not have COVID right? We might walk around thinking we don't have COVID. But we don't know whether we do or don't since people can be asymptomatic for so long. These are patients who we know don't have COVID and use them as the control group compared to the PCR positive patients who are known to have COVID. And what they did is they then looked at those patients, and tested IGM and IGG to know who makes it how much and whether or not that can happen in the control group as well, to say it another way: if I'm infected with COVID, and I make IGM and IGG, but somehow someone in the non COVID group does it as well, how valid is that to know that I'm immune?Yeah.Right? The idea is that only the people who have been exposed and therefore can protect themselves should generate that immunity or should we should be using that as a marker for the immunity so a couple interesting things are that some people that's an important point did not make IGG. And on the on the control side, three people did make IGG. However, a big caveat in that is that they made it a much lower titer. So they had a they made some IGG but less IGG than those people who were exposed to or had active viral replication. So another point I'll make is that this is a it's a very interesting article, and it's been discussed a lot. It's a journal pre proof article. So it does mean that it hasn't been published yet. But the journal has accepted it for publication. It's already been through peer review. So this is still a very legitimate publication. So there were in the two in the two sides, there were 43 patients with PCR positive confirmed COVID-19 and compared to their control group of 33 patients who were these rule out patients, patients who came in they, they thought they were sick and potentially had COVID, but the PCRs were never positive. And another good point I would make is, these patients have multiple testing points. They were tested at multiple times. So to decrease...Multiple times in the same location, though right? Nasopharyngeal swabbing.Right. So so they're trying to control for that. Well, what if there, we missed it the first time, right? So then they're going to repeat it again a few days, which gives you a trend over over time. So but but I agree, the point being that it was all nasopharyngeal swabs, I think oral too nasal and oral, yeah. So limited to one type. So you can still you still have that bias of did you not do it adequately? You would hope it's only and they don't mention this, whether it was or not, that's it only a certain few people who are doing the testing, so that you're controlling for variables of maybe some who do it better than others. And maybe get better sampling. So they don't mention that but because it was all done in one site, you have to assume for the moment that there's only a few people who are doing the testing, so they know what they're doing. The sensitivity, I'm sorry.Oh, I was just gonna say what I found interesting in this is this suspected infected patients were discharged from the hospital once the results of two time molecular tests in 24 hours were negative. So basically, in my interpretation of this understanding, now, the limitations of the testing, they may have sent people out that were not PCR positive, that could later develop IGG and IGM. So when you get into the sensitivity and specificity of this, it is this is this is as good as we can get. But it may change as we gather more data.Right. Right. So the sensitivity specificity for IGM and IGG to diagnose an infection was 48% and 88.9% of sensitivity. So IGM was 48 and IGG was 88.9 and 100% and 90.9% specificity, right? So, in other words, if you had IGM, that meant that you had the infection because it's an acute marker that would only happen if you've been acutely infected. But if you didn't have IGM, it did not mean that you weren't infected. Right? So just to sort of wrap your head around that it's really really good as a marker if you have it, but if you don't have it doesn't give you a whole lot of confidence.I love how we're doing this because the media just glosses over it and just confuses people. My patients are calling me all day long asking all these questions.Yeah, it's important to understand what it is right and the media doesn't kind of give you a primer to explain the background of what they're talking about. They just give you a two minute soundbite and you're sort of left on your own to interpret it. Exactly. Sorry to interrupt go on. No no problem at all. So they found that as you would expect, given that IGM comes first and then IGG follows IGM titers would rise and then they'd fall because as you get over the acute infection, you no longer need your IGM. But the IGG titer would rise until they were 100% in those people that produced IGG, right, so the ones that were making IGG made them. It was always higher, for whatever reason, and this, this is not clearly explained, but the titers of IGG were always higher than the titers of IGM. I think it's just something to sort of keep in the back in your mind just because we don't yet know what titers means. So it's just getting all the data you can and trying to figure out what it means going forward is important. The IGG positivity rate was over 90 was up to 90%. And it didn't really change it once...from the time that you were virus positive with PCR to your post infectious viral negative state. But the titer of IGG was almost double once you pass the infection, which that starts giving you that glimmer of hope about immunity, right. Because as you're fighting the infection, it's not as important to remember, you need someone who's actively on the front line. And that's where your IGG IGM helps you. But once you're done, you want to you want to remember that you want to be stone cold, you want to know that if you get any kind of exposure again, your body is ready to jump into action.I mean, this is just getting back to your analogy, what you have are some special, we've got special ops that have a picture of something and they say when this thing shows up, kill it before it does anything. And all they do is wait. That's what the IGG is doing is waiting for the possibility of seeing that and they just get after it.Right. So just to sort of talked about the the the sort of underside of this, three of the 33 patients in the control group are IGG positive, right. So that that makes you step back just a little bit in saying that, well, if you got the IGG, you're good, right? But the important thing is that the titers were lower. So they talk about the the units, the units of positivity for this assay, were 1010 units per milliliter, and those that were in the control group had no one higher than 15. So they were sort of a low kind of weak positive compared to those in the active group, who all had much higher at least twice the normal titers. So that might be an important piece of information, right that not only figuring out who is IGG but how much maybe there's a threshold value that confers immunity. 27 of the known COVID patients has IGG testing during the infection, three of them didn't make any IGM or IGG, so whoever didn't make IGG also didn't make IGM. It's interesting because the way I look at this is probably different than almost everybody who reads this article. I'm sure everyone who looks at it and it's valid is gonna say certain people don't make it. What I look at it is that's kind of an amazing thought. 10% of the people didn't make IGM or IGG and still fought off the virus somehow. So there's some sort of mechanism of secondary mechanism to be able to successfully defeat the virus beyond this, the typical virology that we know about.Well, I okay, so point CounterPoint. What if they're catching this person at a point in time where the IGM is dipped down and the IGG is coming up? So you're going to have two overlapping...Right you're in a window right?You're in a window. So did they check them at the wrong time?Right. That's a great thought. The catch is they did this at least three times separated over several days, going all the way out to 28 days post infection. So I suppose it's possible, but given what we know about the curves of IGM and IGG, even if you think maybe you were shifted over in time, you should have caught it somewhere. And maybe you don't get one maybe maybe you only get one, maybe you don't get both. We should have seen something.So what you're describing is that people that had an innate immunity, but they did not develop the adaptive immunity. In other words, their body's initial response may have been effective enough, but they did not develop. So those people, the question is, can they be reinfected? Will they have a possibility of the virus, having a resurgence and come back and hit them again? Interesting.Yeah. So that's the discussion. The discussion is do these people have immunity now, right? If you're making the supposition that you need IGG to have immunity, and these people can't make IGG, are they subject to reinfection? I would argue it goes even deeper. We're trying to get serum right draw blood from people who have had infection, to look at IGG titers to understand how much is needed for immunity. How much is enough? I would want to know about the serum of these people. What makes it different? Is there something is there a different way that we could be looking at this to confer immunity? Is there something else that maybe can work in concert?Hmm. So here you have the subset of people which is a significant amount and it's small study 10%. Right. So a subset of people that survived did not produce the antibodies, and going forward and some sort of weird society where we have to have immunity passports to go around. Peter Attia was talking about when you get bracelets for people to show I'm this I'm that which is gets a little bit big brother-ish and it gets real scary thinking about that. But there could be a subset of people that will not produce antibodies, but their innate immunity prevents them from getting infected. And we can't withhold them from going to work. We can't stop them. That's a fascinating observation. I did not see it that way. I was I was of everybody else that read this article and just went 10% didn't produce it. So...Yeah, but it's going back to what you said. I mean, this is this is why you gotta analyze articles and you got to have multiple people looking at it because people can read articles and have the same data and draw completely different conclusions.Much like everything else.Much like life. Let's, let's jump into the sort of article the day before we start talking about the pros and cons of these immunity badges or licenses. The we want to talk about the the Macaque monkey study. And...What's the only reason why I threw that out first not to describe it, but it just shows why you have to pay attention and read the articles yourself and have two different people interpreting it differently. Right. So it's a very small study. It is pre-publication, and it has not been peer reviewed. So it is being touted as kind of the be all and end all for the discussion about immunity. But it is a very much in the pubescent stages of research.It's fascinating because I heard Dr. Fousey on a CNN news thing. We believe that because of the macaque monkey study, and then I heard Dr. Hotez go on Joe Rogan. He said we're we're sure that we can develop immunity because there was a macaque monkey study and everybody just keeps saying the macaque monkey study the macaque monkey study. I don't think there's another one out there. I tried to look I didn't find one. This is the one that I found.Yeah, no, I did the same. And, you know, like I said, it's it's fascinating but has to be taken with a big grain of salt. So let's, let's jump into it. Yeah. The whole reason why they did this study, it was prompted by reports of patients who have been discharged and considered cleared from virus and then they were coming back with reinfection or raising that question of is this a relapse or reinfection? You know the difference being relapse, that you have the same infection you did and you just got sick again, versus reinfection that you actually got sick a second time. And it implies that there's no immunity.Big difference. So they followed four rhesus monkeys. And they infected all four of them. They actually gave them inoculations of the SARS CoV2 virus and they developed a lot of those typical symptoms that we're seeing in people around the world. Once they the symptoms were alleviated, and the viral replication as judged by, as you said, respiratory and animal swabs and PCR had all subsided, all appropriate antibodies, so IGM and IGG and there's actually a whole bunch of other ones we didn't even touch on. They were all there, right? So they sort of validated the subset of the four monkeys by saying these all created everything appropriately and therefore, we can look at them for some information. They euthanized one of the monkeys from the start. And they basically took various organs and tested the organ tissue to see if they would be PCR positive and they found evidence of viral replication all over the body: nose, pharynx lung, gut, spinal cord, heart, skeletal muscle and bladder all displayed PCR positive COVID at the time of infection. Two of the Monkey so now you're down to three monkeys. Two of the monkeys were then re challenged, where they inoculated them a second time with SARS CoV2. So again, this is talking about reinfection, not reactivation. All the monkeys. So all three monkeys were then tested for viral load. And none of them were found to be PCR positive. So the one monkey who was left as a control and the two monkeys who were re inoculated, none of them had PCR positive disease at this point. They then took one of those reinfected monkeys euthanized that monkey as well did the same kind of testing, looking at all those different organs and trying to see if they were PCR positive and found that they were negative in the tissueIn all of the tissue and that's pretty shocking how disseminated that virus was in the first one. So that's impressive.Yeah. So very interesting data very interesting information throws out a lot of very positive possibilities here now for infection and the ability to fight off reoccurrence. But, gotta gotta to be very skeptical, right? I mean, for monkeys, you know, they all displayed antibodies. And from the last study we looked at, we know that that's not true, right? If you have those 43 patients, you know, sort of looking at that and say, if I only took four of them, and looked at those four people, and they all made antibodies, I draw conclusions from the study. Well, I guess everyone makes antibodies, but we know that's not true.Yeah, that is a that's a very interesting analysis on a study that's being thrown around in the media like crazy. Nobody's talking about that. And if you read their abstract, I'll say it one more time, like I did. It seems like they had 1000 monkeys. So great job on interpreting that and getting into the details and you know, having the time during Passover and stuff to go into detail like that, because...Yeah, I mean I just got a cup of coffee, got some matza just sat down and went through all these studies.Well, you're better than me because it's it's like drinking out of a firehose, I try to sort through which ones I'm going to take a deep dive in. And I like doing this with you. I like doing these point five episodes where we do do deep dives. And, and you challenged me to look at some of these studies. So I had a long interview yesterday with Matt Atwood, who's the CEO of a company that has access to rapid point of care IGG, IGM testing, where they actually have the ability to take a finger prick like a glucose stick, and then you can see if you're IGM positive, IGG positive. And it's interesting because you had also sent me that study and he sent it to me about the Laredo was it El Paso or Laredo?Laredo yeah...Laredo. Yeah. Why don't you go ahead and tell everybody about what kind of a fiasco that was?Well, the short version is best intentions for sure. The city of Laredo ordered, I think half a million testing kits to try and stimulate their economy, right? They wanted to...Just to clarify, it was half a million dollars for 20,000 kits. So they spent half a million dollars.Oh, thank you. And they basically wanted to go out and test everyone and see if they could figure out who's IGG positive and say that those people can go back to work and sort of get Main Street running again. And it turned out that the kits were not quite up to snuff. And unfortunately, it was a bit of a loss for the city of Laredo.So people are asking like, well, how is this happening? And I just want to just clarify this a little bit. It's what happened in China is exactly what President Trump is doing here. When they realized that they were behind the curve on this, and they needed masks and gloves and testing kits, China went to facilities like toy manufacturers, and they went to different manufacturing companies and said, you're going to stop production on that. Here's your parts to make masks, here's your parts to make test kits. And here's how you're going to do it, figure it out. So these were not already pre designed medical locations. They were doing what the government told them to do. And then they made a bunch of these things. They shipped them out, the US bought a bunch. And then we realized...a lot of these things are not effective, and they shipped them back, discussed possibly suing this and so then China had to step it up and be like, well, we can't just force you to do this. Well, as it turns out, there's a bunch of that stuff still floating around in the US. And there are some companies that are saying, well, I'll just repackage it and sell it. And that's kind of what happened to these guys. So for instance, our group, I got an email from somebody in our group that said, we have access to these IGG kits. And I looked into it and as it turns out, I, we contacted the manufacturered for company and they're like, yeah, we got a bunch of those kits that are not valid because they're not certified. So a company out of Houston bought us. And then they contacted our group and offered to sell it for dirt cheap. And it's, you get what you pay for, I guess.Yeah, I mean, it definitely was a great deal. They were super cheap, but...couldn't really do much with them unfortunately.And then from as doctors, imagine, if we tested people with an unreliable test, and we said look, the we all you and I carry liability all the time, but at least we can say this test was FDA shown to be this the sensitivity specificity, so there is a 95% chance that the information I'm going to give you as correct, you're going to assume and I'm going to assume that there's a slight possibility that it could be wrong. If you're positive, then what we're going to do is send you for another more distinct test, which costs a lot more money, it's going to be serum and that's kind of where I think this needs to go. You do mass screening, like we did with well, quite honestly, HIV, I remember we did the rapid HIV and then you do the the Elisa test or whatever it was afterwards to try and really determine what's going on. So we have these people that if we can screen them and get the IGG IGM and then do a secondary test and prove that they're that they have antibody. Then now the next discussion is alright, Dr. Akerman. We've got IGG people running around with their badge saying I can work I can do things. What are the limitations of that?Well, I think there's there's some issues that are...and I want to be clear, I, I agree that we need to figure something out. And this opens up a world of possibilities. But we're in the infancy because there's a lot of questions that haven't been answered. So first of all, do we know are there specific titers that confer immunity? Because if there are, a simple little blood test that just says yay or nay might not be enough, right, we have to make sure that all the manufacturers are assessing at the same level to call that positive. Right? If we know that you need titers of 20, let's say, and you have a test that calls it positive at 10. Right? You're creating a ton of false positive results. So you got to be really, really careful about that. And, you know, again, we haven't answered that question just yet. Is there the possibility of reinfection? So what does immunity mean? Right, we have all this data now coming out of South Korea because they've had over 100 people come back who were discharged from hospitals being told that they've cleared infections and that they're no longer sick. And they've actually come back and have retested positive by PCR. But what does that mean? Does that mean that they've gotten the infection again? Does that mean that maybe they were kicked out too quickly? Maybe that their viral loads had dropped? Or they simply had sampling error. Right. When they got tested the day before, maybe they just didn't pick it up in the right spot.Exactly. So the other articles that you talked about bringing that up, but it is fascinating, because this is just case reports coming out of South Korea. And everybody that looks at this nobody wants to believe that you can get reinfected like like that is like the the that is a doomsday prediction. So we're going to say, look, the macaque monkey study which you've kind of already said take it with a grain of salt, the size of Gibraltar and then this the IGG so it's the good news is looking at SARS CoV from 2003...they those people have been looked at years later a decade later, and they've maintained their immunity. Now, I challenge that there are some possibilities that these tests, although they're COVID-19 specific, what if some of these people test positive because they have IGG to SARS CoC? That was right. That was an argument that a PhD brought to me. Because he did...I was on the I was on a zoom call yesterday with a virologist who did the original research on that and he's like, doing this he's like, well, we're seeing that some people can develop antibodies which made a mistake that being said, I don't know that these fingerpricks there was a article that just came out today, that detection of SARS CoV2. They found the binding protein to be specific so the test you can still do a test specific for SARS CoV2. And I'm not sure if these IGG IGM are can actually do determine that. So more studies are gonna have to be kind of vetted for this.Yeah. And I think that, you know, it begs the larger question, what do you do with those false positive results, especially if you don't know that they're falsely positive? Right? Again, like you mentioned earlier, patient could be walking around thinking that they're bulletproof. And it turns out, not only are they not bulletproof, they might now get the infection and pass it along to everyone. It becomes part of the larger discussion about herd immunity, right? Because if we're getting all these people that now are immune, and we're putting those people out in the population, then the people that they're coming across are not as at risk. Right, but we don't know what that critical number is to create that herd immunity.Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot to discuss and clearly you and I can get together and try and vet some of this stuff as the literature comes out. I appreciate you taking the time to do that. Unfortunately, it's starting my telemedicine time right now. But where can people find you Dr. Akerman?The easiest way is to check out my website. There's a lot of information about my practice there and I've been trying to update my blog with useful information. And that's at www.stuartakermanmd.com.Yeah, so clearly this is a super smart guy watch his videos he actually has a pretty good sense of humor and has some pretty interesting stuff and his the videos you're sending me your kids which we will not discuss today was pretty pretty funny also so quarantine in the Akerman house should be a some sort of big brother type thing where it's just funny it's hilariousYeah, we're thinking of pitching it to the networks in the near future.Alright buddy, I appreciate you taking the time so go to stuartakermanmd.com You can reach me at on Instagram at kbmdhealth and kbmdhealth.com for the website. We are currently oh good news, we now have brought a leak on our website. So BrocElite, Atrantil, and CBD. We're having some pretty good results with that we can get into that later but today was much more of an academic discussion. Thank you so much, Dr. Akerman for joining now I got to get to the real job.Thanks Ken. Have a great day.Alright buddy. Have a great day.

Microbiome researcher and scholar of integrative gut health Lucy Mailing, PhD. is back on the podcast with me today. Lucy just completed her doctoral degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she studied the effects of diet and exercise on the gut microbiome in states of health and disease. She has authored numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and recently won the Young Scientist Award at the International Scientific Conference on Probiotics, Prebiotics, Gut Microbiota, and Health in 2019. On this podcast, Lucy discusses her recent talk at the 2020 IHH-UCSF Symposium on Nutrition and Functional Medicine. The topic is myths and misconceptions about the microbiome - and some of these are quite surprising! We discuss gut testing methods and why some are better than others. Lucy explains why you consider skipping probiotics after a course of antibiotics and shares what to do instead to support repopulation of a healthy microbiota. She also discusses some of the best and worst gut-health supplements. Here’s the outline of this interview with Lucy Mailing: [00:00:30] Why care about the gut microbiome? [00:01:37] Previous podcast with Lucy: How to Optimise Your Gut Microbiome. [00:03:52] Unschooling and self-directed learning. [00:04:40] Book: The Carpenter and the Gardener by Alison Gopnik. [00:05:45] Podcast on unschooling: How to Support Childhood Cognitive Development, with Josh Turknett, MD. [00:06:16] Lucy speaking at UCSF: Microbiome Myths & Misconceptions (on Facebook). Slides from her talk. [00:07:46] Lucy's talk at the Ancestral Health Symposium 2019: Modulating the gut microbiome for health: Evidence-based testing & therapeutic strategies. [00:09:06] Myth: Culture-based stool testing is accurate. [00:11:00] Companies currently using 16S: Thryve and BiomeFx. [00:11:28] Podcast: How to Use Probiotics to Improve Your Health, with Jason Hawrelak. [00:12:16] Diagnostic Solutions GI-MAP. [00:14:34] Metagenomics; Onegevity. [00:14:56] Doctors Data and Genova have now added PCR (polymerase chain reaction) to their tests. [00:15:33] Parasites Blastocystis and Dientamoeba fragilis. [00:17:35] Jason Hawrelak’s course: Blastocystis & Dientamoeba: Gastrointestinal Pathogens or Commensal Symbionts? [00:17:39] Blastocystis.net. Book: Thoughts on Blastocystis, by Christen Rune Stensvold. [00:18:45] Gut dysbiosis is driven by oxygen leaking into the gut; Study: Rivera-Chávez, Fabian, Christopher A. Lopez, and Andreas J. Bäumler. "Oxygen as a driver of gut dysbiosis." Free Radical Biology and Medicine 105 (2017): 93-101. [00:19:04] Blastocystis might buffer oxygen influx, preventing the overgrowth of other pathogens. Study: Tsaousis, Anastasios D., et al. "The human gut colonizer Blastocystis respires using Complex II and alternative oxidase to buffer transient oxygen fluctuations in the gut." Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology 8 (2018): 371. [00:19:40] Blastocystis colonization correlates with a higher bacterial diversity; Study: Audebert, Christophe, et al. "Colonization with the enteric protozoa Blastocystis is associated with increased diversity of human gut bacterial microbiota." Scientific reports 6 (2016): 25255; And the opposite result: Nourrisson, Céline, et al. "Blastocystis is associated with decrease of fecal microbiota protective bacteria: comparative analysis between patients with irritable bowel syndrome and control subjects." PloS one 9.11 (2014). [00:20:02] Myth: We know what a “healthy” gut microbiome looks like. [00:20:06] Lucy's blog on the elusive “healthy microbiome”: A new framework for microbiome research. [00:22:43] Microbial signatures of dysbiosis. [00:26:06] Myth: Everyone needs comprehensive gut testing. [00:27:37] Ivor Cummins and Malcom Kendrick podcasts: Should You get a CAC Heart Scan or Not? Part 1 and Part 2. [00:28:14] Myth: Breath testing is a reliable way to test for SIBO. [00:28:27] Lucy's blog posts on testing for SIBO: What the latest research reveals about SIBO and All about SIBO: Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth. [00:29:40] Culture-based testing methods underestimate the number of bacteria in the small intestine by about a hundredfold; Study: Sundin, O. H., et al. "Does a glucose‐based hydrogen and methane breath test detect bacterial overgrowth in the jejunum?." Neurogastroenterology & Motility 30.11 (2018): e13350. [00:30:53] Orocecal transit time ranges from ten to 220 minutes; Study: Connolly, Lynn, and Lin Chang. "Combined orocecal scintigraphy and lactulose hydrogen breath testing demonstrate that breath testing detects orocecal transit, not small intestinal bacterial overgrowth in patients with irritable bowel syndrome." Gastroenterology 141.3 (2011): 1118-1121. [00:32:43] SIBO might not produce enough hydrogen to result in a positive breath test. Sundin, O. H., et al. "Does a glucose‐based hydrogen and methane breath test detect bacterial overgrowth in the jejunum?" Neurogastroenterology & Motility 30.11 (2018): e13350. [00:34:36] Myth: Most bloating, distension, gas is from SIBO (and we neeed to kill the overgrowth). [00:34:45] Small intestinal dysbiosis, not bacterial overgrowth is what underlies a lot of gut symptoms; Study: Saffouri, George B., et al. "Small intestinal microbial dysbiosis underlies symptoms associated with functional gastrointestinal disorders." Nature communications 10.1 (2019): 1-11. [00:36:09] Mark Pimentel's research group. [00:37:04] How to support the gut ecosystem; serum bovine immunoglobulins (SBI). [00:38:25] Orthomolecular SBI Protect. [00:38:38] Myth: A high-fat diet is bad for the gut. [00:38:52] Misconceptions from the scientific literature on high-fat diets. [00:39:54] Diet alters the gut microbiome composition within 48 hours; Study: David, Lawrence A., et al. "Diet rapidly and reproducibly alters the human gut microbiome." Nature 505.7484 (2014): 559-563. [00:41:06] The Hadza hunter-gatherer microbiota cycles with the seasons; Study: Smits, Samuel A., et al. "Seasonal cycling in the gut microbiome of the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania." Science 357.6353 (2017): 802-806. [00:42:41] Ketones may support gut barrier function. Study: Peng, Luying, et al. "Butyrate enhances the intestinal barrier by facilitating tight junction assembly via activation of AMP-activated protein kinase in Caco-2 cell monolayers." The Journal of nutrition 139.9 (2009): 1619-1625. [00:44:45] Myth: More exercise is always better.  [00:46:05] Zinc carnosine may reduce exercise-induced gut permeability; Study: Davison, Glen, et al. "Zinc carnosine works with bovine colostrum in truncating heavy exercise–induced increase in gut permeability in healthy volunteers." The American journal of clinical nutrition 104.2 (2016): 526-536. [00:46:45] Myth: You should always take probiotics after antibiotics. [00:47:51] Probiotics can delay the restoration of the native microbiota after antibiotics; Study: Suez, Jotham, et al. "Post-antibiotic gut mucosal microbiome reconstitution is impaired by probiotics and improved by autologous FMT." Cell 174.6 (2018): 1406-1423. [00:49:20] A better strategy: supporting the gut epithelial cell with butyrate; Study: Rivera-Chávez, Fabian, et al. "Depletion of butyrate-producing Clostridia from the gut microbiota drives an aerobic luminal expansion of Salmonella." Cell host & microbe 19.4 (2016): 443-454. [00:51:37] Myth: Prebiotics work the same for everyone and always feed good bacteria. [00:52:45] Blog post: Resistant Starch: Is it Actually Good for Gut Health? [00:53:12] Cooking food affects microbiome; Study: Carmody, Rachel N., et al. "Cooking shapes the structure and function of the gut microbiome." Nature Microbiology 4.12 (2019): 2052-2063. [00:54:27] Variable glycemic responses to Fructooligosaccharide (FOS) and Galactooligosaccharide (GOS); Study: Liu, Feitong, et al. "Fructooligosaccharide (FOS) and galactooligosaccharide (GOS) increase Bifidobacterium but reduce butyrate producing bacteria with adverse glycemic metabolism in healthy young population." Scientific reports 7.1 (2017): 1-12. [00:55:32] Myth: All herbal antimicrobials are safe and effective. [00:56:13] Grapefruit seed extract inhibits a broad spectrum of bacteria and is toxic; Study: Heggers, John P., et al. "The effectiveness of processed grapefruit-seed extract as an antibacterial agent: II. Mechanism of action and in vitro toxicity." The Journal of Alternative & Complementary Medicine 8.3 (2002): 333-340. Presentation by Jason Hawrelak, PhD: Phytotherapy in the Treatment of Dysbiosis of the Small and Large Bowel. [00:57:03] Herbs that have been found to be useful: Atrantil, Iberogast, triphala. [01:00:44] Current projects: blogging, consultation, creating training courses. [01:03:02] Lucy’s website, support Lucy’s work on Patreon.

Key Takeaways: Dr. Ken is trying to bridge the gap between traditional medicine and natural solutions. Why are we seeing so many gastrointestinal issues? Leaky gut can lead to inflammation, which can lead to autoimmune disease and cancer. The overall health of the American public is declining. The good news is that with the abundance of information out there, a lot of Dr. Ken’s patients are self-taught. There are three things that cause leaky gut 1. Infection or bacterial overgrowth. 2. A molecule called zonulin. 3. Diet. The problem is that nobody is Dr. Ken’s field believes in candida. We’re not going to be better than Mother Nature. Finding a natural solution helps keep the rest of your gut health in balance. Dr. Ken has developed a product called Atrantil to help the gut microbiome. People are not getting enough polyphenols, which can often be found in a Mediterranean diet. Why is having a healthy gut important?   Episode Summary: Dr. Ken believes we can use natural solutions to help heal the gut. He doesn’t believe in ‘bad’ bacteria, only that they’re just growing or living in the wrong place and we can leverage the power of Mother Nature to help heal ourselves. When our gut is out of alignment, we can develop symptoms like brain fog, fatigue, and even depression. Dr. Ken shares in today’s episode how you can bring your gut health back to normal and what are the causes of a leaky or inflamed gut.   Guest Bio: Dr. Ken Brown received his medical degree from the University of Nebraska Medical School and completed his fellowship in Gastroenterology in San Antonio, Texas.  He is a board-certified gastroenterologist and has been in practice for over 15 years with a clinical focus on inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome. Dr. Brown has declared that his mission is to bridge the gap between medical & natural science.   Resources for a Younger Lifestyle: Dr. Robyn Benson’s Free Youthful Aging eGuide Dryoun.com — Download Dr. Youn’s free eBook, Ten Things Every Plastic Surgery Patient Must Know. Kennethbrownmd.com Atrantil.com Lovemytummy.com/benson — Use code "Benson" at checkout for 15% off of your purchase of Atrantil. Evanbrand.com   Quotes:   “All health begins and ends in the gut.”   “It’s often said in biology, the more complex something is, the more important it is.”   “You have to continue to support the bacteria that are there and get rid of the bacteria that are living in the wrong place.”   “Now we realize the gut actually has a direct conduit to cause neuroinflammation, brain inflammation, that can lead to anxiety, depression, autism, CTE.”

Okay, welcome KBMD health fans and gut check project fans, it's time for COVID installment number two. These are the code files where essentially, myself and Dr. Brown, a co host we're going to address the latest in research for coronavirus as it applies to healthcare and our community. Dr. Brown, how are you doing?You know I'm doing is I'm doing well considering the state of how a lot of people are probably struggling through this process. Once again, the COVID files I think you and I really enjoy joking around and stuff, but this is not something that I want to joke around with today. So the show right now we're becoming much more sciency than we've ever been. And it is because I want to make sure that anything we discuss has a reference to it. So let's begin by saying that this is a show and not intended to treat diagnose anyone. I'm a medical doctor. With the current state of anxiety I'm trying to sift through hundreds of articles being published daily because this is a global problem. And I am fortunate enough to have our secret weapon which this week I was on Dr. Chang Raun's in Darrel Hill summit with Dr. Hyman and some other incredible people, Dr. Pompa, Dr. O'Brien and all these people and I, I told them all that Angie Cook is our secret weapon. And then on the CBOE SOS summit yesterday with Chevonne Sarna, I let it drop again. So Angie, thank you so much for working hard and diligently with me to try and get through all of this literature. Cats out of the bag. She is a certified nutritionist and Rn one of the smartest people I've ever met, and she sent me this email right before we went on. Today the numbers are staggering and the stories of what our healthcare workers are facing is heartbreaking. Please be careful. So what we're going to talk about today is mind blowing, to be honest. And I'm just going to be honest. In the sense this is no, this is not opinion. This is not based off of anxiety, or based...this is strictly the science. And this is not the time that I want to, I want to be perceived as I mean, because one of the concerns Eric, you and I've talked about this, I want to shout everything that I've learned from the rooftops, but I don't want to come off as somebody that's saying that I want to try and make money off of this particular crisis. That's not at all what I'm trying to do here. What I'm trying to do is show you the science. So that being said, I've got so much new information. Last time on our COVID one files, we're going to say how we're going to talk about what you can do with lifestyle and supplements. We're still gonna do that. Absolutely. And I actually learned a lot from being on Chang Raun's summit. You can look that up. It's Raun, Chang Raun. Some of his experts are functional medicine experts that understand the supplements better than I do. And I took notes while I was there. And I was a panelist on that. And the stuff that I talked about was really well received by his panelists as well. So everything is a moving target right now. So this is going to be I'm calling it a mic dropping show. Because if I don't get too geeky, and that's your job, Eric makes sure that I don't go into the weeds and be a nerd because I am a nerd to the nth degree. Angie and I have been nerding out crazy, like hair, you know, like reading articles and your hair just stands up because you're like, oh my gosh, there's no way this is here. Nobody else is talking about this. So if I come across here, and you're like, I've never heard of this. I feel like this it's because you're not spending 12 hours a day with the...a beast like Angie and I. She's uploaded over 20,000 articles to our Mendeley account. So I remember Dave Asprey when I listened to one of his podcasts. He's like, let me log into my Mandalay. I'm like, I wonder if his Mendeley is as big as my Mendeley, which is a repository of journal articles. So I'm super excited to get into this show. So that's my initial thoughts. That was my ramble. And I will, I will have everything else will be scientific data from here on out.Well, let's go ahead and start there. So we last on episode one. Basically, we broke down the various aspects of what is coronavirus? How is it directly affecting and we even talked about the stresses on resources. But now on today's show, not only do we want to leave everyone kind of with an idea on what they can do to supplement their own diet and the day to day things that they could be doing to basically improve their immune system as well as basically weather the storm better. Well, let's get a little bit more into the science of what's been some of the more recent data that I know that you and Angie shared because we've we've had a lot of conversations between last show, you going and doing now virtual clinic, me going and having meetings on transitioning the ASC over to possibly new ICU rooms, which is something we've never had to do before. So I'll let you kind of take it away there.Yeah. So you know, this is this is daily. It's hourly changing, let's be honest, and this is a global problem. So there's so many studies coming in what I think that makes us a little bit unique on the gut check project, is what we're doing is we're looking at the the data being published right now. 2020, late March, everything's been published, but then because of trying to link it to the 2003 we are able to look at articles back then also, because the SARS COV-2 virus structurally is extremely similar to the SARS first virus the COV. So a lot of these articles are a transitioning like that, where you can say that this is this and then because of that the links allowed us to find other things. So, a lot of what I'm going to talk about is preprints, meaning that I have access to articles that aren't even in publication yet. But the scientists are so passionate about it, that they're just sending it out. A lot of it comes from China because they have the most experience. I believe that when we did our first COV files last week, I don't know what was their 160,000 cases, something like that. I don't remember.Yeah, they confirmed and that's that's a pretty important thing. So we talked about that last week to confirm just because we're increasing confirm number doesn't necessarily mean Doomsday. It's just that we're able to actually confirm that a number of people actually have it. However, it does become a data point that we need to reconcile with. And we will yeah, we can we can get into that. But I just want to tell you I just looked about an hour ago and right now, the confirmed cases are 577,495. Mm hmm. That has jumped a bunch. There has been 26,447 deaths. I'm getting a lot of emails from healthcare workers who, when these patients are funneled to one institution, like my hospital, that institution, those health care workers are putting themselves on the front line. They are, they are the heroes. They are defending all of us by taking care of this and I just want to say thank you to every healthcare worker that is working shiftwork, that is in hospital, because you are the frontline of this and many times you don't even know if the person you're treating has this extremely virulent virus virulent being very contagious. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.Yeah, without question. Thank you. Now, I this is not a doomsday podcast at all. In fact, to the contrary, what this is going to be is a complete bright light on this whole viral pandemic. I feel like we have spent this whole time figuring or looking at data and piecing together things that will bring hope to everyone. And that's what this podcast is going to be: how do you actually protect yourself? This is based off science. This is based off a bench research. I understand that some doctors would say, well, we need a randomized placebo control trial. We are not in an era right now where we need to do that. I understand that that is ultimately what we want to do. But in this I just want to protect people with things that we know have been around a long time. It doesn't have a whole lot of downside. So I have a moral obligation to do this and to share it with everyone here.Definitely, without question.All right, so let's let's talk about transmission, some of the newest information that's been learned. So everybody if anybody's new to the show, if anybody's wondering like, Why in the world is gastroenterologist talking about COVID19? Well, everyone's talking about cobit 19. So, doesn't matter if you're human, you're talking about it, but it's actually specifically relevant to me. And some of the newest information is this is that we now realize that the virus can be passed both through droplets in your respiratory system, and it can infect your gastrointestinal system. As it turns out the h2 receptor that we believe the virus attaches to that most have agreed to that the highest concentration is in the stomach and the duodenum which is the first part of your small intestine. So if you are eating food, that somebody has cooked for you or that, or maybe you've well, somebody else has to have cooked it for you, and you eat it, the virus can then get into your body through your gut, we now realize that somewhere between 30 to 48% of the COVID19 cases are actually starting in the gut. And 85% of those present with anorexia, or they're just not hungry. What's fascinating is that when you and I were talking, and we were going over those numbers last week, I was like, why is that and then the very next day, articles have come out and it's made the news now, but we were talking about it last week, about how one of the early signs of this could be Anosmia, which is lack of smell, right? Ageusia which is lack of taste. So my theory is that those people that have that that precedes the symptoms by a long time, or not a long time, we don't really know but it certainly is one of the preceding symptoms. So when I'm walking into my hospital and they have to scan me and see if I have a fever, first question that I'm asking is, how's your sense of smell? Because that is now a screening tool. So keep that in mind. The letter there was a article published from my college, not my college, I went to but the American College of gastroenterology, which is the society that I belong to. There was a report from China reporting that cases with someone who had contact with her brother from Wu Han, so a woman shows up with a fever to a hospital. Her brother had come from Wu Han to stay with her. She gets a fever she shows up says my brother was in Wu Han. I've got this they do a CT on her. And she has the ground glass appearance of the classic COVID19Right.tested negative four times on the sputum. One of the doctors was savvy enough to go test her stool. They did an immediate polymerase chain reaction a PCR. Her stool is positive, her sputum was negative.So the sputum technically you're saying that they the margin, there was a she basically was a false negative, correct?She was a false negative on the swab that they did. They did a total once they got her diagnosed, they knew that they were dealing with COVID19. So then she became sort of a case study where they did like five more swabs on her all negative. So what we're what we're talking about here is that the gut so as a gastroenterologist, I'm telling everyone right now your gut is your first line of defense. And we need to protect that you can do all you can for barrier to avoid droplets to get it in your eyes, your nose and everything. But you still gotta eat and all these people that are ordering takeout and everything. somebody's preparing your food That's a route of admission. And then this is not to create anxiety. This is just so that everybody understands this. And then I found another study, shockingly, that showed that there was viral shedding in the stool. Five weeks after viral shedding in the lung went down. So they recovered from COVID19. And then a group of physicians tracked these patients and they kept checking their stool. Five weeks after being normal, they still had virus in their stool. And on the last show, we did talk about the fact that the virus can live three to four days on steel and plastic, it can live in the air for hours. So if you've got maybe what we're talking about here is fecal oral. And I hate to say that because everybody cringes when I say that, but that's how all gastrointestinal bugs get passed.Well, I think we should address it you know, you're talking about science to layman's terms. So If we're addressing things like, keep your six foot distance, etc, that has a lot to do with the droplet transmission. Everyone's been told and we've learned as children growing older that we should wash your hands after going to the bathroom. But specifically, if you're going to the bathroom and and you've, you've had a bowel movement and you certainly if you've known that you've had exposure to Coronavirus or COVID19 be certain to be diligent about washing your hands after you finish the bathroom, even more so than in the past. So if you've always been washing your hands great, it's now's the time to make certain that you're diligent in the process of washing your hands, keep your hands clean, because the fecal to oral transmission is a real, is a real problem.I got called by a doctor today who wanted my opinion. Very intelligent doctor and he was like, hey, man, what's going on with this? It's it's all hype, whatever and I I started telling him about this kind of stuff. I said, no, it's this is this is real. We all need to...education is the key to controlling your anxiety. Remember that we're not here to cause anxiety. What I'm trying to say is, the more you know about this, the more you can control it. And what what we're going to do is talk about how to protect your gastrointestinal tract. Yesterday in shavon saunas CBOE SOS summit, I discussed how unfortunately, my theory is that if you've got CBOE bacterial overgrowth, or any other gastrointestinal problem in your upper small bowel, you probably have a compromised tight junction that will allow easier penetration. So my job is to let's fortify your gut. Let's make sure that your gut is strong. So when somebody comes knocking, you don't open the door. That's all you have to think of it.Just a quick reset it when he says tight junction is being breached. He's basically talking about the barrier in your GI tract basically, it can become permeable allowing you to become more inflamed or, or ill. So basically he's saying if you have this issue, what we're trying to do is protect it so you don't have that problem.So you're gonna do this a lot for the rest of the show. Basically, I want to say things that because I have been so into the weeds reading just super sciency stufflike what he says when he says into the weeds, he means like he's going to drill it, no I'm just kidding.I just it's just rabbit hole after rabbit hole because you hear a term and you're like, oh my gosh, what is that gonna go down over here and this and that. Alright, so I'm just going to talk about one of the coolest things coming out of Germany is there are some scientists that have a new rapid test to diagnose SARS COV-2 remember SARS. COV-2 is the virus that causes COVID 19. SARS COV-2 is the coronavirus the coronavirus is a family of viruses, this is the ridiculously tough, virulent, you know, bad one that's creating this pandemic. So some brilliant scientists realized that certain flavonoids, or polyphenols have a very high affinity to attach to the SARS COV-2 spike proteins. So you always see that picture of the, of the of the virus they always had it shown with a bunch of those little spikes all over the place. That's how come, Eric, you told me this earlier that's why they call it the corona because it looks like aLooks like a sunburst. That's what it is. That's how I learned it long ago, but it was called Corona because microscopically It looks like a big, big sunburst.Yeah. So normally, the way that these tests are done to try and determine this, what they're talking about is a diffusion test or what's called an agglutination test, but what these researchers showed is that two polyphenols luteolin and quercetin have a very high affinity and an inhibitory effect on the SARS COV 2 virus, I'll say it again, basically natural products, natural molecules in nature have the ability to attach to the virus. And what these guys proposed is that normally, when you have a test like this, you have to have an antigen, which is a protein that the antibody has to buy into or in this case, what you would do is use a very expensive antibody against COV-2. So they're trying to do tests like this, but they're taking blood from people or animals, getting the antibody and then if you put your sample if the antibody attaches, then you know that you've got SARS COV-2. These cats figured out that natural polyphenols attached to it. So what they do is they put the sample in, they put some polyphenols, there luteolin and quercetin and then if it clumps, then they go, that's positive. If it doesn't, then it's just chilling. That's, that's mind blowing.Yeah. So essentially, what you're saying is, is these polyphenols made the SARS COV-2 virus nonreactive. The antibodies had no, they didn't discern it whatsoever. So it was a negative test.No. So what it is, is they didn't necessarily make them reactive or non reactive. All they did is they could show that they surrounded it and smothered it. So when they found this in clumps, they knew that they had SARS COV-2. So this is just a preliminary test to say do you have it or do you don't, you can extrapolate that it can be both diagnostic and therapeutic. Meaning you can look at this and say not only can you diagnose it, but there's a very good chance that this same type of polyphenol may treat the virus. And that's what these researchers basically said in their conclusion. And what's awesome is they said this could probably be done with a lot of other viruses because of the antiviral activity. Soit's very, very interesting diagnostic, I'm almost certain whether it's therapeutic or not remains to be seen. It certainly is a natural compound to, at a minimum run interference for the SARS COV-2 virus.Yes, so you're probably wondering, Well, why in the world did you bring up some obscure tests that isn't even out yet? Because what's awesome is, these are all like preprints. These are scientists sharing stuff around the world. And I can almost follow when one guy references another guy, and then they do a study. The studies that I'm going to talk about in the beginning are all bench research that is called in vitro. When we describe something in vivo it's one we give it to a human. Right now, the virus is so new the novel Coronavirus is so new, that everything has to be done in a lab first to see what could be potentially effective in a human. So keep that in mind because that's that's an argument that a lot of people will say is oh, well, there's no randomized placebo controlled trials on humans blah, blah, blah, we're not we're not we need to stop something first. Need to control this and then we can flatten the curve. Get that R0 watch this, watch the first episode because we get way into the R0 thing get that R0 down, and then we can go there. So, dude, what I'm going to talk about is absolutely nothing short of extraordinary, extraordinary. And these are drugs that President Trump is telling all these private companies. I think there's like last week there was 35 different companies trying to produce products against this. There's a lot of them are called protease inhibitors. A protease inhibitor is an antiviral drug that we, that got discovered during the HIV era, where what they do is they block the virus's ability to grow up. So in other words, a virus tries to release his buddy. And then the protease inhibitor says, nope you're gone, and then they kind of kill the new viruses being produced. This is, and this, this prevents the viral cells from growing and maturing. And according to the scientists that are looking at clinical trials, they're trying different protease inhibitors to block SARS COV-2. So there's clinical trials going on with protease inhibitors that we know So, the first article that I want to talk, this is the title of the article, and I will let you, layman for me. Okay. All right. This is the actual title of the article. It is a pre print article. So it should be what we're talking about here. When I say pre print is I'm giving you information before way before it's going to make the news way before. So this is why this is a hopeful podcast, very hopeful podcast. Potential inhibitor of COVID19 main protease empro, from several medicinal plant compounds by molecular docking study.Okay. Well, let's see, it sounds to me like what we're trying to do is use a naturally occurring substance, to eventually stop a virus.Through the protease inhibitor method,Well you said layman's terms last time my neighbor said protease was never. You're right. Yeah, yeah. You and I have different neighbors. My neighbors and I talk protease all the time. I'm surrounded. All my neighbors are infectious disease doctors. SoI know it. That's, that's what my takeaway is from that is, we are going to find how nature can allow mammals, humans to consume a natural compound and stop a virus from spreading.Yeah, so correct. So what they did is a researcher in China was able to successfully figure out or crystallized the COVID19 protease, that's the key step. And these guys took that person's science and said, okay, what is a potential target, to stop that protease? And they develop this very complex, cool study where they could show the binding energies. So when they say docking, the cell has to dock onto another cell. And then if it infiltrates, then if you give a protease inhibitor, it can't move. So they want to know how tight it binds to that protease enzyme. And what they figured out was they looked at three HIV protease inhibitors and 11 polyphenols.So and then just to reset into layman's terms, if you're trying to keep track of the the words, the way that I kind of have charted this together is a virus uses a protease like a key. The protease is the key for the virus to infiltrate and then deposit this mRNA so it can replicate what Dr. Brown is talking about doing is how can I stop their key from working? How can I make it so that this virus can can't use the key the protease to where the virus is using that protease to break down the protein so it can inject its RNA?Yeah. So the viruses, like we talked about before, are amazing parasites, they have to get into a cell, they have to replicate, they take over the cell, and then the virus starts going around. So these guys knew that there's three they looked at three HIV proteases. And then they realized that there's naturally occurring molecules in nature called polyphenols. And they demonstrated that the drugs and these 11 polyphenols appeared to have potent attachments to the M Pro with the M Pro is the protease on COVID19. Therefore preventing the virus from replicating their fin...their final conclusion was like all good bench researchers. Further research needed to do human trials.Sure.So they have a model with the virus and these polyphenols bond tightly. Super cool.Yeah, no without question. So essentially, they're saying if we can find a way to stop impro from unlocking the cell, then SARS COV2, or the coronavirus cannot infiltrate these cells.Yeah, so that was really cool. And then mic drop. Another study comes out of this one's out of Turkey and Pakistan. And I'm going to reach out to these researchers. They were kind enough to list their cell phones and emails on this study. I'm not sure that they meant to do that. Doesn't happen all the time!I'm gonna I'm gonna hit them up and I just gotta find somebody that can translate for me if necessary. We're going to do this. Their article title is identification of potent COVID19 main protease. Now you know what a main protease is empro. These guys took the research from the person that discovered it and did the exact same thing as these other guys did. So identification of potent COVID19 main protease inhibitors from natural polyphenols. And in silico, strategy unveils a hope against Corona. What? These guys saw that study and went, wait a minute polyphenols seem to be the way to go. This could be a new hope for Corona. This is what these guys are talking about. It's out of two very prestigious academic centers in Turkey and Pakistan. These guys are absolute beasts, I should say, guys, I'm just assuming there's probably women on the team also, that's rude of me to say these guys, but these scientists are beasts. So since its main protease was figured out, and remember I'll say it one more time, the protease allows the virus to grow and replicate. That is why we figured it out for AIDS. So they did a study where they looked at 26 polyphenols and one prescription protease inhibitor called nelfinavir. OkaySo these guys had the guts to say let's see what happens when we compare polyphenols to the current antiviral therapy that we use for AIDS. These results are absolutely shocking, Eric, this is I cannot make this stuff up. This is where my skin my hair just starts bristling. Basically 24 of the 26 polyphenols bound tighter to the COVID protease, then the prescription drug did. I'll say that one more time. It bound tighter than the drugs that we're thinking of using. Nice.And I'm really having a hard time trying to not be enthusiastic here and try to be scientific. I said it's gonna be very somber, scientific thing, but I'm just now um these are lab people. And these these guys, I could tell by the writing that their that excited I mean, when, when the title says, you know, exciting new treatment for Corona like these are bench researchers that if the numbers make sense. So this is not something to say that 100% this will work in humans, what we have is bench research stage one, stage two is to work to a human pilot trial, stage three is to do a randomized placebo control trial and so on. But this is so exciting to see that this is proven in a lab that these 24 out of 26 polyphenols and what this tells me is certain polyphenols did slightly better than others, as best they could tell. But the molecular mechanism is very similar it all is and then what they determined was it was a dose dependent, so you had to have enough of it to do it. So pretty wild.I don't want to jump too far ahead. But questions that are popping up in my mind are going to be number one is binding for the most part, preventing the virus from carrying out its activity. Because, you know, you don't want to just bind and be happy that you are bound, and the virus can go on. And the other question would be, what, what are the categories of polyphenols that happened to perform better than others? And do they all still you said 24 out of 26. So we know that two probably aren't ideal, but what were the categories?No, no. 24 out of 26 outperformed the prescription drug. The other two just were about at the level of the prescription drug.Thank you for the correction. So 26 bound.And I just want to clarify one thing I'm you and I are not virologists. The concept of protease I think, is more of a replication thing than a that's how come it works so well to stop the virus. I think it's more of a prevents the virus from replicating as far as binding. There's some different science with that. So just and I'm not a virologist, I'm a butt doctor. So um, so then of course that starts, you start going down some crazy pathways. I found another article that identified myricetin and scutellarein or something like that, which are polyphenols. Somebody else did a study as a novel chemical inhibitor of the SARS coronavirus. by blocking the helicase. The helicase was described as something needed to replicate. Yeah. So what I meant by I've just been exhausted is I read these articles and then of course, you stop. And it's like, I gotta go look that up. And then you end up going down a helicase pathway and I was just like, oh my gosh. The science doesn't matter. What I'm saying is there's people that are now looking in 2020, because they're doing the same thing I'm doing, they've seen the data from 2003. And now they're trying to see if that works on SARS COV2. And it appears it does.Well, is it a helicase? Isn't that an enzyme? Yeah, we hear about the double helix or whenever you see DNA after it's been scripted, and you see the winding, you know, mirrored image. Helicases, the enzyme that allows the assemblage of the mirrored DNA if I if I remember correctly, I could be wrong on that.So that is, that is med school year two USMLE. was done with that. As long as it passed. Um, here's another super I think I get pulled a gene like they pulled the gene out or something like that. Sorry, I don't wanna get sidetracked. I'm just kind of like...I don't know. I mean, dude, it's like clearly We're gonna have to get a virologist on to explain all the terms just say you guys are idiots. You're using the terms incorrectly. Let me explain it to you cool. I I welcome any virologist to to help us get through this because this isn't our thing. I'm trying to figure out how to take care of my patients. That's all I'm doing right now. Speaking of that. Another study titled small molecules targeting severe acute respiratory syndrome, human coronavirus. These guys looked at over 10,000 compounds, including over 500 protease inhibitors, 200 drugs, 8000 synthetic compounds and 1000 traditional Chinese herbs. Of all of them 50 were found to be anti SARS COV not COV2 anti SARS cubs. So this was a study done after the original SARS outbreak. Okay. Two made the best cut, one being a molecule called Aescin-AESCIN, the extract of horse chestnut.Horse chestnut. Yeah. Wow.And the other is a drug called reserpine which is a high blood pressure drug used in Europe. Huh 10,000 different compounds and Aescin the extract of horse chestnut is there. Okay, that's cool.Yeah, it's a polyphenol,that is a polyphenol/saponin. And we know a lot about that you can go on atrantil.com and learn about Aescin and if you want. Pretty wild. So that's my this is where this is going to go. We're going to be able to figure out how to optimize the appropriate polyphenols to protect your gut to protect your health. Those are astounding studies. It's I mean, I'm just fascinated. Alright, so everyone knows this. We developed atrantil. Atrantil are three polyphenols I have been into the science of polyphenols for over 10 years now. So now that I'm looking at this, this is not a sales pitch. This is a oh, my goodness, the molecule that I've been studying for 10 years, which is super complex and all this, I'm finding scientists around the world studying it and having positive results. That's what this is about. Nothing more.Now, here's here's the interesting part, though. So if it happened to only be a prescriptive drug or something that were synthetic, it would almost be completely imperative that that multiple rounds of trials and testing be carried out. Simply for the safety profiles so that they can be safely used somewhere. The exciting part to me is that what we're talking about is something that is already naturally occurring and is safe for us to begin to utilize as kind of like internal PPE. That's how I think about it as a frontline worker...Say what...say what PPE isOh sorry, personal protective equipment. So that was...Yeah, so one of the issues that if you're not in healthcare, the term PPE is being used because we're all running out of gowns, masks, gloves.Everyone is and it hasn't even hit our area nearly as intensely as it has like the northeast or the west coast, we're we're running outAnd you you as essentially, somebody who controls airways and you have to intubate people, you aren't so in the line of fire, so to speak, you're on you're that frontline person. You're one of those if you're an ICU nurse, if you're an anesthesiologist if you're a respiratory tech salute all of you, because you guys are right there getting into it. Now, some would say, hey, you spent the first half of the show talking about gastrointestinal issues. Yeah, I salute my gastrointestinal colleagues as well. Because it looks like we're in the fight now also.Definitely. It's just it's the takeaway, though, from those those studies, those reviews that you just had, though, Ken, don't you think that the exciting part on top of we think that we may be onto something is that people can begin to take action now with at least the data that is applicable, it's safe to use it worst and at the bare bones worst if someone happened to just simply start eating more polyphenols that they would take in from fruit yet, if it didn't work? Well. They're still getting great fruit and fiber etc. There's there's really no downside to applying a little bit of this, this reviewed science as we as we wait to find out that these are actual adversaries to the coronavirus. Correct. So polyphenols if somebody's like man they've been talking about polyphenols this whole time, what does that polyphenols are the molecules that make vegetables and fruit, colorful, it's on the skin. Those are the molecules found heavily in the Mediterranean diet. And those are the molecules that we now believe are anti aging anti inflammatory molecules. That's how come that we've been studying this so much. So I've been using it for gut health. So if at the very least, when you eat, make sure your plate is colorful, everything should be colorful. If you can imagine when you go to McDonald's and get your whatever it is. thing you lay it out. It's got a monochromatic tan across the...Very yellow...very yellow plate.Very yellow plate. You want to have green reds and purples and When you're doing that you're getting your polyphenols in knowing that the polyphenols could potentially help this. So that's super make sure that you at the very least do this. We know that they are very potent antioxidant, anti inflammatory antibacterial and antiviral. Yes. data to show all of that.Yeah, definitely. No, that's that's it's just a great takeaway to know that you can actually possibly be taking some serious action for your benefit and your family's benefit today.Yeah, totally. Um, so let's kind of get away from polyphenols and talk about what else you can do. But you're gonna hear a recurring theme here. It's, it's or fortunately, Mother Nature knows how to do this. And you got to take advantage of that. So let's talk about something so I've been getting tons of emails and patients calling in everything, what do I do for this and that, so let's talk about zinc. Why is everybody saying zinc? Why did they get buy get bought off the shelves? Why is it there? Well, zinc, if you're low, then your immune cells won't function well. And intracellular zinc can block the enzyme that allows the virus to replicate, which is an RNA polymerase enzyme. One more time, you take zinc in, very small percentage of it gets put into the cell, where the zinc then just goes, come on now, and they just starts working on the virus's rep replicating system. That's how it works as an immune product. And so zinc is an essential mineral that we need to take in, but you got to get it into the cell. So some scientists realize that we have to figure out how to get more zinc, intracellular. I got to quit touching my face, I just realized I'm messing up my hair and I...I've been doing it the whole time.Yeah, I'm realizing just I mean, I just get I get, I get excited about this. We know that zinc can inhibit, specifically Coronavirus, RNA polymerase activity in labs, but it has to be intracellular. The problem is that once it's in the cell, it can do that. But it has to get in there. And that's difficult to do. Scientists have realized and I keep saying scientists have realized I'm just referring to other smarter people that have done these studies is what I mean. So other people that are smarter than me have figured this out that it needs something called an ionophore to get in. So it's like a fast pass or it's a it's there's a security guard at the cell door, and zinc like a my humans eating all kinds of zinc. I'm here to help out and the security guards like you need to come in with somebody you need to have a VIP with you. Well, they're looking at different things that work as VIPs and as it turns out, flavonoids which are In the class of polyphenols, not only act as antioxidants, but appears in this particular study that they drove zinc into the cells, then they showed that with mice, they could actually show a rapid increase in intracellular zinc, when the zinc was taken with polyphenols, or if you're taking polyphenols. And also taking zinc doesn't have to be the same time. And they did this through very complex fluorescent staining. So that is super wild. You need zinc, but you need intracellular zinc. So really pretty, that one kind of blew me away also. So I just got done talking about two bench studies, where they work as protease inhibitors. And now I just showed you how polyphenols can work as zinc ionophores. That should be like enough, and we actually have more stuff to talk about, which is nuts. SoSo just in just a quick aside if if you have a diet that's comprised of good Healthy meats. What else? Beans probably seeds, nuts, various nuts. That's where you'll find naturally occurring zinc or...Cashews. Cashews are a big one.Definitely there's there but there are definitely some zinc supplements out there. So as a as Brown lays out different things that you probably could take at a molecular level, I'm going to try to keep up and say, places where you can find them so that you can incorporate them into your daily intake of foods.Yeah, so unfortunately, I'm just geeking out on this. So if you if you figure out how to say, Well, if somebody's sitting there going, Wow, where do I get it? Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for doing that. Um, something else. There was a study that came out of Korea, which showed that by certain probiotics in vitro, they could actually stop the hearing metabolism which this particular virus uses to get energy and one step further. That was in vitro then I found an article that showed that polyphenols work as an antioxidant by blocking xanthine oxidase which is part of the pureeing pathway. So the energy gets taken away from the virus as well. So that's super geeky. It's like, wow, it's like almost like every time somebody chooses to do a study on these polyphenols, they're finding a positive effect. We have gotten sicker since we have become industrialized, and we have refined foods. Having soil with rich and minerals and everything and eating the seasonal vegetables is probably a very effective way to protect yourself from a lot of illness. Not trying to say specifically COVID19 but doing that is probably a great way to protect yourself from a lot of things.Definitely hundred percent. I don't have a whole lot to add to that.Alright, so I'm tired of polyphenols, if I could ever say that I've only been talking about 'em for 10 years. So, alright. We did say on the first one that I want to give some recommendations about things that I'm telling my patients that I'm doing that my kids are doing that everyone that I think there's some science backing this. So other recommendations I'm telling I'm a big fan of fermented foods. I don't understand why but Germany continues to have this profound or I haven't, or a very a much lower death rate than the rest of the world. And I always laugh because I'm like, Is it the sauerkraut? I just keep coming back to them because the sauerkraut is it the beer. What is it, but so fermented foods, especially those that have Lactobacillus plantarum and bifidobacterium and lactobacillus generally will actually have been shown to have some antiviral activities. So now's the time to go out and get that kimchi now's the time to go out and eat that sauerkraut and that kind of thing. As you know, I'm not a huge fan of probiotics based on the science because not that it's there they're bad. But the science just isn't there and I don't want people spending a whole lot of money on things that don't work. I'm a big fan of polyphenol wrapped probiotics, kimchi, sauerkraut, things like that, because the insoluble cellulose, in my opinion probably works as a vehicle to get that bacteria to the colon. So, fermented foods. I'm kind of a fan of right now. We discussed zinc and vitamin C is an essential micronutrient that works as an antioxidant. What you will hear online right now and in forums is that studies in humans are extremely conflicting. So you have to go a little deeper than that. And that's the knee jerk that every doctor will say as well. The studies don't show that. I want to say this. Angie and I discovered an article with mice genetically grown, that do not have the capacity to make vitamin C. And then they took mice that are normal and they exposed...they exposed both groups to influenza, those without vitamin C died. Those who had it had a lot less inflammation and a lot less inflammatory cytokines. Right now in China there is an ongoing study where they're looking at giving IV vitamin C. So if you want to compare old studies that talk about the rhinovirus and does vitamin C help, what we know is looking at animal data, vitamin C is extremely important. And the reason why it's important is that we know it down regulates and inflammasome, inflammasome called NRLP. What that is, is we know that people are dying from what's called a cytokine storm, which is where your immune system overreacts to the virus. It starts with an inflammasome and then it becomes a domino effect. And just start turning on all these cytokines. So it also helps regenerate glutathione, which we're going to get into. And one of the only problems with vitamin C supplementation is if you take too much it can create some gi upset. When I was on Dr. Raun's summit, Dr. Lundqvist, who went on before me who's an expert in this did discuss something really cool, which I was unaware of when you are sick, you increase what's called your glute one receptors. So you will absorb more vitamin C that you take in, so your body knows when you're sick. So if you're not sick, and you're taking tons of it, you're probably gonna have some gi upset. If you're sick and you take a little extra, you'll probably be fine, which I thought was really cool. So I love learning from other really smart doctors. Next product everybody goes on vitamin D. Yes, we know that most people in the United States are vitamin d deficient in a systematic review, vitamin D appeared to protect individuals from acute respiratory infections. Vitamin D is expressed on both B and T cells, which are our immune cells. And what it does is it can modulate your immune response. I'll say that again, it can control your immune response. So it almost works more like a hormone in that it tells your body to not overreact, which is something super important. And low levels are associated with increased autoimmune disorders and increased infection rates. So looking at a different study, it looks like that taking high dose vitamin D on a weekly basis, which is what many doctors recommend, is not as effective in this particular case as taking a daily vitamin D supplement. So I would recommend somewhere around 1000 milligrams a day. Most supplements come in the 2500 to 5000 range but I'm on it and my family's on it as well. So super important to do thatThing here so vitamin D foods are lot of your oily fishes, dairy milk cheeses and I think some of the greens like collard greens and mustard greens I think have vitamin D and of course don't forget you need to convert it. Get sunlight, get sunlight every day.Yes, go out for walks. walk your dog Get out right now is a great time to get out. And yeah, thank you for saying this. I should have started with everything. I'm not saying get out. I should have started from the very beginning. Don't go out and buy a bunch of supplements. Try to eat the diet that has these ingredients in them first. Supplements supplement a healthy lifestyle, but is no substitute a healthy lifestyle. So that being said, Yeah, so thank you for bringing up those foods. And I will throw this at you now. A diet in healthy phytosterols. Phytosterols are vegetable oils that appear that they may block the binding site of these different Coronaviruses. In other words, the ACE-2 receptor that they keep talking about in the news uses cholesterol to bind to what is called a lipid raft and then that lipid raft of the virus binds to it and then it kind of slides down. I always think of it like the way that they describe those inflatable rafts when a plane lands on the water they come out and people come out that's how I think of it.Don't you want to get into a situation where nobody gets hurt but you get to pull it I always wanted to inflate that stinking thing.So a diet high in phytosterols. So things like you know what I'm gonna beat you to this one because I had that I actually had to look this up phytosterols isn't something phytosterols are very high nuts, legumes, grains and fruits and vegetables. It's a common theme here. We keep saying the same thing over and over. I mean, don't eat at McDonald's, eat your fruits and veggies, and healthy fish and things like that. And two more. And then this is this rounds out my list of science backed supplements that I can, I can at least lean on some data. Because there's a lot of things out there that people talk about. That is not my specialty is not my that I have not had a chance to get into. But n-acetylcysteine is something that I'm a big fan of, n-acetylcysteine (NAC) has some mucolytic properties. And in a 2017 meta analysis, meaning in 2017, they took all these studies, they found that treating patients with NAC NAC and n-acetylcysteine led to shorter duration of ICU stays in acute respiratory distress syndrome, which you geeked out on on the first episode explaining all about ARGS. So go back and watch the first episode because this is Eric's specialty, keeping people alive with that kind of problem. So salute to you for doing that kind of stuff. And Chinese protocols right now Chinese hospitals are using n-acetylcysteine as standard treatment when somebody comes in with coronavirus. It also does something really cool it increases glutathione levels. Glutathione is one of the most important cellular antioxidants. So what that does is it is a potent cellular antioxidant, and we need this for cellular health, cellular health kind of funny the guy that went on after me was Dr. Dan Pompa, who I who I love and his his whole his whole mission is cellular health, which is cool. A study looked at people with community acquired pneumonia, and they randomized them to either conventional treatment which would be antibiotics, and...conventional treatment antibiotics plus NAC. And what it showed was the NAC group healed quicker and had lower inflammatory markers. I'm currently taking like 600 milligrams BID, the dosages were all over the map in all these studies, but wow, okay. There's studies out here that show this and they essentially are you and I have talked about how NAC helps with alcohol metabolism, but this is a whole separate method. This is getting the glutathione and then ultimately, I'm recommending melatonin as well. Melatonin is a potent antioxidant. But one of the reasons is to make sure that you have everything functioning well. You got to sleep. During these very stressful times. You've got to get...try get eight hours of sleep. Please, please, please, please, please. And this is nuts. Kids don't seem to be affected by this virus and one of the speculative things is that kids have much higher melatonin than adults as we age we decrease our melatonin so over the age of 70 you have much less melatonin. I read an article describing how the higher melatonin that you have you in your NLRP3 inflammasome. inflammasome yeah.Is down regulated by melatoninNice.You have your highest melatonin traditionally between ages one and five. And as we age it decreases and if you do not have a high melatonin you are susceptible to a cytokine storm cytokine storm as we talked about is your body overreacting. So one last time did you write those all down Eric? Can you...I did.Tell everybody what what what I feel science backed things may help during this pandemic,In addition to a healthy diet of polyphenols or supplementation with polyphenols and of course we know where you can get that with Atrantil. There is strong science to suggest that you should couple a polyphenol diet with zinc, vitamin C, NAC or n-acetylcysteine, vitamin D, phytosterols, and melatonin. You can get zinc and NAC from meat, eggs, etc. Your vitamin C obviously comes from great citrus fruits and vegetables. Let's see here phytosterols there's tons of plants and seeds that have that in it and of course, if you don't produce enough melatonin that is a very common supplement. However, I will say though, that you want to be selective on probably where you where you buy melatonin that seems to be one of those. Oh yeah, yeah we that's a whole separate show. I actually pay to belong to examine.com and consumer labs.com. I'm a user because I go there and I have them do the analysis. That's a third party analysis. So any of these supplements make sure that they're third party analyzed. So those are the ones that I can sink my teeth into really deep and go, this clearly looks like this. Now, there's other things that a lot of other people will be like, oh, well, what about this? What about this? What about that? I'd like for instance, broccoli, broccoli, or sulforaphane? Sulforaphane comes in broccoli sprouts. I found some articles that show that coronavirus may decrease your NRF two pathway which is the pathway that leads to inflammation and that so I'm also taking that we know that that actually has some antibacterial effects. Shivan and I got kind of deep into it yesterday in the CBOE summit, where we talked about how I'm using that in my CBOE people as well. I'm having pretty good results. So that would be one that I can't really say, I've looked at the science, but I'm seeing anecdotal evidence and it's probably good for you anyways. So if it has some ability to help with this infection, that would be awesome. And we know that like, CBD attenuates the immune system, so it at least gets you back to balanced immune and neurologic systems. So I'm obviously a big fan of that. And that's you can go to our website and take a look there. I'm not saying not recommending it, that this is any type of cure treatment or benefit to this particular pandemic. I'm recommending to make sure that you're doing everything you can to try and improve your immune system.Definitely, if you're if you're a frontline health care worker, just be certain that you're doing all you can to take in a good diet. Be certain to get your exercise and know that you're probably hustling all over the hospital floor or OR just taking care of patients even if they don't happen to be COVID patients. You want to be certain that you're keeping yourself nice and healthy in that environment, get sleep, no matter what just prioritize sleep, your immune system just will never be as strong as it possibly can if your body is not getting rest, so sunlight, sleep in addition to a good diet, it will make for a much better outcome in the long run for certain.Definitely, we and we won't stop these installments for the COVID talks until we we more or less feel comfortable that we're heading that direction. I will say that we've been put in contact with an infectious disease doctor in the Department of Defense that actually he probably can't join us live or recorded on the next installment of of the COVID file. However, he is going to vet some questions that Dr. Brown has sent his way. Basically just just read his responses back. Yeah, absolutely. And we want to, once again, thank everyone who's worked in the hospital systems working, shift work, or EMS people. You guys are the true heroes because you are doing shift work you affect your sleep cycles, you're getting a lot of stress. I know I've talked to some emergency room physicians who are seeing other issues with this shut-in like, unfortunately some more domestic abuse going on and things like that because people are forced to being you know, the finances are tight, and the the quarters are tight and everybody is you know, struggling but hang in there. We're gonna get through this and what I just got done telling you even if you even if you're sitting there like it's been like what I like turning it because you guys like to joke around what do you do? I was just nerdy. Just bottom line is, it looks like we're heading in the right direction for figuring out how to how to stop this.That's perfect.Got a little bit different perspective as an ID doc, as well as tending to the pediatric side in combination with ID. That said, though, it probably won't be a full week until we come back with the next installment simply because we're finding some more time to dedicate collecting research and kind of really getting it organized. We certainly appreciate everyone sharing the last installment. Hopefully, we'll do the same here. And when the show notes for this one on the YouTube YouTube presentation, we'll be sure and list all of the supplement lists that that Ken laid out for you. And I don't know, it's a pretty powerful episode. I hope that people can begin to arm themselves and I think that the next time we're going to have some some good feedback and start rounding the corner to better days.Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, appreciate everyone tuning in. appreciate everyone staying home. It is real. We still have to practice at least right now. What's the you know we're in March. We're still practicing social distancing.I almost forgot and I'll put this in show notes also, if you're looking to just make a difference in your community, Ron Lynch is a really close friend of Dr. Brown and I his name as name is Ron Lynch. He just started intellihelp about a week ago or a week and a half ago and intellihelp and intellihelp.org IntelahelpHelp. HELP. Intellihelp can be founded intellihelp.org. And intellihelp is intellihelp on Facebook. What it does, it's a very free service if you are available to give and help in service in any way. They've done really, really well over the last almost 10 or 15 days of if a woman needs diapers to take care of her kiddos and she doesn't want to leave the house. She just basically posts it someone who happens to be coming back from grocery store drops it off someone that kiddo needs to have an availability to have a free lunch dropped off because they're not getting lunches from school. Yeah, intellihelp is there to serve those people and to give you the ability to give back to them and trust me, if you feel a little bit down in the dumps, you'll feel a lot better once you're able to help somebody else and you feel like that you're notThat's awesome. That's awesome. So how do we prevent like a you know, our partner Mike Logsdon from gettin' on Intellihelp said I need a Guiness delivered to my house right now.There's no way to prevent that from happening because because Mike may need that Mike may need that Guiness. That is true. I have a feeling that as close as you live once you get on intellihelp Ken you'll be...Loyda goes where are you goin'? Mike needs his Guiness again.There's nothing I can do. I'm going to drop off some diapers and some can some some black aluminum cans at Mike's house.Yes. I love that. Awesome. Well, Ron Lynch, kudos to you. That is badass. Awesome. Thank you for being part of the solution.Definitely, definitely. All right. Well, I think that's the the end of second summit will be like I said it won't be a week until we get the third in. And we'll get a little bit more regular, a little bit more frequent as more news evolves. We're just kind of setting the stage here. But yeah,And if everyone can just comment, and let me know if you want it this sciency not so sciency. I mean, we're, we're, we're all learning as we go during this, because the because everything's coming out by the hour. Yeah. And we have the ability to go as deep as you want. We have the ability to find stuff that is not in print yet. And that's what I like when we're talking about stuff. And then three weeks later, the news we were talking about the anazmio well before it even made the news.Yeah. Well wondering if it was true, right. Remember that you said have read this. I have no idea if this is even accurate. I mean, between that and people shoving hair dryers up their nose, we didn't know which direction to go.True. Heat up the nose. That's right.Don't do that. It's terrific idea. All right. Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank y'all so much for tuning in and sharing a next installment here rather soon and they may not all be nearly this long, we may have some shorter...How long was this?Right in an hour? What? Yeah.It felt like 10 minutes.It's just a lot of info. Well, thank you Ken and, Paul, thanks for of course for putting everything together. We will see y'all next time on next COVID installment. I'm Eric Gregor. That's Dr. Ken Brown here with a gut check project. We will see y'all next time.Stay safe, everybody.

All right, it is now time for episode number 35. We are here at the Gut Check Project. I'm Eric Rieger with your host Dr. Ken Brown. We've got someone special here today right between us.Well, we are in some place special. We are.We're not in our home base.We aren't in the home base.We are in a basement in Austin. We are.Because we heard that this special guy, Ron Klabunde, the founder of Replenish Foundation and Generosity Feeds which you and I are huge fans. Definitely.You took your family to go do that. We went and did that. And what he's doing is amazing. And we decided to do a mobile show here. We had the opportunity to track him down. He's busy. He's an important person.Ron. Obviously we're going to introduce you-the founder as Replenish Foundation as well as Generosity Feeds but we came down here specifically for an event that you're hosting. Without further ado, Ron, just kick it off and then we're going to after you tell us what we're doing here today, we're going to back it up on how you even got here.Sounds good. So tonight, we are bringing the who's who of Austin together highly curated group of 100 people. And basically we're going to party on purpose we call it POP Austin "party on purpose." Too many parties happen it's just a party, right? What if we bring some meaning to that because all of us are looking for more meaning in life. So we've got the top people in Austin coming together to party on purpose. Obviously we know when the right people are in the room magic happens.Definitely. Happens from a business standpoint happens interpersonally. And then there's the purpose side. So tonight, now what you guys don't even know is that you're showing up and everyone there is going to have a chance to create about 2,500 meals for local kids struggling with hunger. And then flow in the middle of the party. Oh, that's awesome.That's awesome. And then on top of that, we're working to raise $60,000 tonight to help to help feed 50,000 children across America who are struggling with hunger and empower 64,000 volunteers that we're already working with, as an ongoing force for good. So there's our purpose side: party on...Say that one more time. So tonight, this party that we're all gonna have fun at, everybody's...Live band...everything.It's gonna be entrepreneurs coming together, talking, sharing ideas, but you're going to feed how many people you're going to raise how much money and this is a party on purpose. I love that. Yeah, yeah. So there will be about 2,500 meals created tonight throughout the course of the night. And then, and then we're raising money to help feed 50,000 children in 29 states across America, and then empower our 64,000 volunteers is an ongoing force for good.So we can't emphasize this enough here. So Ron and...Ken and I met Ron around a year ago through the Baby Bathwater network. And not long after we ran into each other you invited Ken and I to participate in the Dallas Generosity Feeds and we looked at it and we thought, have no idea what this is. And just like Ken said, I was able to get my family-his was actually out of town playing tennis. But loaded the kids up, met Ken. My wife and I we got together and we packed 11,000 meals in about an hour and 20 minutes.That's dead on.And it goes to it went to all those kiddos who simply correct me if I'm wrong, but they don't get meals on the weekend. They happen to be on a free lunch Monday through Friday right? But they don't have anywhere to turn for the food so kind of tell us a little bit about Generosity Feed.So, Generosity Feeds is kind of our...it is our premier initiative. It's what gave us influence and credibility across the country. It's It's why we have 64,000 volunteers today and we've helped feed over 170,000 children across America. I mean, it's crazy what's happened in...with this deal. And I can certainly give you the backstory on how that even started at some point here but but yeah, you came to our event in Dallas, by the way, our first event in Dallas.Oh, nice. Oh, was it?Yeah, our first event our first event there with you. And 11,000 meals created in less than two hours. You probably had about 300 people at that one event alone.That was...we were packed.So that was the thing that I was super impressed. I showed up. Everybody there showed up kind of deer in the headlights like, what do we do? And you just you have one thing in common? We're all here to help. So people are like, Hi, I'm Joe. Hi. I'm so and so. These are my kids. This is my wife. He's like, yeah, we're here to help feed some people. Everybody had the same mission. It was so cool. Because suddenly you have a purpose.Yeah, a shared purpose. A shared purpose. Yeah.Yeah. Well, and the beauty of this is it's these 300 people are coming from all aspects of the city. This is the business sector coming together with the nonprofit sector coming together with the local schools. And you probably even had some, some some politicians standing in the room. It but it goes further than that. Then you have people of all ages. You have kids with you-kids as young as three, sometimes moms or dads carrying the child on their chest, right as they're creating meals. And then we've had we had a lady up in Washington State 97 years old, helping start so it's crazy, right? But then it's beyond age, then it's it's the social economic difference. Because Ken you very likely were standing next to a single mom, whose child three weeks later was going to receive the meals that you were creating. Really? Yeah. And you didn't know it.Did not know I talked, everybody that was standing next to me. We formed now the beauty is Generosity Feeds does a great job of the logistics of getting the food that's there. This is how we're going to pack this how we're going to do it. It's a well run business. Absolutely. It's a very well run business and we're going to get into this because to have a good nonprofit...You better have a good business. You better have a good business. Well and I'll even add that it's good business for businesses to be a part of and I think I've shared this with you in the past and Ken you knew it but when we went to go and be a part of Generosity Feeds and of course I'm gonna say this several times because if you're ever interested and Generosity Feeds is appearing in your neck of the woods. Gather your friends and your family and go be a part of it. You'll spend two hours helping out tons and tons of kiddos who just simply need a meal.Having fun. Music. Yeah, music. Dancing. Dancing.It was fun! But, I had never been to a Mod Pizza and mod pizza happens to be one of the sponsors, title sponsors of everything Generosity Feeds does. Because of their involvement and the the fun and the giveback opportunity we had, I've been to Mod Pizza now probably eight or ten times in the last year and I'd never been there before. So I connect with the the business aspect of wanting to be a part of something good. And suddenly I found a good and worthy business that actually has gluten free pizza that my wife can eat. Because so it's, there's there's lots of reciprocity, if you want to be a part of an organization that gives back so if you're, if you're a company, pay attention, Ron's who you need to hook up with if you're interested.That's why that's why we're here. Atrantil KBS research as a company, we're here to support you. Because we are trying to heal people's guts. Yeah. And you are trying to feed people.And keep them full.And keep them full. And we want to be involved with a company like you. And I'm very honored that we're sitting here. I'm very honored that we have the ability to be in Austin, that we're going to be part of this. Thank you for inviting us. But I'm also honored that we work for a company that decided to do this together. So shout out to Chuck and Mike and Brandy and everybody and Anthony, everybody else on our team that said yes, go down to Austin. We're going to support thatThat's right. Absolutely. So, we've talked a little bit about generosity feeds and I believe you said it's a subsidiary of the Replenish Foundation. Correct. But there was a Ron Klabunde long before Replenished Foundation and Generosity Feed. So, where are you from? How did you get to...? Where my rear end is. Yes, yes, yes. That's where I'm from.Oh, yeah. So Ron is hilarious with with lots of cheap jokes where his rear end is where he's from. And, but Where, where, where do you originate from? How did you get to where you are now I know that you have a history of being a pastor, etc.So so yes, I was a pastor for 21 years. And in my own journey, as I've shared with you, I just became a little disillusioned with how local churches were talking about loving God and loving other people, and yet really weren't partnering with businesses to make a difference or really, I mean truly partnering with church, schools to make a difference or even other nonprofits they they tended to want to keep doing ministry on their terms. And I'm looking at this and I'm going, this isn't about what a church should be doing to for in a community. It's what a church should be doing with a community, based on what a community needs. Why are churches inviting people to come to them to meet their needs on the church's terms, instead of doing what I saw Jesus doing, which was going out and meeting people on their terms?Could you say that again, you said to what a church shouldn't be doing too.So a church church is so focused so much on doing ministry to a community in a community or for a community, that the moment we use those words, right, it's all about what it's about me and what I want to do to give, it's not about the other person. This is about with that, that it's what we get to do together. Right. That here's the principle behind it. Thanksgiving and Christmas, right? Your families you might be thinking, well, this Thanksgiving, Who should we who should we go serve? Sure.Or what nonprofit should we go serve with as a family? Right? Many families in America do this. That's a good question to start with, who are we going to serve? It's not the best question to start with. Because and here's why. That's an addition question. We are going to go serve them. That's one plus one. The better question is, who am I going to serve with?Say that again? Who am I going to serve with.With because, because if I want to if I want to make a difference in someone's life, then I need to be inviting you because now I get this relationship and my desire to do good begins to rub off on you. You come with me, and we together, go serve and something ignites in your heart. And now you're changed. And then you're like, you know, that just felt good. That was right. I want to live a more meaningful life, more purposeful life. We all want to do that. And so what do you turn around and do you go find another friend and you're like hey, you need to come do this with me. And so the power of the power of generosity is not found in what we do. It's found in who we do it with. It's about the relationship.You lead by example. Yes. You lead by example. You're not telling people to go do things. You say, follow me. I'm going to show you we're going to do this together, and we're going to make each other better.What he, what he's saying is not even just a theory, and I didn't get a chance to tell you this yesterday. So Ken had to leave the procedure facility yesterday earlier than I did because he had a he had an interview, and I stayed a little bit longer. We have a new center director, his name's Chris. So big shout out here to Chris. I told him while we were coming down here for the weekend, he thought it was it was an incredible opportunity. I said, Well, we'll have another Generosity Feeds event in Dallas. You may want to see it, the rest of the endo center would like to come be a part of it. He immediately said, what a great team building exercise for all of us to go down and give back to the community I mean, it bled from you encouraging us to meet your team. I just happened to mention it without any prompting from you. And now...Because it was just lift. Yeah, I think the center's gonna have next timeThat's a great idea a company like Digestive Health Associates of Texas and AMSURG these companies that we're affiliated with. Yep. We've got KBS doing it now we can just keep working our way up to the bigger and bigger companies that we have access to.Yeah.To help out.That's right that's it's pretty powerful message to to be able to go and serve with versus you're just going to go and serve.Yeah, well even take it take it to the business level now. Sure. Think about what's happened in business over the last number of years. We had Tom's come up with what the one for one model right. And it's it's all about a transaction you buy this we'll give this and that's as far as it ever goes with the customer. And then you have the companies that as you just said, this is a great team building opportunity. Let's bring our employees in Salesforce rocks it out with empowering their employees to go serve in the local community and the things that they're passionate about. But where's the where's the model? Where now as a company, you can invite your customers to come serve with you. And you're not just there, they already love your product right there. They're buying from you because they love your product. But what if you're inviting them now into your value system? And you build a relationship with them around your value system of giving back of doing good as a company becoming a force for good. The moment you do that, you turn customers into raving fans of your brand. Sure. That's the power of this. It's the power of with.Yeah. The power of with.And the interesting thing about that is that it cannot be faked. No, no. You, you either live it you say look, we're gonna we would love our customers. I would love everybody who's ever bought Atrantil to be part of something like this. But I want you to do it because you just want to do it. I don't want to do it for that you're not going to gain anything other than you're going to be part of a community you're going to serve, you're going to find purpose, where we want to be one of those companies that actually helps with something like that. You can't fake it.No, but you're inspiring something in people that's beyond a product. Definitely.We were talking earlier that there was a study when you stole the car earlier. We're...a study came out that millennials prefer to purchase from a company that they feel is doing good for the for their community for the world, whatever, because it's a very jaded society now we realize that there's just a lot of for profit things we're going to get into this because a nonprofit for profit the only way you're going to be successful is actually making a profit one way or the other. Was it Hollis or somebody else at Baby Bathwater that one time was talking about the best way for someone to have a good good experience with you and may I can't remember if it was Hollis or not but they essentially said your customers are always looking for the community net positive. Now I can't remember exactly who wasn't said that at the last meeting but they were talking about if I make this purchase then I know I'm getting this product. But what if I'm supporting a company that's also either helping the environment or helping my fellow man they're looking for the net positive with their interaction with the company because if I buy a pencil over here from let's say a name of a store but it's all about the transaction well it's it's only as cold as the money went here and I got...walked away with a pencil but maybe if I spent I don't know two or three cents more over here and they encouraged me to do one more thing in my community that brought somebody else in or made a piece of plastic.Man, I love where you're going with this it never even occurred to me that part of our follow up post purchase email should be something charitable like this. Yes, we should sit there and say not not now that you purchase this get on cuz you know it's business. It's post purchase email hope you enjoyed it we want to turn you into that promoter.You want to subscribe?Yeah do you want but but everybody's doing that. I want to do this and we're going to do this with KBMD and KBS yeah say thank you for purchasing this hey we teamed up with Ron Klabunde who has opened this thing if you are so inclined go look at it one time one email no more follow up though if then funnels this. No, just check it out. I like it you should check it out.So this concept of wanting to do things with lead you to basically change the way that you handled your approach to being a pastor. Correct. And then so when it when are you getting to the point where Replenish Foundation and Generosity Feeds and the other companies that are enveloped within begin to form on the horizon? How did that all come about?So I'll bring us back to the beginning. Okay. My wife and I were living in northern Virginia and this is pertinent to the story and that we were living in the wealthiest county in America. Okay.OkayIs this outside of DC? This is outside of Washington DC, okay. And so we wanted we we realized that people in Washington DC wanted to serve. They wanted to teach even their children the values of generosity and service, and all comes back to this. No one wants their kids growing up being an asshole. No one. And so we figured, but here's the problem. The problem is, it takes time to find a good nonprofit. It's even harder to find a good nonprofit that will let children serve because of insurance liabilities. So that's a huge thing. Never thought about that.Barrier entry point for families serving together. So what we did is we decided, well, let's create something that has a low entry level. Let's partner with the local school because the local school already has more influence than any other organization in the community. Sure. So This school is promoting it, people are going to come. So now I don't have any marketing overhead. Yay. And so then we go that we went to local businesses and we said listen, the local school we're doing this event with them. And in the wealthiest county in America catch this. There were 12,500 children struggling with hunger, the wealthiest county in America. 12,500 children struggling but the hunger back in the day. So we looked at this and we went, business leaders listen, why don't you come with us on this but also bring your employees with you as a team building opportunity. Let's just do this as a community wide and collaborative. It's a school it's the businesses, nonprofit sector, a church here or there.Can I slow you down?Please. Because I love and we've we've talked about this. I love how people end up where they get there. And clearly you saw the need.Right.I want to know even before that when you're sitting with your wife and you guys had the AHA moment you went, hey, maybe we should consider doing something like this. Because it makes total sense that you know that all these kids need to eat. It's it's those, it's those moments that build that can change the trajectory of a life.And did mine. Absolutely. We were we were, we were innovating ways to create easy entry levels for people to serve. So we tried a number of things before we got to Generosity Feeds. And we were sending kids we were doing food collection before and sending kids that who weren't going to eat over the weekend. We were sending them home with 20 pound backpacks of food. Now imagine imagine a six year old trying to get a 20 pound backpack it doesn't work right so we made some horrible mistakes in the journey, horrible mistakes. And eventually we innovated to this to this idea and and we mobilize 600 people. Event one. Wow. Wow. 600 people showed up to create 40,000 meals in less than two hours.You and your wife plan this. Yes.That is so cool. The logistics of that is so cool.Just the supply alone. Yeah.To have that. Yeah. That's pretty incredible.Now you see the community now is coming around this idea because it's an easy entry point who can't show up for two hours at the local high school to help create food for kids in that school and that school district.Yeah.Who would go hungry otherwise on the weekend?Now your experience in the church did did you kind of already know or at least somewhat predict that because it going through the Generosity Feeds event, and just like Kim described it, it was lots of instant team building with the people that were there. Yes.Did you kind of already know looking for your range in this? Yes. And I know there's there's wisdom in there yea.There's wisdom that I gleaned sure the years and there's there's a reason that every packaging station which you were both at is between 12 to 15 people There's a reason for that because we're seeking to create community. You can't create community with 600 people in one room. But if I take 600 people and I break them down into teams of 12 to 15 they're going to naturally build relationships with each other and that's what I want. I want everyone leaving with a new friend that shares the value of generosity and service.And the other thing which I thought was really cool at least when we did it was this fun competition. Yes. Yes.They're like yeah, this tables crushing it here I'm like, Come on guys, we're not gonna let them win, we have to do this. It's it's it's the human nature. That's right.Everybody was really excited as each one we would pack the boxes I can't remember how many food packs went into each box but regard...25 Okay, so you get to 25 and then basically your your tables excited because we'll we've we've sealed another one. But of course it's it's a victory for the kiddos who are gonna end up getting it in the end.So as a gastroenterologist the other thing that I was really pleased with...Yes.You guys chose a sustainable food source you had a good protein fat carbohydrate ratio. So you're not like putting Fritos in a bag and saying go home. No! Um. Here's where that came from. Um, in our family we eat as all natural and holistic and organic as we can. Nice. And part of that is my wife has autoimmune issues. I don't I don't think I've shared that before. And so she's also gluten intolerant and thyroid issues and before I give the whole medical thing that's going on with her, right? Well, here's what my wife said to me early on. She said there is no way that we are feeding millions of children in America what we're not willing to feed are own children.Good for her. So cool. That is so cool.That's the standard. And so everything we did was go out and find the healthiest we created the product but create the healthiest product we could that was lightweight. Sure. That could that a six year old kid carry home you know? Yeah, that was lightweight that could be created by the masses that could be a mobile manufacturing plant that would create community bring all the aspects of community together and could be a dance party when we wanted it to be.That's an absolute brilliant idea. Yeah, I mean, talk about a win win win. You around very clearly are not only a very generous person, very altruistic person, but pretty damn smart. Yeah. Because that is cool. You're a good businessman.Yeah. You could take you could take the letters, PDS sense PDGs already been taken.Yeah, yeah.That's right.Well, it was also it's not just infectious for the the event that we went to in Dallas We're in coronavirus season, we don't use the word infectious. Oh, sorry. Let me let me shed some light no shedding disease. No but I think two weeks before we did our event Lavich and Hollis had participate in the one was in Colorado and a very similar experience so y'all are obviously replicating all of the good parts building upon and improving. Absolutely.I'm looking forward to the to the next event we'll obviously be there but I don't want to steal the thunder we'll get to that in a moment to Generosity Feeds how people can look it up but so now you've you've gotten to the point of my wife and I have decided that we want to do something different like she's thrown down a great edict: we want to feed kids the same things that we would eat your piece it together. The first event had 600 volunteers you had 40,000 meals made. Now what?Within two weeks, I started getting phone calls from community leaders around the country going we heard what you're doing in northern Virginia. We need your help, will you come? Wow. And so theysame state?I mean, oh, no. Across the country, were calling meOh, across the country. Sorry. They were...How did they find out about it?I'm well networked. Okay, so because of just because of my background I used to...You're an Instagram model.You just got my mouth to close!So not that kind of networking, okay.No, um I used to and now I'm back at doing keynotes around the countries I teach leadership development around the country and so because of my earlier years of doing keynotes I'm just I'm well networked into the business sector and into the even into the kind of the faith sector of our culture. So people know...people are watching what I'm doing. They they saw, they knew and so within one year of that event, we were coast to coast.Holy. That's great.And that was the ah-ha moment-going back to your previous question. When was that kind of that that wake up moment? Yeah. When we were When we did our first event in Eugene, Oregon, as far as you can get away from DC. And it flew with all the same outcomes as we had in Washington, DC, my wife and I looked at each other and went, holy shit. We just started a national nonprofit that can go to any community in America. Yeah. And then it was just a matter of leading that to growth. Sure.Because growth doesn't just happen, you have to invest in grwoth, and so we began investing in the growth of the company. The other moment that was really big for us, is obviously it takes capital. It doesn't matter what we're starting in life, for profit, for purpose, nonprofit, it takes capital. I remember walking in my living room. And I looked at my wife and I said, listen, I need to write a $15,000 check to the foundation, so that this thing has a chance at living. Can I write the check? And I said, by the way, I think I'll have it I think we can pay ourselves back in eight weeks again. Keep in mind, I was a pastor. I was getting paid almost nothing. So 15,000 for me, you're going to know in a moment how close that was to my end. Wow. She says, yes. 10 weeks later, I walk back in the living room and I go, honey, I haven't been able to pay us back on that $15,000. I need to write the last $15,000 we have to our name. Can I do it? And my wife goes, "write the check."Holy cow. So just to clarify. Nonprofit, you took all your savings.Dumped it. Dumped it in there. Yeah. With the mission of saying we know we're onto something. Yes. But we're losing money right now. Yes. That's guts.Well, it was. Holy cow.It was this vision. It was the it this is a painful point to to be honest with you is that I had the we had the vision for feeding millions of kids who across America struggling with hunger but I was writing the last check not knowing if I'd feed my own. Oh.Goodness gracious. Oh my goodness. That's the level of commitment.That's the line.Dude. That is coolest thing I think I've ever heard. Yeah.I'm willing to take food out of my kids' mouths knowing that if I do this right, I can feed millions. Yes.And your kids did you sit and tell them that?Oh, they know all this. They're in the game with us.That's so cool. So cool. They knew. I know that you and I have a son, sons that are the same age. So my my youngest is 16 and I think yours is  1616, yeah.And then how many other kiddos you got?18 year old girl.Oh, that's what I have also.And a 15 year old girl.Okay, nice. I've got 18 year old son 16 year old son. You are 15...15 and 13. A 15 year old boy and a 13 year old girl.Nice. They they eat a lot. Both of them. If I sat with them and said I'm not gonna feed you for a week because I'm going to try and feed a million kids...actually I take this back, actually my kids, both Lucas and Carla are amazing kids, they will probably look at me and be like, you need to feed a million kids. Sure. We'll go forage. There's and that's that's, that says a ton about you that you went out on that kind of limb. And man, I'm so glad that you did. Because we saw the effect. Right.That you're you're doing and we only saw it on the local level. You see it all these other places we're going to, we're going to explode it tonight at this Party on Purpose. Gonna be amazing tonight.So how long ago was Eugene, Oregon's first event?That was eight and a half years ago. Wow.So now you hit Eugene, Oregon, you say to your wife, we are definitely in something that we can replicate in city to city. Yes. You're going to take this nonprofit worldwide. It's going to grow we talked about you need capital.Right. Where does Replenish Foundation Generosity Feeds began to take shape?So, we had some very wise councillors, advisors on the front end. So when we were even looking at this first event with 600 people, they said you need to start a nonprofit that is a um umbrella organization so that you can create an ecosystem of nonprofits underneath it. Because I don't want to lead six initiatives that all have their own 501C3, that's six different boards. It's too much management. It's not efficient. So far better off creating one nonprofit that can house various initiatives. So Generosity Feeds is a DBA of the Replenish Foundation. And that allows us now to be creating additional initiatives that all play off of each other.Sure.And are now working collectively to establish generosity as the new gold standard in America. That's what we're after. I know that Generosity Feeds is one of your biggest DBAs under the Replenish Foundation. What what DBAs do you have?Yea, the other one is Generosity Serves. So as of today, we have 64,000 volunteers across America. Remarkable number. Here's what's happening at events now. Oh, and we also partner with other nonprofits. Oh. So, so when we go into a community and all these meals are made, we don't do distribution. We bring in other nonprofits, we promote them at our event. Nice. And then we give them the food. So here's what's happening. These nonprofits are now coming to us going, you got 400 people from our community to show up at your event and we can't get 40. Okay. Would you be willing to mobilize your local volunteers to serve with our organization? Well, of course, I am.Sure This is about doing good. This is about becoming a force for good. This isn't about competition in the nonprofit sector. This is about helping these other nonprofits soar.Right.So Generosity Serves is a platform now where with our nonprofit partners across the country we can go into our database and begin to mobilize these people to serve with these other nonprofits in the rhythm that works for their family. Oh, wow. You haven't...you haven't you have built an army of generous people.Yes. That's where we're that's why we're seeing that we're seeking to change culture. Because we know if we can change the dial of generosity in America, even just three notches, three degrees from our present trajectory. Together, we can begin to solve every social issue that exists. I believe the timing is perfect. Also, I think I think the pendulum is swinging back away from that social media obsession and people are going I am done. I am unplugging. I want to be with somebody I want to talk I want and I think it's an incredible timing. I think that people are seeking this which is why they, you've been able to do this. Well, you've been able to do it because you're very organized and you did it the proper way. And you're very charismatic and there's a lot of reasons why your particular thing, but that's the platform that other people can go with. You know, we're doing KBMD is sponsoring Linda's Nebraska ataxia for the for the fourth year in a row. And I was just thinking the whole time when you said we team up with other nonprofits, she does, she is my med school roommate, been friends with her forever and she developed a type of ataxia. And meaning that she, it's, it's, it's like Lou Gehrig's disease, but she has the resources and she found a physical therapist that analyzed her and was able to put a vest on her with weights. And it actually allows her to walk without the vest. She can't walk. Oh my goodness. Yeah, so then so she decided on her own dime to do a Nebraska Ataxia foundation and all they do is buy them and given to people and there's just video of video of people in wheelchairs and they show up and give them a vest because that technology exists. Yeah, it's like this. There's kids not eating on the weekend. You can feed them and you can eat them good food and they're gonna they're gonna become great members of society. It's just that easy. It isn't like you're going and given some weird obscure drug. It's like oh my gosh and so like I'm just we need to get you and Linda hooked up with that or she needs that you have any events in Omaha Nebraska?Not right now. We'll set that on the through her but she's got a big network and we can we can do that.That's right. We did. I don't know what podcast that was but he came on our podcast and he taught Eric and I about toxic charity, how you can cause more damage, trying to do good by throwing...You know, it's so cool as we've had a handful of different charitable folks drop in on the gut check project and one of them that always comes to mind right off the top is another BBW guy and that's Robo Hendrickson with a I mean, he truly is...in but the way that he describes the passion behind why he does what he does transforming communities is very similar to what you're talking about. But even more to the point the way that it's not what you would consider what Robo termed was toxic charity.Throwing money...the fact that you y'all have yet another subsidiary, just simply called Generosity Serves shows that you're, you're enabling a community to feel comfortable and more community by serving together find and you even said it yourself finding ways to make it fit your schedule. And you're doing it without competition between people who are trying to do well, it's like, let's lift each other together. In my own small town. I told this to Ken we there's a man by the name of Ricky and he works through a church but he invites the entire community at least one Saturday a month to simply come and staff tables where we hand out food. That's all that we do. A lot of the different food producers in the North Texas, they donate it, they know there's going to be a big line. People come from all over. But regardless, they get shopping carts. They come out there in the parking lot. We load them up, and then they've got plenty of food for a couple of weeks. It's great. And it's giving and it's things like what you're talking about all we've ever needed as volunteers to help make it happen.So, side note, but this is a shout out and mad props to every single parent out there. Dad or mom Loy and Lucas spent two weeks in Mexico touring doing tennis. I had to try and figure out what to do with my daughter. Like pick her up from school, get her to her events, cook dinner for her. I want to say it was the two most stressful weeks I've had in my entire life because I'm trying to work. Now. I'm the boss. I started thinking, Wait a minute, I'm the boss and I do okay, financially. What happens and I started looking around my office I'm like, I have a lot of single moms working for me. Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh, I have a lot of single moms that are going to get fired when they show up late again. And there's, and they're they and I just I had this. Am I that big of a jerk that I have not until I lived it...Yeah. That's frickin hard. Yeah. And then when you don't have enough money to give your kid food on the weekend, the only food they're eating is at school. So then it's insult to injury where you're you're trying your best. Yes, they are. You want to give your kid food. And then something like this, where they just come home with a backpack and the food's already there. No questions asked. Nothing being said and it's healthy.You know what makes that story even better, is when that kid was at that school event, help create the meal and three weeks later, they open their backpack and it's sitting there and they kept their dignity because they helped make it Oh, yeah. Take it to the next level.Yeah, that's cool. Then that's that's the epitome of not a toxic charity. Because what Robo talked about is it doesn't do me any good to go to a community because just like you he's serving with them. He's teaching them how to take care of their animals, go get an education, give back to the people learn how to grow the food mill, it's very much the same thing you've removed the stigma of someone just gave me this to I created this for me and for some other people who are in similar situations. That is a pretty incredible full circle, give back. I didn't even think about that to the people that we were building these.That's where that's where I said, you very likely had no idea you're standing next to a single mom. You'd have no idea because the moment we unite ourselves around shared values, nothing else matters. You're right. Your wealth doesn't matter when you're united around shared value.This is...we do this, Eric puts my patients to sleep. I stick a camera in people's butts, the one thing that we see over and you may be a super rich guy, you may be this buff person, you may be old. We all have the same inner workings. We're all the same. That's what we totally forget. We're all the same. And I see that because I stick cameras and I'm like, your stomach looks like it looks like his stomach. We're all the same. That's right. And when we sit there and realize that if my kid was hungry, thank God, they have never had to experience that. But if we had something that I could, I mean, to be able to go and be a participant say, honey, we're going to go and we're going to pack some food and you're gonna have food for this week, but we're going to earn it. That's so cool. Non toxic charity.That's right. So we started off in northern Virginia. Yes. And then we've we've gotten to the point now where Replenish Foundation functions is a large company with a handful of charitable subsidiaries. Yes. Now today, you're in 29 different states with events correct? That's correct. So what what is Generosity Feeds is doing now? How can people that are tuning into Gut Check Project figure out where they fit in to learn how they can begin to serve with? Yes. In, in and around their communities with their neighbors at? What What can people do?So let me hit the business side of this first. Sure. So we work we work with over 600 businesses across the country. And you it's very possible that your that our listeners today have heard of something called corporate social responsibility.Corporate social responsibility.It's called CSR. And this is often used by the larger companies. Now, here's the problem with CSR. It's this. Its responsibility. No one wants to do a responsibility, something responsibility is something you have to do. Right. And yet these larger companies, most companies are looking for CSR. What's our corporate social responsibility going to be? No, we're throwing Corporate Social Responsibility out the window and we're saying listen, don't do a CSR. Do CSO, corporate social opportunity. Let us help you as a business, create a philanthropic strategy that engages your product, summit a piece of your profit, whatever you want your employees and your customers, and that customer pieces a huge piece. And so one of the things that we're doing now with companies is helping them develop their their CSO, corporate social opportunity, because when a company does it right, it's going to accelerate their business. I was talking with a very large business owner in Salt Lake City this last week, and they just dumped a lot of money into a nonprofit initiative. And I said, you know, you're about to open 25 restaurants around the country. And you're going to drop about a half a million dollars on every one. I'm sorry. $500 million on every restaurant. to open it said I would imagine what...500 million?500 million is what typically it takes to open these larger scale restaurants okay? Holy cow. So 500 million. When you when you open a restaurant, are you going into that with a strategy and a plan? Yeah, well, of course they are. Anyone would. I said, over the next 10 years, you're probably going to invest 200 to $300,000 in philanthropy. Do you have a strategy for that? And she's like, oh, I get your point. Why in the world would you take $200,000 of your profit and invested in, in nonprofits without a strategy? Right.Like, let me help you design a strategy with your marketing team that's wrapped with your values, so that so that you're doing your philanthropy with a with a purpose. So you can see the outcomes in a way that actually accelerates your business.I love this because what I'm hearing is that charity and giving back is not checking a box.No, this is this is about nonprofits. Yeah.And for-profits working together. And here's the here's the statement, not it. The linchpin is this, for profits that have the heart of a nonprofit, need to find great nonprofits that have the mind of a business. Say that one more time.Okay for profits, businesses, businesses that have the the heart of a nonprofit...Love that. Need to find great nonprofits who have the mind of a business.And you're allowing this so I'm like the fact that you said that this is a corporate social opportunity. You are figuring out how to do it well. You can come to a company like KBS and say you are leaving your customers in a position where they don't know that they can give back. And we all win.Yes. And I can coach you through I can guide...and here's the beauty of this, this isn't about the foundation. Because at the end of the day, I want your company doing what you're passionate about. Not what I'm passionate about, this is about your value system. And so if these companies choose to work with us, that's great. I mean, that's going to help accelerate what we're doing. That's not the point to this. The point is, if you're aligning your profits and your values and your employees and your customers with a great nonprofit that aligns with all of that, then guess what? You're doing good. You're becoming a force for good and that's all I want. That's all I want. Yeah. And so that's the end game. Like, why because we're seeking to establish generosity as the new gold standard. That's not about me. That's about you.You wrote your last $15,000 check, told your kids we're out of money. And you went from there to I'm now going to teach large corporations how to do it better. And it all revolves around generosity and you lead by example that day when you wrote that check.Yes.So cool. That is so so cool. I'm excited. We are leaving we are completely because we now we know everybody at KBS we're there. We all do charitable things, your donate money I do the thing that you're saying, which is you know, I, whatever, you know, I try to donate, like, even like Linda's foundation and stuff like that every year I sponsor, I'm not taking advantage of the fact that I need to spread that message because all it does is help everyone get in their lane and oh, this is where I need to drive. That's that's basically what you're telling people to doIt's the power of with.Yes, power of with.Now, that's a pretty powerful message all the way around. It just seems like that lots of corporate responsibility did turn into the checking of a box. We should be doing this. So let's be sure that we do it. And Carol, you're over there. Did we do that thing? Did we send the check did but there's there's no personality behind that there's no touch in there, you're really not seeing it.Well let's take it one step further as a pastor tithing. I grew up Catholic, right 10% Where does it go? Who cares? I don't know. I'm just giving it. It's right. Right. It's what they said we had to do.That's the world I was in too.Now, and it...suddenly just enters a world of obligation. What what was probably born as a as a good purpose. It's lost. Its lost touch. It's lost feel. There's no texture to it. It's just this this, this money is spoken for, and it's gone. So now I'm super intrigued as a business owner. I come to you, Ron. And I say I have a I have a business. We're growing. I want to get my company in this corporate social opportunity. What would be the first thing that you would do? What would what would you do with me?So the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to I'm going to send you an assessment. I'm going to have you assess your own company as to where you're at. And that's going to do two things. Number one, that's going to help you understand wait a minute, we're not all bad. That's the first thing it's gonna do.I talked to I talked to Tim and Patrick about this that like we're doing the whole we've all read the book Traction. Yes. And so you know, you do like that, you know, you start that you start thinking everybody's bad. You're like, this is your this is your score. Eric, you're a two this week. You are a two.No, so you're gonna get some good news, right? Yeah, but you're also going to evaluate where you want to be when it comes to CSO corporate social opportunity. And then I'm going to walk you through a process of blueprint of helping you close that gap. It's that simple, and in a company your size. Four hours, you will walk away with a blueprint of going, oh my God, is it really that easy? And it is. And so if this is not rocket science, I don't need to consult your company for three months. Let's just sit down, I'll put you through the assessment. We're going to walk you them through our blueprint that aligns your social, your social good with your value system, your product and some of your profit, and boom, you walk out the door going, oh my god, here's who we can partner with. and here's how we can tie our business and our customers into it and everyone wins.We have when we launched our product, we know consistently because our research when we did the clinical trials, we know that four out of five people are going to get better, like really get better. Sure. And we when we launched we either had one star on Amazon or we had five which is not a placebo. Either we worked or we didn't. Yes. And fortunately we are four stars and close to 1000 reviews. Every single one of those people that we helped, we can say if we made you feel better, I'm going to ask a favor of you now. And then we do your process. Yes. Because you have somebody that Yeah, I do feel better. You changed my life I want you to pay it forward and be with and we can make a difference and grow this network. That's so cool. Corporate Social opportunity. Did you coin that term? Yes. That's awesome. Only because CSO doesn't it doesn't work. It's it again. It's a check a box. It's it's not the heart.Right.And we're we're seeking to pull out of people, the values that are in them, the values in there. It's just letting them come to the surface and begin living.Isn't that so interesting? Because you can see how many people want to have that pulled out of them. Because we think that everybody's own superficial stuff, but the reality is, when we went and when we did Generosity Feeds, that was an enthusiastic, it's not like...From the moment we walked in.Oh my gosh, everybody the energy was amazing. Yeah, people want to get off of this superficial thing. They want to be part of something. And if they know that they can, it just comes to them. I mean, I'm the same way. I mean, I was so excited. I only found out about it because Eric said, hey, one of our Baby Bathwater people does this. I'm like, Okay, what are we doing? I was on call that weekend and everything. And I was like, Okay, I had no idea. Yeah, loved it had fun. And I'm somebody that is perfectly willing to give back and try and help out wherever but it doesn't. Since it's not being fed to me. I'm busy. I forget. Now, if we can sit there and develop some sort of process where and we can get other companies, like some of the other companies that we work with,You know, it's kind of interesting is it KBMD Health, but also just in the direct patient contact that we have. We talk about diet, we talk about exercise, we talk about different things that people do to improve their own health. And since I was a kid, I've heard that many times just simply giving of yourself will reward you even more than than whatever, but you hear it. You don't always get a blueprint on how do I effectively give back and it sounds to me like probably what you're really doing is, it may sound elementary, but you're just helping people rediscover the new way to find their purpose and then suddenly you begin to feel better. Suddenly depression issues aren't nearly as bad as they used to be. Because if you think about a gym, do you think gyms existed back in the 1800s? Could you imagine in the 1800s telling someone, we're going to have this building, and there's going to be metal bars, and we're going to put weight on them. And we're going to lift them, and we're going to put things over our heads. And we're going to do some stuff like this, and we're going to do some stuff like this. You're gonna look great, you're gonna feel good, and some cowboy would have shot you between the eyes and go that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Have you ever heard that whole Jim Gaffigan set where he's just like, what in the world? How do people develop a Stairmaster? Hey, I got an idea. You know, people love walking up stairs. Let's make one that's never ending.But, but people, they they've gone to do that because that level of exercise for whatever it is, is keeping them in shape and helping them feel better. It just seems like what you you're doing is reintroducing people back to what they've become this...they became disconnected from your core. It's why people do yoga. It's why people do meditation it's to return to who they are. This is not that different.I have an idea for you. I think you should make the food much heavier like 20 pounds. Put it on the kids Yeah, give him a little workout. And then let 'em do squats.Do Memorial Day Murph For Memorial Day you go to Generosity Feeds get your 20 pound pack. Go do some air squats.Oh my goodness.That That is so cool. I'm just I'm I'm loving the idea that we could sit there and send a post purchase email sequence that just says hey, it's time to give back time to give back if you got better great if you didn't get your money back because we have 100% money back guarantee. Yeah, you didn't get better. Here's your money back if you got better now you need to pay for it. But not you go give back. Give back with us.With us. relationship. Everything's relationship.Let us know how you're giving back also, I mean, justWhatever it takes. But it's not you know, I mean, what I like what you're doing is you go, I'm a company your size, I need four hours, I've got the process, you very clearly are a very detail oriented person. You think through all these things, you've got 64,000 soldiers, that got your back right now. That's what we would need. I mean I want you to come to me and be like, here's what you're gonna do. That's what I love about traction. It's and you can do this, this, this and this. Now for your charity, you're going to do this, this, this and this, not write one check every Sunday.Yeah. And walk or interplays with what you are doing from the book Traction. Because again, when we talk about our, our body and our health, it we're holistic beings, everything in our place, right? Same thing in it, same thing in business. What you do in the philanthropic side of your business needs to completely interplay with what you do in the profit side of your business. Let them intertwined they're not two different silos, and that's what we're bringing together.Yeah, man I love what you're doing I absolutely love what you're doing and I just I like hearing the story how I built this because people look at this they're like oh yeah he's charismatic guy, he's a coach whatever know you wrote a check with the last money in your bank and you went...It hurts.Yeah, just just to reiterate, in case you're joining us late in the podcast and you're just joining in because somebody else...If you're joining us late just rewind and start over cuz it's all really good.Generosity Feeds does not handout, cheap meals and sweet tarts. This is legitimate food for kiddos that don't have an opportunity to eat and don't have an opportunity to get a good meal on the weekends and you've stepped in and you've allowed people into your vision to serve in a serving with you, which I think is awesome.You know what I really like also having kids our age, Eric made it a point to make sure that it was a family involvement. Gage brought his girlfriend. Yeah, it was it was we're going to do this. I'm going to lead by example. I'm gonna put the hairnet on. I'm gonna put the gloves on. Yeah, you're gonna see your dad do it first. And then follow my lead. So it's the same thing you lead by example. You teach others to do that they teach others to do that now we're all with it. And the car ride home was was filled with smiles. It was rainy that day. Yeah. It was rained hard that day. But I mean, everybody was like, man, it felt great.Yeah. And then is the conversations as a parent, reinforcing the experience. Sure.That's the power. Definitely no curriculum needed. How do people find you Ron? How do people help out?Easy. Email me at ron@replenishfoundation.org that easy, different ways to help out. Look for an event in your area. That's one If we're not there yet, that's fine. How do they find that? Is that on Generosity Feeds?Go to generosityfeeds.org.org, o.r.g.Yep, generosityfeeds.org go to locations, you'll see what's coming in the next usually four months. And in we're already booking 18 months from now. Whoa, it's crazy. So that's but that leads to part two. If you're if you lead a business that is wanting to do good, or you're a community leader, have it, call us we'll come to an event with you, like will coach you on how to mobilize your entire community and work with you and support you in this because it's all about the width. So break. Let's do this in your community. Let's do this together. So that's the other pieces go to generosityfeeds.org and just contact us and we'll, we'll help get this going in your community.Do you hear that Linda? Nebraska Ataxia, hit him up. Omaha is gonna be the next place to do a Generosity Feeds spot. And then we're going to team up two charities that I support.29 states covered right now, which means there's 21 left just in the US alone. So knowing that if I were a corporate person who wanted to be a corporate partner, and I know that we said that you don't just want to write a check, but you do need supplies.We do well, and we have national level funders, that are helping advance the mission. So you have we have local people who support the local events. And then we have the national partners, which you guys are, that are helping mobilize us into new communities across America that are helping us empower 64,000 volunteers, because the idea needs to be needs to spread.I just thought about something here. So if I'm a I'm not a I don't know how to say this in the right way. But if I'm a a family, yes, that is a tight on budget, right. And it's just easier to spend $8 at McDonald's to feed the family, is there I just don't know how to say this. But I would almost like to tell my patients for instance. Because I hear this from my patients all the time. It's very hard for me to shop at Whole Foods or whatever, or it's just easier that I can get McDonalds and you know, and I try and get them off of that. Is there a price point? Can anybody be part of this? Can anybody use eat it? I mean, basically, I would I would tell my I would tell my patients, go to Generosity Feeds, pack your own bag, make sure you eat this on the weekends and don't eat that crap that you find cheap.At our events when people come to at the end of all of our events. Here's what we say if you are here today, and you need food, just come see us privately. Because you're going to walk away with food. So it's that simple. Yes. Is the food already designated to the nonprofits that are going to distribute it? Yes. That doesn't matter. Someone when someone comes to an event needs food. Just come talk to one of our team members. We're going to hand you the food that you just created. Walk away with it.So DHAT my company. We need to do something with this also as a gastroenterology as the gastroenterologists for all ages that are the premier gastroenterology group in the country, we need to lead by example, we need to do stuff like this. Definitely. I think everybody be on board too. This is another one of those things where you just delivering laser focus to a lot of people who want to serve, they just don't know how to do it, or how to do it together.Well, sometimes it's the conventions, like Mod Pizza, as you said, is a title partner with us-national partner with us. So they do a leadership summit with all their general managers every year, guess what we do? We go in and catch this. This year they're creating 50,000 meals, they'll do it in less than one hour with 2,000 people. Like so. So we can come into these conferences and conventions and and we do this. We're working with Microsoft right now. Like, the coolest thing ever. Who are they? Yeah, I don't know. I think an up and coming company to buy some stock. So again, it's In those are private events where it's just that Corporation but it's like you so cool. You got this group around the country, the doctors come together. You put them on. So many companies talk about doing good. Let's just do it will bring it to youDon't talk about doing good.Well, just and I'm sitting there thinking we've got my company, I'm just thinking how many of these single moms that work for us that probably would be relieved that they could go home with some food. Because I found myself running out of time not cooking for Carla for those two weeks and ordering food and we ate like, well, we'd like crap per our standards chair. Um, it's, it's relative, right? I mean, it's, you know, read a lot of Thai food and whatever, you know, which I like. But um, but I wasn't cooking whole food. I wasn't doing the stuff that we normally would do.No, I agree with that, and probably the epitome of a lot of the people that want to give back, who aren't always in the best position to give back happened to be those same people. I would never know who actually truly struggles, it is walking amongst us until sometimes they kind of hit a wall and they just like, for the last number of weeks, I've been dealing with this I'll look and I'll say I had no idea. But that same person, whomever that would happen to be, I'm certain would jump at the opportunity to help a neighbor or friend. And then of course they would have the opportunity to benefit and take something back to their kids. That would be kind of incredible.Wow, I want to thank you so much for coming on. Thanks, Ron. I want to thank you for you lead by example. You're certainly gonna make a difference with us. We're gonna we're going to jump on board with KBS KBMD DHAT. We're remembering we're going to have the corporate social opportunity be our new motto.Yeah. If you're only watching us on the YouTube you may have missed we are down here in Austin, Texas for what they call the Austin POP the Party on Purpose yes event where we have a handful of corporate entrepreneurs who've come down here to Austin basically to help Generosity Feeds and Replenish Foundation mobilize to more areas throughout our country feeding kiddos that just needs some good meals. So Ron, I can't thank you enough for just bringing to life an incredible vision for a lot of people who just needed it. So it's, yeah it's awesome.I appreciate it great being on with you guys this is honestly just been a lot of fun. Oh, good, good. And I'm sure it has been for everyone else too.I hope so!Well, hopefully this will kind of spread and this is a great example of leading by example living by example. Corporate social opportunity Generosity Feeds Generosity Serves everything you have said is just makes me feel like I'm kind of a bad person and I need to do more.That's probably going to do it for Episode Number 35 Ron Klabunde here from Replenish Foundation and  Generosity Fees and Generosity Serves look him up everything in show notes of course, check us out, like and share Gut Check Project KBMDhealth.com. Dr. Brown, anything else?Yeah, I'm going to task everybody with a personal social opportunity. Definitely like and share this particular episode, because it goes way beyond the Gut Check Project,Send it to your boss.That's a great. Send it to your boss, find something that where you work or with your team. If you haven't been an entrepreneur, how can we begin to work together? This is your team building exercise. It costs you nothing, and it gives everything.Here we go. I'm going to I'm going to share this with Loida right now, my boss, my wife.Thank you! Tune in to Gut Check Project. We'll see you next week, don't forget we have a giveaway Dr. Brown's signature package Episode 36.Find a “Feeds” event near you https://generosityfeeds.orgOrganization Info on the Replenish Foundation https://generosityfeedsportal.org/uploads/images/prospectusreplenishfoundation_email.pdf

Eric Rieger  Alright, we're going to get down to the gut check project starting on episode 34. It's gonna be a quick one, but you're gonna love it.Ken Brown  Yeah, we're gonna try and do this a little bit quicker because what I've gotten some feedback is when you guys get all sciency that sometimes it's it's cool to hear the fun stuff, but the reality is that the science gets a little geeky and it gets almost like a lecture. So I apologize to everyone out there if I've been some weird professor but so my only thing so let's do the personal stuff is your family good? Eric Rieger  Family's Great! Awesome. Ken Brown  My family's great also awesome. And that's up for the personal stuff. So like I said, I was called by a good friend, Tim, our good friend his father had... Eric Rieger  Tim Power been on the show. Ken Brown  Yeah, Tim power been on the show. His father had a stroke. And he messaged me and he said, Hey, man, my dad had a stroke, and they don't seem to be talking diet. They don't seem to talking supplements. He's in rehab. He's getting better. I'm doing my own stuff. I'm trying to fix this. But do you have any recommendations? And rather than just knee jerk and go, Oh, I'm going to go ahead and yeah, just do this and this and this. I started thinking about it. I went Holy cow, my hospital. Medical city Plano.Eric Rieger  Right. Ken Brown  Is a level one trauma center and is designated as a magnet hospital for stroke, acute stroke rehabilitation. Eric Rieger  Okay. Ken Brown  So they have a whole team that if you show up with a stroke, it's just like a heart attack. They're badass. Yeah, they show up with like this team of interventional neurologists, and they get in there and they do all this stuff. So I'm sitting there. My quick side note, I'm picking up my family from Mexico, because Luke was just playing tennis. You know, that was the the personal part of it that we didn't get into, but just assume it's tennis. Eric Rieger  Assume it's basketball.Ken Brown  Yeah. So I called. I called the stroke rehab unit. And I spoke with them with the nurse. The manager, nurse and she was so cool. She's like, She's like, hey, yeah, blah blah blah Yeah, we were our rates are this. This is the protocol. I'm like, what's a protocol for diet? We don't have one. What's protocol for supplements? We don't have one  i'm like, Oh my goodness, let's look at this. So I called our secret weapon. And I started to get into it and it's a much bigger bite to chew off then we can do in this sort of quick episode. So this quick episode, I want to just focus on the endocannabinoid system and stroke. Because what we do with stroke victims is that we basically do everything wrong. Eric Rieger  I believe it. Ken Brown  In the hospital. Eric Rieger  Yeah. Ken Brown  And when I asked him, like, what is the typical diet? She's like low fat. Eric Rieger  What's the science behind that? Ken Brown  Exactly. And we know that the carbohydrates increase inflammation and this and that. I'm like, Well, what else and she's like you had traditionally everybody gets put on a Staten, which causes some brain inflammation, because we're chasing numbers on cholesterol. Anyways, keep listening, because we're going to end up doing another episode on we're going to develop a protocol that I hope everybody adapts, and the nurse was like, that would be amazing. nobody's talking like that. Because everybody has this hammer. I mean, we bring these people in, they have a stroke. And one of the most important things is sleep and what do we do just disrupt sleep, check vitals blood sugar, and all this other stuff. So basically, we focus up we focus on all this stuff. So I called a couple neurologists, and was like, Hey, man, what's the or Hey, woman? I don't want to be sexist here. I'm like, Hey, what are we doing here? What's going on with the you guys are crushing it. So basically they focus on the awesomeness science of clotbusters like tpas and blood thinners. And then they rush in with this incredible technology that is amazing. Where they get in and they do like cardiac clot, like the same thing that the cardiologists have been doing. That they end up just sort of extracting these clots and they just crazy stuff. It works, but then they don't think about anything else,. So here a gut check project. I feel like we check our egos at the door and we look and go, how can we do things a little bit better? I feel like that this conversation that we're having could be the beginning of something bigger. Sure. I feel like we're missing a ton of stuff. This is not to bash traditional medicine at all. This is just a glorious example of how medicine save lives. But unfortunately, if all you have is a hammer then everything's a nail. So we're going to go ahead and look at that today. Eric Rieger  Let's do it. Ken Brown  I'm gonna do one brief thing. Because we always do in in the news, we always do our personal lives in the news, mostly because it's a win for me. So I'm just whenever I find news that is pertinent to me, I'll talk about it. And I'll just kind of, like most people just sort of ignore the stuff that bothers you. Bottom line is a study just came out. Looking at coffee. Eric Rieger  Oh, I love coffee. Ken Brown  So February is Heart Month, right? Eric Rieger  It is. Ken Brown  So everyone talks about Heart Month, and we're strokes are almost parallel to heart. So the same vessels that can ruin your brain can ruin your heart. You're gonna die either way. Let's start fixing it. Eric Rieger  Yeah. Ken Brown  So a study came out this last Thursday. So just a few days ago, in a journal called PLOS biology that I follow, which always looks at like new and upcoming research, as it find it. As it turns out, we know that coffee is good in 2017. There was this big meta analysis that show that help with diabetes. And also helped with cardiovascular disease and different things like that. But we really never, we always thought it was the polyphenols. So these guys looked at this and they took mouse models. And what they showed is that the caffeine plays a role. Eric Rieger  Nice. Ken Brown  Yeah. In case you haven't guessed that I drink just tons of coffee. Eric Rieger  I didn't have to guess I see it all the time. Ken Brown  Alright, so anyways, they took mouse models, and what they showed is that when you drink four to five cups of coffee equivalent in caffeine, you actually improve the mitochondria in the heart cells. They even show that the mitochondria is that you know, it's the powerhouse of the cell. It's what makes you walk around. It's what drives every single cell they found a protein called p 27, which is stimulated by caffeine. And when they gave heart attacks to mice, and then they gave them coffee, the mice that got the coffee, or the caffeine equivalent, recovered quicker, knockout mice that they took away the P 27 protein or whatever, they all died of heart attacks. So quick little thing in the news, coffee good, helps diabetes helps heart disease. And now we realize that it improves mitochondria. So I got to thinking and I was like, wow, the whole mitochondria is our aging thing. I found an article where they looked at old an aging mice, the more caffeine that they took in during the day, the more that their mitochondria were younger, and it was an anti aging molecule. So polyphenols plus caffeine, it looks like.Eric Rieger  it's really interesting, brief note, and maybe we should even do a show about caffeine and the systemic effects because during anesthesia school, we talked about why caffeine does what it does, and the jitters. And essentially, the way it was explained to us and shown to us is that they didn't know the exact mechanism, but they could tell that the threshold that it took for like a neuron to fire was lessened. So what it does is it lowers threshold to elicit an action potential. It would make sense that somebody who's a little bit older, basically you're taking down the barrier. And now you've got demand making the mitochondria useful. I mean, it's...Ken Brown  Yeah, I like where you're going with that.Eric Rieger  It's all kind of systemic, we'll get to that. That sounds like a an interesting... Ken Brown  So that's just basically in the news Heart Month now we're doing this... Eric Rieger  And if you think this episode's fast, wait til we do the caffeine one.Ken Brown  So this is just one of those things where we're, we're trying some different stuff out but one of the biggest problems I had is I called the stroke center and they do not have a protocol. And then when I called the neurologists and and I said one thing I was like, have you guys ever thought about the endocannabinoid system, in your specialty.Eric Rieger  No, they haven't.Ken Brown  Not only No, it was a hard no with that BS. Eric Rieger  Sure. Yeah. Ken Brown  So rather than get an argument and like, we'll just do a show on it.Eric Rieger  Yeah, we will. Ken Brown  So this show should be titled the anti bs side of endocannabinoid system and stroke. Eric Rieger  Let's do it. Ken Brown  Alright. So, once again, geeky sorry, we've done two geeky shows in a row. We're gonna have to start having, you know, just playful things. We have to have a comedian on like Joe Rogan or something like that.Eric Rieger  Eventually.Ken Brown  Yeah. It's probably a little premature. Alright, so let's talk about the endocannabinoid system really quick. I'm gonna throw it to you, and I'm gonna let you just to describe to everybody what is the endocannabinoid system. Eric Rieger  The best application that we know today that I understand is it basically functions as a great communicator, between our nervous and our immune system. So you have these two systems and basically it functions as the regulator. It's the one that prevents one from being overstimulated and driving the other one to do something that you don't want it to do.Eric Rieger  100% So the way that I describe it to my patients, our endocannabinoid system is like any other system in our body, you have a cardiovascular and neurologic. The endocannabinoid system works like a traffic cop. And what it does is it says we need more inflammation here. Whoa, you're overreacting. Why don't you just calm down right over here? So keep that in mind, because as we talked about the endocannabinoid system, now we're going to talk about how does the endocannabinoid system relate to stroke. So unfortunately, we got to talk a little bit about strokes. And I like history you like history. So, Hippocrates, the father of medicine first recognized strokes over 2400 years ago, we got 2400 years to figure out how to fix this. At that time, they called it apo Plexi, which means struck down by violence. So 2400 years and to this day stroke still kill 140,000 Americans. That's one out of every 20 deaths. Eric Rieger  Wow. Ken Brown  Someone in the United States has a stroke every 40 seconds. That means every four minutes someone dies. Every year more than seven Well, let's just call it 800,000 people in the United States have a stroke. About 87% of all strokes are ischemic stroke. Which means it's decrease of blood flow. And $34 billion are lost every single year due to strokes. Stroke is a leading cause of serious long term disability, stroke reduces mobility in more than half of stroke survivors. So the, if the actual death is not shocking enough. It's your health span is reduced. And you and I always talk about lifespan versus health span...be healthy. So what I'm going to talk about right here is crazy that this is not being implicated. This is not are not implicated not not being used in the traditional sense.Eric Rieger  Gotcha. Eric Rieger  All right. So, right now, the cool science going on is that we've got all this intervention, we got labs, we got stroke centers. We did we're, I feel like we can do a whole episode on just the diet, the supplements, everything around lifestyle on a stroke. And we're going to do that just like we're gonna do the butyrate episode coming up and just like we're going to do, every time we get into a topic, we start digging deeper, and we learn a little bit more. So today, the fact that these neurologists are saying, oh, food is Bs, well, I'm just taking on the big 600 pound gorilla. I want to say, Well, I want to know what you're not even thinking about endocannabinoids are you? And they're like, that's really bs. Now we're gonna get into it. So it is there's tons of research in the animal model of how to target so this topic of this podcast is the endocannabinoid system and strokes. Holy cow, there's tons of data on this and we're not even talking about it. I'm at a, a world class Stroke Center. Where we save more people than like anyplace else. We've been given national recognition. If if you're the CEO of who owns our house, the old colombia The HCA HCA if you're the CEO of HCA, pay attention because I can say more people for you, because as it turns out, there's lots of confusing data out there. And I took the time to go ahead and look at some of this. It's really cool. Basically, we've already reviewed the endocannabinoid system. Now in this endocannabinoid system, there's two primary receptors. We're learning that there's more for the Wil Clydens of the world that are super smart, and they understand that there's a lot more than that or the Chris Kressors and people like that. But for the general public, there's two receptors, cb one and CB two, there are the traffic cops, right? So that's what we have to realize. So as we alter the endocannabinoid system through different things, we know that the endocannabinoid system is associated with Parkinson's disease. It's associated with Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis. The only drug approved is epidiolex for seizures. This is part of the problem. It's the confusion of what's going on? People say what does the FDA say? Well, did you know that the FDA just missed their mark to present to Congress on February 20? No? Ken Brown  Yeah, they missed it. That's another news article. They did not come up with a consensus statement on CBD when they were mandated by Congress to do that, because everybody's so confused. Eric Rieger  Wow, you know, I didn't know that we should look into that.Ken Brown  And we know that in those studies of epidiolex, there was 86% side effects and all the things. So what I'm going to get into is the full spectrum, what we're looking at here, so stick with me here I know that I'm kind of bouncing around. What I'm trying to do is set the stage that the endocannabinoid system is intricately related to the disease known as a stroke or the event known as a stroke. So knowing that the endocannabinoid system is important in Parkinson's and in Alzheimer's, dementia and such like that, what we want to try and figure out is how is the endocannabinoid system related to similar things which is Parkinson's and dementia are inflammation in the brain. Well, the stroke is immediate inflammation. Alright, so CB one receptors. I say this only because the argument will come up will be like, well, I found some studies that showed that there were some studies looking at CB one receptors were when you had knockout mice, they did better. Other studies show that they did worse. Some said that this and that. And so I was going through all this literature going, this is silly. This is we don't really have a conclusion. So the bottom line is, think of it this way. And I will use a Will Klyden quote, it is a symphony. It is not one instrument. When you are looking at the endocannabinoid system, if you are just going to focus on one thing, which unfortunately researchers do because it's impossible to account for all the other variables, all I can say is CB one is intricately involved and it may be involved in a negative way. When it becomes a stroke. So if Your endocannabinoid system is not in tune. It can make it worse. Just like a symphony where you have the brass section which is just screwing it up. You've got the rest of the symphony playing Mozart and you've got some other people just kicking some cake. Eric Rieger  An orchestra with only symbols is not very entertaining. Ken Brown  No, it's not. So I bring this up because when you start trying to read it and debate it and look at it, you can be thrown curveballs. One of them is that and, but then you dig deeper. And there's all this literature on this instrument called CB two. Cb two is the other instrument, cb one, cb two are the two receptors. Now we're learning more about the endocannabinoid system, the data is much more straightforward on this. Basically, multiple rat models have shown that when you give an agonist or a CB two activator, both pre stroke and post stroke you decrease the amount of damage, so you can actually prevent what's going to happen. And then once it happens, you go, Oh, we need to stimulate that. Keep that in mind. Because to prove a point further, when CB two was blocked, the rats had tremendously more damage and they had residual effects. So just by saying the endocannabinoid system, and they're like, oh, it involves CB one, cb two, which is the top level that everybody talks about. The interplay is way more, you gotta let the body do what it wants to do. can't shut one off, you can't turn one on. You can't encourage you have to be able to let the body do what it wants to do.Eric Rieger  No, definitely. And that's, that's really not that different than lots of different drugs which they thought they pulled them out of racemic mixtures. And then what racemic mixture means is you've got two different variations of the same molecule and one's active and one isn't But then they learned that sometimes if you do one and try to isolate it, you actually caused damage. Whereas before, if you had them together, you didn't have that damage. And it's played that multiple times.Ken Brown  So clearly CB two receptors play a very key role. What I'm trying to prove here is that when we take these animals and we mess with these receptors, we either increase the damage or we decrease the damage. So the theory is that the endocannabinoid mediated modulation of the inflammatory process is the reason why people get better. So in other words, we always talk about inflammation. Now they're realizing that the CB two receptor mitigates the inflammatory process during an ischemic event. Eric Rieger  That's pretty important. Ken Brown  It's really wild. So now what actually interacts with these receptors? So if somebody's never heard these terms before, they're like, man, they're talking weird stuff. They're talking CB one, cb two, don't worry about that. Cb one, cb two are just two likeminded things that are trying to make you better. As it turns out, we can say this about every single system in the body there's going to be interactions, downplaying in the gastrointestinal system. Histamine will stimulate a cell which will produce gastrin, which will increase the acid production blah, blah, blah, we know this Eric Rieger  But histamine could, the same molecule on a different receptor could cause a completely different Ken Brown  100%. So why would the endocannabinoid system not be different than every other system? Eric Rieger  It's it sounds to me like it's very normal. Ken Brown  You know what I keep saying? We're gonna have Endocannabinoid ologists I'm gonna be the first endocannabinologist. I'm gonna get myself a title. So somebody had to be the first black belt or something. I mean, why don't I just rushed to be like? I'm It! I'm it! Eric Rieger  I'm the BBECS. Ken Brown  Yeah. Alright, so there's two endocannabinoids. What I mean is you make your own CBD. And those two things there's we're learning that there's lots of them. But for the basics it's anandamide and 2ag. So knowing that you have these two endogenous meaning two endocannabinoids that stimulate CB one and CB two now we're just learning what they do. Okay. So 2ag goes up dramatically following a stroke.Eric Rieger  So trying to do some damage control.Ken Brown  We don't know...Eric Rieger  We don't know...Ken Brown  We do know that when anandamide is the soft light that is always on when you go through a stressful event 2ag turns on switch the flashlight. So the feeling is that that 2ag is the fight or flight Endocannabinoid. Eric Rieger  Oh, okay. Ken Brown  Yeah, so when you need it, It ramps way up. In situations where there's cell damage, it doesn't know the difference that there's cell damage possibly it's ramping up because it's like we're in fight or flight mode. We're dying here. Eric Rieger  Where's the inflammation? Ken Brown  Yeah, so these guys are postulating that when you block 2AG, the stroke damages less. My feeling is well, what if it's doing something someplace else? Like, what if you needed that 2ag burst? So when you have fight or flight, you need it for different things. Sure. Some people would say, oh, you're having a fighter flight. You're being chased by a saber toothed Tiger your blood pressure's up. We should give you blood pressure medicine. No, it's the right thing that should be happening right now. Yeah, I need the blood pressure to pump the blood. So we know that that to ag is your fight or flight Endocannabinoid think of it that way the flashlight Anandamide is the one that you want up, that is the Eric Rieger  Parasympathetic, your rest and digest. Ken Brown  It's the it's not quite the parasympathetic one, but it's the one that is your baseline that should always be filled, that anandamide tank should always be filled. 2aG. We're gonna learn more about it in the future because we haven't studied that as much. But when you have 2ag around, blood flow gets reduced. So the damage is worse. And this is really interesting because when your baseline anandamide is low, your 2 a G will overshoot. Eric Rieger  Okay.Ken Brown  So they work like a seesaw. So if you can get them in balance, we always talked about balance and in sync. When your anadamide is full and your 2ag is full, they never really mess with each other. In a situation where you're depleted in your endocannabinoid system, then you will have the propensity to have too much 2Ag and your anandamide is in fight or flight and your endocannabinoids will keep producing the two AJ, Eric Rieger  That is very, very interesting. So in other words, what we want is to never be in a position where our our ECS is low on what it needs to function. Ken Brown  100% so anandamide we're now learning is probably the baseline Endocannabinoid that controls the day to day response that you're having. 2ag turns on when you need it to turn on. So, although the animal models show that 2ag increases significantly causes vasoconstriction and all this stuff, we're learning that okay, maybe, maybe this is my theory, the stress and the chronic disease. Listen to this one more time here, the stress and the chronic disease that led to a stroke. Meant that your anandamide was being depleted and your body was getting ready for the event. You're 2ag going up. So stress, lack of sleep, diet, all have been shown to decrease our anandamide levels, stress, lack of sleep and diet have all been shown to be linked to cardiac and stroke and every other event that we talked about Eric Rieger  Time and time again. Ken Brown  So when I grab a neurologist and I say, Have you ever thought about the endocannabinoid system, the religious stroke and they're like, that's BS. I'm being nice about how they said it to me. Are you kidding me? Eric Rieger  Well, it's...Ken Brown  we're missing this huge, giant piece.Eric Rieger  It's kind of sad because the research isn't it's not one paper. This is it's ubiquitous, it grows every single day. I think people have over the last 50 years have forgotten that innovation brought us to where we are now. I mean, we used to not have TPA we used to not have kumudin and we used to not have these things I mean it those were also new introductive things for us to figure out.Ken Brown  I was talking to somebody yesterday and they were like you know what's really skewed when you look back at like the the average lifespan when you when you factor out the deaths at birth people still live to like 60 and 70. Like, like, but there was so many things that killed babies Eric Rieger  Oh, you mean long ago, Ken Brown  Like long ago. So when I say that Hippocrates was describing strokes, and you know, 2000 years ago, whatever. But this is so fascinating because think about this, if you keep your anandamide levels optimal like adding Atrantil which blocks an enzyme that breaks down your own anandamide levels. That is something that we can look at, and I think that's part of the next episode. But when you take CBD, so our CBD product here, when you take a good quality CBD it doesn't even bind directly to CB one or CB two. We know that a full spectrum product has many cannabinoids and other molecules that bind to certain receptors. We also believe that CBD will play a role in helping the body to produce more of its own Endocannabinoids. So what I tell my patients is that if you take CBD, you're going to increase your own anandamide levels. You take CBD plus Atrantil, That's the signature package and you're going to make sure that you block the enzyme that breaks down your anandamide Eric Rieger  So it lasts longer. Ken Brown  So it lasts longer and the neurologists like there's no science in this. Okay? So I had to dig deeper, or our secret weapon dug deeper for me. In rat models, infusing CBD into the brains of rats significantly helped to decrease the amount of damage and help recover in stroke. Really CBD does nothing? They actually injected CBD into the brains of rats that they cause strokes. And it actually blocked the ischemic event. One to One. Crazy! Eric Rieger  That's noticeable. That's a reproducible event.Ken Brown  Then in another study, they showed that the blood brain barrier sealed its tight junction and decreased brain swelling post stroke when you gave them CBD, Eric Rieger  Which is huge. I mean, I know it sounds really, really technical, but trust me, that's not nothing.Ken Brown  Remember the whole reason that I'm even talking about this is because our friend Tim just called me and said, Hey, man, my dad's in rehab, and they're not saying anything. Well, it was shown that continued oral administration post stroke at one week, and one month reduced the volume of infarct and improved neuro behavior on autopsy. So they're taking this it showed that CBD reduced white matter injury reduced glial response, meaning that the cells did not react to it. And it increased BDNF.Eric Rieger  Which is what you need for repair.Ken Brown  You need that for repair. Shit! This is nuts. Yeah, we're over here saying that CBD isn't do anything where the endocannabinoid doesn't have it and I'm finding article after article and these guys are finding amazing data BDNF. If I the first thing I would do would be to the first thing I would do would be to put people we're going to come up with a whole protocol. And I'm gonna go to HCA and don't be like, everybody that has a frickin stroke needs ABCD and one of them's gonna be frickin CBD. This is ridiculous.Eric Rieger  We've got some opportunity, though. And not everybody's closed, we could probably find a couple of neurologists around here in the area that are at least willing to fairly examine data and dive in. And that's what we'll have to do.Ken Brown  We're gonna end up having to go into this. I mean, the fact that I called my own Stroke Center, and the nurse sheepishly said, Well, you know, they do the usual things that put them on a low fat diet, and I stopped her. Which, by the way, it's really cool, because when I called up, I was picking Lucas up and I was like, yeah, hey, it was nurse manager. And she's like, Yeah, and I said, I said, Yeah, this is, this is Dr. Brown. Do you have moment to ask couple questions. She's like, sure what patient is that? Regarding? I'm like, now I just wanna ask some questions. And she stopped. She goes the GI Doctor said, Yeah, she's like, oh, like, what do you mean uh Oh, she's like, I've seen your show. I'm a little scared what you're gonna ask. I'm like alright and so that's how we got this talk. So right now new models are looking at immediate administration of CBD and hyperthermia. So somebody out there is saying, if we make them cold and give them CBD, and it seems to be a synergistic effect Eric Rieger  Wasn't that long ago, people thought that making the body cold was a bunch of Hocus Pocus crap, too, right? It really wasn't that long ago. And so now we've returned to its natural element, all we're doing is reducing body temperature. But however long ago it was, I can remember people saying, Well, you know, they're trying the cryo, and at first like, hey, maybe it works. And then suddenly, we saw lack of decrease in loss of neural function, you know, make believers.Ken Brown  So I want to play devil's advocate, and we talked last time that we're going to do some sort of like contest. Here's the contest, for the listeners. All right. There is a reference when I was looking at all this stuff, one reference, there was an article on stroke in cannabis ingestion, where they said that cannabis ingestion increases the incidence of stroke. So and then I went and found the article and realized there's a lot of other factors associated with that, much like the FDA article that we did on liver failure. It's very much like that. But the FDA is using an article like that and ignoring everything that I just said. And they're using that. So what I propose is and you figured out, you're the you're the techie guy, let's do some sort of giveaway where if somebody the first person that messages us in one way or another email, Instagram, Facebook,Eric Rieger  Paul we're gonna need help with that, Ken Brown  yeah, snail mail, whatever, I don't know. That references the article and puts the author's names down because the author's names you'll you'll really, you'll You'll definitely find the article when you find this author's names, that I think we should give them a signature package Eric Rieger  Signature package if you find the well hidden, gem about marijuana, cannabis smoking and stroke causation, right? Ken Brown  Yeah. So spoiler alert. So I'm going through a whole Rick and Morty Phase I should do.Eric Rieger  If you're not watching Rick and Morty, that's one way to decrease anxiety.Ken Brown  All right.Eric Rieger  This episode is brought to you by Rick and Morty.Ken Brown  I cannot believe it's took me this long to find that show I am I come home and that's 20 minutes of just complete giggle time, just total giggle time. Alright, so lots of cool animal data. I just explained what I think shows that the endocannabinoid system is intricately related to strokes and how we can improve it and in some ways if you try and mess with it, make it worse. Eric Rieger  So let's I know we did a quick episode but let's just do a quick rundown to make sure that everybody who's listening or watching can make their own crib notes. So, essentially, before and after a stroke, you can prepare your body for better recovery or prevention of the stroke itself that comes from having a healthy endocannabinoid system your ECS. How can you fortify your ECS? You make sure that you have enough sleep, you make certain that your diet is rich in polyphenols, which of course you can supplement with altrantil, and you make certain that you have the correct macronutrients for your ECS to lift up which you can get with a formidable or reputable CBD which kbmd health has both of those things. So in essence, if you want you don't know how you're going to get hurt, a lot of people don't know that they're going to have a heart attack today had a patient today. 172 poundsKen Brown  I thought you were gonna say 172 years old and I was like wowEric Rieger  Six foot one Well built man. 172 pounds 49 years old, has been doing jujitsu and Taekwondo for 30 something years. Heart Attack had a heart attack back in 2012. Undiagnosed cad, the guy's got, which is coronary artery disease, the guy has two stents in. My point is, nobody knows you don't know when you're going to be susceptible to something. So if you can, he was doing what he could, right he was exercising. So he was doing that part, right, but maybe something else that he could have been aware of...Ken Brown  I'm telling you, we're going to learn that the endocannabinoid system plays a much bigger role in this and we have seen diseases start happening earlier and all that stuff. Eric Rieger  KBMD health GCP code GCP save 20% on your signature package. Ken Brown  100%. So the bottom line is that there's tons of supporting evidence that exists for the involvement of the endocannabinoid system and the pathology of a stroke. Now clearly, this is super complex and we're just getting into it. And these researchers that are coming up with conflicting data about trying to block CB one or trying to agonize CB two, don't, don't do that what we really need to do is just make sure let your body do what it wants to do, when there is sufficient anandamide, which is the one that we know really kind of helps out, it will work like a traffic cop and keep the receptors in check. 2ag is probably necessary for certain things. So if we're doing this show, and you start to well, like I'm like, okay, bottom line is if I'm looking at you, and you're talking to me, and all of a sudden you start slurring your speech and half your face starts drooping. Yeah, you look like you're having a stroke. First thing I'm going to do is run and grab a whole bottle of KBMD CBD and I'm gonna shove it down your throat because at least we know in animal models, that makes a big difference. And then I'm going to go get a bunch of other supplements that we're going to do a whole nother show on that should be protocol for every single stroke center in the US. So much like the butyrate podcast, we got another one that we're getting into and I'm gonna bring a neurologist on and I want to bring an expert so that we can talk about it Eric Rieger  Small request, if I'm having a stroke and you're going to do all that CBD also get a speech pathologist to make sure I can swallow.Ken Brown  Yes, we will do all that if you're having a stroke, but I'm not trying to be a jerk about this, but we're going to finish the show first.Eric Rieger  Cool.Ken Brown  So, I mean, if it starts happening, try to do it towards the tail end of the show. You know, do you know that I've had four heart attacks since we've started this. This whole podcast show but I just suck it up, move on. I've had all kinds of health issues.Eric Rieger  That Believe it or not is going to go down to the books is our first short episode. Ken Brown  Well, we want to do a short episode because I feel like we're getting a little too sciency and I want your feedback. I mean, quite honestly, do you like the science you not like the science? Do you want the guest? Do you not want the guest? But when I find stuff like this, I have to let it out. And if you gave me Two hours, I'd be talking for two hours. So this is just a way to control the amount of vomit that I do right here. But it's so cool. How are we not doing this? Eric Rieger  I don't know. But I think I think will change though. And thanks every single week and thanks to Paul. we're gaining viewers. We're gaining listeners. This last week was a huge spike in the last seven shows. So thank you.Ken Brown  And you want to know what people are reaching out on their Insta they're messaging me on Instagram and they're asking medical questions. I love that I'm we're going to do shows on that stuff. So if you've got questions, let's do this. Eric Rieger  Definitely. that's gonna do it for episode number 34. That was strokes and the endocannabinoid system. We will in the show notes, go ahead and add unrefined bakery, their offer is still good. So save 20% if you want to have keto friendly, no gluten, paleo friendly, whatever kind of meal that you're after, and you feel like you can't have bread, they've got the solution for you unrefinedbakery.com use code, gutcheck and save 20% Ken Brown  Yeah,so once again, please do us a big favor. What we're trying to do is really spread this message of functional health. share it with everybody, get people calling in, get people asking because we've got the resources. we're gaining a little bit of traction here and this can be really fun. This was such an eye opener for me. Endocannabinoid system and strokes. All because somebody said my dad had a stroke Ken Brown  and Tim power thanks for reaching out. certainly appreciate it. gut check project. In the books go to gut check project. com share, like and share and we appreciate it.

All right. Welcome back. It's gut check project, Episode Number 33. I'm here with your host, Dr. Kenneth Brown. I'm Eric Rieger. Dr. Brown. What's happening In a day?Not much I tell you what, this is really cool Episode 33. It's you and I know guest because we got to cover some serious science. Yeah, we do. A lot of people want to know what happens whenever you take certain things that works as post biotics, not just probiotics, but what do I do to feed my bacteria? And is that even number one? Is that even a real thing? What's a post biotic? Do I care what happens with the foods that I eat and what my bacteria does with it? And if I do, what's happening? so I'm going to, we're going to deep into deep into, we're going to dive in deep into some awesome science about what happens when we take care of our bodies, bacteria. Well, the reason why I wanted to get into this is that we got tons of feedback on the fecal microbial transplant episode. And then of course, when we had Panez on here talking about Crohn's disease. Yeah. So one of our viewers, Don sent me a message that basically said, so I'm more confused than ever. What do we do now? I started looking into it, and I'm like, Oh my gosh, now I know why so many things happen to poor Heli I, we're going to talk about that we're going to look into this, and hopefully clear up a few things. But I love the fact that we have viewers that are calling in be like, great episode, but now I'm more confused now and you know, follow it up. So that's what we're going to do today we're going to follow it up and talk about how Heli and Panez that has groans and Ellie, with her horrible autoimmune disease and everything like that with her fecal microbial transplant. I'm now starting to put the pieces together. I'm moving this big bubble of Venn diagrams, and I'm like, Oh, my gosh, this is here. So that's what we're going to do today. Your job because I mean, when I mean, I got excited, like, I my hair started going up in my arms. I was like, it's there. We're missing this. What I'm going to do right now is talking about some stuff that probably should have been put together before or maybe it has been maybe, but I looked at a lot of research I spent I just went down rabbit holes, and I'm kind of excited to talk about it.Well, it's awesome. It's easy to do. I can tell you that I would imagine that we're probably going to talk about not only post biotics, but some really cool names like short chain fatty acids, right? We're going to head that direction?We're going to talk about that ..PolyphenolsWe're going to talk about SIBO, its IBS, all that stuff. PolyphenolsThis is gonna be a great episode. If you if you if you're truly interested in gut health, you cannot ever stop expanding your knowledge and understanding why people say, health begins and ends in the gut. If there's a reason why that people who change your diet feel better, and this is what we're going to talk about today, so.. Yeah, totally. But you know, but before we get into that, we're not just, we're not just podcast nerds. I have a life. Okay. I'm pretty excited. I went and I did Rachel Sheers podcast, Sheer Madness. With her little Frenchie thingy Bulldog, yeah, called Lily. And so we went and did that. That's gonna launch here pretty soon, but you can see pictures of that. So that's cool. Um, and I also feel like I've been working too hard and people ask me, they're like, you know, do you have a hobby I'm like, wow, I'm..No so I was watching 60 minutes and I don't know why I'm turning into my dad. We're now I watch 60 minutes on Sundays and rather enjoy it. But I'm gonna pick up falconry. In fact, I've picked up falconry.That's amazing. You've already done it in such a short amount of Yeah, specifically Golden Eagle falconry. OkayYeah. So basically I watched a 60 minute episode and Mongolia Nomads depend on animals to get other animals because they have no agriculture. So what they do is they make this bond with golden eagles and they use them to hunt other animals for them. And they've been doing this for thousands of years. Well, there's a woman named Lauren McGough. She's a PhD, she traveled to Mongolia. She's from Oklahoma. Oh, wow. Yeah, like, imagine having that conversation with your dad. You're like, I'm gonna go to Mongolia. But she's from Oklahoma. She found this old book on Eagle hunters. And she's like I'm gonna go do this. So she figured out that this is such a unique way of living where you live in unison with the animals. So she went there, she captured her own Golden Eagle bonded with it, and then became part of their tribe and hunted with this thing. Wow. And then has come back and it's been like, you know, a conservationist and she's a PhD and she lectures and all this other stuff. So these things, she owns her own eagle and what they do is they there's, they describe how you actually get it, but it's safe and everything in the ego bonds and then they let the ego go, like you're back out in the wild. I'm done with young either, you know, do you want to leave like when the ego wants to leave, it just leaves, but it hangs out so they can fly 50 miles an hour, and they can see seven times better than a human. And then they let it go. So anyways, I got into it. So I got my first Golden Eagle. And I've been trying to do this, but it just keeps bringing the neighbor's cat to me. Yeah It's not working the way it did on 60 minutes.While like he keeps bringing the neighbor's cat so it's unharmed, which is really really sweet.Totally unharmed. It's it's a completely loving eagle, the cat loves it. I just pet it for a little while. Yeah. Then it delivers it back to the neighbor. I don't know where the neighbor is.. Could be different city who knows? Travels 50 miles an hour. It's common knowledge of birds of prey just don't ever hurt anything. They just want to show it to somebody. So that's my hobby. Yeah, interesting. I can't even match that. So probably not going to the boys are about Star basketball playoffs. So that's what we're getting fired up to do. weekend was nice. Did some camping Saturday, Saturday evening. Woke up to beautiful sunrise Sunday. It was it was awesome. And that really kind of what we did this weekend is can take it easy. So..Good for you. Taking it easy is good. I want to bring up one in the news article that I saw because pretty cool. Yeah. All right. You're gonna love this. Just published this month, actually. It was published the February 14th. So in the news, the American Heart Association published a study out of Northwestern on peace. With peripheral artery disease PAD, also known as PVD, peripheral vascular disease. Now peripheral vascular disease or arterial disease is a narrowing of the arteries that reduces the blood flow from the heart. So the further away from the heart. Imagine you have coronary artery disease. Same thing happens all over the body... But the further away it gets, it can actually affect people where you can't walk very, very far and it affects over 8.5 million people 40 years of age or older nationwide. It's a big deal. Sure. So this is so cool. In a small study of 44 people at Northwestern University of patients over the age of 60. They gave them a beverage drink containing flavonoid rich cocoa.Interesting.They gave them cocoa and then they added some epigalic tannins to it. Hmm, sound familiar?Thats polyphenol people right there polyphenols, they gave people polyphenols the American Heart Association is now starting to catch up they're, I think watching the podcast. I'm sure they are. I think they are. So basically what they did is they showed that people that took this three times a day for six months, which shows that it is a supplement three times a day in a cardiac diseased laden population, ... no side effects... three times a day, six months, and they improved their six minute walking test compared to those who drank the same number and type of beverages without the supplement.It's funny you say that because people who have serious complications with diabetes that ends up with PVD or PAD, oftentimes, they end up doing that walking test, especially if they have numbness in their feet, or they notice that they have sores on their toes that they're unaware, but a family member sees, right?YeahSo just a side note, if you happen to have diabetes, it may, it may behoove you to keep up with your polyphenol intake daily.And it also may behoove you to listen to the rest of this podcast because I'm going to get some cool stuff but so look at this.. so you're like, Okay, well what does that mean? So if I drink cocoa notes cocoa enriched with epigalic, tannins, same tannins that we have in Atrantil the right part, those are the polyphenols. So those that drank this, they improve their muscle function over the placebo. But what's really cool is they showed that they did muscle biopsies and they showed increased mitochondrial activity. It improved the mitochondria increase the blood flow through through..The mitochondria what are you saying?No, no, it increase the blood flow because of the polyphenols through..?ArterialDilation, because of nitric oxide production. Okay Everything that we've been talking about.I know he's teeing me up folks, I really hate them. Because there was lots of through there and andYeah, I'm just just follow this basically.. We now have scientific reasons why polyphenols improved sports performance, okay. It affects mitochondria and it increases the blood flow. Now we're into a much better realm. And I understand the categories that we're in because we've multiple times referenced the studies that Joe Botel from from England was talked specifically about increasing nitric oxide, specifically in athletes to increase blood flow, increased performance, etc. So sorry, I didn't see the T up there.Well, this is what's so beautiful. We always talk about, you know, athletic performance. Now we're talking disease. Now we're saying that, okay, yes, if you're a triathlete, or if you're a marathon runner, but there's a whole lot more people, you want to see how many people actually have peripheral vascular disease. Go to the airport. I remember and this is a man, this was a I remember when I was flying. I think the flight was going to Florida. Oh, and so there was quite a few people over the age of 60. They were all in shorts. None of them had leg hair.Oh, well, and circumference right..Circumference. All the way ... So just so you don't get along because I'm one of these if you still have hair. On one side of your leg, but on the other, that's not what we're talking about. But if you have a, there's like a line of demarcation... And then suddenly the hair stops you, you probably need to at least be checked out because there's a lack of blood flow.Yeah. So what ends up happening is is that the blood flows to go from the heart all the way to the toes. And so the micro vasculature starts decreasing before the macro vasculature meaning you're going to sacrifice the skin, blood flow to protect the muscles and the joints and the cartilage and all that other stuff. So that's how many like I looked around one day and I was like, Oh my god, I truly believe that almost everybody here has coronary artery disease slash PAD. Now we're looking at this going they all need to be on a polyphenol..Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's really, really interesting. And that's crazy. So yeah, so these these polyphenols definitely will help naturally benefit and produce nitric oxide so that you can increase your blood flow. And if you're already compromised help your body out.Do it never even thought about the whole mitochondria thing.Now? Obviously I didn't either, because I just sat there and stared at you. I saidYeah. Now the question is they didn't get into why they're actually asking in the article at Northwestern. They're saying the etiology, or the the physiology of how this is accomplished has yet to be determined. But we know it increases nitric oxide. Yeah, we do. I'm going to get into some stuff here shortly where I'm going to tell you that it's all about the post biotics. All right It's nuts. So for the next so I'm going to that's, that's it. That's our that's our fun part of the podcast.Now, that is fun, though. Honestly, if you've got circulatory issues, at least, you know, there could be a natural solution that will at least help. Number one, give you some more time. Number two, give us an idea of what you can do to improve things for yourself.So I mean, if there's one reason to do this podcast, and I keep saying this every single time, but I'm getting I'm learning I'm getting better. We've got our little secret weapon that keeps sending me articles and I'm just like, Oh my gosh, this one ties to this this one ties to this. So this is going to be a review of short chain fatty acids and you're like, I don't own any of those. I'm gonna get off. No, you need to hear this. Basically if you're a mammal on the planet Earth, this is a really important podcast for you.If you can understand the words he's saying that is you... yeah. Unless you're a flat eartherYeah, well they probably still should take they still take polyphenols..Should I shouldn't take that back question discriminated against. Unfortunately, I just watched that Joe Rogan episode with the astronauts. I'm all about space right now.Oh, yeah. Well, it's funny just the other day I passed the flat earth mobile in Denton, Texas. Yeah, it's pretty fun. On the back it says the earth is flat and you pan down to is buffered it says and motionless, which I think is awesome. But whatever. Well, so let's get into short chain fatty acids post biotics. Let's, let's get into some some awesome science here and, and let people know why it's so important.Alright, so I mentioned the very beginning that this was sort of brought on because the viewer Don said, Well, what next and then I started going down this rabbit hole, then I started Heli. If you watch the episode where we do the fecal microbial transplant This is that mean that she's not an actress, she's desperate. Sure. And things are happening to her and they're happening fast and she is panicking. We had Pannez that is at risk for all these things that we're talking about, but it's super complex. Ultimately, it all comes down to the microbiome. Unfortunately, As Americans, we disrupt our own microbiome by our lifestyles, like eating crappy diets, taking antibiotics, lack of exercise, and probably poor sleep are the biggest deals. And this is going to result in a decrease in diversity. You're going to hear this term over and over and over again. People always talk about I'll just take probiotics and improve this. No, it's way more complex than this. We're going to get into it. But basically, you need a true diverse microbiome, to aid in your health. Researchers are now showing that neuro degenerative issues like dementia, Parkinson's, anything that affects your brain. And you know, Eric, we've talked about this a bunch that my goal as a physician right now is to figure out a way to stop dementia. Yep. Because we come on the show and we talk we talk about our kids or about our wives. We talked about stuff. Imagine if all of a sudden it's gone. What was your life, ultimately, your life becomes memories and those memories are what forms your personality and all these other things, and then they affect stuff. The thought of taking away my memory is, I mean, people people don't really think about how, how difficult dementia really is. I mean, it's it's a it's a hard one. I've had friends whose parents have faded that way? My wife's grandmother, I mean, we wonderful woman and went through just honestly her own living hell not being able to relate to the people that she felt like she knew around her. And just it's no good. No. And so if we can sit down, start piecing things together. Yeah. And not only the neurodegenerative things, but now researchers are starting to look at this. I mean, I just gave that article about the American Heart Association looking at a polyphenolic complex. That means that the traditional medical complex is starting to look at this stuff starting awesome Starting.Now there's evidence to show that heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, obesity, so if you're like, Oh, I don't know anybody with dementia. But do you know anybody with obesity, ever had a heart attack? You have a family history of anybody with diabetes? Any all that stuff is the real question is how and why? Yep. Why didn't Heli develop all these autoimmune issues after fecal microbial transplant? My theory I'm not I'm not a smart enough to be a flat earther that has cool bumper stickers like that. But so my theory is just looking at all this and looking at my patients. I'm not a I'm not a PhD bench researcher, but this is what the world needs is bench researchers coming up with stuff having animal models, clinicians out here, slugging it away, and weirdos getting on the air and talking about it yet try and figure it out. Yeah, bridge bridge the gap between traditional medicine and natural solutions. Alright, so my theory is that our microbes, our microbiome, the most important thing in your body that really helps regulate everything. Do we live for them? Do they live for us? We don't know. But it can be symbiotic. Meaning you can work together. They're fed by the food we eat specifically fibers and complex polysaccharides. polysaccharides are hard to digest starches, right? So through various mechanisms their, these bacteria break them down, they eat it. And then their waste products or basically what they leave over. We use .. So their compost is our fuel, right? It's a fantastic thing that we've never really thought of before..Their compost is our fuel. That's that's, yeah, it's nice.Yeah, so that's what we're now calling post bioticsRight? And it's not a bad thing at all because what they produce in general post biotics, you can describe post biotics by their composition, like is it a fat, short chain fatty acid? Is it a complex molecule that we don't really know very much about it? Or does it do like your religion is one of them, your religion that creates the Mito con the mytophogy, right affects old and sick mitochondria.And if you're keeping up that's also known as the anti aging post bioticProduced by bacteria that breaks down these things a post biotic or the physiologic function that it causes. So we know that there's certain things about to reproduce that we haven't been able to label yet. There's been 800 post biotics, and they create all kinds of different diseases Again, 800 post bioticsThat scientists have at least discovered Right. And it's just to be fair, it's much like the ocean, there's just because we have 800.. I don't even think we're near the end. I mean, there's lots to figure out and the combinations thereof anyway, I don't want to sidetrackNo, totally sidetracked the whole time. In fact, your sole job, because I'm like, when I mean that we discovered a topic here that I was like going, Oh, my gosh, we're, we're piecing things together. So when I start going down a rabbit hole too much, interrupt immediately and go, you don't you're not making any senseSure.Just stop and start me over here. So this all started because of the fecal microbial transplant thing with Heli. And then Don says I'm more confused so that I started looking into it. And now I started realizing that these post biotics there's 800 of them, but let's Focus on one that we've done some serious research on, which is short chain fatty acids..Okay? Now short chain fatty acids are fatty acids that are really small. They're like fewer than six carbon atoms, meaning that it's very tiny. And they're made by our bacteria in our colon from undigestible, or from indigestible foods like fibers. And I always thought of them as fuel for the colon. That's how I was taught during my fellowship and residency in medical school, that they're, they're local. But the reality is it goes way beyond that, way, way, way beyond that. So these short chain fatty acids do include in to the geeky part, names like butyrate, acetate, propionate, and lactate, don't get hung up on the names, but in particular, butyrate is one that everybody talks about..Right? It's super important for gut health, and it's also known to help with gut motility corrects leaky gut, it works locally to heal the lining of the colon. But we now know that the other short chain fatty acids can actually be absorbed systemically as well. And we have not been paying attention to them. And they can influence the body in all different kinds of ways, depending on the host genes..Right?So you and I may react differently to these short chain fatty acids, depending on your genes. That's the epi genetic phenomena, right? That's how come Heli he developed all these issues when her donor did not have the issues. So that's a separate rabbit hole. But what I want to talk about is butyrate is so important that most nutritionists and scientists study this molecule that is its own episode. Okay. I'm going to talk about the black sheep of short chain fatty acids..Which ones at that? Oh, everything else but butyrate it okay. So if butyrate just know it's good, and you want butyrate? Yep. Now we're going to go into everything else and I want to explain how my patients like Pannez may have developed her problem, and we're going to bring it all the way back to short chain fatty acids like acetate and lactate and talk about that. So, the rest of this is I'm going to show you the model that I've never been able to explain up until right now. Okay. For instance, every time somebody sees me with SIBO small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or irritable bowel syndrome, IBS, or inflammatory bowel disease, IBD, Crohn's colitis, I like to ask them a question. I'm like, Do you ever feel like you're in a brain fog? Do you ever have anxiety? Has your mood changed? You have sleep disturbance? The first thing I do is go right from the gut to the brainRight? And I asked because I've seen this correlation. And I've always said, Well, it's because of the inflammatory process. haven't really gone that deep into it because all the articles I was reading about that all showed that a inflamed gut can lead to an inflamed brain. Now let's dive a little bit deeper and find different reasons how these post biotics actually lead to that. OkaySo if you're somebody that suffers from anxiety, it may have nothing to do with your brain. It may all start in your gut. And this is really wild. So step one, something happens.OkayYou get back bacterial overgrowth, SIBO you have an infection, eat a crappy diet. This leads to leaky gut, or intestinal permeability. Now, new research is showing that this will actually once you develop intestinal permeability, it actually allows acetate and lactate to get absorbed more into the bloodstream. That's not really what we want is it. It's not what we want. So once it gets absorbed into the bloodstream, these short chain fatty acids have this incredible mechanism to cross the blood brain barrier through its own transport molecule. So in the past, we've always talked about leaky gut leaky brain. This actually has its own transport, it doesn't even have to be a leaky brain, it's got a little bridge that these guys ride.So, in short, if I think this can be beneficial if you have a transport mechanism at the cellular level, basically, that just means that there's a little protein that's allowing passage or exchange of something to be taken from one side to the other. And I think that what you're explaining here is, we don't really want these molecules crossing over to the brain, but now that they are rapidly being absorbed through the gut, that they're more abundant in the brain, and that's not really what we're after.So these guys finally get out of the gut. They got a VIP card. Yeah, they're like, whoo, VIP card front of the line, let me know the brain. So that's what's really fascinating. So acetate and lactate, once it gets in the brain. They can actually directly influence neurons. causing a series of effects. said again, it's a direct neuro transmitter. Nobody's ever said this that I've learned this in neurology..Yea me either. So lactate and acetate can cause a direct influence on the neurons by stimulating sympathetic nervous activity. What that means is..Excitability.. They turn on the fight or flight.Yeah, interesting. Well, guess what? Yes.So this can cause a rise in blood pressure, heart rate and the opposite effect in the gut. When you have a sympathetic effect in the brain. You have a parasympathetic effect in the gut. What I mean by that is, I always tell my patients, the more because they're like, oh, man, I've been so stressed. I built constipation. Like it's a physiologic phenomenon when we were evolving. If you're being chased by a saber toothed tiger, you don't want to have sex or take a poop. Right as you're getting giddy. Yeah. So you have to think fast and run. Yeah, it's really funny. So like, I'm always thinking about that, like from sex. To actually have an erection. You have to have a para sympathetic response. wants to have an orgasm you need a sympathetic response and to actually have a bowel movement you need a parasympathetic. So parasympathetic is the opposite side of the fight or flight..Right. So now we've got this thing. I'm like, Oh my gosh, wait a minute. So, when you have SIBO, I'm just going to keep using the SIBO patient because, for the first time, I could say, oh, Heli on the interview, kept saying, I just am so anxious and just in and remember, I took a two hour interview to 15 minutes. I really kind of had to get her back focused the whole time. She was just like, I'm just wired and not wired like Robb Wolf. Alright, so then this becomes this really wild, this sympathetic effect causes a rise in the blood pressure, heart rate, and then the opposite effect, where then the motility gets messed up leading to more leaky gut. It becomes a vicious cycle. Yeah. So then while all this is going on, more inflammation happens. In the gut, the leaky gut then turns on the inflammatory cascade. So then that becomes our normal talk. That's I've given lectures on this part where I can show interleukin 12 and other 23. You know, cytokines blah, blah, blah, histamine..These are all inflammatory markers. Yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh, what if the very, very, very, very beginning of it is too much lactate acetate getting into the brain that then tells the brain to turn on the gut, or to turn down the gut to create more inflammation. And now you've got this process going on. So we've talked about this for SIBO in years, but now I'm saying oh, my gosh, we gotta fix the post biotic situation before we can fix everything else. Yeah. So now you may be thinking, Okay, this is crazy. I don't have you know, it's, it's interesting. I don't have anxiety, I dont have depression, I don't have bloating, I don't have gut issues. I'm going to turn this off dope because Oh my goodness. Now we're going to look at some different things that these post biotics are actually linked to certain diseases..Okay. And now we're going to get outside of the gut. And I'm going to give you mechanisms about how these things affect or can create diabetes, blood pressure, dementia, all kinds of stuff. Before we jump too far ahead. Can you give us an idea on what type of foods are used by these bacteria to create the post biotics that we don't want?..To create the post box that we don't want? That's that is a great question. What we do know more is that the foods that produced the post biotics that we like are fibers, and digestible starches are resistant starches, things like that, right? overnight oats, you know, whatever type of fibers, polyphenols, the skins of vegetables and fruits. What we do know is that when you eat a diet high in processed foods.. you end up creating more bacteria that produce more lactate and acetate.They're the things that I was kind of hinting at. And I kind of cheated a little bit but the things I was kind of hinting at were unrefined, our refined sugars. Yeah. And things like oils that we're not really supposed to consume like high, high pressed vegetable oils and different things like that they, they believe that those may be the the foods that allow the bacteria to produce the postbox that we don't want preservatives, foods that shouldn't be sitting on a shelf for months at a time and suddenly they're just fresh because they're in a package. Those may they don't know this for certain, but they think that those may be the kinds of foods that would lead to a lot of this lactate and acetate.And nobody's talking about the post biotics doing this. And spoiler alert, I'm going to get into it a little bit. But basically, once you start producing more of it, you're it sends signals to those bacteria that are like we're winning..let's keep doing more. Yeah. So they end up propagating more or they end up colonizing more. whatever word you Want to use? Then you end up with more of that. And then they're sending brain signals to eat more of that. And that's that whole thing where now you're out there wondering why you're cracking open a bag of Oreos? Well think about it if if I post bodek is influencing the way that my brain thinks she would have to draw the assumption that if I'm suddenly addicted to sugar, and I'm always craving sugar, whereas maybe I didn't before but now everyone my friends would know me as someone who just really likes sugar all the time. That could just be the the lack of that post biotic influencing the brain who's now told me Oh, you need to quickly go get this fix to make you feel this way.Oh, I'm so glad you went with sugar on this one. Nice. Let's talk about diabetes. Okay. All right. So I found an article that basically looked at diabetes in a rat model. This research showed that diabetic mice fed a sad diet, a standard American diet, and this diet which is high sugar, high fat, high fats not bad, right? High. I think high sugar is always bad, right? You combine the two and it's a, it's horrible. Basically, they fed us they fed these diabetic mice a sad diet, and they showed immediately that the acetate level jumped right up. This rising acetate caused an acute rising glucose leading to the pancreas to secrete excess of insulin Yeah, then it should have and then this rise in insulin led to a huge rise in a hormone called ghrelin. Ghrelin..Hungry. Yeah. Can you go ahead and explain to everybody what ghrelin is. So,Ghrelin is the the mechanism by which your your gut, your GI tract tells you that you're hungry, and you're going to want to go out and eat. And you really want leptin to kick in and whenever you've not, or when you whenever you don't need to go out and get hungry, basically. I mean, so whenever you see the commercials for what was The name of that lipitor or whatever it was, it was making people feel like they were. They were full. They were they were basically trying to mimic leptin. Really?Yeah, to make you feel full. Never saw. Not only works, butBe around. But regardless, grillin is the opposite. Ghrelin is the one that drives you to go and seek food to go get nourishment. But it's funny because they started to think and you could be, you could correct me on this, but ghrelin it certain instances, like for the sugar lack, that if you get low on sugar, then suddenly your brain is now programmed. Well, we'll raise ghrelin whenever our sugar load gets low, right? Yeah. So what was so cool is that these guys looked at, usually somebody will look at one thing, but they're like, okay, our theory is this, we're going to look at the post biotic acetate and see what its effect does. And those that have higher acetate levels are showing higher insulin, higher ghrelin levels. And so then those mice became voracious. They want to eat more than what did they do? They produced more and their desire to eat the crappy sugary type stuff because the ghrelin is saying get the cheapest, easiest calories. Yeah led to higher acid..acetate. Yeah, wait. Just Just a side note. This is also the argument that a lot of dietitians have on why it's important to have what they call high density foods. So a refined sugar is not a high density food at all. It's short lived in terms of the satisfaction, and you're going to always want to keep consuming whereas if you eat the foods that you should eat, you the fibers and the polyphenols, etc, you you fill up and it leaves lots of work for the bacteria to produce the types of post biotics that you want. 100% so I have all these diabetic patients that struggle to lose weight, but really, it could come down to the bacteria and the bacteria that are producing acetate. I mean, maybe the future treatment. I mean, American Heart Association just got done doing this studying peripheral vascular disease. Maybe the encrinologist will start looking at changing the bacteria to help with diabetes instead of just throwing drugs at people. because quite honestly, once you get put on insulin that it's it's erases your ghrelin everybody I talked to they're just like, man, I take an insulin shot. Bodybuilders take insulin so they can eat more and their growth hormone goes up.Yeah, kids don't do that. That's not the reason.So diabetes, I don't care about diabetes. Nobody. My family has diabetes. It is what it is. That's what somebody out there saying, Man, this guy keeps talking about anxiety. SIBO IBS had an effect me or anybody in my family. All right, I'm telling you that. Now let's talk about blood pressure. The silent killer.Definitely How many? Honestly, side note how many times do we have patients come through every day? We have a full load. I would say probably 20% of those on a full load day. We probably have to inform them about a blood pressure issue right or wrong?Oh, we've seen more than 100 million people in our clinic. Yeah. Wrong. That's that's wrong. That's 100 million people have high blood pressure in the United States. Okay. Yeah, we seen 100 million feels like 100 million.Yeah, I didn't know what that number was going. That sounded like an awful lot. But, but we do, but we do have people who for the first time ever, it they say feel fine, no meds. And then suddenly we look at their blood pressure, and it's 170 over 98. So not normal. And I've been pre hypertensive for a long time. I've changed my diet. And you know, I'm knocking right on 49 right now. So I'm pushing 50 here, and my blood pressure is better. It continues to get better as I focus on my dietRight? And I've always like, Man, that just doesn't make any sense. Why would because, you know, I, you know, I'll sit there and I'll fly off the rails and cheat and pizza and stuff. Now we're going to get into some of this stuff. So the American Heart Association says it over 103 million US adults have high blood pressure.That's a lot.I still think that there's more people that they don't even realize.100% because there's only what 300 I'm guessing here. 340 million people in the US something like that.Yeah. And so high blood pressure leads to stroke, blah, blah, blah, blah, everything else, you know, it's that whole syndrome x thing. Yeah. So Oh, by the way, you know who does a really good job of explaining the whole syndrome x, the ne ne coined the phrase, it is Rob Wolf. Diabesity.DiabesityDiabesity. In his book, The Paleo solution, yeah, he actually describes this whole process of what I learned a syndrome x he's calling diabesity. And how once you get into this pathway, what I'm going to say is maybe this pathway, this shift is now we have a mechanism that these post biotics are actually creating this whole diabesity issue..Wow.. they could be and this would be obviously a step in the right direction. So do remember the whole thing that I told you about the sympathetic neuron activity so acetate and lactate get in there, their little free pass VIP card. Yeah, and then actually poke on the nerves chair and they turn on the sympathetic system. Well, researchers showed that young pre hypertensive rats exhibited leaky gut protein expression. They were pre hypertensive, and they were looking specifically at leaky gut. I don't know if it was zonulin or whatever they were looking for. But they found it before they were hypertensive. Starts in the gut..Definitely Crazy. Now, the more signs of leaky gut, the more sympathetic output these rats showed, increasing the permeability led to increased brain permeability. And they showed that acetate and lactate stimulated an area of the brain called the hypothalamus,Very important master glandMaster gland super, super crucial thing. Now, this actually increased the sympathetic signals leading from the hypothalamus down and blood pressure started to rise accordingly, as asked lactate levels went upThat's a no one's really built that, that that pathway. I've never seen anybody do that.It's, I mean, I read this and I was like, What? How are we not describing a treatment for high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and thinking more about the our microbiome than just throwing? I mean, how many of my patients have six, seven? I mean, you take a beta blocker, what are the side effects of that fatigue, depression, erectile dysfunction, then you take calcium channel blocker, and you've got cough, and you've got ankle edema, and we're throwing this stuff, and all of a sudden, we've got rats where we can show if we decrease this. More importantly, they show that the sympathetic shift, altered the microbiome, which led to a less diverse microbiome and increase in lactate and acetate producing bacteria. One more time it got into the brain, the brain sends signals to the body. That is you're in fight or flight. Yeah. And because and have, you can logically try and work your way around this. But basically those same signals, tell more of those bacteria just like you talked about with the sugar..RightNow more of the bacteria are being signaled to grow. And now you've got a cascade of high blood pressure type stuff. Unfortunately, it sounds like what what we're doing is building a friendly utopia for the bacteria that we don't want, right? And then they're basically telling your brain to go and get some more the food that will allow them to build more of the byproducts or the post biotics that you don't need that are going to make your problem worse. And just a side note, so overstimulation of the sympathetic nervous system. It's really funny how we're talking about diabetes, we're talking about high blood pressure, we're talking about insomnia, we're talking about anxiety, all of those things are just simply going to compound and make the same situation worse, the diabetes gets a little bit more out of control and the insulin goes up and the ghrelin goes up. I'm gonna keep eating. And by the time I keep eating and I post biotics make my anxiety level go up and I can't sleep, that's only going to perpetuate more of the same and you can only I would assume, correct that by getting the right bacteria to eat the right. the right food, so that you have the right post biotics, right? That's exactly it. Just that easy Eric. That's all you got to do. All right, well I guess thats it..Mic drop spoiler.But it just it's it's scary, though, that that quickly, you can escalate while you actually have no idea that it's happening to you. You just don't know. You're not in control. No you're not.So I mean, here we have this deal with a rise in lactic acid acts like a positive feedback loop to create its own little lactic acid factory.It's self serving. It's not in here for youNo, those bacteria, everybody We talk about an ego centric society and everything. Well, as it turns out, I'm learning more and more that bacteria are truly egocentric. AlsoYou gotta keep them in check. You know, C. diff would love to just run rampant and do this. See that being a bacteria that when you wipe out other bacteria due to antibiotics, you end up with horrible diarrhea. That's something we deal with all the time. They just be they have this they throw this big party and make you really sick.. so the bacteria themselves, they have a self serving need to keep growing. They're not looking around going. I need more diversity here. Everybody wants to win. And when you have lactate producing bacteria they want to win. That goes back to the whole Satish Rao article where he gave SIBO patients probiotics, and they produce more lactate. He checked the lactic acid levels and those people that had higher lactic acid levels had higher depression and anxiety.Damn, that's not good. That's not what you're after. So what we're looking at here is microbial dysbiosis micro dysbiosis is the term that the natural path to use everywhere. And really what that means is a lack of diversity is not dysbiosis. It just means that there's an imbalance in your microbiome, you have too much of something and not enough of another. They showed with rats that those rats with a lack of diversity tended to have higher levels of the lactate and acetate. And, again, not the post biotics the short chain fatty acids that we want. So understanding that knowledge, these researchers started to look at stroke and dementia. And getting back to the brain. Yeah, so using that model, they were able to show that acid and lactate can cross the blood brain barrier, which we've already discussed. Then these guys focused on one unique thing I already discussed how they tap on the neurons and do this. Well. Something else that that these post biotics short chain fatty acids do is that they actually lope they actually dropped the local Ph. So this local drop in pH caused inflammation At the neuron level, this inflammation led to increase in certain markers of inflammation like human necrosis factor, and it causes cell death.So just in layman's terms, why that matters is if you drop the pH and basically you are creating a more acidic environment. And just a side play, which we haven't even mentioned yet that actually creates more work for your respiratory system to basically correct that. And by you know, I'm saying because you have to blow off the acid your blood, but your blood buffering system is going to have to produce more bicarbonate just to basically take care of the neurons that are now in a more acidic environment. This is exactly why whenever you're an athlete running around, you breathe heavier, right? Because the acid formed by the activity throughout all your muscles is dumping into the bloodstream so that you can breathe out co2, well, if you're not running around, you don't really want to be dropping your pH systemically. So that's That's a big No, no, that's not what we're after.So once you have a cell die, that leads to oxidative stress... which ultimately leads to inflammation. Those rats develop dementia. So chronic inflammation..Chronic inflammation. So we've always talked about chronic inflammation. This is first domino effect. Yeah. The first domino effect is this we're getting into a cellular level. They even took normal tensive rats, so rats with normal blood pressure, and they gave a microbial transplant fecal microbial transplants on mice that were genetically prone to have high blood pressure and strokes, okay. And the rats who received the transplant developed high blood pressure and had strokes. So watch the episode where we talk about Heli. Like once I'm getting into this, I'm like, why would we do fecal transplants without knowing all of this? So let's break that down real quick. Basically, what you're saying if I understand correctly They took the bacteria that was somewhere else and put it in another rats colon. And they were able to replicate that these bacteria when fed with the wrong stuff being the wrong count of bacteria wrong diversity count, right? They gave off post biotics that lead to more damage to the rat itself.So the so the rats that they euthanize when they saw that they had strokes or that they had dementia, they show that they had much higher levels of acetate and lactate, the rats that lived surprising, not surprisingly, at all, actually, now after looking at this, right, the ones that did not develop high blood pressure or have a stroke had higher levels of all short chain fatty acids, but they had higher levels of butyrate overlapped. So they had but they had they had the right concentration. Right?They had the right concentration. It's not that lactate and acetate should never be produced. It's that they're they're being overproduced at the expense of what's healthy for your body.And so one other thing one other brain disease that I want to get at and then we're actually done with these diseases. But I hope you're seeing that we have diseases that are specifically related to this. Yeah. So can you smell me and tell me if I Parkinson's? Hang on a second?That is not something I can detect.But somebody can because you sent me that article.I did. Yeah. Tell me about that.Well, there is apparently a woman who has a, I can't remember what the study is you kind of put me on spot here. But basically, she was able to show all but less than 3% of the people she was able to identify disease states in them and one of them was parkins by a smell or an odor they put off which I found fascinating. She was able to accurately diagnose people by the the odor or the the pheromones or whatever it was that she detected. And then of course, you did a little bit deeper. They talk a little bit about why so..Yeah, so as it turns out, so this woman, her husband, died of Parkinson's, and when she was in support groups, she remembers her husband smell started to change like a decade before. Then he started developing symptoms.Oh, you know what, I'm sorry, quick shout out my youngest son Mac. He's the one who showed me an article did it Really? .... Cool. So it's, I looked at the they believe they've discovered what molecule she's actually smelling through mass spec. But that's kind of irrelevant, because what's happening is is now I'm linking that to this. Because evidence is now showing that dementia and Parkinson's begins 10 to 20 years before the brain is actually affected.And if I remember correctly, further down the article didn't they say they were experimenting with her to try to find alzheimers? Correct, correct. Yeah. So everybody's like, Oh, this woman's got this magic skill. What is she's smelling? Yeah. Acetone when I go into ketosis.. I have acetone coming out of my breath. Right Haven't you you've actually smell different what you're breaking down. It's ketoacidosis Severe diabetic Or severe diabeticsfruity acetone, head on.They have the fruity acetone..So we definitely put off different smells and different, you know, chemicals builder. So this is interesting Parkinson's, these diseases have build up. So Parkinson's specifically has a buildup of proteins that are actually seen in the gut first. So when they look at the proteins that create the Parkinson's disease, right now, researchers are looking in the gut, and they're finding that protein buildup in the gut before it builds up in the brain.And just so you all know that this is not made up pseudoscience, just a completely separate example, GI  bleeds, going through a hospital, you can almost always tell a patient that's dealing with a GI bleed simply because I mean that that smell is unmistakable right?Oh, yeah. I mean, I think that I think other third world doctors rely on their senses visual smell.. to really try and diagnose a patient.. And they get a little bit more deep in it kind of thing.. So that you know, there's the when I did gynecology, you did what was called With test, which is the pap smear when you try and smell a fishy odor and things like that, so we don't do that much anymore because you said it to a lab, but..Yeah, hard to do.So these, these diseases Parkinson's could actually develop early on. Now what's really interesting is that Parkinson's could be related to the Vegas nerve.Parasympathetic.Causing the inflammatory buildup of these proteins. Interesting. So rats given a fecal microbial transplant from a Parkinson's rat immediately showed an increase in acetate levels. Then when they followed these rats, they slowly developed motor function problems. In humans, we now realize that those people with Parkinson's have a dysbiosis I'll say it one more time. Now we're starting to look at all these chronic diseases and researchers are going let's look at their microbiome. Almost all Parkinson's people have a dysbiosis Wow. So people would say, Oh, well, if you have Parkinson's, you're sick. You have a dysbiosis. I'm saying no, the dysbiosis caused the Parkinson's.. we have to prevent that. Start there. So to answer in a very long winded, complex way to answer Don's question, shoot, it's so complicated. But I think we are now seeing a starting point. I think that if you keep your microbiome diverse, plenty of bacteria that can produce butyrate and other short chain fatty acids, and in my opinion, now thinking about it, that fecal transplant, getting a fecal transplant may carry more risk than we ever thought looking at these animal models. So Don's question was, Well, what do we do? Is fecal transplant good or bad and only in that we know for certain as if you have a complex microbiome, a diverse microbiome, and you feed it, what it needs, then you're going to produce the appropriate amount of post biotics, which will keep you healthy.Yeah, well, that makes that certainly makes the most sense. And to your point where you kept resetting for people who may not have known someone who has high blood pressure, dementia, diabetes, Parkinson's, anxiety, insomnia, if you exist, where you don't know anyone else like that, thank you for making this podcast, the only thing that you do to connect with other humans, because that's impossible.They're living in this utopia.It's just impossible not to know someone who's at least affected by something like that. And so I mean, it's kind of crazy to think that it all comes down or it could possibly all come down to the bacteria that we have naturally inside just simply need to be fed the right things at the right times and in the right amounts. You can make The case of I don't want to look obese I said together so not don't eat fast food. Well, the truth is, you look, you have those kind of manifestations where people aren't happy and stuff like that, because that's not the food you should be eating all the time. You've got to take care of yourself. Polyphenols is an easy way to get started.100% So, the now I'm gonna have to do a whole episode on butyrate because I went down Well, we should though.I started go down butor and then I found all these great articles. There's articles looking at different polyphenol supplements in the butyrate elevation that they are. Watch the plant based episode with Dr. Juan. Yeah, because he gave me his Neo greens as a sample and we showed it there. I looked at it. If he thought about this, then he's I mean, he's a super wicked smart guy in there. It's he's got probiotics, fermented, fermented vegetables, probiotics, with polyphenols in there, which means that possibly, spoiler alert, again, is just it's too much. But there's, there's there's people out there that are combining polyphenols and probiotics to produce these short chain fatty acids, right and ratios that they want. And maybe not fully understanding why.Not understanding why not understand if it gets absorbed, not understanding if it's a natural way to do it, I don't know. But it's at least a step in the right direction.I'll even reverse that. The answer oftentimes, when people only add, let's just say they're only adding butyrate that's probably not the answer either. You still need the healthy ratios of butyrate along with acetate and propriate. And, and lactate, it would be odd to only produce butyrate because that will probably yield something else that nature has a great way of having Governor's on certain systems, right. So I would imagine that there's probably going to be a healthy balance a healthy ratio, which is why you want the bio diversity in your gut.I'm sure 40 years ago, Dr. Ian Quigley, the godfather of probiotic sat there with a petri dish and went his hair stood up. And he went, Oh my gosh, this, this live bacteria is doing amazing things in the gut. And then 40 years later, we're still trying to figure out how to get probiotics to people. Because in a petri dish, it does amazing things in the human body, giving one strain and now we're up to whatever who knows. 50 strains of 50 billion units. Is it really doing anything? We don't know? Is it even getting there?Is it getting there? We don't know. And this could be the exact same thing. So the knee jerk reaction would be, oh, I'll just take more beer right and then I started looking at different there's a ton of different butyrate supplements much like sulfurophane where a lot of people are trying to you know, jump on the marketing bandwagon of broccoli sprouts... And so there's very few of those that are actually viable. Yeah, now now we're which broccoli is one. That's what I like to recommend Brock elite. But I am so excited because I feel like because of this podcast, because Atrantil to because of what we're learning and the scientists that I'm meeting, it's all starting to come together and truly I feel like we are changing the health landscape of anybody who purchases Atrantil to and our whole separate episode of kicked him out neuroinflammation acetate touching this and that don't even get me started on how the fatty acids in a full spectrum hemp CBD productSureCross the blood brain barrier and start mitigating some of thatYeahI mean if I if I had Elon Musk money and I could just sit there and look at different things. I mean, like, I want to know what what this CBD product does on acetate levels in the brain. YeahAnd just start asking questions like that. Each one of these studies was somebody who had a question, and it just happened to be that they were looking at short chain fatty acids, the effect and the effect it had systemically and props to these people to start doing that because that's hard work. So in short what should someone do? Who hears, okay, I need to have great bio diversity. I want to change the way that I'm approaching stuff. I want to be able to feed my new bio diverse microbiome correctly. Dr. Brown? Where would I start? Well, just I'll tell you and I don't ever tell people to do things I don't do Sure. So and I don't ever tell people to stop things that I still do. So be careful what you ask. Number one, we need to increase the diversity of the microbiome. The best way to do that is to increase your fiber. So the fiber that means soluble and insoluble fiber, two different kinds of fiber one soluble mixes in water that's like Metamucil insoluble, it's like the skin of vegetables. What we are now realizing is that skin of vegetables has this other beautiful molecule called polyphenols at what makes vegetables colorful. So I try to take in a certain amount of fiber I try and I've now because I read this. I went to Carla and I went to Whole Foods and I got some steel cut organic oats. And now I'm just soaking them in the fridge. So now I have cold oats. And the reason why is oats are a resistant starch. If you cook them and make oatmeal, the way we do it, you make it more easy to digest by making a resistant starch. I'm going to increase the type of bacteria that produce more butyrate. WowYeah. So now since I've done the research on this, I wake up and I just take a couple spoons of these oats that are just soaking overnight. And now when I tell people that watch Dr. oz and stuff, they're like, yeah, overnight oats. Where were you in 88 when Oz talking about whatever he started. Like really, people were talking about that they didn't know why they were talking about now. That's the kicker. So one of the problems that I have is that if you tell me to do something, I need a mechanism of action. SureIf I can explain the mechanism Then it works for me. Now I'd say that I would say that I'm open to ideas also, but I don't want to change this because you say it's great. Exactly.Just tell me why. Yeah, tell me why. So, increase your fiber, increase your resistant starches. You can do the resistant starches a lot of different ways. green bananas or plantations. Lloyd is Puerto Rican. So we do a lot of plantation nice. So that's a that's a paleo friendly, definite starch.Shout out to Bubbas sells. green bananas. That's what makes Oh, yeah, they are well designed by a guy who had Crohn's disease. Right. You talked to him? Yeah, it's so Bubbas Fine Foods, you can check them out. So if you're looking for a safe snack, there you go.And then now I've got all these articles words, people are actually starting to look at that the American Heart Association at the beginning of the show, I talked about how they're using polyphenols to help with peripheral peripheral vascular disease. I know that one of the best ways to create post biotics and I wasn't even thinking short chain fatty acids. I was thinking more along urolithin and these complex molecules that these other scientists talk about, there was an article that actually showed a molecule similar to Atrantil had an increase in butyrate, a whole separate show, because that's going to be a, that'll have to be a two hour show about how to increase your butyrate levelsDefinitely. But the beauty is, it isn't like you're just increasing butyrate levels you're going to eat, you're going to increase the diversity of the microbiome and allow it to happen. And then ultimately, polyphenols, fibers, resistant starches, and I'm going to now go down the pathway of why so many of my patients feel better on CBD. I think there's something to do with these short chain fatty acids. I just did. I have not gone there yet, but we've got our secret weapon and she'll find something out there.So ladies and gentlemen, if you want to start to work on making your gut a little bit more diverse and healthy, go ahead and get your soluble insoluble fibers supplement with good trustworthy polyphenols. There's nothing wrong with controlling inflammation systemically with a good CBD a good diverse whole foods diet that's really coming down to and I'm about to try your idea for overnight soaking oats I've never done that beforeI just started doing it. And if you don't have, like if you're lacking diabetes, you don't have enough high blood pressure. You're not obese enough, then ignore this whole podcast. Yeah, do whatever you want. That's awesome. That sounds great. What lots of knowledge day on the show. Thank you all so much for watching and listening, Be certain to like and share if you want to go back and check out the episodes with Heli, with Pannez, or Dr. Doug won. Just go back to gut check project.com You can find all of our episodes cataloged on there on the page this we're improving it all the time, be sure and sign up for the newsletter. Starting tomorrow, everybody who is in the KBMD health universe will be reminded of the latest published show. So if you ever get to catch up with the shows, just sign up, you'll be notified each week, every new episodes, we release it Go to KBMDhealth.com. Right. And one of the things that I get that I see the most common is rectal bleeding. And we went through the trouble putting together a little rectal bleeding free book that So download that you get a free book. And then we can keep you updated to these shows. One of the things if you can like and share this, the more this grows, the more that we get access to scientists, the more that I can take deep dives into stuff like this. If you're still listening, thank you. This is like that person that actually reads the whole I saw some some Reddit deal with some woman got $10,000 because there was like a 10 page like one of those weird contracts for like a nothing that you're supposed to sign like, like an iTunes agreement or something. Yeah. And there was a little tiny fine print in the bottom. If you're the type of person that's reading this fine print and you send us an email and you're the first person to do it will send you $10,000 they send it $10,000 so if you're actually still listening after all that nerdy stuff that I just talked about, we can't send any money..Be the first one in the subject line to write the word butyrate spelled correctly and you will get a free altran to bottle and CBD of your choice.Butyrate so the first person to send in an email to.. no they have to download the book.Yeah download download the book. Yeah, they have to download the book title the book and then reply with a type butyrate Yeah, type butyrate just spell it correctly. Look it up and send it to us. It'd be awesome. You be the first one you get a free Dr. Brown's signature package. Let us know if you want sentiment or naturalDoes that mean I sign the box of Atrantil that the signature package So much extra stuff you want to do its not going to work out? Thank you so much like and share like and share. Remember, this show isn't intended to treat or diagnose. If you have a health issue, be sure you go and check it out with your physician. We will see you at Episode 34 coming soon. Thank you.Transcribed by https://otter.ai

It’s the season 3 finale Q&A episode! And I have a dream guest here with me to answer all your lingering SIBO queries: the king of SIBO himself, Dr. Mark Pimentel. If you’ve already been down the SIBO rabbit hole, Dr. Pimentel likely needs no introduction. He’s the director of The Pimentel Lab at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, where he researches many pieces of the IBS puzzle, including gastrointestinal motility and bacterial overgrowths. He’s published dozens of studies on these subjects, and it’s fair to say that much of the data-backed information we’ve covered in the first 3 seasons of this podcast, has been discovered through Dr. Pimentel’s work. There were a few recurring macro themes to your questions, so in today’s episode, we’re going to focus on Post-Infectious IBS, Methane overgrowth, and Hydrogen Sulfide SIBO. If you don’t hear your question, don’t stress—there’s a big possibility I’ve covered it in a past episode already. Those who are new here might want to backtrack and listen to season 1, where we cover a lot of SIBO 101 topics related to the aftermath of a diagnosis. The podcast will be on hiatus until the fall while I focus on putting the finishing touches on the SIBO Made Simple book (!!). In the meantime, stay in touch via instagram (I’m @phoebelapine) and by subscribing to my newsletter. Of course, subscribing to the podcast is the best way to be sure you’ll know when new episode start airing again. A quick taste of what we’ll cover: The proper definition of IBS, Post-Infectious IBS and SIBO Why the IBS Smart Test is useful and how to decide when to use it versus a lactulose SIBO breath test How long it takes for Post-Infectious IBS antibodies to be cleared from the body Precautions those diagnosed need to take when traveling abroad Advice for methane SIBO and constipation sufferers and the latest research about what a different beast it is Atrantil as a treatment for methane SIBO What percentage of people with SIBO have Hydrogen Sulfide and treatment plans And so much more... Resources, mentions and notes: Dr. Pimentel's website EP 27 | Bad Bacteria: Food Poisoning and Post-Infectious IBS Talley Meta-Analysis on SIBO in IBS Dr. Pimentel's new paper on IMO: Intestinal Methanogen Overgrowth SYN-010 Clinical Trial for Methane SIBO / IBS-C Atrantil - Digestive Support for Methane SIBO Phoebe’s book, The Wellness Project, on her journey with Hashimoto’s Join the SIBO Made Simple Facebook Community Page Subscribe to the newsletter (and receive a free low FODMAP cookbook)   This episode is brought to you by 4 Weeks to Wellness, my online program for finding the sweet spot between health and hedonism. Need 4-weeks worth of easy low FODMAP recipes with a step-by-step meal plan laid out for you? You’ll receive a 20-recipe cookbook, complete with shopping lists, elimination diet guidance and reintroduction worksheets, in addition to the many other program resources like my symptom and activity tracker, lymphatic massage videos, doable desk stretches, and so much more. The 300+ people who have joined the tribe have reported clearer skin, calmer tummies, less bloat, tamer food cravings, and a general ease over their newfound habits. To find out more details about when the next session starts, click here. Use the code SIBOMADESIMPLE at checkout for $40 off! Disclaimer: The information in this podcast does not provide medical advice, professional diagnosis, opinion, or treatment. The information discussed is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical or professional care.

Dr. Ken Brown received his medical degree from the University of Nebraska Medical School, and completed his fellowship in gastroenterology in San Antonio, Texas. He is a board certified gastroenterologist and has been in practice for over 15 years with a clinical focus on inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome. Dr. Brown mission is to bridge the gap between medical & natural science. For over a decade he has been conducting clinical research for various pharmacologic companies and he recognized an unmet need for something natural that could help his IBS patients find real relief. After developing the only all-natural & clinically proven answer for IBS & bloating for over 6 years, ATRANTIL (ahh-tron-teel) launched in the summer of 2015. Dr. Brown has also clinically tested CBD in addition to Atrantil to help his patients find relief from inflammation in a safe and affordable manner.He is helping others improve their health on his podcast called The Gut Check Project with his Co Host Eric Rieger. With the ultimate goal of not just improving lifespan, but improving healthspan. On Today's Episode of Scheer Madness, Dr. Bown and I discuss:How SIBO contributes to IBS and functional gut disordersA functional approach to IBS and addressing the root causeThe root cause of all disease and how we can combat itHow Atrantil and CBD help with gut microbiome diversity and IBSThe role polyphenols play in overall healthGut-brain connection and how the gut influences our mood and neurological function(see links for product info)

Although Dr Brown is a real doctor, the Gut Check project is here to inform, discuss and most of all have fun. The show is not intended to diagnose or treat anything. So if you have a new mole, grew and extra toe, and cant figure out that weird rash, we recommend that you go get checked out by your healthcare provider. So sit back , free your mind, and get ready to think and step into the gut check project.Eric Rieger  Alright guys, here the gut check project. It is now Episode 32. We have an incredible show today if you've ever suffered from ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, or anybody that you know has ever dealt with an IBD and inflammatory bowel Disease this show is going to be incredible. We have a special guest today and let's knock off a couple of our sponsors for today we have Atrantil, you can get your own Atrantil at lovemytummy.com chock full of all natural polyphenols you will not find a more comprehensive natural collection of polyphenols to address your bloating, your IBS symptoms etc Dr. Brown you know a little bit about Atrantil.Ken Brown  I know a little bit about it and you know what I want to do to offer everybody you said lovemytummy.com  I'm going to add a little something if you want your beneficial policy and also we're going to get into that with inflammatory bowel disease Crohn's ulcerative colitis, just put /KBMD you'll save some money.Eric Rieger  Save some money go to love my tummy calm /KBMD Dr. Brown is exactly right. Treat yourself treat your gut treat your life Atrantil your bloating relief, it's what they do. Second thing of course here at KBMD health we have the gut check project at KBMD health we also have KBMD CBD and you can go to KBMD health.com and find your own physician vetted co2 all natural extracted, coa of everything that comes out and basically anything that you want out of a CBD we've got Dr. Brown Ken Brown  Well the thing is is that everybody's kind of buzzing about CBD and I know even the Crohn's and colitis community people are talking about it but it's been studies have shown that over 80% of the CBD that people grab, don't have anything that is actually on the label. And what that means is you don't really take anything or you could be taking olive oil or whatever. Time and time again today today we treated people this morning and they said wow, I was on like three different CBDs and when we started the kBm the health CBD I'm actually noticing somethingEric Rieger  Happens all the time. So if you want reputable CBD, used clinically by gastroenterologist, check out KBMDhealth.com. Get your own CBD today and use code GCP to save 20% on your purchase Ken Brown  20% Eric Rieger  20% Next, our final sponsor of today's show is going to be unrefined bakery. If you want to get gluten free keto friendly paleo vegan, they've got it if you've ever wondered I need to adhere to a special diet and I'm afraid that the food's gonna taste bad guess what unrefined bakery makes great food get just so happens to fit your special dietKen Brown  You know it's nuts every patient that we had this morningEric Rieger  Yeah Ken Brown  Knows of Ann & Taylor Eric Rieger  They definitely do Ken Brown  They love them like these like they are true celebrities watch that episode. It is awesome unrefined bakery, gluten free. They can do all the other stuff just watch a show it's it's fun Eric Rieger  Based here in the Dallas Fort Worth area you do not have to live here to get your own unrefined bakery goods. You can actually go to unrefinedbakery.com use code gut check, and you can have yourself some 20% off I believe on your first order and then right 20% off anyhow unrefined bakery. com use code Check, save some money on your first order. So make it a big one,Ken Brown  One impromptu sponsor.. and just keep watching the rest of the show to figure out why.Eric Rieger  YesKen Brown  If you are a reader and you enjoy novels, go look at a book called in the end written by Dr. Michael Weisberg. In the end. He is an honorary sponsor of this show and for reasons that you will soon see later on.Eric Rieger  Yes, absolutely. As I hinted at before we got to the sponsors. This is a dedicated show to ulcerative colitis and Crohn's. And we're going to be visiting with a special someone who will tell us a little bit about her story, her journey, hopefully to relate to anybody that either yourself or a loved one on what it's like to face these kinds of challenges, but Weisberg is a fantastic supporter of the ulcerative colitis and Crohn's foundation. He knows a lot and he's, it's awesome. And he has a book like that available. So ..Ken Brown  In the end Eric Rieger  In the endKen Brown  Honorary sponsor.Eric Rieger  All right, let's start The project. So now we just wait a little bit and then we're just gonna start talking. And I don't want to mispronounce your last name. Okay. Okay. eyeball 321Eric Rieger  All right, we are here on the gut check project. It is now episode number 32. I am here today with your normal host, Dr. Kenneth Brown, and we've got a special guest. Paneez Kahkpour. Oh, you know what we had her and now she can talk.Paneez Kahkpour  Am I back? Hello Everyone. Nice to see y'all.Ken Brown  Well Paneez has been my patient for over 12 years. What do we have 14 something like that.Eric Rieger  Awesome. Thank you so much for coming Dr. Brown. You have a monikor for her already that you just annoyed her with. What is that?Paneez Kahkpour  12-13Ken Brown   Something like that I've always referred to her as the Persian princess. And so she is the she's Dallas's own Persian princess to the end here to the Persian community. This represents you My life the Persian princess. So sweet. She went to Iran of what about three years ago and brought me back a hand painted? What was that? It was art, but it told a story.Paneez Kahkpour  Yeah, it was. I'm trying to remember what it was. I'm pretty sure it was. Maybe it's like an old fairy tale. It's like a couple. I think it's called Laylee Imagine. I think it's their story, and it's the picture of them.Ken Brown  Wow. So.. really beautiful. I took a picture of it and send it to my friend Reza, who's who's a gastroenterologist in Florida, whose Persian also and he goes that's that's really expensive. Be very careful with it was like,Oh, okay. Eric Rieger  You're hanging out the window of your car.Ken Brown  Using it as a fly swatterEric Rieger  Trying to direct traffic in Denver. Ken Brown  Yeah I was. Let's go over here. These Atrantil ads Don't stick on it at all.Eric Rieger  So you've had Crohn's Correct, yes. For how long? Paneez Kahkpour  16 yearsEric Rieger  16 years, you've been a Crohn's patient. And today, I think that what we really want to do is get your perspective on what it was like to be diagnosed to learn about what it was. What led you to go seek help in the first place? So back at the clock a little bit. And what did you first experience that drove you to go? In fact, you didn't go to Ken first you went to another gasterologist.Paneez Kahkpour  I was. I saw pediatric gi doctor in the beginning, I was 15 at the time, all right. Yeah, I just had all the symptoms. I couldn't eat anything anymore. I was just constantly going to the restroom. And every time I went to a doctor or you know, General doctor, they said I had the flu. They'd give me antibiotics. Send me on my way. A couple days later, I'd be feeling terrible again. And that lasted several months. I went to the ER multiple times to get IVs, but nothing seemed to help. It was it wasn't until it was probably my like sixth or seventh ER visit and my grandma was like, You're not going anywhere you need to stay here. Someone needs to see you. I called an old pediatrician of mine. His name was Dr. Shams and he ended up. I gave him the symptoms over the phone and he said, I think I know what you may have. Let me call in a specialist. I was hospitalized at medical city Plano and then did a colonoscopy. And here we are. Eric Rieger  lLet me ask you. So you said you're 15 .. So freshman high school.Paneez Kahkpour  I yeah, I that would be freshmenEric Rieger  So as a freshman in high school going through this, I mean, your peers that age adolescence, what is it like trying to navigate that you internally you already know that you don't feel normal? So what were you having to do to?Paneez Kahkpour  I wasn't ever eating lunch. I you know, everyone thought Something's wrong with her because she's not eating. And at that time, you know, it's something super embarrassing. You don't know what's happening with you. And so it's not something I really talked about. Just because I, I didn't know it was happening, and I didn't have anyone to really talk to at the time. And it wasn't until I was diagnosed. You know, when someone finds out you have something they know a friend of a friend. And I ended up speaking to a girl who was also someone who has Crohn's disease, and she really helped guide me kind of through the initial process of everything, and it was very, very helpful.Eric Rieger  Wow. So when once you found her and so at this point, you probably found her after you've been officially diagnosed. Yes, correct. Yes. So what was it like? I mean that it doesn't sound like it, looking back 16 years, but there's probably at the time seemed like an eternity of not knowing Paneez Kahkpour  Oh, yeah. Eric Rieger  So what was that like?Unknown Speaker  And it was, it was very hard. You know, when you're young, all your friends are doing all these fun extracurricular activities and you just don't have the energy Because I just, you know, was constantly sick. It was very difficult, and very, very lonely. Even though I had someone who had some experience, it was still it was just that one person who wasn't who didn't even live here. So it was pretty difficult. Ken Brown  You said a word right there that I think this resonates with a lot of my patients, you felt very lonely. The Psychology of a disease like this is unimaginable for you. And for your loved ones. Would you just describe the loneliness a little bit? Paneez Kahkpour  You know your entire family, the ones who know and who really understand are there for you, but I mean, they only know so much. They can only help so much because they can only empathize to a certain degree. And so, you know, when you just don't have anyone to talk to it feels really difficult to try to even begin like know where to begin and who were to go who to talk to, but I was able to find some people And find my way through the Crohn's and colitis foundation that took me a few years to even find I had no idea about it. No one told me anything. Ken Brown  Why did it take so long to find the Crohn's or colitis foundation?Paneez Kahkpour  You know, I just don't know if it was back then it was still something super new, you know, no one really talked about it, it. It's even still now it there's a stigma. It's, it's embarrassing. It's gross. So no one really talks about it. But it took me several years until I knew that there was such a thing as the Crohn's and colitis foundation. But after it took me a lot of googling, lots of lots of googling until I was able to find it.Eric Rieger  So but leading up to that you you get this diagnosis and as you're trying to educate yourself and you haven't found the foundation yet. What type of changes did your pediatric gastroenterologist ask for you to make? What were you? Did you have difficulty with compliance? What was it like to step out of there and say I've got this diagnosis and now kind of have an idea of what I'm going to do. What How'd you handle that?Paneez Kahkpour  I mean, it was hard. You're 15 and you, you know, don't, you're not usually on some type of regimen. You just kind of live your life as normal as can be. But when with this change, I was taking 15 pills a day, when I was barely even taking a Tylenol before that, you know, I struggled taking pills. And then yeah, he just told me I had to, you know, watch what I eat, see what my triggers are. Beyond this, you know, diet of pills, you know, it's pretty much I was what I was consuming and so my entire day was spent taking medication and so I didn't really have time to have friends really go out and do anything because I was at home taking medication or going to bed.Ken Brown  I it's it's weird because I smile when you say this because I've seen you progress over these years and become this and tremendous advocate, super. I mean, healthy you you radiate this energy right now. And that is to bring so much hope to a parent that has a child who was recently diagnosed. And that's what I want this episode to be about your story. What I love hearing the questions that Eric is asking you are the wait a minute What is this because as a gastroenterologist, and this is probably what you experienced, it's like, Look, this is your disease. It's either 5% no seniors all sort of, these are our options. Where do we go from here? He's asking life questions. He has an 18 year old and a 16 year old. Yeah, it's Max 16 Eric Rieger  Eh two weeksKen Brown  Two weeks Okay, it's getting real close. So he's asking it as a parent Yeah, well what happened this and that. I'm listening to this and I'm like, I asked it as a clinician. So I always keep going, I love I love where you go with this.I love it love it Paneez Kahkpour  It took me many years to get here. It was definitely a bumpy road and I had lots of highs high and low moments. But you know, right now I consider it being a really high moment. I feel good. I'm in a good place. But you know, with all the struggles goals and all the things I had to get through with, you know, taking medication every day having to be doing IVs every six weeks like that was insane like, what 15 year old does that you know like that's it was a whole new territory. Eric Rieger  So making a change. You talked about that he said, watch what you eat and pay attention to your triggers. My wife was recently diagnosed with celiac disease and for her there's, there's an interface, right? We used to enjoy just sipping on a cold beer every now and then that and that's gone. So that's not the end of the world. But the changes obviously for her are more stark when you family gets together or you want to go on a road trip. There's just certain things that were cut out what was it like to you to discover? These are my trigger foods? These are the things I can't do. I've got my circle of friends that may or may not fully understand what I'm dealing with. How did you integrate back to I've got at some point you're gonna get a crossroads I gotta get my social life back in.Paneez Kahkpour  Right. Eric Rieger  So what did you do?Paneez Kahkpour  Well, first I educated all my friends. That's the big step because if they don't know what you're going through, if they don't understand what the disease is and they have Zero empathy for you. They don't really understand Ken Brown  What did you say to them?Paneez Kahkpour  Well, I have Crohn's disease and they look at me guys go cross, like what is that? I'm like, well, you know, it's a digestive disease. I try to use words as simple as I can for them to understand. I'm like, basically, I can't eat lots of things because my body rejects it. And half the time I say, if you want to know more, just go Google it because I don't want to get into the nitty gritty, all the things I just go look it up. But that that helped. And then finding out which friends were, you know, there for you and which friends were not that was really helpful. And then with diet changes, and just lifestyle changes, I had to I learned that had to be present for the things that could be present for and if I couldn't, then I had to listen to my body and say no, and really just crossing my fingers and hoping that my my friends would be empathetic to thatEric Rieger  So for Paneez. Think about the ones Small advantage that she did have was turning her friends to Google. Because think of someone just a decade before that having this type of disease trying to share that experience with their new diagnosis with their friends, like, go to the library and look whatever up if you can. And thats just not going to happen.Ken Brown  As an adult doctor, I have the advantage of sitting down with somebody that has either been handed off to me by our pediatric doctors .. had has some incredible ones in that Whitney Kendall Brown, john Baker, jack and they've got incredible doctors. So I get the pre prepared family. And now at this stage of my career, my patients are their, their children are starting to show up we're seeing more of this disease. So when I said you have what did you say because I don't know how much to vomit on somebody. Paneez Kahkpour  Yeah. Ken Brown  And well, quite honestly, when I met you when you came into the hospital as a flare And the only thing I was thinking back on my Paneez on and she'd been my patient for a long time. And you're an incredible patient, you do everything that you're that you're supposed to do, and you're an advocate, we're going to get into all of that about how you've been giving back, and how important people like you are coming on the show and doing this and being part of the Crohns Colitis society. I remember one thing I remember your mom crying. That's all I remember about the whole impatient experience, because it was too much. Eric Rieger  Well, maybe, maybe she maybe your mom was curious about the challenges it was going to be to you. And I'm going to ask you about that in a second. But the second, the second thing I was kind of curious about that may lead into why her mom would would cry because I think that that's anybody cares for the kids going to be upset. But what was it that the physician said would happen? If you didn't make these appropriate changes? And know what, what did you begin to learn the risks would be if you didn't become a compliant patient, because at some point, for some patients, it doesn't matter. They just kind of like I don't really care. I'm just gonna keep living and yeah suffer the consequences. That's not the route that you took. So what did you hear that made you decide? I'm gonna do this.Paneez Kahkpour  It was mainly how I felt. I didn't want to feel terrible anymore. I was very tired. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. You know, that's what I remember telling myself when I was really young, as I'm tired of feeling this way. And my doctors at the time, they just said, Listen, if you're not going to do this, you're not going to get better. You're just going to get worse. You're going to have to have surgeries, you're going to have to do all these other things. And mainly, the surgery is what really scared me. Especially being so young, because most people don't have to go through that stuff. But it was mainly just really not wanting to feel that way anymore. And I must say there was a period of my time where I wasn't compliant. And that's when I met you. And that was really what changed everything for me is because a doctor changed my medication. And I didn't really take it because it was a pill. I was on IV before and then it changed. And I got super sick and I was in the big, big flares when I met you. And after that, I was like, I never want to feel like this again, like it was not worth it.Eric Rieger  Was the risk of a collective mean or anything else like that kind of on your radar? Did you think that that might ever happened to you? Paneez Kahkpour  Thats always in there like the backburner. I always think that like in the back of my mind, like there's always a chance for all of that. Eric Rieger  Sure.Ken Brown  Yeah. So let's, for everybody else that's listening this not familiar that. I mean, our audience is getting pretty broad right now. And for those people that don't know what Crohn's is, that's why I wanted to say, what did you tell your friends what Crohn's is? And you said, I couldn't eat certain things. Paneez Kahkpour  Right. Ken Brown  Let me rephrase it now that you're, you've had it for a few years. What would you tell people what Crohn's is?Paneez Kahkpour  I would just say it's a digestive disease is an autoimmune disease. And so basically, my body doesn't know what's happening. So it's attacking itself. And with that comes all these terrible side effects.Eric Rieger  Yeah. Ken Brown  That pretty much sums it up. Eric Rieger  Yeah, definitely. Ken Brown  That is beautiful, everybody Makes it too complex that So you went from. I'm talking so what you are gifted with is the ability to understand what your peer will will will hear which is I can't say automated. I can't say all this. I'm just going to say what I struggle with as a doctor is how much do you want to hear about this? Right? So when you were 15, you said like, the bottom line is I just can't eat certain things, and I may get sick. Now you're like, Look, here's the deal. Yeah, my body's attacking my own intestines. That's what Crohn's is. We're gonna leave it at that.Eric Rieger  Yeah, definitely. So do you want to get into to mom? Because this is something that just for the audience, this is something before you even got here Paneez that came was like, the thing I never forgot is how resilient Paneez was and how much your mom apparently and I've never met her but was concerned about your future.Ken Brown  So we each every single episode regrow and we we find new ways we find new science and I become a better doctor because of it. I mean Eric sees the patients he puts them all to sleep. And when I asked you to come on the show is because of the emotional aspect of being a parent. It wasn't so much that you because you're amazing. I mean, like you persevered and we're going to get to the Oasis camp where you've been a counselor, we're going to get to the fact that you're a speech pathologist for underprivileged autistic kids with so you are up here. I just always thought, did your mom know you were going to do that when you were diagnosed? Paneez Kahkpour  You know? I don't think so. I mean, you have all the hopes but there was a time where the disease was all that I was and that very much defined defined me and my life. And I think that was a big struggle for her. Because you never want to see your child sick and in a hospital bed with hooked up to all these wires and IVs. And that's just a terrible site. She struggled a lot. My entire family did. My grandmother, my brother, my dad, but a lot my mom because she was my main caretaker, she was there for every step of the way. But I don't think she ever thought that I'd be doing all these great things and being, you know, self sufficient.Ken Brown  It's a story of perseverance. It's a story of giving back. It's a story of sharing and caring and doing this kind of thing. It's so we were at the Crohn's and colitis annual gala, where my partner, Dr. Mike Weisberg was being honored as Person of the Year and gave an incredible touching speech, or keynote speech, I should say, where I thought it was just I mean, I admire public speaking, because just like you're doing right now, being on a mic is not so easy sometimes, but you're crushing it.Eric Rieger  Well, not only is he a gastroenterologist, didn't he? Didn't you tell me once before that his one of his kiddos has RBD of some kind?Ken Brown  Yes. So leading it up to this, and I want to ask a favor of you Paneez because it's going to take a few minutes. So I actually called Dr. Weisberg Dr. Mike winesburg last night and I said, Hey, I'm gonna bring a Crohn's patient on and I know that your son had Crohn's because you discussed it in your keynote speech. And I'll tell you what, I've worked with him for 17 years, and I had no idea this was going on. And so it was like, it's like the duck with the, with the flippers, right? You got to keep your game face on go to work, just like you've probably done a million times. Yep. You feel like, you know what, and you're Paneez Kahkpour  Pushing through Ken Brown  Push through. I got to tell you that. I'm just a quick side note, before we get back to that really quick. Crohn's patients. I have to tell them that they're sick. They're like, No, no, no, I'm good. I've been worse, i've been worse. They're tough as nails like Crohn's people just like at some point, they just start sucking it up and they're like, No, I'm just gonna deal. Screw you. I'm not I feel sick, but I'm sick of being sick.Paneez Kahkpour  Yeah, you've done that to me. Actually, beforeKen Brown  I have. I keep trying to make her sicker than what she is. I'm like your bloodwork.Paneez Kahkpour  I know I remember one time I was I was very, is during my second flare and I came in to see you. You had my bloodwork and I was, you know, I dressed up for the day trying to make myself feel good. You know, if you look good, you feel good type of thing. And you made me walk to the emergency to the hospital and it put a gown on because you're like, you're very sick. I didn't know it because I was like, I'm fine. I'm strong. I got this. And I wasn't.Ken Brown  So when I called Mike last night, I was I just wanted like, hey, what was it like being the parent of Crohn's patient and so as it so happens, Dr. Weisberg, whom I admire very much, he's been my partner for years he was awarded Person of the Year for the Crohn's and colitis society. He is also an award winning author of two novels, the hospitalist and in the end that we discussed as an honorary and rather than just sit there and throw, you know, two lines Oh, it's it's tough being a parent of a..wrote a little bit and if you guys would humor me, give me just about five minutes. This experience is something that I want every parent to share. If you have a sick kid, I would like people to realize, because what he showed here and he just wrote this in an email, and I read it this morning and I went, holy cow, so you wrote it last night. So I'm going to read it. And this is from Dr. Weisberg verbatim no changes Eric Rieger  All right.Ken Brown  When I think back 13 years to when my son Reed was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, my mind flooded with vivid scenes and emotions. I will try to relate some of them to you in the next few minutes. Reed had never been a very active child. He was never one to ask to go out to play football or ride his bike. We just assumed that he was a laid back kid, a cerebral kid who enjoyed playing on the computer and playing video games more. At age 12. We decided To send him to sleepaway camp, which is not Oasis, a traditional camp sleepaway camp for a month over the summer, along with his nine year old brother Brent, in order to go, Reed had to have a camp physical, which my wife and I thought was routine. I was working that night when my wife called me and told me that the physical exam revealed that Reed hadn't grown an inch in the past year, and had actually lost two pounds. Plus bloodwork showed that he was severely anemic. I felt guilty that I had not thought of this as a cause of Reeds easy fatigue ability and avoidance of strenuous activity. But as I thought about it more I realized that night that Reed may have Crohn's disease. I had suffered from a related disease called Iritis, which is Crohn's disease of the eyes. And my sister had been diagnosed with Crohn's several years before. I knew that chromes presented and reads it Group and that all his symptoms fit this diagnosis at 730. That night I drove frantically to the pediatricians office wanting answers and I pounded on the doors of the locked offices for 20 minutes until I realized that it was futile. Since I was a gastroenterologist treating Crohn's patients, I knew what a devastating disease it was. And I became terrified. When I got home that night, I personally examine Reed and found that he had an anal fissure, which he hadn't told anyone. He'd been having rectal bleeding read younger brother went to summer camp alone that summer because Reed was too sick to go. My wife was too upset to drive Brent to the airport, so she stayed at home with read while I drove Brent and dodged all the other parents questions about why Reed wasn't going. I met my wife in a park in between our home and office one day at lunchtime, and we just sat talked, held hands and cried. We had no idea how extensive and severe Reed's disease was. But as his parents, we felt so sad for him and what he had been going through and what the future would entail. I personally felt tremendous guilt. I felt that I had given my son this disease and it was my fault that he was sick. I talked to my wife and several friends who told me that if I took all the blame for Reed's illness that I must also take all the credit for his admirable traits, such as his intelligence, his sense of humor, and his willingness to work hard to achieve things. For a very long time. These arguments did nothing to assuage my guilt, and it was only after Reed felt better that I quit being so hard on myself. We took Reed gastroenterologist who did his colonoscopy while I stood in the endoscopy room watching, I saw all the damage the Crohns said done to Reed's intestines on the telly Vision screen as a scope made its way around the colon. Afterwards, I had to go to work and even though I felt depressed and upset and guilty, I never missed a day of work or miss treating a patient due to my grief. Reed was started on enamoran and we waited for him to get better.Ken Brown  Instead of getting better Reed worsened and he had more fatigue and high fevers his liver test went through the roof the Emoran was stopped just as we left for a family reunion on Amelia Island in Florida. I talked to his gastroenterologist the night before we left and he told me it was okay for Reed to go, but to take him to the hospital first for two sets of blood cultures. I drove Reed at tea at 10pm to my hospital and had blood cultures done. The trip to Amelia Island was a disaster. Reed was sick had high fevers the whole time, and I finally found a doctor in the box where they were willing to give him some antibiotics. Reed love to fish but the day of our deep sea fishing trip he was sick the entire time he lay in the boats cabin and vomited into a pail where he lay. I could go on with memories forever overall, until we took read to see Marla Dubinsky and IBD expert Los Angeles. He was constantly sick with pain, fever, diarrhea and anemia. Marla did testing put them on Remicade, which he took for six months until developing an anaphylactic reaction. I was scoping at the time that he had this in the same building I was so I had to run and see my son go through an anaphylaxis reaction. I had Remicade stopped and Dr. Dubinsky switched into humera, which he was on along with methotrexate for 12 years. He stopped the methotrexate last year and is now only on humera shots every two weeks. It was hard giving my son a shot every two weeks, but he was so brave and never once complained. I could tell you that I felt depressed devastated and guilty, and that the light in my life had been turned off. That is until Reed started getting better. Boy did he ever he started to grow and gain weight started having a physique that resembled his classmates instead of a skeleton. He went into remission grew to a normal height and weight. This summer he will graduate from medical school and start a residency in internal medicine. I am extremely proud of all he has accomplished but even more proud of the person he is. He never complained, never cried why me, but instead has met each challenge head on, and fought until he won. When I asked him why he wanted to be a doctor. He told me that he wanted to be like me and help make people better. He wanted to be a healer. The light in my life is back on and I am certain that I will be alive the day, a cure for the diseases is found an impromptu thought by Dr. Michael Weisberg when I just said What's it like being the parent of a Crohn's kid? Eric Rieger  What why so short? Why no detail?Ken Brown   There's a reason why his books are so good.Eric Rieger  Now seriously, Dr. Weisberg, thank you so much for the submission that's it that's an incredible story. Paneez Kahkpour  Yeah. Eric Rieger  How do you think your your mom would relate to that?Paneez Kahkpour  100% like the feeling of guilt I think that my mom and my father felt that for many years and I still think they sometimes do still to this day you know, I don't think that ever really goes away. But yeah, the the guilt the depression just feeling helpless that you can't do anything for your child.Eric Rieger  Did your parents have to watch you try like we've seen a lot of Crohn's patients do the the drug hopping from Enamoran to Remicade to humera etc. Till you finally found some mix. It works for you and then I mean, did you did you have to endure anything like that?Paneez Kahkpour  Well, luckily, no, not really. I was on a bunch of like I was on Enamoran and all these other things when I was first diagnosed, but I was also started on Remicade, and I've pretty much been on Remicade ever since I took a year off, and that's when I met Dr. Brown because I wasn't complying with the medication I was taking, but I've been able to go back and Remicade and that's pretty much all I've ever really been on. Luckily, knock on wood.Ken Brown  One of the coolest things here is in we forget we take the burden of everything but the fact that Dr. Weisberg noted that his friends and family and his wife said, hey, there's a lot of great traits. There's a lot of great traits do. I mean, it's so hard as a parent to go I mean, except for Eric every time Gage scores, thats my son. That's me out there.Ken Brown  But it's so funny because his parents, that's what we do as parents is we just say What did I do wrong? How could I have changed something Because my child may be sick and I don't think it stops at Crohn's or colitis I think it you know anything juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. I don't want to get into the, you know the cancers and things like that everybody says what could I have done different and it was fascinating to think that it's exactly right the same characteristics that Reed, developed, or at least had all along allowed him to now he's gonna be a bass doctor, a real badass doctor, and I've met him and he's taller than me. I mean, he's a stud.Eric Rieger  I live vicariously through everyone I know.Eric Rieger  Nice.Ken Brown  Yeah, you met him at the Crohn's and colitis foundation didn't?Paneez Kahkpour  actually knew him through camp Oasis actually.Ken Brown  Oh, we need what is camp Oasis says,Paneez Kahkpour  Well, Camp Oasis is a camp for kids with IBD Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis to come for about a week to just live like a normal kid and have fun at camp. It's probably the best thing I do in my life every year. I've been going for I think about seven years are so best time of my life.Ken Brown  I thought your doctor visits for me with the best thing?Paneez Kahkpour  No, Yeah, that's it. That's like neck and neck.Eric Rieger  So, Camp Oasis, if I remember correctly, there are 12 states that have a location that routinely host these kiddos with you see your Crohns. And then I think the one here in Texas is what outside of Bruceville?Unknown Speaker  Yeah, now it's, um, it wasn't Bruceville and now it's some place called. I'm not sure. You know, Texas, so many little town. Sure. Not really sure. But yeah, it's some it's like two hours outside of Dallas.Eric Rieger  Okay, nice. Yeah. And so, but it's directly affiliated with the Crohn's and colitis Foundation, correct? Paneez Kahkpour  Yes. Eric Rieger  And so, supporting the camp oasis. It's, you're going to have the latest research, the latest techniques, the the best, quote, unquote, training for a kiddo to learn how to deal with the situation right?Paneez Kahkpour  Well, you know, they have it's basically a week where They can feel like they are heard or noticed. They have other friends there who also have the same disease they have right. And most of the counselors who are there, not all of them but most of them also have IBD. And so it's just like everything you could possibly want in life and a week.Ken Brown  So somebody feels comfortable. They say my belly hurts that's..Paneez Kahkpour  Oh, yeah, we have a whole med staff everything like you were mentioning we have we have a whole med staff nurses, child life specialists that called everything every everything they would possibly need. They have theirEric Rieger  So would you say by attending a camp like that having this disease affliction that you began to learn? I can have a normal life.Paneez Kahkpour  YeahEric Rieger  These people are making it or I remember when I felt like that you probably serve as a mentor if you just happen to be further along than somebody.Paneez Kahkpour  Definitely. I mean, I feel I wish I went to camp as a kid. But I didn't so I'm lucky to be able to go as an adult. But yeah, they they see all these adults doing all these wonderful things like Reed going to medical school, and they see Oh, I can do that if they can do And they have the same disease I have, and they have had surgery, they've done all the things I've done, I can do the same thing. And its wonderful.Ken Brown  What was your first year like as a counselor, because it had to bring back a lot of memories of what you experienced.Unknown Speaker  I mean, it was, it was sad, in a sense, because you just see all these kids, like, I don't remember myself, you know, as a child, like dealing with all these things. We just see them and you just see how strong they are and how happy they are and how they, like you say they persevere. And I'm like, how even though I was the same, but I just, you see, and you're like, it's incredible. And every year I go I cry because some kid says something super motivating and inspirational. I'm like, I don't know if I'm doing anything for you. Because you're the one helping me like feel like I'm there to live a better life. It's all it's all them. It's really wonderful. But yeah, the first year was intimidating. I didn't know anyone. I'm meeting all these people with Crohn's and colitis, like that's super cool. But at the end of the day, you you leave with a family and we've all been together ever since.Eric Rieger  That is awesome. How many times have we heard things on this show with from guests that giving is the best getting that you can do? Ken Brown  Absolutely. Eric Rieger  I mean, it really is. Ken Brown  Absolutely. When I'm curious as there's a doctor, you said that there's a doctor that runs this every year?Paneez Kahkpour  Well, yeah. So it's, it's the Crohns and Colitis foundation sets it up, and then they have a pediatric doctor come along, just because if there's a flare if a child needs medication, we they handle all the medicine, everything. They they do it all and yeah, there's a pediatric gi who comes along and does everything.Ken Brown  Just the whole idea of just being a normal kid, and still experiencing your normal symptoms. And it's not like blown out of proportion. It's not like overreact. It's like Okay, come on over here. Let's go over. Yeah, you're not going home. We're gonna we're gonna make you feel better. Paneez Kahkpour  YeahKen Brown  That's cool.Eric Rieger  Absolutely. And you can I noticed on the website, that Most people can volunteer if they wish to. And you can donate, obviously, directly to the camp through the Crohn's and colitis foundation. So it's obviously an incredible resource for people who are young and newly diagnosed.Ken Brown  I'm going to put you on the spot. But it was there ever a time that you ever were this I'm really put you on the spot because because I think it's like a healthcare provider if I'm in a camp with people that potentially can get sick on me, you know, I'm like, worst case scenario person. So were you ever in a position where you felt that you were worried for somebody?Paneez Kahkpour  Um, yes and no, yes. Because they weren't feeling well, or they, you know, have been vomiting a lot or something, you know, because a lot, it's in the summer. So, there's a lot of heat. But no, because we haven't fully staffed with all these smart doctors and nurses who come and help the kids. So like, there was never a time where you're like, Oh, this is not going to be good because they're fine. They're in safe hands. Ken Brown  That's awesome.Eric Rieger  That is awesome. Well, what can people do if they wanted to connect with someone from Camp Oasis? And let's say that they have a child that they want to get enrolled, but they may not live close, they're a particular resource or a way for them to get in touch with counselors to do that?Paneez Kahkpour  I would say just going to the website would be the best starting point.Ken Brown  Crohn's or colitis or the Oasis?..Paneez Kahkpour  Because that will take you to the camp, website. And m depending on where you live, you can see where the closest camp is and then I think there's always an email or phone number for the director who like sets up sets it up for every state.Ken Brown  Man i'm sitting here thinking I'm just like, wow, it's, it would be really cool for like, I'm hearing this like I learned about Camp Oasis from you. Yeah. And I'm like, Oh, I I feel like like a jerk like I have not been involved sooner than that. And then I went home and talked to my kids lil bit about it. They're just like, Wow, that's great. And I'm sure that there's a lot of different camps for different illnesses.Eric Rieger   Oh, yeahKen Brown  I didn't realize that there's a lot of people giving back all over.Eric Rieger  That brings me. That brings up my next question. I'm glad you brought that up because not that far from here for juvenile diabetics, there's a place called Camp Sweeney. And when people go and that was it, I was a maintenance man there when I was in high school, but..Ken Brown  He was the janitor.Paneez Kahkpour  Come a far way.Ken Brown  She's over here going, Wow, you've come a long way. I had Crohns almost died and I'm doing this but you..Eric Rieger  I guess you got out of your truck. But the thing that I found kind of interesting is almost and I'm kind of curious if it's the same for for camp oasis. The first time that someone came to camp Sweeney, sometimes there was a chance. They were reluctant to get out. They didn't really know why they were going. They really didn't know what they were going to get out of it. They kind of had to be talked into it by their parents. And then when they got there You saw it within the first 24 hours. Oh my gosh, these are my These are my people. Yeah, they understand what I'm doing so I guess I'm just saying that for someone who may be new to camp Oasis, you have a kiddo you get them get them inoculated, get into around and to talk to someone.Eric Rieger  That's awesome.Well..Paneez Kahkpour  Yeah I mean, it's super helpful. I, I, I've seen kids who are newly diagnosed come into camp for the first time crying because they're like, I don't know anything. I don't know anyone. Like I'm super nervous. They leave crying, but not be because they're happy that they met all these friends, and that they're sad to leave, they don't want to leave. And so everyone starts crying. What are they? It's, it's the best. I mean, you know, whoever wants to apply to be a counselor. I think for the Texas camp, it's open. So come hang out. Ken Brown  Well, no, we have a whole new topic that I want to get into. Oh, yes, because I've known Paneez the Persian princess for a long time.Eric Rieger  This is..Eric has no idea what you know.Ken Brown  Yeah. And I've watched Well, she has gone on to not only be a camp Oasis, Counselor, but she's doing something which I think is fascinating. It's huge. And now we're going to talk about something else. That is a passion of mine, which is autism. Eric Rieger  Oh, yeah.Ken Brown  Yeah.Eric Rieger   So I did know that sorry.Ken Brown  Well, you give a little background about your education. And now what you're doing because if you want to talk about the one two punch of giving back, Camp Oasis, and wow, that was just the jab. Now we got the right cross coming. This is coolPaneez Kahkpour  You know, gotta do a lot. So I actually I went to University of North Texas here in Denton, wonderful school. I studied speech language pathology, pathology, audiology, so I have an undergrad degree in that. So technically, right now, I am a speech pathology assistant, but I'm working on my grad school applications at the moment.Ken Brown  You speak better than us. So you're, you're the master in this room.Eric Rieger  Thank you. Pretty good.Ken Brown  Pretty good. Speak English real good.Paneez Kahkpour  You know, lots of practice. But yeah, so I work with most of the kids I work with right now have autism. And it's it's quite a job. It's actually pretty fun.Ken Brown  But it's not just autism. It's actually autism for a lot of underprivileged kids. Paneez Kahkpour  Yes. for underprivileged kids. Ken Brown  Yeah. And so what? So So Penny's and I were talking about this, because autism, I'm a huge advocate of the gut brain access, and that if you heal the gut and you feed the gut, then it will heal the brain and we got into a discussion so you asked all those questions at the beginning of the show. What did your pediatric gastroenterologist do? What did you recommend for diet recommendations? What did he do this and that? So I'm sitting with Paneez in my office and I'm like, Oh, my gosh, that's so cool. Can you get them to go gluten free? Can you get them to go Whole Foods? And she's like, Well, let me tell them my patient population first. Yeah, has described what the typical person lifestyle is and They're, they're home life.Paneez Kahkpour  I mean, most of them are lower income. And so with that brings just difficulty and buying just healthier foods, and having access to a lot of stuff. I was talking to a parent actually, who had to take a child to the doctor, and they waited eight hours. So I'm like, they still have access to a lot of things. And so they're not eating as well as they should, or they may not be doing the things that you know, you and I have easy access to. So that's what makes a little bit harder.Ken Brown  So, a couple episodes ago, Episode 28, Doug Blonde was on here and I challenged him with the same thing he is in. He's a medical doctor that it's an advocate for whole food plant based. And I said well, the problem with that is is that when you say whole food plant based you think of going to Whole Foods and spending a lot of money. Paneez Kahkpour  Yeah. Ken Brown  And I and he told me that no, you can do it really cheap and he gave prices he discussed the price of doing lentils versus as long art..My gosh, I can go down rabbit holes on this one, our secret weapon, which we'll reveal one day he sent me some incredible articles on manufactured fibers or fibers that that are added to foods to augment the plant based diet and to do things like that and the inflammatory process that it actually causes. So if you're opening up a package mean just that means that they put stuff in there which will pause an inflammatory reaction in your body. I know that that leads to intestinal inflammation resulting in brain inflammation. So on Doug's episode, we discussed how you can buy for pennies on the dollar foods which will supply thymine, which I mean he's got the vitamins down, he's got the fiber down. So the misconception is that you can actually take a parents say don't go through the drive thru McDonald's, it seems cheap. When if you can just go to the periphery of the grocery store, it's always the periphery. It's not the middle, not the middle. Do not walk down the aisles, just walk around the outside, you'll be able to fill your cart with sustainable foods which provide most of the nutrients that you will need. And you can do it in a cost savings and it, it hurts my feelings that I mean, I feel like you're doing an uphill battle right now camp Oasis is awesome. That is like you crush it right there. Now you're going and you're helping autistic kids that when they go home, probably the parents are not educated enough or Well, nobody is it's America. Nobody's educated enough on how to properly eat.. Well I'm not I'm learning. Eric Rieger  Well think about the challenge that you said about the mom who has to wait with the kiddo for eight hours. That's a work day for her. It's a work day for the dad. I mean, they're sitting there doing that they're negotiating. I'm going We are going to have to do without because we have to go and do this. And we're going to waste all day waiting. Ken Brown  So let's go back to the parent perspective again. So now you have an autistic child that you are trying to work on their speech capability to express their emotions. And a parent shows up and says we need to pick them up. What's your interaction with the parents?Paneez Kahkpour  Um, it's not too much. It's usually like, every time I see their child, it's maybe like a four or five minute conversation. So not a whole bunch just because in that conversations is, this is what we did today. These are the things you should try to do at home and see you next time. That's basically as much as we really get because most of its spent with that child. So it'sa little hard. Ken Brown  I could just imagine what happens with somebody who is worried about paying next month's rent. Eric Rieger  Oh, yeah. Ken Brown  And they have a trial that it has some trouble communicating on the Autism Spectrum Disorder it's the the ability to become empathetic to that situation. You have that ability because you have Crohn's disease, and you have muscle through it and you chose a career which could be one of the more difficult uphill battles to change a the underprivileged autistic community. And I commend you on that. Paneez Kahkpour  Thank you.Ken Brown  That is awesome. That is it is a bold, bold thing. Definitely, but I could totally see. Man, it's a hierarchy of needs. I have a I have a patient whose they actually corrected their their child's autism but they also have the resources share the intelligence they I mean intelligence, meaning they're both like super educated, and deep dive and didn't stop at the traditional medical thing. And they started looking at all kinds of alternative therapies like hyperbaric oxygen chambers, which then they purchased for their house and they, I mean, stuff that I mean, whenever they come out, I don't know why they even come to see me. I'm just like, so what do you want? What have you read? You're gonna teach me I got several patients like that run like we should probably meet at the coffee shop I learn from you. But..Eric Rieger  What's it like to have to have a kiddo who who has a breakthrough after the training, so maybe you have somebody who's been non verbal, and then suddenly they..Paneez Kahkpour  It's greatest like every, you know, if someone else looking at it may not seem like a very big change. But from someone who doesn't say anything to like, give me a sound is just incredible. It's, you know, it's those little baby steps that make it a, you know, a big change. And so those baby steps are the big ones. Eric Rieger  I'm curious as a parent when they see like this one little victory that helped them kind of buy into the process that Okay, we've got this little victory here. This isn't time wasted, my child's doing better. And maybe they expand their acceptance of things that you're yeaching them to do at home.Paneez Kahkpour  Yeah, I mean, I think so to a degree. Yeah, they, especially the ones who, because I do home health as well. So the ones who see are in the sessions or they can hear they're like a, you know, earshot away, they can hear it. I think it's super helpful. Because, you know, they see like, how much time is spent. And then you get that one little like, like, vowel sound, or like, you know, kid thing more or something super simple that we take for granted, because, you know, we never had any issues with that. But yeah, it gives them hope it gives them you know, like a light at the end of the tunnel.Ken Brown  So, like I always do when I just think what's going on what's going on at a cellular level, how is this happening and you're dealing with the end product of this which is necessary, which communication is the key, so I've never told you this. But anyways, I grew up I was a really bad stutter. And so my ability to communicate was really limited. Like for the first six, the first six grades, and I was put in remedial classes, because they just assumed that I was stupid. And what I did is rather than stutter I did a type of stuttering called blocking. Right? I could see the word coming. And I'm like, I'm gonna stutter on that word. Eric Rieger  Really? Ken Brown  Yeah, no, yeah, it was bad. And so I would block and then I could not get the word out. And then it just became this facial contortion thing. So I'm extremely empathetic to the fact that communication is how you're labeled. So if you cannot articulate yourself, oh, he's so articulait he's must be intelligent. If you cannot verbalize what's going on, then so I'm really well, I went to speech pathology for years and then when I.. So I didn't learn Spanish as a child, I learned Spanish as an adult in med school and went back to the same speech pathologist that I went to when I was a child. And he was just like, crap, you're greedy. He's like you how bad you were. Now you want to like not stutter in another language, because it all kicked back in and then tremendous anxiety and everything. So the ability to actually communicate and a speech pathologist role to help somebody do that, whether it's somebody's post stroke, whether it's somebody that is autistic, whether it's somebody that stutters, is incredible because we're judged by how we actually articulate. And it's the social norm. And I love how you're saying that if I can get somebody to just acknowledge I can see that they're getting it.Eric Rieger  Yeah Ken Brown  That's what's cool. There's something in there. And I want to my my passion is the gut brain access, and I believe that autism is really no different than dementia. It's over activity, it's really no different than stuttering its activity in a certain neural complex, which prevents you from having the appropriate connection. It's all electrical. And there's some really cool stuff. Johns Hopkins is going to do a study on a molecule called sulforaphane coming up, too, because they're showing some deep some improvement with that, if we can find this. And so, the reason why I think it's so interesting that we talked about diet because I've seen in my own practice, autistic their 16 year olds, because that's the earliest I can see him. When we improve their gut health, their brain health improves. So to anybody that's listening that has an autistic child, I think that people like you are making a huge difference. And I think that we have to continue to realize that, that there are people out there working on a cellular level and there are people out there working on the functional level, and that's what you're doing. You're changing the moment. It's great if I say Oh, hang in there. for 10 years, there's a drug or a new study that will come out, but you're grinding it out. That's what I love. Paneez Kahkpour  Thank you. Eric Rieger  That's awesome. Ken Brown  What's your favorite thing in that job?Paneez Kahkpour  No session. No days the same. You're always keeping you on your toes all the time. Keeps it fun, and you get to play with kids. It's great.Eric Rieger  Sounds creepy when a guy says it.Ken Brown  So Eric, Eric actually tried to be a at home speech pathologist. But I mean, for some reason showing up in the windowless van. Eric Rieger  Kind of.. just said candy on the outside. They asked, Why do you want to do this? I just want to hang out kids. That's awesome. Thank you, Paneez so much for coming. Paneez Kahkpour  Thanks for having for having me.Eric Rieger  Absolutely what an incredible show. Ken Brown  You know ...I just love it. I mean, I just admire you so much. You. This is like, like we talked about the whole show. It's a story of endurance. perseverance of being open and vulnerable. Last episode, we talked about being open and what makes people that way. And every characteristic that we talked about you absolutely show the willingness to see new ideas. Try, just get out there. And if you don't succeed, just keep adapting slowly. Paneez Kahkpour  The only way.. Ken Brown  So where are you? I'm gonna put you on the spot again. Where are you at? 10 years from now?Paneez Kahkpour  10 years from now, hopefully still in remission..Hopefully, I mean..Ken Brown  She said that she kind of looked at me like, well I don't know keep me in remission..Paneez Kahkpour  That's on you. Hopefully in remission, you know, hopefully I went to grad school and accomplish that because, you know, working on that right now. Maybe working in a hospital, maybe have my own private practice something, something along those lines.Eric Rieger  Now, I don't know you didn't prompt me because I don't know but I don't know if Paneez is one of the Crohn's patients that we have currently that is taking Atrantil and CBD combo is thatPaneez Kahkpour  I was just on the CBDEric Rieger  Just on the CBD. So I okay, yeah, that's what I wanted to give us your perspective and what you felt. Did you get more control over?Paneez Kahkpour  Yeah, I mean, so the thing is I overall I felt great, but because not going on again. Thank you Remicade. I've been feeling pretty good.Eric Rieger  Sure Paneez Kahkpour  Majority of the time I don't really have too many you know, issues maybe a little tiny players here and there but nothing too big. So overall, yeah, I just feel good. I sleep well. You know, no complaints.Eric Rieger  No, that's that's the awesome part. I get to see the patients when they come through just like you've been through and there's a handful that have just verbalized. I don't worry so much about taking, whether it happens to be Remicade or anything else like that as often They're able to space it out just simply because they feel like they've controlled their inflammatory process. They don't have the flare ups like that anymore. I mean obviously they're adhering to a specific diet for them. But it's it's curious because it CBD to me four years ago I didn't I didn't believe the hype at all. I had to wait till we proved it clinically before I thought there was anything to it.Ken Brown  Well, we this is this is where I want to end up in 10 years I want to end up with the ability to heal people's guts and their intestines so that we decrease neuro inflammation and it all comes down to overactivity your Crohns is because your immune system is overactive. All we got to do is ratchet it back a little bit. And fortunately, Remicade figured out by doing it in one particular manner that worked really well which really well for you. I got a lot of patients it doesn't and I'm not bashing Remicade at all We love all and that's why we tried these different biologics. That's why Reed had an anticlimactic shock and he had to go and humera and his doctors you just sit there and you'll Wow, contrary to what people think we really all want to cure for this. Eric Rieger  Sure. Ken Brown  We really want to care we I could sit here and do if I had my 10 year goal is just Well, this show is huge and we've got you know, we're having fun doing it still in 10 yearsEric Rieger  Yeah Ken Brown  Cuz I like doing it and then I leave the show and I do like 20 Hemorrhoids and then I just go home Eric Rieger  WowKen Brown   I love hemorrhoids Paneez Kahkpour  Sounds like a good line.Eric Rieger  Big goalsKen Brown  Big goals, has nothing to do with you know..Eric Rieger  Someday I'll have a full tank of gasKen Brown  I'm a.. maybe I'll have a new pair of jeans. I don't know. Yeah, no. Eric Rieger  It's a little thing. Ken Brown  It's dude, keep your I mean live the dream just keep the dream real accessible. Paneez Kahkpour  Attainable goals.Ken Brown  Attainable goals.Eric Rieger  Weird way in that episode, but yeah.Ken Brown  Well I want to..Well, we're almost done. I want to ask one another thing here. Just let's do a shout out to your mom because she suffered a lot through all this. Paneez Kahkpour  She really did. I love you, Mom, thank you for everything. Ken Brown  Wave at the camera.Paneez Kahkpour  Thank you. Love you. The best mom ever.Ken Brown  Can you say I love you mom and Farsi?Paneez Kahkpour  ....Mom.Eric Rieger  Big shout out to all the parents of all all kinds of diseases like that. I mean, you are your kids champion.Ken Brown  This is the look at the camera one more time. This is this is the beautiful face of Crohn's disease.Paneez Kahkpour  Think of Crohns and see my face?Ken Brown  Yeah, and this is the beautiful face of a janitor at a..Eric Rieger  Camp Sweeney.Ken Brown   Camp SweeneyEric Rieger  It's been a while but yeah. Well said it.Ken Brown  I think that is a great episode. I think it's very touching. I want to thank Dr. Mike Wiesburg for telling his story. That is very compelling. Go over and Get the book in the end. You can see by the way he writes that and that was like five minutes. Yeah. Like I mean, you know his his novels are incredible. I want to thank you so much Paneez for coming on and sharing I know that it's like really personal and stuff but we just need to get the word out to the Crohn's and colitis foundation camp Oasis thank you so much for everything that you guys do for all of this. And ultimately, I'm hoping that through some polyphenols like Atrantil and CBD, we can start making people feel better heal their guts heal their brain, stop the immune system and we will eventually get to the point where we would talk remember that time when people used to develop Crohns?Eric Rieger  Yeah, that would be a great day to get to in fact, you can help them get to that day by donating to the Crohn's and ulcerative colitis foundation and if you go to gutcheckproject.com check the show notes for this show. We will be certain to have the links to you can check out camp Oasis how to be a volunteer how to give to Crohn's and UC, it's it's, it should be a goal.Ken Brown  If you go to KBMDhealth.com and put in a code Persian princess but has to be in Farsi, you get 120% off. Eric Rieger  Yeah, good luck getting that keyboard Paneez Kahkpour  I have it, i'll go use it right now.Ken Brown  Eric we're losing money!Eric Rieger  It's not gonna work.Ken Brown  Don't do that. Okay, nevermind. I retract the Persian princess code in Farsi.Eric Rieger  Thank y'all very much for tuning in again, check project Paneez. Thank you so much for making time for us today. Paneez Kahkpour  Of course, Thanks for having me. Ken Brown  Awesome. Eric Rieger  See you all later. 

All right everybody It is now time for the gut check project. Let's talk about some of our sponsors for today's show, Episode Number 31. Of course, we're going to start it off with Atrantil you can get your own Atrantil at lovemytummy.com/KBMD chock full of nature's best defense against IBS and bloating polyphenols. Dr. Brown, what do you want to add to that? One of the things is that we know that the future of protecting our microbiome and if you listen to this podcast, you will realize that we're it's all about health span. It's all about protecting your health. And the microbiome is the most important thing that you can actually augment Atrantil augments the microbiome. If you happen to be somebody that has IBS and bloating well we fix that also. So in other words, if you have issues take Atrantil. If you want to protect your health span take Atrantil.So Atrantil, not only for your gut health protect your lifespan lovemytummy.com/KBMD, lovemytummy.com/KBMD. Don't get it from, Amazon. Get it directly from the Atrantil manufacturers themselves. You know what, because you need to just get on with this, I'm going to correct you on this. You said lifespan, I said healthspan. Two different things. I want you to be healthy. That's the bottom line. Doesn't matter how long we live. If you end up with Dementia, Alzheimer's Parkinson's, and things like that healthspan, my brother.That's why we get Dr. Brown on the show and not just me. So lovemytummy.com/KBMD. Now talking about KBMD, we also have another sponsorship, KBMD CBD. KBMD CBD is all organic CO2 extracted and has been used clinically where we gotten results correct?Correct Absolutely. So one of the things is everybodyis talking about CBD, CBD these days, but getting the proper CBD is the key here. If you cannot get direct access to a Certificate of Analysis, you're starting off on the wrong foot. All KBMD CBD lot number to lot number. Every single run, has an associated Certificate of Analysis so that you know that inside that bottle is exactly what appears on the label. And everything that we've ever or the Dr. Brown has ever found as a benefit from CBD has been tested in his own GI clinic and not just with himself with many of his own colleagues. So KBMD CBD, you can get your own at KBMDhealth.com. And you can also find the Dr. Brown signature protection package, which includes CBD and Atrantil. Now why would someone want to do that?That is great question Eric. And the reason why is because when we've been talking to scientists, we realize that when you take Atrantil with CBD, it actually augments your own endocannabinoid production. Meaning, you explain that please.Well, if you enhance your own endocannabinoid production, what you're going to do is give your body all of the elements that it needs to balance your immune system along with your nervous system. And by having that type of balance, you begin to decrease the, the negative effects of over inflammation. Or you could find out that you could sleep a little bit better that you just don't say have the same aches and pains. Essentially, there's a great reason that we're discovering that CBD is essential as a micro-nutrient that we could consume every single day. I'm so proud of you. Thank you. You've learned so much. I've learned so much.Go to KBMDhealth.com, use code GCP save 20% on anything that you wish to purchase.So ultimately, what happens is that the polyphenols Atrantil actually decrease the enzyme that breaks down your own endocannabinoids and that's how come I started getting into the science of this and I realized that every time everybody takes the KBMD CBD with Atrantil they do better. It augments, it meaning, they work together. 20%? That's on top of the discounts that already come in the...Sounds like i'm going to lose money on that. What's important, is that everybody can rest assured you will not have money as a barrier to entry for your health.You know, that's exactly it. I don't even care about that. So we're gonna lose a little money on this, but you guys get healthy. I'm on it, my kids are on it, my staff is on it, you're on it, your kids are on it, everybody's on it. Everytime you get in front of somebody. Our job with the gut check project is to promote health.100% And this is one way to do it. Speaking of promoting health, we have our first external sponsor that we'd like to go ahead and talk about that is going to be somebody who made it a an appearance on episode number 30. The Unrefined Bakery so unrefinedbakery.com, unrefinedbakery.com. You can use, code gutcheck to save 20% off your very first purchase. And it doesn't matter where you live, even though they are based in the DFW Texas Metroplex, anywhere you live, they can ship to you. Gluten-free, paleo, keto compliant, whatever you're after in your special diet. That's what they specialize in. Low sugar, breads, cupcakes, mix. It's incredible food, that just happens to be gluten free. What do you think of the of the foods that Unrefined Bakery made this week?Absolutely amazing. They were absolutely delicious. But, here's something else I want to say. I had a patient that just came to me, and they went to the Mayo Clinic they were Cleveland Clinic. They were like desperate, right? And they were told by their gastroenterologist that gluten sensitivity is not a thing. Weird. Guess what? Gluten sensitivity is a huge thing to me. Because every time I eat it, I'm pretty much stuck in the bathroom. So Unrefined Bakery. I love the fact that we brought them on. We had Taylor and Ann. And they, they crushed it. They're super smart.Definitely. They're dedicated to their customers without question. Dude, they have the same passion that we do, which is ultimately just promoting health, that's it.Absolutely. So I know, I had to laugh. This patient came to me and he goes, Yeah, my doctor told me that gluten sensitivity was not a thing. Like it, really is because I live it.Yeah, absolutely. Unrefined Bakery, unrefinedbakery.com, use code, gutcheck, save 20% off your first order. Make it a big order. So save 20% off a bunch of stuffed. 20%? They're losing money also.Absolutely. If you walked away thinking you can't have bread anymore, start here. They sell bread, they sell bread dough, they sell cupcakes, they sell cookies they sell like I said.Can you get on the rest of the show, because I'm gonna drive there. Right now. And go get some cupcakes.Unrefined Bakery. You're doing too good of a job of selling this, holy cow.We may not have a show, this may be it. This may be Episode 31 right here. So unrefinedbakery.com. Be sure and check them out. Use code gut check. And now we're onto the show. You're gonna love Episode 31. Dr. Brown is going to dive pretty deep and we'll get started here in 3,2,1. Alright everybody is now time for the gut check project. It's Episode 31, we got a special topic here today that Dr. Brown is going to cover. Has anybody ever thought about fecal microbial transplants almost screwed up the way I said it, just then.No, no, no, you can't screw up poop.You can't screw up poop. You can't screw up poop.No, so I didn't. It's like. It's like everything's fine.Yeah, I want to try something completely different here. So what, what happened and the reason why I'm to do this show, you and I is that I were surprisingly getting some reach. I got reached by somebody, instant messaged me from Sweden.Someone from Sweden, Sweden.Because they actually had GI issues developed bacterial overgrowth, SIBO. And then, in her desperation, she did a fecal transplant. In other words, she took somebody else's poop and put it in her body. So if this sounds weird, it's not that weird. It's something that's like gaining a ton of traction. And then she reached out to me because she ended up feeling way worse and developed several autoimmune issues. And that's what I want to get into the fact that FMT, Fecal Microbial Transplant is not a totally benign thing. And if, Are you open to maybe having me interview her?I think it'd be fantastic if you interviewed her. There's nothing like real world conversation with people who have real world elements with real world answers.That's so awesome. Because one little thing that I want to discuss is a recent article was sent to me in the Journal of Psychology Okay? Where openness to experience is linked to several things. So I would like everybody listening. The gut check project is about checking your ego at the door and being open to different things. So one of the things that I'm really proud of is that every time we do this show, people reach out to us we get a lot of email, we get a lot of people talking to us, and then I have to address it. Well, this particular show where I interview Helly, I want to make sure that if you have IBS, if you have SIBO, bacterial overgrowth, if you suffer from anything. Watch this because what I'm going to do is put a face to the disease. And she was so kind to reach out to me and say, film me, and I want everyone else in the world to know. So the Swedish person, who was very open about everything. She has exactly what I do in clinic, every single day. So what you're going to watch is what I do with her. It was a two hour interview. I cut it down to 15 minutes Right? So if you know anybody, please refer them. If you actually wants to sit there a little little bit more, we have our friend, Shivan Sarna.Shivan Sarna, with SIBO SOS Summit. SIBO SOS Summit, yeah, absolutely.SIBO SOS Summit. She's interviewed all the experts. I actually directed Helly over there, but more importantly, be open. So if you're like, if you're about ready to go ah, no, I'm not into it. What I'm going to tell you is, a recent study came out in Psychology Today, that talks about openness. All right. And the fact that you said open, makes me super excited.I hope I'm as excited when this is all over.I love how we show up. I hold papers and you're like, where are you going with this?Sometimes you give me papers I don't even know they're there. Alright, put simply.Okay.Openness is the drive to explore novel aspects of human experience. Okay? Now, here's what's fascinating. This article did this whole interview where they looked, and 95% of Americans feel that they are more open to new experiences than other Americans. Well, Wow, that's amazing.There's only that 5% that everyone's competing with.I know. So it's funny, because as we sit there and look at this, we realize that 95% of these Americans responded that they're more open than everybody else. But, as it turns out, when they actually went through the rest of the questionnaires, they're not. Okay. As we age, we become very entrenched in our own habits.Familiarity, I'm sure is probably already 100%. It's gotta be.I love the fact that I threw a curveball at you here on the show. And I'm like, you look I'm gonna we're gonna do a zoom with a person in Sweden. So that's pretty much our gas this time.Sweet. So, anybody who is open to experiences, they have shown that the people that are more open to new experiences tend to be financially better, tend to have better relationships, and they tend to be happier. Okay. So as much as you sit there and say, oh, well, I have my routines, being open and jumping off bridges and that, I don't mean that literally. Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah. The figurative. Figuratively because you and I jump off a lot of bridges, figuratively. But doing that more, actually results in a more prosperous life.Doesn't that make sense though, because whenever something's new, it expands your mind. You have a new experience, and doing the same thing over and over again. Look what happens with people who have quote unquote, "stale relationships." They say we did the same thing. And if that happens, then you people always use the term spice things up. Where does spice come from? Spice comes from, from change, right? So embrace the change and take, take what's coming at you.Embrace the change. So what we're going to talk about today is a couple simple techniques. So this study, and then we're going to get into the interview. Okay? And then I'm going to, I mean, I wish I had some way to geek out like some signs. It's like, Okay, I'm going to geek out now because the article I'm going to get into..Yeah, geek out, like now we're gonna geek out. So I mean, I find myself I had a patient in that was a PhD, and I was sitting there, tell her about some stuff, and we started talking and next thing I know, it's like 30 minutes and we're way beyond the actual issues that she came in to see but I'm like, I'm like eating her brain about what she knows and, and she's like, Oh my gosh, hey, if you do this, and this and this and this and this. Like the inner connection of what we can do when we start pulling our mind power together, is really amazing. Yes, it's kind of what this is about. This is being open to new and novel things..Maybe Paul can put a little sciences geek out.Alright So I'm going to tell you how to be open. Okay So rather than argue whether it's good or bad.. so the number one nudge the edge of your comfort zone, ..Okay So it has been shown in human studies that the more that you push things, as we grow older, we tend to confine ourselves more and more and more and more. YeahAs kids, they will push themselves. And you know, they'll just try anything. There's no established boundary. There's no established boundary. As adults, we tend to say this is my boundary, so I should not do that. I am not going to dance, because that's not who I am. I am not going to be silly. I that's I guess that's why I love comedians. They just get up there and just throw down.Sure yeah, I love my grandpa or my granddad, used to have funny little sayings. And one of the things he always said is "you otta throw it against the wall, see if it sticks." I love it.You know, you turn, turn the key and see if it starts anything like that you he's basically just using metaphors for trying things out.We have one shot at life and we tend to limit ourselves because of the fear of the unknown.I would agree with that.Quit doing that. Nudge your boundary, push your confidence to levels. And guess what? It's okay to fail.It is okay to fail.That's the thing. Number two, the number two way to actually become more accepting in that to openness is prototype over perfection.Prototype over perfection. Kind of interpretation of that would be it doesn't have to be perfect to be used. Doesn't have to be perfect to be tested. Right?That's funny how you interpreted it that way. Because the way that I read it was Eric Rhaegar. And Ken Brown, we are prototypes over perfection.Quick, get some microphones and a camera. And let's see what happens.Now, so Thomas Edison made 1000 unsuccessful attempts at making a light bulb. Yeah. And he actually was asked, how did it feel to fail 1000 times. Edison's response was, I didn't fail 1000 times the light bulb was an invention with 1000 steps. Absolutely.So whatever it is that you're doing, whatever it is that you're trying to do, you're not failing. No. It just becomes a step in the process. Be open to more things. Hundred percent.Yeah, I couldn't agree with that more.And when you realize that people like Edison failed 1000 times. Step up. Yeah, no more excuses. And then this is my favorite, right? The number three way to be more open. Follow your curiosities, not your passions. So you have two boys Gage and Mac.Correct? And you know we always sit there and tell people follow your passion, follow your passion. But the reality is, a passion is a very weird and personal thing. Yeah. And curiosities. Are, can be stimulated in many different ways.. I agree with that. Curiosities can be built from different angles. They can be built from experiences they can be built from whatever follow the curiosity the curiosity will lead to a passion. I'm gonna brag on my oldest here right quick, because he does play competitive basketball and they both do Gage and Mac both play competitive basketball and Mac hasn't had this opportunity. So this story is really just about Gage but he has or had some opportunities after he graduates high school this year to go and possibly explore playing basketball in a smaller school setting, etc. But as much as he enjoys playing basketball, he, he doesn't think that's what he wants to define him. He wants to keep his passion as his hobby, and be inspired by being a traditional college student being able to discover because he's afraid that for him, not for everyone, but being a collegiate athlete would basically wall him off from his ability for exploration. I mean, that's almost verbatim how he described it. He wants to be able to be a young man to still explore beyond the boundaries of a basketball and I think that's completely awesome would have been a lot cheaper, on everybody play basketball but that's that's not we all live once and that's not what was going to make him happy.Is that fascinating? Because I know that I mean, we've talked a lot about Gage, Gage explores his curiosity..Sure.He plays music he artist does artists, he does video editing, he does different things. My kids do the same thing where I just didn't cure. I want to encourage the whole curiosity aspect of it. And I didn't even realize that that is what makes you open. Sure. When you're curious, you're open when you're open, you accept other ideas. When you accept other ideas, you accept other people, you can see that there's a whole path here. You eventually by being open, you have empathy. Oh yeah. You end up saying, I get where you're coming from. I could see what this is. You don't wall yourself off.Yeah, absolutely. Now I'll brag on my younger one Mac Mac is often times with his large massive collection of friends, which spans about eight years in each direction. He, he often times refers to them from their station in life if they've had like a struggle or big win I've heard him say, they must be feeling this because this looks like that this would have felt good or bad and then kind of gives their you know, their environment perspective. So yes, I agree with that that the curiosity would would breed empathy like that. That's really cool. So this particular doctor when they wrote this article, they said while passion is fickle, and high voltage curiosity, on the other hand is deep and abiding. When you approach something with a curious mindset, you're seeking growth and newness, for the sake of novelty. So stay curious, my friends.Yeah. And it sounds like somebody else who said that. Yeah. Somebody else I'm sure we can reference it becauseNot supposed to.So I just, I think it's interesting that and in this particular show, we're going to do something unique or we're going to put in a video of me interviewing a patient, but being open to new ideas being curious.Sure. That is the kind of stuff,so as a physician, when I'm curious, I went down some rabbit holes on this particular topic event. I bet.And I loved it. I love it. I'm a I'm a better doctor. This shows makes me a better doctor, this show is going on Shivan's webcast makes me a better doctor, I have to prepare for it. I have to do different things. I mean, we all have to sit there and realize, okay, I am going to be curious about this topic. I'm going to learn it, I'm going to do it. And then all of a sudden it opens up a new door and you're like, we haven't thought about that. No.That's what this shows about. So if you ever heard about Fecal Microbial Transplant, meaning poop transplant, that's what this is about, and there's a lot of hype around it. If you haven't heard it. I listened to multiple podcasts on this. Dave Asprey had an expert on I mean, like all people that I like to listen to.Sure Ben Greenfield.Ben Greenfield did this. Everybody did this? I'm going to sort of rock the whole ship here. Okay, today, I know. Let's be open everything. Let's be open. The fact that if you're open, you're going to be open to ideas. You're going to be open to different perspectives. But the reality is it's gut check project, check your ego at the door. What we're going to talk about is SIBO bacterial overgrowth, IBS, and if you want to watch somebody spilled their guts and really be genuine and be open. I have an interview here that we're going to play in the next few minutes. With Helly from Sweden, nice and she was open and cool. And you're not alone. If you have any digestive issues, you're not alone, and that's the bottom line. So she the story is this. She got sick then she was not right. Then in her desperation, meaning like she had the typical SIBO stuff. She got a fecal microbial transplant, she went to a doctor, he did a colonoscopy and placed poop from another person into her. And then she got sicker. Oh, that wasn't what they were after. That's not what they were after, right? And then she went back to the doctor. He's like, well, let's try again. And let's try again, and then she contacted me because she developed a multitude of autoimmune issues. Interesting. And she is essentially, she feels like she's dying. Hmm. So I would not normally respond to a message but she said, Hey, I need your help. I'm like, Look, here's what we're going to do. I don't know if I can help you. But if you're willing to share your story, we'll play it and we'll learn together. So what I want is everyone, every doctor, every patient to listen to this and say we're going to find something new to fix people. That's what that's what this is about. So let's go ahead and turn it over. This is my interview with Helly from Sweden, who reached out about having complications from a poop transplant, Fecal Microbial Transplant.All right, tune in.So tell me a bit about yourself.Okay, I'm 36 um, I've always been healthy until 2015. But after Flagyl everything my health went downhill. I started it gave me horrible panic attacks, I started getting depressed in movement. This is this sounds strange, but I could actually feel it in my stomach. It was like a nervous kind of feeling. You know, when you have butterflies in your stomach, but it wasn't like a good feeling. You're like you don't have an appetite. It was just like that. Yes, brain fog and the worst thing I had ever felt in my life was something called the realization. You know, when I had nausea all the time all the time. For two years I had not imagined you have a stomach flu that goes on every single day, every waking hour for two days, for two years, that's what I had. And I lost my new job that I had gotten a week before I got Flagyl so I couldn't stay so I it for three years this brain fog and, and my my, because my also my bowel movements. I mean, I had never always gone to the bathroom every day. I got maybe once every two days or something. But after Flagyl my my stool wasn't the same horrible horrible fatigue. I the brain fog I couldn't focus I couldn't I was always panic this this panic was the worst. I wouldn't I mean, if you have panic attacks.So essentially 2015 you get the antibiotics. You start with this down this path you are you eat specially carby foods, you get very bloated. And then you ended up having quite a few beginning with neurologic issues where you had the brain fog, panic attacks and depression some sleep disturbance out of frustration. You had, insomnia, you you went to several different doctors One of them was an advocate for FMT, known as Fecal Microbial Transplantation. And you got ultimately over over a course three different fecal transplants. First one being with a colonoscopy. Second one being with an enema and then an enema again. Okay, so both, and after each one, you had a reaction to it where you had what you felt like the flu and you had lymph nodes that got big. And then since then, you've had very significant skin and scalp issues with Alopecia meaning your hair's falling out. You've had biopsies which are permanent. And now the really unusual one is the hypermobility and the feeling like your joints are getting slightly bigger. And, that is something that seems to be progressing with you right now. Is that correct?Yes. Okay. Yeah, it's in jaws, back. It just pops and pops everywhere. Okay.That is quite the history there Helly. And I'm very sorry, you're going through all of that. Let's try and make a little bit of sense. I don't know if I can help you. But I do at least want to try and explain a few things just so that you're, you're very intelligent. A ton of reading, I'm going to share my screen real quick. So one thing that we do realize when we talk about, this is a moving target as you can see, and so you have a history which is very consistent for somebody to develop bacterial overgrowth. We know that SIBO can happen if you go through a stressful event. If you take care antibiotics are having an infection. And you kind of had all three happen at a similar time. We know that that can affect the motility and all comes down to motility. So you've already learned the basics of bacterial overgrowth, a SIBO and you understand that it's a can be population of bacteria growing where it shouldn't. So when you eat the bacteria break it down. These are just some recent studies that we've been looking at that kind of show how these different gases can affect things. So this is the effects and mention of how methane affects ileo-motor function. And if you listen to Dr. Pimentel talk, what he discovered in his lab, is that what the methane does, it doesn't just shut it down. It actually makes your intestines do an uncoordinated contraction. So it's like it just sort of spasms. And when it does that it doesn't move anything, thus allowing bacteria to continue to grow. Now we know that you drew out both hydrogen and methane. And we do know that when you have hydrogen, if it can actually bind and produce hydrogen....But more hydrogen. Yes.More hydrogen. So what what I see in my practice is that it is the multi biome. It's how these different organisms interact with each other, including fungal organisms producing possibly CO2 or the or the methane back background. Now hydrogen sulfide is a big deal, because what we do know is it's it can actually, the cysteine residue that normally reproduce on our diet gets absorbed and gets converted, but when you have bacterial overgrowth, it produces hydrogen sulfide, which leads to inflammation. Ultimately, inflammation is the root cause of all of this. And so what I think we're seeing in you, yes, that you have root causes the inflammatory process. You're exactly right, that when you had your your Genova stool test, that when you had the fat in there, you are mal-absorbing fat now are you mal-absorbing fat due to bacterial overgrowth, it could also be pancreas and we do see this overlap with that. But it is completely linked all these different things that a lot of times other doctors say well, you just have chronic pain, Fibromyalgia fatigue, migraines, but your initial presentation was all about the brain. The thing that I think you'll find it interesting is that once we know that we set this inflammatory cascade off, I want to show you this arrow right here. Yes, new data has shown that when a mass cell gets stimulated, it'll release histamine and serotonin proteases. But the histamine itself will actually stimulate the enteric nervous system, which will go straight to the CNS. So when you mentioned earlier, I do know that there is a gut brain connection vaguely? Well, it's mediated through the entire nervous system and it is very, very, very sensitive. So have intestinal inflammation, there is your gut brain connection. So if you look at this, the new evidence is now showing that this gut brain connection is in all different kinds of Dementia, Autism, Anxiety, ADHD, you know, the newest term it's really fascinating is leaky brain, because what they've done is that they've actually shown that you can soak colonic tissue in inflammatory mediators. And then they soaked blood, the blood brain barrier, and they show that both of them become permeable. So know that there is no doubt about it. It's not in your head, that whole depersonalization, that anxiety that depression can all be related to leaky brain. I do I am getting into quite a bit of research and cannabidiol or CBD. And there is there are some in vitro studies where they actually looked at how they can improve the blood brain barrier, which ultimately helps with all that so my fear is that these kind of things will continue. Like like you're already worried, continue to progress to lead to more autoimmune issues to lead to more things like that. So the whole FMT thing is really fascinating to me, because we got very excited about it. And then the FDA came in, and then and then they basically pulled the plug. And then we said, no, it's very effective in clostridium difficle infections. Yes, I know that. Yeah. And so that's what it's really only allowed for here, though, the whole concept of just saying we'll just take somebody's super donor a poop. Getting back to the how we prepare it, you may have a super donor right here, meaning you have a diverse microbiome. But once we process it, you may decrease the viability of that even if you do DNA analysis, you don't know if that bacteria is viable. So what I'm getting at is I think it would be very interesting to, in somebody like you, let's say that we advanced the science of this we can go oh okay, Helly, I think that unfortunately, we this particular donor did not have enough of butyrate producers bacteria. How do we get more of that in that? I am a big fan of spore based biotics. megaspore biotic.Megaspore?Yeah, so if you want..That's a probiotic, how can I take that?So I want you to go to our show, I actually we actually interviewed their their CEO, PhD, ..., and beautiful how he explains the science of probiotics. And it's incredible how he explains how the spore based biotics send signaling to other bacteria. So one of the things that they can do and the reason why we're teaming up is because we realized that the polyphenols and Atrantil can actually help feed the spore base bacteria. And what it does is it goes through and doesn't become out of its spore phase until it gets to the illeum at which point signaling goes it goes, Oh, we're gonna end up in the colon. Then it gets to the colon wakes up and starts tapping other bacteria and goes hey guys, we need to diversify a little bit. And they've actually shown that they can deliver vaccines this way and stuff. So the whole concept of spore based biotics is, is really fascinating and new barnwood spore based but so..But can I just ask you Atrantil I have there sir, I know that three ingredients. One is from peppermint, which is fine. I just don't know all that much from about this bark tree thingy.. is it?Well, you know that all really good questions all extremely complex. So, the bark you're talking about is Quebracho, Quebracho Colorado. That's the thing that makes us so unique is because we actually are the only product that has this. Quebracho Colorado is a proanthocyanidin or a tannin. So it's the tannins are proanthocyanidins combined into a large molecule. So the thing that we needed to help with SIBO is that we needed Atrantil to be a poorly absorbed molecule. So when we were talking about scientists, then we looked at all the animal data that had been done. And so what we do know is that in animal models, sheep and cattle that are fed this tend to have a much healthier microbiome, they tend to produce better milk, they tend to have increased weight gain and things like that. So from an animal perspective, we've been feeding cattle for a long time. from a human perspective, you're getting it in a lot of different sources that you didn't really realize, for instance, wine. Things like that, you're getting a lot of this. polyphenols, yeah, but polyphenols is a huge umbrella. Before every time somebody does some research on it, it appears that they are beneficial in ways that can that can become very complex. So this is that whole post biotic conversation that when you take a polythenol and or an undigested polysaccharide that gets to the colon, bacteria can break them down into different things. There are different molecules so that bacteria can break something down, and then produce a molecule called eurolithin. Eurolithin signals old and sick mitochondria to die. So that is my topic. So this is this is the kind of complex signaling that's going on.So when they die, those new mitochondria that does the body produce more or?..Yes, so it's like autophagy. Autophagy...YesIt's mytophagy. It's just the signaling to say, hey, you're an old and functioning powerhouse. And we need a new one over here. So okay, so then the big argument if you talk to in vitro scientists or bench researchers that look what they know is that these polyphenols like reservatrol, like berberine, like, all these molecules are similar like quercetin like tumeric all these. They'll say, Oh, well, one of the problems that Is that it actually creates a little bit of stress on cells. And so that's that antioxidant thing that you're talking about, which is too many antioxidants, then we don't know what it does. in vivo, I think what's happening is is that that is a version of hormesis. Actually, I think there's a term for it. It's called xeno- hormesis, meaning you're outside of hormesis is the adaption to a stress. So the reason why you work out and the reason why exercise is functional is because that's, that's a hormetic response. The reason why Oh, you're in Sweden, you guys are loving saunas, right? You guys are a big sauna society?It's more Finland. But yea.I'm a huge sauna fan, because that's a great example of turning on,  heat shock proteins. And so what that does is you stress your body a little bit to make it adapt more. So you get this bigger, this bigger response. I think that the whole emerging role in the US were we're really limited by the research that we do is usually funded by pharmaceutical companies. Yes. Here that's what that's really what I'm trying to do is try and bridge this gap and say, okay, how do we look at some of this consistent research that's been done in the lab done in animals, some small studies in humans and say, can we translate this to benefit somebody like you? So I want I what I will tell you all I will do is I'll try and dive more into the FMT thing ask around if they've had some different challenges like this. And in the meantime, I hope that this helps you discuss a little bit more with your doctor and.. I will.. You know Helly, I think we should probably wrap this up. But..Yes. So what's the next step? You will you will get in touch with me when you've found someone and then we can set up a meeting for, for them for the new thing for the new recording. The show or what..Yea, we need to heal you and bring you back on so that we can heal? .. Next step is for you to tell everybody to watch the gut check project so that maybe one FMT expert will see it and go, okay, I'm willing to talk and then we can pick their brain. Okay.Perfect. Thank you so much. So. So..Hang in there. I hope that this..I will. I hope the zoom at least helps you to relax a little bit. And we know that people are still trying. There's a lot of scientists out there working on a lot of these things. The joint thing, I'm a complete loss. I've always thought of the EDS as a genetic thing. But then again, we have this whole epi genetic field where yes, you carry a gene, and then something happens that turns it on that's another process. So.Yeah, yeah. So it will be interesting to see if I have that gene. I'm going to ask for investigation in that too, because if I don't have it, then it really really is proof that it it's something with SIBO or from the gut. Yeah, and I would know.Yeah.Fascinating. Yeah.. Yeah. Okay. Dr. Brown, thank you so much for your time. And..Helly thank you so much for allowing us to share this with our audience. A lot of people realize that you put a face to a problem. A lot of people feel alone when they're doing..Yeah, yeah. Yeah they do. Hopefully we can figure this out? Yeah. Okay. Dr. Brown, thank you so much I don't want to take much more of your time now. Thank you. You too.Keep in touch okay? I will. Thank you. Bye.Alright, so we're back after the video. Hey, I get to see you at the procedure setting whenever we do the colonoscopies. Is it like that every day in the clinic side because we don't have those kind of interactions with the patients whenever we have them come through so I mean we just heard about the Hashimoto Ehlers-Danlos and screwed up how to say.Ehlers-Danlos.Thank you, but so we hear that that's what she said. Alopecia. Losing hair. Yeah. I mean, this is a beautiful woman who's this has disrupted her life. That's why I wanted it, you know, and thank you to Helly for letting us do. Thank you Helly very much.Yeah, you're right, Pedram. Yes, it actually adds a face to the disease. This is what I do every day people come in and they're desperate. And I want to talk about something unique that nobody's putting this thing together. Let's do it. And hopefully, people like Shivan Sarna can spread the message about what I think I uncovered. When I was preparing for this, with with Helly and listening to her like, Oh my gosh, wait a minute, I think I know what's going on. Because the key to Helly is so it was a two hour interview and I cut it down to 15 minutes. So there's a lot that's left out. Okay. Much like Shojai Pedram, what's his name? Yeah. When when he interviewed me for his Netflix movie, and we did Like 30 minutes of filming, and I got like 30 seconds of airtime.Well, the goal is not through everything. Not all golden hills.Pedram Shojai. Yeah. Pedram Shojai. Yeah. So he's got he does this docu series.You said right the first time he did it with a with a last name comma first name. Oh. So yeah, that was a you end up on the editing floor and I remember like to love it said why don't you just be more interesting and you'll make it into the actual film..Love it holding back.Alright, so anyway, so it was a two hour interview that we that I clipped down so that the thing that people want to hear and if you're that person, and if you have SIBO or IBS or autoimmune issues, there's a high likelihood that some of what she talked about is relevant to you.Correct. Which the thing that kept resonating to me is the anxiety. So she can deal with most of it, but the anxiety and the depression and the panic, never had in her entire life and just something happened. So that's what I want to get into post fecal microbial transplant. She ended up having all these issues.Yeah and your right, having anxiety basically takes away the ability for the coping mechanism to deal with the other present problems. And it's just a it's compounding the issue.Yeah, it's like insult to injury. Yeah, yeah. So you can have gut issues, but now you're having brain issues.And I can't even reason through it without feeling kind of terrible. Well, I want to explain all that. And I started looking into this. And then I started doing some Google searches, on FMT, which is fecal microbial transplant. Sure. And one of my partners that I was gonna interview Dr. Ackerman, who's actually done a bunch of this. We started talking about the consequences of this, and hey, we don't really understand exactly what's going on. So if you Google it, it looks Looks like it's the panacea. People are offering this for autism, Parkinson's or Alzheimer's. They're saying I have the cure to this. But I'll let you know right now that the FDA is regulating this because there's been recently two deaths on fecal microbial transplant. And so the FDA is getting involved. So a lot of these different clinics and stuff are doing in outside of the US.Yeah, Mexico, Mexico, and Central America, Bahamas. Exactly.So patients always ask me about this. And if I had a way to say I'm about ready to geek out, I'm gonna geek out. So I want to go into a deeper discussion into the science and talk about improving the risk and improve the beneficial effects of fecal microbial transplant. I remember I've had so many friends call me up and they're like, hey, my mom has Dementia. Do you think a microbial transplant ? If you've never thought about it, it seems weird. But once you're desperate, it seems like the easiest thing that you can do. Sure. I'm gonna take my poop from this good, healthy person, but in somebody else, and people are discussing how it affects all these other diseases. This is an example of how somebody did it. And it unlocked diseases in her..Interesting..The epigenetic phenomena. epigenetics means that you have genes in you. And then when you have an environmental shift, you end up unlocking these genes and they become relevant. It's super complex. So in my own practice, I've actually had twins that had all sort of one had ulcerative colitis, and they gave a fecal microbial transplant from the healthy twin to the the one that had ulcerative colitis, and they did it multiple times. And so the colitis better.Good. Interesting.She also took on the traits of the twin. She ended up having acne, she ended up putting on some weight, she ended up doing some different things. Fascinating. Yeah, think about that. I can sit there and put this. So then I started looking into it. And then there's mouse studies where they have looked, and they have shown that if you take a mouse that has Parkinson's, and they can genetically modify mice to have that, and then you give a non-Parkinson's mouse or a non Parkinson's mouse and you transplant, they end up developing Parkinson's. And that happened with blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, obesity. traits get transferred in the bacteria, it's nuts. So we sit there and go, Oh my gosh, that's like a big deal. So The original studies that have actually been done have looked and humans have shown this, where when they do a microbial transplant, nobody's writing about this. Everybody's saying it's a fantastic thing. Sure. There's this biome.org thing where they're collecting poop and they're given to people. What I want to get into is why I'm not saying it's good or bad. What I'm what I want to discuss is the science of how bad things can happen...which is very unpopular. Like, everybody wants it to work. Everybody wants it. So do we.. we'd be awesome. But..So like in Helly's case, she developed, I really think that she developed Ehlers- Danlos syndrome from it. It's nuts.Yeah, that is nuts. And just just as a caveat, this is not to undermine the research the application of FMT whatsoever. It's just basically just what gut check projects for let's discuss everything that's applicable here.So in a recent review, so FMT, I'm just gonna refer to as FMT, fecal microbial transplant has emerged as it legitimate treatment for the FDA recognizes it for C. diff infection, Clostridium difficile infection, which.. which is real bad. What happens is if you take antibiotics, you can actually wipe out all your other bacteria in one lives, and then they just sort of colonize and create habit. So we do know that it works very well for that. But in a recent review, 2 to 6% of people that have actually done FMT had very serious adverse events. Infection was noted in 2.5%. One of the problems is that the current screening process is very similar to blood. So if I'm going to take your poop put it in me, I'm just going to say do you have had a, b, c, AIDS.. you're good? Because we're treating it like blood, but it's not blood. It's not blood. We don't know enough about it. Yeah, so the current process is that this is what we're actually doing. And then I started looking online, and I found out that there's all these DIY, I do it yourself. Hmm. websites that tell you how to do it. So they're not even screaming for that. They're just saying fine. Now that I do not know, there's DIY websites for how to do an FMT on your own.Dude, I got so deep into the weeds in this thing, the fecal microbial transplant thing everybody wants to say it'll fix I mean, it'll fix everything you name a disease, somebody saying that it fixes it. This is what I want to talk about right here. This is why we do this show. The problem is that right now, a super donor, which is what Helly had. So her doctor gave her a super donor, which is a somebody that has no infection that they could find, okay, and they had a broad microbial species is more important than anything else.. What we don't really take into account is how does that super donors bacteria that that person developed their entire life. And they interact in an epigenotic way, meaning that they actually interact with your body. Why would that be the same as you? I don't know. Because, you know, it being a.. because it essentially a micro environment that's inside, what if you don't live in the same region of the world that I do? What if you don't participate in the same activities that I do?If you don't eat the same foods that I eat? It's there's a lot left open to interpretation and understanding, it seems to me.Totally. And then as it turns out, one thing that we're not even discussing is the byproducts of bacteria.. So when I say byproducts, I don't mean that as waste. What I mean is that the bacteria, the bacteria that we have in our bodies, that our micro biome produces certain beneficial thing..Urolithin and all kinds of cool stuff like that..Post biotics.Post biotics. Well, I I love it because when I gave the lecture at natural grocers, I was talking about post biotics and one of the dietician said, Well, what about short chain fatty acids? And I thought on a local level butyrate, which helps colonocytes? And I said, Well, I, I don't consider that a post biotic. She's like, I think you should reconsider, because the reality is that those short chain and then guess what she was 100%. Right. She was spot on. Spot on. Yeah. So props to natural grocers to hiring super smart people and teaching me and as it turns out, the short chain fatty acids probably pay a huge role in this whole process. Sure. It's a byproduct of bacteria. And what happens is when you eat vegetables, or complex polysaccharides, or prebiotics, or polyphenols, they all kind of do the same thing. They basically go to the colon where your bacteria then break them down.. and they produce certain short chain fatty acids, these short chain fatty acids interact to the body in different ways. So it sounds really chemistry, but it's one is called butyrate, which as it turns out is fantastic for your body sure what it's called acetate. Oh, acetate, is that the thing that develops when you workout really hard and deplete your ATP? Yes, same thing. So, as it turns out, that crosses the blood brain barrier.... And creates inflammatory process... So these short chain fatty acids, what I'm getting at is I'm going to take somebody else's poop, put it in you, and we're hoping that it all works out. This particular article looked really deep into the different short chain fatty acids that are actually produced.. And in Helly's case, even though she got her transplant from a super donor. I think that one of her issues is that her body's own micro biome may have interacted and she produced more lactate producing bacteria interesting, which crossed into her brain which caused her panic attacks.So lactate of course, is something that we measure on somebody who has over activity if somebody has a rhabdomyolysis, and then there's all kinds of implications of too much lactate, and of course, that's related to lactic acid. You get that whenever you're fatigued, so she has bacteria, you can only imagine if they're over producing that, that that would, of course make her fatigued and more inflammed, right?Absolutely. Satish Rao, who's a gastroenterologist all over gusta George's, the SIBO expert. I think Shivan interviewed him actually Satish. Yeah, yeah. He published a study which showed that if you take a lactate producing bacteria, that those people that take a probiotic with SIBO, they end up with more anxiety and more depression. And it all fits.Interesting. So Helly if you if you want to Interview Heloise like the thing that bothered me the most was my anxiety and my panic. She even talked about a deep personalization experience, where every time she she's like, I don't get it. I've never been like that. I'm telling you that the bacteria produced lactate that cross the blood brain barrier that resulted in brain inflammation that resulted in your anxiety.The behavioral change.A behavioral change. Yeah, just from bacteria. That's, I mean, it's, it's wild, but it's, it's probably true. I mean, micro biome has evolved in the gut together, and it's very complex. They signal if you watch our show with Kieran, he talks about how the bacteria talk to each other. Definitely. So when we sit there and say, oh, we're going to wipe this one out, or I'm going to give more of this one that may adversely affect the chain downstream.Well, it's probably all the more reason why a DIY FMT is a is a poor idea. Your there's some much more research needs to be done.You know, the whole FMT thing is, is scary because well, it's just because we just don't know what to do know. We don't know enough yet. We don't know enough. Yeah, Peter Aditya said it past where he was like he goes, we have the ability to test tool. We don't know what to do with it. Yeah, he did. He's the first person just blunted it down.But he said it several times. And I agree with him. Yeah.So the one thing we know is that we do need a high diversity. Correct? So the more diverse your microbiome is, the better. So now here's sort of the cool part. In a healthy individual, the colon is predominantly, gonna get geeky, ready?Ready. The colon is predominantly dominated by obligate anaerobes. Obligate anaerobes, okay. Do you know what that is? Lack of oxygen. Lack of oxygen.Yeah. They need to exist in order to proliferate with a lack of oxygen. Correct? Correct. Okay.So they need to, they will proliferate in an article oxygen free environment.. names like bacteroides infirmities and these different phylum that we talked about. This allows for a higher production of butyrate, the short chain fatty acid.Which is beneficial to colonocytes.Which is beneficial to colonocytes. And as it turns out, it's beneficial to all intestinal tract stuff. Colonocytes just is a fancy way of saying colon cells. So just so you know.You're so nerdy. Yes, you're right. A lot of sites are colon cells. Alright, so our friend Dr. Pimentel, he's actually described how when he's been treating people with SIBO, bacterial overgrowth, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth that he has shown that there are blooms..Oh okay.Of facultative anaerobes and he uses the terms blooms.Facultative anaerobe. What he means is somehow the SIBO people end up with more facultative anaerobes in the colon. So, SIBO is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, bacteria growing where it shouldn't. And then when we try and look at them, he's got the technology at Cedar Sinai, just show that they're colonic bacteria. They have an overabundance of facultative anaerobes. Meaning.. what? What does that mean?I don't know. Because when you use obligate anaerobes, it's almost like an interchangeable before I didn't really I'm not really used to the adverb, oblogate and facultative so kind of explore that. This is new to me.Yeah, it's awesome. So basically, it's a badass bacteria that can swing both ways. Oh, if you give it oxygen, it will.Different result?It will say I can deal with oxygen. I prefer anaerobe. Wow. So if you take the oxygen out, I will do better but in Oxygen environment, I'm going to proliferate more, but meaning you have this balloon. So Pimentel describes it as a bloom, meaning we're producing too many facultative anaerobe..Interesting Oh it's super wild.So just as an analogy, what we're saying here is there are some freshwater fish and there are saltwater fish, but you also have those fish that can basically change the way that they handle their respiration and their, their salt water content. And they can exist in both brackish they can exist in brackish water and go back and forth between fresh and salt. So this is kind of like what a facultative..You know what, thank you for making that analogy, because I wasn't thinking like that at all. But yeah, you're exactly right. The transitional bacteria. Yeah, it's a transitional bacteria that will adapt to the environment.Interesting.This is really interesting. So what he has said is that when you have these blooms of facultative anaerobes these bacteria will prefer an anaerobic environment, but they will switch to oxygen and grow quickly. This may be the root cause of dysbiosis. So this could be the reason why I see the SIBO people. Yeah. And they're bloating, it's better but they're still constipated, they're still..So the problem is just adapting.So what was it turns out is and we're going to get into it a little bit. We may be promoting the facultative anaerobes. Okay.And this is why it's a chronic condition. So if you're somebody that is suffering with SIBO I think that maybe your diet choices could be singularly selecting a facultative anaerobe, which does not produce butyrate.So when you're doing current, we need to take things that encourage butyrate production that we're getting to?That's exactly what I'm doing to. So I'm circling around everything where I'm like, we are not producing enough butyrate or body.So knowing and I don't want to jump ahead, but just to bring the audience along, knowing kind of that we want that and that that is typically a byproduct of the bacteria that we already have. I would assume the most natural way for us to execute this is to give those bacteria the tools to make butyrate correct? Is that where we're going? You're spot on. You're a smart Dude, you don't know about that?But I think that I want my, my colon bacteria to produce butyrate.So this is all a lead up to this one particular article, this to my knowledge. This is the first article to address how the actual process of FMT may affect what we're doing to people.... And when I think back to Helly, I'm like, I think this happened to you. Yeah. So currently, if you take someone's poop. What they do is for a fecal microbial transplant, you take someone's poop, you screen it for the typical pathogens. So you're going to look for AIDS, Hep C, whatever, the same stuff we always do for, for blood and they're gonna say, look, it's it's not there. And then they will label them as a super donor if they have a huge diversity.. so now your proof is actually worth something if you actually want to, I know that you donate a lot of plasma and sperm and everything else that you do to raise money. It's, it's all I could do to get here today. Yeah, I know, it's for gas money. But now, if you actually have, if you're a super poop donor, you can you can label that one on there. It just sounds like another 30 minutes of my day.So a super donor, somebody that has actually a broad diversity of, of bacteria. And so in Helly's case, what she did is that she received a colonoscopy when they were they did there and then she did two enemas afterwards. Okay, so they did a slurry. So I started getting into it. And I started looking at this. And this particular article made total sense to me. I'm like, why would Helly have such horrible issues when they've used this stool? So this particular Institute in Sweden uses this super donor all the time, they found what they thought was a super donor. These guys showed the problem is, is that the process is to take someone's poop. And you mix it with sterile water.. and then you blend it.Okay?You blend it...Meaning that the blending process draws oxygen into the compound. So now you're facilitating not the action that you wanted. And there's going to be oxygen dissolved in water. It's the first time ever that somebody has thought about this where they said by the blending process by the actual process of what we're doing for the fecal microbial transplant, we're automatically promoting facultative anaerobes, not obligate anaerobes. Wow, interesting. And it's in I would imagine by proxy, now you're decreasing the byutrate production of these exact..100%. Okay. And that's exactly what we don't want, right?Yeah. So they actually propose that if you're going to do this, so these, by having the facultative anaerobes means that we're going to have less butyrate. And we're going to have more of the lactate. .. the proprynate and these different short chain fatty acids, which by the way, they have shown that they took mice and as I mentioned earlier, where they when they transplanted, but one of the really cool things is that they show that the level of lactate not only affected the brain, but it affected insulin resistance and blood pressure.Has to if you think about the way the body responds to high exercise and fatigue, yeah, because that's what we do.So we're sitting here giving drugs to people were like, wait a minute... is the real way to health to feed the microbiome so that it produces more butyrate? So what they did is they took a mouse model, they went Holy cow, is there a way to produce more butyrate producing bacteria. So they did a fecal microbial transplant test where they did anaerobic slurries. OkayI don't know how they do that. But they basically kept oxygen out of the blender somehow.Okay. And then they stored it with prebiotics.Interesting, oh, and allowed them to.. And allowed the bacteria..To build some butyrate.To build some butyrate. Nice And then they transplanted the butyrate concentration in the mice that they did that with went through the roof. That's, that's what we want. That's exactly what we want. So then they looked at that and went, well, what What actually produces the most butyrate and I looked at prebiotics. Prebiotic is and an undigested fiber. And then I started looking at different studies. And as it turns out, people have done this research already..Polyphenols man.Polyphenols, so as it turns out, polyphenols, same ones, and Atrantil actually get the bacteria to produce more butyrate.Shout out to Joe, Joe Botel out in Exeter University in the UK who was doing the research on athletes and talking about butyrate just the same. That's that's exactly why she said that anthocyanidin polythenols were so, so powerful and helping athletes. So anyway, just to piggyback on that..Our little superweapon just sent me an article this morning that show that proanthocyanidins are extremely protective against Alzheimer's disease through the mitigation of rat reactive oxygen species. But I would counter that and say I I think this is all a big venn diagram. I think it's butyrate ROS or RNS, which is reactive nitrogen species and everything.That's so funny because that's what Joe was talking about was the ROS. side. And now we got your example with Helly, where we're trying to reduce lactate all the while producing butyrate. Correct? Correct. So you're exactly you're right. It's a Venn diagram on why the correct prebiotics to allow the right microbiome to break them down into the beneficial products that your body needs is important. And that's why having enough polyphenols would be essential.All right. So let's tie this back in what's the point of reading all these articles if you can't sit there and apply it? So one of the things I said at the early the first part of the show is that I love doing this because it forces me to be open.. I just told you why being open is important, right? It forces you to be open to accept new ideas and new Now let's apply this particular article that talked about FMT and how blending it creates oxygen, which leads to the wrong type of bacteria growing Correct. We do this in our SIBO people, we tell them to eat low fodmap. We tell them to do SCD we tell them to elemental. So we're trying to protect our small bowel. So we should increase fodmap. Well, in the reality, we're starving, the obligate anaerobes that wants to produce butyrate.Yeah, we're changing their environment.. We're changing their environment!They're response is to not make buytrate.This is the aha moment that I had. I went, Oh my gosh, I'm sitting here looking at this we bridged the gap. That's our job is to bridge the gap. Now I've got you know, the low fodmap diet. Yes, it'll make you feel better. But guess what, maybe that's why Pimentel goes now we have blooms. This is tying it all together. This is why now it's a chronic issue. So I'm sitting with my patients going Know what? So when we had Doug Wallen on the show, yeah, Episode 29. him and I talked afterwards and he said when he first started doing a plant based diet to get super bloated, when he powered through it, he's never felt better. I believe we're doing something wrong by telling people to restrict their diet. I think we should muscle through it. I think that we should tolerate the bloating. I think that we should take Atrantils, ifaxim, and neomycin whatever you're going to do carry out that exact thing in the small bowel. But you have to feed your bacteria so that you have the proper bacteria to produce butyrate and decrease the inflammatory response.That is really interesting. You know, I like analogies. So if you had if you had a dog in the backyard, okay. This is how just kind of picture.I know you love analogies, but sometimes your analogies I'm just like, what?Yeah, you got a dog in the backyard right? And you're supposed to be feeding him. I'm looking at you right now. I kind of feel like Rick and Morty.Yeah, as long as your Morty. Here we go hop on the spaceship. Let's go. Yeah. So, but I just think of it like a dog that's in the backyard and you're feeding it and you're feeding it and feeding and suddenly one day you don't feed it anymore and you have this nice wooden fence all the way around. That dog doesn't want to die. That dog is going to chew a hole in that fence and destroy your nice little fence and it's going to go and find food somewhere else now that that holes the breach that hole is the illness that hole is the overproduction of lactate that's kind of the..You're exactly right. It's it the dog is the bacteria wants to eat..It's going to survive, one way or the other.It's going to make its adjustment because it doesn't want to die. And so feeding it the correct meals. The prebiotics is probably a much better avenue than just avoiding everything that it was after.So expanding on your analogy, the way that I would view it is a little bit like this that you have I'm horrible analogies, I would say. Okay, so you have the same fence. You have the same yard.Yeah, you're really original.And you have two seals. And one dog. Okay. No water. Yeah. So there's so there's,  there's a pool. So that PETA doesn't come. So there's pools so the seals are hanging out, and every day you out there, and you throw fish at the seals and the dog, and the dog doesn't like fish.Right? So the dog will chew its way out. Correct. The seals are like, Let's have a party, they get on their cell phones and they call more seals.. And then you end up in a backyard full of seals. And now you have to keep feeding fish. So the analogy is similar, but basically you're, you're pre selecting. YeahBy doing low fodmap all these other things. You're not you're not having a diverse microbiome, the ideal backyard would be a harmonious zoo. Right? I'm in a menagerie. Yeah.Much like your own backyard. That's right. So many animals. Would you please explain what a menagerie is? And why..You could go back to some other episodes and like going back that far, like menagerie is a word for a collection of a bunch of different animals. That's all you need to know.Yes. So it's, it just got me thinking, I'm like, I'm gonna change how I do. I'm gonna change how I treat SIBO, what we need to do is we need to get rid of the bacteria. And then we need to feed the bacteria. How can we do that? Oh, Mind blown. That's why I think Atrantil has worked over time. So as it turns out, I found a bunch of articles, mouse articles, human articles, movies, other things where I would have people that would come to me and be like, you know, I've taken it for like three months and now I'm better I believe that we fixed SIBO and then we fed the bacteria every single day.That's I mean, in all honesty, pulling the curtain back, that's not the way that we've been studying the polyphenol effect from the beginning. This is very eye opening, it actually is still, I mean, I can still see how FMT is could probably still be incredibly beneficial, but it has to be delivered and prepared the right way.Oh, these authors went into a whole different deal where they were trying to figure out how can we improve FMT? And they thought about, like, putting it with antibiotics to decrease certain bacteria, and then what they realized is, you can't play God..That's a mess. That's a hot mess. That's like chemical warfare. An that's how come they said, why don't we just throw a bunch of prebiotics in there and see what happens.Let me ask you, so what

About Dr. Brown Dr. Ken Brown received his medical degree from the University of Nebraska Medical School, and completed his fellowship in Gastroenterology in San Antonio Texas. He is a board certified gastroenterologist and has been in practice for the past 15 years with a clinical focus on inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome. For the last 10 years he has been conducting clinical research for various pharmacologic companies. During this time, he saw the unmet need for something natural that could help his IBS patients find real relief. After working on the development of Atrantil for over 6 years Atrantil launched in the summer of 2015. Dr. Brown and his research team developed Atrantil with the intent of helping those suffering from the symptoms of IBS which we now know are caused by bacterial overgrowth. Learn More About Dr. Brown For info on Atrantil lovemytummy.com For info on Dr. Brown KBMD.com Today's episode was brought to you by BookNotes Get Smarter Faster By Visiting > https://booknotes.page.link/dailygrind For a FREE 7-Day Trial

https://unrefinedbakery.comfacebook.com/unrefinedbakeryinstagram.com/unrefinedbakeryWelcome to gut check project. It's episode number 30. I'm here with your host, Dr. Kenneth Brown. Eric Rieger here sitting now with the founders of unrefined bakery in the DFW area. It's Anne Hoyt and Taylor Nicholson Thank y'all so much for joining us today. You're welcome.Founders? We got the stars of unrefined bakery here!The stars of unrefined bakery.   The stars!We're glad to be here, y'all.I feel like every single show we just keep taking it up a notch. I'm like, how are we gonna beat this and you go I know how we're gonna beat it. We're gonna bring Anne and Taylor on.People that bring cupcakes.Yes, yes. cupcakes that won't make you sick. There you go. Yeah. And that is no joke. We're going to get to that obviously later in the show unrefined bakery being an incredible place that honestly it's great food that happens to not make you sick. I don't care that they feature that it's gluten free. And that it can be soy free or corn free. They have all of the things to take care of people who have food allergies, the fact is, the food is great. It just happens to be made of awesome stuff.Well, I'll be totally honest Eric, Eric loves your store he's been eating your get your food I have not heard of it. So this morning I'm in clinic and I had a bunch of people and I said well I'm unfortunately have to keep moving here I have to get to go to a show and I explained who I'm doing the show with it. Oh, I love unrefined bakery I go every time I go to a vegan conference through there every time I do this every single patient talked about you guys and I'm like Okay, we got some rock stars showing up today. I better have my game face on.Yeah,Well so quick. We just have to do it to pay the bills right quick. Don't forget that. Every gut check project it's sponsored by Atrantil lovemytummy.com/kbmd to get your discount of course it's polyphenols created by the gentleman right across the table from here Dr. Ken Brown. Anything to add for Atrantil before we talk to the ladies of unrefined bakery,Only thing to add is that everything that you guys tell your clients we also tell our clients which is we're trying to develop a healthy gut which leads to a healthy lifestyle which leads to anti aging which leads to health span. It's no longer about lifespan. It's about health span. How do we live a happy, healthy life where we share in this with everyone? And the relationship that you two have is so similar to what Eric and I have. I'm actually Eric father, and we started a business together.You look great! It's the polyphenols. It's an anti aging molecule.It's working!Well, you want to know what's really cool. Eric's a grandfather also. Yeah. You're a great grandfather. Great grandfather. That's amazing.It's news to everyone.So great. Breaking news! Here we go with it.I think that the I think that teaming up with unrefined bakery and discussing the issues of gluten and celiac disease is so close to my heart. So what I thought we could do today is I want to talk about celiac disease. We always geek out a little bit and clearly you to know your stuff on some science. Your sister's a physician. Yeah, so so you guys talk science at home. We'll talk a little science. We'll talk a little about celiac in general, get people up to speed get everybody's like, celiac. Do I have a wheat allergy? Do I have celiac disease? Do I have gluten sensitivity? Oh, it's all BS. Who cares? That's all just Hollywood stuff. We're gonna get into all that?And something to add a part that Ken doesn't always get to see is whenever we refer a patient to visit with our dietitians here locally like Susan linky unrefined bakery is always a stop that she's continuously recommended for the last several years because when people tried to bridge over to enjoying foods that they can then safely enjoy. Unrefined bakery has been a great, you know, beacon that you don't have to give up things that tastes great. You really don't. So let's start with the science. I mean, y'all y'all been a great savior for a lot of people.. Yes, I'm gathering that. You've passed that down.We're gonna let we're gonna let you guys go into the whole story about this talk about food but because this is the gut check Project, our whole motto is you check your ego at the door, and we can talk about anything. So today we're gonna talk a little bit about celiac disease I just mentioned in clinic everybody knew you guys. One of the things overview, it's a common autoimmune issue. If you're listening to this show, and you're like, ahhh celiac, blah, blah, blah, I'm not going to do this. Basically, what happens is your body starts attacking your small bowl, but pay very close attention to this show. Because as it turns out, the prevalence is increasing. A lot. We used to think it was like one in 3000. The most recent studies have shown that it's like one in 184. That was an Italian study that just came out not too long ago. We now know that 15% percent of new celiac diagnoses aren't people older than age 65. So you were quoting Alessio Fasano right before we started this, I had a patient today that said, you know, what, is it possible that you can develop this later in life and I'm like 15% of the new diagnoses are happening at age over 65. So if you think that you don't know or you will never get this. Pay attention to this because there is a chance that you could have this. So you may have celiac not even know it. We're going to get into that. This is not an allergy by definition. It's and it's a little bit different than gluten sensitivity. We're going to talk about all that and clarify it. But before we do this Eric is a huge history buff.Learned it from dad.So Oh, one other quick thing we always forget to do this. Although I'm a medical doctor, you're crna and you provide medical care. The show is not intended to treat diagnose or do anything that they should but we're just not just this is for fun. Yeah, but you're gonna learn a lot.If you have a funny looking toe get it checked out.Yeah, if you've got some unusual growth, go to unrefined bakery first. Do go to unrefined bakery first. We're gonna make you feel better. Buy a cupcake and feel better.You know what, that's it. Recommendation if you do happen, this is not diagnosing or treating, but it will make you feel better if you notice an unusual growth swing by unrefined bakery before you go to the doctor to get that diagnosis of it as you're munching. Oh, Take one to your doctor and bring some for their office. they'll treat you better..All right. So what I would like to do is our first ever history quiz. I'm going to sign awards and points on this one. So we're going to do a little history quiz. So the this is going to be about the history of celiac disease. All right. In 1888, celiac was first described by this person, Eric, you get first crack at the answer. 1888 celiac was described by this person. I don't know his name. I just assumed that it's Oh, you're pointing at something.Oh, it looks like was it Samuel?  Oh, you want me to say Bernie Sanders.But so my son is horrible at improv. Just absolutely horrible.I thought you wanted me to guess. So I was thinking...You probably would have guesseed Bernie Sanders...1888.Well, he was there,Right Trump is happy with that answer.Tylor what would be your answer in 1888.I'm probably going to go with Samuel Gee the English pediatrician. Sorry.Yeah, little closer there. Okay got it.  The English pediatrician. And what's your thoughts on that?I mean, Articus Decapidocious in 200 ad. Wow. Just saying I actually knew that. She did know that.And why do you Why do you know that?I wrote a paper for the Baylor journal in 2014.Nice. We've got some Smart people on the show today Eric.Definitely say it was a Greek physician, correct.He was Yeah, he cut open the stomach and was looking at how wheat interacted with it and didn't totally understand it, but knew that it definitely caused trouble called it coeliac or something. Second century AD. They were already realizing and we have people today going that's BS.Right? Right. Yeah. It's crazy. But I mean, you know, humans have only really eaten gluten for 12,000 years, probably. And so, I mean, bernie Sanders was there too. Yeah. Poor, Bernie, He probably invented the paleo diet.Eric, I have a question for you. Okay. Something occurred in the second world war that allowed us to realize that celiac disease was caused by gluten. Eric, why do you think that is?Well, Ken, is this when Wonder Bread donated millions of loaves and the Allied forces shot the Germans with ultra refined white bread causing diabetes,It would have worked and would have delayed the end of the war. Good guess i'm not saying you're wrong. That was really organic.You know, I know. You know. And so all right, Anne I'm gonna I'm gonna throw to you. It was the shortages, the food shortages and the incidences of gut disease went down. In the absence of eating the food they previously eaten right that cause trouble. So without eating the food they were accustomed to eating their gut troubles went away and absence of food soyeah food allergies discovered for sure. We're not just Baker'sNo. Oh my gosh, we have. So one last question before we do it, but if you have any history questions or history buff, make sure you pop into unrefined bakery, and throw out random questions,make sure you're asked for Anne on that one.Alright, so it was actually a Dutch doctor that noticed that his patients were getting better during that. So the last question, this is not going to be completely academic session. The last history question, Eric, how did this Dutch doctor figure out that gluten was the cause. I believe he locked his kids in cages and gavaged them with pretzels. And that's just wanted to see how sick they got. Okay, so we've had several shows where we described how animals have been gavaged and so Eric really likes the word gavaged.Especially when it's written out for me. I love it a lot.No, you're wrong. So I'll throw it. I'll throw this one to Taylor.So pretty close to that. Thank you. He did. He did take these kids. And he gave the celiac children and he gave them wheat. And then he just weighed the kids poop. And he looked for fat in it. See if they were passing that fat.Yeah. Did you know that? I did not know this. You didn't know that part?  I didn't came up. Didn't came up.Yeah. And then so... that's awesome. That was said. He figured out that the toxic part of the food was it was alcohol soluble, and then they figured this out. So it's very fascinating that it's been growing for a long time. And now we're finally at this point. So celiac disease now with it, we know the history. I just want to give a quick recap as a physician about celiac disease so we can get off the science and talk about the goodness that is sitting on our table right here. Absolutely. So just to introduce, reintroduce again, it's Anne and Taylor, her daughter I was exposed to walking into unrefined bakery a couple years ago in Frisco. And it was awesome. My wife is gluten free. And I just happened to stop in I grabbed a few treats. I was like, man, I hope hope this is good because you don't always get a great tasting product whenever it's gluten free. That's so true. That's the common occurence.When I took it home it was instant delectable delight for for her. She's like this tastes fantastic. Are you sure it's safe? Right? They said it was. She felt great. Came back. We've we've been customers ever since. Great. Do you shop in our Frisco location? Mostly?Mostly because it's the closest one to our GI center. Awesome. So it's, it's just up the road on Preston for us to get to it. So yeah, it's great. So Ken you want to ask them how they got it all started?Yeah, absolutely. So celiac disease. We already kind of mentioned that. It's super prevalent. It's an autoimmune process that's happening. How do you guys know so much about celiac disease?Well, we're kind of science nerds to the core and Taylor's little sister Aaron got sick. In college. She broke her ankle and got got mersa in her bone marrow. And the treatment for mersa was very harsh. And once she got over that, which was awesome, she got just sicker and sicker and sicker, had strep six times one year and mono twice that year and was really failing to thrive and then began bleeding internally. took her to a doctor. He was amazingly efficient and asked her her heritage, and we're Swedish. And he's like, let me check for celiac disease. Sure enough, he biopsied her, and she had it and then we read about it. And I was like, Wow, you've been symptom taylor's been symptomatic since birth And I've been symptomatic since about 18 or 19 years of age with it really increasing after pregnancy. So we just were like, well, it's just food. Let's just stop eating it. So we did.And I was diagnosed with milk protein intolerance as an infant where I was taken off breast milk and put on solids by what eight months, eight and half months, roughly something like that. I mean, I had quite a few gut troubles. I'm surprised she had more children. Honestly, I had extreme colic. Right. So she'd been off a dairy for ever. And then Aaron, like said been symptomatic forever and we all went off gluten together and never truly never looked back to see what was just a remarkable change in all of our bodies. Did you have trouble getting pregnant?I had eight miscarriages.Interesting. Isn't that so interesting? Yeah. 800-900% increase in miscarriage. I don't even have to kick any science. They're gonna do all the science for me. That is actually one of the things that I asked my patients. Have you had miscarriages Have you have trouble getting pregnant? AndI did not. But I've been gluten free long before I had my children. I've been gluten free for I mean, and obviously that never came up like never came up.So when you said that your daughter was bleeding internally, you mean that she was anemic and they were doing the workup for anemia or she was actually actively bleeding.So, yeah, so we just took her right into it to a gastroenterologist that did a biopsy. That's the first thing you did. So she got...wasn't in her infectious disease doctor first who passed her on, given her heritage. I thought he looked at her and was newly out of school and was like, you know, your doctor from her doctor was newly out of school and askedher heritage, you're so blonde and blue, oh, you're hypoxic. We need to get some air in you.You know, Northern European.But it's different now. With with getting wheat across the world now it's equally distributed across the globe. But this is mean, right? 15 years ago. They knew a little about it. Super interesting, so we didn't even hesitate. We just went off gluten.Let me let me ask you a question as a mom because I have a 15 year old a 13 year old Eric has an 18 year old and 17 almost 16. Almost almost 16 year old. When you see a child that's sick that it just it takes everything out.You just see it like I see or I see kids that I'm like, Oh, you have celiac disease. Like I can just see it. I know what Aaron looked like as a baby. And her eyes were always Like terrible circles since she and Taylor always had like skin you know skin stuff and Aaron was just her hair didn't grow right like it just she was just pale and not well, and once she went off gluten it just it just changed. It was just it was just remarkable for all of us but more so she was truly she was just wasn't okay. She had I mean we I was symptomatic since birth but I had different different symptoms that my sister had and you had pretty much self selected already. Like you just didn't eat bread anymore. I wouldn't. I was kind of self selected as a kid. I was like, I don't like that. So you knew that it was making you feel bad. From a very young age young before I probably could even correlate it together. I know that I stopped eating those things and she'd be like, why don't you one pizza as I kid.  Because we lived on it before you loved pizza.Erin and I ate more. Like a lot of people you eat. You eat more of what is making you sick because you don't understand it. You know your body kind of craves that thing.That's not uncommon so Aaron and I extra bread and pasta. We seem to we seem to see both sides of it. And with our customer base like we'll talk to moms whose kids have, you know, are celiac but also maybe have other combined allergies and she'll say it's really weird. He stopped eating these things even before we knew he was allergic. And I was like, well, we kind of have used the term self selecting for that because we see it's really frequently like kids, like my older son doesn't tolerate dairy. Well, he doesn't eat dairy. He doesn't choose it. He doesn't eat it doesn't have an allergy. No, but he just doesn't tolerate it well, so it's interesting how they you already sort of know that it's not a doesn't jive well with your system. So you avoid it. I did the same thing without even knowing it.Well, that's kind of how my wife started. She She was like, I, I feel bad and I don't know why I feel bad. And then suddenly, she starts drawing associations to whether having to be enjoying a beer or bread or pizza. Then suddenly, like what what do all these things have in common? I need to go get checked out. But back in the day because I can remember seeing a Dr. Phil Donahue show. And they had somebody on like way I don't even know The other Dr. Phil. Yes, like so long ago. Oh, he wasn't a doctor. He was phil donahue. My bad it was the Phil Donahue show.I put two generations together. Anyway, a long time ago probably in that Which one had the mustache? Donahue? No, they both do right? Did Donahue have one?Did Donahue have one?I don't think Donahue had one.He just had white hair at the age of 20They were talking about it wheat allergy and I can remember thinking well, who would be allergic to bread like it was so not in our consciousness. You know, like I just what and with her with her colic. I was I remember for me, I was eating a lot of eggs and lot of dairy because food is good for you. Right? And, and I ate a lot because I was nursing her. And I kind of cut it out for a week and she got better. I thought, well, it can't be that. So I didn't keep it going. Because it just never they that was 1982 and three Like it are three and four. They just they weren't talking about this stuff back then. I mean they were but it was, you know, there were some diagnosed cases of celiac disease than as there were, you know, in the 20s. And earlier but not, not in the mainstream.I would say people that still don't quite understand the seriousness that can happen from high gluten exposure to people that have celiac disease, they still dismiss it as it not being a real thing,Right. There are patients with celiac disease who dismiss it as not being a real thing. 'm sure you see it often. They'll be like, Well, last week, I just say whatever I wanted. And I don't even feel bad. I'm like, well, then you must have asymptomatic celiac disease, but your gut hates you. Right? Right. I mean, I don't tell them that but that's what I think.So everybody has a story about their gluten and I mentioned mine so my researcher that helped me develop Atrantil. So, you know, our whole thing with Brandi was that she was working for me and she had enamel problems she kept going to the dentist and having teeth issues. And then we were going to enroll her in a study and her liver Tests were up. And she was in she was sick and she had his weird rashes and she'd been worked up she was came from Iowa where the Iowa doctor said, Oh, you're fine, it's IBS. It's all fine. And then we're trying to enroll her in the study she had increased liver tests, ended up testing or figuring out she has celiac disease. So then I, out of courtesy, after we diagnosis, she started feeling better, I would go to lunch with her and I'd be gluten free, I wouldn't have these other issues. So and I checked myself with my least blood test, I don't have celiac but then I just started thinking, Wait a minute, this whole concept of gluten you can call whatever you want gluten sensitivity, gluten intolerance, all the other things. So when you say that the spectrum, and anybody that's listening to this, it says you know I have celiac disease, but I cheat all the time. Well, you have the risk of developing all kinds of stuff. lymphoma, you have the risk of developing osteoporosis you may not be running to the bathroom all the time. You may end up with UV itis which is an infection in the eye. This can trigger and Here's the biggest thing that I tell all my patients, you have one autoimmune disease. Now you are at risk for every other autoimmune disease, we have to control the one right so that you don't end up with thyroiditis, autoimmune hepatitis, ankylosing spondylitis, and all these others. So when people come into your store, and they're like, yeah, yeah, I like your cupcakes. But I have celiac that I don't tolerate it. My answer to everyone that I talked to is do you want lymphoma? Do you want to develop ankylosing spondylitis? And now we're seeing in the future, that if people carry this, it leads to inflammation, we know that inflammation leads to dimensia, things like that. So protect the gut, protect your body.But people will come to that in their own time in their own way. You know, you can't I don't preach gluten. Well, we obviously don't. I mean, we're not doctors. We're not offering medical advice in our stores. They ask our experience and what we've seen from our customers and we give them you know, stories and tales of what has helped us or some of our other customers, but we're obviously not going to tell them well What we may do is say, Well, you know, we have an awesome pizza crust that you can take home and make your life easier to where you don't feel like you need to order out. And you can still stay gluten free. We tried to just let them know about the options we have, because it is very challenging. I mean, I think my mom and my sister and myself approach being gluten free from a perspective that not everyone does. I think we looked at and we're like, Huh, well, celiac disease, probably probably the best disease you can have. It's completely manageable. It doesn't give you bad side effects if you do it properly. And it's not that difficult to wrap your brain around, doing it properly, at least from how we approached it. I mean, you have to accept that it is what it is. and food is medicine to us. Right. Solet's look at it beyond and not being the worst disease. You turned it into a pillar of a great business. Yeah, but But even before we didn't do this for about four years like, one guy came in he goes, isn't this the worst thing that ever happened to you? And I said, No. I said long before we started this company. No, it was the best thing Because look at what it did. I mean, I was what I thought was just super healthy 48 year old like I was, I was in great shape went off a gluten and I was 20 within two weeksI mean you weren't you still shad fibromyalgia and other things and joint pain. It all went away.Well once you were gluten free Yea. Yeah. right but i mean i think relatively speaking at 48 compared to other 48 year olds, I was remarkably healthy and then and I thought it was just age I'm like, Oh, I'm aging wasn't aging at all to heck with that.So why why would you eat something that making making you sick? Yeah, yeah, you know, I try not to.As I drink my Dr. Pepper still every now and then.I mean, I know we will talk about that. We're gonna get into that.  There's a there was a podcast that I like to listen to as a as entrepreneurs as people podcast called how I built this.Love it. I want to know how you guys built thisAwesome. So my background. So my grandfather, mom's dad had a franchise of restaurants that he started in late 50s that he became a franchisee for in the late 50's. So restaurants are sort of in our blood, but never something I thought I wanted to do. Restaurant hours were not something I had an interest in. I've been there done. I studied finance and accounting and I used to do litigation consulting. It was what brought me to Dallas. She came to Dallas shortly after I did. My sister graduated was, you know, off at college and beyond. So she moved. And well got out. I hated my job. I did not hate my job. She denied her job, but it was grueling and I hated my job and I'd always begged and what was your job? I came down here as a banker I'd been working with my dad had been a stockbroker, previously I have an econ degree. But I hated my bank job that brought me to Texas but I loved that I came to Texas and I was like, I'd rather die than keep this job like I've got to do something different. And so she began making these food bars for Erin in college because Erin's now celiac and needs food grab and go food well back then If you believe it it was before there were bars on the marketYou were making the bars?For my sister. i always cooked.So she was making food bars She was tired of just eating you know, nuts and dried fruit juices all she had available. This was years ago so Lara bar did not exist. So she Taylor then she packages them and gets this cute little gold T and then she puts a label on the back and I was like, and then she gives him to people as wedding gifts as well. What's it called? I don't know whatever get all. Yeah, so then I said what it was my idea to start a bakery She goes, we'll do it. Because if you don't, I'm going to do this. And I was just terrified to bake I had tried several recipes and they had just failed miserably. One day I did like four different recipes of cornbread and a several recipes of brownies and they were just the worst things ever. And I've been baking since I was little and I have been throwing away food since like 1963 or something. So anyway, I was like fine, I will learn how to bake so I just really jumped into it started reading about the different properties of the different flowers. Different flowers have different properties. And I figured out about some blends by looking like stealing some recipe ideas from a lady. And then I took that recipe and I morphed it and took some of the ingredients out. And then we just started baking, I made some bread that I thought would work and it worked. And it was a great So we we adapted old family recipes that were passed down from grandmother's that she had quick breads and dinner breads and things like that and just adjusted them to being gluten free and dairy free. Once we figured out how to do the flowersI've always been dairy free and dairy free since I was diagnosed dairy free at like, you know, eight months. So we started adjusting all the recipes, and we realized, hey so you're able to take old family recipes and convert them.That's exactly how we did it. Our first 19 recipes. Were family recipes. They were sort of our original, we still have almost all of them. That's nice.That is so cool. There's legacy in this there's tradition. That is awesome.Like my mother baked her mother baked her mother like it's just been my whole mother's whole side or huge bakers and then my dad's side are super bright, smart. Academic kind of people. And it just works. She and I are kind of the combination of both sides, which is I actually don't like to bake, which is comedy considering it's my business in fact. I love. I love helping people and I love serving others. And I love our product. And I love what we stand for. But you're the  nutrition side. Yeah. And I like to make everything healthier. And that's definitely of interest to me and always has been so she took family recipes, and then I would adjust it, we would make it vegan or we would cut the sugar we would increase you know, whatever it is that we were doing. So I would make sure that it tastes like if it didn't taste good. Like it had to be good and gluten free first. And then if we could decrease, we could take out the dairy. And she got she was so good at it that nothing has dairy in it anymore, but we just got great at taking the dairy out, but it and then we lowered the sugar significantly. But if it doesn't taste good, you're not going to eat it. So there's that balance of Yes, it's gluten and soy and dairy and corn free and 50% less sugar and it's organic, but does it taste good? And so you have to draw that line and having Enough sugar that is still palatable while knowing that you don't want people living on sugar. So we're really good yin and yang of making sure that the nutrition is is acceptable. While it's still really satisfying.  Optimal while edible.Yeah. Could be a T shirt and find optimal while edible. Edible while we will. Yeah, sure. So we started we started just the two of usWhat year was that? August 2010. Well, March March, we started subleasing space of 2010. January through March, we sort of worked on the website, ordered labels, things, things of that nature. You did what I'm sorry? Our first customer came in and we literally went, so we were subleasing. 6 days a month. So...We were subleasing space from him. She would like a private chef. He did South Beach diet. I mean, this is a long time ago. I don't even think it's still a thing. I mean, nobody even knows what that is today. But so she was she wasn't a gluten free facility. But she was. I mean, it was She was free because she was happy. She didn't do any grains. So we sublease space from her one day a week and then two weeks, Every other Friday, Two days. So six days a month is when we started. And that was the end of March of 2010. I think the second week we were there as somebody walked in. Yeah. This tall thin guy and we're like, but he's like, I this is this where I can buy gluten free products. And we were like,  what? How did you find? I mean, we have a website but..Let's back up a little bit. I'm super into how businesses are built. So are you guys sitting in your kitchen, making this stuff together and then taking it to this place?I was in my kitchen doing most of our recipes and she was in her kitchen doing the food bar and we honestly thought the food bars were going to take off and that the other stuff wasn't because she found outlets. She sent food bars or hand delivered food bars to a lot of people they weren't podcast back then no food blogs, food blogs, so she wouldn't in a food blog situation for I don't know 15 years, right. So we did That and then we did. We went to a celiac support group in Dallas and then we went to one in Fort Worth or North Richland hills North Richland hills, and brought our food. And at one of those two interesting things happen there. The first question they asked was, are you soy free? And we're like, Huh, am she and I never had had an issue with soy and really weren't paying attention to things besides dairy and gluten. And we're like well no but we can be because it happened in both groups that we met with, so we figured it must be important. And then at one of the meetings, a blogger for the Dallas Morning News, mom's blog was at one of the meetings. So then she came to us and asked if she could interview us, and she's celiac. Nice. Yeah, she's celiac. So she came in, she interviewed us and did a story in the Dallas Morning News, moms blog, which got maybe the most hits they'd ever gotten on a story, That's what they said comments. It had like 80 comments on the story. So then Nancy Chernin with the Dallas Morning News. Well Hold up. So we were baking in our original kitchen separate on our very own kitchens, we had already quit our jobs. We quit our jobs at the end of 2009.Is that was that a real difficult decision? You no, because you wanted it out was this for you? So I got married the end of August Excuse me, I'm sorry.You can always a hit that we have little we have Eric and I always do that. Sometimes.So you didn't you didn't teach me that? Now, I know I was so much more interested in the history quiz.So I got married august of 2009. And I quit my job in November, I think in my husband like August 29. So I mean, we're talking like a month later. And my husband's like, Yeah, I am. I'm not sure if I've married a banker. Like last I checked, he were doing litigation consulting. What happened to that? Yeah, but your hours were horrific.No they were there was it wasn't something we wanted. It wasn't sustainable to have a family. So you know, I quit my lucrative job. And now I'm an entrepreneur and I work all the time. So It's even better, Make less money and work all the time. But I love it so and it does it. It fills meDo you think like you're helping more people suing them or feeding them good food?Undoubtedly we are making a huge difference in people's lives. And it's awesome. So we baked in our own kitchens, yada yada, yada. end of March we started subleasing space. That blog came out maybe in April?It came out was super, super soon, Super quick. I mean, we tried to put ourselves out there but this is kind of this is before social media. I mean, Facebook existed, but it was like a college. But you know, it wasn't even for the general public. So it was a totally different situation. Which is even hard to believe today. But so then, in June, the people we are subleasing space from No, no, no, we came out in the Dallas Morning News on a Sunday on the back page of the Sunday edition of the of the whatever you open the newspaper up and we're the were the full page on the back page, titled building a better bakery like i'll never forget it. On that Tuesday, we sell out Oh my god, people were so excited. Wednesday they tell the lady releasing from that she loses her lease. And we're like, what? They won't let us put a note on the door. And so suddenly she's closed. Luckily, we had already at leased a second space. We had seen the success already. And we're like, okay, we just want to we can do this. So we were Yeah, we wanted to just prove ourselves. So we were baking one day a week, we would bake, we would freeze. And we were so tired. Do you remember, we were so tired. We thought it was so hard. It was all it was. And so then we we went ahead and signed the lease and started started construction and all of that on our first location. And then we lost our sublease because they lost their lease  the day after we came out in the Dallas Morning News, crazy. And we and we were closed for two months, because we had nowhere to go. So the timing was awesome.This is like with Atrantil we get knocked off. Yeah, we've been like knocked off Google after we did like a big podcast and you're like, Oh, look at that. Everyone's looking for us and you can't find us.Yeah, wonderful.I remember years. years later, somebody came in and said, Oh my god, you're still in business. We just assumed that you'd gone out because it happens all the time in new startups, and especially like there have been several gluten free bakeries that have started and stopped. And it's, you know, starting your own company is there's nothing easy about it. It's not easy. Definitely no easy. There's no rules. So we opened our we opened our first what we call our flagship, it was called White Rock. We used to bake there, and we had a retail presence. We were open Tuesday through Friday. No, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, at first We're like we have a specialtyJust You two?Yes. Still?We might have hired one person by then our first girl was Anna, who came back us after 3 culinary degrees. Anna is still with us and we love her.She came back to us. Wow. I know she's massively overqualified. But she's awesome.But it was us for quite a bit and then Anna came on and then we gradually started just hiring people. And then a year later, we doubled that space. We took over the lease next door and expanded ourselves. So then we had, you know, more retail, more seatingThat's when we add coffees and tea's and smoothies and sandwiches.We doubled our freezer capacity so something we do which is no secret within about an hour of production every product we make is frozen. It's packaged and frozen. So gluten free products on the market are sold frozen This is no mystery. If it's not sold frozen then it has a lot of stabilizers in it which is not something we believe in so we don't do that.say that one more time because...So if it's sitting on a shelf...It's full of junk. It has a lot of stabilizers in it. stabilizers preservatives chemicals bread is bread, you know bakery sell day old bread, bread is not meant to sit around for weeks because it's it molds it has or it gets dry and it's hard and nasty they sell and they sell daily bread for a reason. day old so we freeze all of our product as soon as it's cooled so it's perfect for you. It to enjoy for you know we say a year. I've definitely found product in my freezer from several years before that that we consume in my home. Now do I say that to our customers should you eat your product three years later?  I mean do what you want. We say it's great for a year. So, but we freeze all of our products so by then we needed another freezer so we doubled our space. And then... Sure. From a business perspective, sorry to interrupt but I love the idea of the entrepreneurship. No No, no, I just, it's as somebody who's an entrepreneur that is in the throes of it I just bogged down by the like, I want to know like what the relationship was, did you have to have somebody analyze the food after a year to say this is safe for a year.No, we did our own I'll take this part when we we used to bake something we would put it on the counter, we'd wrap it and put it on the counter, we'd put it in the fridge and we put it in the freezer, we would date it and then we would watch to see how how it landed you know and see how long it stayed soft and whatever on the counter and it always got hard long before it molded. Now like now, a sweet bread pumpkin banana bread. It'll mold before it gets hard because it's so moist, but we figured out how it would hold. And that's how we know like we found something in my freezer three and a half years later that was dated and we knocked the ice off of it and ate it and it was amazing. It's just sort of a interesting trial personally i mean but we did so we haven't had anything like we're not gluten free certified because we're dedicated gluten free and like who was it that said well I mean they say they are. We've just developed this reputation where people know that if we say it's this then they believe it is. But we also don't have cross contamination in our space with gluten and soy. It doesn't exist. It's dedicated. we built out. It used to be like a retail facility that is our production facility. And every product we buy is a certified gluten free product and by product i mean a raw gradient like organic brown rice flour, organic almond meal, like these things are already certified gluten free on their own, and that's everything we purchase. And we're in dedicated gluten free facility and what most people don't understand these certifications for organic or non GMO or or gluten free our per product they're not..I was gonna have eric comment on this because this is the stuff we would would you just tell the audience really quick, so you don't have gluten free stamp on it. And there's a reason you don't have the non GMO paleo friendly keto. explain to the audience what these mean, You have to pay a license to even have those monitors applied to your label Per product. And then some of them if it's what does it do the wheat foundation of celiac Foundation, not only do you pay the license fee, you pay 1% of all of your sales on top of that, because they..I mean it's prohibitive for us,especially, especially with the number of products we have if we if we were just trying to distribute five products across the US. Absolutely, they would be certified gluten free. And if and when we ever go that direction, they will be as well. However, am I going to certify all 15 types of cupcakes we sell on a daily basis? Absolutely not. Or all 8 sandwich breads.We're a dedicated gluten free facility. We will never have an issue of cross contamination with gluten, gluten, it's never going to exist or happen and we have literally Not had an issue with customers caring about that. Yeah, you know what I mean? Or getting sick? Well, they never could get so we only purchase certified gluten free raw ingredients like it. We have strict protocol, we have signage it on our doors that asks you to not bring in gluten containing items into our stores. We ask customers to leave Sure. Yeah. That's awesome. Because of customers are sitting there at one of our kids tables, and they Oh, and they are their kids might not be gluten free, but they open a package of goldfish. It's going to make my next customer sick. So... And it could make somebody like we're like, it would just make me sick for a couple of weeks. But it might it could send somebody to the ER like people can have huge reactions to it. So we just ask people to be respectful and they absolutely are. I mean, they look we have people especially in some of our center, our locations that have like sort of a real walkability factor. If they're coming in with a sandwich as they're walking and shopping. We'll just politely ask them to leave it outside because we're gluten free facility and we take it very seriously our cars our staff cannot eat outside lunch.So I just want to say One thing that I love the fact that your reputation precedes you and you are above these, these different labels and stamps and things like that, but these labels and stamps had to come about because people were skirting the system and they were lying. And that's what the supplement industry and that's what the food industry will do. So another industry was built upon it so that they could at least monitor it and you guys are like, No, we got it figured out.Every so often they share facility right? Most people don't build out their own production facility. So some gluten free cracker on the market is being made and another packed cracker distribution facility. So they have to test for parts per million because they're using the same machinery because that machinery is hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. So they go through a rapid cleaning process, whatever they do, and then they test parts per million to make sure it's under 10 to certified gluten free because it's on shared equipment. That's that's not something we're dealing Right because we're our own facility. I would also say that I'm not sure that I think that people are skirting the system or lying. I think that like if I'm let's say we don't have this great business and I'm wanting to buy gluten free stuff because my kids are super sick I probably wouldn't have done it for me but I would actually do it for my children right which is a lot of what we see at our stores is that's for the their kids often. I would I would need something that said it was certified because Am I going to trust blow Joe from you know, whatever town in some state that I can't get to, you know, we've earned this reputation because we grew organically pardon the pun, from area to area to area within the DFW area. So we're still in a small area even as we ship nationwide. But I also think there's a lot of trust within that dedicated gluten free facility I believe somwhere that's dedicated gluten free. Definitely. I will not eat a cupcake from somewhere that just sells a gluten free cupcake. Nope. Because it's probably next to the gluten cupcake.I've been burned on it so many times. You should see what our facility looks like. Like we've built out a dedicated room in our facility now to do the mixing because flour goes everywhere. And after one recipe, there is a...There's just a shrowd of flour all over everything within within Oh 20-30 feet Her point to that is that if it's a traditional bakery they're getting that flour everywhere you can't you can't all of ours are gluten free so we do it for cleanliness and right various other things. What did you get out of the machinery? You'll find gluten everywhere. Everywhere. It just it just goes up in the air. You can't help it. Like, people sometimes get upset that we have sprinkles, right? But some kids they can eat it so it's no trouble so if they can't eat gluten, soy, dairy, corn, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, but they can eat our cookie and our cake. And they want to feel like a kid by having sprinkles on it because you know, Sally gets sprinkles on her cake from whatever bakery. By golly, we're gonna have sprinkles. It's not going to cross contaminate. Just don't we won't get sprinkles on your stuff like it's okay. But gluten and it flies. It flies. Yeah. So ya'll have the first store and it's now August 2009. We've gone...2010.2010 and then suddenly, when did you start to realize hey, we've got something successful. And we might even grow to a point where we have more than one location. We knew it from the get go.Right. So I think it's more of could we keep up? Oh Okay, So we knew that the demand was there immediately. Sure. So we doubled up our location, we built up a triple size freezer than what we initially had. This is at the White Rock location?And then as soon as we doubled up White Rock, we then were like, okay, a lot of our customers are coming from the north.Hour and a half away. Why are people driving from so far north from McKinney, Frisco? You know, now it's little Elm and prosper, but then it was like Alan,Richardson, McKinney, Frisco. So we started looking up north, and we opened our Frisco store in September of 2013. So it was our second location. Now we'd already doubled our initial location, but it was our second location. And then we opened. We opened our third location in November of 2013. But that was unusual. He would traditionally never open a store that quickly Back to back But now we've done that two more times. Not two months apart. Yeah, we did we opened medallion in in March and we opened Fort Worth in in June. So are you guys? Are you are you all self financing this whole time? We are that we're all self funded.So that is that's bold.Impressive and awesome. We are crazy. I like to say we are just crazy.That's part of what that's part of what our I wouldn't say delay, but it's not like we have immediately bombarded the whole market, but we see companies do this all the time. And it happens constantly, especially in this healthy eating space. There's multiple name brands that you can look at across DFW that have done this they have popped up 25 stores and they close 22 of them close in three years so it's happened time and again in this healthy eating space. I mean happens at restaurants especially but in retailWhen you expand it just out of curiosity obviously going from whiterock up to the Plano Frisco McKinney area probably made sense because you could tell what People were driving from like you said.Plus we were trying to spread it out. We didn't want to monopolize ourselves within a doable distance. Like we didn't go to Austin because it would have been too hard to control.I understand,You know, but we felt like we could control from and whiterockrock to Frisco and we could.  And we didn't feel like the Frisco market would cannibalize our White Rock store either. So that was our initial goal in our growth kind of market and we looked at some of these other healthy eating space brands that have popped up all over and we looked at where they were and we looked at where our customers are coming from, do we pay and have studies completed? No, we didn't. But we looked at our our customer base and where we would want to shop because we are our own customer.That's interesting, because there's there's a friend of mine from my hometown and he started taco casa. And the way he decided on where he allows people to have a franchise and open up the places he will look for a taco bell and or a McDonald's and then see what the traffic is.They've already done their due diligence.So I'm thinking your store in fort worth if I remember right is on Hulen. Yes. Is that correct?It's underneath Central Market.Yeah. So not far from Central market, but it would make sense off of hulen to be in a place, so is that kind of how you piece that together because your Frisco location makes sense.We grew up in the business, we've watched, I've gone with my dad to look at site selection with the National franchise group. So we and she grew up running the stores. So we kind of knew the brains behind that. But also, we're a destination location, whereas most restaurants are not most restaurants. It's a cluster location, but we're more of a destination. We're very unique so that that's why we could open up our first location was probably in an ABCD spectrum. It was probably a D location or a C location. I think it was it was technically classified as a C location. But it didn't matterLike never like today, we would never put a location in aC location, but it was our original and our Flagship. There are things that we look forward to had parking, which is a huge thing to us, like Parking is huge for us are, you know, soccer moms are a huge part of our clients. Oh, I am my own clientele. My kids are both gluten free. So I just want to comment on this because you said something really cool. We could have paid the money to have market analysis, but we knew who our clients were,We know our customers. We are our customers. So that's we have we have baked for ourselves the entire time, which I also think is why the quality is different than most gluten free places. We'd literally eat our own food. And if I don't like it  if I don't like it, we don't make it.Love that.Because I've got she calls me a super taster. Like, it's gotta have enough sugar but not to much. It's actually really annoying.  But it's great and you know, both sides. Yeah, I just asked if it doesn't taste good. Why are you going to eat it like it's baked food is comfort food. It makes you feel good. Like the first gluten free bread I had after we got diagnosed was a I'm just Can I say that? No, don't say the brand. It was a white hamburger bun. See look I filtered filtered. That has never happened. Put it on the calendar. Never happened. It was a hamburger bun that was shelf stable for a year and it was on the counter. And it was just like almost like eating styrofoam. How delicious Do you think that was? Not very. You know, and I was like, so we didn't eat bread like I literally none of us ate bread till we really started baking because we just let it go. Because it wasn't worth the calories like to me like carbs are a happy calorie and if it doesn't taste good, then why are you going to eat it? But it's true, like we will dine out and my kids will say I'll ask them all ,buddies. Do you guys want a hamburger bun today? And my oldest boy, he'll say, well, who makes it? Who what brand is it? And he's like, discerning He's like, well if it's that bad I want that one. He doesn't want to he doesn't like it. It's not his it's not it's just not worth the calories. Well, that's not how a 9 year old thinks. That's not how he says it but that's what he's thinking it's just not worth it. He's like, I don't like it. I'd rather have more french fries. So he's already made but he's making those choices without knowing that he's making those choices. By right we so back to your did we pay for market analysis but we're also not necessarily answering to anyone either. We are we are our board of directors we are bank we are loving we have the ability to make those decisions where you know the larger companies they might have to answer to their investors or whoever else andWell they would have to. Right this is why they want to put something somewhere and this shows that.So when I when I read about different successful companies one that comes always pops into my head is Southwest Airlines. And the CEO you know the name of the CEO I always forget. Gary Kelly. Just keep her around. She knows everything.It's a because we have to deal with this real like you cannot please everybody. And it's the whole story where a woman was complaining and would send an emails about how she didn't like this, this and this, which are all standards for Southwest like you're gonna wait. You're going to get in Group A, B or C. And he wrote back. Thank you for being our customer. We hope you enjoy the next airline you fly. Basically we're not catering. This is who we are. You don't have to cater The people that want to come to unrefined bakery, they know what they're going to get. They don't need a stamp on it. And you built this with your model with your convictions with your money and so you don't answer to anybody. And you can do this unapologetically. If somebody says that the super taster did a bad job tasting doesn't matter, she's the super taster. There you go. But, but on the flip side of that we do very much listen to our customers. And that I think has been probably our most pivotal point of our success, right, is that we listen to what our customers want. Do we listen to their complaints? I answered them all personally, She doesn't let me come close to those. Every single one of them. We have very, very few complaints are our customers love us people cry in our store. It's actually part of our training for Front of House staff is how to deal with the crying mom, because it happens. Really? All the time. weekly in every store.Give me an example of how that would go down.Okay, I wanna give one. Sure you give one and i'll give one. A lady comes in years ago her husband's with her she's got, it's from when we were in White Rock, but you can repeat this like every week in the store.Every week. Yeah. Kids in tow and they're all like got Cheshire Cat grins and she walks in and she goes, What's gluten free? Happens all the time. We said everything. And her husband and kids knew that she didn't know it was like their gift surprise to her. And they brought her because she I'm gonna cry. And she just started crying. She did. And normally it's the parent crying for the kid. But this was the mom that was celiac. And the family had done this for her and brought her to us. And it's just, it's why we do what we do. Like it's why it's why we've grown. It's why we've put the money back into the business to get into the market as best we could to make sure that we'd be successful. Because if we didn't grow like we did, somebody else would have come in and grown People have come in and some people have already left. But we needed to saturate the market as best we could with our own limited funds. Because we we think we're the best in the country. What we do, we're we're organic, we pay attention to the ingredients we do as little sugars we can't we do as the least harm that we can with the best ingredients that we can to bring you the best product that we can. And I think that we succeed. I mean, I think it's good food.As a customer, I could say, I trust everything that you're saying delicious.And we really care, We won't ever make sacrifices in terms of the quality of our ingredients. If anything we have we not acknowledging we have simply improved the quality of our ingredients. We never started being as organic as we are. We're basically 98% organic.  There you know We started off being about 50 or 60%. Like when they were kids, I tried to buy healthy food as best I could within the realm of what I knew back then. We started off being gluten free and then immediately went soy free, and then quickly started taking the corn out because people say can you take the corn out? And we're like, well, even and we didn't even use organic corn at first. And then we're like, well, we can use an organic corn. But even then it's just a starch and doesn't really add value. So what's causing people trouble? But it just snowballs. I mean, the more you The more we know the better we do. Like that's how we have grown And we're better at making recipes now like everything's better.How hard is it to when somebody says can you do something without soy I can do something without corn? How hard is it to redo these recipes, the familial recipes. Oh it's hard.it was very hard but it's it's complete. So we're not there's nothing more to change at this point. Today we we've kind of focused more on growing our Kido line that's been our largest so these days not only are we a gluten free bakery, and and, you know, an allergen bakery in general that's sort of how we're known but we're also known for just catering to special diets. Whether that's and I don't mean diet isn't Oh, you're on a diet. I mean, diet is in this is how you fuel your body. So whether keto,vegan,paleo, those are all diets, we cater to tremendously vegan because by eliminating dairy and eggs, such common food allergies, we have vegan products, and then keto because we already it's difficult keto baking is intrinsically Difficult as is paleo baking paleo baking is easier than keto baking. We need to back up paleo baking is no grains, no sugar, no dairy, no legumes. Keto takes it further they don't want even this sugar from say the bananas that we would use in a paleo muffin to sweeten so they want an alcohol sugar to replace the sweetener. So the body doesn't take it as a sugar and they want and no starch And no starch so you can't use the tapioca or era root. 20 total carbs per day.So you're baking predominantly with eggs and seeds, nuts and seeds and a lot of people do keto in a very 1990 Atkins way where they're supplementing with cream cheese and other things that they're baking with but our keto was all organic and dairy free, which is highly unusual Super hard because when I tried keto it was basically do cheesy eggs in the morning cheesy eggs for lunch and cheesy eggs for dinner.Butter bombs, you know, little butters cream cheese and don't eat too much avocado because you know it has too many carbs.You have to Be really careful. It's awesome because what I Hearing though is you're meeting your customer where they're at but doing it with your standards. That's exactly right. We we know that...We won't change our stores. Yeah, our people come here. And I hear that you're wanting this. We're going to try to meet you. But we're going to do it this way in the most ethical way possible. I think it's fantastic.  Somebody said to me, Well, I had a keynote cupcakes the other day, and it was better than yours. I was like, that's awesome. That's great. And, and they emailed me the ingredients to it, because they thought we should make it and I was like, well, none of we don't use these ingredients. We you can't even pronounce these ingredients like this is not this is this does not meet, unrefined's way of doing anything. It's not organic pastured eggs, it's I mean, we're just not going to sacrifice our kind of core competencies and core beliefs to make a product that she thought was more palatable. She's Welcome to buy their cupcakes And just to clarify, the reason we do it that way is because we really think that the the junk in the food The reason it's called junk, you know, the chemicals and preservatives, the additives, the colorings, all that stuff, we believe to our core That that is part and parcel of why people are getting so sick. It's not just the gluten and it's not just the dairy. It's not just the sugar. It's the combination of all of that junk. I couldn't agree more.Well, I mean, so everybody sits in so I get this all the time where patients will will tell me Oh, yeah, I don't know, I feel a little sick when I have gluten, but I know that's just a thing that doesn't really exist. And you start looking at Okay, it's not just the gluten. It's the amylase trypsin inhibitor that's there that the that's the GMO wheat that allows it to be pesticide free. Now we know that creates intestinal inflammation. That's a very simple thing. Now we know I had a patient today where she was talking about being bloated and she had her pocketbook out and a protein bar was sitting right there. And I was like, do you mind if I look at this and I pulled sugar alcohols Winner Winner it said no, it said non dairy, non gluten but it was making her bloated like crazy sugar alcohol. That's awesome for your gut. Yeah. Exactly and then yeah, and so it's it's funny, you're exactly right once it gets put in a package can sit for a year on a shelf. There's all different kinds of things going on with this.So y'all, y'all are y'all just opened your seventh location? Seventh retail locations. Seventh retail location. And ya'll also do special packaging and shipping for people who are on the contiguous 48. Yeah, yeah, we shipped to all 48 lower states. You know, the 48 contiguous. Yep. And then we also have a pretty large wholesale businessHold on and one special customer in Alaska. I'll just say one special shout out to my sonMy brother lives in Alaska.We used to ship him cookies in Iraq so Yeah we did Alaska is nothing compared to Iraq.Wow, that's fantastic. Y'all do cold pack shipping i guess?So we ship with dry ice across the US, but it's not required for everything. So some of our products especially locally within like a UPS ground delivery system within a day, which is Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, I mean a pretty good chunk of the regional US that we're in is next day so most of our products can ship next day no problem I mean we asked for you to freeze them to prolong shelf life and but they're not going to go bad in a day so a lot of people opt against the dry ice shipping but then things like our cakes and our cookies we require dry ice shipping for sure. So a lot of people add that plus their breads and other things to their cart and checkout. Or pies. Yeah, we ship our piesPies are fantastic By the way Can you giveme since I've met Eric his seasoned with your stores, but I've not been into one of yours which I'm going to do probably tomorrow. Can you tell me that that you'd like a brief list of the types of products that you carry or that you make?Yep. So when you walk into our stores, we kind of act as though the freezer section of the grocery store you shop at whether it's central market or whole foods or Kroger or anywhere else. You look in the freezer section of the gluten free staples you have your sandwich breads your dinner breads, your hamburger and hot dog buns all your various muffins and your pizza crustpizza crust is in our top three most popular products Pies. I meanY'all have dough's too. we do. Pie dough and cookie dough. Pie dough and  cookie dough cookie dough so we I like to say we make everything gluten free with exception of pasta and crackers. So pasta and crackers are not items we make nor will we make people like oh you should make that I'm like why never made it before I'm I don't have the equipment for it. We stick with our with it our expertiseSo pasta and crackers are never going to be something in our wheelhouse it just doesn't work with our model but anything baked whether it's quick breads or you know and then obviously all of our cupcakes and cookies and custom cakes, custom cakes are huge for usCustom cakes?Anything like 50% of our sales. No kidding Shut the front door.That is that is so labor intensive.Well it is but our but where else are they going to get a gluten free dairy free soy free corn free peanut free tree nut  free. Where else are they going to get a cake that tast tjhat good and that every recipes a custom recipe for that item like not like we use a mix. Like every recipe is different. Do you go so far seems like wedding cakes and stuff like that? We do. Absolutely.Wow you guys do not hold back.That is all her area I make it taste good and she helps people make it pretty.So we have a cool thing that are you know unrefined loyalist follow for us. We have our cupcake of the week or our cow as we affectionately call it the launches every Friday. I believe this is the Cult following seventh year we've done cow. So we've been doing every week for seven years, a new cupcake of the week, launches every Friday morning at 9am on social media, and then it hits all of our stores that day, whatever time they open, and they last until it sells out and it's always a custom flavor. And we bring back our favorites like what's today, Thursday. Tomorrow, Oh no! First time ever.Oh wait. Is this like an early leak late for the cow.Tomorrow's our cookie monster will go nuts for so it's like a chocolate chip cake and it's filled with a chocolate chip cookie cream and it has a whipped vanilla buttercream to with chocolate chip cookie crumbles. And its people just love it. You are going there tomorrow.Oh yeah.The best one is the overload the chocolate overload which is my favorite.Chocolate over it. So we have like probably five most requested cows, the overloads one of them, it's a chocolate cake. It has our fudge brownie bakes into the center. And so it kind of is gooey and then crispy on the top. And then it's topped with ch

Remember, I am a real doctor Eric is a real crna. We do do real medicine. But this show is not intended to diagnose or treat. Please, if you have any issues like rectal bleeding, go to our website, kbmdhealth.com. Download the E book, learn about it, but make sure that you talk to your doctor about it.Ken Brown   All right, here we are with the gut check project, Episode 29 a super special episode because we have a guest co host, Eric Rieger was unavailable. And so we had a guest co host today it is Dr. Doug Won, who's here. Welcome to the studio, my friend.Dr. Won  Thank you so much for having me here. Truly an honor.Ken Brown  Well, I think that this is gonna be a really really cool show. You're doing A lot of functional things you're really big into treating the whole person. Your background, I think is really cool. I am gonna warn you though. I hope you're a pretty smart guy because Eric's a smart guy. You got some big shoes to fill in. So why don't we at least find out like if you're, you know, like where you actually came from and everything. Tell us a little bit about yourself?Dr. Won  Sure. I'm from South Korea, immigrated to Irving, Texas when I was 11 years old and went to elementary, middle school and high school in Irving MacArthur High School, go Cardinals. And then after that, I went to Northwestern University. I majored in biology and biomedical engineering, and then went to medical school at utmb in Galveston, and once I was done with the medical school, pursued orthopedic surgery at Washington University in St. Louis, and did spine surgery fellowship in Michigan, and then came right back to Irving, Texas, to treat my friends and family members and my local community and Irving, the city that I love, I went back to it and been there ever since.Ken Brown  Yeah, you're way smarter than Eric. Yeah. Of course right now he's probably arguing I didn't hear anything about Texas Tech. So you know, so in his mind, you didn't go to Texas Tech. You're not nearly as smart. But I guess you did say a few other things Northwestern, double major biology, biomedical engineering and everything. So, yeah, I think that I think the show is going to be really great. What I want to do with this show today, you have you and I have very similar passions. We're really big into the functional medicine side of things. I want to cover some anti aging stuff. I want to talk about how supplements and nutrients can actually augment a lot of these different things that talk about your past. Now. You are one of the most accomplished orthopedic spine surgeons and I can I have to pick your brain before we even jump in. I was actually talking to a very difficult patient of mine and I wanted to throw out a disease and just see if you've ever dealt with any of this. I believe That we have somebody who is smoldering into ankylosing spondylitis. Now this actually happened to one of our co workers, but now I'm treating somebody who's acting a lot like she did. She spent about two years just sort of, you knew something wasn't right. And then pow it just kind of all popped up. Have you had some experience with autoimmune diseases and stuff like that specifically as ankylosing spondylitis?Dr. Won  Yeah, absolutely. In our spine clinic, we used to see a lot of patients with ankylosing spondylitis. And then also patients who didn't quite have the the conditions, but they were HLA 27 positive, and they were brewing the different types of symptoms and conditions. And then we also deal with because I also deal with lifestyle medicine. We've actually seen a lot of different kinds of patients with autoimmune disease. And what we usually tell patients is that your genetics and genes may load the gun, but you actually pulled the trigger through your nutrition and lifestyle.Ken Brown  i like how you say that. Yeah, totally. So one of the things I just want to get this out of the way that you You're a very accomplished orthopedic surgeon. You're currently involved a little bit of a legal situation that you're appealing. What I think is amazing what you have done is because you have to put your surgical practice on hold for a little bit. Yes, you have shifted, and have still taken on the role of being a doctor, helping people and being an educator, you have not slowed down at all, you are the embodiment of resilience of moving through. I'm super, I think that's really, really neat. And why did you decide to kind of shift gears, I mean, you were going from scalpel. And I get that you have to take a little break from that. But a lot of people like you would just say, I'll use this as a break to go tour the world and say hi to things and you went I'm gonna use this as my opportunity to help more people.Dr. Won  Thank you. You know, helping people and making a big impact was my passion. That is a reason why I went into medicine and went into medicine because you know, my father suffered from back and he had four back surgeries, and his life was ruined for about 30 years with severe pain and in life You come up with so many different challenges. Either you can crumble or or decide to just sit back, and then the life continue to punch you, or you can stand back, you know, stand up again, and continue to move on forward. And what got me going was as long as I can make an impact and help all the patients, and my passion was biohacking, which I've been doing, you know, all my life. And what I realized was that in medical school, we really didn't learn how to cure the disease. We learned to manage the disease. And through this experience, I really learned how to better manage and then in many incidences, and cure the patients, and wanted to continue to make an impact and help patients. That's what gets me going and that's what's getting me up every single morning. And no matter what anybody says, as long as I feel good about you know what I'm doing and continue to practice medicine in different way. Through health coaching, and, you know, even approaching and these days, I also teach a lot of doctors in Africa. How to treat chronic disease.Dr. Won  You teach doctors in Africa?Dr. Won  Yes. Ken Brown  Okay. I got a segway out of that for a second. What? Tell me about that? Dr. Won  Yeah, so I came in contact with a physician who was really into preventive medicine. He's a personal doctor to the president of Cameroon. In Africa right now, they're facing so many different chronic disease. In the past, before the Africa became developed, there was no such thing as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or obesity. But as the countries are becoming wealthier, and countries are becoming more developed, they're now importing American disease such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer's, and they obviously can't afford to treat the patients with American medicine. So they're looking for ways to treat the patients naturally, and also the citizens most of the people in Africa are still hesitant about Modern medicine. So we got in contact through a mutual friend. And we decided to teach the the physicians there, how to reverse the disease naturally. And then also importantly, to prevent them.Ken Brown  Wow and so are you doing some sort of zoom with them? Do you have a lecture series? How are you doing this? Dr. Won  Yeah. So every Saturday morning, I connect through them through zoom meeting. Thank goodness for technology. I don't have to physically be in Africa. I would love to visit the continent, sometime soon. When things free up, but utilizing the technology, we provide the lectures, mostly to physicians, but also just about anyone who's interested. And we open it up to the whole community. And at one point, we had people from seven different countries connecting seven different countries in Africa.Ken Brown  Oh, wow. That is that is fantastic. So even before you had to kind of take this little hiatus from actually cutting on people and doing spine surgery, you've been thinking about this for a long time. You've been working towards the changing, changing the disease progress, you made a living for many years taking care of the end problem of people having wearing their bodies down, then you as the spine surgeon go in, and you take away their pain and you help them. But even then you were thinking, and what can we do to prevent this?Dr. Won  Yes. Oh, absolutely. So we've been giving free seminars on how to prevent and reverse chronic disease naturally, for about three years. I initially did not necessarily want to give the seminars myself, I'm not a good public speaker. And so I wanted to set up the infrastructure and then invite one of the physicians to do it. And he did it in a couple of times, but it took him away from the family. And it takes a lot of effort to prepare different topics. So I thought this was so important. And as you know, when we're in medical school, maybe we had an hour or two hours of lectures of nutrition, and how to reverse the disease naturally. Well, actually, we didn't learn anything about how to reverse the disease naturally in medical school. We learn how to just manage the disease. And so once I saw the light, I said, I have to share this information with everyone as many people as possible Ken Brown  Even as a gastroenterologist when I trained as a fellow, it is called the division of gastroenterology and nutrition. And I think we got like, half hour a week on nutrition. I know that it's supposed to a split the title. Gastroenterology and nutrition.Dr. Won  Yeah. And look at the hospital. You know, once I had a patient after a very big surgery, and he had a mild, MI you know, mild heart attack. And the next morning when I went up to the patients for patient had eggs, bacon cheese, for breakfast and lunch, I said, this is wrong, and then go to any hospitals, whether it's Dallas or anywhere else, go to the cafeteria, the hospitals are serving disease causing food in the cafeteria and to the patients. I said this is wrong, right. That is the true crime. And I said, you know, it was one of our mission to to really empower the people and teach me How to Prevent and reverse the disease themselves.Ken Brown  We should do a video where you actually come to my hospital to the doctors lounge. They give free food to the doctors and you walk around that doctors lounge. There's bags of m&ms. I've taken pictures of this. There's m&ms there's, this is really funny. There's actually bowls of like gummy bears. And I'll watch and people will just go by just grab a head. Start eating on the way out. I'm like, there's so many things wrong with that. Not just the food, but a lot of hands been in that bowl.Dr. Won  Yeah, actually, I got in trouble with that one of the hospitals here locally in Dallas I actually took a picture of what they were serving at the doctors lounge and then post it on the social media. Oh, and then I got called into the principal's office. The hospital CEO.Ken Brown  Oh, before we get called into the principal's office, since I'm not good at this part. This is what Eric does real well. One thing disclaimer both Dr. Won and myself are real doctors yet this is not intended to treat anybody or give any medical advice if you have that unusual rash or joint pain or anything, this is not here to cure or treat you. But this could help cure whatever it is or not, or at least reverse what's going on by lifestyle changes, not through medical advice. And the other thing that we always need to do is really give love to our sponsors. Our sponsors Atrantil my baby, my little polyphenol complex, which we're going to get into a lot of stuff about this because Dr. Won is a whole food plant based doctor. And those vegetables all have polyphenols similar to what we have, in Atrantil. And we do know that that actually can work like the Mediterranean diet, and do all different kinds of things. And of course, the KBMD health CBD, I'm a big fan of cannabadial, we get into the science of it, we're going to learn more and more. I don't know if you've gotten too much into that. But the one thing that we talk about a lot because I start meeting scientists, like we have discussed before when you have when doctors say there's no science and then you're meeting the bench researchers that are out there. There's gonna be a field like you're an orthopedic spine surgeon you're a subspecialty of a subspecialty. I'm a gastroenterologist I'm a subspecialty of a sub specialty. I guess yours is sub sub sub because you did spine after orthopedic. Your your next level, even though you didn't go to Texas Tech, we're gonna forgive you for that. Dr. Won  Thank you. Ken Brown  Yeah, that's, this is just for Eric because he gets so upset if we don't discuss that. But even when you're sitting there as a sub sub specialist, we've got all these people with knowledge in other fields, that then you start realizing you could be a sub sub specialist. So I've met researchers that I call Endocannabinoidologists because they understand so much on the molecular basis of the endocannabinoid system, which I think eventually we're going to get to, but I think all of it gets corrected if you eat right and live the right lifestyle. So our little disclaimers go to Atrantil.com or go to KBMdhealth.com and take a look at the CBD. So that's usually a Does that a whole lot smoother? That's not really my...Dr. Won  I think you did great. Ken Brown  We have to get that out of there. So, all right, getting back to you, because I this is a rare opportunity to have somebody with both your background, your your skill set. And now this this continual pursuit, this continual change. I'm very similar to you, I've realized at this stage of my life, that moving forward is what keeps me happy. Always trying to see okay, what what can we do? What can we do for the next thing? What can we do for the next level? I try to always talk about a recent news article or something and I want to bring this up. Not to put you on the spot. Dr. Won, How old are you?Dr. Won  I am 48 years old.Ken Brown  You don't look it 48 years old. Awesome. An article just came out out of the National Bureau of Economic Research, which takes on the myth that life begins at age 40. This is kind of interesting, according to this very large study, that they looked at over 257 different countries, different socio economic stages and all that. Fascinating that you're saying that Africa is now getting these Western diseases Dr. Won  Yes. Ken Brown  So it's it's, it's impervious to everybody. The whole world is having the same crisis that I think we face. We just got there a little quicker than everybody else. Dr. Won  Oh, absolutely.Ken Brown  What they looked at is that there is a U shaped curve for happiness. And as it turns out, it bottoms out at age 47.2. And the reason why I bring this up is that there's a lot of people and they were trying to figure out why is it genetics? Is it that the stressors are too much? Is it that disease start setting in right about then you start realizing your own mortality and all these other things. They don't know exactly why, but they were able to account for education, marital status, all these things. And they did show that although it bottoms out by 48 49, people are able to find their way out and they can usually do it through community and through purpose.Dr. Won   Yes.Ken Brown   So both you and I are beyond that now. So now we're in the happiness zone. And I think that you've done exactly that you got through a little curveball and you're like, I'm just gonna keep moving. and I'm going to do this through community and purpose. And what it sounds like, is that the first thing you did is say, I'm going to give free lectures. Tell me about that.Dr. Won  Yeah, so we've been hosting a free seminar, teaching people how to prevent and reverse their chronic disease, and through whole food plant based nutrition. And there's a it's not just in nutrition itself, but it's a whole lifestyle. And that's why we don't like to call it you know, plant based diet is a plant based nutrition and lifestyle. And what I realized was I started going into plant base once I lost a few of my colleagues to cancer, they're physicians, and I myself, always thought, Hey, you know, there's a chance that I might die from cancer and the reason for that is because I've done a tremendous amount of a minimally invasive surgery and use two interpretive X ray machines and, and got significant amount of radiation exposure.Ken Brown  Just explain real quick, minimally invasive and why you would have to be using an X ray machineDr. Won  So a traditional spine surgery, you would make a big incision, right and then open up the spine, take away the, you know, the fat, the fascia and the muscle and then strip all of them off and gain access to the spine. And the whole concept of minimally invasive surgeries, not disrupting the soft tissue, you would make a very small incision, and then utilizing the X ray machine at the time. Now these days, you can use imaging guidance with minimal amount of radiation. But when we were first starting out 15 years ago, it was the typical X ray machine. We were protected with Lead But still, we got a lot of exposure to radiation. So I used to joke around saying I'll probably die of cancer someday. But what I realized was that I don't want to die of cancer Who does? So I started doing just a lot of research how to prevent cancer. And I just, you know, went through about thousand different papers, scientific papers, I realized we all have cancer cells, every single one of us have cancer, so we have cancer. So when we're diagnosed with cancer is a clinically significant cancer that we which we can prevent In many times and reverse, even the study from the MD Anderson state state study showed that number one cause of a cancer was diet. Number two was the tobacco. Number three is obesity, which leads back to the diet, right? And then the genetics makes up the smallest percentage, you know, no more than five to 10%. So we actually have to controlKen Brown  Use your analogy one more time with a gun. I like that.Dr. Won  Yeah, it is the gene or genetic loads the gun, and then the diet and lifestyle pulls the trigger. And so in that we now with better understanding of epigenetics, that the the genes are like the light switches, depending on our nutrition and lifestyle, we actually have the ability to turn them on and turn them off. So So through that approach, I discovered whole food plant based nutrition, which has worked wonders for me, instantaneously, within six weeks, I lost about you know, 25 pounds, and after age 40. They said if you do exactly the same activities level eat same thing. You're going to gain about a pound or 2 every single year, if you know then within 10 years, that's additional 20 pounds. And so starting 40...Ken Brown  I'm sorry to interrupt. I just want to clarify this one thing you chose to go plant based Whole Foods based on the thousands of articles that you researched. Dr. Won  Yes. Ken Brown  So you were not like watching Netflix and stuff. I'm going to I'm going to follow this what the health diet or I'm going to do the game changers This is based you are not influenced you did it all on your own correct?Dr. Won  Yeah. So I actually did it before all those documentaries came out. And the researchers were there. And and what happened was one of my friends from medical school, he came to visit me at one time and then he gave me a book called China Study. And I thought, maybe because he knew that I was also into business. This was about economics book. I didn't even see the cover. And then I kind of put it in the bookshelf and I forgot about it for a long time. And then once I started doing the research, there's a The China Study kept on coming up. And I said, Wait a minute, I think I have a book called China Study. Written by Dr. Campbell from Cornell, and now pulled it out, read it cover to cover, along with other studies, and then realize you can actually reverse the disease. And this has been the studies been going on, you know, there's been studies since 1950s. And so I was convinced I said, You know what, I'm going to do this for myself. And without even trying at first thing I did was wait is, you know, important, but not the most important thing, but I instantaneously lost 25 pounds. And I was back at the weight when I was in high school. And you haven't seen many you know, you don't most people think there's not too many, you know, overweight or obese Asians? Well, in America, there are plenty not and maybe not in Asia, and I was becoming one of them. And so instantaneously, I was back into my high school weight. And then I started exercising on regular basis, and I felt so much better and now I'm I feel better and stronger than when I was in high school. And until about, you know, three years ago, I couldn't even do a single pull up. And and now I can do quite a bit and my goal is by the time I'm 50 I'm going to be able to do muscle up.Ken Brown  Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, I got to actually Eric super into CrossFit. So he can teach you the whole technique on that. Dr. Won  That'll be great. Ken Brown  We can sit there and do that. It was on last week's show of the week before we actually discussed the fact that when coke really started penetrating China, that's really when their obesity problems started the high fructose corn syrup and all that Dr. Won  Oh, yeah. Yeah, all the the processed food, right. And then, you know, along with the, you know, meat consumption, and as a developed countries are getting wealthier and wealthier they're eating just like American Standard American Diet, right, all the processed food, all the sugar, all the the, you know, high fat animal products. Even in America, average Americans consume about 250 pounds of animal products every single year, which is a tremendous amount, right? And so, and then the China's Study...Ken Brown  How many pounds? Dr. Won  250 pounds. I thought that's a that's a lot right? That's average Americans since I'm I don't eat any somebody is eating 500 pounds of meat every single year right?Ken Brown  I'm gonna look at that cow and go. I'm gonna eat half of you this year. The whole cow.Dr. Won  That is a tremendous amount. I think they said also during the Superbowl, I don't know how they come up with the numbers. Every every year during the Superbowl people consume about 1.6 billion chicken wings. Oh my god.Ken Brown  1.6 billion chicken wings. Yes. For the for the Super Bowl. Dr. Won  Super Bowl. Ken Brown  All right. Yeah, that is a lot of wingless chickens running around.Dr. Won  Yeah, absolutely. And, and you know that the chicken these days doesn't look anything like the chickens from let's say even hundred years ago, because they're genetically modified, you know, and they have so much more antibiotics. They have so much more chemicals, growth hormones, and so people are so concerned about eating food that's not Genetically modified but most people in America don't know where the food comes from. And they don't really think about it especially when it's in a hamburger or chicken sandwich which they really do need to pay attention whether you're plant based or not, you should really know where your food comes from.Ken Brown  You know, I mean I love having you on here because even as gastroenterologist and even though I think like kind of we want to treat the whole body I've I have not spent that much time really going over the whole diet thing because I naively am like okay, this is the weight I want to be. This is kind of what I want to look like when I'm when I'm at the beach is you know, if I start not seeing the the ABS or we go from that six pack to the four pack to the two pack to the no pack. Then I just start working out more. Yeah. And I got a little rude wake up call. Last week I went to I have a functional medicine practitioner. His name's Kevin Wilson. It's smart wellness now. And you know, they they do real Like deep dive into the blood work so it isn't just HDL LDL, it's you know, it's LDL, C it's Apolipoprotein B, it's all this. And my cholesterol went up. I'm feeling better than I ever felt what? And he's like, yeah, you're doing something wrong, buddy. Yeah, and you know, and quite honestly, I'm pretty much paleo so i don't i don't really do dairy or gluten, but I will mowdown some meat. Got to eat my 500 lbs. So you got me rethinking. So he's given me three months to try and reverse this. So I'm starting a little bit slow and so I'm not I'm gonna start watching your videos for sure. Because I did the thing that most people do. I went and watch Game Changers on Netflix and and which is a very fascinating documentary in the sense that that got more traction than what the health and knives over forks and all those other vegan propaganda ones, because I think that they were talking about performance. Dr. Won  Yes, Ken Brown  What you're describing is exactly that you're you this is not an ethical thing. This is not a a conscious choice. You were like, No, I did my research this, I can be healthier.Dr. Won  Yes. I mean, I did this because for my health, and you know, I always tell people that I want to live until 120 years old, I may have had a better chance if I actually started when I was in my 20s.Ken Brown  You know, that will just be you. And Dave Aspy having tea together because he says the exact same thing on his podcast.Dr. Won  I think he says he wants to live forever. And so I don't know if that's possible yet. But they said he, if you do it, right, the kids who are born today have a potential to live until 150 years oldKen Brown  A hundred and 50 years old, have the potential?Dr. Won  Have the potential. But but the sad thing is the kids you know, between age 10 to 12 years old, what percentage of the kids actually have early signs of atherosclerosis? 75% Ken Brown  What? Dr. Won  75% of the kids between age 10 to 12 years old, have already fatty strix. Ken Brown  No! Dr. Won  They all found that the... Ken Brown  That's nuts there's no way! Dr. Won  Even the fetuses are now showing up. unfortunate event because, you know, whatever, you know, may have happened. But when they do an autopsy on fetus, even the fetus, some of the fetus actually have, you know, some fatty Strix, depending on Mother's, you know, a vascular system. Right? So, you're starting at life already having early signs of cardiovascular disease, what is that? Right? And so when mom said, you know, I'm really, you know, sensitive to listen moms who are pregnant, and then also parents, they have such a difficult, you know, challenges, you know, feeding their kids, but they're not really thinking about what they're serving them, right. And I cringe when I go to a breakfast, and then you know, next table, you know, parents are serving their kids bacon, or hotdogs, and the kids and the food that is known by World Health Organization as a group one carcinogen, right. So I think we need to really step back and educate the public and help them see what they're putting on their, on their table. And when I saw the article where the kids, you know, between 10 and 12 years old, 75% of them had already have signs of, you know, cardiovascular disease. I mean, that's terrible. We're not doing something right. And we spend so much money on managing the disease, which we don't do very well. But and, you know, completely forgetting about preventative medicine because there's no money in preventive medicine. Right? That's that was our mission is to actually go to community and and teach them how to eat properly. And so, so we've done not only lectures at our clinic, but also if anybody wants to hear us talk. We'll go and give a talk. And we've gone down to the south side and then the African American churches to church in Richardson at Methodist, you know, pretty much 99% Caucasian, you know, congregation. Or you know, community centers who wants to learn about...Ken Brown  You still have the guts to go to a nice Korean BBQ establishment and give a talk? I like Korean bbq man!Dr. Won  Yeah, you know, for whatever reason Koreans were known for Korean barbecue, but in Korea actually. Their health is declining like in China because the meat consumption has increased processed food, and then their lifestyle is changing. But you know, they used to be one of the healthiest country in the world, because they were too poor to actually eat meat. It wasn't available. Everyone wants to eat. So if you look at all the countries, all the cities and along the Blue Zones, the the cities that have the most amount of centenarians, most people are poor. So by being rich, yeah, you may have money to spend it, but you're actually ruining your health. Ken Brown  Alright. So I was going to ask you this, and it's a perfect it's a perfect segue right now. So I was talking to one of my patients today that she's going to be a guest here shortly what happens to have Crohn's disease and gives back to the community just like you she works as a counselor and does all this and she happens to be a speech therapist for underprivileged kids with autism. So part of this, you know, they, they send them with the with the school system. And so her and I started talking, I started talking about how last week we did a whole show on a chemical that makes plastic flexible, called DEHP you've been exposed to it a ton as a doctor. So have I that's what IV bags are. That's what the tubing is, all the catheters and tools that we use to be flexible so that we're not puncturing where we don't want to use this chemical dehp. And when you said in utero, they're finding stuff as it turns out in utero, if a if a woman is exposed to it, it just goes to the fetus and causes all kinds of stuff. Dr. Won  Oh, wow. Ken Brown  So what her and I talked about is I'm like man, well, what can what can you do to circumvent this autism at you know, I mean, basically epidemic She's like they're too poor to eat healthy. Dr. Won  Yeah. Ken Brown  So now you just said that when countries were poor, they ate healthier. So let's talk about the cost of, of living your lifestyle. Is it possible if I don't have a high income to eat a plant based whole food diet?Dr. Won  Absolutely. When people are thinking Whole Foods plant based, I think a lot of people get that confused and they think it's vegan. And then and they get meat replacement products, which are actually quite expensive. Right?Dr. Won  So when you do... Ken Brown  This guy did that when he watched game changers and it didn't work out well. Dr. Won  Yeah. Ken Brown  Because I think the either the fillers or the soy or something may be very inflamed. Dr. Won  Yeah. Ken Brown  So I backed off.Dr. Won  So one of the things I really you know, it's also talked to the vegan community is that you know, they've already given up the meat which is the one of the most difficult thing for a lot of people. However, they also need to get away from the processed food because most of the the meat replacement products are processed. So when you're eating a whole food plant based, you are eating non processed or minimally processed food. And so the best place you know, and the best pharmacy is actually with F, you know, FARMACY right Farmacy is in the produce section, that is the medicine, that's where people need to go shop. And so if you get dried beans, it costs pennies, right? Versus, you know, getting ground beef or getting chicken breast. So actually eating whole food plant based can be very, very inexpensive. That's why and along the the Blue Zones, the you know, like nicoya, Costa Rica, Okinawa, Japan, you know, Sardinia, and aquaria. All those countries, all those communities, people were relatively poor, they're not wealthy at all, even especially like nicoya they were eating mostly beans Ken Brown  Where's the Nicoya? Dr. Won  Costa Rica. Ken Brown  Okay. Dr. Won  Yeah. And it's one of the cities and Blue Zones that has the most amount of centenarians, right? And and there were most they're all 98% eating plants because they were too poor to eat meat. And they're living beyond and then they didn't necessarily go to the gym, you know, or CrossFit or 24 Hour Fitness, because they walked every day everywhere, they didn't have cars, right? So they're moving their body every single day. They're eating mostly plant, and because that's all they had available to them. And then they had sense of community and, and they had sense of purpose. And you mentioned purpose earlier, I think that is so critical. You have to have a reason for living, right? You have to have why, as long as you have why, and sense of purpose, no matter what challenges are in front of you, you can overcome them. And that's how powerful human beings are. And if you decide to just give up, that is a failure. And no matter how many mistakes you make, how many, you know, failures and debt that you face, as long as you stand back up, and then continue to, you know, pursue your purpose and your why I think Most people will be very, very happy.Ken Brown  Yeah, I think that you saying that you came at 11 years old, you started your journey, probably not the easiest time in your life.Dr. Won  Not at all, I didn't know how to speak English. And but all our family, you know, including my parents, we worked as a janitors, you know, don't want to get my parents in trouble. But when we're 12,13,14 years old, we used to go help our parents, you know, clean the toilets in the building and then I still pass by one of the buildings we used to clean when I was 14 years old. And and that's what we did as a family. And then they, you know, open to the flea market store. My mother was shot at, you know, twice when she was working at the flea market store when she was being robbed. Right. And luckily, they missed, thank goodness and then where my parents lived after I left for college. There was a drive by shooting at my parents house. They got the wrong House, it was supposed to be the next door. But my parents were asleep. And then fortunately, their windows were shattered. And so, you know, we grew up very humble. And a lot of people think that, you know, you're a doctor, you must have come from a doctor family. That wasn't the case at all. And we live in the government assisted housing. But, you know, our parents always gave us you know, good foundation, and always, you know, taught us to have purpose in life. And that really, you know, sunk in with us for you know, since we were little child Yeah, and, and in always the life force, you know, living the life with purpose, and, and that was our mission.Ken Brown  So, you come over here you go through this kind of hardship. Now, we kind of tongue in cheek, talked about how I hope you're as smart as Eric obviously Eric's a very smart guy. He's my crna and he's he could he's still continues to do whatever he wants to do he has entrepreneurial spirit very, very like minded like us. He's very big into purpose into raising his kids the right way and all that stuff. But your your academic background is super impressive. I mean, you know, just for the average person that says, Oh, that's a doctor. Now there's levels of doctor, there's levels of med schools, you gotta really work to get into some of these places. And I, I'm just so impressed that you basically have to put your career that you were worked so hard to do, and you went awesome. I'm gonna work on this now. I love that. I think that is the coolest thing. And I'm learning for you. So I want to ask you a couple quick questions. Dr. Won  Yes.Ken Brown  Because these are the arguments that I get. So the community that I'm in I'm in fact, I should. We'll we'll talk afterwards, but I've been part of some really cool entrepreneurial groups, where it's just like minded people that all they do is sit around and say don't step on this land mine. I blew off my left, you know, theoretically, in a business sense, I blew up my left foot doing that I wouldn't do that, try this software instead try this thing and you know, you read books and stuff like that. Well, a lot of these people are the Paleo community, and they're really smart people, Chris kresser, Rob Wolf, you know, become friends with them in these groups. And what what I'm hearing is, is that in Kevin Wilson, my doctor is not plant based. He's very big into paleo and all these other things. So a couple curveballs towards you. Dr. Won  Sure. Ken Brown  All right. Let's talk about the thing that I get asked a whole lot. Lectins. So you said Dr. Beans do this, what's your thought on lectins? Do they create and then that's going to lead us into the microbiome and and eventually into your entrepreneurial spirit where you continue to grow? So that's where I want to head with this. But can we talk about lectins real quick?Dr. Won  Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a you know, very interesting topic. And so if you think about the Lectin especially in the beans, no one can eat them being raw. You don't eat dry beans, you can eat it, you can't digest it, and we don't recommend it. Right? Because if you eat it, you're going to get nauseated, you're probably gonna throw up. However, if you cook them properly, right, all the lectins are gone, right? And so lectins are there so that the plants can protect itself and so a little bit it's actually healthy for you because you're stressing your body. However once you cook them... Ken Brown  Hormesis.Dr. Won  Yes, absolutely right.Ken Brown  The term Hormesis means that you stress your body a little bit so it adapts.Dr. Won  YesKen Brown  That's why we exercise that's why we fast that's why we do things.Dr. Won  That's why you know, we get exposed to heat that's why we take cold showers right? Ken Brown  I don't take cold showers. I refuse to go that route. I'll sit in a sauna but I will not do a cold shower.Dr. Won  You should try it you know maybe 10 seconds first and you know 15 seconds in the beginning you hate it. But you'll learn to love it. But the lectins...Dr. Won  We're gonna get to elections really quick. Just Just this reminds me my late father in law passed away a few years ago, we were watching a show on navy seals. And a Navy SEAL actually did a obstacle course, where he first soaked himself in warm water, and then did the course. And then they put him in ice water. And then within a sofigel probe, they show that he dropped his core temperature and then through various Navy SEAL techniques, he raised his core temperature. And so my father in law, this is on Christmas, this is about 10 years ago, goes you know, it's Dallas, it's not that cold, but it's cold enough. It's It was like 30 or 40 or something. He goes, I bet you can't even get in that pool. I went out there with my son and my father in law and I jumped in and like a total weenie jumped out in about 10 seconds. So the whole cold thing I think that's funny, but all right, that's the whole point is is that lectins can do this. Let's get back to lectinsDr. Won  Yeah, so but once you actually properly cooked the meals, yeah, I recommend soaking them at least for eight hours or even 24 hours.Ken Brown  Soaking the beans first?Dr. Won  Yes, soak the beans minimum of eight hours. If you have a pressure cooker you don't need to soak them you just dump it in there and you cook itKen Brown  Do can beans qualify?Dr. Won  The can beans are already cooked so you don't even need to cook it you can just open it and start eating them.Ken Brown  Do you find can beings unhealthy or do you always do whole food? Dr. Won  At the house we have both dry beans and canned beans because to make it a little bit more convenient, right. And the can beans are, the studies have shown that they still retain just as much nutrients. And so when I'm really busy, I would open up a can can beans with the my whole grains and mix them up along with different kinds of spices and then along with different greens, but once you cook the bean most of the lectins are gone. So there's really nothing to worry about. And so you don't need to take Lectin you know, supplements or anything like that. If you properly cook the food, then there's really no issues with lectin and if you think about it, so beans are the most known for lectins right? Every single one of the cities, right? There's one common theme among Blue Zones, five cities that has the most amount of centenarians, right? The research by Dan Buettner from National Geographics every single one of them that the common theme was Beans, beans, beans, beans Ken Brown  Shut up! Really? Dr. Won  Every single one of them there was their main source of protein was their beans.Ken Brown  Dang. And I've actually been avoiding them because I'm trying to you know, I've just kind of go with the no grain thing.Dr. Won  Yeah, so the beans is one of the healthiest thing one can consume. Not only it's a great source of protein, but also it's also has so many fodder nutrients. And I consider them as a superfood really, really cheap. Super food, Ken Brown  What are your favorite beans? Dr. Won  All of them, but we have at the house about 10 different kinds of beans. And then when I make grains I usually mix like black beans, pinto beans, white beans, navy beans, kidney beans, along with let's say buckwheat brown rice, wild black rice, barley, mix them up, and then that's how I make the rice and so rice and beans. I don't you know we definitely avoid any refined grains such as white rice,Ken Brown  Oh you do? Dr. Won  Yeah, I we avoid any kind of white anything that's white right?Ken Brown  Okay, so I hope that helped my wife is listening my wife's Puerto Rican. Dr. Won  Uh huh. Ken Brown  So i mean...beans and rice. Yeah, it's just pretty much it's whatever. I'm like, Honey, what are we having? She's like salmon, and beans and rice.Dr. Won  Yeah. That's good. And you just got to put in some greens.Ken Brown  But but but but you avoid the white rice Dr. Won  White rice. Yeah. So the...Ken Brown  As a Korean you still avoid white rice because we love I mean, that's actually our favorite. If we're going to globalize our cuisine for my family, I got a 15 year old a 13 year old and we essentially eat Japanese in this order. Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese almost anytime we get a chance to eat out.Dr. Won  You're inner asian. Ken Brown  I'm we are definitely Yeah, it's a it is it is definitely our favorite cuisine. So we end up eating a lot of rice. Dr. Won  Yeah. So interesting fact is that the, the in Asia, you know, while back the white rice was you know, it's extra process right? So this was actually for aristocrats or the wealthy individuals, all the poor people ate brown rice, which is less processed it's unprocessed. Right? And so the the poor people actually live longer they were healthier than rich people, right? Same thing happened 100 years ago, the rich people ate white bread, right? And then the the poor people ate the whole grain bread. And guess what it was a poor people who are healthier, right? So you know, grains, especially white grains, they're extra processed. And so and also raises your blood sugar level much, much faster and raise you know, increases more insulin production or release of insulin. So we try to avoid anything that's processed. So including the the grains. So if you eat you know, brown rice or you know buckwheat barley, black white rice those are the grains that I would recommend that I say it's whole grains not grains, whole grains, Dr. Won  Whole grains?Dr. Won  whole grain.Ken Brown  Beans, beans, okay lectins get destroyed when they get soaked and then followed by cooking and or canned. Dr. Won  Yes. Ken Brown  And then...Dr. Won  Because canned beans are cooked. Ken Brown  Can can beans are cooked and as far as the grains, so yeah, the This works really well for you. And I know right now that there's, you know what I've seen with diets, especially when people make a living like if they have a book or so I mean, I hung out with Rob wolf, the guy looks amazing. He's been keto for 10 years. And Chris kresser is essentially you know, straight up paleo and, you know, I know his blood work is amazing. We've talked about that. And so there are, you know, the the things that actually work it's not working for me. My doctor just told me that's why I'm like, Oh, yeah, we need to we need to call Doug, I need to I need I need to eat his brain and figure out what's going on here because maybe my genetics, so you use the term epigenetics a little while ago. Explain what epigenetics actually is, because there's some confusion around this.Dr. Won  Yeah. So just to simply put it way I like to explain it is our gene is like a light switch. Right? So we are born with certain genes, unfortunately, for some people, and they may have a greater risk of developing certain type of disease. But just because you carry the gene does not actually mean you're actually going to develop those disease. But there's a lot of external factors, environmental factors, including the cancers, right. And so by a proper nutrition and lifestyle, you actually have the ability to turn the genes on or turn them off. So what that tells us is that you actually have a full control. So you know, like Elizabeth Blackburn who won a Nobel prize from UT Southwestern for discovering telomeres did a study with the Ken Brown  She's the one that discovered telomere races?Dr. Won  Yeah. So along with the telomeres, and that's what she, she won the Nobel Prize,Ken Brown  Did not know that wow, out of here, out of here in DallasDr. Won  Yeah at UT Southwestern. Ken Brown  That's, that's impressive.Dr. Won  So she did the research with Dean Ornish, and they got group of patients who had early stage prostate cancer. And then when they did the genetic study, all the over 500 cancer genes were actually turned on. And then they spent three months changing their diet and lifestyle. And then they did the the genetic study again, all the genes were actually cancer genes were turned off over 550 cancer genes, Uncle genes are turned off. So you only took them three months o so especially prostate cancer, right? Especially if you catch them early stage, you really want to treat them with diet and lifestyle change. They said the the traditional surgery, whether it's a chemo or the surgery does not prolong only one out of 49 people actually live longer after getting traditional, conventional medical treatment.Ken Brown  Well, when you start looking at some of this, I listened to a podcast called medical reversals. It was on Freakonomics, the Freakonomics podcast. And they they actually had some doctors on there. And they and if you look back at all these medical reversals, so basically your doctor says, do this, and then we go, Oh, no, that was wrong, because now we've looked at our cohorts of 10,000 patients over 10 years. We can go on and on about that the estrogen replacement therapy, one of the things that's been brought up and I brought this up to my doctor because my cholesterol is statins and statins have not been shown to improve lifespan. And so the question is, do they actually decrease the incidence of events, but it has not been shown to improve lifespan. So now I start. I'm at that stage in my career in medicine where I'm starting to question so many things. I'm having patients come to me, and well, let's throw this one out with autoimmune disease. And you and I were talking about this I treat a lot of Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis. I use drugs like Remicade and humera. Have you had any experience with as an orthopedist you're going to be exposed to rheumatoid arthritis, you're going to be exposed to ankylosing spondylitis. Poly arthropathy from these other things. Have you had any wins with using your method?Dr. Won  Absolutely. So some of them are my patients and some of them are attendees to our free seminars. And I gave an example of Denise she gave us a permission to talk about her. And so she came to us suffering from severe rheumatoid arthritis and she's been on multiple medications, even methylstrexate as in the past and humira. And humira costs 25 to $50,000 a year. Right? And one of the side effects is heart failure. And she began to have a severe heart issue. So they had to take her off. And and she she was in severe pain. And so I said, you know, you got nothing to lose. You tried everything else. So why don't you try a whole food plant based nutrition, and that's what she did. She did that. January 1, 2018. Within two months, she was in remission. All the pains were goneKen Brown  On her alright rheumatoid arthritis? Dr. Won  Rheumatoid arthritis. Ken Brown  So rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease. Autoimmune means you something turns a genetic switch on and your body starts attacking yourself. In gastroenterology, I see it with all sort of colitis, Crohn's disease, celiac disease, autoimmune hepatitis. In your field. You see it with the joints.Dr. Won  With the joints rheumatoid arthritis, but we also I've seen patients with multiple sclerosis, right? And actually, this was another patient who walked in or not walked in, came into the clinic on a wheelchair and had multiple sclerosis. So we actually... Ken Brown  In a wheelchair?Dr. Won  In a wheelchair.Ken Brown  That's very advanced MSDr. Won  It's pretty advanced. And and the patient went whole food plant based, and was six to eight months later, when they came back for a follow up visit. He actually walked out walked in with a cane. So he still had weakness, but it got him off the wheelchair and now he's able to strong enough to actually walk with a cane. Ken Brown  Just diet change? Dr. Won  Just a diet change. And he was off to all the medications and he's not the only one and there's a one lifestyle medicine physician even up in New Jersey, a good friend. She was initially infectious disease doctor and during her residency or fellowship, she woke up one day completely paralyzed. Ken Brown  What? Dr. Won  And that's how she discovered she had multiple sclerosis. And to a point she was walking with a cane and she was bad to get on a wheelchair. And she made the she discovered she read an article about blueberries, right? She said No way. There's no way and this can't be and she starts researching and really realized the autoimmune disease starts from the gut. And she needed to find a way to decrease inflammation. And she needed to once she healed her gut, and she changed her complete, you know, nutrition when whole food plant based. 10 years later, she ran a marathon.Ken Brown  I'm sorry, I don't have any Kleenex. Do you have any Kleenex because I have tears of joy. I just had an orthopedic surgeon say that. Everything starts in the gut. Oh,Dr. Won  Yeah. We think that you know, a lot of the the lifestyle medicine physicians and believe that autoimmune disease may be in a different sort of autoimmune disease, whether it's rheumatoid arthritis, Hashimoto thyroiditis, multiple sclerosis, maybe it disease, it all starts from the gut. And then it manifests to a different disease based on our genetic makeup. And so our treatment method whether it's, you know, lupus, multiple sclerosis, you know, Hashimoto thyroiditis, it's all pretty similar. You know, they may, we may make little bit of a different protocol for them, but overall as a whole food plant based, and many of them improve significantly.Ken Brown  Wow, that is. So we've actually, that's actually a common theme that we talked about, we have brought some people in, but my thing is we've got lots of data to show that when you have an inflammation in your gut, that leads to an inflammatory cascade that can cause this epigenetic phenomenon. And so somebody sitting around listening, so I want to talk about what else you have going on, which means that you've taken it to the next level, but I everything about, about this show and about what we want to do is talk science first. Clearly, you're a brilliant And you know, you're, I'm a, I'm a gut doctor. So you know your s-h-i-t. So I wanted to throw this article out at you because it's fascinating that we can talk disease. And I could sit there and say if you've got rheumatoid arthritis if you got ms if you have anything, but there's also one underlying thing that happens to all of us and you keep talking about the Blue Zones. A recent review article, my little secret weapon will eventually be able to disclose who it is, but she sent me an article yesterday. And with you coming on it is a review article on the new insights for cellular and molecular mechanism of aging and aging related diseases. herbal medicine is a potential therapeutic approach. So in other words, what this title says is, yo we're all aging. And why do you want to load the gun faster than it should be loaded? So what this article looked at is they go into the background A little bit where 900 million people in the world are over the age of 60. Dr. Won  Wow. Ken Brown  And you just pointed out that it doesn't matter where you live now it looks like it's it's pretty much spreading everywhere. So aging, which can be divided into both pathologic and physiologic. So if you are perfectly healthy, you're going to physiologically age if you choose to load your gun faster, that's pathologic aging. And this article gets into really cool geeky science about the complex biological processes and the decline of tissue and origins and structural degeneration and then they go into telomeres and then they go into the fat, a common thing keeps popping up. And it is reactive oxygen species or oxidative stress. Dr. Won  Yes. Ken Brown  So stress at a cellular level, or inflammation at a subtle level leads to aging. Dr. Won  Yes. Ken Brown  So if you didn't care about anything about the fetus having a heart attack or a 10 year old having coronary artery disease, We spend a lot of money trying to look younger. I just got done talking about the other article that said that at age 47, maybe that's when men look in the mirror and go, Oh, I'm I'm there. I don't know. It all comes down to reactive oxygen species. This leads to they can actually get into the actual mechanism. So one of the things I run into that we have discussed, which is I'm sure you've run into because I think your field is a little bit less holistic than gi, which is probably because the gut affects so many things. But I imagine if you're trying to talk to one of your colleagues at a conference and say hey, plant based they probably look at you like what?Dr. Won  Yeah, I'm I don't represent typical look of orthopedic surgeon right? So if you imagine orthopedic surgeon those of you who don't know like in medical school, we are like the cords pedic surgeon smart jocks, right? Everyone's hitting the gym, you know, bone broke me fix. Big guys, ex-thletes, right? And then somehow I snuck in as a nerd, right?Ken Brown  So I have I have a friend who played football for the San Francisco 49 years played at the University of Notre Dame. And we have or he's very good friends with orthopedic surgeon named Brian rhadigan. And he played linebacker for Notre Dame, and if there is ever the avatar of what I thought this guy was just jacked, and you know, and he's an orthopedic surgeon now for Notre Dame. Dr. Won  Wow. Ken Brown  But anyways, yeah, so yeah, you you are talking different than the typical orthopedic surgeon.Dr. Won  Yeah. And so but yeah, but I think even with orthopedics, and also especially in spine, some of our patients, after if they choose to follow our diet and lifestyle modification, they came back even with herniated disc, most of the inflammation was gone, pain was gone, and so they they would cancel the surgery. I said Congratulations, right. And so if I can help patients, that surgery is definitely the last resort.Ken Brown  Say that one more time you got paid to operate and you were happy when you didn't have to operate?Dr. Won  Yeah, absolutely. Because there's plenty of patients who's not following the lifestyle modification and who is in agony, who failed all the conservative treatment, who's going to need the surgery. But you know, what I would love to be able to do is to prove to the medical community that so many of the surgeries and procedures that we do are completely unnecessary, because if people are willing to make the lifestyle modification, if the physicians actually know and teach their patients, how to make the modification, because most of them do not know. Right, then I think, you know, many people can avoid significant surgical procedures, whether it's a cardiac cath open, you know, open heart surgeries, which we know that does not extend anybody's life, right. And same thing with spine surgery. And, you know, orthopedics is a little bit If you break a bone, you broke a bone and you need surgery to fix it right?  Ken Brown  Don't try to hobble into whole foods after that skiing accident.Dr. Won  I don't think that whole foods is  going to fix that broken bone, but it may help you heal faster, but you're probably going to still need surgery. And so that is one of my mission and I get a great enjoyment out of it. And you know, I remember one patient who walked in who had a thoracic herniated disc. And you know, in order to do the surgery, we have to do a thoracotomy. So basically cracking our chest open the compress the lung in order to get to the spine from the front. And I said, you really don't want to have this surgery. We can do it if you want to. However, why don't you give me three months make this changes come back in three months. If it doesn't work, then we'll go ahead and do the surgery. She came back to clinic and three months along with her husband, she lost 40 pounds. He lost 60 pounds, right? And she said her pain was gone. And she said doctor, I don't need your service. anymore awesome congratulations. So I think it is very possible and you know once once you have seen that I just get a kick out of itKen Brown  I'm feeling like a little jerk right now because we did a show on using cell phones while there people around the bathroom doing social media posts and I I told everybody to keep doing that because it creates hemorrhoids so they can come see me. I feel like a jerk. I'm over there encouraging, sit on the toilet longer and make an appointment with me.Dr. Won  That's funny.Ken Brown  Oh, you're making me look bad man. I want to talk about something about this article because I we use the term reactive oxygen species all the time. Now one of the things that they got deep into this article is about a lot of the end origin disease that kills most of us. cardiac disease strokes. dementia. A lot of it comes down to blood vessels. Yes, the endotheliam meaning that as our blood vessels, all this inflammation leads to endothelial dysfunction, and impaired activity and arterial stiffness. And the reason why I bring this up is because I'll plug this the polyphenols and Atrantil we do know that they actually improve the most polyphenols when taken in. There's literature for this. But when we first launched Atrantil we did it strictly for people that bloated and then we had all these people that kept staying on it. And that's when I started backing up because I was looking at one little problem then went, Oh, this is actually it's sad that it's that I'm now learning because all I've been doing is doing plant based, but I started with a pill and now I'm working my way to lifestyle. Yeah, which you're doing lifestyle. And you realized, Hey, I can help people in different ways. So you noticed immediately that endothelium is really important. And when we talked before and you brought me some gifts, I would like to talk about what else you have going on here because very clearly, you have put some serious thought into this. And then I came backwards. I started with a plant based product to treat something and now I'm learning about a plant based lifestyle. Yeah, you did the opposite. You started plant based lifestyle and said, I'm going to produce the best product for that. Yeah. So tell me what you got here.Dr. Won  Yeah, so one of the things that we developed was, is called Neo Nox is a nitric oxide booster,Ken Brown  Neo NoxDr. Won  neo neo, no x, no x, and this product was developed without intention of developing a supplement company. what we realized was as I was doing research, even as a physician, we knew that heart disease was a number one killer, but I didn't realize how severe it was. It is actually the number one killer of both men and women worldwide. Right? And, you know,Ken Brown  Yeah we start seeing once women go into menopause. Yeah, they get the same risk as men.Dr. Won  Yeah, exactly. And, and so and a lot of women just getting neglected and they think it's a man's disease. And but women develop a cardiovascular disease just as much as the guys and, and one in three deaths in us is related to vascular disease. So pretty significant amount. And it all comes down to endotheliam and nitric oxide, what I realized was the most important molecule in our body because it saves endotheliam, and is produced it within our endotheliam. However, as we age, by the time you're 40, you lose about 50% of your ability to produce it. By the time you're 60 you lose about 85% of your ability to produce nitric oxideKen Brown  Say that one more time.Dr. Won  So by the time you're 40, you lose about 50% of your ability to produce nitric oxide, which is the most important molecule in our body.Ken Brown  Why do why do we do that? Dr. Won  So a few things number one is produced in your endotheliam. Right intercellular is basically the inner lining of your artery. And so, as we age, we develop atherosclerosis, we damage the endotheliam. So therefore, we lose the ability to produce the, the nitric oxide, but along with that... Ken Brown  So the inflammatory process damaging the endotheliam does not allow us to produce the one molecule to repair the endotheliam.Dr. Won  Exactly. And so and not only the nitric oxide, is that the strongest vasodilator that lowers of blood pressure, and then also vasodilate the vessels so they're more nutrients and oxygen can be delivered to the end organs, right. It also stimulates the stem cells and activates the stem cells and mobilizes the stem cells, Ken Brown  nitric oxide does? Dr. Won  Nitric oxide, and that's how we really actually got into the nitric oxide because we knew we needed to boost the nitric oxide to our patient when we're doing orthopedic stem cell therapy, right to to help them prevent either You know rotator cuff tendonitis and tear surgeries Ken Brown  We had we had weighed with 10 on our show the orthopedist. Dr. Won  Yeah. Ken Brown  From Fort Worth that had the the Panama stem cell clinic.Dr. Won  Yes. Yeah. Ken Brown  We deep dived into stem cells. That's some cool stuff. Yeah.Dr. Won  And but, but most people are looking for that magic pill. They want the injections, right? And the stem cell therapy, but you need to activate them and people who needed the most are typically 60 Plus, right, sometimes 40 Plus, but most of the patients we have arthritis are 60 Plus, but they can't really activate their stem cells because they don't have any nitric oxide. That's part of the reason why people develop cardiovascular disease. people develop diabetes, right? people develop erectile dysfunction, which is a vascular disease. Right. And so that's, that's why the even Biograph Cialis only works on 50% of the population.Ken Brown  So one of the reasons why game changers has been so much more well received is that they have a whole segment on nighttime boners Yeah. And how eating a plant based diet actually improves erectile dysfunction. Dr. Won  Yes. Ken Brown  And so and not just erectile dysfunction actually improves nocturnal erections I should say. Yeah, boner seems a little bit unprofessional. Dr. Won  You are a doctor.Ken Brown  But um, yeah. So that's, that's one of the things so it's, it's when you talk anti aging or you talk sexual performance, that's what people spend all their money. Yes. They don't sit there and go, Oh, I'm going to have a heart attack. Yeah, when really, it's all the same process. It's all the same thing. The thing that's making you look older, the thing that's making you not perform as well in bed is the exact same that's going to kill you! Dr. Won  Exactly. And, and, you know, the dementia, which are mostly now we're realizing that is a vascular disease also, because you're just not getting enough blood to your brain, right. And so, and also lack of energy, you know, after age 40, everyone's fatigue suffering from fatigue, lack of energy, because  mitochondrial biogenesis is actually initiated by nitric oxide also. So it helps nitric oxide stimulates the production of mitochondria, which is the energy source. Ken Brown  There we go. Yeah, so that's the that's the energy source of every cell. Every cell has a little power plant. Yes, it's called the mito

Remember, I am a real doctor Eric is a real crna. We do do real medicine. But this show is not intended to diagnose or treat. Please, if you have any issues like rectal bleeding, go to our website, kbmdhealth.com. Download the E book, learn about it, but make sure that you talk to your doctor about it.Eric Rieger  All right, here we are. It is gut check project, Episode Number 28. I am here with your host, Dr. Ken Brown. What's up Doctor Brown. Ken Brown  What's going on Eric? Episode 28. Eric Rieger  Episode 28.Ken Brown  Lots of energy 2020. We're just wow. Eric Rieger  We're so close to 30, it's what, six more years. seven more years. We could run for president release the show.Ken Brown  It's so weird when I'm sitting there doing colonoscopy recalls. And I'm like, come back in 2030...gah! It's weird. Eric Rieger  Yeah, that's good news for those. Everybody. One unique thing. everybody complains about the prep. So if you if you have to have a colonoscopy and you're not looking forward to the prep, you are not alone. Nobody likes it.Ken Brown  You know what, there's a video that I have on my website, Kenneth Brown, MD. com. That's more for my my clinical practice, but I've got a video that can actually talk you through how to get through that prep and a few little bio hacks to do that. I've been through a couple preps myself. I've taken them all. So when patients are like, you have no idea I'm like, No, I do know. I do know, Eric Rieger  I'm fully aware. Ken Brown  Yeah, you can actually go on the website and see it or you can go to YouTube and see my bare bottom there for the world. Because I mean, the one thing that you and I do do we do... Eric Rieger  You just said, doo doo.  Ken Brown  Okay I did, yea you're right. I am a gastroeneterologist but the one thing that we do is we live it. I mean, we We will last week I was fasting. I did a five day fast.Eric Rieger  You did? And you did well.Ken Brown  I did. I I liked it man, that erexin erexin is a hormone that kicks in that creates energy. I became euphoric again. I was just chatty Cathy run around loving it. Eric Rieger  It's a wild thing to see play out the erexin. Having done it myself, it's it's when you're not expecting it especially.Ken Brown  Yeah, totally. And this time I kind of did sort of the fasting mimicking diet where I kept the calories down. It was almost exclusively just water. But I did cheat a little bit, but not cheating. I kept my calories down. I allowed myself to choose some celery once in a while. And if you look at valter Longo's  data when he talks about the fasting, mimicking diet, they allow you to have up to, you know, whatever 800 calories and you can still trick the body into fasting. What I really enjoyed was my family's getting more used to it so they weren't like I like I was a little irritable at some times and you know Loyda was cool with it. She understood. She's like, well, you're fasting. And, you know, so it was there and so the kids were kind of making fun of it. But when we sit there and look at it, and you realize that I'm trying to turn on some stem cells and all these other things, I really felt like I'm gonna make this a regular part every three months. I'm gonna try and do a five day fast. Sounds really daunting. But when you look at the data, if you get a chance, there's on amazon prime. If you're an Amazon Prime member, there's a documentary called fasting and they interview what I consider the fasting experts. They've got Jason Fung, they've got Sachin Panda. They've got Valter Longo and they all talk about the different types of fastings. And what you achieve with each oneEric Rieger  Yeah, no, I totally worth it. Very low cost. It's something you can do and there are tons of benefits. We probably should do a fasting reset episode, just specific to what we can find and then we've had nurses and different technicians that we've worked with who've decided to implement fasting as part of their own healthy regimen. who already seen lower blood pressure and different things like that? So it requires really no true investment. It just requires a little bit of discipline.Ken Brown  Yeah, and it's a it seems once and I remember what was the conference live it to lead it Conference. I was lecturing and I that that was the first conference where it was a fasting conference. And they purposely did not serve anythingUnknown Speaker  No.Ken Brown  We went all day.Eric Rieger  All day. Ken Brown  Everyone in that conference about 400 people. Eric Rieger  But you're all in it together.Ken Brown  Yeah. That that is Dr. Daniel Pompa. And he's the one that really kind of got me thinking about fasting. And he's, if you want to check him out, he's he's awesome. We know we know Angelo, his his. who's the CEO right now? Anyways, we're always doing business with these guys. They're amazing people. Dr. Dan Pompa. Check it out. I did his podcast and we and he is somebody that is extremely knowledgeable about fasting realizing that that turns on cellular health.Eric Rieger  Definitely. Well, let's do a quick reset so we can get down because we have actually quite a few topics to get to today. So episode number 28. It is the gut check project. I'm Eric Rieger here with your host, Dr. Kenneth Brown. As always, still sponsored by Atrantil, Atrantil chock full of pro anthocyanin, polyphenols, polyphenols, you don't have to have gut distress to benefit from Atrantil do you Dr. Brown? Ken Brown  You do not. We're learning a lot and I'm going to get into some literature today and get into some data explaining about how this is actually super important because what we're going to talk about is something that is affecting your health, and it is screwing all of us up. So if you are a human living on planet Earth... Eric Rieger  Most of us. Ken Brown  You need to listen to the rest of the show. I'm gonna geek out a lot this is gonna be some serious science, but it's super important because we got stuff going on in the world right now that is affecting you and I can tell you how the polyphenols actually help protect you against what I'm going to tell you about that's everywhere.Eric Rieger  Go to lovemytummy.com/kbmd lovemytummy.com/kbmd to learn more and get your own AtrantilKen Brown  Atrantil!Eric Rieger  And then also go and visit our brand new website it KBmdhealth, KBMdhealth.com. You can get your hands on Atrantil there as well as Dr. Brown's signature package which includes Atrantil as well as CBD. So why in the world would somebody want to combine Atrantil and CBD? Ken Brown  Well, that is a great question, Mr. Eric. And one of the reasons why we learned through the science was as I was developing Atrantil I started talking to a lot of different scientists and contrary to what people think there's tons of science on CBD cannabidiol tons of science on the endocannabinoid system. As it turns out the polyphenols in Atrantil, actually allow your body to produce and keep around more of your own.  endogenous endocannabinoids, meaning you produce your own CBD like molecules called anandaminde and 2-ag. And I know you're going to talk about that a little bit. We'll get to that. Yeah. But basically, you can like it's, it's a exponential growth of your own endocannabinoid system. I started looking into this because when we were first treating people for their gut health, I couldn't believe how many of my patients said, you know what I'm still taking Atrantil my gut feels better, but I just feel better. Everything's better. And then I had to start looking into it. I went, Oh my gosh, the polyphenols, the post biotics the microbiome, and the endocannabinoid system is just one big Venn diagram and they all interact with each other. Eric Rieger  They definitely do. Ken Brown  And we're going to talk about that a little bit later also.  Eric Rieger  We that's something once again, you alluded to it earlier, we actually work in a clinic and do procedures. We see people all of the time that take those things combined also with a healthy diet that just simply are feeling and living better, which is great. So kBmdhealth.com. You can find the store, you just pan down the page and the brand new website, which soon will have some repository for CBD information research, we're going to talk about Oh, here soon we will have the repository on rectal bleeding. So if you've ever worried about somebody who may have seen spotting in their underwear suddenly use the bathroom and look down and they saw a little bit of blood, we're going to try to help people stave off the panic and yet find good solutions and answers for them so they can stay healthy. Ken Brown  Yeah. So if you're wondering why in the world, we just did the right turn towards rectal bleeding as it turns out, that is the most search term that people get super worried about. Eric Rieger  Yeah, it is. And we get the most questions about rctal bleeding. Ken Brown  We get the most questions about that. So if you've ever if you have a family member, if you ever seen blood in the toilet, it's scary. And we're going to take that head on and I'm going to tell you how that you should not ignore it. Never ignore it but we put together a really cool ebook that's very informative. I think it's very entertaining, I'm very happy with with Drew Parker helping us out with the graphics on that he's a fantastic digital graphic designer, and I think it's going to help a lot of people and if I can just get a few people in to get checked out so that they don't worry. Much like we see with my colonoscopy video i get i get comments all the time, where people like thank you for doing that video. I went in and I had several large polyps. I never would have done it had it not seen that. That's the same thing. We're here to help everyone. I just want to see people get healthier. Everything that we talked about on the show is some way to augment your life. Sometimes it's gut health. Sometimes it's lighting discussions. Sometimes it's just whatever we think you and I learned something we're like, we're going to share this with the world.Eric Rieger  Yep, definitely. So be sure Stay tuned. We will definitely make an announcement. If you are not a member of the KBMD community already, just go to KBMDhealth.com pan all the way to the bottom, just give us your name. It'll allow us to have your email and then you'll be looped in as soon as we have the rectal bleeding stuff that you can share with anyone, and anyone coast to coast. If they need help they could use this information, it would help them out.Ken Brown  Yeah, and we're trying to grow this. We're getting some really good feedback. If you have any questions, if you want us to talk about anything, we have access to experts. That's what I ultimately want to do, if we're going to talk about so today's show, let's talk about the short term. Today's show, we're going to just kind of get caught up on a few things. And I really want to dive deep into this science about things that are hurting you that you can prevent one particular thing in the environment that I know that we can help people with. And then going forward. One of the exciting things that I want to do is I'm going to start bringing in some seriously geeky experts so that we can get to some of the science that's out there, that most people don't even understand that we have a community of PhDs surrounding us of the MD's surrounding us. And they're doing some crazy stuff, but they're not out there promoting it. They're not on Instagram or Facebook and other stuff. You gotta dig deep. You gotta bring them in. And oh my gosh, you'll learn so much. That's what we're gonna do in 2020 this thing is going to be a home for if you have a question, we're going to find the person to answer it.Eric Rieger  Yeah. And we're already starting to fill out that fill out that that schedule. So this this year should be quite exciting.Ken Brown  Yeah. And if, if we can't find an expert, and we don't know the answer, Eric is gonna make it up.Eric Rieger  Sounds so confident. that's a really good selling point. Let's get into it. This last weekend, I left I haven't even told you the story. I left the clinic headed home wanting to go and make the boys basketball games that were up in Wichita Falls. I got about 20 miles from home and suddenly, torrential rain going sideways hail. My phone goes off tornado warning. What in the world and it couldn't see couldn't see anything. And then finally it all passes everything's fine and to my knowledge no one was was hurt. There was some wind damage and a tornado spotted somewhere I didn't see it. But then the next morning Saturday, I wake up snow three and a half inches everywhere Ken Brown  But it was like 70 degrees when that tornado was happening. Eric Rieger  No Joke.Ken Brown  And the very next morning, it snowed. Eric Rieger  It was 24 degrees. The very next morning beautiful too. I mean, it was snowed very, very hard. And then by the time the afternoon came all melted, pretty much gone. I mean, that's amazing. Living in North Texas, especially. You just experienced a lots of different fluctuations in weather. There's no health story here. But it is kind of a treat sometimes you just kind of see everything. Ken Brown  It is I watched last night as a family we watched because Rafa Nadal was on 60 minutes. They were interviewing obviously, we always talk about tennis and we'll get into the whole family thing but Rafa was on so the family wanted to watch the 30 minutes and I remember I used to watch 60 minutes with my dad growing up. Eric Rieger  Yeah me too!Ken Brown  Yeah. And I actually really enjoyed that. I didn't A lot of it I didn't understand. It was political and stuff like that. But I'd be like, 10 years old watching 60 minutes. So last night we were watching and they were looking at Florence, Italy. The canals. Dude. Up a lot. I mean, come on. We this weird climate change. We got Australia on fire. We got this going on. And they're there they're having hundred year floods, like every month. Eric Rieger  Yeah, they're not hundred years anymore. Ken Brown  No.Eric Rieger  yeah, it's pretty wild. Ken Brown  It's crazy.Eric Rieger  I can't remember who it was. It said that they were there before the the water started. And like as they were leaving. And someone told me I thought it was some of you and I knew I've already forgotten. But anyhow, yeah, they were there and the last day of this day was was the first day that the water began to creep in towards the hotel. So that wasn't that long ago. But really interesting. Ken Brown  It's It's crazy. I just saw an article today, where if we actually tend to have this, this climate change continues in this this pathway. Where now people are pretty much open to it now. Now we realized that okay, things are happening, the level of violence. So some epidemiologists were looking at if with each degree of worldwide raise in temperature, violence goes up and due to a lot of different reasons, and they had all these different reasons as to how that happens. But basically, we can become a more violent society with global warming. It's crazy. Eric Rieger  Wow. Ken Brown  I know. It's nuts.Eric Rieger  Man, I don't even know how to answer that. That's wildKen Brown  I don't even want to get into it. Because I just kind of looked at that. And I said, I'm already a little bit scared of where we're headed. I don't need to know that all of a sudden, we're going to become more violent due to it. That's like the last thing that I neededEric Rieger  No, no. Yeah.Ken Brown  I generally chill out when it gets warm. I like to you know, I mean, I like the heat. I sauna all the time so. Eric Rieger  Yeah, we'll usually see people on the beach and their just laying down. I don't know. I'm not really getting it. Ken Brown  This article described how we're just going to go around and violence will increase so...Eric Rieger  Yeah it's unfortunate Well, do you have anything you want to hit on quick before we Oh, I've thought of something else but I'll go ahead and let you go first.Ken Brown  Well, I was just gonna give a quick update with the family. Because this never happens in my house. We were all here. We did a whole lot of nothing. We... Eric Rieger  Did y'all all know each other? Ken Brown  We did. Eric Rieger  That's good. Ken Brown  Yeah.  So the the kids at the last time that they're at they had one of those big giant Connect fours and so they ended up playing like the boys would play these are like, like the nation's best tennis players at that age and they're all were gathered around to connect for like an old school Connect Four that was like, like five feet tall. Eric Rieger  That's awesome. I love Connect Four.Ken Brown  So I ended up playing the kids a lot. In Connect Four on the on the computer. We ate out we found some new ramen places, and we chilled I slept 10 and a half hours last night.Eric Rieger  That's not bad. Ken Brown  I loved it.  Heck, yeah. That's my weekend. How about you? Unknown Speaker  All weekend boys had basketballs out is that talked about earlier Saturday night. I'm just getting older friend of mine, his daughter who I remember when she was really young. She got married. Really cool. Yeah. Whole family went and it was, it was a lot of fun. So shout out to Savannah and Rex. Just a great gathering of some folks, these these were really close friends of ours that he was transferred to Japan. And so he'd been there and I hadn't seen him since he been transferred there and his daughter gets married. And my brother was there my brother's close to this family also and it was it was a lot of fun. Ken Brown  That's awesome. Unknown Speaker  Yeah, yeah, it's really cool. Ken Brown  You love seeing it maintaining friendships and relationships that far that you're seeing your your friends kids...Ken Brown  And he just got transferred again. You know where to? Aww poor guy...Hawaii.Eric Rieger  No awful for him. He and his wife are just hating it.Ken Brown  Yeah. I finished the book Traction by Gina Whitman. Eric Rieger  Yes. Nice.Ken Brown  I took notes. I think I even sent you a copy. My notes are 28 pages.Eric Rieger  You did. I'm behind you and I can't say that I know what all of your notes mean. But I think that they'll be good cliffs for someone who's gonna read it.Ken Brown  What I love is every one of these people that in our entrepreneurial group baby bathwater every time I say Traction, they've all read it. They're like, absolutely necessary. So if you're a small business owner, try out the book Traction, the most updated one. Eric Rieger  Sure, definitely, yeah. Ken Brown  What were you gonna say? Eric Rieger  So, I told you that I wanted to talk about 2-ag just briefly, but the reason is, and I, I can't remember exactly what study was, but that's not what's important. What's important is they were breaking down. Why do people smoke cigarettes whenever they become anxious? Ken Brown  Cigarettes or marijuana? Eric Rieger  Or was the marijuana?Ken Brown  Marijuana I think. Yeah, because they're looking at the endocannabinoid system. Eric Rieger  Marijuana cigarettes is what I meant to say. But that's what that's what they're talking about. But anyway, regardless, they're smoking marijuana, and why would they do that if they become anxious, and it has more to do with the increased production of 2-ag than what they had realized. It's not the only thing. It's just that they noticed that you increase your endogenous 2-ag and of course, if you're just tuning in anandamide and 2-ag are the probably the most prevalent endogenous cannabinoid we have. Ken Brown  Certainly the most studied. Yeah so we make our own endocannabinoids and they're called anandamide and 2-ag. 2-ag stands for 2-Arachidonoylglycerol acid so 2-ag is easier. Eric Rieger  Correct. It is that's why that's all that I ever say but I just want to pointed it out to you right before we started you said yes I think I saw the same thing. So what are your thoughts on that?Ken Brown  Well, I just think it's so interesting because we always meet all these people are like, oh, there's no science on CBD. Oh, there's no whatever, no people we have an endocannabinoid system. We have been neglecting our endocannabinoid system and the articles that I'm going to bring up later probably show why in our endocannabinoid system we're deficient. So what this article looked at, is the fact that people are self treating. Now we know the molecule that goes up, that helps them deal with their anxiety. You know, it isn't like a it isn't like, oh, you're just running away from your problems? No, you're balancing yourself out by doing that. Eric Rieger  Yeah, another interesting part though I thought about that particular article that I was reading there was referencing the study is that it was almost as if they were talking about 2-ag as just a substance, and then later talked about it as that it is it is an endogenous cannabinoid. But it, they presented it as if it was a newfound compound. And just just because of what we do, and I didn't really take it that way. I was like, well, you're kind of behind the curve. This isKen Brown  Isn't that funny? Eric Rieger  It's been a long time! Ken Brown  Yeah. Because Yeah, I actually didn't read the article you called and told me about that. I'm like, that's funny, because they're acting like they discovered something. We've been talking 2-ag and anandamide for years now.Eric Rieger  Right, right. Maybe Maybe it's just the way I interpret it. But that's the way it felt it felt like that they're talking like it's something new that they were trying to show correlation of this, this increase of this mysterious 2-ag and in truth, I felt like it was really just kind of establishing the importance of a healthy endocannabinoid system, which is really what I felt was my takeaways like hey, look, this is just yet more proof on why a healthy ECS is a great balance for somebody who is suffering from anxiety or, or something like that. You want to get that in in you want you want to keep your ECS healthy.Ken Brown  Yeah so the endocannabinoid system what's interesting is that I'm I'd be curious to see if they did the exact same study with just pure CBD cannabidiol maybe you don't even have to smoke the marijuana cigarette as you say. And you just take CBD and then your body will adapt to that as well. Whenever people say oh, I take CBD and it helps with XYZ Well, one of the things is, I mean, we got a lot going on and I looking back in my life I've always run very anxious. Well, ever since I started doing the KBMD, health CBD, my anxiety 100% has been much more manageable, much more in balanced and I realized that Oh, that's probably one of those things as I'm running around anxious, my 2-ag is down possibly my ananadamide is down. All this is allowing me to do is just get back to my baseline.Eric Rieger  Yeah, no, I agree. That it's something I didn't, I wasn't able to ascertain. Excuse me. You said I wonder if CBD could do that more than likely so and I was also kind of curious is what the mix was, you know because there's different strains out there for marijuana. And so I didn't I didn't know what they were referencing I highly doubt that it was probably one of those super efficient high level Maui Wowie things that everybody's clamoring for when they go out of a state that doesn't allow it to go and buy I really think that probably really like anything the more natural that something were to exist is probably where they're getting the benefit from but I don't know they didn't really...Ken Brown  Isn't it so fascinating we just lump everything together. That's like saying hey, Eric, tea is Good for you. Eric Rieger  What kind of tea? Ken Brown  Exactly? So are you gonna take Elong which is going to have different black teas in it? Are you going to take chamomile which is going to calm you down.Eric Rieger  Is lipton light green? Ken Brown  Exactly. Eric Rieger  It's not.Ken Brown  It's you know, are we are you going to put a little packets of peak tea? Which our good friends peak tea, which They have polyphenols in there also and they promote that a lot. So I don't know why we discuss the marijuana plant like that because it could be that varied just like tea leaves. It could be so varied the cannabis plant and when we start lumping things together we just become ignorant to the whole process. If I say that to you will put you to sleep and you do a good solid green tea and you're up for hours. You're like, Well, that didn't work. I'm like no, no, that's not all tea puts you to sleep certain teas. Well, certain THC CBD combinations do certain things. Eric Rieger  Definitely. Someone said I like apples. They may be a Washington Apple could a granny smith apple. It could be a Fuji. On and on and on. There's just a bunch of different apples.Ken Brown  Now. Let's be I mean, let's let everybody know. I mean, you did your thesis on apples. I mean, I think it's I think you've been waiting forever. to unleash your knowledge of apples on everybody.Eric Rieger  I can't wait until we dig into apples. Granny Smith for the win. Or honey crisp, those are great.Ken Brown  You're just gonna give everybody all riled up? Let's move on politics and apples we don't talk about man. Eric Rieger  Now we don't. Ken Brown  You know, last week we talked about cell phones. Eric Rieger  Yeah. Ken Brown  We talked about people using cell phones while they're on the toilet.Eric Rieger  We did we social toilets. Ken Brown  Social toilets, how social is your toilet? Well, I just saw an article that just came out where a recent study looked at how people that take selfies, so they did a cohort study where they looked at people and they had them self evaluate. So it isn't like a randomized placebo controlled trial, but it is kind of very interesting, because we were talking last week about how people will post Instagram pictures and things like that. This study was really interesting, only in the sense that it makes that it's like, oh, duh. Because we always talk about how social media can actually lead to anxiety and depression. This study looked specifically At instagramers and selfies, and what they did is they interviewed It was 164 female students at a public college in the southeastern United States. And what they did is they surveyed a photo manipulation and selfie tapes. And what they realized is that these women were having this body surveillance issue where they wanted to have the best picture the best selfie that they put up there. And most of the participants reported taking between two to five selfies before publishing the one, many of them or I shouldn't say many, but a large proportion that actually had depression would take up to 20 pictures before posting the one. And there's so many filters that you can do now you can take out blemishes, you can augment certain body parts, you can do different things. And what they showed is those who took more selfies or manipulated he pictures had significantly higher levels of depression and anxiety. Eric Rieger  It's not that...Ken Brown  Isn't that interesting? Eric Rieger  It's interesting. But is it really that surprising? Ken Brown  Well, that's the thing. It's not that surprising. And when you sit there and look at this, and when people go, oh my gosh, she's so beautiful. Oh, she's got all these likes or whatever. The reality is, you can't run from yourself. There's a certain disingenuous portion of you that knows you kind of manipulated it.Eric Rieger  Yeah. Without question. And here's a, just a quick side caveat here. Remember, before we had the digital availability of photos, and we just had film, there wasn't the instant gratification of going over and making certain that the picture that was just taken was perfect. You just took it. And then you went to the photo mat at some point. And then it was exciting to go and get the envelope with the pictures and you could thumb through them. And you always wanted it before the girl who might also be in the pictures because she's gonna discard the ones that she doesn't like. Remember that? I mean like you would say, let's go get the pictures. Oh, I'll go with you. And then she grabs them and I can remember, you know, people grabbing the photos like, oh, and then keep that one. What is that? Oh, you don't wanna see that? That's the old way of discarding photos that you didn't want seen. So now you can take them without with it doesn't matter. Does it cost anything take more pictures. So interesting that technologies actually probably lent itself as a as a tool for someone who may have anxiety or depression to kind of make the situation worse. Ken Brown  I mean, I challenge everybodythat if you're gonna post a selfie, Eric Rieger  just do it. Ken Brown  Just do it. Make it real. Do the funny face everything because we spent so much time trying to show this curated life that I have. I want you to believe that my life is this. I mean, one of the fun things about doing this show is we don't edit anything. Eric Rieger  No! Ken Brown  It just happens. Eric Rieger  I just said cigarettes and I meant marijuana. So yeah, no, he did that. But that's not really I promise you, your friends like you. And if you're listening this your friends like you because you're you not because you, you practice or rehearsed a line before you saw them, they just want to hang out with you. I mean, and you should be, you should be confident that that's what people are after.Ken Brown  So this, this particular study essentially just showed that even though so here's what's happening. You have people that are taking multiple selfies, they're trying to find the perfect one. When they post it, then all they do is wait for that dopamine rush of a like, of a like of a like, and then if this one doesn't get as many likes as the other one, then what do I do? Do I go back and do this? The bottom line is we want to be part of a community. We know that deep down when you want that like it's because you want to connect with somebody. Unfortunately, when we have these social media platforms, it really waters it down so that you feel that you get a little dopamine release but you don't get the serotonin which is your true happiness molecule. Dopamine is your pleasure molecule. So you cannot have both going on serotonin and dopamine, because that's how come the whole rock star phenomenon you keep chasing that dopamine high. So what I want to offer to everybody here is take a selfie, don't put a filter on it, send it to us. Connect with us at KBMDhealth on Instagram or on Facebook with a gut check project.Eric Rieger  Gut Check Poject on Facebook Ken Brown  Because I can tell you right now that if you are lonely and you are not connecting with people on a one to one level, it has been proven to be as dangerous as smoking. Smoking the cigarettes. Like you were saying earlier.Eric Rieger  Yeah, I got things inverted there. Ken Brown  The cigarettes...So it's I just find it so fascinating that we have this so you just got done telling me a story about how people smoke or they they seek out marijuana and Now we realized that there is an Endocannabinoid that they're trying to compensate with with 2-ag. Well, dude, any type of stress like that any type of thing. So now we know that by doing selfies, and waiting for that dopamine kick, you're creating anxiety and depression, probably related to a depletion of 2-ag as well.Eric Rieger  Interesting. It really is. I don't, I wonder, I wonder what could be done for somebody to kind of wean themselves of, of hunting for the the digital likes, I really just ignore social media for the most part, certainly on a personal level, I don't find it rewarding. In some instances, it's kind of depressing. I like going to social media when I feel like I want to catch up with someone or that honestly, we need to find a new way to to make sure that our audience or our patients is are getting the right information for Atrantil etc. But I don't, I don't look for it to give me any type of gratification and but I think that I'm maybe the anomaly for someone who's connected like that there's maybe even my kids who don't necessarily maintain their Instagram. I know that they keep up with their friends on it. And they see pictures, and people share them. So how would you wean yourself from that kind of that kind of environmen if you already didn't have the biological systems in place to help you do that?Ken Brown  Dude, that is a great question. I'm not much of a social media person. So I'm not really down with that. We're gonna find a psychiatrist or a psychologist that specializes in this. There's that great YouTube video, where I told you, you made your kids watch it. I made my kids watch it, where it's a Harvard psychologist discussing the fact that when we give kids phones and they get into social media that that dopamine release...When somebody has a hard time at school, your seventh grader has a hard time at school. They come home And they're upset about something and then you let them have their phone. That is exactly like giving them the keys to the liquor cabinet. You had a tough day. Why don't you go cope with it by having a few vodka sodas or whatever. And we think that's crazy. But we don't think anything of let your kid go to the room, sit on their phone and go into a spiral, because they're not part of the Snapchat group that that they were excluded from because X, Y and Z. It's, it's really from a parenting standpoint, it's really hard to sit there and walk that fine line between I don't want my children to be the weird kids that don't have any social media involvement. But I don't want to allow that giving them the keys to the liquor cabinet, where they're just trying to supplement their dopamine kicks with how many likes they have because there's a lot of science going on with this.Eric Rieger  Yea and true confession I think that we screwed up its parents that I'm talking about me and my wife. Well, we, we gave the phone the phone breached in probably far too early. I mean, that's just that's just the truth. We've done a good job of monitoring how well I say we're doing a good job. Maybe they'll maybe they'll hear this and they'll laugh. Ken Brown  I don't think you guys. I don't think he has waited too long when I saw gages...His,you know I went to his one year birthday party and you gave him the iPhone 2. That's not early! Eric Rieger  He's not quite that young but yeah. But, I mean, looking back, I wish that we had had held off longer than we did. I don't think that we did anybody any favors by doing that. Heck, I wish I had never gotten into a smartphone. It's almost like a weird codependency issue now, like, I want to get to the point where I can just go back to a flip phone and no phone at all. But...Ken Brown  There's always Yeah,Eric Rieger  Like most I mean, I don't think that I'm alone. I mean, I know I'm not because we see it every day with the patients just before we take him back to let them go to sleep. They want to they want Want to take that last time before they go to sleep? And before they stow their phone? That's it's very common every single day.Ken Brown  But we're just keep seeing new and new data like this particular study. Everybody else that looks at those pictures probably goes Oh, she's so pretty, she's got an amazing thing. Eric Rieger  And the person who's in it probably hates the picture Ken Brown  And the person who's in it is just critiquing themselves and they're becoming and having more anxiety and depression.Eric Rieger  Oh, yeah, it's and it's it's, it's unfortunate. It's not fair.Ken Brown  I had a remember our guest with short path wealth. Tim Tim power. He he posted something where it was like the next time you're having a bad day. Remember this is going on. And it was a picture of 250 Amish men carrying a barnEric Rieger  Yeah. Yeah,Ken Brown  I'm like there's easier ways to move that barn. But that's cool. Eric Rieger  There are and they're not doing it, but they're probably not nearly susceptible to depression.Ken Brown  I looked at that and I was like, that's community. That's coming together that's busting your ass that's getting out there. There's a certain amount of okay. Yeah, there's easier ways to do it. But okay. Eric Rieger  The initial reaction is to laugh. The truth is they're probably pretty happy. You know, isn't that wild, but it's just true.Ken Brown  Yeah. I thought that was interesting.Eric Rieger  Yeah, it is. It is interesting. So what else you got?Ken Brown  Nothin? Um, we can get into a few things. You got water?Eric Rieger  I'm having a little austin texas Waterloo, Ken Brown  Ah a little Waterloo. Would you like to sip from it from this cool, straw.Eric Rieger  I mean, I traditionally don't use...Ken Brown  No don't do that at all, because that's what we're going to get into right now. Eric Rieger  That is rude as hell.Ken Brown  That almost killed you. Eric Rieger  I did not know that. Ken Brown  Ah, well, let me tell you what. So we uh, we have the distinct advantage of course we have our little our secret weapon.Eric Rieger  If you're just listening. He just offered me a straw and threw it across the room just so you know.Ken Brown  Well, here's why. So You know, we have our, our amazing graduate student that always helps us out. She sent me some incredible articles. Two of them came together. It's super geeky, hang in there with me, please. I'm going to get into what's gonna sound like a lot of crazy words, but this will blow your mind. I cannot believe and she sent the email. She's like, this will blow your mind. I cannot believe that. We have not talked about this yet. And I'm like, okay, two articles recently published that holy cow Hang in there, because it's gonna sound like, well, pretty much you're screwed. But I'm going to give you a solution at the variant.Eric Rieger  I can't wait. Ken Brown  All right.Eric Rieger  Yeah. Ken Brown  And probably most relevant for you, Mr. Eric, Mr. crna. I'm telling you, you probably need to hear this more than anybody more than anybody, anybody more than anybody. More than anybody more than anybody.Unknown Speaker  I'm all ears now. Ken Brown  All right. So, all right now we're getting into some serious science. You know, I love to geek out about this stuff, and hopefully I'll be able to hopefully I interpret it well enough. And hopefully we'll be able to make some sense of this. But what we're going to talk about is a recent review on the toxic effects of Di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate.Eric Rieger  Yeah, that usually doesn't come up very often.Ken Brown  Or DEHP. Which From now on I will refer to as DEHP. As inJohnny Depp, but it's DEHP, so before you sit there and go, Oh, I've never you know, this doesn't pertain to me. Oh It really does because as it turns out, DEHP DEHP is the most common member of phthalates. Now, phthalates are mainly used as plasticizers. Eric Rieger  Here we go. Ken Brown  There's substances added to Plastic, specifically PVC to increase the flexibility so that death straw that I just tried to offer you filled with DEHP. Okay, what it does is it softens the PVC so that anything is flexible. Eric Rieger  Okay. Ken Brown  So you start thinking well, like due to the ubiquity of plastics everywhere. The majority of people are exposed to some level of phthalates. For example, the CDC actually took a large cohort of people, and they looked for the metabolites of ballots, and everyone had them in their urine. Eric Rieger  I'm sure. I'm sure they do. Ken Brown  It's almost unavoidable over 2 million tons of this stuff is is produced worldwide. And I don't know why. I don't know how we've not discussed this already. Why this has not been talked about. Do you know anything about this? Eric Rieger  No, I don't know anything about specifically this particular compound. What I'm really thinking about right now is the abundance or ubiquity of all of the plastics that are are flexible now I mean, I'm just thinking if we're going to panic, your water is certainly in a modern home is is usually channeled by PVC. And that would be I mean, it's...Ken Brown  well as long as it's PVC until it becomes flexible. You're not getting DEHP.Eric Rieger   Okay...Ken Brown  But this is why it's really relevant to you. Eric Rieger  Oh okay? Ken Brown  And to me but more to you. Eric Rieger  All right...Ken Brown  Guess what? Tt's especially used in medical devices.Eric Rieger  Oo like endotracheal tubes? Ken Brown  Oh way more than that endotracheal tubes, IV bags. Yeah, keep going. You're getting it.Eric Rieger  Goodness gracious IV tubing IV bags, you could the catheters that we start the IV. Man, the anything that would do seldinger technique with is going to utilize that right?Ken Brown  100% Eric Rieger  Holy crap.Ken Brown  Holy crap. It's everywhere in the medical industry. Eric Rieger  Probably the non latex gloves that we have to substitute for people who have latex allergies.Ken Brown  All of a sudden you start looking this you're like, whoa, wait a minute...Eric Rieger  Nasal canulas! Ken Brown  Nasal canulas. There you go peritoneal catheters, you name it, you know, typical catheters, urinary catheters, anything, because everything we use on humans has to be flexible. It has to be able to be malleable and stuff. So as it turns out, you and I are exposed to tons of this.Eric Rieger  Yeah, every single day, every single patientKen Brown  You more than me, Eric Rieger  Yea probably so.Ken Brown  And then we're sitting there doing this with a patient. So.Eric Rieger  Interesting. Ken Brown  Yeah. But you know, what, if everybody's listening, and they're just like, well, I don't work in the medical industry. Too bad as it turns out, packaged foods, those bags that are flexible, so it's not a stif little thing. packaged foods, it's in packaged foods, it's in mattresses. It's in cosmetics, personal care products, high concentrations in fatty meats, and even bread. Eric Rieger  Why is that? Ken Brown  It's just it gets concentrated in fatty environments. And so when they when they had the plastic bags around the bread, the bread soaks it up. Now we're eating it. Eric Rieger  Hmm. Ken Brown  So when we take in this DEHP, the only thing cool about it is that it gets converted into something that I'm going to start using as my stage name from now on, it gets converted into Di-n-octyl phthalate otherwise known as DNOP.Eric Rieger  DNOP.Ken Brown  DNOP now, DJ DNOP coming on.Eric Rieger  Here on the Gut Check Project here's your host DNOP.Ken Brown  Yeah. So why do you care about DNOP? DNOP coming on! Well, as it turns out, look at what this little molecule actually does to our bodies.Eric Rieger  Uh oh.Ken Brown  Uh oh is right. I mean, when I was when I was reading this, I'm just like, What in the world? We are, and this is a worldwide thing. This is not US. This is not race dependent. This is not anything. Now. I'm going to spend little time here and I'm just gonna tell you what, well, I'm scared for you because you're around IV catheters, you do this all the time.  Eric Rieger  A lot yeah.Ken Brown  Yea. All right, DHEP. It's best known as an endocrine disrupter. What's the name of the mindshare? Jolene? Eric Rieger  Oh Jolene Brighton? Ken Brown  Yeah. And then yeah, so anyway, so that yet, I'm sure that she's probably going, duh, we know about this. This is one of those things where you're just like, I guess the bandwidth is only so big, but we can get. I bet you a lot of functional medicine doctors are just like going, Oh, my gosh, we've been talking about this forever. So all right. It's an endocrine disrupter, what that means is it will alter the function of the endocrine system exposure in utero. So this is what's really crazy. If you're pregnant, and you expose your fetus to this, it does tremendous things. One of the things that it's that it does is it actually decreases testosterone production and messes with the estrogen cycle. In fact, they have studies that have shown that exposure in utero leads to lifelong testosterone issues. They have taken adult rats, and they looked at them when they were exposed in utero. And they have shown that their testosterone is markedly lower, just from one exposure in utero, for their whole life. Eric Rieger  I wonder if it blunts like teste development and that's probably why interesting.Eric Rieger  Interesting. Ken Brown  They have all kinds of different reasons why like this, these articles are super sciencey. And they get into the molecular mechanism of it all. And I'll get into a little bit more about this, but I'm going to show you this thing is going to blow your mind because what they did is they they looked at this and they showed persistent low testosterone in adult rats studies. Now rats fed a diet with DEHP also have serious lifelong thyroid issues. So the theory on this is it's an epigenetic phenomenon. So in other words, if you expose a fetus in utero to DEHP, which is everywhere, then it can turn on an epigenetic phenomenon, meaning that there are certain genes that get turned on. And then that becomes the new norm. That's how come they proved that you can sit there and have low testosterone for the rest of your life. That's how come you can end up with thyroid issues when you become older, because that transcription of the genes has been turned on. Ken Brown  You need to that's the epigenetic phenomena. Epigenetics means that you have genes you're predisposed but then if you have an environmental factor that comes in, then that actually turns that gene on. Well, as it turns out, DHEP does this to people significantly in utero. So they looked at elderly people and it suggests that insulin resistance is actually due to DEHP or DEHP sorry, so insulin resistance so diabetes. Chinese studies have looked at children and their BMI goes way up when they have higher levels of this metabolite in their urine. There's all kinds of studies on this where it's like, oh my gosh, you mean the incidence of diabetes incidence of thyroid, the incidence of hormonal issues is going up? So that's one example, endocrine disrupter. So I thought about this when I read this. I thought about you when I read this. Eric Rieger  Okay. Ken Brown  What you think would happen if I give homage to do you remember the article we did about liver failure?Eric Rieger  I do remember gavaging CBD Yes,Ken Brown  Go back to our episode 26, go to Episode 26. And we talked about garaging which means that you're going to stick a tube down a mouse and put in copious amounts of... Eric Rieger  The title was CBD causes liver failure,Ken Brown  So they gavaged some poor rats. And can you guess what happened to them?Eric Rieger  With that?Ken Brown  Yeah, with with basically DEHP. DEHP I'm I'm just going to call it DEHP from now on. Eric Rieger  Well, I think that if you're going to gavage DEHP and since nothing is sounded like it with the favorable I would imagine they exploded that they turned into robots, but maybe not as bad. Ken Brown  No, it's worse. Eric Rieger  Oh, okay.Ken Brown  It's worse. What it did. Cause testicular atrophy just shrunk their testicles. Eric Rieger  Wow.Ken Brown  Basically made them not men. So I was. I mean, you and I've talked about this, but if you ever end up in a situation where your testicles are too big.Eric Rieger  Oh yeah. Ken Brown  And I find you chewing on some IV tubing, I'll know why. Eric Rieger  You'll know why Yeah. Ken Brown  I'll know why. Because you're trying to control the size. Eric Rieger  You don't want them too big. It's craziness. Ken Brown  You just sit there nawing on some IV tubes.Eric Rieger  Yeah, yeah, it's gonna get some some space in the pants.Ken Brown  I mean, think about that you they can actually show that it causes such a disruption in the testosterone pathway and the hormonal access pathway that you will actually end up with testicular atrophy. You will not have testicles.Eric Rieger  What's interesting is I'm curious how, how prevalent is it beyond the those of us in the healthcare environment for people to be exposed to DEHP Ken Brown  So glad that you asked that. We're going to go through and now we're going to talk about so so far I've kind of focused on the thing that that concern me Sure. testosterone and you know, the Eric Rieger  Work environment? Ken Brown  Yeah, work environment. But it also looks like it. It does all kinds of stuff. It'll mess with ovaries. This is really interesting. It seems to increase endometriosis.Eric Rieger  Oh, wow. Ken Brown  Yeah.Eric Rieger  That's terrible.Ken Brown  So I see a lot of patients that have a ton of pain. And they did a study where they looked at Indian women and that had endometriosis. And they checked their DEHP metabolites significantly higher than their non endometriosis counterparts. Eric Rieger  Goodness gracious. Ken Brown  Yeah. And it appears that the reason why that happens is due to our old friend oxidative stress.Eric Rieger  Wow,Ken Brown  Just park that one and let's Let's come back to that for a moment. Eric Rieger  Okay. Ken Brown  So it's due to oxidative oxidative stress. Oh, this is this is really fun. This is neat. So as it turns out, it's nephrotoxic.Eric Rieger  None of this sounds good. Ken Brown  It's Nephrotoxic. Eric Rieger  That's bad for your kidneys.Ken Brown  Holy cow. Now they decided to look at dialysis patients. Guess who gets exposed to all Kinds of medical tubing? Eric Rieger  I mean, they're getting they're getting new tubing every time they go in.Eric Rieger  Every single time and most dialysis patients are three times a week for four plus hours each visit.Ken Brown  How did I not hear this? They've looked at this. dialysis patients have some of the highest DEHP levels metabolites. Ken Brown  Think of that dialysis setup and all of the tubings that go into the cartridge. Remember the cartridge that goes on there with the new membrane, all of the flexible tubing that's on there. Ken Brown  It's crazy my dad did peritoneal dialysis and I mean my gosh, it's it's tubing that's in there. You're bathing yourself in this And I'm just telling you that it can already mess with your endocrine system, it can already be nephrotoxic. So if you had any chance of recovering your kidneys, then you're just you're stacking the deck against yourself. Eric Rieger  Okay? And maybe we'll get to solution here in a moment. But at the moment, I'm curious, what are the alternatives outside of what we're doing now, I guess.Ken Brown  We will get there. Okay. And that's something that we're going to do. We're going to develop the KBMD bubble to be like the bubble boy. Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna launch that. We're not gonna do that. We're gonna we're gonna get into all those. All right, but let me if you're not already scared enough. Yeah. And you're just going, Okay, well, you know what? Screw that. I don't really care about my testosterone. I don't care about endometriosis. I'm not on dialysis. Not a big deal. Well, there's one thing that we all have. There's one thing that you and I talk about all the time, the gut brain access. Yeah. So as it turns out, we all have a gut brain. Yep, your brain takes a hit Also. Eric Rieger  I'm sure. Ken Brown  Your brain takes a hit also, essentially If it's exposed now I'm going to keep saying the same thing over and over. The younger you are when you're exposed, the more damage it does. And I'm going to get to this because spoiler alert autism. We're going to get to that a little bit. But so your brain takes a hit. Also, it can disrupt the normal fetal brain development, it appears to mess with the hippocampus. So the hippocampus is the area of the brain that's super important for memory and spatial recognition. Very important. And it's, it's for the spatial navigation. So if you can get through the fetal exposure of it, then throughout your life, the more exposure you have to it, so in other words, the more flexible plastics you're exposed to it does something really interesting. It decreases your BDNF. Eric Rieger  Oh, no. Ken Brown  Yes. Do you remember what BDNF is? Eric Rieger  The brain...goodness gracious I don't remember exactly what it stands for but it's exactly but that's exactly what we talked about for brain plasticity. Ken Brown  Correct. Eric Rieger  Yeah. Ken Brown  Its brain derived neurotrophic factor. That's right. Eric Rieger  Sorry about that. Ken Brown  No, it's but you and I have we've always talked about this because remember when we heard David Perlmutter give a talk at Helio Fx?Eric Rieger  That's exactly who I was thinking about.Ken Brown  He was talking about how coffee fruit had a very small study where it showed it increased BDNF. Well, as it turns out, BDNF can be increased by a lot of different polyphenols. BDNF is the protein in your brain that allows new neural connections. Eric Rieger  Yeah, all the DEHP I've been exposed to made me forget what BDNF actually stood for.Ken Brown  And we also believe that one of the reasons why there's a lot of dementia is because we lose our BDNF and we do not grow new cells, right. So as it turns out, BDNF decreases. Oh, it appears that it decreases because of reactive oxygen species developing in the brain leading to oxidative stress.Eric Rieger  So it sounds to me like what DEHP is if I'm connecting the dots here is going to be catalysts for oxidative stress. And so what we're going to need to do is if we can't eliminate DEHP from our environment, what can we do to mitigate the oxidative stress? Correct? Ken Brown  Correct. We're going to get to that. All right. Yeah, you're you. You've already you've already made the links. So if you're, if you're still listening, and you want to learn how to do that, what Eric just described is exactly what I want to tell you how we're going to do that. We talked about depression and anxiety. They looked at a study, I mean, I just cannot believe how much data is on this stuff. They looked at a study at pubertal females they did some mouse models and then they correlated it with some human studies as it turns out, the more DEHP DEHP that you're exposed to you have more anxiety and depression.Eric Rieger  Golly Man, what a it's a large manifest of a bunch of different things. And I don't know that you can escape flexible plastics. We just you just said if PVC were flexible, then maybe would have it actually was reminded, as I thought about that in our last home. When we, when they ran the cold and hot when we built the home, they ran flexible tubing on off of a big spool blue for cold and red for hot because they don't run pipe through foundations the same way anymore. No down here in Texas. Ken Brown  oh, because it shifts.Eric Rieger  Yeah, it can shift Ken Brown  it can bust yeah Eric Rieger  So many times they run it overhead through, you know, the whatever they call it the attic or whatever. But essentially, that's flexible plastic. And if you're drinking water from home, it's going to I would imagine it's leaching in there, correct? That's how it's happening.Ken Brown  Well, once again, the CDC looked at people and almost everybody has the metabolites in the urine. It is and it's not it's worldwide. Um, alright, so we'll finish up with I mean, clearly it's already scary, right. So... Eric Rieger  Yeah, definitely. Ken Brown  There's also the article goes on to a molecular reasons why how it messes with the liver and it messes with the heart. And, oh, it's linked to autism. The autism and they Kind of briefly talked about it in this article and fortunately, our graduate student knew that I'd be more interested. So she sent me a follow up article recently published even, I mean, these things are all being published like a week ago, like we get them in, like pre transcript. She's amazing. And so she sent me another article that actually talked about this specific thing. But now it's right in our wheelhouse, right in our wheelhouse. So don't be scared. Because now we know that we have this ubiquitous plasticizer that clearly is very toxic. We know it's toxic, we know what's there. And it's used in healthcare all over the place.Eric Rieger  Everywhere. Ken Brown  So right now there is a movement currently going to try and get rid of this, we know that it's bad. So over the past 10 years, people have been trying to do this, but since it's everywhere, it's gonna take some time to get out of there. And it's sad because as you know, sometimes medicine is not the fastest to change for some of this stuff, because of contracts and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So we're always trying to find so right now there is this movement to try and use PVC free alternative polymers like polyethylene. So there's hope we're moving away from it. So when you said, Well, what, what can we do, but while we're here, I'm going to try and help you out with this. So I wanted to dig deeper in this because we know that autism is such a hot topic. If you're a parent with a child with the autism spectrum disorder, ASD, then you'll do anything to try and try and help...Eric Rieger  It's your kid.Ken Brown  It happens to be a passion of mine, or at least a passion in the sense that my aha moments of seeing some of my autistic patients improve mentally when we went when we fixed our gut. Yeah, I mean, I see it and so I'm very passionate about this. Here's what's really neat, this article. I mean, I just, it's almost like some of these. It's, it's like, I want to go and hug some of these scientists. So the whole article goes into how DEHP predisposes and leads to autism spectrum disorder related to drumroll. The microbiome.Eric Rieger  Microbiome! Ken Brown  Yea.Eric Rieger  Nice! Ken Brown  So we've we've these articles hit on everything that I love to talk about.Eric Rieger  So heal or protect yourself and the damage DEHP by taking care of your gut.Ken Brown  So this is so cool. So studies have shown that exposure in utero, in utero to toxic chemicals can lead to dysbiosis in the fetus. Dysbiosis by definition is basically a change in the microbiome, but not for the better. So you can have too much of one thing not enough of another, you don't have enough diversity. dysbiosis by definition just means it's not right. your microbiome your microbiome is super important. In fact, a recent study showed that children with autism spectrum disorder had higher concentrations of DEHP DEHP, but more importantly, they also looked at fecal samples of these kids with autism, and they had higher levels of a metabolite called P kressel.Eric Rieger  P Kressel? Ken Brown  This is how dialed in, we're getting into this. Now. Now we're talking about something that they looked at these autistic kids. And they said you have more of this plasticizer in your body. In addition to that, we're going to look at your microbial content, you've got dysbiosis, and you've got this one metabolite called p kressel. So as it turns out, when you have this dysbiosis, the bacterial composition can either be harmful or beneficial. So these scientists show that the link between bacterial metabolites and neuro developmental disorders are taking place. So they actually then use that knowledge, took it to mice, gave them DEHP, and then analyzed their microbiome. So the whole shift went from, oh, it does all this end organ damage. So I just told you that if you gavage yourself, you're gonna end up with testicular atrophy, I just told you, you're gonna have endocrine disruption, you're going to end up with liver problems, heart problems. Now these guys are looking at it going well, wait a minute, we're exposed to this all the time. Why do some people get it? Why do some people don't?Eric Rieger  Yeah, they're controlling their inflammatory.Ken Brown  They're controlling their inflammatory process. Super cool. And so what they did is the most important thing, when they looked at these mice is that the older mice with a more diverse microbiome were completely protected from the effects of DEHP. Eric Rieger  Interesting. Ken Brown  The most important factor was that and they showed that there has been studies in autism spectrum disorder, where an overabundance of a Clostridium species was linked to autism. So possibly by not having the age protection where you developed a diverse microbiome your entire life, and not having a full microbial diversity to do the post biotic metabolism, of these in virus mental toxins. That may be why when we expose children to certain things that could turn on the epigenetic phenomenon, or more importantly, these bacteria are now producing this P kressel. Which then shows that they're being exposed to DEHP, which could lead to autism spectrum disorder. Eric Rieger  Wow. Ken Brown  It's the first time I've come across an article like that. I'm like, holy cow, how in the world that I just read this article on plasticizers. And she found this incredible article linking the microbiome to this. I mean, I mean, this is, I mean, it's really hard to not geek out on this. We know that the bacteria your microbiome, actually does an incredible job of breaking down toxic metabolites of all kinds of things, including DEHP. Now we call these toxic metabolites and we call these different things. xeno biotics, that's spelled with an x xeno biotics are molecules that get through your body and then your own microbial background, your mind microbiome breaks them down. And if you have an appropriate microbiome, then you can, your body can be exposed to some stuff and handle it, right. But when we start exposing kids in utero, you're stacking the deck against them right off the bat. That's what's super scary. So one of the things is that you can show a dose dependent process where they even took these mice that were that were impervious to some of the effects of it. But at some point, the bacteria got overwhelmed. And then the DEHP cause dysbiosis and then they got sick. So once you took enough of it in, then you couldn't keep up with it. It's really I mean, it's, it's, it's dose dependent. So you can't just say, Oh, I'm gonna let my microbiome do everything. You still have to realize that at some point, you can overwhelm it. So just keep that in mind. So taking together DEHP can be neutralized in a mature diverse microbiome. So if p kressel is produced this has been linked to autism and they showed an overabundance of a particular Clostridium will actually convert and they even went so far as to show we've determined that the amino acid tyrosine will be converted  by p Kressall by this Clostridium species. Whoa! Thik stuff. I'm sorry, I threw all this at you, but I just got super geeked out when I was reading it, and I just found it fascinating. So just to summarize, flexible plastic like that straw that I tried to kill you with has a compound in it called DEhp. DEHP gets converted to D NOP! D NOP. And that hurts you. And what we do know is that most of the end organ damage happens because of oxidative stress. Eric Rieger  Wow. But you can control that. Ken Brown  We can control that. Yeah. How would you control it? Eric Rieger  Well, you you hit on a few things. You want to make certain that your microbiome is certainly well diverse.Ken Brown  One! Eric Rieger  You could do that with a reasonable diet, you can do that with making certain shift good exercise you could also do that by giving your body the appropriate level of polyphenols that it would help make that happen. Just so happens Atrantil I think, would be a great proanthocyanidin polyphenol to to assist in that. You also want to be able to handle the stress load. So handling the stress load the oxidative stress. Allowing your body to not be overstimulated from stress would be something that you could do to to do that. So polyphenols, by some level, handled that directly but not having your body overstressed to be something that you would want a healthy endocannabinoid system. And that way you could handle stress and oxidative stress wouldn't play into more of a cascading effect that turns into an inflammatory process for your organs and tissues. So starting with those three things diet polyphenol intake exercise and actually four CBD, I think would be a good start.Ken Brown  Yeah. You're exactly right. So while we're on it, one of the things I'm super proud of, is thatEric Rieger  Oh, look at that.Ken Brown  We have the KBMD health subscription box. We do. Let's unbox it. This is this month box just arrived Sarah Jean sent this to me. I actually subscribe to my own box. And now you're gonna fairlight I'm gonna let you just pick the ingredients out here. This is the box. Your health has arrived. We'll start out with our main products here. So basically, the box comes like this. My kids w

Eric Rieger  All right, you have now joined the gut check project. This is episode number 27. I'm here with your host, Dr. Kenneth Brown. I'm Eric Rieger. It's 2020.Ken Brown  We're in a new decade. This is unbelievable.Eric Rieger  So that's interesting. Some people will say that the decade does not begin on years that end in zero, because when the calendar started, there was no Year Zero. It was let's have a year this is year one. So lots of people end up saying technically a decade doesn't start to the ones but nobody talks that way. When you say the roaring 20s it started 1920. So I'm on board with you. I think this is the beginning of a new decade.Ken Brown  How did you...I mean, how could you say when you were born when it was BC, were you like I'm minus 20?Eric Rieger  Yep, that's pretty much what they did. Ken Brown  Is that what they did? Yeah, they'd just walk up...Eric Rieger  In 745 years they will begin to count. I think that's how it went down.Ken Brown  Is that how the whole the whole calendar went down? Like All right, everybody, we're starting over. Eric Rieger  Yeah, y'all are gonna love this. There's gonna be a Messiah. We're gonna start counting it's gonna be great. Ken Brown  I love it. Eric Rieger  Well, today's episode of course is brought to you by Atrantil developed by the guy right across the table from me Atrantil is a daily source of polyphenols to address issues of symptoms related to IBS, as well as definitely bloating. Ken Brown  You know what I'm really getting into also is all the new information coming out with polyphenols in sports performance. Talking about how polyphenols actually can improve blood flow by increasing nitric oxide. I can't wait till we can start working with some endurance athletes and start testing them to see if we can get some new prs and some of these people.Eric Rieger  Hundred percent! Ken Brown  If you're running some marathons. If you think about it, if you're an endurance athlete, like a triathlete or something, you know, I got my good friend Ron Tribendis who has his own podcast also tremendous chiropractor and he's like high level performance and all that he actually sells Atrantil. But we were talking about that, that, you know, he gets so many of his clients that he trains and that are his patients that when they start training for these triathlons and marathons and they're taking in all that goo and the high fructose stuff to try and or not even just the fructose based sugars to try and gain fuel from it. That's when they start having gi distress. I feel like we can help all those people.Eric Rieger  Definitely it's interesting that you bring that up right off the bat because at CPSDA and the reason why this is important is Atrantil is chock full of polyphenols. That's where the magic is. So that's why discussing Atrantil leads us to talking about athletes and when I was at CPSDA about a year and a half ago. Joe VotelKen Brown  The PhDEric Rieger  The PhD from Exeter University over in Europe. She came over and they've done extensive research on multiple different research opportunities where they've shown that daily polyphenol intake and athletes will decrease recovery time, increase blood flow, just as you pointed out, increase nitric oxide production. These are things that serious athletes love to know. And it's, it's natural. Even more importantly, though, you can always say, get rest, or eat polyphenols or have some fruits. But ultimately, when someone wants to do it, it's how much? And she was able to show that pre no, I'm sorry, proanthocyanidins, at 1000 milligrams per day was an optimal dose for active athletes. So anyhow...Ken Brown  If you want it to get that, I mean, what would I have to eat? If it was like cherries or something. Eric Rieger  If you wanted to have that. This was her example. It's awesome. She showed that you would probably have to have four to five bowls of cherries or blueberries. Good fruits. Unfortunately, there's a lot of high fructose or not high fructose. There's a lot of fructose that's in there. And serious athletes oftentimes don't want to over load their daily sugar even if it happens to occur naturally now-separate debate. But she she quickly pointed out that if you could consume proanthocyanidins that did not have high fructose content, you'd have something magical and just so happens that Atrantil four capsules roughly equals 1000 milligrams of proanthocyanidins...Ken Brown  I've actually had a lot of patients tell me that they do better. Oh, one thing we're going to start doing in 2020, and we're going to go back. Let's just do a little disclaimer here. Although I am a real doctor. Eric Rieger  Yeah. Ken Brown  Do not take this as medical advice for that weird rash or that unusual, extra toe growing out or something. Go see a doctor, don't listen to us. We're here to have fun, possibly educate a little bit but more importantly, help everyone to discover some new things because that's what we want to do. We want to find new things in the literature, new things that are coming out and make sure that everyone can biohack in the way that we have tested on ourselves. SoEric Rieger  Definitely. So find Atrantil at antrantil.com or lovemytummy.com is much easier to remember, forward slash kbmd Atrantil lovemytummy.com/kbmd. Not just for bloating, it's also for athletes. It's really for everyone.Ken Brown  It really is. And so that's how I mean it's...this is fun. In fact, this brings me up to something so I just shot a video for this. We have a new website that has launchedEric Rieger  finally,Ken Brown  Finally! So go to kbmdhealth.com. Check it out, give us your feedback. There's going to be a video there where I kind of get into the things that I like the things that I like our biohacking CBD, I'll try and deal with polyphenols and making sure that you can have access to some of the best vetted supplements meaning a lot of the stuff that people are buying may not actually benefit you or may have something dangerous in it. In fact, there was um, I need to find out what she had. But there was a news article here in the DFW Metroplex, a very unfortunate 23 year old, who was taking some woman's multi weight management. They didn't say the name of the product or what was in it. Eric Rieger  Sure. Ken Brown  But unfortunately, they believe that that actually caused daily drug induced liver injury. So that's one of the things when I've had patients come in, and you find out that they're on a supplement, but that supplement is not third party tested or that supplement is coming in from someplace else. Anything can happen to anybody. I understand that you can have a bad reaction, you can have an allergic reaction to something but make sure that you're at least if you're going out trying some different things to make sure it's third party tested, which is why we have the kbmd health subscription box. Eric Rieger  Yeah, we, definitely you can find that health subscription box prominently located on the right side of the new kbmchealth.com. Ken Brown  I think it looks so nice. You did an excellent job. Eric Rieger  I did not do that. That was was the help of Stephen and people that understand how to build websites. So our bad website that we had before was me. And we moved over to a real one. Ken Brown  Which is an awesome website for CRNA.Eric Rieger  Yeah, that's exactly right. So if you want me to build a home, and you want to say I got a home built by a CRNA, and it may or may not have a door that closes, you should totally ask me to do it. But otherwise, no, Stephen and Drew and Mark did a great job I think putting together a pretty cool, easy to understand website. And just so that everyone knows there are new pieces going to be added as time goes along. We have a large repository of CBD information that's going to be added to the website. We've got ways for people to access videos where they can get educated on on things that may not have anything to do specifically with polyphenols or CBD we there's a lot of things they're going to add to the site. They'll be easy to find. Ken Brown  This is so exciting because we've done so much background work of trying to set the store up trying to do different things now we can start to really interact with everybody. We want this to be a community. One of the things that can lead to disease is the feeling of loneliness. So if you're feeling lonely might as well join this community, hit us up, say, Hey, I read this article on this, can you look into it? And that's kind of what I want this podcast to grow into where we can sort of play. We can vet stuff, we can get new stuff out there, we can get people communicating. Look at all our patients that show up and they're like hey I watch your show. I would like to come on and talk about this like, yeah,Eric Rieger  Yeah, happens happens more often than I would have expected, especially as early as we've been doing this.Ken Brown  Oh, you wanna know. Another way we're going to get a lot more people here...our friend Dan Clark. brain.fm. Yes. So we we have this we have been fortunate enough to meet this incredibly intelligent CEO named Dan Clark, who was named I think 30 under 30 in Forbes. Yeah, well, they have a app that when you put headphones on, does something called neural phase locking neural phase locking, which some people confuse it with binaural beats like I did, but what it does It stimulates various areas of your brain so you can calm down or wake up. I actually when I actually use it to go to sleep, and I use it to wake up, and that's when you and I were talking, and we're going to start out seeing if this can help calm down my patients before colonoscopy, and help them wake up quicker. So if you're listening to this, and you need a colonoscopy, you can be part of something really cool. No, it's it's just headphones and music. So it's not dangerous, it's going to be really cool. And we're going to get some really neat data out of this. When we tried it on our first eight patients they all loved it. Eric Rieger  They all loved it. There was it wasn't just an absence of complaints. It was really just robust compliments and thanks so much for letting me be a part of it. Ken Brown  Can you imagine if you're sitting in the waiting room of a of a dentist's office or something that you really don't like or your gynecologist or whatever it is, I'm using doctors but this could be the IRS or whatever, putting some headphones on and taking yourself down and calming from the brain which will then tell the cortisol to decrease and everything will calm down. It will be all good. That's it. That's a whole new level of science, which I'm super excited about. Because there's really no side effects. It's music. Eric Rieger  It's just music. And it's actually really, really cool. Ken Brown  Based on science. Music based on science with functional MRIs and everything. They've got some studies where they showed a the relaxation scores of people that have listened to the most "relaxing" music are having the most relaxing and then the control was Coldplay, which I thought was really funny in their study, and then they had them listen to brain.fm and unequivocably all the people that had brain FM felt much more relaxed. So there is some really cool science to this. Now we're just going to add some objective data. And maybe we'll be able to get some patients that absolutely love it. This is this could be the future of what we're going to do. You use less medicines. My patients are happier and it's a win win win for everybody.Eric Rieger  Anything that we can do to make the experience of going in for an elective procedure or any really any stressful situation, but if we know that we can help people feel better, why not try it and it's just sound so we know we're not causing pain or harm.Ken Brown  So I'm going to like I'm trying to get my kids with this where if they are getting ready to like so my kids play tennis, which is where the family is right now they're in Florida winter nationals. In fact, Lucas i think is in the throes of a match right now he's still in it. They've been there since last Thursday. Eric Rieger  Right on. Ken Brown  Yeah, they've been there for four weeks. So the you know, you go home when you lose and he did he's out of the main draw. He'd lost in a really tough third set battle but mentally came back and has won three more matches which is which I think is the coolest thing when you lose to not just let your give up right there but and so he uses he actually uses my account at brainfm. Don't tell Dan that we're sharing an account. He uses my account for whenever he studies and so he likes it so yeah, I think that that's it I think it's super exciting. So what's going on? Oh, how were your holidays? Eric Rieger  Holidays were great. We had we had family in town for for Christmas to come visit we cooked steaks we chilled out we I mean we saw everyone we saw everyone on my side of the family, on Marie's side of the family it was it was a lot of fun. The boys the last obviously just like Lucas and Carla, they had basketball tournaments. Mac had a great tournament for the junior varsity. They really played up for the JV. They played bigger schools, they ended up closing out their last game they won by 30. Ken Brown  Won by 30?Eric Rieger  Yea. So they were really happy with being able to close up the tournament with that. Mac and his whole team. I mean, they're really preparing to next year they'll all be on varsity. So he he and his brother get along great. He just wants to be able to contribute just like his older brother did, who actually competed in one of the nation's longest I think the top four or top five longest running high school basketball tournaments and that's the Whataburger tournament and Gage's Decatur Eagles, second year in a row, won the whole tournament. And Gage was named all tournament. Ken Brown  Woo, woo. Go Gage!Eric Rieger  Yea. He played. He played really well. Super proud of both of the boys. It's I mean, it's just It's fortunate to have to have these opportunities with your kids. I wasn't an athlete like that. So it's just so much fun to watch them work so hard and achieve and they do it as a team for them.Ken Brown  You're not concerned that gage is going to try to be like Al Bundy sitting on a couch talking about his 2019 glory year of basketball when he's like 45. Eric Rieger  We talked about it every night. To make sure he doesn't do it. Ken Brown  Don't be Al Bundy. Eric Rieger  Yeah, we use the brain FM anti Bundy music track.Ken Brown  Yea, we have to make sure that he continues to succeed in other areas. He committed to Texas Tech so that's a good start. Eric Rieger  Yeah, he's gonna play there...intramural, but he'll play there. Ken Brown  There we go. Eric Rieger  There we go. Well, let's let's get into it. SoKen Brown  Yeah, well, I got one other thing that's super cool over the holidays. Oh, by the way, I'm one and a half days into my five day fast. I'm starting the year with a fast. Eric Rieger  Nice. Good for you. Ken Brown  Yeah, so we're that's where I'm at to get my get my water tea broth kind of thing. Just going to try and do that to liquid fast. So we'll see how that goes. Speaking of fasting, got a really cool contact. Do you remember Melanie Avalon podcasts intermittent fasting podcastEric Rieger  I definitely remember MelanieKen Brown  Super cool person very smart you know crushes it on the on the whole podcast scene. Well, she contacted me and she has a new app out. Oh no. Yeah, really cool an app called the food sense guide. I need a favor from you. Eric Rieger  Okay. Ken Brown  It's a searchable comprehensive guide to over 300 plus foods for general levels of different things like the amines, fodmaps glutamates, gluten, histamine, lectins, oxalates, salicylates, sulfites, and so on. If you don't know what any of those are, it's because you're very fortunate, and you don't have to worry about what you eat. But that world is my patients. They come in and we talk about diet. So now this is gonna be really cool. I'll be able to help Melanie out, put my patients on it. Unfortunately, it's not on Android yet. And I got a Google Pixel. So I'm going to have you download it and then we're going to play with it and then we're going to post a review for her. And if anybody else wants to download that, it's the what did I say it was it's the food sense guide on the iTunes it's for iPhones only now. So take a look at it if you've got food sensitivity or anything like that, or your doctor said, try fodmap or you just want to try some different things. It's a great start.Eric Rieger  Food sense guide. Sense?Ken Brown  Yeah, food sense guide.Eric Rieger  Food sense guide. Yeah, download that from Melanie. She runs a great podcast, actually two different podcasts. And she does an awesome job of keeping her audience up to date with the latest information. So I'd feel completely comfortable in going ahead and recommending it as we try it.Ken Brown  Absolutely. And we'll get to we'll eventually get a code for everybody that maybe we can get a code so that they can get a little discount or something. Who knows. Let's start the new year out. I want to ask you a question. Eric Rieger  I'm ready. Ken Brown  I want you to be honest. Eric Rieger  Okay. Ken Brown  Do you use your phone when you're in the bathroom? Much like our mascot here? Gutsy. Do you use your phone like him when you're in the bathroom? Eric Rieger  As much as I want to say no, that's not true.Ken Brown  Well, as it turns out, you are not alone. Eric Rieger  I didn't think it was. Ken Brown  Different studies have shown that up to 75% of Americans do this. So, next time you're scrolling through on your Instagram, and you see that sexy Instagram model picture, there's a good chance she's sitting on the toilet while doing that, while she's posting. Think about that for a moment. Eric Rieger  That's where the work that's where the work is done. Ken Brown  That's where that's what they're saying is that many a lot of the Instagram posts and everything are probably done when people have a little alone time when they've they've taken their photo shoots and then it's time to upload it. Eric Rieger  It's funny, they say probably with a with the GPS stuff that you give up just by using those apps, they probably know that that's where you Ken Brown  Well, they certainly know for sure. On 20% of the people to do it because 20% of Americans have admitted to dropping their phone in the toilet. Eric Rieger  Oh, and I've not done that. Ken Brown  20%Eric Rieger  Yeah, I'm in the other four out of five. I have not done that. And I don't know that I would reach in to grab it. That just may be it.Ken Brown  I think that's why I think that's why the new iPhone is bragging so much about being waterproof. That's what that's what the commercial should be. It should be an Instagram model that drops it in the toilet. She's like, eh, grabs it and pulls it up, keeps going.Eric Rieger  Now I don't think it should be that they may make one like that.Ken Brown  Now, wait a minute. As a gastroenterologist, I encourage everyone, to when you sit on the toilet, I want you to snap, tweet, Facebook, Insta, play Words with Friends or whatever it is that people do buy Atrantil online through, you know, through the website, and you can do any of that. Because when you sit on that toilet for a long time, you're going to create hemorrhoids. I love hemorrhoids. I love treating hemorrhoids. So I encourage everyone to go ahead and do that. But almost everyone, almost, I'm not gonna encourage my employees to do it.Eric Rieger  No No you probably wouldn't, because that would run up a bill on the opposite end trying to care for it.Unknown Speaker  Well, it would also run up the It would also decrease the productivity.Eric Rieger  Yeah, probably soKen Brown  And leave it up to the Brits to figure this part out. Eric Rieger  What's that?Ken Brown  Well, this is all leading up to a study, I was actually going somewhere with all this. I know you're looking at me like why are you focusing on the phone in the toilet so much? Eric Rieger  Well, I mean, I was but I was I was genuinely interested.Ken Brown  So let me ask you, in the UK, it's estimated that the lack of productivity due to extended toilet breaks, is costing the United Kingdom $7.5 billion dollars a year. Eric Rieger  7.5 billion? Ken Brown  Yeah. So you're the chancellor, Emperor of England. Is that Emperor now? or What is it? It's a...Eric Rieger  Guardian? Ken Brown  Guardian?Eric Rieger  Yeah.Ken Brown   Okay. Eric Rieger  Something like that.Ken Brown  That's beacuase I'm wearing my guardians of the galaxy shirt. Eric Rieger  That's exactly where I got that from.Ken Brown  All right. I want to know, Eric Rieger. What would you do if you were president of united states and you say, we can We can improve our our overall bottom line by getting people to get off their phones while they're in the bathroom. Eric Rieger  What would I do about it? Oh my goodness I if I honestly I just don't even have a smart alec answer. Scramblers? Not really sure.Ken Brown  Well, I was thinking about that also cuz I'm like, where's where's this article going? Where they're talking about people $7.5 billion being lost like every time you know, you go to the bathroom, you just go to Cha-Ching. Ken Brown  Seems like a lot seems like overkill and it seems like thers... So as it turns out, there was a who is now CEO of a company, a British designer was waiting to use the restroom at a truck stop while waiting for stalls to open up. And what he noticed is that all these guys were coming out holding their phones, and he was getting super annoyed because he had to use the bathroom and everything was taking a long time. Yeah. So it occurred to him that this is probably going on at work. So he designed a toilet that slants eight to 13 degrees down. Eric Rieger  It seems like a lot though.Eric Rieger  You know what I saw this. Ken Brown  You did? Eric Rieger  I saw the design, it looks like it was very uncomfortable to sit there for a very long time. is that right? Ken Brown  They purposely built a toilet so it's uncomfortable to sit in. Actually, what it does is and you can choose so if you're like, if you're a nice boss, you just do eight degrees, you do 13 degrees and what it does, it makes you kind of stand up so your quads burn. So you have all these now you can start seeing all kinds of Instagram models with giant quads and just big legs. It's gonna move from the Kardashian bottom to the to the Insta thighs that look like a good leg press. 1000 pounds, but so it's making them uncomfortable. What's your thoughts on that?Eric Rieger  Man, I don't know. It It's interesting, I don't think that you can. I think what we, where we are right now is we've just identified a in terms of the employer. A time waste is what they feel like. But I feel like that people have been finding ways to waste time since the dawn of time. I don't know that you're really gonna curve anything. In fact, I would say that there are probably some who's still trying to remain productive by answering email. I mean, I don't know what they're calculating. There's 7.5 billion on that of those who just can answer text or email. I'm just throwing that out there. Ken Brown  Oh, yeah. That wasn't taking into account maybe it's more productive for some people. Eric Rieger  Yeah. I mean, it probably really could be better. Ken Brown  But you're saying like since the dawn of time, what were those people that would send Telegraph's Do you think the guy would like take it into the bathroom and go?Eric Rieger  Yeah, you got an extension here. Little extension cord is one in there. Ken Brown  And it's been going on since the dawn of time. Eric Rieger  Beedle E Beat where ever he was to do that. Is that the correct word for it? From Western Union? Ken Brown  Yeah, exactly. It's the Western Union person I'm thinking. That's exactlyEric Rieger  I don't know. I mean, a slanted toilet though I mean, for those who don't waste time in the in the bathroom, it seems like a disservice to them to have to be on an uncomfortable toilet.Ken Brown  So it got me thinking a little bit. So I just found the article kind of funny. And I thought it'd be interesting to talk about here. But now let's science it up a little bit. So the reality is, what they're doing is they're actually, so there is something called the optimal angle of defication Eric Rieger  Wouldn't that be undoing that?  Ken Brown  It's undoing it. So it's going to be counterproductive. Yes, they might be off their phones, but they're not going to have an effective bowel movement. Eric Rieger  Sounds to me like they won't evacuate as well. Ken Brown  And it'll take them longer to evacuate leading... Ken Brown  Multiple trips, leading to more Hemorrhoids and things like that. So the whole concept of Oh, I'm just going to make this uncomfortable, is going to completely backfire. In fact, in 2011, I did a whole blog on this. If you go to Kenneth Brown, MD. com, I did a blog on the angle of defication. And what they did is some Japanese scientists, they took people and they well, it's unfortunate, but they took medical students, and they actually put radio paste in their bottoms, so they can watch them deficate. And then they had them do this multiple times with various angles. So they did it was like an engineering type thing. You can see the perfect angle. And the reason why we need a certain angle is that we have muscles down there, one of them called the puborectalis muscle. And when it doesn't completely relax, well, you can end up having a very ineffective bowel movement. So when I talk to my patients, I say, do you get the urge to go to the restroom? They say yes. When you go to the restroom, do you feel that you are fully evacuated? They're like, No, I have to strain a lot. Are they constipated? And by constipation meaning are you just not getting the urge but when you have the urge, you can't get it out. In my mind. That's not constipation. That is an evacuation issue that is pelvic floor. Dis synergy is what the actual medical term is. Wow. So there's little tricks to fix that. And it's the exact opposite of what this toilet is. The first trick is you actually get your knees above your hips. That's how squatty pottys making a living they're getting people to do that. Eric Rieger  Multiple trips. Eric Rieger  That'swhat they do. Ken Brown  And then if you lean slightly forward, what they figured out is you get that muscle to kind of come out of the way. One of the things is, I started really thinking about this the reason why I wrote the blogs because one of my patients said, Hey, whenever I go camping, I don't ever feel constipated. Why is that? I'm like, do you dig a hole in the ground? She goes, Yeah, yeah, cuz like, Okay, she goes camping a lot, she's like, and you dig a hole in the ground, you're squatting so we're one of the few countries well now England for sure. But we're one of the few countries Well, I just take it back. Western countries use toilets, but most of the countries that don't use aboveground toilets do not have hemorrhoid or constipation issues. Eric Rieger  No they're in optimal defication pose. Ken Brown  They're, an optimal defication pose so I just thought it was kind of interesting that somebody would go around and and purposely build a toilet. And I started thinking of all my patients that have like serious issues, Chrone's, colitis, irritable bowel, bacterial. It's it was described by a couple people on Twitter as a dystonia, dystonia era in the bathroom. Eric Rieger  Yeah. I mean, somebody's always gonna go a little too far. Yeah. I mean, so what were alternatives be, I've noticed that there are certain bathrooms that maybe only have like one or two stalls, and oftentimes because they aren't frequented, they'll have the motion detector. And I've heard stories that people saying that they they knew they were in there too long because the motion detector timed out and they were in there in the light went off. You know, so, I mean, I think there are other there are other ways that won't actually hamper your natural ability to use the bathroom, but maybe we'll get your attention that you've been there too long, whether it be lights off, you know, clicking off or maybe a bell with a lock on the stall doors been engaged for too long or who knows? Ken Brown  You know what? Something that might work. Also, did you see that YouTube video of Mark Rober with the exploding glitter bomb for the porch porch pirates?Eric Rieger  Oh yeah I did it the the parcel box it just basically shredded and sprayedKen Brown  And sprays glitter.Eric Rieger  Yeah. Ken Brown  For people that that actually steal it. It's I mean, he's gotten tons of notoriety. Yes, he's been on Jimmy Kimmel a bunch of other things, just little mini little things and have a timer that some people walked out they were glitter on their face. Ahh a little too long huh? It's the Mark Rober bathroom bathroom optimizer?Eric Rieger  Yeah. I mean, it seems. Again, it seems aggressive for somebody who may actually have a legitimate issue but I mean, you probably could be a little bit more inventive than creating a disadvantage for everyone that needs to use your your toilet. Ken Brown  Yeah, I thought that was kind of an interesting way to start a year. You show up to your job. And you're like has anyone seen those toilets yet?Eric Rieger  Well, when I saw that, I mean, I almost think it was a YouTube TV news story or something like that. Because when regardless, it doesn't matter. I saw over the holiday, but I thought it was a joke. So I didn't think it was real. I saw better I saw them showing the plane and then the the angle down of the toilet drawn there but I had no idea that was a serious solution proposed by somebody I thought it was other than being silly. Yeah, so it is pretty silly anywayKen Brown  Lead line them so you can't get Wi Fi or phone signal.Eric Rieger  Yeah I mean that that would probably be the quickest expediter and would filter the right people out right?Ken Brown  Oh, they'll die from lead poisoning eventually. That will filter them.Eric Rieger  Yeah, but I mean you would definitely filter the right people out because you wouldn't have you or at least have a scrambler because you could the people who are legitimately need to be in it for a long time are going to be there no matter what. And the people that were wanting to play on the phone couldn't access their phone.Ken Brown  Yeah, but in in all seriousness, it is. It is a really big deal in my field hemorrhoids rectal bleeding if you do this, go to YouTube and take a look at our rectal bleeding video so that you're not too concerned. And then we can if you're local, make an appointment to fix those hemorrhoidsEric Rieger  We got a cool e book coming out here pretty soon they'll be able to make public yeah That'll be not only will it have a couple of suggestions for solutions that you can participate in, but pretty soon it will have more than one option and I can't really talk about it today, but I'm excited about that.Ken Brown  Awesome. What else you got on your mind?Eric Rieger  I really don't. I mean, we're starting off a new year, new year for everyone and it's 2020 I think it's got a lot of cool plays on on words. It was pointed out to me earlier this morning that just as a quick PSA, if you're writing a check, or something that requires the date for you to have written in normally in the past, you may have written October 3 2019 is /19. You probably want to go ahead and write out the 2020. Okay, somebody else could miss date for whatever advantage that they may have. If you happen to run a 20 somebody else could follow in and put a one eight or 190 Yes, a trailer on there and possibly do something to a document just a little anectdotal has nothing to do it today. But then again, it does. So maybe just to protect yourself right out 2020 I don't know. I have no idea there's any legitimacy to that or not, but it's interesting.Ken Brown  So we that is Eric's public service announcement of the day. I wish I had one of those little shooting star things that you know Ken Brown  Yeah. The more you know.Eric Rieger  The more you know, Ken Brown  Eric's The more you know, segmentEric Rieger  Maybe Paul will give us a little wind chime or something right there.Ken Brown  You want to get nerdy for a moment? Eric Rieger  Let's do it. Ken Brown  Alright, so there's a there's been a lot going on in the news. A lot of stuff has been published. We haven't a chance to talk about. Something I came across that is a passion of mine, you know that one of my big things. I there are epidemics going on right now. And we know that autism is an epidemic,we know that autoimmune is increasing. Well, the other one that I'm you know, really want to fix because I feel like you spent a whole life loving, hurting, living seeing things collecting memories, and then dementia and Alzheimer's sets it. To me, that's one of the most horrific diseases that are going on. And it's exponentially increasing. And there's a lot of confusion as to or there's a lot of reasons as to why. But a recent study just came out of the University of Berkeley, it was in December 2019. It came on out of the Journal of science and translational medicine. What they did is they looked at essentially senile mice, and they're trying to figure out what made some of these mice and they were given them different markers to see if they could create neuro inflammation or brain inflammation. Well, as it turns out, even if they looked as the mice aged, almost all of them started having decreased cognition, especially fed on the typical human or Western diet. Yeah, the American diet. Eric Rieger  I think I know where we're going. Ken Brown  So very Interesting what they did is they talked about this in a very unique way. I've never heard of scientists going down this path. And this is University of Berkeley. This is you know, these are these are legit people that are finding something they had their aha moment that you and I've talked about a bunch. What they found is we used to think or the trend right now not we used to because the current trend is is that the aged brain ages in the same way that everything else does. You have neuro degeneration, you have less nerve cells, you've got decreased capacity to learn more and all these other things. There are some people that believe it's micro infarction, there are some people that believe that it's amyloid plaques, but either way, your nerve function is decreasing. So age involves loss of function and dead cells, generally speaking, which is how we age. But there's new data to tell a totally different story about why the aged brain is not functioning well. It is because of the fog of inflammatory load. Eric Rieger  Make sense. Ken Brown  And my we always talk about this patients that come in with irritable bowel bacterial overgrowth. They're like, Man, I'm not right, I'm in a brain fog. Now we realize that that brain fog could potentially be an inflammatory load in this mouse model, they're showing that. So when you remove that inflammatory fog, they call it the inflammatory fog. When you remove that inflammatory process within days, the brain starts acting like a young brain.Eric Rieger  That's impressive that they've been able to kind of morally morally more establish this connection because it wasn't that long ago that we were before we even started the podcast having a discussion that if you have a leaky gut, more or less, it's probably correlating with a leaky brain, right? So if you have permeability issues in your gut, chances are it's a systemic issue, and it's occurring, what they call the blood brain barrier, which protects your brainKen Brown  100% I think it is interesting you brought up morally because unlike the gavage study that we talked about a few weeks ago about the CBD, just gavaging tube down the mouse and just pouring buckets of it. These guys are actually waking or like helping these mice out there like, hey, look, you got a young brain now. So, more and more research is showing that with age, the filtration system, that's that blood brain barrier prevents molecules or infectious organisms from the blood leaking into the brain. This is the blood brain barrier, like I was saying, over time. In fact, they were showing that after the age of 70, it becomes more and more leaky, letting in chemicals that cause inflammation and a cascade, which ultimately creates this brain fog, which ultimately does lead to cell death. So after age 70, nearly 60% of adults have leaky brain barriers. I'll say that again. After age 70. Nearly 60% of adults have a leaky blood brain barrier and this is according to some really cool things. This is a MRI studies where they're looking at this, this is functional MRI studies. So it isn't just, you know, we can't really get in there and biopsy the brain and do these different things. So the inflammatory fog induced by leaky blood brain barrier alters the mouse's normal rhythms. And in these mice, this is fascinating. And I'll say it again, because my patients come in and they're like, I'm not right. I just feel like I'm just not firing on all cylinders. They showed in these mice, the very first signs of this are micro seizure like events, little tiny little seizures. It's not a total, it's not a total seizure, where your body does just in these little areas, like momentary lapses in the normal rhythm within the hippocampus. Eric Rieger  Interesting. Ken Brown  Alright, so now think about this. We talked early on about the neural phase programming, or neural phase locking. So the brain is an electrical impulse, everything comes down to this. This study shows that when you have leaky brain caused most likely by leaky gut, that you're going to have an electrical impedance problem, which they're detecting through eeg, or different processes as micro seizures. So everything comes down to electricity in the brain. So it's it's really interesting that I wonder if the science and neural phase locking could get to the point where you could counteract some of the seizures that are going on. That's a whole separate discussion, but it just gets you thinking. It's like hmm.Eric Rieger  It does get you thinking, but it also makes me wonder, a couple of different questions. One would, how would a lay person be able to identify they had a micro seizure? Two would be how do I control inflammation because it sounds to me like concentrated inflammation is putting me a risk of developing these issues are being a part of the 70% over 70 having these problems, right. And then three, the people that don't or the mice that didn't show that they had these breakdowns in their blood brain barrier were they without significant inflammation universally. So were they comparing these two and showing that we had people or mice that didn't have inflammation and they didn't exhibit these problems, see what I'm saying? Ken Brown  Oh, yeah. Eric Rieger  So or and then I guess the fourth would be would that number be as high in a country that didn't consume a traditional Western diet every day? And maybe had more polyphenols or Mediterranean style diet?Ken Brown  Very interesting fact. I will just look at this not to get off topic. I'm going to finish this. Yeah. And then we're going to talk about that because I watched a Netflix thing and I want to just briefly hit on because i'm really confused. Eric Rieger  Was it the office? No? Okay.Ken Brown  When you have this these little micro seizures, what they found in this mice is it produced some of the same symptoms seen in diseases like Alzheimer's and they were able to show with EEG's, really sensitive EEG's. That's what neurologists will put the, all those little wires attached to a head. And they can see if somebody's seizing, they could see this and really tiny little levels, they revealed very similar wave disruption, or they were showing a paroxysmal slow wave event. Literally, the inflammation was slowing your brainwaves down. Yeah, all my patients that go, I'm just not on, something's off. Their brain is being slowed. It's like trying to go through molasses as it's trying to conduct a current. So in a normal human with epilepsy with cognitive dysfunction, they can actually show that there's mild cognitive impairment. So even if you're not having the seizures, they can actually show that you could probably function at a higher level if you can get that fixed. So what's really cool about this paper is you were saying how do I know that this is happening? Right? This is the first time ever these The reason why I think this is a seminal article is because the papers give Doctors, two biomarkers. These two biomarkers are leaky barriers detectable by MRI and abnormal brain rhythm detectable by eeg, what they've been able to show is even in humans, young brain, old brain, they can show the leakiness of it or the permeability. And then they can show where that's happening, that there's increased micro seizure activity going on. really fascinating because what this allows it to do is it is a tool to say, Oh, I mean, that would be awesome. If I could, my patients were to come in, and I'm like, Look, we're trying to figure out if you've got leaky gut due to bacterial overgrowth, or whatever. And remember, nobody's been saying leaky. I mean, I've been saying leaky for five years, and people were laughing at me and now you've got people like at the Mayo saying leaky gut, now you've gotten these guys saying leaky brain. I mean, clearly, we're just defining something that inflammation is bad if you can keep inflammation out of your brain in any way possible. And that includes trauma and that includes drugs, alcohol, all that stuff, you're just going to be better offEric Rieger  Hundred percent I can remember we we tried to find five years ago if if leaky gut was anything that anybody was searching for. And at that time, the answer was no. And nowit's everywhere. Yeah, so it's applicable. Ken Brown  Yeah. And so what's what's really cool is, you know, you can imagine if I could take these, I could take a patient and say, Oh, you're you're having leaky brain, much like checking a low density lipoprotein or, and all the other cholesterol markers that we do to try and predict if you're gonna have a heart attack, if I can get in there and go, okay, you're having some leaky brain and some inflammatory process going on in your in in your brain. You're 40 years old. We need to stop this. And we now have a marker where we can do this through change in diet, protecting your gut, taking the polyphenols, things like that. Then we can show that that's going to decrease and then you do in a preventative thing for dimentia. Yeah, super cool. Now these guys are going to take it one step further. And they're not, I don't blame them. But they're, they've come together and raise some money and they're going to try and develop a drug to seal the blood brain barrier. Eric Rieger  Okay? Ken Brown  Make sense? I mean, you figured that out, they want to slow and reverse this, they have started this company to develop a drug to heal the blood brain barrier for clinical treatment. Now, that being said, I'm a little bit biased, because I believe that the inflammation doesn't start in the brain it can't. It's not like the something has to be out of the brain. Think about this for a moment. And they didn't get into this at all. They didn't talk gut at all. To cross the blood brain barrier, you must be coming from outside of the brain. So the blood something in the blood is inflammatory goes into your brain, and your brain reacts to it and then you have the fog or the heaviness of inflammation.Eric Rieger  This is not an just just for the listeners. The blood brain barrier itself is not a new concept we have drugs that we know that do and do not cross the blood brain barrier that apply to all kinds of different diseases or anesthesia that we use with patients.Ken Brown  Yeah, as an anesthesia provider. This is this is your world. Because your job is to get those drugs past that so that you can calm the brain down.Eric Rieger  Yeah, I mean, there there are some Anticholinergics that we know that do and technically do not cross the blood brain barrier. But every now and then, and then aged patients, some of those that we felt like shouldn't cross the blood, the blood brain barrier I can, I can still remember looking back and it's going well, we didn't think we would get that response with this. But we also weren't talking about leaky brain a decade ago. We weren't talking in those terms. And it's kind of exciting because I think that we're rounding a corner really understanding the systemic effect of bad gut health and how it actually affects the entire body. Ken Brown  What'sso one of the one of the problems I run into in traditional medicine is when I talk to my colleagues, I'll be like, Oh, I haven't seen a study on that. You want some water? Yeah. They'll say, Well, I haven't seen, I haven't seen a clinical trial on this. And the, the only way that clinical trials can get done in these kind of things, is to go through either a huge NIH grant to have a big pharmaceutical company pay for something like this. But what you need to do is look at the objective data, like this mouse study here. We're not talking whether a drug can do stuff, what we're showing is that there is a comparative analysis between a young mouse and a young human, and you do this functional MRI study, and an old mouse and an old human and you show the intestinal permeability, or I'm sure you show the blood brain permeability, and you can show that there's a cognitive decline. So we can agree if we can agree that and if I'm talking to even a skeptic, they'll be like I don't believe in that the blood right, but we know you just said the blood brain barrier is a selective brain barrier. Yep. The gut blood barrier. So the gut barrier, the tight junctions is a select permeable barrier permeable, its job is to let certain things in, keep certain things out. When you disrupt this, it can allow too many things in. So let's start with the gut. And let's just assume that you have something happened infection, drugs, bacterial overgrowth, and it causes an inflammatory response. Different things like zonulin show up which lead to some intestinal permeability, then that turns on your inflammatory cascade, and now you've got these little inflammatory markers floating around the blood. These guys believe that they can develop a drug that will actually block TNF beta. I think? Because that's what they're going to go after, so they're gonna, they're gonna try and chase the inflammation in the brain. I'm opposite. Eric Rieger  Let's just stop inflammation. Ken Brown  Let's just stop the inflammation. So there was that one study, I think you're making small reference to where they actually looked. And they took human intestinal tissue and then they took a blood brain barrier tissue, so cadaver tissue, and they did an impedance study where they soak the tissue in some inflammatory they started. And what they did is they took the normal tissue, and then they did these different size molecules. So one way to determine if somebody is having some leaky gut is that let's assume that our dung beetle here is a is a certain, whatever kill adult I don't even know what size there but it's like the really tiny. And so they use these molecules where they can sit there and show and what they'll do is they'll soak the tissue and then the dung beetle can't get through and so just moves on. Then they soaked the tissue in inflammatory typical inflammatory cytokines, meaning the stuff that you're going to produce with all disease, TNF alpha, interleukin beta, like all these different CRP, CRP, you know, stuff like that, so they did it specifically. And then what they showed is the dung beetle went straight through, so then they found the dung beetle on the other side. He was going around, they're like, Uh Oh, so then they did the exact same thing with the with the blood brain barrier. And the first time they went through the blood brain barrier, blocked it, they put it in the exact same inflammatory cytokines. And it just opened right up. And then he's had a little party.Eric Rieger  Well the cells, maybe in two different locations, but they are very similar both in structure and function in the way that they protect what they're there to protect. So it's not really that surprising. And you don't have to think that hard to understand that the blood is simply just a vehicle to spread markers all over the body in different parts of your body going to respond in different ways. There is no, to my knowledge, there is no set assignment for a marker to only go in one direction down one vessel to reach one destination. It just goes everywhere until it lands where it's gonna land. And so that's kind of how the brain gets affected. It's your gut is sick. Yeah, I mean, if you're gut is sick, chances are other parts of your body is going to be sick as well.Ken Brown  It's so then this kind of gets into this part. So now we're having these discussions. Finally we're finally seeing in the literature discussion about leaky gut leaky brain. But we're what we're talking about is these things cause chronic condition. And it seems to be getting worse. So I made either the mistake or a brilliant move. I think a lot of people have talked about game changers. Yeah, Game Changers the end. So I took it a step further because I was on I was on hospital this whole week. My family's out of town. So when I had a moment, I was watching some Netflix, sitting on the toilet, you know,Eric Rieger  texting? Ken Brown  Texting. No. I watched what the health and I think you had told me about this years ago. Eric Rieger  That one's a real kick in the gut man Ken Brown  That one. Oh, my goodness, that one's...Eric Rieger  That if you don't like game changers don't watch that one.Ken Brown  Yeah, that's worse. That one's next level. And the problem is, is that it's, there's just an I get that all of a sudden you guys I youtubed afterwards and rebuttal after rebuttal and all this other stuff, but you know some of the stuff you're like, Oh, no. What if I love meat!Eric Rieger  Well, I will at least say this. I think that the game changers for the most part, the producers, and the writers probably believe a lot of what they say. I felt like what the health was just engineered to mask. I mean, I felt like they were they were bad da withholding evidence through a lot of it. It just did not. It did not pass the smell test. Ken Brown  I could see how it could it could go around. So I had my annual doctor appointment this morning. And so it's with its with Kevin Wilson at smart wellness now, and he's a he's a functional medicine practitioner. And so we were I was asking him about this. We're going over my labs and everything and he is a strong, I guess, a paleo style. You know, autoimmune paleo style lifestyle here kind of thing. He looks great and he's got no fat on him his and so we talked about his blood work. You know his typical diet is six eggs with ham and cheese in the morning and then some leafy greens with some grass fed meat and then have a little bit of carbs like that sweet potato with a smaller meal and we're talking about his labs and his cholesterol is perfect and his you know, insulin levels are perfect his hemoglobin A1-C. And then so we started talking about different things. I tried the whole plant based diet but I think I did it wrong. And I went get all the the fake packaged sausage and chicken and everything and I got really inflamed. I don't think my body went with that. Then we started talking about differences in his patients and what he's seen and so he had two patients that went on the carnivore diet and one labs completely improved and the other one didn't change at all. And so you just start looking at these different these different movies and stuff and you go Okay, what is let's take a big step back, getting away from the whole thing of plant based slash veganism or carnivores slash paleo, you know, those are I guess, those are the The the diets that people will really be kind of passionate about because they're kind of on the extremes over here and go, okay, is it possible that we're all genetically meant to have a slightly different diet? Is it possible that you know, there's a lot of different so like in my blood work, I'm very surprised I my LDL has crept up a little bit. Fortunately, my HDL is still real high. Yeah, my inflammatory markers are nothing. And so we're trying to figure out well, why did your cholesterol go up a little bit? Well, I do play around with my diet a lot. I'll go into extreme. And I think it kind of throws my body for a little bit of a loop but then it got me thinking, I started looking at different countries with the highest incidence of coronary vascular disease and, and you look and it's, it's Russia, Germany, it's the US and then you come down and then there's Spain, Italy, Japan are that are the healthiest right now is that crops is that lifestyle is that the polyphenol content, you know, I always think that it's diets really based on the polyphenol content and then I watched Patriot Act patriot act with oh we're gonna have to look that up Hassan the comedian. Eric Rieger  Oh yeah the show? Ken Brown  The show. Yeah so I think the his last show of the of the year was looking at how America is making other countries fat and it really targeted one particular company, really Coca Cola. High fructose corn syrup when they have shown that high fructose corn syrup is brought in and some of these countries like China, Mexico I'm trying to think of all these other countries but just India, country after country that starts getting exposed to this then that's like the window to come in. And then it ends up being that you have these fast food places and stuff like that. And without a doubt everyone is definitely becoming more obese. So is it this all started. Oh, that's all I did not know this. It's gonna be blamed on Richard Nixon. As it turns out, yeah. When the economy dropped and he goes into explain it, obviously he's a super smart guy. Yeah. And he's funny, but he's really make sense. Yeah, he was describing that Richard Nixon did that for a bunch of different reasons. And Hassan actually says that he goes, there's a bunch of reasons here for like, economics. I won't get into them if you want to pause it right now and write these down. But it basically goes into why richard nixon did some sort of farming subsidy to allow the increased growth of corn.Eric Rieger  Okay, yeah.Ken Brown  And so it was some sort of subsidies to keep the economy up and all this other stuff. And so then they had this excess of corn that then became high fructose corn syrup. It's then as in everything, Eric Rieger  Yeah, it is. Ken Brown  That's where you start. That's I apologize earlier, when I said that the track athletes take high fructose corn syrup. They take straight fructose, which is the sugar in fruits. But once you convert corn to high fructose corn syrup, that may be the culprit. That's what's in all the sodas. That's what's in everything. You just got me thinking that if we're over here saying our plant based it's carnivore diet. I don't know. But I do know that if you're opening a package, probably like what happened to me, when I tried to do my whole vegan diet for a week where I was trying to subset I was trying to substitute every meat that I would normally have with some sort of meat substitute. I got super inflamed. Yeah, I don't think it was toxins leaving my body,Eric Rieger  Probably not in every instance. But it seems like if things are compounded to withstand or extend shelf life, more than likely, it's probably not the best way to consume whatever it is you're eating.Ken Brown  So I'll give everybody an update. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna change my diet a little bit. I'm going to be actually I've, I just, you know, just dabble in different diets and have, you know, fun with it and go on the extreme and whatever. And so, Kevin and I talked, it's like, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna put you on an actual regimen. You're actually going to be a patient now and you're going to like, actually do what I say. And so I had to laugh. I'm like, okay, no, I don't really do that. We're gonna see what happens. I mean, it's the good news. You know, he's got he's got a lot of his patients where he wants to get their hemoglobin a one see below four.He doesn't play around with that 55-56-57 range that a lot of people are happy to be in. He wants him below four. And not really even looking at body fat, stuff like that, because then what he's looking at is inflammatory markers, sed rate CRP, different things like that. And what is really kind of interesting is that my cholesterol went up and we were trying to figure it out. And what I had been doing, which is a little bit of a curveball is you know, I do intermittent fasting. What could be and then we looked at my genetic profile, I'm a cholesterol hyper absorber genetically. So, it I may be the small subset of people that should probably have just strict three meals so that my body isn't absorbing. Because, you know, because that first meal I'll just rawr, yeah, sure. You know, and just ravenous don't know, it's just it's another little caveat. It just gets, it gets back to the whole thing that maybe there isn't one thing for everybody and everybody has to take a step back and maybe go see a really smart guy like that. That looks at your blood work, looked at your genetics and says, Okay, this may be better for you.Eric Rieger  Yeah, no, maybe it does make sense. We are all very much the same, and also very, very different in all of that's, okay. There's another, I would throw a monkey wrench in this train of thought. But there's even a subset of folks that talk about the natural eating should really mimic what is naturally available during the season, where you're at, for you to optimally be absorbing the right kind of nutrients. Like if you're eating a fruit that shouldn't really be available that time of year that probably isn't best for your body. I've not seen science behind it, but maybe there's something to it. I've no idea that's a whole nother topic, but it's interesting because that's how a lot of people try to figure out how to get healthier.Ken Brown  That's Why anytime any celebrity comes out with a cookbook, somebody's gonna buy it or anytime some new diet is because we have not figured out exactly what the ideal diet is. And I will give what the health credit that they did show that there is lots of lobbying lots of money. To try and make sure that our US government, the FDA, the USDA, things like that, that are looking out for our best interest. Really, there's, I was a little bit shocked to see the people that are funding some of these charities like the American diabetic Association, the American Heart Association, and Susan G. Komen. A little surprised. There's a lot of money accepted from fast food companies and things like that. Eric Rieger  Probably not really interested in the results. This more or less the continuation of lots of customers,Ken Brown  Although I will say that for the right price. I could just see you and I year from now and be like, Eric, this is the new Big Mac sponsored by McDonald's.Eric Rieger  I don't think so patna. I'm not going down that route.Ken Brown  Oh, I almost died number of the time you're telling the whole story of you were trapped when you almost died? Yeah.  Your near death experience.Eric Rieger  Oh on the run the rock.Ken Brown  Yeah, where you almost got waved to death.Eric Rieger  Yeah, yeah yeah that was almost the end of Marie and I for sure yeah.Ken Brown  And I gave you my near death story of wrong turned into a McDonald's drive through.Eric Rieger  Yours was scarier. Yeah no i don't i don't see us being sponsored by McDonald's,Ken Brown  I want to try this if everybody gets a chance to do this number one, if you look up fasting, specifically a prolonged fast, it's remarkably healthy for you on a cellular level. It's not there to lose weight. It's not there to do anything but it's the turn yourselves on. When I'm fasting. And I'm like walking by a TV. I want to say 80% of the time it's a food commercial. It's Pizza hamburgers or fried chicken or something here is I'm paying attention. I'm hungry. Wow, just all the commercials visually are just coming at us with food.Eric Rieger  What's weird is it's more appealing to me to learn what restaurant or eatery features are really good tasting salad with good lettuce. And I know that's not how I thought when I was a teenager as a teenager, I wanted the fried chicken or in every stomach is fried chicken tastes great, right? I mean, it's, it's good. But as I've gotten older, and I my body doesn't just accept anything that I put into it anymore, where I'm just happy and I'm sure a lot of our listeners feel the same. I've been conditioned that I want to know where I can get a great tasting meal that's going to be healthy for me. So how long would it be until that becomes more of the norm in what the advertising gets the market is for people to gain attention because I always say that I feel like it's going to change 15 years ago, 20 years ago, especially if you didn't have the restaurants like modern market, unrefined bakery, taco deli, which talks nothing about except for we have all organic ingredients. For all of our tacos, but that stuff is becoming far more popular,Ken Brown  Far more popular here, Bella green things like that. Eric Rieger  Yeah, Bella green. Ken Brown  Let's go to Galveston. Let's go to Corpus Christi. That makes it so it's super unfortunate that there is and I think in different socio economic climates you're the options to eat where was I that's just south of Oklahoma took Lucas to a tournament. Eric Rieger  Wichita? Is that right? Ken Brown  Bob Burnett? Is that right? Eric Rieger  Oh Burt Burnett. Ken Brown  Burt Burnett. Yeah.  I drove around trying to find something to eat that wasn't what a burger. It was nuts. Eric Rieger  Brahms and What-a-burger. Ken Brown  Brahms and water burger. Yeah. So in these, you know, smaller communities that's just not happening.Eric Rieger  And it's not like that there's anything wrong with an occasional what a burger and an occasional Brahms. drive through. That's not the point. But that can't be your core diet. That can't be your only core offering. And I would like to be optimistic and think okay, well, everybody else is eating great food at home when they're not eating out, but we know the stats that's not really at today's people live You don't have options like that though.Ken Brown  Yeah. And that's when when you see these extreme shows like that, whether it's the plant based when you have the exact anecdotal differences where people are strict paleo and they're in great shape and they're, you know, they've their cardiac calcium scores nothing and stuff, you're like, Okay, well wait a minute, you know, and so who knows, but it was just it got me thinking that I'm going to really try and focus a little bit harder on working on a few things be a little more disciplined and not being so reactive. Watch whatever show I'm watching and then it's a watch Joe Rogan. We're going carnivore, Eric.Eric Rieger  Yeah, I love meat, but I couldn't do that either. That would that would be really really hard. Who's it Shaun Baker.Ken Brown  Shaun Baker was the carnivoreEric Rieger  And he's all in and Jordan Peterson and his daughter to escape autoimmune issues went I think they're almost all carnivore isn't that right? Am i remebering that right?Ken Brown  Yeah. I think they are. I would just be curious. You know, one of my Friends, a cardiologist, Mordecai Klein, he completely went plant based he feels like a change his diet as a as a cardiologist, one of the few cardiologist discussing that we should have him on the show to talk about it.Eric Rieger  Yeah, I'd be interested in that. You know, I, there's probably nothing wrong with taking a break from meat. But I just don't think that a long term diet for success or somebody exists without meat. But that's my opinion. I just don't think so. Sounds really hard. If you're taking a bunch of supplements just to make up for the nutrients that you're not getting, or the fact that they can measure it. What is he saying you can measure a food by its certain protein content, but the difference is, plant based protein is not nearly as bioavailable as heme protein from an animal in certain instances. I mean, th

All right. Welcome to the gut check project. I'm here with your host, Dr. Kenneth Brown. I'm Eric Rieger. This is gut check project, Episode Number 26. We're going to wind up 2019 with some awesome info. What's up, Ken?What's going on Eric? How are you doing, man? Episode 26. Unbelievable. I apologize if I'm a little too sexy today because I'm just coming off of a small cold. I think the hottest people are those that are sick.Well, I'm not sick. I'm post sick. Remember, the viral prodrome. The reason why we always like pass so many viruses is that you tend to pass the virus before you even know that you're sick by the time you're actually sick. You're probably okayYeah. At that point you can go back and say I heard you might be sick. I was too back then.Yeah, exactly. Good to see you?Well, today's episode is going to be pretty awesome. We're going to tackle number one, we've received tons of email in your clinic because you also sell the KBMD CBD at your clinic, you get these questions. These have been coming in Fast and Furious over the last little over 14 days. And it's questions about the safety of CBD oil and its application. So we're going to tackle that I do need to tell everyone. Thank you. We're on episode 26 because the first 25 shows were so well supported by all of you who've been keeping up with a gut check project. We grow every single day. Paul, the guy who's helping us put together the production now and helping us spread the word. We just hung up the phone with him. We've gotten more and more downloads each week. So thank thank you every single one of you for liking, sharing, emailing, telling your friends about it. We sincerely appreciate it.We learned so much about it like today we have a new a different guests we do Instead of gutsy our little mascot or green frog, but since we do film on a green screen, he gets blocked out did not know that didn't even realize that. So now we're going to go with a dung beetle, right here? Yeah, yeah, we did. So that's Dilbert, the dung beetle,Dilbert, the dung beetle. So one of my favorite things is whenever we're bringing any patients back and somebody sees you, and they're like, hey, you're Eric, I watch your show that just warms my heart. So if you happen to be a patient and show up and you watch the show, if you say that it just makes us both feel really, really well...needed wanted, appreciated.Yeah. At least outside of me putting you to sleep. Take five or six good deep breaths. Exactly. Today's episode is sponsored by Atrantil. Your bloating relief, it's what we do. So go to Atrantil.com or lovemytummy.com/KBMD. Today it's also sponsored by KBMD CBD oil. You can find your own KBMD CBD oil at kbmdhealth.com which of course, the initials KB, Kenneth Brown, it's endorsed by the guy who's sitting across the table from me. So Ken, why is...What does MD stand for? Well, I'm not really sure.I thought it was your buddy Mike Doyle, but I don't know.Yeah, it's probably. So tell us a little bit about KBMD CBD. Alright, so KBMD CBD oil. I got involved with the science of CBD because I saw the beneficial effect with my patients when we developed Atrantil I then learned that the science of Atrantil the polyphenols in it actually augment CBD. So I'm seeing this combination do incredible things for people. So this particular CBD is one that we have researched, I've seen it work clinically. And we know that it comes with a certificate of analysis. It is organically grown, it is naturally extracted with co2, so it meets all the criteria that you want in your CBD because this is important. The rest of this podcast is going to be all about the dangers of CBD.Definitely and It's really interesting since we do have so many people who have begun to purchase CBD find benefit. It's really kind of weird what's occurred over the last two weeks. And what I would say is a little bit of misinformation. But it's more or less probably just misunderstood information and or or misapplied information. But regardless, the benefits of CBD used correctly, have been undeniable with the people who've come back through the clinic with people that we've scoped, and how well that they are doing. And so, hopefully today, we're going to provide some context on why more or less the dangers that you may or may not have read about in the news recently are really a little concerned. But we'll, we'll see. We'll see how far along we get in at the last. The last thing. Our last sponsor is the KBMD health box. You can find KBMD health box by going to kbmdbox.com. Now last week we did a full unboxing which is something I think we're going to try to do at least once a month. But essentially, if you want almost $300 of physician vetted supplements that can help you benefit your life and get them for only $147 which you would spend, not you would spend more than $147 worth of time driving somewhere to pick them out for yourself and having someone handpick them for you. Go to KBMDbox.com. What was one of the things that we had a patient come through just earlier this week, who showed us his lab results that he took to his primary care physician? So we're starting to make a difference in the landscape of health here in the DFW Metroplex and different places. I've been getting emails and calls from people around the country that will actually hear the podcast and then they'll want to sign up for the box. And what we're seeing is that these vetted supplements actually are making a difference with both subjective how they feel and objective the labs. So the reason why I chose these things is they all have third party analysis. And they all have some scientific background that actually explains how they're going to help you. So much so that I'm thinking of ordering my household, another box. So although it is the KBMD Health box, I actually I love the fact that I can get these things that I'm going to purchase anyways, they come into my house, so my whole family's on it. Now we're running out of stuff. So I'm gonna end up having to double up on everything. So it's one of those things that I feel really good that we can look at different aspects. And when somebody says, Oh, I tried X, Y, and Z, I didn't notice anything. I'm like, oh, did you try one that had a third party analysis? No. And then they do and they're like, Oh my gosh, big difference. Same thing with CBD. I mean, a lot of CBD out there doesn't really have what's on the label. And we're going to get into that because we're going to talk about what the FDA thinks about it. We're going to talk about the different media and what they're doing, and hopefully get into all that but that's the whole point of that box is I want to deliver these vetted things to your house monthly so that you can continue to improve your health. Hundred percent. So without further adieu, be sure to like and share the gut check project. We certainly appreciate all of the support to date. We're going to hop right into it. So what we've received here recently is a lot of speculation and concern from people who have said, Hey, I'm interested in CBD. I know that you and Dr. Brown have heavily studied, been entrenched with CBD and its application over the last few years. I just learned that the FDA is associated or made public a study that says that it may be hepatic toxic or bad for my liver. It's, unfortunately, it's a weird jump off point. So I'm going to kick it to you. Because immediately I had lots of different thoughts and instead of getting emotional, what did we do? We went and tried to find the sources of where this information came from. We want to backtrack on how they got to that conclusion. And I think that we can put a lot of questions at ease and even help people learn how to be a little bit more critical with the data that they receive when they receive it. Because let's face it, lots of stuff that we see on the internet, or that we hear on the news or reading the paper, it's basically clickbait. It's basically things to keep you engaged, whether or not the actual substance is worth the headlines that are written so...So what you're referring to is recently the FDA put out a statement, a consensus statement in the news and it's making all kinds of traction in the news that they're saying that CBD is not as safe as people think not only that it can be harmful. Now this has bled onto TV and my patients have been asking me about this FDA statement. Then there's been other news articles like the one that Forbes published, read said that CBD causes liver failure. Failure. That was the title liver failure caused by CBD. I want to get into all that I wanted to take a really deep dive into the science of all of this as a gastroenterologist, I'm board certified gastroenterologist, which means not only am I a simple country, butt doctor from Texas, but we actually have to learn liver disease, hepatology, I'm not a hepatologist like some of my other friends where I send like really complex things, but we at least have to understand the liver, how it works and what it does. So a lot of these articles discuss this but they don't clarify so many little things. Because and they shouldn't it's a it's a journalist writing an article they want they want it to be shared. And anytime you mentioned CBD, anytime that that is thrown out there, you're going to get some clicks, you're going to get a whole lot more clicks. If you say you're going to die from taking CBD. It reminds me of the I remember Jerry Seinfeld was on Saturday Night Live one time and they were making fun of the nightly news where they always do the promo at like three o'clock. Like five household items that are guaranteed to kill you, tonight at six.You're like what? If it was so important, they probably wouldn't make you wait.No, I'm gonna die before you put this on the air. So what I'd like to do is talk about the briefly the science of the endocannabinoid system and CBD, then do a little bit deeper dive into the liver. So everyone's going to get a primer on the liver 101 here, because these studies don't make sense unless you know, some of this knowledge. It's just sensationalism. For some of it, some of it is a little bit unfair. I think some of it is for what the FDA got, and it's there. But I just want this podcast today to be something that can be useful for industry people that can be useful for patients or people that are thinking about taking CBD and it can be useful for a subset a small subset of people that may be should not consider taking it. Yeah. So all of this is kind of, you know, for the future of this podcast, It's almost going to be a bit of a rebuttal. Not necessarily a defense of hemp derived CBD. But let's just buckle up and kick some science. This might be a little bit I don't know how long we're going to go where we're going to go with this. We're just going to feel it out and see what happens. But I at least want to be able to explain why I still believe that a lot of people should be taking CBD even though Forbes is like you're gonna die from this.Yeah. It's not arsenic people. No it isn't and I think another cool application here is there are people out there who have been on the fence on whether or not I should try CBD or is this something that's good for a family member for me? And unfortunately, there you hit this intersection, where a news headline is written that CBD causes liver failure. Well, if they've been on the fence, that's a pretty big No, no, right? So now you've taken away maybe an avenue that they were considering to help them out. What I hope that we can do with this particular episode is basically let's temper and let's see things in context. I think context is a word that as you get into sensationalism is something that is kind of the rescue item. If I could put something into context, then at least I'm giving someone a fair chance to understand the information that's before them. I don't feel like sensationalized headlines do things like that. Then again, I also don't feel like someone who shakes, hand picked or cherry pick studies is doing that either. So what I think today that we can do is fairly evaluate and talk about the process of how the liver works, and why some of these studies are or are not applicable to the nature they were presented.Absolutely. So the first one we got to discuss is what what what the heck did the FDA say? Sure. So the FDA came out and they mentioned that they've got several issues with the safety of CBD. The two main ones that they're really concerned about are potential for liver injury, and interactions with other drugs. What they actually said is that they're concerned that people may mistakenly believe that trying CBD can't hurt the agency wants to be clear that they have seen only limited data about CBD safety. And these data point to two real risks that need to be considered as part of the drug review and approval process for the prescription drug containing CBD. Interesting. Now, what I say this is because the FDA is referring to the data that was presented to them by GW Pharmaceuticals, who has a epid... eipdi..x you know?E-p-i-d-i-o-l-e-xYes, which is the first FDA approved prescription CBD isolate,Right,for seizure disorders.It's important to point out that is not full spectrum. Correct. That is not full spectrum. And there's some that's important because here later in the podcast, and think we're going to draw some comparisons and just if you're listening, just remember, epidiolex is a CBD Only isolate it is not a full spectrum product.So let's talk about what the FBA what the FDA actually does. So the FDA has a really daunting task. The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for protecting the public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy and security of products. So it is super daunting because there's a lot of products hitting the market, and the FDA has tried keep up with this to try and protect people. And let's be honest, let's look at the elephant in the room. The elephant in the room is that there are a lot of bad CBD products out there. Yep. In fact, in a jam article 2017 showed that 70% of the CBD products that they looked at did not have what was on the label and what was there could be higher levels of CBD could be lower levels of CBD. So it's a gamesmanship that's going on right now. So it is totally true that you need to make sure that you've done your homework on what type of CBD that you're actually taking. There currently is little to no regulation in the CBD industry. There is the President and CEO of Natural Products Association NPA. His name is Daniel Fabricant. He's a PhD. I love this quote. He's quoted as saying it is well past time to bring science into the equation, as federal rules require safety and Consumer Protection must come first. I agree. And we all agree with that. Sure. And I think that all companies that have reputable CBD companies, they all want that. Problem is when you have these different stories leaking out, which gain much more traction, it just starts creating a little bit of confusion misconception, and then people don't really know where to turn. So the feeling is, is that possibly statements by the FDA saying that it creates this narrative that questions the safety of CBD overall, strictly to address a few number of companies which are producing quite frankly, some crap products.What was the number that we learned the last time that we were in Utah at meeting I believe it was one out of every 23 to 24, I could be off it was definitely in the 20s. But every to every 23 or 24,25, CBD labels available for retail purchase. One is seen as a reputable well marketed or correctly labeled product, which means that even if it happens to be off a little bit, you've got 23 or 24 other labels which are just not truthful or probably not correct, don't have a certificate of analysis or are blatantly, just not even what's in the bottle.100%. There's a lot of people out there trying to take advantage of this wave that's coming. So I do not. I believe that the FDA is doing their job by looking at the data that was actually presented to them Agree. So let's take some time and break all this down for the consumers, health care providers, industry personnel. Starting with the question, does CBD cause liver damage? Unfortunately, or fortunately, because I like science we really need to talk about what the endocannabinoid system is. Because if somebody's listening to this, they're like, Well, I was thinking about taking this but I'm worried becasue it can cause liver failure. I don't know why I'm taking it. Why in the world should I be taking it? So let's do a quick one minute discussion of the endocannabinoid system. Let's do it!All right, the endocannabinoid system. The endocannabinoid system is a system which was discovered in the 90s that we now realize it's probably everywhere in the body. There's primarily two different types of receptors, but essentially, the way that I try to explain it to my patients, it's concentrated more so in the neural areas, nerves, brain and the immune areas. Although we now know it's in every single organ, that's where all the original research was. We now realize that its job, the endocannabinoid system is to produce these products called endocannabinoids. Which work as traffic cops. They just kind of get your body to get back to an area of balance. If you've got too much activity, they go Whoa, slow down a little bit. If it's not enough, they go, come on. Let's go ahead and get some more going here. So you have this fantastic system in your body that really just tries to keep balanced. Think of it that way. And you're going to hear a little bit later why I think most of America is out of balance. I think most of America needs some replenishment of their own endocannabinoid system. So that's the important thing is is that there's a dire need to try and get us all back to a certain balance, because the reality is we're getting sicker as a nation. And one of the causes could be that we took hemp derived foods out of our diet and out of our livestock diet. And there's a theory on that, that possibly that's one of the reasons why we're having more autoimmune diseases, why we're having more of the other problems that we're seeing, Well at least contributing factor.Certainly at least a contributing factor. So keep this in mind. So the the primer on the endocannabinoid system is if you're, if you have ears and you're hearing this, you also have an endocannabinoid system, and you have a higher than likely chance that you are out of balance with that. And if you are out of balance with that, then you probably could benefit from some of this. Sure. So right now you're going well, I'm out of balance, I'm going to probably benefit but I'm going to go into liver failure if I do this. So let's talk about what liver failure means. You have a genius living within you. You probably have multiple geniuses living within you.Thank you. That feels great. Sometimes the voices in your head don't say to do bad things.The evil genius. Yeah.Well, one of the geniuses living within you as this beautiful origin called your liver. So you have this and it's amazing. So to understand where they're going with this, let's talk about what the liver actually does. So we all have livers. And they work differently in every single person, and they can continue to adapt, evolve and change. One of the only organs that you can transplant a partial portion of it and it will grow into a full liver. So the nephrologist think that the kidneys, the smartest organ, the neurologists will think that the brain is the smartest organ The cardiologist says if you don't have blood, you can't think so It must be the heart. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm gonna say, well, for health span, smartest organ in the body is the endocannabinoid system. So eventually, we're going to have Endocannabinoidologists. Because what ends up turning out is that the endocannabinoid system is in all these different organs.Correct.They're not completely separated. So let's talk about the liver. The liver is responsible if you ever wonder what the liver does. So do you have any idea what the liver does? I've got a little bit of an idea... Little bit of an idea. So the liver is responsible for selective uptake, concentration, metabolism, and excretion of the majority of drugs and toxins, also known as xenobiotics. So let me just say that again. Basically, the liver takes the crap that you bring into the world. And it says, I'm going to convert it to something useful, or I'm gonna get rid of it for you. Yeah, it can detoxify it, or it can say, Oh, you need to be this and then you're useful. That's why I say it's a genius in your body. And it the liver figures this out, it figures out what you need, and it determines if it's a drug, or if it's a toxin, and it can turn into a better form. Now, one of the problems I have with these different articles that I've been reading, is that they discuss that then enzymatic process called the P 450 system, and they just write it like that they're like, CBD has been shown to affect the P 450 system. What doesn't affect the P450? So that's the issue. So let me break that down, I bring up the P 450 because in the lay literature without even describing what it is, it is a complex. It's called a phase one metabolism of the liver. Under p 450. It's an umbrella term that has over 60 different genes, that code for hundreds of enzymes to break down anything that comes your way. So the P 450 enzyme is like saying, Oh, I don't even know an analogy, but it's top of the funnel down. It's like you just so generic,  that you can't just say that. So but they write it in the lay literature almost as a sounds sciency so I'm sure that it's, I'm sure that it's right. That's kind of my feeling on I'm like, why would and all these people it's almost like these news articles parrot each other. And nobody's stopping going, wait a minute, because as it turns out, the P450 system, not the P450 enzyme, the system breaks down almost everything that we put in our bodies. Yeah, no joke. So a lot of going back to the pharmaceutical days, I remember that was one of the biggest challenges with with any of the drugs that we detailed a physician on was, how is it affecting the P 450. And that would be something that they would be all salespeople be coached on that before they would go on calling a physician. But the truth is, it doesn't have to be a compound. It doesn't have to be a medical pharmaceutical compound for that to be somewhat important. Something as simple as grapefruit juice. Also, detectibily inhibits the metabolic ability of the P 450. So there's all there's a handful of different drugs that people who are elderly, maybe caution, don't drink grapefruit juice, because it will inhibit your ability for your body to clear this particular drug. And I say that to say this. It's not nothing is inherently just special because it does or does not directly affect the P450, almost everything you take into your body is either cleared quickly or slowly by that same system.Yeah, so they kind of imply like CBD is the only thing that gets...Not even close....that gets processed in the in the P450 system. In fact, we know that there are multiple medications that can be altered by certain foods. Grapefruit is the most common one, and that really affects like immunosuppressants tremendously and that's where it really came up. When they realized, oh my gosh, you have these different drugs, let's say blood thinners and immunosuppressants, which have a very narrow therapeutic window, you have to have these things like right dialed in. Yeah. And then people talk about grapefruit but you know, other things that have actually been shown to do this cranberry juice, black tea, pepper, even chocolate Yep. has been shown to affect drug absorption and they have been shown to affect certain pharmaceuticals. We don't even know the tip of the iceberg on this because you have to do the study on it. You have to do the pharmaco kinetics, the PK is what it's called to actually determine that which is so funny because they say oh CBD is metabolized by the P450 system. That means nothing. And so if you take CBD and or chocolate and or drink tea, be careful. I mean...I think a good analogy a seriously a good analogy is it the P450 being metabolized by the P450. It may be good for base knowledge, but the truth is, is does it overwhelm that, as you put it system, if it is overwhelming that system, chocolate, for instance, for most intents and purposes would be like a single car driving down a six lane highway by itself. It's not really if the highway was a P450 and the car was the chocolate. It doesn't take anything to funnel that that car through.Correct.The problem is is whenever you happen to overwhelm that system. And that is important to know. But I would say in terms of context, kind of the way that we started this discussion in context. It's not my belief through what I've read and seen that CBD inherently overwhelms or becomes more than a single car down that six lane highway.So not only is it just one single car going down the highway, remember that not only foods but drugs, nobody's talking about drug drug interaction.Right.So there's a reason. So I see a lot of patients that one drug may be very effective one thing may be very effective, but there's so many variables like for instance, drugs, the sex of the person plays a role, you may have different levels, the age of the person and any diseases can all affect this whole system called the P 450 which produces enzymes. So not only that, but then genetics play a huge factor, alcohol intake.Alcohol intake, all of that. I mean, genetically, this may be why some drugs work on certain people and why they don't work and others fact there's a whole field of science right now where people are trying to determine the genetics ato go, Oh, you're going to need a higher level of whatever Plavix which is one that they've actually looked at. Or you can, you're going to take less. So we this is a whole field of this beautiful science where we can go Okay, genetically, you're going to be predisposed to need more medications. So when these enzymes get used up, basically if you've got this one chocolate, which is a car, one on six lane highway, and then you add fluconazole, which is an antifungal, that's an but that's not a car, that's a semi now and then you add alcohol, which is a minivan could be ccould be a couple minivansand then you do whatever something else, but you can see that the liver has to try and process this right. So what happens is it becomes this once it becomes a traffic jam. Then people start getting angry, they start honking their horn that is a rise in your what we call lfts liver function panels liver function test Yeah, so AST and ATL are the two ones that we always talk about, that's exactly what the FDA was referencing. So I want everybody hear this. When you overwhelm the liver with multiple cars using your analogy, then honking starts and the honking the warning sign is this rise in AST and ALT. So, for instance, your body can adapt to it. We've seen this all the time. If you drink alcohol on a regular basis. you build more lanes, you build more lanes, you get really good at metabolizing alcohol. Build tollways. I'll use myself as an example.Not with alcohol.With coffee, Okay.I always have to laugh. Whenever I go to the my own doctor. They say how much coffee do you take? I just write obscene amount because I've down regulated by receptors or I've had the ability to ramp up my my livers ability to convert that coffee into an inert thing and there it is. So you see it as an anesthesiologist or as a crna. I mean, describe what your experiences whenever you try and put somebody to sleep using propofols, different medications.Yeah, well, I mean, definitely, if someone says that they happen to be a large consumer of or a consumer of large amounts of alcohol, it generally takes anywhere between 20 and 30% more of an agent to put them to, to sleep safely, say, But back to your point of body habitus, for whatever reason, even just something as simple as someone being a redhead fair skinned, those people generally take more agent to make them go to sleep. Yeah, let's go ahead and clarify this. This is a well known thing in anesthesia. You're not being prejudiced? No, not at all. No, they literally just for whatever reason, the metabolism rate of someone who's fair skinned with red hair is typically higher than the average calculation and you can go through any types of weight based medications that we use to bring sedation to someone and generally fair skin redhead folks just take more. Is that interesting?Yeah, it is. So that is more than just anecdotal like they've actually done some studies on this and they've actually shown probably because whatever lineage, they come from Scotland, Ireland, they have a higher P450 to metabolize that particular or a higher subset of the P450 systems. So just keep that in mind. So when you take certain foods or drugs, everything's competing for your liver, to do to just say, hey, fix me, you know, figure out what's going on. Fortunately, it is a badass organ and the liver is tough and it can handle a lot, the largest solid organ that we have in the body. So usually it can handle everything. Now the most common example like we've talked about, if you take grapefruit juice with certain immunosuppressants and things then that particular combo because those drugs need exact or how they were manufactured need exact metabolism numbers. Not only that, did you know that like nutrition plays a big role. So, high protein diet will actually affect your P 450 and malnutrition will affect it. of course it will. So those are all of our paleo friends over at paleo FX and such those guys have revved up p 450s. Eating a lot of protein working out a whole lot, they're able to do this. Unfortunately, malnourished people probably can't tolerate as muchNo and they aren't they aren't they honestly they don't have the supply to rebuild the enzymes that are that are used within the P 450 I mean it's just malnutrition is going to deplete all different types of systems, not just the liver.So in the intro, I kind of mentioned that we're getting sicker. And so let's use nutrition as an example. federal policies tightened by the controlled substance act of 1970 essentially banned the production of industrial hemp during the war on drugs effectively we made hemp CBD illegal and put it under the umbrella of cannabis cultivation. Now what were we were talking with Will Clyden of O-hi energetics right, who actually discussed this and he said some cool stuff on this. He back before this when they were they were using hemp and hemp has been used for ever like since we landed in America, hemp has been using hemp has been used in China for thousands of years and all this other stuff that we were feeding because it's a fantastic crop. It's it detoxifies the soil. And it actually works. It grows quick. It's a great crop industrial. What were we thinking making it a banned substance, I don't know, separate discussion. But they've got data to show that when they were feeding chickens, so for everybody out there I had a patient today who said I said Oh, she was suffering from some things and I think CBD would help with and I mentioned Hey, have you ever considered CBD Oh, I would never ever, ever, ever do anything like that. I am not like that. I said, Okay, that's cool. said hey, let me tell you something. Do you know that before 1970 we were actually feeding animals like chickens and cattle. One of the primary things that we would feed them would be hemp, and it's been shown that you can take a chicken egg and it had over 250 milligrams of CBD, right so right now if you're somebody that just spent $200 on your CBD that has 300 milligrams in 1968 you could've just had an egg.A three cent egg.I know 3 cent egg. And I looked at the literature and I and I could not find anything that said death by egg otoxicity. It didn't so everybody that's sitting there thinking oh my gosh, no. I'm not going to do CBD. We were having CBD in our diet. A great Great example, to learn a lot more about this and do a deep dive. Our friend Chris kresser had Will Clyden and the CEO of O-hi, O-hi energetics on and he went into this tremendously. It was so cool. It was just like I just it's crazy that we stopped like, and I as a physician have seen that we are getting sicker as a country. So in 1970, we've got since 1970. We've got more chronic disease, we've got more dementia, we've got more autoimmune disease. coincidence, like we said in the intro, maybe it's at least a contributing factor. And now we have the FDA saying that CBD can be harmful yet it was in our food supply up until 1970.That's nuts, dude.It is nuts. And it doesn't make sense and if you look at mean hemp seed, birds eat seeds, birds consume seeds, they do all kinds of things where they can they take in product, What's the matter? No, I'm just looking at I'm trying to make sure we get through everything.Okay good, but I mean they eat everything and people have been consuming eggs from not just chickens they've been consuming eggs from all different birds on the planet for that long. The fact that we've restricted hemp growth etc has only taken away one of the natural things that birds were eating.If you're if you're really interested in this like I said go to Chris Cressors podcast where he's got Will Clyden on there is really cool wills smart dude Chris is super smart dude. So those guys those guys kick some crazy knowledge.Right?So that is it's weird that we're talking on this episode about CBD causing hepatotoxicity. And we've already shown that the liver's pretty badass, right? It can do a whole lot and we've already shown that the endocannabinoid system is necessary and since 1970, or up until 1970. We are taking in significant amounts of CBD in our dietRight.Weird.It is weird, but it's not so weird when we get down to why everyone's alarmed. So you want to get into a...Now let's go ahead and look at the studies. So that is sort of the phase one of this podcast because now we're going to start geeking out a lot. So I hope I didn't hope I didn't lose everybody with a but you kind of need that background to understand what we're going to talk about next.Sure, you definitely that background.Alright. So what they're talking about is the FDA published this revised consumer update. So this is the consumer update that they put out there for everybody detailing the safety concerns about CBD products. Now, this was based on the studies provided by GW Pharmaceuticals, GW Pharmaceuticals has done multiple different studies looking at different things to get their FDA approval. And I'm going to say right now, that kudos to GW for being the first company to step up and really try and make something for a group of people with intractable seizures have an alternative. Kudos to the FDA for doing their job and looking at the data that was presented to them. What I'm going to do is go next level and say, Well, you didn't look at everything. That's the bottom line here. So I'm not bashing anybody. Let's make let's make certain of this. Sure. So there have been several randomized, controlled and open label trials that studied the effects of epidolex, I'm going to call it epidolex from now on it's just easier, which is a 99% pure oral CBD extract on patients with refractory epilepsy. So this in turn led to the FDA approval for two diseases, dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gestaut syndrome. So if you recognize those names, bless you, because you're dealing with some serious stuff, It's a serious seizure issue. If you don't know those. Count your blessings. It's one of those times to go well, no matter where you're at in life. It's like well, thank goodness that I don't have to Deal with a child that has this because that's, that's a really big deal. These are intractable seizures. So they looked at the data on that. And in these studies, the kicker here is I'm going to say it again, getting back to the lane highway, the patients maintained on their stable drug regimen with a median of three anticonvulsant drugs. That's important. It's super important. Three anticonvulsant drugs. So when we use the analogy of the car on the road, imagine a six lane road. And three of those roads. Three of those lanes are double semis.Yeah, that are closed construction... Or closed, Yeah, that's more likely or closed. So let's talk about that. So when we're talking about three different agents used to control seizures, some of those agents would be and I'm assuming here, but probably Depakote, probably Dilantin, also known as phenytoin, or fosphenytoin, which is seravex. There's a handful of anti seizure medications and through my knowledge, all of them, all of them have been recorded as raising the enzyme levels used by the liver which of course would lead to ALT and AST elevation, showing that the liver is essentially working overtime to long term process these drugs right or wrong?Correct. Correct, which is exactly what the FDA is supposed to do. They're supposed to look at this data and go Okay, so let's just look at the study that they're talking about. So the FDA accumulated this data, and they looked at what GW presented GW presented in isolette of CBD, not a full spectrum. And the dose they ramped up to 20 mg's per kick 20 mg's per kick. What that means is a guy like me would take 1954 milligrams a day.That's a lot more...of CBD isolate. Now I see the effects, beneficial effects of taking KBMD health CBD 15 milligrams twice a day,that's 30 milligrams,that's 30 milligrams.The exact dose of what makes people feel better is very argued because all the data coming out of Israel shows that a lot higher doses, but I'm seeing effects at these doses So let's be real quick let's stop for context. So right now at this intersection what we're what you're saying is with a full spectrum and we said this at the beginning of the podcast that what GW Pharmaceuticals has with epidiolex is a CBD isolate and what they've done...You're saying epidiolex now that's funny. Yeah, whatever it is, Well, because I started with that. Then you told me no, that's not how you say it.I think we should switch it up the whole time. EPA max the way it was edimax. What they did is they were able to establish that almost 2000 milligrams for you would be the ideal dosage however, you...isn't that correct? That's the dosage that they went for or the dosage that they felt was safe, Safe. Okay, I'm sorry. So but but on the upper end of... That was what they were aiming for on everybody. In essence, though, from where you have had beneficial effects, you're talking 60 times that amount, two months worth, is what they are saying the safe level would be in one day where you're finding the beneficial spectrum. So just just in terms of context, full spectrum, CBD, one 60th of the dose that they're saying it's a it's a safe level is really all that you need from our experience.Yeah. Now in GW's defense, let's look at the data. So in dravet syndrome, seizures dropped 39% and in Lennox-Gestaut 42%. So... that's good. So they probably did their homework and said, well, we need to get up that high to actually help that so I don't know anything about that. I'm not a neurologist. That's where it's at. But I'm just saying that when we look at that dose, no average consumer is going to be able to consume that Much CBD in a single day, unless it comes through this 2 full grams a day is more than most take Yes,yeah. Now here's the problem 94% of the people had side effects. Okay 94% at the highest dose compared to 75% placebo, kind of weird. So there's just a huge placebo side effect profile that doesn't get discussed at all.Did they say what it just had a curiosity do they state with the placebo was for the control,They did not stay with the placebo was oh, I take that back. I don't know what they use, but basically they left people on the same medications. So, essentially, let's just look at this and say okay, but the good news is, most of it was not a big deal. Most of it was what the FDA also discussed beyond the liver tests and beyond the drug metabolism. They also said Oh, CBD can cause nausea. It can cause drowsiness. It can cause all these other kind of nuisance things. That's what they're referring to right here. It's interesting though, that have a side effect profile assigned to a placebo that's that exceeds around the 30% range, because that's generally the throwaway number. Yeah. So we've gone twice away from the throwaway number. And they've had they've had reported side effects, which I'm not trying to over draw conclusions here, but it could at least indicate that side effect profiles assigned to CBD in this study probably weren't solely to CBD, Well, you're dealing with one of the highest risk populations you can get your hands on, when I did clinical research and when we would do a moderate to severe Chron's study. The placebo arm would have tons of side effects because the disease is bad. That's what's going on here also. So most was not a big deal, upper respiratory tract infection, somnolence, decreased appetite, diarrhea, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the one that they focused on is the increase in amino transferase concentrations. This once again was a revised consumer update, they put this out to the public and their statement is increase in liver amino transferase concentrations when I just got done explaining what the liver does. Did I ever say amino transferase concentrations? No. I said liver enzymes. right? frickin talk to the public if you're going to release a consumer paper. yeah, liver enzymes. AST ALT. This is hiding behind scientific garbaly goop. It's like you're doing half science half anyway. But but whatever. So a patient show up and they're like, I need you to check my amino transferase concentrations. I'm like, Whoa, why? They Hand me this, this, this news article. Right? This is what we're trying to address right here. So what they found is that in the higher dose, 20 mgs per kg, there was a rise in some patients in three times the level which is significant, so if your normal is 20. You can be 60 if your normal is 40 it can be 120. When patients come into me and it's three times the level it sounds alarming. Do you know what happens when somebody gets hepatitis A acute infection? It's way more than that thousands of times the level when somebody goes into foaming at failure there AST and ALT will go from 40 to 10,000.AST and ALT have risen for almost everyone who's listened here, way more than three times throughout their lifetime multiple times in acute or in very isolated settings. It happens with illness.So getting back to your highway analogy, which I think is really cool analogy. I'm glad you came up with that. Thank you .Getting back to the highway analogy. 80% of them were taking a drug called valproic it matters Depakote Yeah, that matters. That matters a lot.It's when you take these medications, which is why at the beginning of the show, I said you're more likely don't have to worry about it. But if you're on certain medications, keep it in mind. Now that being said at the lower dose didn't see this stuff. So there is a dose dependent usage of the P450 enzyme you can if I give you one drink, or if I give you a bottle of tequila 512 which in my opinion is really one of the tastiest, most fantastic tequilas you can ever get your hands on. It is delicious. It's delicious. I'm gonna I'm gonna digress right here. Oh my God, Tequila 512... Also sponsored by Tequila 512Tt was really good seriously, ummm in every single person with liver test rose.They went back to normal if they decreased the anticonvulsant or decreased the CBD. So either one it went back to normal. So it wasn't number one, it wasn't permanent liver damage. More than likely correct they were able to  return back to normal. And number two, it was simply A case of an overwhelmed P450 pathway more more than likely.So you want to get really confusing? Not really but we might as well try. I don't want to but here's what's really interesting, then they kind of get a little geeky. So GW presented their their stuff and then they showed that the P450 in this enzymes and they went into will, the CYP to, 2c19 CYP three a four can inhibit the CYP blah, blah, blah. Those are all just cytochromes people. Those are all just cytochromes It's under the umbrella of P 450. That's how complex this is. Yeah,It is nuts how complex. The highest plasma concentration to CBD occurs within two to three hours after exposure to the Epidolex. With medication, so timing of these medications going to play a role, which actually got me down a weird rabbit hole where i started thinking. We haven't done this much analysis on what happens if you take your Ace inhibiter and you take your cholesterol medicine, timing wise PK analysis on different people and everything. Because when they do these pharmacokinetics, they do it to get the FDA approval, they do it on people that are healthy, that they can understand it. Let's put this into context again, if you're listening to this you've ever taken tagamet. Have you ever thought about when you take your tagamet, you probably only take it whenever you're afraid that you're going to have acid problems, right? Cimetidine?Yeah, guess what? It's also known as a high level p 450 inhibitor if it's over consumed. So I guess what I'm saying here is, there's probably way more alarms being driven over something that yes, is handled by the P 450 system, but is far less invasive or it's much it's a much smaller vehicle on this highway than some of the other things that the alarms are not sounding over.And then surprise surprise after I just got done talking about the liver and the genetic variability and all these other things. When they looked at the pharmacokinetics there was tremendous variation. Hmm. Weird. Yeah. Odd, right? So and anybody that's listening to this that is a, a pharmacist or is a scientist or like Well, yeah, duh. Like I know, duh. But why put out such an alarming statement? Yeah. Without context.Yeah, yeah, you're right. So it for Okay, so it's a little bit of clickbait stuff, right. And so maybe even the journalist who wrote it doesn't understand specifically, the implication, they may have only seen P450, written somewhere turned to a health care provider and said, What is this? Well, that's indicating that things are rising up, they freak out. They write a headline that says CBD causes liver failure. I just learned that from this health care provider. So I'm going to write this piece.Well, that we're going to get into that. The liver failure. This is still just the FDA. Oh, yeah. To the consumer. So I hope that the FDA looks at this and says, You know what? That's right. All that stuff that was just being said it's right. But we didn't have the time to do it. We couldn't sit there put that on paper, we'd lose everybody. I get it. It's quite true. We all we all but we all have a responsibility, much like any doctor to try and explain. You and I have this ability to have this forum to reach hundreds of trillions of people.Yeah. It eflects in our subscriptions on YouTube. They so many trillions of people subscribed, they started his back over to about 200. Yeah, so every time we got trillions, they start back over. Yeah. So So anyways, so what what you're realizing here is exactly what we're talking about. When you put stress on the liver. The liver honks its horn and does a little rise and the lfts goes, Well, hey, guys, maybe not so much. Can we just back off the traffic a little bit and see what's happening here. So additional studies have shown that levels of the anticonvulsant drugs actually caused the daily effects. So now we start wondering that the that the CBD may actually rise some of the anticonvulsants and then you have more side effects from that comes down to the same thing we're talking about how many things do you want to tax your liver, that's the bottom line. To summarize high dose of a pure CBD isolate, not full spectrum, while using a mean of three other anticonvulsants can cause temporary rise in liver tests and affect the metabolism slightly of the anticonvulsant. Of note, it did not happen at lower doses. So one more time, if you are on an anticonvulsant discuss with your doctor and make sure that you stay well below the 2000 milligrams a day. Yep. So this whole thing of Oh We're going to block the P 450 the P450 is So frickin complex, it is nuts. So anything you want to add to that, because I'm going to move on to the thing that I really want to, like kind of make fun of No, not really, I just want to say that I think that the FDA, unfortunately, is a very important and serious organization within our government. And I think that for all of the flack that they take their, unfortunately, with any other entity, there are limitations on what it is that they can do. And I do believe that they try their best to fairly ascertain and address situations as they are presented to them. Regardless of how frustrated that one of this may get is we don't get a result from them. A lot of it is just simply because there's not enough manpower. Oh, absolutely. They get thrown everything think about, think if you're in an organization where you know that 70% of the crap that's out there needs to be pulled off the shelves and you're limited. It's a government organization. These people making these statements are MD's. I'm really limited fortunately, I have well, we have the show where I kind of enjoy looking up some of this stuff. Fortunately, we have some friends of ours that are that work in the nutrition industry that are fantastic at researching articles. And some of that gets gets brought to me I want to make sure that we all get better this is the whole purpose of this.Hundred percent.I want to help the FDA and help GW I want to help the CBD industry. I want to help all of it. But let's just talk about this because something super weird happened. And this is the one that got the most press A Forbes article came out that promoted a mouse study and made the sensational claim that CBD causes liver failure.Yeah, that's kind of what I was referencing earlier. I may steal the thunder but yeah, you're right.Yeah, so this is you're exactly right. In the intro, you said it was clickbait. I really after looking at this study after pulling the study, because how many people read that article are actually going to pull the study.Well is the is the person who wrote this study that well versed in reading studies like that. I mean, that's that's an important thing. I mean, they I think that probably even the author of the article feels like that they are doing a service to the reader, but probably doesn't understand. And if they do, then shame on them, but if they don't, I think that would be a better explanation doesn't fully understand how to read the study and the quality and the qualifications of that study to make a statement like that.Yeah. And you know, this, this could be an arguable point, I'm sure that the person that that wrote this feels very strongly that what they said was right, the bottom line is the goal of this study was to investigate CBD cannabidiol hepatic toxicity, meaning liver issues in an eight week old male mouse. So they they took a group of eight week old male mice, and then they gave them a CBD that they produced. The CBD that they produced and Will Clyden will just jump up and down when he hears this because he decided Is this on Chris Cresser's podcast. The CBD that they produced was used to extract using hexane, which is a molecule that is known to be hepatotoxic. Yeah, you're not supposed to have heaxane. Don't do that! Will Clyden talked about the fact that if you find a CBD with an outrageously high amount of of CB, if you find a full spectrum CBD with an outrageously high amount of CBD more so and the price ranges, okay? Because what they did is they extracted that with hexane in a cheap way and threw it in their bottle and said, there you go. Now you can check that's got 10,000 milligrams of CBD or whatever. And it's really interesting because there's so much going on in the industry like this. So this particular study out of the University of Arkansas, took the CBD, or they made their own CBD using hexane which is a hepatotoxic in itself and in their certificate of analysis. It was there and then they gave it to these mice. Second thing neatI don't even know there has to be a second but we can hear it. Because I mean seriously, that's, that's like saying, I know your stomach hurts. You should take this Pepto bismol. And then I don't tell you that I've broken up some glass shards and have you drink it and you're like i'm bleeding now! What's going on? I'm like, I don't know. Yeah, but you only paid half the price.I made it myself.Which, by the way, that last batch of propophol that you did in your bathtub is working phenomenally. I'm sure it is. Now we do not make propophol in our bathtubs.Alright, so the second issue. If we have any mice that are subscribers to our show, or listening, I would like you to have your children removed from the room at this moment. Because they took these poor mice, and they gavaged to them. Would you mind defining what gavaged is? I think it's when you kind of force feed somebody I don't think it's willing. That's your I think gavaged something you kind of threw one at me there I think to gavaged someone you basically introduce a funnel to the esophagus and well you kind of get after it, don't you? Yes, I'm currently gavaging my mic right now trying to figure it out. I just undid everything. You're gavaging our ears with your, your microphone adjustments?All right, so gavage is they forcibly give these mice?The CBD extract? Yeah, I don't think it's comfortable nor pleasant.No typically through a tube feeding or down the throat to the stomach is how they generally gavage things. A quick side note, now because I'm now all of a sudden I feel like I'm living in a glass house when I was an undergraduate student. I actually did my first surgery on a rat and we took out their adrenal glands. And I'm just saying that so I don't want to sit there and pretend like I'm not done mean things to an animal. But that was when I knew immediately I could not be a bench researcher. I did not like that. At all, now I was like, I need to, I want to heal. I want to heal. I don't want to hurt these animals, but it's it's a whole separate discussion. So anyways, so they gavage these animals with different doses, and it's really interesting. Now in what they call their defense, they call it allometric dosing, which means they're trying to get the body weight to human weight ratio appropriate. I've read some rebuttals of this article where it is a joke, you just can't do that. And when I read vitamin weed Michelle Ross? Michelle Ross, when I read vitamin weed she dis... she specifically discusses why research on CBD versus mice is very difficult to do because the weight basing the endocannabinoid system is different, all these other things. So allometric dosing being said, assuming that they're saying it's right, so the dose would be the equivalent of what they gave and What a human would give So I'm doing the allometric dosing, which I think is actually higher than what it actually is separate thing. They took mice and they gavaged them with zero milligrams of hexane derived CBD 246 milligrams per kilogram 738 milligrams per kilogram or 2460 milligrams per kilogram of dirty CBD. It doesn't make sense dirty CBD isolate. So for instance, in a horrible alternate universe where humans are now the test subjects and we have large mice which are running tests on us, and they decided to gavage me with the same thing. That would be the equivalent at the highest dose of 241,080 milligrams of hexane derived CBD isolate. I'm not even sure what the hexane would do it 240,000 milligrams 242,000 milligrams.No I mean that being the more or less than now at this point, it's just an additive. It's just I mean it's it's not an excipient It's a straight up additive. That would not make sense at all. Oh, it's crazy.It's poison.This article came out in Forbes and said CBD causes hepatotoxicity. Also hexane causes hepatotoxicity.It is nuts. Alright, spoiler alert. The mice suffered hepatic toxicity and death at the highest dose. Shocking... You know what? I also hear it's bad to have breakfast cereal with not milk but drain-o. Just something that I'm gonna go out on a whim. Don't think you're supposed to do that. It just doesn't make sense. It's It's It's not. That is not an apples to apples comparison if you're talking Okay, so we talked about it earlier. reputable CBD source there is no reputable CBD producer that's going to have and Will special shout out to you it's going to have hexane as a byproduct or an excipient in their full spectrum COA approved which is also why KBMD Health with powered by olyxenol hundred percent is does not have that. I mean they do co2 extraction, which is the important thing which is a reason why we partnered with them to make that product. So we are the one out of the 23 or 24 that is the safe and trusted COA back no hexane etc etc. Doing this study is not an apples to apples comparison on what would happen because who knows? Who Okay, I don't get it because GW we already did that study. They determined that 20 Meg's per kg which is still a shit ton. It's a lot. It's a lot. Yeahis the safe maximum dose. These guys went times it by 100.Yeah, they did.And see what happens? Yeah, it's it's a bad it's a bad comparison. I mean, yeah, honestly, if you wanted to find out if CBD plus hexane causes liver toxicity at a ridiculous amount, top to bottom, then that's a great study outside of that, since nobody does it, I would say it's a bad study. Speaking of road, that's a road to nowhere.Yeah. And so study like this, uh, like you had mentioned is essentially it's not science. It's clickbait. Yeah. And right now that that author, that journalist is just kind of laughing. He's like, I know, and now you're bringing it up, and I'm going to get another whatever, because that's what people are trying to do. They're trying to get attention at this point.So at that point, good for you, you got to click but I would be truly interested if possibly that particular journalists would say, you know what, I didn't fully understand it. I mean, that's okay. Let's look reading studies, right? There's there's a study to reading studies. I mean, we heard that we heard the breakdown that kresser did on Joe Rogan is he Twice had to address his approach to completely different topic about the the plant based diet and then how he had to re approach that with the rebuttal. All that just simply to say, there is a science to reading studies and being really good at understanding what is and is not applicable and then how to find studies that you can compare to each other for good meta analyses. So what we're doing right now is I'm telling you that maybe sometimes there aren't studies, but my anecdotal evidence, I have a busy practice, you hear the patients, we hear them talk I listen to them, when they say that doesn't work. I go, Okay, I'm not publishing it. I don't have time to do that. I wish I did. If I published everything that we're gathering data on, if we're looking at, you know, just so many different things, CBD is just one of them. We've got I love I'm a huge fan of brain.FM for the ability to use sound to change your mood. I Would love to they're unpublished, a lot of studies on stuff like that. There's, there's tons of stuff. So when people go, oh, the studies aren't out there, there is something to be said about the Socratic method, or I'm sorry, the paternalistic method, the way that medicine used to be where the guy in front of you that saw thousands of patients, this is the method that he has. You see me scope, I mean, there's a difference in scope techniques.So they, although some may even still say it qualifies as anecdotal, I will say that there's objective data in both in a scope, somebody can't just come, anybody can come to you say I feel better. Anybody can even if they don't mean it. But they can't make the disease disappear from the imaging that we see in their colonoscopy, or the the mucosal samples that you take. And that's something that's completely objective data. That we see. So those are the everyday results that we see from these types of applications where you just, look it's not made up whenever we okay full pleasure when we first started looking at CBD, I thought was bullshit. Who you looking at?Just anybody who's out there. But when we first started talking about it, I didn't believe it. I was like, man, let's see, because we've been down this road before but we tried new, new without throwing a bunch of things under the bus. We tried new or innovative different things and high hopes. And unfortunately, low expectations and the expectations get met and the hopes are never never realized. The opposite for me personally occurred with CBD over the last three and a half years. And that is it actually stinking works.Dude, I knew that we were onto something with Atrantil, because after we did the initial studies,  everybody came back and said, I want more. I knew that I was onto something or I was not on something. I knew that CBD had a viable place in my practice, because I bought and the story goes all the way back which is why we work with which is why it's powered by elyxenol right now, when we went to paleo FX, and I ordered a couple cases and I just gave them away to patients. That was not cheap. Not because I was sitting there trying to be altruistic, not because I was doing charity. I'm like, I don't know. I didn't. And I told everybody, I don't have a clue. I haven't even looked at this yet. All I know is try this. Tell me what happens. And when about 80% of them came back said I want more. And I went, Okay, we're onto something. And that's when I took my clothes off the deep dive into the science and went, holy cow. Yeah,this is crazyUp until that point, I just didn't know there was a whole lot to it. I mean, it really didn't. And then the fact is, oh, and to clarify, it's not like Brown just handed out CBD to just anybody who came to the clinic. You literally just like we did with Atrantil you found very diseased patients to say and who had gone through a gamut of different pharmaceuticals and weren't finding relief, and suddenly they're like, this is working for me. Tell me more about it. And I was, I was blown away.So let's talk a little bit. So we're I'm over here going well studies I haven't published and everything. Let's talk about a few studies. So I've got a Mendeley account, I know how to look at PubMed. I know how to get a Google Scholar, I just want to talk about a couple studies have come out recently. And let's kind of compare it and see if it still makes people concerned that they're going to die of liver failure.Sure. Alright. So in the Journal of Clinical Pharmacology published in 2019, the this was actually a study, also sponsored by GW Pharmaceuticals, as part of the process of getting the FDA approval that the FDA did not reference the best I can tell they did not reference this. This is way more complex and it gets super cool, because what they're looking at is the pharmacokinetics or how CBD is actually metabolized by that beautiful genius called a liver. In high doses in people with liver disease. Yeah, they went through the trouble to take high doses of CBD and give it to people People that did not have liver disease had mild liver disease moderate and severe. This was ballsy to say the least, because using a product like this in somebody with liver disease is is risky. This thing could backfire and it could shut down the whole process. Here's what's nuts, the pharmacologic and safety of a single oral dose of 200 milligrams of epidolex, which is the CBD isolate. They were assessed in subjects they had eight people with moderate or with mild disease, six people with moderate and eight people with severe and then they had this collection of normal people. Blood samples were collected to check for the pharmacokinetics This is how drugs are looked at. They give you a drug and then they check your levels. Basically, the blood concentration was higher in the hepatic impairment and they describe it in nanograms. So the nanogram comparison is that it's a little bit higher in those with severe hepatic impairment. But this is what's nuts there was no increase in adverse reactions. There was no change in blood levels. So basically, the only adverse reaction that they found was a little bit of diarrhea. And it all happened in the mild hepatic impairment. So the FDA had mentioned Oh, studies have shown that it causes diarrhea. What was really funny about