Episode #149: Healthy Gut with Steven Wright

Welcome to Better Health Guy Blogcasts. Empowering your better health. And now here's Scott, your Better Health guy. The content of this show is for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any illness or medical condition. Nothing in today's discussion is meant to serve as medical advice or or his information to facilitate self treatment. As always, please discuss any potential health related decisions with your own personal medical authority.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode number.

149 of the Better Health Guy Blogcast series. Today's guest is Steven Wright and the topic of the show is the healthy gut. Steven Wright is a medical engineer, Kalish Functional Medicine Institute graduate and gut health specialist. He has spent close to $400,000 overcoming his own health challenges using everything from western medicine to shamans. Stephen is the founder of HealthyGut.com he lives in Boulder, Colorado with his fiance Shay and their two dogs. And now my interview with Steven Wright.

First, I want to thank our mutual friend Beth o' Hara for having been how I found out about your story, your work and your products. I am personally using Tributerin X product. Really looking forward today to digging into how to create a healthy gut. Thanks so much for being here, Steven.

Yeah, thanks Scott for hosting this show and having me on. I'm a big fan.

You bet. Thanks. Talk to us about your own health journey, your challenges, some of the tools that you explored and how that led to your passion to do the work that you do today.

Yeah, so you know, I like to think of people into two categories. Either from birth, uh, they chronically have had health issues. And I'm, I'm one of those people, I had a birth defect and have had gut issues my entire life. And then I made it worse with a dermatologist that gave me four years of antibiotics for my skin and then a nice animal house like beer and pizza diet for college. And so I've, I've had my own issues my whole life. Other people have are what I call trigger clients and they, they have a big life event and then everything changes. But, but mine's a long slow burn with a lot of embarrassing stories that we don't need to cover. But basically it came to a head when I was having bloating and gas so bad. I was a consultant at KPMG. I was working on big Fortune 100 projects and it didn't matter if I chicken salad like just lettuce and chicken or if I ate a burger and beer, but I would double over in pain and softly cry at my desk and then if you've ever been that bloated, you know that the one thing you want to do is fart. And unfortunately, usually it smells. And so my co workers complained, and my boss called me into his office one afternoon and said, basically, you're the smelly guy. Your coworkers are complaining. You have to get this under control, otherwise we have a problem. And so that was my wake up call. I think most of us who have had a health issue, we have emotional breaking points where we wake up. And so that was my awakening in 28. And then that sent me into the Western medical system, which, which didn't offer me much. They screened me for celiac genes, which I didn't have, and they gave me antibiotics and metamucil and whole grains, and none of that worked. And so I got lucky. I found the specific carbohydrate diet through one of my best friends, Jordan Reisner, and started it. And it like reduced 50% of my bloating in one week. And I was like, wow, you're telling me I could have agency, I could figure this out. Like, I don't have to be a doctor to figure this out. Like, I have some control. And that kind of just the embarrassment and anger launched me on a, you know, what's become an 1112 year journey here and many hundreds of thousands of dollars into, okay, if someone else has had this, I can't be the only one. Let me find out what worked for them and try it on myself, and then look into the literature, into biology, and try to figure out why would this add up. And so dietary change was huge. Supplements from day one were huge. Functional medicine really turned my life around. And then I got disillusioned with functional medicine, and I was still having some visceral hypersensitivity. And so I kind of left the science and the supplements and all the advanced lab testing and found all of my trauma from my birth and some other things that happened to me, did a lot of healing in those realms to have a huge breakthrough as well, just as big as the other breakthroughs. And so now I am full circle, coming back, trying to talk about both, how important both are.

So it's always nice when your mess becomes your message or your pain becomes your purpose, and now you're able to help so many other people. Sibo, or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, has become such a common issue in recent years. I've think back five to eight years ago, and I probably never really heard much about it. And now it seems like everybody, particularly if they're dealing with chronic lyme disease or mold illness or a lot of these complex chronic conditions, it seems like SIBO is often a player, a piece of the puzzle. Why do you think so many people today are dealing with chronic gut issues, including sibo?

Well, I think the SIBO thing is actually due to better testing and better awareness. I think it's been around probably this whole time and explains a of the IBS crowd. But now you can't deny that it does appear that people are turning up sicker and sicker than what they used to, like, five to ten years ago even. And so, I mean, we could blame that on environmental toxins. We could blame that on increased use of technology and stress and parasympathetic tone loss. I think there's a lot there that, you know, also appears lately that there's just been a lot of emotion. You know, there's higher emotions. People are experiencing heightened states of emotion and maybe bringing up some stuff from their past. So I'm not totally sure, But I do believe that with sibo, part of it is just better testing methods and better awareness to find what was already troubling people a long time ago.

So let's dig in then, a little more to your thoughts on sibo. My perspective on SIBO is that there's often an upstream neurological issue, a vagus nerve issue, something that that's impacting the migrating motor complex. Do you think that SIBO can be resolved with a focus on killing a bug, killing a microbe, or is that only part of a broader approach to managing or dealing with sibo?

I think you're spot on. I think we have very similar beliefs here. I like to think about things like, I went from, like, I fall for everything, right? That's why I spent so much money. I'm like, what's the newest miracle? And what's the newest test? Let me get tested. I've been doing that for 11 or 12 years, and I was doing that in performance and athletics before that. And so I was like, yeah, all these killing agents, and then the results just don't seem to back that up when you look at some of these SIBO killing protocols. And so the question is, why does it recur so much? Why do people have such a struggle? And I think it's because we are often not looking at the conditions that created the. The ecosystem for it to grow in the first place. And so the killing program is only one small step, honestly, in getting rid of SIBO and keeping SIBO gone. I think. I think it like, did they have parasympathetic tone issues? Do they have low stomach acid that is throwing off the ph? Do they have low enzyme function? So the molecules are like funky size and you kind of just have a bunch of food sitting around for nature to eat. So I think that's what's happening is we're not looking at the conditions that set up the SIBO growth.

What are some of the factors that maybe lead to SIBO that are less commonly discussed?

Well, we talked about parasympathetic tone and the migrating motor complex. It is really important that if you're someone who's had a lot of gut issues that are not going away, like go in and get an endoscopy, a colonoscopy, like there are double loop syndromes and there are like actual structural issues. And I just had this actually in our community where this woman was constipated and I threw everything and I even spent time trying to figure out new constipation ideas for her. And it turned out that she had had a prior surgery and the doctor had left some like extra clips and things inside of her belly from a pregnancy. And it took basically removing those and kind of repositioning the intestines. And now she's having a totally different experience. And so don't scoff that stuff off. It's very important. Hopefully insurance will cover it for you. But there's other things like head traumas immediately. If you have a head trauma, we know that you have a leaky brain and a leaky gut, the same zonulin and occludin and all these same blood, brain, sort of like rubber bands that connect. We'll talk more about that, I'm sure, here in a bit. But they're the same gut and brain. So those things, like I said, low stomach acid and whatnot, but I would pay attention to parasympathetic stuff, pay attention to the physical deformities, traumas, those types of things.

Excellent. In functional medicine, I think practitioners often think of starting with the gut. And yet some of my mentors, like Dr. Neal Nathan, Dr. Ann Corson, they suggest that you really need to consider the external environment first and address mold and mycotoxin exposures, which really are constant assaults on the gut, that if we ignore those, that that can make our gut focused protocols less successful. And I'm wondering, what are your thoughts on reducing or eliminating some of the inciting factors early?

Oh, I think it's very important to take a look at the environment and basically work on the Detox pathways being trained at the Kalish Institute. Dan has a very specific way in which she does healing and making sure that the liver pathways and making sure that the gut pathways are opened up. Because a lot of people forget that pooping is phase three detoxification. You've got to get that stuff out. And so I'm all about the environment, but that's only if poop is regulated. So if you're not having a really good bristle, number four, if you're constipated or you're having loose stools, that means you're either holding toxins or you're not getting the nutrients from the food you need to heal from those toxins. And so I'm a both, and I like to work on the mechanics of the digestion from day one, including what does it take in your stomach or your small intestine or large intestine to have good absorption and good elimination at the same time that you're trying to eliminate the environmental issues and support whatever binder, whatever protocol you need to be on there.

Excellent. Yeah. I love Ann Corson's analogy that mycotoxins, in terms of what they do to the gut, are like throwing sparks on a silk scarf. That kind of really makes it obvious. Right? Let's talk about the migrating motor complex for people maybe, that are not familiar with that. What is it and what are some of the strategies that you suggest for supporting the migrating motor complex? Why is it important?

So the migrating motor complex is like the small sister to the peristalsis waves. And it's a house cleaning operation, basically, that happens after we eat several hours, or at least usually takes three to four hours for it to be activated. It's an electromechanical sort of series of waves that clean things up. And so one of the big thoughts on why we have a SIBO or a SIFO or a candida or whatever is that the migrating motor complex is being inhibited through snacking, through stress and parasympathetic tone issues. And essentially, again, going back to my belief around ecosystem, is that you're setting up the conditions to allow microbes to just hang out inside your small intestine where we really don't want them on a regular basis, at least in those high numbers. And so having a functioning motor complex, migrating motor complex, I think is really ideal for health and one of your best defenses, honestly.

So things we can do then. It sounds like eating less frequently, not rushing when we're eating. I know in prior interviews you've mentioned that it kind of takes three to four hours for this migrating motor complex to kick in. So if we're like snacking throughout the day, potentially, then we're keeping that janitorial service from really doing what it needs to do. And so that snacking piece sounds like it's potentially important. And then if we step a little bit out of the migrating motor complex, which is really more small intestine. But think about motility, which is really a broader conversation from the top to the bottom, pun intended. And we think about that whole peristalsis that you mentioned, but really motility in general, what are some of the factors that impact motility more broadly and how do we improve that?

Yeah, I mean, you know, the weird thing is digestion starts with your smell. Like the moment. The moment you smell your food, actually, you're kicking off hormones like gastrin and CCK and all these cool things start to happen. Your stomach starts to produce more acid, and so digestion starts from the moment you smell food. And motility begins in that conversation as well. And so one of the biggest drivers of motility is the PH changing as it flows from your mouth into your stomach, into your small intestine and into your large intestine. And if that PH is off starting in your stomach, your body has to either try to adjust by dumping more bicarbonate in or it can't adjust. Like, if you have low stomach acid, there's not really much you can do. Like, if you're off from the stomach down, you're signing up for probably messed up motility the whole way down. But if you then throw in low enzyme function in the small intestine and, or like microbiome dysbiosis or an overgrowth, like all these things are kicking off toxins and inflammation, and you could speed up or slow down in each sort of phase or organ complex, if you will, throughout the system. And so motility is really complex. And I'm not even sure that we totally get it as a, you know, as a whole group of clinicians yet, but we do know that PH is a huge part of it. We know that, you know, sympathetic tone, enzyme function matter. And we know that certain people just seem to be born with a phenotype for faster or slower. And so what drives that is a neurotransmitter issue in the gut. Is it something else? I think we'll find out in the coming years. Yeah.

It is interesting how many factors play a role. I think thyroid potentially is even one. Right. If you have low thyroid, then that can also affect this whole motility conversation. In your clinical experience, working with your coaching clients, how might a sibo approach differ if one has, let's say, hydrogen versus methane versus hydrogen sulfide? I mean, are you finding clinically that there needs to be a different approach, or does the same approach generally seem to work regardless of the type of sibo?

So I haven't been seeing people one on one in about five years. So I did see about 350, like really intense clients. You know, you don't come see somebody like me until you've been through a lot of functional medicine practitioners. And so it's been a long time back. Five years ago, we didn't know that much about these various types of sibo. And I thought we had pretty good success, like around 70 to 80% success for those clients. And what I think we did a little differently than what is I hear mostly talked about these days. I hear a lot of talk about what's the right killing agent. Is it a rifaximan, Is it a herb, Is it garlic? What is it? Back then, I think, and I still think this applies, is again, I was very focused on what else can I control, what other variables will help me get the best results. And so we did a lot of protocols. All of our protocols for sibo included n acetylcysteine, which is a biofilm disruptor. Especially important for h. Pylori, which we might cover later. We use partially hydrolysized guar gum, which is shown in the research to improve outcomes. We use interphase plus, which is a biofilm disruptor from Claire labs. And so, and the other thing is, to your point, earlier, we didn't. Even if someone presented right away with a gut, gut issues like sibo, we first went and checked detoxification. Are they working like, you know, are they super sensitive? You know, because we want the. I think my approach is we want the body's own immunity helping us with this killing program. Otherwise, we're just setting up the conditions for it to recur again. Right. If the immunity doesn't turn back on, if the gut's natural defense mechanisms aren't back on the moment we stop the killing protocol, if everything's not set up for the migrating motor complex and the acid and all that to keep working, I mean, you're just guaranteed basically to get overgrowth again. I mean, how are you going to prevent it? You don't have an army waiting to help you.

Yeah, that's been my observation as well. It seems like people do well when they have a killing focus and then they stop, and then the symptoms tend to come back unless you address some of these upstream issues. Let's talk a little bit about parasites. I don't think really any gut conversation would be complete without some touching on the parasite topic. So I'm wondering, what do you think the role of parasites is in chronic health conditions, and what are some of the tools that you reach for in ridding the body of parasites?

Yeah, I mean, shoot, if you have a big parasite, especially like some nasty one like ehistolytica or giardia, like, you're probably never going to feel better until you get rid of those. So some of my biggest takeaways are, again, I have an engineering lens to the world, and so I always want to look at all the inputs and outputs and how can I control the outcome? I want to. And so one of the things that I learned is that stool testing technology is not that good. In fact, I'm doing like a microbiome test of myself with all the top labs right now with the same sample. And I've already seen that they're not going to show the same growths across labs. And so I would highly recommend someone, if they're stuck, to use two GI stool tests at the same time from the same samples. You're looking for infections. And each lab has better ability to detect certain types, and they have different protocols. So I highly encourage you, if you're already this deep in the rabbit hole, spend the extra 300 to 400 and run two tests at the same time. Because I think the other thing is the type of parasite really matters, or worm or whatever, because there's some really awesome pharmacological options, you know, for worms or even fungus growth like nystatin is amazing. So the type of infection, I think knowing that can really inform your protocol. And so if you can find that and use a, you know, a really high success thing, like a pinworm option or something from a pharma company, you're gonna be way better off than just, you know, randomly throwing a lot of herbals something. And so that's the other thing is that I tended to see. And I don't know if this is still true, but it seems like a lot of practitioners are maybe scared of using higher doses. So we use pretty high doses of artemisian, of wormwood, of olive leaf, and oregano oil. And these came from Dr. Kalish, these came from other practitioners like Dr. Allison Siebecker. So, you know, these are my mentors. And so we did eight Week killing cycles. And we did higher doses than I see a lot of people using. And we did the pre testing with two tests and we did the post testing with two tests. And I thought we got really good results doing it that way.

You mentioned earlier that the ph or stomach acid is really critical and even in this whole motility from top to bottom. So what are some of the contributors to low stomach acid or higher ph would be optimal for digestion?

Well, you know, we're beating the dead horse here, but parasympathetic tone and stress. I know, that's so annoying to hear as critical though. Yeah. So critical. Without it, you literally, if you're in sympathetic drive or sympathetic mode, you literally are not going to create stomach acid. I mean, that's why they tell you not to go swimming. Well, one of the reasons why they tell you not to go swimming after you eat, you're not going to make the stomach acid and complete the digestion process if you go play in the water. Grandma did have a lot of wisdom inside of her when she was sharing some of these things. Other things can be zinc deficiencies, B vitamin deficiencies, so you can have mineral and electrolyte issues. And another huge one is H. Pylori infections. That is a huge driver of low stomach acid. So you couple our western worlds with high stress, low sympathetic tone, you get some mineral deficiencies, maybe an infection like H. Pylori, like what I had, and it's a pretty easy thing to create, actually.

Let's talk about some of the ways to explore the stomach acid or ph, if it's low, which I believe is hypochlorhydria, how might you identify that? Maybe your PH in your stomach is too alkaline, which is not then going to support optimal digestion.

So the gold standard, if you will, is the Heidelberg test. It's a, you swallow a capsule is attached to a string. You do like a challenge bicarbonate challenge. There's also a GI pill capsule test. Now that's pretty cool. Both of these are advanced tests that you have to find a practitioner who has the machine in their Office. It's usually $300 to $500, depending on where you are in the country. And it's frankly just really hard to access and a lot of money. But that is the gold standard way of doing it. The second best way and the most recommended way by myself and by, I think most people, is to do a betaine HCL challenge test where you literally take a capsule of BTN HCL with a regular meal size that has some protein, and you sort of work up in dosage to find out do you have loose stools or do you have some sort of burning or something that indicates too much acid? There are a lot of other things out there, like baking soda test, and I used to talk about that, but I think that's just such a waste of time and money at this point when the results are just so hard to figure out.

You mentioned H. Pylori, and I know that some suggest, when I did my health coaching thing a few years ago, some people suggest that adding hydrochloric acid is not a good idea if H. Pylori is still present, and that the H. Pylori should be eradicated or addressed or treated before adding hydrochloric acid. And I'm wondering what your experience has been.

So I think that's an utter myth that I hope dies someday. And so the origins from my belief on that myth is that the standard Western medical option is triple antibiotic therapy. So you take like three, three different types of antibiotics, and the success ratio on that is, like, not that good. So they started adding in, like acid blockers to that, to that combo to improve the success. And so I think early on there was a lot of practitioners who had a hard time getting results for treating H. Pylori. And then that was a pharmacological option that seemed to show benefit. So then it started to spread. But if we think back to ecosystem and back to biology, what does H. Pylori wants to do? Well, one thing is when it connects with the body, it basically sends out signals and messengers to shut down acid production around it. So it wants to live in a higher PH environment. And so by not supplementing with HCL or helping with the HCL production, we're essentially giving it free reinforcement to live better. We're making it easier for it to be alive. And so I just think that's silly to give it another advantage, even if you think you're going to kill it with your protocols. Again, I'm all about setting up the conditions for when you exit the killing phase, that your body keeps going. And so we, I saw well over 50 H. Pylori issues, and we put them on high doses of hcl whenever warranted, and we never had an issue with it.

Let's talk a little bit about acid reflux or gerd. I think most people think that when they have. That they have too much acid. And my understanding is that it's often actually low stomach acid that leads to what people think of as Acid reflux. And so interested in your thoughts? And then how might some of the common pharmaceuticals, like the proton pump inhibitors or PPIs, how might those actually be contributing to some of the gut challenges people experience?

Yeah, so I mean, other mentors of mine, Dr. Jonathan Wright and Dr. Steven Sandberg Lewis, they actually had some of the first Heidelberg machines and were like really early into this stuff. And so they both are quoted publicly saying that when someone came in with acid reflux or gerd, like symptoms, and they ran them through the gold standard for do you have low stomach acid? They would find between 70 to 85% of these people had low acid. So just because you have the heartburn or the GERD does not mean you have low acid, but it does suggest that you have a high probability to have it. And then, you know, if you look at PPIs and you go look at the warnings on the labels, if you look at the research studies, essentially what it is doing is it's, it's stopping your acid production in order to take away your pain. And I understand, because I've had decent amount of heartburn in my life, that the pain does feel like too much, too much acid. It's like right there and it's really terrible. Honestly, I actually had a girlfriend once go to the hospital because she was having a really bad acid reflux, but she thought it was a medical emergency beyond that. And so for some people, this is a really hardcore thing. So the issue is that PBIS were never really studied beyond 8 to 12 weeks. And then when you think about what you're doing when you give up your acid, your number one, one of the coolest things about acid is it helps the protein molecules which are folded up in these balls. It basically opens them up like almost like a flower. It starts to unfold the proteins so that the enzymes later can do their work to actually absorb those amino acids. So if you're going to start malabsorbing calcium, magnesium, vitamin, vitamin B12, B5amino acids, you're going to create long term issues. And so now they see long term issues of SIBO risk going up, osteoporosis going up, all kinds of sort of systemic risks to not having proper stomach acid, which I still think is so boring. And I can't believe that we're still talking about this like eight years after I first wrote about it. But like, it's fundamental. It's as fundamental as organic food, in my opinion.

Let's talk about the different types of enzymes that are necessary for digestion, for assimilation, how Are pancreatic enzymes different from brush border enzymes and why are they important?

Enzymes I think are as important as magnesium or anything else for life, honestly. We have mouth enzymes. We have like you said, pancreatic enzymes that are coming from the pancreas. We have brushwater enzymes that are coming from our villi and they all serve a purpose and that we have also stomach enzymes, pepsin. And so the purpose is to basically take our food which like let's say you think of a walnut or we could say a piece of steak because we were just talking about what happens when a protein is an acid. We got to like most of us, I am super guilty, most of us aren't taking 25 bites. Like we're a little lazy on our biting. And so I mean think about trying to crush little walnut pieces in your fingers, like your body's trying to do that. And so that requires pressure, it requires acid and it requires this enzyme activity. And so the higher up enzymes like in the stomach and the mouth and the pancreatic enzymes are like, kind of like your big guns or your like infantry and they really begin to break the really complex structures down into smaller, more easily manageable molecules. And then you have your brush border enzymes and your microbiome enzymes that come in at the end and sort of cleave these, you know, what went from like 16 chains down to eight and then they take it down to maybe one chain in the case of like glucose or something like that. And so if you're, you know, if you don't have good pancreatic enzyme function or if you have low acid because enzymes need a, they only work in certain ph ranges. You're going to struggle with, you know, just the big food groups, amylase as carbohydrates, protease as proteins, lipases, fats. But if you get down to people who, you know, struggle with milk, well that's a lactase issue, you know, that's a brush bore thing. Other, other carbohydrate issues and glucose, you know, high glucose can be traced back to some brush border issues. And if we, you know, think about what happens in a parasite infection or sibo infection, like that's just creating a bunch of blunted villi. And those villi are what you need to release those brush border enzymes. So and then if you have a microbiome dysbiosis, you're losing those enzymes. And so that's kind of how they all play together. They're all super important, each one of them and maintaining them through chronic health and then into aging is super important and honestly, kind of hard to do.

Let's talk a little bit about bitters. Prior podcast guest Ann Louise Gittleman says bitters are better. Do you recommend incorporating bitters into people's gi focused routines? And does supporting bile flow then help to minimize sibo, given that bile can essentially act like a detergent?

Yeah, I think bio is super cool. Like, it's such a. Such a cool.

Another bio file.

Yeah, it's so cool. And I'm still trying to completely understand it. I have to say that it seems really complex at this point and hard to understand. So I'm a big fan of tudka. Honestly, for bile, I'm not. You can use taurine as well. Maybe beetroot as well. You don't have to use tudka. So I think those substances have a better chance of helping your bio flow than bitters. And I know bitters are from grandma's kitchen, and there's a lot of people that really love bitters. My success with them has just been so low that I just don't put much faith in them. And so I'm an engineer. Literally, I don't care what the intervention is as long as it's safe and we get really good outcomes, like better than 50% outcomes. And with bitters, I just never know who's going to respond or who's not.

Yeah, I actually like bitters a lot. The challenge, I think, is you actually have to taste it. So they have to go on the tongue. I find they're hard from a compliance perspective. And it's interesting that you brought up tadka, because I've already had my tudka today, and I think over the last several years with more people, I think Jay Davidson and Todd Watts and some of those people that really kind of brought some awareness around Tadka, I definitely think that can be a. A phenomenal tool as well. And I'm happy that there's a nice abbreviation for it because it's a little Toro or so, deoxycholic acid or something like that. Right, okay, beautiful. So that's really good insight on the bitters conversation. Let's talk about the short chain fatty acids, the most well known probably being butyrate. Why is it important? And what are some of the things that butyrate can do in support of our health?

Yeah, so short chain fatty acids are like, my most exciting project. I mean, I love enzymes, but short chain fatty acids are, I think, the biggest breakthrough that I've seen as far as interventions go. In the last 11 years. And so what are short chain fatty acids? Well, they're the littler or shorter cousins of your medium chain triglycerides. Everybody knows what MCTs are. Short chain fatty acids are literally fatty molecules that are shorter. And the short chain fatty acids, like butyrate, are the poop, if you will, or the byproduct of your microbiome when it comes in contact with fermentable matter. And so, you know, we've, we've all seen the studies, we've heard the research that eating vegetables increases our lifespan and our health. And there's a lot of reasons for that. And I think one of the reasons that's not being said is without those, those vegetables and that fermentable matter, our short chain fatty acid production is going to go down. And so these short chain fatty acids have both big local effects in the gut as well as systemic effects around the body. And butyrate is the most studied. It's decades, many decades old. It's been used in animals for over 30 or 40 years now. And it's just so cool because for one, almost every condition, from IBS to rheumatoid arthritis to Ms. To neurological issues, asthma, allergies, all these things when we, when we check for. Is your butyrate production low? It's pretty much always found to be low in many of these conditions. And so why does that matter? Well, locally, inside of the lower small intestine, in the upper large intestine, which is where the majority of your microbiome is, and where the majority of the short chain fatty acids are produced, it's probably like 80, 20, 80% in your upper small intestine. Upper large intestine, 20% in your lower small intestine, it produces, at least in the colon area, 70% of the metabolic activity runs off butyrate. And that's really important. Recently there's some new research on this, is that metabolic action, the cells suck in the butyrate and it requires extra oxygen to do the metabolic process, which takes oxygen out of the large intestine, which then acidifies the large intestine and creates a low oxygen environment, which is again, this is why I love ecosystems and setting up the conditions. Those are the conditions we want for a really diverse and healthy microbiome. You always hear about anaerobic bacteria. Anaerobic means without oxygen. So if we have a higher oxygen content where we're supposed to have a microbiome, we're literally not giving the microbes we want to be there. The right conditions for them to be there. And so that's one of the reasons why I love this research, why I think the interventions are showing such promise. But they go way beyond the gut. They stabilize the mast cells in the gut, they stabilize mucous layers and tight junctions. But there's activity in the brain and the bone systems and the liver systems. So it really is kind of a magnesium like compound. Butyrate is. Anyways, it just seems to be involved almost everywhere we look.

Let's talk about some of the other short chain fatty acids. I know there's acetic acid and propionic acid. I don't hear much about those as compared to butyrate. So do those matter? Can they be supplemented or are they really not something we need to be too focused on?

Well, they're definitely important for health. And like a healthy body, the research has been really mixed around. Could they be inflammatory? In what cases should they be used and not used? Almost no research at this point on acetate in humans. Propionate is just starting and it's just like you're very simple, healthy people taking it and what happens at this point. So I think they're really important and you want to see that type of production in a body. But from like a. What do they do and why don't we hear about them yet? I just don't think we know yet.

Let's talk a little more about mast cell activation syndrome. The extreme sensitivities that people have. Lots of people not able to tolerate very many foods in their diet. So if we address the stomach acid, the enzymes, the short chain fatty acids with the butyrate, can that have an impact then on reducing histamine, reducing a lot of these food sensitivities? And have you seen people being able then to increase the variety of foods and tolerate those in their diets?

Yeah. This is the most exciting thing I've seen in the last two years. I did not expect this, quite honestly. I personally don't have histamine issues, so it was never a huge focus for me. But being close friend with Beth and sort of what seems to be more and more histamine awareness, this just keeps coming up. And the answer is yes. The answer is that I've never seen people stuck on five or 10 food diets be able to double or triple their amount of allowable foods in six to eight weeks like this before. And most of it comes down to our Tributerin supplement. We'll talk more about that in a bit. But what we know is that butyrate does stabilize the mast cells, and it does help with the conditions that would set up food sensitivity. So leaky gut we used to think of as just a tight junction issue. The rubber bands, if you're not familiar, that hold the one layer of your gut cells together. Now we know that it's actually four layers. You have these defensive molecules like alpha defensin, beta defensin, intestinal alkaline phosphatase, secretory IgA, then you have your microbiome, and then you have your mucus layers. And so that is all protecting those tight junctions. And so in general, to have food sensitivities, we have to get proteins across that series of layers into the GALT area, and the immune system has to react to it. And then you have these issues. Then you have these systemic issues. And so butyrate produces or helps Muc2Express, which produces mucus and helps heal those mucous membranes. And so I think there's about to be like a mucus file. I forgot what you called the bile acid file, but there's about to be like a mucus explosion. I think everybody's going to be talking mucus in like 18 months. Because if you can separate the, the inner workings of the gut from the cells and the mast cells and everything and let it be how it's normally supposed to be, I think you just generally get somebody who can tolerate more foods. And so we've had people like, literally had somebody post. And again, this is so, you know, obviously our products don't heal any condition. They're not, they're not for, you know, these results aren't typical, blah, blah, blah. But we had somebody who went to the hospital from eating a strawberry and had just crazy MCAs. And then that was in January or February of last year, around Thanksgiving time. She was able to share red wine with her family after using these protocols and these supplements. And then we had a couple emails I shared with you yesterday of just people who've tried the quercetins and they've tried the normal mast cell stabilizing things and just kind of hit a roadblock and then have the ability to just not. Not get all snotty and just have all the reactions and the tachycardia. And so it's. It's been really cool. And it's one of the best use cases, I think, for. For butyrates.

Yeah, that's super exciting. When we think about mast cell activation, I do tend to, as you pointed out, think about intestinal hyperpermeability, about leaky gut about these molecules getting to essentially getting exposed to the immune system in larger form than they should be. You talked about butyrate being helpful there. The Tributerin X. Are there specific things that we should be doing to decrease intestinal hyperpermeability or to minimize it as much as possible beyond using things like butyrate?

I think anybody with leaky gut should be on a high dose enzyme product. You know, whether it's ours or someone else's. I think you're just again, setting up the conditions to allow your body to react to these foods. Anything that you can remove and let your body sort of conserve resources, those enzymes are going to ensure that your molecules aren't too big or misshapen and such that your body would react to them. So I think that's a huge thing. I mean, I would hope on a podcast like this, it goes without saying, but if you're reacting to a food, you should try to remove it for at least six weeks, if not longer, and then bring in, you know, bring in some of these options. I do think that L glutamine for people who can tolerate it in high enough doses, can still be helpful for people who might be low in it. It's just not as many people seem to get that big improvement. But definitely if you're going to use it, you have to try 30 plus grams a day. You can go up to 80. That's what they use in burn units. So I think, yeah, from a leaky gut perspective, it's like, are the molecules chopped down properly and able to be absorbed? Then they won't cross the leaky gut can. What can we do to improve that barrier? I think like L glutamine, butyrates, things like that. There's also probiotics and prebiotics that can help with rebuilding your microbiome diversity and healing that up too. Yeah.

And for people listening with the L glutamine, just make sure you're talking with your practitioner. There are some people, and given that a lot of people listening are more sensitive, there are some people that glutamine can actually increase glutamate. And so we want to make sure that that's being considered as well. You mentioned some of the probiotic type things. So where in this conversation do you put prebiotics and probiotics and postbiotics in terms of your overall gut health model? And are they something that should be incorporated beyond the hydrochloric acid and the enzymes and the short chain fatty acids that you've already formulated?

So I think they're awesome. I use them every day, I'm always researching them. But I think they come secondary to what we just said. So I focus on the ecology first, the biology. Are we setting up the conditions to do the job we're asking the body to do? And frankly, I have a rule of thirds. I haven't found anybody who can invalidate this yet. Maybe you will live here. But I always, every year I ask all of my practitioner friends, all my crazy friends, like, what probiotic are you using and what are you seeing in your population of patients? And every year the answer has been the same for the last six years, which is one third of people who are taking name the best probiotic you can come up with. All the major brands, we don't have to name them. One third of people take it and they react to it, they're sensitive to it. One third of people take it, they don't know, they don't notice anything, they're not sure if it's working or helping at all. And then one third of people report like, oh my gosh, this is, it's awesome. I like it. And so I just don't, I don't love those odds and I don't love anything that when I introduce it, it could stop my protocols from working. So those one third of people that react to probiotics and fermented foods like sauerkraut, these are all your body should be able to handle that stuff and if it can't, don't be using it. And I just think there's, you know, we're trying to do things with probiotics like build the diversity, heal the leaky gut, modulate the immune system. You know, there are some other systemic effects around weight loss or brain, depending on the dose and the strain. But we can do all those things safer with, I think with enzymes, HCl, butyrate. Once we stabilize somebody, then we bring in the probiotics and the prebiotics. Now if someone is like super constipated and they're needing help beyond like a magnesium oxide or citrate or some sort of ox osmotic laxative, I do like the guar gum, the sun fiber, the partially hydrolysized guar gum as one of the safest prebiotics. But again, if we're dealing somebody who has like an overgrowth, they might be bloating from almost everything. And so again, prebiotics can be weird. Some people, they seem a little more tolerable than the probiotics. But again, I just don't love it when I have a protocol and I give it to somebody and they're like just immediately bloated and you know, they don't want to stay with you and they don't want to complete the program.

Yeah, I mean, I think for the most part, for many years, I was not excited at all about probiotics. I felt like if you were taking antibiotics, they were a good insurance policy to minimize fungal overgrowth. But I never saw them doing anything amazing. And I also felt like people that were dealing with mast cell activation, for example, a lot of the probiotics are histamine promoters or histamine creators versus histamine degraders. And so I got a little more excited, in fact quite a bit more excited with like the Megasporebiotic, for example, the spore based probiotics rather than Lactobacillus and Bifidis more the bacillus spores. And fortunately those seem to be pretty well tolerated in mast cell activation in people that are dealing with sibo. And so I like, I got reinterested in this realm with Kiran Krishnan's work from Microbiome Labs. I think they have some interesting tools there. But I like what you said about personal first putting this framework in place to support optimal gut health and then potentially bringing some of those things in later. So let's dig into your products that you've created. I know from your, your whole journey you've got three products that you've put together with healthy gut. So we've got the HCL guard, which is the hydrochloric acid product for the stomach. I think it's actually HCL guard. Plus you've got Holozyme, the enzyme product for the small intestine and then Tributerin X or the short chain fatty acid product for the lower small intestine and the large intestine. So how did you create them, why did you create them? And what was the gap that you saw in the market that led you to formulating these products yourself?

Yeah, well, let me just start by like I didn't really want to do this. I mean I've been a supplement user Since I was 13 and I was ordering creatine monohydrate, trying to get bigger. So I stopped get picking, you know, stop getting picked on in school. So I've always been into molecules and getting an advantage and I really didn't want to start a supplement company, especially not like a relabel company. But I just grew frustrated that there were certain natural things that seemed to fit together that the companies wouldn't create. And so for instance, I always thought all HCL products should include intrinsic factor, which is basically like the bouncer for B12. It basically encapsulates B12, protects it through the stomach, stomach, so you can absorb it in the small intestine. So I was like, well, if we know the stomach acid isn't working, why don't we just throw a little intrinsic factor in there? Because we know B12 is associated with low stomach acid. And so there was these weird things that I felt like the company should do and they just never did. And so healthy gut line of supplements and just kind of pivoting from just doing articles and ebooks started with that sort of, that frustration as people, more and more people ask me what to do, how do I do it? I again want to eliminate every possible issue when I give a recommendation. I think recommendations are sacred. And a lot of people ask me that are in big, powerful positions that they don't want to be named. When they have a gut issue and they've tried all the normal things, they call me. I don't want to give someone a recommendation where I know that the product quality matters. And so that's kind of where we got started here was like hcl. What should be in there? Well, we should probably help with the prokinetics. The same thing with enzymes. Why is it that digestive enzymes seem so hit or miss when it comes to people's bodies and the dosage? And then the same thing with butyrate. There's just an issue with sodium butyrate that I didn't like and I couldn't get repeatable results. And so each product was an iteration to try to get better repeatable results.

So let's maybe talk about some general questions and then dig into each one of them. I've got. I've got a number of questions that I want to get to on each one of the products because they're definitely unique and interesting. So number one, are the products gluten free?

They are. Yep. Third party tested dairy free. Yes.

And how about vegetarian or vegan?

So no, hcl guard is not vegan or vegetarian. And Tributer and X is not vegan or vegetarian, but the holozymes are excellent.

This next question actually was one that I heard Beth ask you in one of your conversations. Probably not one I would have thought to ask, though I think it is important given the sensitive population that listens to this podcast. So in People with Alpha Gal syndrome, where people react to ingredients that are derived from mammals which of your products would still be reasonable for them to explore?

Yeah, just the holozyme. The other two have animal products, extracts or formulated from animals.

And if someone is dealing with constipation or diarrhea, can the products be used and if so, which ones might be helpful for diarrhea and which ones might be helpful for constipation?

Yeah. So the answer is yes. Again I like to the fundamentals, the basics because they seem to work a lot. And so we've kind of talked about this but you know, the stomach needs to be working. And so I think whether you have constipation or diarrhea, I've seen, I've seen a good, the right appropriate BTNHCL supplement either fix too fast the motility or speed up too slow a motility. It won't like quote unquote, fix it all, but it's a big part of the equation. So I think everybody should check who's struggling with this kind of thing. With an HCL challenge, whether you use our product or someone else's product, like if you don't cross that off your bucket list, I think you're just doing yourself a disservice. The same thing with enzymes. I've seen high dose enzymes slow down diarrhea in a big way. In fact, that's what we used to use for loose stools and diarrhea was an HCl enzyme high dose combo back before I even knew what butyrate was. With constipation enzymes you don't typically need as much because in a way if you think about it, constipation is a form of holding and sort of over harvesting that includes your nutrients. You know, constipated people tend to struggle with weight issues. Like you're just, you're harvesting more toxins and nutrients and so enzymes do actually seem to help. But you need usually a smaller dose. And then with the butyrate products it's the same thing. Butyrate is. I've never seen anything both in the literature. There are studies on travelers diarrhea which is, you know, basically when they don't know what to say about why you're having a lot of diarrhea all day where butyrate like really is beneficial. Above 50%, I think it's around 60 plus percent of people. And that's without them finding the right dose. Right, that's just a standard dose. What if they would have doubled the dose? And that's what I've seen is that people who have like lifelong loose stools, they can Find a higher dose of butyrate and stop that. With constipation, you have to be a little bit more cautious with the butyrate. That seems to be one thing that really struggles. And I'm formulating a hypothesis around constipation, which to me is just a much more complex issue than diarrhea or loose stool people. But I think part of the problem is there is a butyrate. In the studies, there is a butyrate, a low butyrate condition with constipation. Butyrate supplementation does seem to help with constipation, but in practice, it's. It seems like you have to go really slow and build up over time. And then there's some sort of weird tipping point. And I don't know what's changing, but we've had people who were, like, really dependent on laxatives. And I was like, okay, one pill every three days, and they slowly build up to like one pill a day, and then like two pills a day. And then at like week 10 or 12, they're like, oh, my gosh, I'm going every day. What's happening there? I don't know, but it's very interesting.

Excellent. Yeah, that's a beautiful thing.

All right, so let's dig in then.

To the HCL guard. Plus, how is it supporting the body and what are some of the symptoms that people report they find it has helped them with? What makes that particular product unique in your line?

Well, the differences between the other HCLs on the market are the inclusion of the intrinsic factor for B12 and energy absorption and then the inclusion of ginger and dgl. And those were included because there's studies of ginger basically starting or increasing the peristaltic waves out of the lower chamber of the stomach. And so my belief is if you're having low stomach acid issues, you're going to have some peristaltic issues. And so why not help with that? And then oftentimes we do have mucosal issues and we do have like, H. Pylori and other sort of issues in the stomach. And DGL is one of the longest standing herbs to be used there. And so that just seemed like a natural inclusion for me as well. What people find versus other HCL products on the market is typically they can take less capsules. So if you're only taking like two from another brand, maybe our products, not for you. But if you're somebody like me who is like doing like seven to ten pills a day for years, we're finding people can Take two to three less pills per meal and get the same results or better.

People then that have, let's say, lots of bloating, for example, do they notice that the bloating reduces once they start using the hydrochloric acid product?

Yeah, 100%. If you think about what would happen in low acid, the bottom of the stomach is sensing the total PH of the stomach. And when it drops down to like a 1.5 to 2 or so, it starts to slowly open up and let food through into the small intestine. So if it doesn't sense that the acid level is low enough, it doesn't open. And so we have fermentation because again, if we let food sit around, nature shows up to eat it. And so that's when we get burping, we get acid reflux, we get a lot of these symptoms. But if it sits there long enough, eventually your body will just start releasing it. But now we're dumping unbroken down food into the small intestine, where once again, we're setting up the conditions for just a ton of bloating, which is, again, the farts of bacteria. I mean, honestly, whenever you're having bloating or gas issues, just remember what that means is microbes inside of you are eating Thanksgiving every day. And so whatever we can do to reduce their ability to eat is a big deal.

And my understanding is that increasing the stomach acid, using the hydrochloric acid, for example, in the HCL guard, plus that, that also then is kind of a firewall that we're protecting ourselves from future invasion from H. Pylori or parasites or things like that, that they're not as likely to then take hold in the system. Correct?

Yeah, yeah. So stomach acid, you know, neutralizes incoming food, like, so whatever might be on it, and it makes it really harsh. Like 2 on a ph scale is really harsh. And even below 2 is super harsh. So the stomach's an amazing organ. And having appropriate low acid, or not low, but high acid, low pH conditions helps protect against any of these invasions. It is part of your immune system.

And with the ginger and dgl, do you find that people that have salicylate intolerance are tolerating this product?

Well, we haven't had any complaints specifically about that, so I think that's true. There is a portion of the population and they pretty much know who they are, who just have a ginger issue. And I don't know exactly what that is, but, like, any amount of ginger has upset them in the past. Then, you know, our Products are not for you. I mean, we do have a six day refund and we do refund all the time if there's any issues. But yeah, if they already have the condition, they've already tried a ginger product in the past and it did not go well. This is the same thing's gonna happen.

So let's talk then a little about when the product should be taken. Should it be taken with or without food, with or without water? And how do we get to the right dose?

Yeah. So doing the same HCL challenge with HCL guard is what we recommend and we step people through inside of our private Facebook group and we have health coaches on staff that can help out if you get really confused. But basically you start with one pill with your regular meal and then if all goes well, then you try 2 and 3 and 4 and at some point maybe it's 5, you'll have loose stools or you'll have some sort of heat or burning. If you have that, you can take some baking soda and water, neutralize it and then your dose is one below that. And that's another thing that if you take nothing else away from this interview, I think there is a chronic non individualization of dosing in the gut health and healing world and it's driving me insane. You have to find the right dose for your body because even if you use my products or microbiome labs or any of the pure, I don't care what practitioner brand it is, if you dose it too low or too high for you, you will not. You'll write it off. You'll be like, enzymes don't work for me. Butyrate doesn't work for me. When the truth is there's a statistical. Everybody falls on a bell curve. Statistically speaking, 34% of us need more or less than whatever is written on the back of the bottle or whatever your practitioner tells you in your meeting. And so work with them to find the right dose. But please don't give up on these interventions just because you can't figure it out in the first week.

So this one then is one we want to take like let's say 10 minutes before eating to maybe 45 minutes after. And my understanding is that you also recommend that it should be taken with water, correct?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm not a huge fan of drinking at meals. So the lowest amount of liquids you can consume at a meal is important because you're diluting your stomach acid. If you drink a lot of water, pop, tea, wine, I don't, I Don't care. So lower amounts. Some people do find like if you're trying to be perfect, some people actually do report that they notice a lot of difference and they finally have the benefit of hcl when they take it five to ten minutes before a meal. I am not that sensitive so I typically take mine at the end of my meal and if I'm having indigestion or like, like the other day I had a really stressful day and I was like, I'm just not going to digest this protein. So I took Another one like 45 minutes to an hour after I was eating because I just felt everything sitting around. So if you get there, you can play with it. Yeah.

It's interesting your comments about not drinking too much water because it's always been interesting that people promote the alkaline water and so on. And it never made sense to me that I would want alkaline water taken with a meal when I'm trying to have stomach acid to break it down and digest it. It just seemed a little bit like a little counterintuitive to me. Let's talk about using this product in children. What if someone can't swallow a capsule? Can the capsule be opened? How would you dose this in children?

So you can't open the capsules on HCL guard or any BTN HCL product. You are essentially putting powdered acid then directly on your food or on your tongue. So don't do that at all. If you can't swallow a pill, then this is where bitters come into play. This is where Iver gas or some of these other powerful stomach acid promoting things could come into play. You can also try strong acids. Nothing is as strong as BTN hcl but for instance, apple cider vinegar with your kids, which I doubt they're going to do, but if they by chance like that, you could do that. This is why some people drink Coca Cola if they have an upset stomach. That's like a southern thing because it's pretty, it's like a two point, it's slightly more acidic than apple cider vinegar. So yeah, for kids, unfortunately it's a tougher grow there.

All right, so let's talk then about the Holozyme. That product I believe was recently reformulated. So let's go back to how is it supporting the body? What are some of the symptoms that people report have been helped from the Holozyme product and what's unique about this one?

Yeah, so enzymes are again so, so important. Like I guess I say that about all these products, but you are basically born with a pancreatic reserve is what they believe. Kind of like you have a number of stem cells throughout your lifetime. You basically have a number of like you have a counting down timer of how many enzymes you can make pancreatic wise. And so if we burn through those due to chronic health issues or you're just over 50, you know, even older, you're probably not going to have enough enzymes to get the job done no matter what, even if you don't have a brush border or a microbiome deficiency in enzymes. And so I look at it enzymes as for me anyways, a lifelong supporter. People typically notice that they're able to tolerate foods they were not able to. It lowers bloating. Like we've had amazing glowing results for people who have gas and bloating issues. This seems to be a big thing. It also has. I basically licensed this from a PhD who got a patent on this sort of enzyme formula. And we can talk about that in a minute. But there's six pilot trials, which is really rare for supplements to have an actual human study. And so it does have systemic effects around lowering cholesterol, lowering uric acid and stabilizing blood sugar after meals. And so, so it's really the answer to the question, why can't I recommend something that's going to work 50% or better for humans? I used to recommend Thorn Dipan 9 with Enzymetica Gold. So I would tell people to take two of each at the same meal and then you would cover your animal enzymes and your plant enzymes. And that was like the best thing I could come up with. So I was going to make a super version of that and I contacted all these companies to like put it all in the same capsule and they all said It'd be like $40 a bottle, like just wholesale cost and it won't work. And I tried everybody who said they had the best formula and this guy of course told me the same thing. Like, oh yeah, it's all about this activation thing. And then I tried it and I was like, it worked. And so then I did my chip and wine test, which is eat a half bag of tortilla chips and some wine and take a bunch of enzymes and what's your poop like the next day? And this enzyme blend was the answer. And I was like, okay, we got something here. And that's when I kind of learned about the difference between whole enzymes and apoenzymes and the fact that anything that is vegetarian enzymes is missing its Cofactor. And then I learned about the PH range and how they only work in certain conditions. And then it all kind of made sense on why his patented activation formula was working better than the other formulas.

So let's talk then about what are some of the unique ingredients in this formulation. What is the activation system that you're talking about? And why does the addition of certain minerals help to make the product more effective?

Yeah. So pancreatic enzymes made in the body or extracted from cows or pork are what are called whole enzymes, like W H O L E enzymes. The body makes them bound to a mineral cofactor and then they just need the right ph window. Like 7 to 9 is the range for a pancreatic enzyme to work. And when it hits that PH window and it comes in contact with something it's supposed to do something with, it reacts and it does its enzymatic process. ApO enzymes are what happens when we have vegetarian enzymes. They are basically produced usually through mold. It's like molds babies basically. Mold basically digests things around it. And so it has to do that through enzymes. And they just harvest this, they clean them, but they're missing the cofactor. And so we have a trademarked active blend, which is a dual, a dual vegetarian enzyme blend that's going to work from 1.7 to 11 in the PH scale. So that means even if you have low stomach acid or like you're really, really banged up, you have gastroparesis or something, it doesn't matter what the conditions are inside your body, the enzyme will work. And then what he did was he spent I don't even know how long in the lab dropping different types of minerals. And then their specific bonds in petri dishes measured which ones caused the enzyme to get more excited and do more work. And so the AES patented activation blend is his work of like, which magnesium really turns things on. And so inside of the holozyme capsule, you have the active blend to work anywhere in the body, and then you have its corresponding mineral that excites it the most, all inside one capsule. So otherwise, if you take a vegetarian based enzyme from a different company, you're essentially waiting for that mineral to be liberated from the food and then it connects and then it gets its job done.

Wow, cool. That's amazing. So you mentioned the mold babies conversation. And so some of the plant based enzymes are derived from fungus, like Aspergillus, for example. Lots of people listening, lots of people in my community and Beth's community, they're dealing with Mold illness that are very sensitive to mold, mold exposure. Do you find that people that are sensitive to mold or maybe dealing with mold illness are less likely to tolerate enzymes that are produced by Aspergillus, for example?

Not one bit for our product. And our product comes from a pharmaceutical enzyme manufacturer in the states. Here it's triple or it's quadruple cleaned. But also I think people are really and don't give me like literally when I first learned about this like four years ago, I was like, oh my gosh, there's black mold enzymes. Like holy cow, this is terrible. But people I think have really not taken the time to understand enzymes in general as well as their production process. And so again, enzymes come from the mold as like their response to the stimuli in the environment. So these companies are putting down a medium, they're putting the mold on there and then they're stimulating the mold spores or the mold, I guess that's what you call it. The mold spore is actually giving off the enzyme in response to its environment. And then the companies basically separate those two through a bunch of cleaning processes. And they're not even the same material. There's no residue, there's no nothing. Especially American made stuff for sure. I assume probably other stuff in the world too.

But no, and I'm glad you clarified that because that's been something that I've heard people talk about for years and I've asked that same question of some of my mentors, like Dr. Ann Corson for example, who feel like you do, that the end result is not Aspergillus, that there shouldn't be any Aspergillus remaining there, and that most people, even with mold illness should tolerate those enzymes that are produced by Aspergillus without a problem. That doesn't mean everybody will, but for the most part it seems like that's a more of a myth than a reality. One of the recent changes that you made to the product was the addition of xylanase, which I became to know through exploration around phenolic sensitivity. People that were reactive to phenols. Interested in why you added the Xylanase and are you finding that's helping people to avoid food reactions to help them with phenolic sensitivity, maybe even salicylate sensitivity. And are they then able to influence increase their food choices more when they're incorporating the holozyme?

Yeah, the answer is is it appears yes. And it does appear kind of personal. So it's not a panacea I don't believe, but yeah. There is a group of us who have salicylate intolerance. And all the studies on low salicylate diets have actually been really sad and not produce much results. I am not a huge fan of any type of elimination diet for longer than a, you know, eight to 12 weeks without beginning to reintroduce because it does cause dysbiosis of that, whatever that downstream effect is. And as we know, polyphenols are like super healthy if you can tolerate them. And so xylanase comes from the commercial juice industry. Basically, they use it to separate the pulp and the juice and create more juice. And so the theory here is that essentially what xylanase is doing, and xylanase is a microbiome enzyme, it's not something like your bugs in your gut should make it. So if we think about the people who typically have a salicylate or phenyl issue, they typically have like a really dysbiotic gut, probably from birth, who knows? But they're really struggling. And so they might have lost the class of bacteria in their microbiome that would produce the xylanase family to help separate the bonds on polyphenols faster. And so the, that's the theory is that the xylenase is going to be basically separating the bonds and the polyphenols faster, higher up in the GI tract and allowing the absorption and sort of like eliminating whatever molecule structure that seems to be causing the reaction. And again, this is pretty new stuff. I don't, there's no real study proving this yet, but the feedback has been, has been good.

When we talk about, let's say, protease for protein and lipase for fats, in some circles we talk about amylase and generally that the amylase content would be lower because we generally have too many carbs in our diet already. And so I'm wondering, what do you think are the, what is the value of amylase in an enzyme formula? And if we look at the amylase in holozyme, for example, is that lower than the, the protease and lipase?

The answer is no. It's actually pretty high in our formula. And the reason why is I'm not just making this formula for any one individual. Like, you know, not everybody has a phenolic issue and they don't necessarily need the xylanase. So our amylase is, you know, pretty high. But why it's not lower is because I think like the number one issue in our food for, for people who are digestively challenged is carbohydrate breaking down carbohydrates and absorbing them. Like, I don't care if we look at a FODMAP or we look at a GAPS or a specific carbohydrate diet. Like in general, they're in the carbohydrate group. And so the amylases, if you want to digest any of your starches, or if you really want to break down your vegetables, especially if you're eating a lot of raw stuff, you're going to need amylase. And so I guess I don't subscribe to the idea that we need less even if we're consuming a 50 gram low carbohydrate style diet.

Excellent. I know kelp is one of the ingredients in this formulation. Should we be aware or concerned at all about potentially overstimulating the thyroid in certain people?

I mean, clearly that's the case for some people. We just reformulated to add a bunch of humic and fulvic acids in to take the place of the kelp. Because the kelp provides, it's like a multivitamin, it has so many cool trace minerals in it. And so we reduced the kelp down. So now a two serving two capsules of whole ozymes, which is the serving size now contains 15 micrograms. And that's really low. Honestly, if you were like going to take an iodine supplement, most of them are dosed at 300 micrograms. So I guess if you're using this like at the extreme levels, you could get to 300, but you'd have to be taking 20 plus capsules a day. And so I don't think that's true. And of course follow your body. And if you're someone who's like super iodine sensitive, then maybe that's not the product for you.

So let's talk holozyme dosing. Should it be taken with or without food? What's the range of dosing that you generally see?

Yeah, the basic range is two capsules with food and then two capsules before bed for the systemic benefits. But for people who are pretty banged up or having like a ton of food sensitivities, a ton of gas and bloating, we really encourage you to find your ideal dose. So try three capsules, then four, then five, then six, things like that. I think for the most part, I don't know of too many people who are consuming more than six. And if you're going to take it systemically, we do have some people that use it for like herniated discs and other pain issues. And they'll often take six before bed and then six in the morning before food for the systemic benefits.

And what about children with this one, if they can't swallow a capsule, can we open this one? How would we dose it in kids?

Yeah. Yes, you can open this one, you can sprinkle it in your food, you can, you can put it wherever you'd like. You know, in general, most things are dosed via weight. And so if you think wherever your kid is, if two capsules is what we give to 100 pound adult or even teenager, you would just dose that down based on weight. So, you know, £25 would probably be a quarter of that, et cetera. But the cool thing about enzymes is like, they have a really, really high safety profile. Unless you have exposed gut tissue due to like atrophic gastritis or a sensitive ulcer, enzymes are used systemically. Systemic. When I say systemic, I mean without food. So no food in the system. Digestive, I mean with food. So systemic enzyme therapy is used in certain cancer circles at like 160 capsules a day. And so we're talking about way less than that. And even in a child that would be significantly less. So. So in general, there's no feedback loop that turns off enzyme production that anyone's aware of at this point in time. And the safety profile of enzymes in general is extremely high.

So now we're going to talk about Tributerin X. This is the one that I was initially the most excited to talk about until I learned about the other products as well and then found they're all very interesting. So I was for a while now taking a calcium magnesium butyrate. But personally I'm not a fan of taking calcium every day long term. And so your product really piqued my interest in that. It's not a mineral salt type product. And so let's talk about how Tributerin X is different from, let's say calcium magnesium butyrate or sodium butyrate or sodium potassium butyrate that are products that many other people are using. And then how is it also different from maybe some of the other liquid butyrate products on the market, like sunbutyrate?

It's different in many forms. So let's start with the different types of butyrate and then we can work towards what makes Tributerination X. Well, I think better but different than other products out there. I'm biased, of course. So sodium butyrate, as you mentioned, are butyrates bonded to a salt or a mineral and calcium or magnesium. And these are cheaper substances to make, they're more stable and therefore they've been studied longer or studied more. I don't know that longer is actually the right term because of that. So unfortunately you end up with like one third of your butyrate dosage or your weight dosage in that mineral, whatever it's bonded to. And so there are studies, there's not that many that look at those sodium butyrate versus Tributerin. And Tributerin is a molecule that's glycerol and fat backed. So there's three butyric acid molecules tied to a glycerol or a fat backbone. And so less stable. Quite honestly, it's harder to work with. And it smells like deep vomit, like terrible. You don't want to smell it. And so it has a lot of drawbacks. It's harder to make, it's harder to work with. But its safety profile appears really, really good. In fact, there was a cancer. There was a time when they thought that they could give high doses of Tributerin to cancer patients and try to help them. And they got up above 42,000 milligrams a day orally for these cancer patients and they found they had GI upset at that point and some other and some other issues. But like that type of safety research has never been done with the bonded salts. And so that makes me a little cautious with them. The other thing is that pharmakinetically speaking, any sort of salt or mineral bonded molecule is really fastly absorbed in the upper gastrointestinal tract. So in the upper small intestine to absorb Tributerin you actually have to use lipase to break it down. So in and of itself, Tributerine is a better molecule if we're trying to get it deeper into the small intestine and maybe even into the upper large intestine. It's basically like its own delayed release molecule versus the bonded salts. And so that makes it pharmacokinetically better. Typically in studies, they have even done one study where they did oral Tributerine versus IV sodium butyrate and the oral Tributerine at a smaller dose raised plasma levels better. And so like, if you think about that, that's pretty outstanding and pretty cool. And so while the majority of human research has been done with sodium butyrate, I think by and far the Tributerine molecule appears safer. There are studies showing that it even might be more powerful in pork lung tissue than sodium butyrate as far as an anti inflammatory effect. And so that's kind of the differences between the two. But as I mentioned, Tributerin is a, is a volatile molecule. It's smelly. And so you have to protect it from stomach acid. I mean, you have to do that with sodium butyrate as well. But Tributerin is even harder to work with. And so what has been the, like one of the big breakthroughs for our company was finding a capsule that's a patent pending capsule that is gastro resistant, not or, sorry, it's an enteric capsule. The rest of the capsules on the market are gastro resistant. That's the difference between having an iPhone 6 and having an iPhone 10. One is waterproof and one is water resistant. And so the other capsules on the market don't actually, can't actually claim that they make it through the stomach as well. Basically they begin to break down faster. And so other products like pure encapsulation, sunbutyrate. What they did to solve this problem was they built a liposome delivery capsule. And so they protect it from the stomach acid using a bunch of liposomes, which are like these protective cool fat molecules. And what we did was we just, I found a PhD researcher in Spain and he found this capsule. And so he's been working with tributerin for 30 years. And so this is kind of his little master's thesis, if you will, of Tributeran. And so that's, I guess, what makes the product different and makes them different.

So many of the butyrate products that I have opened in the past had that, as you referred to it, vomit smell. In fact, I remember one in particular that would come with like a cherry capsule inside to try to mask the smell of the butyrate and your product. My experience, because I do take this, is it doesn't have any smell as long as you leave it in the capsule. But if you were to take the substance out of the capsule, then it might not be so appealing. Right?

Yeah. Don't open the capsule for your kid or for yourself. We had a. Please don't do that. Yeah. So what that speaks to is again the permeability of the capsule. Right. So gastro resistant means that it doesn't do. It has more porousness. Right. So the acid gets through faster. Well, also the smell gets out faster. We don't have anything in ours except for an oxygen absorber. And like you said, you know, some people who I guess are sensitive to everything, they might smell something, but in general it really does not smell. And that's reflective of the capsule. The PXR cap.

So the. We talked a little bit about butyrate earlier. Some of the great things that it does for the body, but specifically to Tributerin X, what are some of the ways that it's supporting the body, some of the feedback that you're getting from people in terms of symptoms that it's helping with and anything else that we didn't cover that makes it unique?

Yeah, I mean, I guess we covered that. I think that it's hard to find a product that's universal for leaky gut. Like, there's a lot of powders and potions and like, you have to create these big leaky gut packages. Well, if we go back to like defensive molecules, microbiome diversity, mucous layers and then tight junction function. Well, Tributeran X does all those things and butyrate in general does all those things. So as far as a leaky gut product, I think butyrates are superior because they actually are addressing all four layers at the same time. Beyond that, there's some really cool research showing that that butyrate and Tributerin can be helpful for osteoporosis. It actually, like, helps stimulate T regulatory cells and then parathyroid hormone to help with bone formation. It appears it is being studied right now in neurological disorders. You know, who knows what will happen there? But obviously there's a big connection between your microbiome and your brain and potentially shuttling those butyrate molecules maybe up the vagus nerve. So in general, I think what we've been hearing is, number one, I sleep better. Number two, I can tolerate way more foods. And that includes the group of the histamine people that we've talked about. Number three, the loose stool results are just out of this world. I've never seen something so universally work. If you are willing to just find your dose. And that might be two pills a day or six pills a day.

Yeah, so let's jump into that then. So dosing on this one, this is one where if you're constipated versus having diarrhea, that might affect how you start and where you target in terms of dosing. So give us kind of that guideline for dosing of Tributerin X. Yeah.

And this is probably for every butyrate supplement. So again, you know, while I have an angle here, and I'm really proud of what we've built and what we've brought to market, if you have something at home and you're not getting results, you know, work on this dosing. And I think what I've Laid out for each product will work for the product you have at home in general. So for constipated people, one serving every three days to begin with, and then after a week or two, you go to one serving every two days, and then one serving a day. And then kind of that's, you know, the general recommended dose is three pills a day. You may not get there. As a constipated person, I only take two per day, and I tend towards constipation, Especially if you're a really sensitive person or super histamine person. Like the same guidelines, Go slow and just ease your way into it. If you're a heartier individual and you're struggling with loose stools, you can speed that up faster. You could do one pill a day, and then every three days you increase the dose. We have had people who, like, again, this is not indicative of your results. And it can vary. But we've had people who've never had a formed bowel movement in their entire lives get up to taking like four or five, three times a day and have their first form bowel movements in their entire lives. Yeah. So the safety profile, again, 42,000 milligrams would be about the whole bottle in one gulp. So it's pretty good. And you will know because you'll stop increasing your dosage because your motility will regulate, and then you'll get actually a little slow and you'll actually feel it. You'll feel this a little heavier, a little tighter. And so one pill less than that is your ideal dose.

So what can we do in children with this one? What would the dose be in a child? And if they can't swallow the softgel, is there any way for them to benefit from this product?

If they can't swallow the softgel, use the sunbutyrate from pure. I mean, that's really the answer here. I think that's the second best product on the market. Be wary of any powdered Tributerin products. Typically, they are only 30% standardized to tributerin and 70% carrier oils. And so I would rather see people use sodium burate than the powdered Tributerin options out there.

And if they can swallow a soft gel for a child, would this be like one a day? Or what do you. What do you target in kids?

Yeah, normally start one every few days. You know, just kind of, again, same, same sort of dosing profile.

So if someone incorporates these products, they hopefully see some benefits. Are they tools that people need to take forever, or are they eventually leading to less of a need or no need at all, all for the product long term. So are they more symptom management or are they more corrective?

Yeah, they're both in my opinion. I mean, I think maybe you can speak to this, but my experience is like if you're really, really messed up, there's a lot of root causes you have to unwind and you have to get through that mold issue or that Lyme issue or that parasite issue or all of those things plus a hormone issue and whatnot. And so during that timeframe, typically these products are taken and they're taken at higher dosages. And then as you systemically heal, like let's say you increase your thyroid and you get your sex hormones dialed in, even if you have to use replacement ones, you're going to make better stomach acid. You're going to probably set up the conditions for a better microbiome and more butyrate production. And so like for instance with HCL Guard, Dr. Jonathan Wright talks about this in his book. But, but over time people tend to, as they replenish their minerals and as they able to retrain their stomach, how acidic it should be. And if they get rid of any root causes around parasympathetic tone or H. Pylori, they will just start needing less and less and less and then go off. And this actually happened to me, so I am a testament for that. Then of course I ran into a massive series of stressors three years ago and I'm back on it. But it can happen. If you, if you do get well with enzymes. Again, typically the more sick you are, the more you need. That might be more of a long term thing, potentially the rest of your life. I actually look at it as an anti aging tool at this point, especially the systemic blood flow, anti aging, blood cleaning effects of enzymes. And then with butyrate, people often ask me this, am I going to have to take this the rest of my life? And my answer is no. Typically what should happen is you should be able to eat food, break that food down, your microbiome breaks that food down, you make your own butyrate. And so when you get to the point where you can tolerate a lot of vegetables, you can tolerate starches, and your microbiome is healthy and able to make its own butyrate through prebiotics and vegetable matter, then maybe you don't take it. But I think this is the issue, right? If you're trying to use probiotics and prebiotics to make the microbiome better and make the butyrate, it Just can't because the oxygen is wrong and all the other issues around there are wrong. So if you insert like a stopgap right with, with Tributerin X for a little while, I think the goal for me and for, I think everybody out there is to like wean off that onto prebiotics, probiotics and vegetable fibers.

Are there any known contraindications for any of your products who should not consider using them?

So with any HCL product contraindications are active ulcers active like atrophic gastritis or any sort of like mucus breakdown in the stomach. Also corticosteroid use conjunctive with that not indicated. Do not do that. That's because they break down the mucus lining. If you take your steroids long term and then you would have an issue with the acid enzymes. Again, not know that I'm aware of. But if you take our product or any product, stop. If it hurts, just stop. Like we're happy to give you your money back. We know what it's like to be struggling and spend thousands of dollars a month on supplements and think you got one. Butyrate, Same thing. If you have a reaction to it, typically we ask you to lower your dose and slow it out because some people do have to have a microbiome remodeling effect like it can actually cause a bit of a herxheimer die off. But if you're not comfortable trying to figure that out, then stop whatever butyrate supplement you're taking.

And with corticosteroids, for example, I'm assuming we're talking about higher dosages, not so much the physiologic dosages that someone might be using to, let's say, support their adrenals with something like Cortef, for example.

Right, yeah, correct, correct. I was thinking more like prednisone and IBD Situation or RS Situation. Got it.

Beautiful.

Yeah.

One of the things about your company that really caught my attention, and it's super, super rare, is that you actually guarantee your supplements. I think you have a 60 day guarantee, which is super unheard of in the supplement world. So not only do you have the guarantee for people to try these, but you're also offering $15 off an order and free US shipping. So tell us a little bit about why you decided to offer the guarantee. And then in terms of the returns, how common is it that someone does return the product?

Yeah, great questions. I'm literally just trying to build what I want. Like what do I want the rest of my life what products do I want to take the rest of my life? What do I want for my family? And what would I have wanted back when I was buying anything and everything that a practitioner told me to and then, and then more stuff off Amazon and everywhere else. And so one thing is, I got really, really mad before I was a practitioner and had access to practitioner grade products that I could hear on podcasts that like, oh, this great new product is the way to go. But wait a second, I can't get access because it's not sold directly to the public. So I didn't want to be that company. I wanted to make the best thing and trust the public to be able to handle the practitioner grade supplements that are stronger and more effective. And with that, I think we had to offer a guarantee, a refund. Like, number one, I want to prove to you that it works. And if it doesn't work, I would never want to be the person or the company that stops or slows your progression and healing. And so I want you to take that money and go spend it on a different butyrate or a different practitioner or a different supplement. Whatever, whatever is your next thing. We just ask that you pay shipping and handling back to us. That's it. And the refund rates are a little higher with HCL Guard because it's a tougher supplement and not everybody has low stomach acid. So I think we're sitting around six and a half percent on that product. People refunding, we're at 4% on Holozymes and 3% on Tributerin X. So it's a pretty small portion. And I think part of that too is the other thing that I mentioned earlier, and I just want to double click on it, is that statistically speaking, and it's worse, right? It's a self selecting population. If you're sensitive, you're more likely to be in this statistical population of a long tail needing less or more of a certain compound. And so it drives me up the wall that practitioners are not talking about this and not taking the time to work with their clients to adjust the dosage of these really good products for them. And so part of that is having the health coaches on staff, having the Facebook group to walk people through finding their ideal dosage. And if we literally have tried that with you and you're willing to play ball, why wouldn't I give you your money back? It's clearly not for you.

Yeah, that's amazing. Particularly with this more sensitive population, people dealing with chronic Lyme disease and mold illness. And sibo and mast cell and whatnot, that you only get at most 6% of the product returned. I mean, I think that's pretty, pretty phenomenal. My last question is the same for every guest and that is, what are some of the key things that you do on a daily basis in support of your own health?

Yeah, I mean, I try to work really hard on my sleep, so I try to do. And I'm pretty terrible. I don't know if you've spoken about this before, but the business of health typically destroys your health. And I've been as guilty as anyone that trying to make a company and trying to keep a company going and have a team and things like that. And so if I don't try to get to bed before 10, if I don't use like a cooling pad and like really chill out, I tend to not sleep very well. I have to meditate every day. I have gotten. I went from a I can't even believe I'm sitting down to, you know, I now love meditating and it's really core to. To me feeling good and being able to handle the world. So exercise, meditation, sleep. Obviously I take my supplements every day, but I take a handful of other supplements as well, just depending on. I just. I love pills and potions and books, as you can see. So whatever the newest thing is, I'm buying it, trying it.

Awesome. Amazing. This has been such a great and satiating conversation. I'm super excited about the products I mentioned that I'm already using the Tributerin X. I'm excited for people to hear our conversation to understand the potential of these tools and really interested in getting feedback from people that are starting to explore them as well. So thank you so much for spending time with us today. Really appreciate it and appreciate all that you're doing to help minimize the suffering of others.

Yeah. Thank you, Scott. You too.

To learn more about Today's guest, visit BetterHealthGuy link. That's L I N K HCLGuardPlus that's HCL GuardPlus or BetterHealthGuy link. Holozyme H O L O Z Y M E Holozyme or BetterHealthGuy link. TributeRinx. That's T R I B U T Y R I N X Tributerin X. Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you're enjoying the show, please leave a positive rating or review as doing so will help the show reach a broader audience. To follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or MEWI, you can find me there. As Better HealthGuy. To support the show, please visit betterhealthguy.com donate to be added to my newsletter, please visit betterhealthguy dot com newsletters this this and other shows can be found on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify.

Thanks for listening to this Better Health Guy blogcast with Scott, your Better Health Guy. To check out additional shows and learn more about Scott's personal journey to better health, please visit betterhealthguy.com.