Upgrade Spotlight: How Probiotics Enhance Athletic Performance and Reduce Stress – Hannah Kleinfeld : 1172

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. Today we're going to talk about this weird intersection between digestion, oxidative stress and your immune function and what happens to those things when you're doing athletic training. And the reason that you might care about this, if you don't care about athletic training, is that that's just a proxy for stress. So when you're stressed, what happens in your gut, what happens in your cells and what happens in your immune system, because if you know about that and there's something you can do about it, then that would support longevity, having better brain function, generally, being a happier, more functional human being who's harder to program and who doesn't want that. And it's this weird, we'll call it Trifecta of things that really, really matter. Our guest today is Hannah Kleinfield. She is the COO and founding team member at Omnibiotic. This is a really innovative probiotic company. They've been on the show a few times because since 2019, they've been doing things that are very different around delivery systems. And my job for, for you as you're listening is I just find the cool stuff that I want to use that I don't see on the market, and then I talk to the founders and see if there's anything legit there. So I'm just curating awesomeness here and wisdom. Whether or not you're interested in picking up Omnibiotic, you're going to learn something about your gut. Now, one of the areas for biohacking innovation is Germany. A lot of the frequency medicine that we work with, some of the things with lasers, even some of the electrical stuff, and other things like spermidine have come out of Germany because the government funds alternative medicine there, much like the US Government just gives all of its money to big pharma proxies like NIH and NIA and FDA and all that. So Germany is a little bit different there. So Omnibiotic became the leading probiotic in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, and it's number three worldwide. But in the US we're just learning about it and it's based on really solid science paid for by other governments than the U.S. which only seems to pay for researching pharmaceuticals and things like that. So that's why this conversation's happening, because most of the world knows about this except us. If you're listening in the US we have lots of global listeners too, but you guys already know about this stuff. Right. All right, Hannah, welcome back on the show.

Thanks, Dave. I'm so glad to be here again.

Before the show, you were telling me just how all Americans are really fat.

Was not.

I'm just teasing her. But it is true that in the US we have more obesity, more metabolic syndrome, more chronic illness and more mental health disorders than most of the world. Why do you think that is?

Oh, well, that's a deep question to get started on. But you know, I think it's, it's a combination. I mean, any of these kind of chronic illnesses are often a combination of multiple factors, which is why they're so difficult to, you know, get under control. But I think one of the big things that in order to help solve those is we have to look at the body as a whole, as a whole system. And a big part of that is the gut microbiome, because the gut microbiome is implicated in so many different functions in the body. And the more we're learning about it, the more we actually see that, you know, the gut brain axis is connected to our mood and actually, you know, in depressive disorders as well. And changes in the gut microbiome can impact our metabolism, can contribute to obesity, can contribute to changes in your blood sugar, sugar. So it's all related. But I think, you know, at the root cause of it, it's again, multiple factors, including what we're taught in school, of course, our diet, our environmental toxins, our very high stress lifestyle. So many people are stressed and you know, stressed not just for a day or two, but really operating at this highly intense performance for long, long periods of time. And that, you know, disrupts so many.

Systems in the body, makes a lot of sense. There's some people will blame it just on societal pressure or social media or something like that. I think it's in the gut, I think it's in the toxins that affect the gut and that there's something you can do about it. I've, I've certainly noticed a big difference. I had a reason to take antibiotics, which I almost never do. A really fast growing infection a while ago, and normally it takes a while to restore the gut, but I used omnibiotic, I used the stress formula and it was like within four days everything was normal. It, it was actually ridiculous. So I'm not recommending that everyone go out and take antibiotics all willy nilly, but there are certain times when it's absolutely worth it. In particular, if the bacteria you have are making high doses of lipopolysaccharides, which are effective bacterial toxins or neurotoxins. Because then if you feel like crap all the time and it's not getting better, then you use them because they save your life, which is great. You're doing something new, though. Yes. Because you got sick a long time ago and we've talked about it on the show before and you used omnibiotic to help you with a tick borne illness. Did I tell you how I got my tick borne illness?

No.

All right, so I'm special. And yeah. I just want everyone to know. So normal people get a tick borne illness like Bartonella. Not me. I had to get it from a vampire bat.

For real?

Yes, for real.

That's crazy.

Isn't that nuts?

I didn't even know that that was possible.

It turns out 70% of bats have Bartonella.

Wow.

And I woke up when I was somewhere around 10 with it feeding on my neck in a cabin.

Oh dear.

And to make it extra special, it was. I'm the only person that's ever happened to in the continental United States because they don't live here.

This is wild. So how did you get diagnosed?

I didn't get diagnosed till later in life by looking at all the scarring of my vascular system and my skin.

Fantastic.

But I, unfortunately, I was very sick as a kid and that was part of it. Toxic mold. Plus Bartonella looks an awful lot like Lyme disease.

Yeah.

So we have that similar journey of just like man, when you're cra. Your health is crashed. It doesn't work.

Yeah, it's horrible. It's really the foundation. I mean, health and wellbeing is the foundation to, you know, unlock all your other things that you're. You want to do in your life. Your focus, your mental clarity, your ability to perform, to just go about your day.

And I, I'm fortunate to have overcome that in lots and lots of different ways. I still have all the, the stretch marks. I don't know what to do about that.

But.

The learnings about gut function were, were really helpful for me. Just like you. Like, we realized there's a lot you can do to be healthier and stronger. And you had to come from behind. And I switched my, my goals from I don't want to be sick anymore, which is only really sick people have that goal. I just want to be healthy. If that's your goal, you're pretty sick. And I switch it to I want to see how far I can evolve and upgrade my systems.

Yep, I can relate to that. You're now just Striving to feel the best version of yourself.

Right. And it's, it's just a different vibe. And it's one that we were just talking before the show started at the biohacking conference this year. It was just a great feeling. So many people into this, how do I just evolve better? And it was, it was palpable. And so if you're on that vibe and I'm on that vibe, that's why I'm kind of stoked, because you did all this research, I'm guessing, in Germany, on what do athletes do with their gut bacteria and what gut bacteria? Instead of giving you a healthy gut. And I'm sorry, that's boring. Unless you have a sick gut and you're farting all the time, which case, that's great, ruins your dating life. But if you're looking for high performance, whether it's physical or mental, it's a different ask. So what are you guys doing that's different? With Omnibotic Power, which is the new formula, that's specifically the first one I know of, really, that's like, this is for athletes, for high performance.

Yeah. So to start, you know, for anyone who hasn't known omnibiotics so far, we have different probiotics targeted to different health outcomes. So, you know, we have our formula that Dave mentioned earlier, Omnibiotic stress release, which really targets the gut brain axis and stress management. We have several others. And then the new one that we're introducing now to the United States is Omnibotic Power. And that specifically is designed to support performance and recovery both for individuals who are athletes as well as others who are living kind of a similar high intensity lifestyle. And yeah, so, you know, it, it was developed in Europe by our competence center there. And the clinical studies we have, yes, they were done also on European athletes. And you know, the, the challenge or the, the things that this product addresses is really this reality that when we're living in these really high performance states for long periods of time, I'm not talking about like mild or moderate exercise, I'm talking about really high intense exercise, lots of training like that by professional athletes, but also these other high performance lifestyles, like, you know, think first responders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, anyone who's consistently pushing their body to its physical limits under high stress, that really can have a direct impact on the gut as well as an indirect impact because the gut is linked to so many different processes in the body. So most direct impact is, you know, changes to digestion. 30 to 50% of athletes report digestive issues like bloating, nausea, diarrhea, constipation. It changes how we're absorbing nutrients and then more indirectly because the gut is the house of 70 to 80% of our immune cells. It compromises immune function, increases inflammation in the gut and in the body, and basically puts the body in a constant state of oxidative stress. Which is kind of a warning word in itself because oxidative stress leads to cell damage, DNA damage, inflammation, and you know, the list goes on. But you really don't want to be in a consistent state of oxidative stress. So omnibiotic power was really designed to kind of counterbalance that and really help us, you know, support us during these high intense periods.

It's interesting, I just heard Peter Atia, who's sort of like an anti longevity doctor because he says can't extend human life. Just yesterday he was out there saying there is no upper limit to how much exercise is beneficial for aging. And I'm like, oh my God, this is going to harm people. Because overtraining affects your gut bacteria, it affects your muscles. People, they wear out their hips and their knees. Yeah, right. And it just seems kind of scary because what I've seen is that if you get the right dose of exercise and then you recover that you, you transform. But if you just keep training, training, training, this is when you get like cortisol belly.

Yes, well, cortisol belly, as we just said, oxidative stress, systemic inflammation, it shoots your immune system. You know, it's just, it's a vicious cycle. But again, you know, it's, it's that fine line between, of course, some exercise is really good for you. And science has shown that over and over again. We're really talking about these more extreme states.

So what's going on when someone decides that they're going to maybe lift weights six days a week the way I used to when I couldn't lose a pound of weight over 18 months of doing that. And this is as a young man, not as, you know, a middle aged person, God forbid, but what was happening in my gut, like why, why was my gut doing that?

Yeah. So I think first and foremost, you know, anyone who is in these really intense physical periods in their life, the most direct thing is these intense times divert blood flow away from your intestines to other parts of your body, like your muscles, your heart, your brain, because that, the body deems that more necessary in the moment. And because of that, you know, it changes your bowel motility. Many athletes either struggle with constipation or with diarrhea. Because of that, it also impacts how your nutrients are absorbed because you. If you don't have all the blood circulating through your intestines, it's just not picking up as many nutrients as it should be picking up. And, you know, because of that, then oftentimes everything kind of starts falling apart in the gut and you start getting imbalances, opportunistic bacteria start overgrowing. People start getting basically a dysbiotic or imbalanced gut.

So over training, either through cardio or weights, every single day starves the gut of blood for a meaningful part of the day?

Essentially, yes. Yeah. And, you know, we. If we're then doing this over and over and over again, it basically doesn't give the body and the gut enough time to recover from that.

This is a really interesting thing. I've never thought of it like that, but it's kind of like a seesaw where you need enough time to digest your food. This is why intermittent fasting is an important part of my thing. You don't need as much blood in your gut if there's no food there.

Exactly.

But let's say you're intermittent fasting and then you have exercise when you're eating, then you're going to be competing for blood in the gut and in the muscles. So the answer would be then eat and have appropriate gut bacteria after you train, before you train, like, what's the right order? When I'm thinking about how to use omnibiotic food and exercise.

Yeah, I would almost say, you know, replenishing gut bacteria, it's really just. It should just become part of your overall wellness routine or, you know, daily routine. And if you're consistently taking good care of your gut and making sure it has the right bacteria, the right balance, it's keeping out some of these unwanted bacteria that could be making us sick. Then it doesn't matter as much like what time of day. It's more just this ongoing nurturing. I would almost think about it as a garden bed. You're constantly nurturing it with good fertilizer and good water and everything. And then from that you sprout a lot of really good vegetables and you're keeping the weeds out.

Can I ask you a really controversial question?

Sure.

The thought occurred to me the other day that after I took those antibiotics and then I took the omnibiotic, my gut seemed to work better than before I took the antibiotics for people who've had really bad gut bacteria. I was on antibiotics for 15 years. When I was a kid, is there a case for just like once every year just kind of mowing down all the grass in there with an antibiotic and then replenishing with omnibiotic or fecal matter or something?

I would say there is definitely a case to be made to take care of your gut, you know, on an, like, on a. Even if it's just once a year for like a gut reset. We actually have a gut health reset program that was designed pretty much for this purpose of like resetting your gut and really improving it once a year. But I wouldn't necessarily say that that should be done with antibiotics because that also wipes out all your good bacteria. What you could be. You know, I would think about it in two ways. If you feel like you actually have some unwanted or bad or pathogenic bacteria, do a stool test to figure out what's going on, and then work with a functional medicine practitioner or naturopath or anyone who's really well versed in gut health. There are some really good microbial protocols you can do to get rid of whatever pathogenic bacteria you have. In addition to that, you know, probiotics, specific probiotic strains like the one in our omnibiotic, a B10 formulation, they have actually known properties to fight off and kind of clear out some of these bacteria that could be making us sick. So definitely also consider, you know, incorporating the right kind of probiotic to help restore and replenish the good and keep the bad out.

That makes sense. I'm not recommending listeners go do that. I noticed when I took a prebiotic, this was years ago, and I was writing a superhuman. The diversity and number of bacteria in your gut correlate with your age. In other words, if you have lots of different species, you're younger, and if you have only a few species, you're older. And we can predict your age based on that. So I quadrupled the number of species in my gut by using prebiotics, which is a part of the delivery system that you have in an omnibiotic.

Yeah, I mean, prebiotics are basically the food for your good gut bacteria. And, you know, our gut bacteria are divided up, loosely speaking, into two to three different categories. The one that thrive in oxygen rich environments, and those are easy, easy to make into supplements. The others are anaerobic species. They basically die when they come in contact with oxygen. So those are very difficult, almost impossible to make into a supplement. And for those, in order to make sure that they can thrive and flourish, prebiotics are actually a really Good way to make sure that they're getting the right foods and nutrients so that they can thrive in your gut. So I'm not surprised that you were able to quadruple the diversity because you were essentially feeding all your good bacteria.

Another challenging question for you, why are germ free mice so powerful?

Ooh, interesting. Well, I think first of all the nice thing of that is it's basically a clean slate, right? You don't have all these other germs that are competing or possibly skewing your outcomes. And then you can also very specifically test, say you take a germ free mouse and the one thing you're inoculating them with, a C. Diff, for example, then the things that are changing, especially if you do this with many mice, are most likely due to that one thing you change.

They mostly die when you do that. Right?

That is true too, yes. I mean, yeah, that's, that's a whole other issue. You know, I mean, especially if you think about germs as like also your, I mean not germs but like your good bacteria. A germ free mouse is also free of, of good bacteria. So that's, you know, you're also taking away a lot of the good microbiome that lives on the specific, specific species.

Where I've ended up after, you know, 20 years and I've tried well over $100,000 worth of probiotics. I've swallowed an electrical stimulator to stimulate the inside of my intestines.

I've never heard of that before.

It's as you would predict, a Russian device. But like I've tried everything on the planet. I put coffee in places coffee doesn't go. You should cool it first if you're going to do that. And just all the things, like everything you can think of, lasers and all that, you have a lot of bad bacteria in your gut. And getting rid of the bad is more important than supporting the good. But if you support the good in the right way, they will crowd out the bad and you don't feed the bad.

Exactly.

And that protocol of stop the bad first is just so critical. So there's toxin binders and all that and then there's not eating stuff that feeds the bad guys. And then there's just over representing the good guys so that the population of bad guys goes down. And that's why I would say it's. Since you guys brought the products to market. Since 2019, I've regularly been using omnibiotic because it works really well for that. And I think it's because there is some prebiotic in the powder, right?

Yeah. So you mentioned two important points. So the first is it's a powder, it's not a capsule. And that was very intentionally done because when omnibiotics formulation was tested, we actually tested it against several leading US brands quite recently. And you see that the omnibiotic powder has an 83% survival into your gut compared to an average of 7% across these other leading US brands, only 12 times better. Right, but you know, that's why it's a powder. The bacteria get the chance to rehydrate in water before you ingest them, before they have to pass through this very acidic environment in your gut. So it increases their survival. In addition, what you just mentioned, the prebiotics mixed in. So those are the specific prebiotic nutrients that the bacteria in the formulation like. And when you mix that powder and water prior to intake, the bacteria rehydrate. So they kind of wake up from their freeze dried state, they find their favorite foods to eat and basically begin to metabolize them. And then as you drink the liquid, they're really strong. And like, you can basically imagine them as like the biohacked bacteria. They're so energetic and happy that it's easier for them to get through this hard journey through the upper GI tract and more of them survive the journey to the intestine. However, I would say it's, you know, the prebiotic quantities in our powder are not the same as just taking like a fiber supplement. So if someone is really looking to also increase their fiber intake through a prebiotic supplement, I would consider either our line of omni logic precision prebiotics or you know, just, you know, working again with someone who is very well versed in gut health to find the right fiber product for you.

That's, that's a really good idea to find the right one. For instance, inulin, which is used in a lot of the, the say lower end formulas out there and sometimes in higher end ones in very small doses. But large doses of inulin are shown to cause gut inflammation similar to gluten.

Well, it's interesting, right, because it also really depends on how the overall state of someone's gut. Many naturopaths who I have spoken to, they will really tailor whether you give individuals short chain, you know, fibers, medium or long chain fibers, depending on how much their gut can tolerate. So someone who is maybe just coming off of antibiotics or had just had some placebo, you would start them on like the most gentle fiber possible to make sure that their gut microbiome can slowly adjust. Otherwise most likely they would run into, you know, a lot of GI discomfort just because it's kind of mayhem in the gut with, with kind of the wrong types of fibers they're consuming. So I think I'm not surprised that, you know, different people respond differently to fibers. And also again, you want that diversity. You don't just want 1, 1 fiber in huge amounts because different gut bacteria like different fibers. That's why I think they also say, you know, eat the rainbow. Like make sure you're getting your good fibers from your diet as well as if needed, from a supplement.

It's one of those things where it's just as complex as taking supplements. Like what, what am I going to do here? I, I have so many options. The thing that stands out is the 7% versus 83% survival way. So I will admit I absolutely hate putting little powder packets in water and drinking them because there's like 15 companies who want me to do that. And so can I mix them all together? No, actually you can't. Right. So then now I've over hydrated on all this.

Right.

So when I first was like, seriously, you're going to give me a powder? This is the only powder besides just electrolytes I'll put in water. It's the omnibiotic. Because saying, look, imagine if you rehydrated our bacteria with clean water and with some food for them. They're going to be resilient versus you take a pill, it goes into your stomach and it rehydrates with stomach acid and it dies.

Exactly.

And this is kind of obvious, but it's not for most of us, it's that the delivery system for any supplement, whether it's a mineral or a vitamin, the particle size, the encapsulation, all of it matters way more than even what the material itself is. So your arguments and your clinical results, that's why you're the number three brand in Europe, right?

Yeah. Are.

Oh my gosh. It works. So in the morning or sometime during the day, you'll see me open up a packet of omnibiotic and I'm using the stress because I don't have the power one yet.

Yeah, we'll send it to you. Absolutely.

The stress one works and then I'll just pour it in. I take it when I travel so I don't get weird jet lag gut. And it's, it's because it works in water. And are there things that I could mix in the water? Like could I Put collagen or colostrum or something. I wouldn't put electrolytes because they're likely to salt water, probably not good for bacteria. But what else can I put in there if I want to be efficient?

Yeah, I think that's a great question. So, you know, in general, what we don't want in there, as you just said, is anything that's too like salty, too acidic. So electrolytes, lemon juice, grapefruit juice, coffee, even most smoothies we probably want to avoid.

Well, I mean, you wouldn't want to rehydrate bacteria with ingredients in a smoothie. It'd be too cold and there'd be like fats and.

Exactly, exactly. So, you know, but I do think we, we've seen that many people actually if they don't want to just do water, they'll do a dairy or non dairy milk or they will do like yogurt or kefir or anything kind of, you know, to your point, like yeah, colostrum you could probably do because it's similar, it's like the same similar kind of environment. But yeah, I would be careful with, you know, anything that's coffee or too acidic.

Okay. So no coffee, nothing too acidic. I just use water.

Yeah. And you know, the nice thing is, even though it says, I think on our packaging it says 4 to 8 ounces, I sometimes dissolve mine and just an ounce or two of water and you almost take it kind of like a shot, you chug it. So it's not that you have to drink, you know, 8 ounces of water just to get your probiotic in.

Yeah, that makes it, it makes it so easy. It's literally a little shot glass. So I, for people listening, you know that I take 150 supplements a day. I think it is a very terrible idea for you to take the same 150 supplements that I do. In fact, you're almost certainly going to get negative results from that because I know that I take more of a certain form of B6 and more biotin and more zinc than your genetics probably need. And I know my mitochondrial status, so it's tuned. And so if you do what I do, you won't get the results. And if you do what your husband or your wife does, you won't get the same results. So I'm all about personalizing it versus mixing a whole bunch of stuff together in a multivitamin or in a powder and just taking it. But you know, hey, if it works for you, great. I just. Because it works for a broad number of People. You're not the average American, I promise you. You're not. Or the average human. Some parts of you are average, some are below, some are above. But you have an endless number of ways of looking at yourself, and through different lenses, you're higher or lower. And that's why I use AI to tune what you take instead of saying, well, this large group of people just needs to all do this, because that's what work for me. I promise you. You're an outlier on something important, but you're probably not an outlier on the fact that over exercising or heavy exercise messes with things inside of you that you can now counter.

Exactly.

You taught me about something in the research for the show called IDO1.

Yes.

What is IDO1?

Yeah, so that is an enzyme, and basically that increases when the body is in these intense physical states. And the issue with IDO1 is that it degrades or depletes our tryptophan levels. And, you know, tryptophan is essential for our body because it supports muscle recovery, muscle, you know, building and maintenance. It's also really important for our immune system, and it helps with neurotransmitter production. So if you're depleted in tryptophan because of an increase or a very consistent increase in this IDO1 enzyme, that can lead to a lot of issues. And again, the studies, you know, with omnibotic power, they have actually found that in a lot of athletes, especially endurance athletes and elite athletes, that IDO enzyme is elevated and tryptophan is therefore depleted, which shoots their immune system and makes them more prone to infections.

So tryptophan is important. People have heard of this because you think that your Thanksgiving meal makes you tired because of tryptophan. It doesn't. It's all the junk food and sugar. But if you were to take tryptophan out of your diet entirely or break it down excessively because you're over training, then you'd end up with less serotonin.

Exactly.

And recently researchers said, you know, serotonin isn't what's responsible for depression. That doesn't appear to be true. In my case, it's associated. I did try a weird supplement. It was a topical supplement, and I'm not going to name it because it's, I think, a dangerous one. I've never really experienced real depression in my life. After, like, four days of putting something on my skin that reduced serotonin dramatically, I was like, there is no reason for living. This is terrible.

Oh, wow.

It's true that excessive serotonin is bad for you, but if you're exercising all the time, you probably don't have excessive serotonin. You probably are raising idea one because of over training. Even if, I guess, you're not going to think it's going to extend your life. Because if you're like a. A Peter Atia fan, you're more in lines of, well, at least I'll be healthy until I die at 86, which is a great goal, if that's all your goal is. Um, but regardless, you're going to be dealing with a tryptophan problem if you're training that much. So then what should they do? Should they supplement extra tryptophan to overcome this? Or I guess you could just take the omnibiotic power that stops this enzyme, because what do the bacteria do, eat the enzyme?

Yeah, I mean, I'm actually not entirely. I think they basically just support the overall balance of tryptophan. So what we saw in the clinical study that specifically looked at the tryptophan levels, it basically compared, you know, individuals in the placebo group to the group that took power. And in one group, the tryptophan kept degrading, and in the omnibiotic power group, the tryptophan stabilized. So the bacteria helps stabilize your tryptophan levels, which is exactly what you want. You want them to be stable and not declining.

You do want them to be stable, not declining, and probably not going up either, because excessive tryptophan is not good for either.

Yeah. And, you know, then the other thing is, I mean, my point on just excessive supplementation on anything is always. It's just much harder to control how your body will react to that. If you are just trying to do something to balance out your body's natural abilities to make something, I think that's always the kind of better and more natural way to do it versus throwing in these supplements where you're not sure how much is absorbed. And then on top of that, the other issue, you know, coming back to this oxidative stress and inflammation. If you are in this state of constant inflammation and you have inflammation in your gut, a lot of the supplements that you're ingesting might not even get absorbed in the ways that you would hope to. So I think that's another really important consideration, especially for people who are looking to, you know, train well and, you know, biohack their performance and recovery to make sure is the stuff that I'm ingesting actually being absorbed, because my Gut is healthy enough to do so.

Okay. It makes a lot of sense. Endurance athletes in particular are subject to increased respiratory infections after events. And this is pretty well known. I've seen studies for years that talk about how taking additional amino acids, especially the branch chain aminos, that might actually be bad for you if you're overtaking them, but probably good for you if you need them, that, that helps with immunity or you could just use omnibatic power and that's going to get rid of that effect.

Yeah. And it also helps, you know, again, like make sure your gut is in good function because who wants to have GI issues while they're, you know, competing if they are an athlete or you know, in any of these other. I kind of liken athletic competition even to other non athletic high performance, like high stress situations. Maybe if you're a doctor in a big surgery or an entrepreneur at a big, you know, fundraising event. You really just want everything working as well as you possibly can and you know, that includes your gut.

Makes a lot of sense to me. So I, I have been, people are going to laugh at me. I really was an endurance athlete when I was about 16 to 21, when I was really fat. Like a cardio makes you lose weight. So I had a Cannondale road bike even when I was like 15 and I would sometimes ride 20, 30 miles a day in Albuquerque, which is like where people go to train, riding up hills and all this stuff. Never lost any weight. It was very frustrating. But I did get lots of respiratory infections. But there could have been lots of reasons, including the toxic mold in my bedroom. So I'm not going to just blame that. But I, I, my heart goes out to people, especially if you're a little bit overweight and you've committed to becoming healthy. And you saw an influencer online talk about how exercise is going to make you lose weight. Guys, it's what's on your plate and what's growing in your gut that makes you lose weight. That's, that's it. And if you want to have some extra muscle and flexibility and blood flow and health, then you have to move 20 minutes a day and pick up heavy stuff twice a week. More than that has declining returns, not increasing returns. Not to mention if you spend 14 hours a week lifting weights, that's 14 hours a week you didn't spend with your kids on your career meditating. So I'm all about get that intensity in there when you need to have appropriate protections, including enough polyphenols in your diet, enough animal Protein and now I'll be adding omnibiotic power. But my question for you, do I take omnibiotic power on the days I train? The day before I train? I'm probably not gonna take it every day cuz I have like omnibiotic stress the other days and I have a lot of CEO stress in my life. I'm not that stressed as a journal person cuz I've chilled with 40 years of Zen, but I understand physiological stress. Good God. You know, three, four days of my conference for 3,000 plus people, followed by another intense conference, followed by coming home. Like those are all big deals for me. So I'm, I'm probably like at the most depleted. You'll see me, and I'm still doing okay.

I actually think what you just brought up is a really interesting option. If you see that you're going through these very intense periods, you know, you have the conferences back to back, you're off to a speaking event, maybe even different time zones, maybe that's a time to switch to omnibiotic power for those two weeks or however long that period lasts and then switch back to stress release. Another option you could do is, you know, on the days that you do work out or experience extremely high physical stress, take power and then go back to stress release. The third option, which I think I will be doing personally, because I do love my stress release too, is I will be taking one in the morning and one in the evening. So I'll be taking stress release in the morning and then power in the evening and then, and you know, see how that goes. And then eventually if I feel I'm kind of back at a more stable state, maybe I switch off one day this, one day that, or you know, incorporate as my gut feeling tells me, you know, pun intended. But you can definitely switch them off or combine them as well.

If this sounds interesting, Hannah's offering you 20% off because she came on the show today. So go to omnibiotic life.com, use code DAVE20 and she'll give you 20% off. I'm having a bit of a hard time. So as a supplement guy, naming things to tell people what they do is so challenging. Especially because you'll always see like a government regulator in one part of the world says you can't use that word and the other person says you can. Like when I tried to launch a brain octane back when I had, when I worked at Bulletproof and I, I'm unrelated to Bulletproof anymore, not recommending any of their, any of their stuff. Because I just don't know what's going on over there. But the brain octane oil, which was an MCT oil that, that I, I used a lot and I think it's helped a lot of people. I went to the UK and then, oh, you can't use the word brain up there. So I called a high octane oil and people are trying to put it in their cars. I'm like, okay, that didn't work. So you're like, stress versus power for omnibiotic. Well, stress is like the opposite of power, right? Because then your power is going into a stress response instead of into whatever it is you're focusing your efforts on. So now I'm, I'm a consumer, I'm sitting there, I got omnibiotic stress. I know if I work out, I'll be stressed. And if I got omnibiotic power, your answer is take them both. But I'm either economically constrained or lazy. Right, which, how do I do? Which one to take?

Yeah, I think that's a really valid question. So the way I would think about it is if you are more looking for, for these like, cognitive impact, you know, stabilizing mood, better focus, you know, better cognitive function, then I would lean towards omnibiotic stress release because this really at its core is our psychobiotic. So psychobiotic is the fancy term for a probiotic that also has, you know, positive impact on the gut brain axis and therefore your brain function. If you are really more someone who's like, no, I'm just, you know, I'm, I'm pushing my body physically to its limits, whether that's through exercise or your lifestyle or your job. And you know, you're worried about your immune function, you're worried about these oxidative stress levels, maybe you even have shown in lab work before that your oxidative stress markers are high, then I would lean towards omnibiotic power and really support your body a bit more on a physical level.

Okay, now I'm going to make my kids angry right now when I say this. So there are more people who eat croissants in the US than there are French and Canadians who eat croissant or however it is. You actually say that. I've never quite said it. Right. So I'm just proposing that the global standard for croissant is croissant, the way the majority do it. So if we believe in democracy, it's croissant, not quant. And if I want to eat a chocolate filled croissant, which omnibiotic probiotics should I take first to minimize the harm.

Honestly, I think one piece of sweet processed food is probably. I would. I'd probably not. It won't determine which of the omnibiotic formulations you take. I would more focus on what are the bigger issues going on. So if you're concerned about leaky gut and you know that these sweet treats give you anxiety or make you more anxious or nervous, then maybe stick to stress release. If you eat the croissant and then, you know, you're like, well, but I just took antibiotics and I have a lot of bloating, and I'm still a little nauseous from the after effects of the antibiotics. I would say, okay, eat the processed food, treat yourself, but take omnibotic 80 for a few weeks to make sure you restore your gut properly.

Okay. I was hoping you'd mention zonulin.

Sure. Let's talk about zonulin. Yeah. Leaky gut. It's actually one of the markers we've tested both for stress release and for omnibiotic power because it's such an important, you know, aspect for overall gut health and also how gut health influences our whole system.

Zonulin is a terribly important marker for gut inflammation. And if you have bad bacteria growing in your gut, it'll. You'll have higher levels of zonulin, which means you have leaky gut, which means bacterial toxins that are very small, called lipo polysaccharides, will make it through. And the lipo means fat, and polysaccharide means with complex sugars attached. These are such small molecules, they leak through easily enough, and they directly cause brain and joint inflammation. And they're one of the primary things affecting aging, in my opinion, and I'll say that's an opinion backed by lots and lots of studies. It's not just a random opinion. So if we can deal with lipopolysaccharides, magic happens. Now, since the dawn of the biohacking movement, I've been recommending activated charcoal because it binds directly to lipopolysaccharides. So they don't go to your brain. You don't get brain fog. And it works for. For things like when you drink too much alcohol and you're hungover. And surprisingly, for chronic pain patients, you take activated charcoal, and then the lipid polysaccharides that are leaking across your gut, they don't make it across your gut anymore. And then your nerves and your joints are less inflamed, and then your pain levels go down. You need less pain meds I love that. So our goal is to make ourselves more resilient to these bacterial endotoxins. And when you can reduce zonulin, it means you zipped up the gut so that you can't get through the barrier with these things. And you've got evidence directly for omnibiotic power that it's lowering zonulin, which means it's closing the gaps in the gut that allow these bacterial toxins through.

Yeah, exactly. So, as you said, you know, the, the issue with leaky gut, it's inflammation. Gut lets through all these toxins. And in addition to what you just said, you know, the toxins getting out, that's directly linked to immune system dysfunction. Your immune system goes on overdrive. It's at the root cause of, you know, so many conditions are linking leaky gut to the condition, including mood disorders, autoimmune conditions, the list goes on. And yeah, so with, and actually, athletes very often have leaky gut because of this oxidative stress over long periods of time that increases inflammation also in your colon, destroys some of the cells of your intestinal barrier. And there you have leaky gut. And what we've seen is, you know, just 12 weeks of taking omnibiotic power has significantly reduced sonulin levels in the, in the group that took the omnibotic power compared to the placebo.

So influencers recommending over training are directly causing leaky gut?

Yes, you could say that.

Wow. I, I hope some people repent for that. So, guys, if you once, like me, exercise six days a week for 90 minutes a day, I will tell you, I never lost a pound in 18 months of doing that. And I was on a low fat, low calorie diet, constantly hungry, and my cortisol levels were high. My gut was leakier than you could ever imagine. Right. And when I stopped exercising so much and cut out things that cause leaky gut, I did lose £50 in three months, but I was 90 wheat at the time and I exercised less because I had more work to do. So there's a weird thing where some exercise is good. Too much is bad. If you're going to press it because you love exercise, because you're a fitness competitor, because you're training, or maybe just because you still have the false belief that more is better. It just despite all of the evidence, by the way, read smarter, not harder. If you want to see the evidence, like there's lots of studies in there, well, then you would almost by definition have to monitor your diet. And athletes have always done this. So you Want more animal protein, you want more soluble fiber to feed the good guys. But you're also going to want the right bacterial balance, which is why I'm like, oh cool, this is the first time I've seen a probiotic for this. And it just so happens it's been studied for a long time in Germany before we got access to it. So I think this is like for athletes here. Let's make it so you also get to live a long time instead of training excessively on and then, you know, needing new knees and new hips later in life. And I see this so often, especially in, in endurance people. Maybe if you're lipopolysaccharide levels and cortisol levels and serotonin levels via mechanisms we've just talked about, maybe if those are optimized you can exercise until you're in your 70s. Maybe you won't do the same exercise you did when you were in your 20s. That would be smart. But at least you've maintained your youthfulness. So I'm, I'm a big fan of this, especially if you're going, well, I just don't feel good if I don't exercise five days a week. I'm going to suggest lift heavy two or three times a week and like learn yoga, like go for a walk, do a peaceful movement practice. Right. But this whole, I'm just going to grind it out because I have childhood trauma or something. A lot of people I, I see are self medicating with endorphins. You can get endorphins from a cold plunge and you'll probably live longer. You can overdo that too. Like everything could be overdone. Is there any evidence for omnibiotic power with the other biohacks like infrared sauna or cold plunges in particular, because those are raising some of the same things that exercise does.

I don't think they've specifically looked at kind of combining the two in a study, but you know, they have looked at some other markers like the TNF alpha, which is a really big inflammatory marker, and you know, other markers for the immune system. And we're seeing similar results that they're being improved or stabilized when taking omnibiotic power, especially in these high performance lifestyles. And you know, obviously I think that's the whole idea behind biohacking. And also Dave, what you advocate for is, you know, you have a toolkit and you use the tools in your toolkit depending on what you're going through. And maybe that's, you know, also pulling in infrared sauna and, or cold plunging and you know, your diet. And I think it's, for many people it probably ebbs and flows a little depending on what stage of life they're going through, what other stressors they're facing in their lives.

There you go. You can tune this. And if you're saying, look, I'm, I'm overwhelmed, you know, Dave, you're saying 150 supplements a day, there's lots of tools available now that can help guide you towards what you'd want to do. If you go to upgradehealth.com for instance, that's my newest AI tool we launched at the, at the conference. And so it can help to guide you. You can also though say, I don't want to spend money or time on lab work. I just want to know what to do based on my wearables. Well, we can help you with that. Or I just want to know that I love exercising and I'm going to keep doing it. What's most likely to make me more resilient? Then you pick something, right? And let's say you pick omnibiotic power because it's designed for that. And you do it for a month and you look at your aura ring or your whoop or your Apple watch and you look at what's your readiness score in the morning. If it goes up, newsflash, it worked, right? And if it doesn't change at all, maybe it worked, maybe it didn't. Because you probably have confounding factors as well. You could say there's a confounding factor in the other thing. But do your best to see what's working. And I think you're going to find that you can move the needle in the right direction. And if you have a little extra money, you say, okay, my goal is to address inflammation and exercise related stress this month. So then you actually do some research and you say, okay, I'm going to spend $500 on supplements, right? And then you say, what are the ones that improve exercise? You're looking at some amino acid powder, right? You're looking at things that enhance mitochondrial function and you're looking at things that blunt your cortisol response that you know is going to be high from over training. And then I think omnibiotic power would be something that you would put in your stack. You don't have to just test one thing at a time. In fact, my recommendation is that knowing which one worked is a dumb idea because there's no data that just one will ever work. You might need Three things at the same time. So do all the things that are convenient that you can afford all at once until you get the result and go, oh, my God, I feel so much better. And then stop taking some things and see if you keep the results. Like, this is the path to biohacking versus where I first started. I'll test this thing. Don't test that thing. And like, wait, whoever proved that one thing is the cause, in fact, there is nothing in my life that is caused by one thing. Right? Is. Is ATP caused by breathing or by eating? Oh, my God, you need both. But if I was a big pharma company, I'd be like, no. I tested air and I tested food independent of each other. Therefore there is no life. Like, this is the way of thinking most of the world has.

Yeah, I agree. It's like different puzzle pieces and you're putting them together based on how you know your body and what you think you need, given the outcomes you're looking to solve.

I've seen a lot of companies in the supplement industry pop up. You know, there are people who maybe have looked at longevity for a year or two or they, they did some market analysis with Chat GPT and said, I want to start a supplement company. And they, you know, made some images. So there's a lot of, we'll say less research products that are kind of thrown together. And it kind of bothers me. Having been in the industry for 25 years, I'm like, man, that's expensive and has good marketing, but the ingredients are not the right amounts or they're not effective. So I look for companies that have a lot of research, like 10 plus years that have gone into it. And you guys have about 30 years behind omnibiotic.

Yeah, the company, you know, the, the company was founded essentially 30 years ago by Anita Fraumann, who was a pharmacist by training. And she really discovered her passion for the gut microbiome after she lost someone who was very close to her very early to colon cancer. And for her, that was, you know, one of the missing pieces. She said, back then, I mean, 30 years ago in Europe, as in the U.S. no one really was thinking about the gut microbiome and, you know, the bacteria that live within us and all the things they can do. And the more she started researching and, you know, looking into this, the more she just became fascinated. And that's how Omnibiotic was born. And, you know, one of the core principles was her realization that different probiotic strains do different things in the body. And you can't just combine 10 random strains and hope that they will do the magic of whatever you expect of a probiotic. You have the opportunity to be a lot more targeted so that you don't just like kind of broad spectrum, hopefully improve some digestive parameters. You're actually supporting your gut microgram to then impact other endpoints in your body, other health goals that you're looking to accomplish.

I'm glad you said that. There's something called multi ingredient synergy or multitoxin synergy. And one of the things that drives me nuts is that there is no standard for the most common toxic mold in coffee in the US it's called ota. But I reference a bunch of studies in my writing about this that show that even allowable limits of this toxin, when you mix it with other mold toxins that are present in your environment or other things, that it makes it much more potent and much more powerful. So safe level of one thing is not safe. If you combine a safe level of ingredient one with ingredient two, what that means, though, is that for getting benefits, it's the same way. So if you mix two beneficial strains, two plus two might equal 2.1, or it might equal 5, depending up if there's synergy or not. And when you combine seven strains, it's like two to the seventh. It's a lot of different things you have to test. So it takes years and a lot of rigorous science to know how to mix these things. Right. I've been really impressed, to be honest, with omnibiotic. When you first reach out in 2019, I'm like, seriously, you want me to put powder? Like, I have a whole drawer full of powders I don't take because it's just annoying. Unless I can put them in a smoothie or something all together, I'm not touching it. Except yours is the only one that I've done now, like five plus years, because it actually, you can see the difference.

Yeah, I love that. And, you know, we hear that from so many people who give omnibiotic a try. They say, you know, I've tried so many probiotics in the past. Most of them were capsules, and they just didn't do anything for me. And then they take omnibiotic, you know, and they really feel the difference within a few days of taking the product. This is not something for many that takes, you know, weeks or months. You feel the difference on your digestion, on your mood very quickly.

Wow. Okay. Let's say that I was exposed to something that increased blood clotting over the last few years, I have no idea what that could possibly be. But if I was, what omnibiotic product would be most protective, not just of my gut, but of my overall cardiovascular system?

That's a great question. I don't think we've specifically looked at, or at least I'm not aware of, anything specific to cardiovascular health. But one of the things I would be thinking about is whatever you've been exposed to ideally gets detoxified and metabolized out of your body. And, you know, one of the main organs that does that is the liver. And, you know, we also want to make sure that we're not then flooding the body with additional toxins because we have a leaky gut or because our gut bacteria aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing. So in that case, I would be looking at omnibiotic. He talks, which is our probiotic, to really support liver detoxification, liver function, and overall metabolic processes.

Okay, so you'd focus on the liver, which makes good sense. I also advocate pretty strongly, actually, for taking something called serrapeptase. This is an enzyme that's made by silkworms, and I've been taking this for 25 years because it breaks down scar tissue and fibrosis in the body. And fibrosis was one of the seven pillars of aging in my longevity book, which is called superhuman. Is it okay to take a strong systemic enzyme like that at the same time that I take my omnibiotic? I've always wondered, like, is this enzyme going to start digesting the probiotics? I don't think it does, but I don't know.

That's, again, a great question. I will ask our science team about this. I honestly, I would think, because it's an enzyme you're taking and other like. And presumably this was, like, evaluated by the fda, you know, generally recognized as safe. I think if it was degrading our good gut bacteria, someone would have hopefully found that. And hopefully it can be selective enough to not just start, you know, eating our good gut bacteria.

It seems unlikely. And I've never had a negative effect from doing that, including from taking. There was a time when I met the first people who really came out with this. I took hundreds of capsules of this for about three months straight, and it literally dissolves a lot of scar tissue in my body. I'm not advocating necessarily you do this now. This was in my late 20s when I was running a longevity nonprofit group. And I. I think it had pros and cons. The Bad side is if you break up scar tissue in your body that's there for a reason and you don't learn functional movement afterwards, you. You might have needed that scar tissue. So there's that. I don't always do things the right way, but given what bacterial cell membranes are made out of, I don't think it's going to affect it. So I don't feel bad before bed. Taking serrapeptase and omnibiotic at the same time.

Yeah. I also would think if, if that was the case, especially when you were taking it at higher doses, you would have probably felt some weird things going on in your gut if it was depleting your gut bacteria, because usually, you know, if they're depleted, we do have some sort of GI issues that indicate something is off.

All right, well, one more question. I've been experimenting with taking probiotics in the morning or middle of the day or at night. What is the best time?

That really depends on the instructions of each manufacturer, honestly. And it's really funky because depending on the type of capsule or whatever, usually it can vary. But for omnibiotic, we recommend taking it on an empty stomach, ideally first thing in the morning or in the evening, just because we want the probiotics to get through the empty stomach as quickly as possible so that they're not churning in there with food and a lot of gastric juices. I personally like to take them in the evening because I feel like it gives, you know, your digestive system is kind of empty at night. It gives them a long time before there's interruption from food and increased peristalsis. But again, ideally, you know, just on an empty stomach, morning or evening tends to be the preferred time.

Okay, yours is evening. I've had some brands of probiotic that seem to lower my sleep quality. I would want to take those in the morning. I haven't noticed that when I take, like, the stress formula, at least from omnibiotic, and I don't have any effects on my sleep.

Yeah, we've actually heard the contrary from several people who say omnibiotic stress release actually improves their sleep. And we think that this might be because it does support, you know, neurotransmitter balance and the gut brain axis. But, yeah, I think. I don't think I've ever heard. I mean, unless, you know, if someone had really bad dysbiosis and imbalances and maybe in the first few days of taking really any probiotic, they might feel some mild GI discomfort while the gut is rebalancing and chasing out some of these unwanted pathogenic bacteria. Maybe then it's better to take it during the day so you can sleep well. But I mean, that's again, kind of these edge cases where you might just be experiencing a little bit of mild GI discomfort while the gut microbiome readjusts.

Okay, that makes a lot of sense. I'm just so pleased with the fact that you're taking these European, very well researched probiotics and bringing them to the US because in most of the supplement industry it's the opposite. Other than a few pockets in Germany, we tend to have stuff first in the U.S. that's hard to get in Europe or Australia or Canada and because of more limitations from the government on your ability to control your own health. Not that the US doesn't have its own set of limitations there, they're just different ones. So the fact that we're now taking the very best of Europe and bringing it out here so that we have global availability of stuff with the most research behind it, that's part of the goal of Biohack is I just want to know what works for me for how I'm doing right now with my goals in mind. And you're now labeling the omnibiotic stuff. Okay, this is the one for heavy exercise, this is the one for chronic stress, this is the one for detoxing. So you just know, okay, today is a detox day. I'll take this one. Today is this other day. So making it easy is good. And using research, well, research things is also really good. So I really appreciate what you're doing to bring this to the US and it's, I think it's making a difference. I hear so many positive things from the Upgrade Collective. By the way, guys, if you're listening to this, the Upgrade Collective, there are today people on Zoom on video with me right now who are live members of the audience asking me questions and telling me questions to ask Hannah. So if you'd like to hang out, have four calls a year with me, go to our upgradecollective.com and check it out. But more importantly, I want you to right now, go to omnibiotic life.com, use code DAVE20. And Hannah's been nice enough to give you 20% off of everything in your order. Try omnibiotic power. If you're exercising well, you ought to be at least on those days. And if you exercise every day because you read a book that, well, a well intentioned book that might have told you to overtrain, if you're getting the cortisol gut and your joints hurt and your sleep quality has gone down and you don't have a kickstand in the morning or your cycles irregular and you're losing your hair. You might just be over training because that's what happens when you overtrain. So then you want to double down on omnibiotic power. And if you're like me and you only have a few companies and you're flying all over the planet and you just ran a really successful bioacting conference, omnibatic stress is probably the one for you. And if you know you've just been in a moldy building or you've been sniffing paint fumes or like me, sniffing magic markers, signing books. I've been high from signing books from Sharpies more than once, then I would look at omnibiotic detox. So these are strains that work, they are different, they're noticeably different. And you can have all three. You don't have to take all three at the same time. But I have a box of each one in the cabinet above where I mix all my stuff up in the morning. And that's, that's a real fact. So I just tell you what I do, but I am never going to tell you everything I do all at once every morning because, number one, it changes based on my state. Number two, I care about you and telling you to do everything I do is just a bad idea. And even if 50% of people benefited, the other 50% of people are going to not know why it isn't working right. And this is why tuning what you do for you and for your goals is so important. And I, I just would say give it a try and see if it works. But please don't do everything I do because, well, you don't know what it is. This is something I actually do. But this isn't everything I do, but it's something important I do. That's why I want to have Hannah back on the show. Thanks for coming out. Thanks for your knowledge. It's a fun interview.

Thanks for having me, Dave. I always enjoy talking to you.

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Aspect.

A Human Upgrade, formerly Bulletproof Radio was created and is hosted by Dave Asprey. The information contained in this podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended for the purposes of diagnosing, treating, curing or preventing any disease. Before using any products referenced on the podcast, consult with your healthcare provider, carefully read all labels and heed all directions and cautions that accompany the products. Information found or received through the podcast should not be used in place of of a consultation or advice from a healthcare provider. If you suspect you have a medical problem or should you have any healthcare questions, please promptly call or see your healthcare provider. This podcast, including Dave Asprey and the producers, disclaim responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own and this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guest qualifications or credibility. This podcast may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products or services. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to herein. This podcast is owned by Bulletproof Media.