The Phosphatidylcholine Fix: A Game-Changer for Liver Health, Detox, and Hormone Balance

There was a girl in a wheelchair who was listening to the training, and she said to me she was poisoned by a specific antibiotic. She was an opera singer in a wheelchair, could not sing, could barely even speak.

I didn't even know that could happen.

Exactly. About 6 months later, I get an email from her. She said, "I've been taking 2 tablespoons of PC. My life has completely changed. I'm starting to sing again. I'm walking again." Her cell membrane was completely damaged through this process.

Wow.

The toxins in our world are breaking down our cell membranes at a faster rate than we are actually making them in the body.

If there were one molecule that could make your cells more resilient, your liver more efficient, and your hormones hum like they're supposed to, and yet hardly anyone talks about it, would you wanna know what it is? I would hope so. And today we're pulling back the curtain on phosphatidylcholine, or PC as it's called. And by the end of this conversation, you'll see why this quiet little nutrient may just be one of the most powerful tools for women over 40 to protect their metabolism, their brain, their hormones, and their longevity. By the way, this episode is sponsored by BodyBio. You're gonna hear why I was so fired up to do an episode on this and why I chose BodyBio and why this specific nutrient, PC, should be a core foundational supplement and the story behind how I came to find them and got so obsessed with it. Now, my guest today is someone who didn't just learn about phosphatidylcholine, she grew up with it. Jess Berman is the co-owner of BodyBio. It's a company that's been a pioneer in the world of cellular health for decades. Her grandfather, Ed Kane, founded BodyBio after realizing that the key to so many chronic health issues came down to one thing most people overlook: the integrity of the cell membrane. She literally grew up surrounded by scientists, doctors, and a lot of conversation about cell membranes at the dinner table. I don't know about your dinner table, mine, we never talked about this. And while that might sound a little intense, what's amazing is how she's taken the family legacy and turned it into a modern mission to educate and empower people, especially women, to understand how foundational lipids like PC can change their health trajectory. You're also going to love how she can make complex science— hello, cell membranes, phospholipids— accessible, and how she can help everyday people like us connect the dots between what's going on in their cells and how they actually feel. She's passionate, she's wicked smart, and she has one of the most unique vantage points on this topic you'll ever hear. Plus, we're recording it in my home studio and my dogs love her. That's always the biggest test of a human, right? I'll be right back with Jess Berman. Stay with me.

Jess Berman, welcome to my studio.

Thank you for having me.

Before we dive into all this, and I'm really curious about what we're going to be talking about, but I'd love to know how you got into this space.

Yeah, that's fair. So our company is a third-generation family business. The second generation was not interested in my grandfather's pursuits in biohacking. You know, he was an OG biohacker in like the 1980s.

What was it called back then?

It was originally called the E-Light Corporation.

What was biohacking referred to?

I don't even think the word functional medicine existed in the 1990s.

Well, 'cause I started going to functional medicine, to IFM.

Yeah.

Back in the late '90s. It was early 2000s. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't go start going till like 2000, I think.

No, I mean, it was like, late '80s or something. So it was much more of a naturopathic— you had Bastyr University, you had a couple different universities where people were doing things a little bit more holistically. And a lot of those people kind of came together in the early 1990s, and then it broke off into the various different things. So IFM was started, and Metagenics, and Zymogen, and all these different companies. My grandfather just chose to focus on the cell and the cell membrane, which is quite esoteric and, and probably a little niche, but he saw something. Yeah, super important. And I think he really, he really hit the nail on the head and knew what was happening in the world and how toxins were affecting us and, and just doubled down on it.

Gosh, way back before we really had the toxic overload we have now too.

I mean, I think he's rolling over in his grave.

Wow. I mean, what's happening in the world, the glyphosate situation.

But he saw it in the '90s. That's what's crazy. So his journey was chronic fatigue from heavy metal toxicity. Oh, and then he went on this biohacking journey.

That back then.

Yeah. So I guess in the 1980s they said you chronic fatigue, and he just said, well, I'm not going to accept that I'm just going to feel this way forever. He actually owned a steel business. He was a serial entrepreneur. And then he went on this search to figure out, well, what does chronic fatigue mean? What's the root cause of chronic fatigue?

So an early functional medicine biohacking guy before there was even names for any of this stuff.

Exactly.

Okay, but this skipped a generation. What got you interested in this?

In general, I've always been interested in it. I've always wanted— I studied biochemistry. I was always interested in Understanding the root of what the problem was. So I dealt with a lot of digestive issues. I had polycystic ovaries, and I was never willing to say like, okay, you have PCOS, this, let's treat the PCOS. It's like, what's causing the PCOS? How do I get to this metabolic dysfunction?

Do your doctors just love you?

No, they couldn't stand me. So I was constantly gaslit. I was constantly kind of kicked out of practices. Um, but really when I sat down with my grandfather and started deep diving on like, how do we get to the root, is when I started learning just how critical our cellular health and mitochondrial health is. Amazing.

Yeah. So this is not just a business that you just happened to inherit. This is like a mission.

No. And it wasn't even like inheriting. I mean, it took so many years to convince my grandfather. My husband's the CEO, so he's really the business— the brains, I would say, behind the business. I have always had a connection with my grandfather in understanding his extremely technical view of things and how to distill it for everybody else.

So that's also brains.

It's just different. Yeah, different. More like a creative. But I have to tap into a very analytical place. And so we work as a great team together because he really handles the operations, the manufacturing, and I approach it from how do we just continue to educate more and more people.

Perfect. That sounds like me and my husband. Amazing. Yes. Well, they're totally different skill sets.

They are. I think you could do everything, but you wouldn't do it as well.

Well, just because you can.

Yeah. Doesn't mean you should.

No, well, it seems to be working well. A little funny story. I used to take phosphatidylcholine, and I don't know, it just fell off my radar. And then I did this test with my buddy, Dr. Hemal. Do you know Dr. Hemal Patel? Yes. Okay, so from MeScreen test.

Yeah.

And I think I was one of the first people that took that test, and he said, "You need phosphatidylcholine." Amazing.

Oh, okay.

So then I started sniffing around as to which I should get, And everywhere I turned, people said BodyBio. Now, full disclosure, you guys are sponsoring this show. And the reason is, is because I've gotten a little obsessed with this and I wanted— I think it's one of those supplements, and there's only a couple that I really feel this way about. This, creatine, magnesium, and vitamin D. Things that if you don't have what you should, and likely we're not getting it from our diet, which we'll talk about.

Yeah.

Nothing else is gonna work well. Yeah. And this, this probably more than anything else. So it was really interesting that all roads led back to BodyBio, even to the point where I was at Centner Wellness and there was this whole wall of BodyBio. I'm like, wherever I'm like, the universe is, is screaming at me, just use this BodyBio.

It's taken me 7 years to get to this place, but I'm happy. I even saw a post the other day talking about how PC's trending. I said, oh, it's a trending topic.

Wow.

Yeah. Well, it is kind of crazy. Like, you look at now creatine's trending and I'm really glad, but it needs to have its, its day and it needs to stay.

I agree.

So, but let's talk about why, because most people are going, "Phosphatidylcholine, what?" Yes, absolutely.

And I think when you start talking about what it is, you get into the biochemistry weeds. So if you keep it just super simple, I like to say it's a healthy fat. It's actually not a fat, it's an oil. But what it is, is it's a bioactive lipid that protects our cells. And there's, in women now they know it's about 32 trillion cells, in men there's upwards of about 40 trillion. And every single one of those cells and the organelles within the cells, like the mitochondria, are protected by this very delicate bubble. And that bubble is essentially made of phospholipids. And that's what phosphatidylcholine is. It's the predominant phospholipid of the outer membrane of your cell membrane.

And if you don't have enough phosphatidylcholine, what happens?

And this is a really interesting point. This is one that my grandfather would just, slam all the time. He was obsessed with this concept that the toxins in our world are breaking down our cell membranes at a faster rate than we are actually making them in the body. So typically you should be making enough phospholipids from foods and from food sources than you should be making them in the body. What we're seeing now because of the world that we live in is that is critically impaired, and we're not actually producing enough to repair the cell membranes.

Is there a way to know if this is happening? Is it more symptom space? Is there a lab test? Like, how would you know that you're breaking down your membranes faster than you can build them up.

I'm actually talking to me screen next week. Um, there's very few tests. There was a wonderful test in Germany that looked at phospholipid levels. It's very, very difficult. We actually do red blood cell fatty acid analysis at Johns Hopkins. It's a research lab, it's not a commercial lab, so we're not able to offer it to everyone. But we've seen over the last 30 years consistently that people's levels of phospholipids are decreasing. But there's no easy way to walk into a LabCorp and get the levels tested, unfortunately. So it's really based on symptoms. It's based on our environment. It's based on what doctors see using the products and the outcomes that they see from it. So brain fog, fatigue, all of these things are signaling mitochondrial dysfunction. Most doctors that work with BodyBio are putting their, their patients on it, every single one of their patients, because they know what the foundation of cellular health means. When you take care of that cell membrane, all of the cells in the body can perform the actions that they should be.

And, and it would just strike me that if the cell membrane's not functioning well, then all the other things you're throwing at it are not going to be able to work.

Exactly.

So that's why when I looked at this again, I go, how did this fall off my radar? And—

Yeah, it's such a critical supplement, I think, for everyone. And I think most notably, I mean, unfortunately, women have the downside of all these hormonal fluctuations. And with that comes an increase, a decrease in estrogen, PEMT, which is the enzyme that is responsible for converting phosphatidylcholine and actually making it in the body starts to decrease. And then we're left with even less PC in the body after menopause.

Wow. If you were replacing hormones, would you avoid that or still have some of that? I guess it depends on what levels you replace.

If you're replacing hormones by supplementing with PC, you're actually making the hormones work better.

So if you're replacing hormones and taking PC, it's—

they're working even better because those cells are actually able to perform the actions that the hormones are dictating.

Do you think based on how we live now with all the toxins and our diet, which I wanna address, where do these things come from in the diet, that we actually could get what we needed from food?

I don't know. In today's world, I don't, I don't know that you could because the toxins are just everywhere.

So we've got an increased need. Yeah. And then where is the supply? Where should we be getting these from our diet?

Really? I mean, the, the highest forms are egg yolks. Particularly meats, soy, seeds.

And soy is one of the most nasty crops out there.

It is. So you have to be really careful. Now, the interesting thing— and you'll, you'll hear this question in from all sorts of places— we use soy, we use soy lecithin as the raw material that we put through the whole process in which Body Bio PC is made. So the end product isn't allergenic or estrogenic. It goes through this whole level of processing. But that's what differentiates BodyBio to every other phosphatidylcholine on the market. So even the ones using sunflower, or most of the ones out there by mainstream companies, they'll have a, a phosphatidylcholine product. Most of the time it's just lecithin packed in oil and stuck in a pill. Oh yeah. And they can label it phosphatidylcholine. So that's why when you asked everyone, what phosphatidylcholine should I take? They all said BodyBio because we make it entirely differently.

How would you know?

Do you have a patent on that process?

Uh, there's no patent on the process. It's one of those like secret hidden people. I would say there's about 10 people in the world that know how to make it.

How would you know then if you were getting the, let's call it PC when it's not versus one, I mean, if that can be called phosphatidylcholine.

Yeah.

And this is phosphatidylcholine. They're both considered phosphatidylcholine, but the end result would be very different, I would assume, in how they're absorbed.

Yep, exactly. So one is broken down, the, the triple lecithin packed in oil is broken down into lecithin and triglycerides when digested. Tested. The only way that you will know that it's the wrong thing to take is typically, A, you're not going to feel the symptoms change. B, you'll see TMAO increase in the gut. You'll see actually TMAO levels increase, whereas when you take ours, it won't.

Okay, let's tell everyone what TMAO is.

There was a really great study that was done at the Cleveland Clinic actually looking at phosphatidylcholine products and seeing this specific molecule in the gut increase. And so it, it caused everybody— I think it was in about 2001— it caused everybody to go, we can't take phosphatidylcholine. Well, that's different. There's a major difference between that triple lecithin, which is going to break down in digestion, and true phospholipids, which make it through the digestive barrier, get into the bloodstream for cellular delivery. And that's what my grandfather really figured out how to isolate. How do I take soy lecithin, how do I put it through an extraction process to isolate the phospholipids in a liposomal form? And so most liposomal products that you see on the market are actually using that bad form of PC.

Oh my goodness. Yeah. And so Then if you eat foods that have lecithin in them, would those also cause an increase in TMAO?

Most likely, yes. Hmm. Yep. So lecithin in like the 1970s, 1980s was really known as a superfood. And I think it will increase small levels of phosphatidylcholine, but it's not going to get through to the cells like ours does for cellular repair. And we know this because this year we invested money in a study, a mitochondrial study at the University of Connecticut, looking at the actual imaging of how this product is taken up into the cell. And now we're even going further to look at how it's taken up by the mitochondria.

Wild. And then, so for egg yolks, to get to an optimal level, like, so someone who is now looking at this going, okay, I'm gonna start doing this, if they wanted to do it from food.

Yep.

How many, I'm assuming that they would need more at first to kind of stabilize their, their cell membranes back to where they should be.

Mm-hmm.

Do you get to a point where you go from a loading dose to a maintenance dose or no?

I think eggs are an important piece of the puzzle. They're an important nutrient to include. The reason I would not use eggs solely is eggs are also high in sphingomyelin, which can affect atherosclerosis. So you wouldn't want to just use eggs and start slamming 12 egg yolks a day. Now, my grandfather did eat egg yolks every single day.

How many?

So he would probably have 2 to 4 egg yolks. He would eat them in raw cottage cheese. He would pour PC and another product we have called Balance Oil in it, and that's what he would eat for lunch. Wow. Yeah. And that was after his morning, even at 95 years old, weightlifting every single morning. Oh, okay. Fabulous. Yeah.

So the question though, on the cholesterol with the eggs is, wouldn't that just be if they oxidized, if they cook the egg yolks, if you did them?

This is why you have to be careful with eggs.

But then we also have the toxins if you're not getting pastured eggs. I mean, it always blows my mind when I go to Europe and you get these eggs and they're like bright orange and they look entirely different. And then you get things here and it's just this pale, sad, yellow, yucky with a little gray.

Yeah. And I think it also depends on what your exposures are, how well your liver function is, how, how much, malabsorption is your bile. Like, how's your bile flow doing? So if you have all of these things that kind of— if you're not optimal in your phase 2 detoxification, how would someone know? You eat an egg and your gallbladder hurts. You've had gallstones.

How would someone know if their gallbladder was hurting?

Do you, um, anybody who's eaten any kind of fat, an avocado, even, even olive oil, and you get this upper right quadrant pain that maybe you think is your liver, it could be your gallbladder. All of that's fat malabsorption. That's all coming from your gallbladder. So those are the main ways— this happened to me, it happened after I had my second child actually, and I just stopped being able to eat eggs. Every single time I would eat eggs, I'd be in this keeled over in pain, felt like vomiting. It was really, really terrible pain. You know, for that, there are multiple different things that you can do to get that bile flowing. But PC, once you get your liver working and once the, the level of toxicity is kind of being detoxed better, PC will actually increase bile flow by about 250%.

Wow.

Yeah.

Okay, so someone looking at this going, maybe they don't really have anything going on besides they're doing hormone replacement therapy, what would the starting dose be? And again, do you take a higher dose at first to help get your cell membranes to where they need to be, or is it just doesn't matter, or what?

Yeah, we call it a loading dose. I always like a loading dose for people who are feeling good. Maybe they're, you know, premenopausal, menopausal, postmenopausal, it doesn't matter. You can start at just 2 capsules a day. You can build that up after a month to— I take 1 tablespoon a day, which is 12 capsules. Wow. Yeah. So I just take the liquid bottle. I literally drink it.

Well, I just, I, this is hard to travel with, so it is.

Yeah. So the capsules are much easier to travel with. Um, I literally take a plastic bag and take them everywhere. So you could do that for about 3 months and then taper back down to the 2 a day. Okay. And you'll see a difference. I mean, you really will.

And what, and you say you'll see a difference. What types of things would you see?

Brain clarity, brain function, memory retention, um, better detoxification, better liver. Better absorption of nutrients that you might not feel, but you might feel energized overall. We typically tell people to take it in the morning or the kind of lunchtime, because if you take it at night, it can be a little— it can kind of make you feel a little bit too much energy. Better skin. Skin is our largest organ. Organs are made of cells. So more plump skin. All of these things.

Hmm. Is there any reason to put it on your skin?

Some people do. I had a nurse, like amazing holistic practitioner. She used to take it and she would put it on her eyes. She would put some on her forehead and then she would put tape, like face tape on top of it.

Very interesting. So besides, because obviously it sounds like anyone who is on hormone replacement therapy, this would make a ton of sense for.

People who are and people who aren't.

But yeah, but it sounds like anyone who is anyone, like I'm trying to figure out who wouldn't benefit from this. And I guess the, the issue is it's so much easier to do like a vitamin D level and say, oh, look, I need it. Or RBC magnesium and oh, look, you know. This one, it just seems like, I don't know how you would not need it.

Yeah. And, and I think we will get there with the testing. I think we'll develop it. I don't, I think it's going to take a couple years, but I think it also sounds like it doesn't really even need to be.

And for a maintenance dose, then like 2 capsules?

2 capsules a day, half a teaspoon.

The teaspoon versus the capsules?

Same exact product in the inside. The capsules are made of bovine gelatin, so they are not vegan. The liquid is vegan.

Got it.

Yeah.

All right. I don't think I have a lot of vegan people following me.

I would hope not.

I just— I think that I've made the case so many times.

You need your meat.

It is amazing, though, that that still is out there.

I know. Well, low-fat skim milk is still out there, so it's no surprise, right?

That's true.

It's unbelievable.

Amazing. So let's, like, dig a little deeper into the whole hormones and PC because I think that's a really interesting place.

Yeah.

If you were doing, say, a Dutch test looking at estrogen metabolites, would you see any shifts?

I think you would, because hormones are made from cholesterol, and they need these fats in order to function correctly. And so I think you would see a shift if you were going to do— before taking PC and maybe 6 months after, you would definitely see a shift in how those hormones are detoxified and regulated and balanced.

And then for getting this from your eggs, like, I know you really can't get everything you need from your eggs.

Yeah.

But it was interesting, I once put a client on 3 eggs a day, 3 soft-boiled eggs a day, to prove to his doctor that this was not going to raise his cholesterol, which it did not. And he got healthier and his triglycerides dropped the whole bit. Exactly. But is there— would you need to have them be like soft-boiled or raw in order to really get this?

Yeah, I don't think you would want to, you know, completely fry an egg, right? You think about the oils that you're cooking these things in as well. I love a poached egg, a soft poached egg, soft-boiled egg. I eat the raw egg yolks myself in a smoothie that I make, but you know, some people might not be interested in that kind of stuff.

But yes, I think that any eggs I find to be one of the more disgusting things I've ever—

Yeah, exactly.

—got. We were in Spain 2 summers ago and we were at this restaurant and they wanted— we ordered these mushrooms and they came with a runny egg yolk. And I'm like, "We'll just skip the runny egg yolk." And they're like, "You're not skipping the runny egg yolk. Like, we couldn't skip it." I was like, "All right. Okay. What are you gonna do?" It was the most delicious thing ever. There you go. I know. I was like, "You know what? Maybe I've just got a bad PTSD thing from that." put on— could be runny eggs. Yeah, yeah.

And I think some people just have like an egg intolerance. I think oftentimes that's a fat malabsorption issue, which is why there, there is an egg PC on the market, but it's so delicate. Any essential fatty acids, these, these bioactive lipids are extremely prone to oxidation and rancidity, and you don't want to be feeding the body those bad oils. You want to be taking the good, pure, whole, unadulterated oils.

Now you've got beyond PC, you've, you've got some other types of oils. So, and I also know there's like phosphatidylserine, other phospho— so walk us through some of these other ones and where they be.

Our product has ancillary phospholipids. So the most important one, particularly for mitochondrial health, that has is phosphatidylethanolamine, and that is really important in the mitochondrial membrane. And so it has it in it. It has phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidic acid. It has a host of complexes. Interestingly, phosphatidylserine is actually made through an enzymatic process from PC. So they take phosphatidylcholine and they mix it with an enzyme, enzyme in order to make phosphatidylserine. Phosphatidylserine is great for memory, but it will only work short-term. It's about 6 months. And so you want something that's going to provide the full complex. And in the body, when you're taking phosphatidylcholine, it will actually enzymatically make phosphatidylserine.

That's what I was gonna ask. Well, if you can make your own, why wouldn't you just do that?

Exactly. So this is like a, a purified, well, it's just a more whole food version essentially.

If you were having memory issues, it was interesting. I was under tremendous stress in my thirties and I was taking this brain formula and there was one with phosphatidylserine and one without. Hmm. And the one without did not work anywhere near like the one with. Interesting. Yeah. But it was the short-term therapy. I didn't need it that long. Exactly. So maybe, but maybe that was why. Yeah. Who knows? Beyond that, what about all of the different, essential fatty acids.

Yeah, essential fatty acids are so fascinating, and I think that this whole kind of seed oil conversation has really affected the way that we look at pure, unadulterated essential fatty acids. People forget that omega-6s are actually essential.

They are.

And so our Balance Oil is 4 parts omega-6 to 1 part omega-3. Which is perfection. And that's the part, that's the ratio that your cells need.

So I'd love to dig into the seed oil piece of it, 'cause it is such a, it's amazing. I'm like, why are these things controversial? But I had Cate Shanahan on the show, and I said, I was like, my whole thought process on the seed oils, besides, you know, the damaged fats from the processing, was that it was driving up our ratio and taking it out of our normal 4:1. Yeah. And she goes, that's not the issue. The issue is the damage. I'm like, wouldn't it be both?

The other issue is how we're looking at testing. So plasma testing is looking at the circulating levels of omega-3 and 6, and that's a snapshot of what you've eaten in the last couple days. So if you have not eaten any fish and you have low levels of omega-3, your omega-6s are going to appear higher. And so that red blood cell fatty acid test that we've been doing for 30 years, since the 1990s, we see the buildup of the very long-chain fats and the renegade fats that are caused by oxidized 6 and 3. But what we're also seeing systemically through all the, the test results that we've seen, and we're talking thousands, is that people are taking too much fish oil and they're taking too much 3, and it's offsetting the good levels of 6s.

And so what would they see in the test? What type of test is that and what would they see to know that?

That's, that's hard. That's getting into like this, this research lab that we've been working with for a long time. And it's, um, Kennedy Krieger's peroxisomal lab is what they're looking at. But essentially what it's looking at at the highest level is how stiff is your cell membrane? How fluid is it? Which is when you have the right ratio of omega-6 to 3 and the right levels of phospholipids, or how stiff it is. And you may have heard in like the chronic fatigue or chronic illness Circles, this concept of cell danger response. Well, that's really what this is. It's like if your cells are stiffened and they're not working— all the actions of our cell comes from this membrane, and if it's stiffened and hardened and not communicating properly, all of those neurotransmission and the development of the neurons aren't going to properly work.

Okay, well, what makes it stiffen? Because I always thought that was the 6s.

It is. It's the bad rancid oils, but that can also be from bad 3s. So I, I love whole food sources. I think when it comes to omega-6 and 3, when it comes to essential fatty acids, whole food sources for me are king. Evening primrose oil is a wonderful supplement. Our Balance oil is, is very cold-pressed, carefully treated organic oils, so they're, they're getting the nutrient-dense essential foods into our body.

Then which oils are in that one?

So that is linoleic and alpha-linolenic in a non-oxidized form. But if you walk into a restaurant and you consume heated canola oil, that's oxidized 6s, and that's going to stiffen your cell membrane.

Well, I mean, isn't vanilla 6 and 3, so it's even worse.

I think it has a little bit of 3. I think it does.

It's just really frightening that they're heating both those things up. But talk a little bit about this because I feel like there's so much anti-6. I'm like, 6 is actually— we need more 6 than 3. I actually drove my— I was one of the people, I went and did a test. I'm like, oh shoot, I've been so careful about what I do at restaurants. Yeah. And, you know, I eat a lot of fish. I had to back off taking omega-3s because I was like, I was like a 2:1 ratio. Yeah. No, exactly. You know, no wonder I'm like, you stick me and I'm bleeding all over.

Do you take fish oils or not?

I do, but I don't take that much anymore because I eat so much fish.

Yes, and I think that's the best, the best way. Yeah, caviar, roe, those are even better.

And anything— my kind of rule with fats is whole fats first. Yeah, just like any type of food, like what can we get from our food? That's why it's so great to be an omnivore because you're going to get more. Exactly. And then minimal, minimal oils like extra virgin and basically ghee. That's what we use. That's it.

It's interesting for me to see this trend of people taking like tablespoons and tablespoons of olive oil a day. And look, I think olive oil is great, but it's omega-9.

You know what's so funny? So there was a study that came out that was like, olive oil makes you make new fat cells. And it was like, okay, but is that bad or good? But it was a great headline.

And they use these types of headlines to their, to their marketing. And it's become this marketing gimmick on, you know, social media of so many people talking about, I'm building my brain through olive oil.

It's like, I mean, if you look at the amount of olive oil, your brain is not made of olives. But if you first of all eat olives. Yeah, it's interesting. I never really liked them, but we've been incorporating them in and I'm like, I think it was like the runny egg yolk. However, I don't know that you need to drink shot glasses of olive oil. Just use a little bit. Use a little bit in your, in your food and it's fine.

What your brain actually survives on and needs, and Huberman just did a whole podcast dedicated to this, is structural fat. And those structural fats are phospholipids and essential fatty acids. And he says it within the first 4 minutes of the podcast.

And does he say that you can get that from diet alone? Because again, it doesn't sound like it.

He goes into some diet. I think where he gets it wrong is he starts talking about specifically phosphatidylserine and omega-3. Oh, and he missed it then. And exactly. So it's interesting. He had it right at the beginning, and then he said they're essentially the same thing. They're absolutely not.

Omega-3 and phosphatidylserine are the same thing?

Yeah. Yeah, the top level was correct. Did you fall out of your chair when you heard that? Literally, yeah. But where he's getting it right is these are the main components of our brain. And as we age, we are losing these. They are becoming more oxidized. We're consuming bad foods, we're consuming bad things, toxins are breaking them down. And so we need to actually supplement with these essential nutrients because in today's world, we're just not getting enough from food.

In terms of detoxification, beyond just supplementing PC, what are some of the other things that you would recommend there? Because you've talked a lot about that and how it's impacting our cell membranes.

Yeah, I had a fascinating conversation the other day with the, the leading environmental toxicant researcher. It's such a huge issue that's not like—

I think it's one of those kinds of things that if you really start to talk about, you realize that we are so screwed. Like, you know, I'm kind of— anytime I'm home, I'm in my sauna. It's like, where's JJ Virgin? She's in the sauna, just in the sauna. But you look at and go, Wow.

And what she and I were talking about was sauna is great if you have the right levels of phospholipids, because phospholipids go in and they grab onto those biotoxins that are coming out of the adipose tissue, and they help to remove them from the body. You also need ample levels of glutathione for this, this detoxification process. But so many things that we do not even see or smell or feel are affecting us at the epigenetic level. And it's cancers, it's diseases, it's autoimmune issues. It's all of these things. And that's because we have these leaky cells and not enough healthy fats, not enough of these bioactive lipids that are protecting the cells from all this stuff getting in there.

So someone's starting this, how long would it take, like 3 months for them to start to notice something or sooner?

It, it really depends on the individual. Depends on their health state, depends on their toxic burden. It depends on if they have an autoimmune condition or if they would classify themselves as perfectly healthy. It just really depends. Who's ever perfectly healthy? I don't think any of us are.

I thought I was perfectly healthy. I was perfectly healthy. And then Vibrant Labs sent me a couple tests 'cause I was speaking for them. They're like, "Just do these tests." And I'm like, "All right, I don't really need to." Well, we had a cold plunge in our recovery room next to our saunas. We have two saunas and it had leaked. And I kept telling Tim, this, like, there's a problem here. He goes, "Oh, that's just air in the floor." I go, "I don't think, I think there's something going on here." Next day, mold. It was completely black mold. Oh. Which was the minute I took the test, I'm like, I'm like, honey, we gotta do something. I have never had this issue before.

Now, did you feel any symptoms? No. That's because you're healthy.

Craziest part, like, yeah, both of us can be around all sorts of stuff. We're like, we feel fine. So, you know, I looked at my tests. You would have expected me to look like the walking— this was my case.

I also found out I had Lyme at the same time. Wow. But I think my grandfather saw this, and he saw what happens with that black mold. And there was an incredible test. Unfortunately, the, the lab closed when the founder— hey, there was an incredible test that looked at how that mold, or how a specific toxin, would affect your epigenetics. So it could see— when I did a test to look at this when I had mold toxicity, I could see that there was a certain marker and it was sitting on a specific DNA adduct that would lead to early onset Parkinson's. Wow. So this is why this conversation is so important. You might feel great, but had you never done that test and never known how the mold was affecting you, Who knows what could have happened in 10, 20 years?

Well, then you also wonder, I mean, we're all getting hit by this. Is it just a matter of really protecting yourself? Because we're not going to get away from it.

I think it's a matter of making yourself as resilient as possible. Yeah, that's really how I come at it.

And that's to me a big thing. I don't want to be the person going out to eat going, I can't eat. Me neither. I'd like— I never want to be. And half my friends are, let's be honest. So yeah, at dinner tables. And I'm not that person because that's why we do all this stuff. So if the occasional seed oil gets in your mouth, you're not going to keel over. Exactly right.

It's about resilience. And that's even what weight training and creatine and all of these things are doing and building in the body. It's making your body more resilient and just stronger from the inside out. And I think if we can make ourselves more resilient, our mitochondria more resilient, you have a better chance at living a healthy life.

So any great stories of, of turnarounds that have happened because of using this? Hundreds of thousands. Well, tell me a couple.

I hear it every day. I mean, I hear women who have better brain function. I, there was a really touching story I heard when I was doing, I was doing a training at Erewhon. And there was a girl in a wheelchair who was listening to the training, and she said to me, "I'd love to hear what you're talking about. I was Floxed, and I became paralyzed after taking fluoroquinolones," the specific class of antibiotics. She was an opera singer, stunning, like, 30-something-year-old girl in a wheelchair, could not sing, could barely even speak.

And wait, so what had happened to her system? She was—

she was poisoned by a specific antibiotic. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't even know that could happen. Exactly. So she tells me about this. I talked to a couple doctors. They said, "Send her to this doctor," and it was in California. She went and saw the doctor. About 6 months later, I get an email from her. She said, "I've been taking 2 tablespoons of PC. My life has completely changed. I'm starting to sing again. I'm walking again." Her cell membrane was completely damaged through this process. Wow. And there's so many people, Lyme disease, anyone with chronic illness. Lyme literally scavenges the phospholipids off of your cells so it can survive. But then it's— you need more phospholipids to rebuild those cells for cellular functioning. There's a reason neurological Lyme is always so bad.

I mean, I hear this and go, Long COVID is the obvious.

Long COVID, spike protein damage, all of these things. Wow. I know. So we're talking so much about serrapeptase and some of these things for Long COVID or for spike protein issues.

But if cell membranes aren't healed, none of this is going to matter.

Exactly. Wow. Yeah. And that's what makes my job— I'm so grateful to get to do what I do. And I'm so— I was so interested in being a part of what my grandfather had built because I knew he was able to educate doctors. We were a doctor-only brand until 2019. And so he was able to sit with those doctors and explain to them the difficult biochemistry of phospholipids and your cell membranes. But most people didn't. There was a huge gap of opportunity there for people just taking their health into their own hands. And so it just makes me so happy I get to do this.

So why did you make that shift? And is it now both? So you've got a doc— do you have two different brands, or do doctors still use it, and you've got consumers? What are you doing?

One brand. Uh, we decided— we saw that I think it was like Thorne went on to Amazon, and we said, you know what, people are really taking their health into their own hands, so let's just lead with education. Let's take that risk, which is more risky in the supplement world, and let's lead with just telling people why these are so important to the structure and function of our bodies.

And is PC your top— is this the top-selling?

Yeah, it is the top-selling. Uh, the second best-selling product is one called Tudca. I of bile acid.

That we should actually talk about those two others because I forgot about that. I also take— well, when this all happened, my butyrate was low. I'm like, I take so much resistant starch, what the heck is going on? And someone had been talking about TUDCA, and I'm like, I'd never heard of this. Fascinating. So I'd love to— since you brought them up, let's talk about both those.

TUDCA is— I mean, talk about something that works fast. It's a bile acid. It's a bile salt. Um, it's one of essentially like the emulsifiers in the body that help bile to flow. It was used in ancient Chinese medicine for hundreds and hundreds of years. They actually got it from bears. Bears? Yeah, we, we make it synthetically. We're not harming any animals in the production of our tadka. But tadka really works to help your liver. It helps to get your liver healthy. It's unbelievable what it does to liver enzymes and really, really helps with gallbladder function. So it's mostly taken for those two things. It's also being used for neurodegeneration and looked at because it has this really interesting role in the cells called a chemical chaperone, which helps to break down that junk that's getting into the cells and then use PC to help it get out. Wow. Yeah, it's really cool. And butyrate actually is a chemical chaperone as well.

Amazing.

Yeah. So TUDCA is going to help with the liver and the gallbladder. Butyrate is mostly in the gut. It's manufactured and made in the gut. It's a postbiotic. And then you have PC. So the concept of the products is really to work synergistically and be taken.

Okay, we'll talk butyrate.

Yeah, butyrate is fascinating. I mean, over 5,000 studies we get asked on a weekly basis to donate to different clinical studies that are being done, which is so exciting. It is a postbiotic. It's made deep in the woods in New Jersey. It is—

when you said deep in the woods, I thought of your colon.

I was like, okay, it is, it is manufactured, it is made in the body. We manufacture it exogenously, but in the body it's made when you have the right levels of resistant starch fed to the right keystone strains of bacteria. So if you were missing specific keystone strains, all that resistant starch had nowhere to be. So if you— yeah, this is very frustrating because I was I've been totally doing the resistant starch for years.

Yeah, like, how the heck could I be low in butyrate? So then if you take butyrate, what about taking the— those enzymes or whatever you're deficient in?

Yes, you can. That will help. Taking butyrate, particularly at therapeutic levels, is, is going to be really anti-inflammatory in the gut. It's going to be helping with your immune system, which is obviously housed in the gut, and it's going to create— I like to say it creates like a happy home in the gut for the good bacteria to thrive, for the bad bacteria to be removed from body.

And so those other enzymes, is that something that can be taken? I've never—

you can, you can take different digestive enzymes that will help with the release of the resistant starch and the breakdown of a lot of these things. I take digestive enzymes. I also take Ox Bile, which is another bile salt that I really like that we don't make. I like Allergy Research, but I— there's a whole host of different, different things for the upper and the lower digestive system. There's so many different pieces of the puzzle, I think, to put together.

Yeah, it's— it was interesting because that's been, you know, when I wrote The Virgin Diet, I, I didn't do it as a GI thing. I did it because I was running food sensitivity tests and teaching it from Animetrics. And I was like, why are we doing an elimination diet with all these random things when these foods show up over and over and over again? Interesting. Yeah, I mean, it was always like citrus and oranges. I go, I never see them. It's dairy and eggs and corn, soy, peanuts, and then gluten is a driver. So why am I— why are we making this hard over here? But I never— it I didn't do the Virgin Diet for GI stuff. I did it for weight loss. And then all the GI people came running in and I was like, oh, okay. But when I just did those tests with Vibrant, I also did one with Tiny Health. Oh, nice. And I did those on my kids. They're amazing. Yeah, I love those. Oh my gosh. So, and you know, all of it, I'm going, okay, this, this mold thing has completely trashed my gut. It's crazy, isn't it? It's crazy, crazy. And I don't really know how people don't have mold issues. I think so many of us do. You know, and especially, Like, I think of— we'd had this whole house checked when we moved in, but then, um, we travel all the time. And I think of some of these hotels we've been in. Oh my gosh. Oh yeah.

So bad. They're brutal. I mean, my, my mold issue came from my HVAC system. I would've never even seen it anywhere. You couldn't smell it. It was in the, it was in the ductwork.

How did you know? Husband had floaters in his eyes.

Floaters in his eyes. So he said, I have, I'm seeing these floaters. What is going on? And my baby was about— from the time he was born, I think he had croup like 6 times in the first year of his life. And my mom intuition kept telling me, "Something's off. There's mold in this house somewhere." And I actually had to hire a company to come in and find it for me.

I think the most interesting thing now, because we did like the dust kit and a bunch of different other things, but that those mold-sniffing dogs.

Yes. Yes. I haven't done that. And I actually really like to, because I think dogs are so intuitive on some things. So if they can train them.

I could just teach my dogs to sniff mold.

It'd be fun. Fun. Yeah. I could probably teach my Belgian Malinois too.

I wonder, could it, could they be right off then and could I put 'em to work?

Yeah, probably. And maybe their food and all the supplements that they take.

I know. We are, do you know who Marlene Siegel is?

I've heard of this person.

She's amazing. She actually lives in Wesley Chapel, so she's not far away from us. Nice. She's like the Jeff Bland of vets. Yes. Yes. Okay. So she is, we did a podcast with her. I was like, oh my gosh. And then I went, and you live nearby, so. I'm taking the dogs. Yes. Yeah. The dogs now. We go to a functional vet.

It's, it's a fortune, but to me, I mean, they're, they're our children.

One in two dogs die now of cancer. Exactly. It's crazy. Exactly.

And I just, I think that the more we can do to help prevent that, I give my dogs PC.

I was just gonna ask you, do you give your dogs PC? They get a— Well, you saw my little ones. How much do they need?

So probably half a teaspoon. My big girl gets about a tablespoon a day. I also give her Balance Oil and Resolven, which is a fish oil product that we make with naturally occurring SPM. It's literally cold-pressed caviar. So I give her that every few days because she's not eating a fish diet. She eats mostly venison and rabbit. And so I'll supplement that just for joint health.

Wow. Yeah. Okay. Good to know. We're on it. Anything I didn't ask you about in the world of PC?

I think we've covered a ton with PC. I think one of the things that I find most interesting that we didn't talk about is the metabolic function of butyrate. You know so much about metabolic function, obviously. But what's really interesting is that butyrate, when taken at higher doses, actually naturally induces GLP-1 production in the gut, which is such an important part.

So on that note, because looking at GLP-1s— I'm fascinated with GLP-1s. I, I'm fascinated by— in so many different ways. I'm fascinated that it's become this weird shaming political issue.

Well, at the high doses, it's crazy, right?

I just don't understand, you know. I'm fascinated that, that they're attacking compound pharmacists who can actually create doses that people need. Yeah, you know, the whole thing is bizarro.

But, um, they shut down our Facebook our Facebook account was shut down. We could not run any ads because we were running ads about butyrate naturally increasing GLP-1 in the gut.

Wow. Yeah. It's just an incretin hormone. It was incredible.

I mean, it's, it's structure and function of how this works. Wow. Butyrate creates GLP-1 naturally.

So part of what, and I talked to Dr. Tina Moore about this. I just, I was on her podcast.

Yeah, let's talk about it.

And, you know, I really think she's on to something with that. We've got both GLP-1 resistance and that we've damaged our gut microbiome and we, you know, the L cells and we can't produce GLP-1 like we should. And then you look at what happens when people take just a little bit of it, the inflammation shifts, the, you know, the brain shifts, all the things. Yeah. So when you get your butyrate working right, when you say it helps your body produce it, I'm assuming more in the natural pulsatile fashion it would. It wouldn't be like, you know how you can take— and I never can pronounce it right— Calicurbs Amarasante, and they say it lasts for like 4 to 6 hours, where allulose is like maybe 30 minutes, and, you know, normal is like a couple minutes. Yeah. And then the meds can be like a week or whatever. Yeah. But still, you just wonder if you could start optimizing all of this while you're on a GLP-1 so that if you do want to get off of it, or at least cycle it or taper you're not screwed. 'Cause I think that's why we're seeing issues is people don't have it. They don't have the production they used to have.

Yeah, and they're just taking it at such, at higher doses. But we recommend that people take it, we recommend butyrate for when they're on the higher doses or any GLP-1 in general, because it's helping with some of the GI effects if they're taking that too high of a dose and you're getting those GI effects.

Well, they should never, I mean, that's just to assign your doses to. Like, I don't understand the dosing situation here. Start at half the starting dose.

Yeah, it's, it's a third of crazy.

It's just silly. And then would PC in this situation also help it work better?

It would. So 80% of the gastric mucosa is made of phosphatidylcholine. And so, you know, I sit here saying it does X, Y, and Z, it's all these things, but it's true. Our body is made of these trillions of cells. The cells are all over, they're everywhere, they make up every organ. And so it's helpful in so many different parts of the body.

So I can't imagine someone listening to this not going, I need to get PC immediately, right? I mean, how could you listen to this and not get on PC?

I think they're gonna feel better. I really do. I've seen it. I've seen it every day. I see it every single day of my life.

I would do a 3-month trial at the minimum. Yeah. And you are gonna give, let me just make sure I have it right, 25% off. I'm saying this to you, putting you on the spot. That's what I have here. Is that true?

I love it. Yeah. Wow. That's amazing.

That's the most you will ever get. All right, well, so jjvirgin.com/pc.

Www.bodybio.com.

What we'll do is we'll put the link to your website, we'll have the coupon code, which is JJ Virgin 25. Um, and again, what I've been taking is the PC, the oil I haven't been using, but I'm gonna start to use it when I'm home just because I make supplement packages. Nice. That's what I do every day. And then, um, I've been taking the TUDCA, the sodium butyrate, and trying to think if there's anything else that— we have a great mineral Oh, I've been squeezing some of that into my water as well.

Yeah, that's great when you filter your water specifically.

Yeah. And that is another— okay, one last thing, because that is a thing, is all this filtering of water that I think people don't realize. It's like you're filtering everything. You're filtering the good.

Yeah, you need, you need these minerals. You need tiny, tiny, tiny nano doses of some of these heavy metals even. You know, we should be getting this stuff from our food source. We should be getting it from our food. We should be getting it from our water. But you're not unless unless it's spring water. And so if you have a reverse osmosis system or you have any kind of water filter, I highly recommend adding minerals back in. Minerals, I like to call it cell food. You know, there, there's so many different functions that they have in the body, and ours are trace, they're ionic, and they also include the macrominerals as well. So you're getting a good blend.

So I've just got that over there by our stuff because I make my big huge drink concoctions I drink throughout the day. So forgot about that. That one's another great one. You've got such good Good stuff. Thank you. Good stuff. So very cool. Love the fact that it's you and your husband running this. Thank you.

Yeah, it's, it's been a lot of fun.

I know it's been fun working together with my husband. I didn't think it would ever be. Yeah.

I think, you know, some people look at it and they're like, I could never do that. I, I actually really enjoy it.

Oh, I love it. Yeah. Like it's fantastic, but we have very specific roles and totally different skill sets.

Agreed. Yeah. Same, same as us. I think that's probably what makes it successful.

Yeah. There you go. Well, thank you again. And again, it's jjvirgin.com/ www.jjvirginian.com/bodybio.

Thank you. Okay, so now you see why I have been using phosphatidylcholine for, gosh, I think now about 6, 8 months, and it's become a mainstay in what I do. And now, after what I talked about with Jess after the recording ended, the dogs will be getting it too. Just a little bit of the oil. If you would love to try it yourself, again, she has generously extended an amazing discount to to my listeners. You'll be able to get that at jjvirgin.com/bodybio. She is giving you 25% off, and you'll just use the code JJVirgin25. I'll put all of that again at the show notes. And I have been using the PC, the Tudca, the sodium butyrate, and it appears there's a couple more things I'm going to give a go to too. So let me know what you think, and I will see you on the next episode.