Gut Health, GLP-1s, and Exposing Big Pharma: The Ultimate Guide to What You Need to Know

We become food sensitive. We develop allergies. We develop autoimmune conditions. So, it's just attacking everything.

Welcome back. The gut is responsible for virtually every single aspect of our overall health. They're incentivized for the people to continue to need the drug and be sick because they want people to take it forever. I have questions. We are back. How many times have you guys been on the show? People are obsessed. How many times? I've been on four times, I think. Three for me. That is a lot. That might be like the top record. Really? Yeah. I remember it was November of 2020, and I was in Santa Monica, and it was like a ghost town. Nobody was the office building we were in, nobody was there. That's wild. Well, people love to talk about the gut, the microbiome, especially on the show. Wellness. And this episode, I thought we could theme about gut health, but also we want to get into that digestive track. Somebody I was talking to a reporter the other day, and they were like, you know, this trend of wellness, like when did you, you guys are just now starting to talk about well, like where have you been? I'm like, what is going on? I'm like, we've been talking about this for about 10 years now. Anyways, guys, welcome back. Thank you. What, let's get the lay of the land and just give us a quick intro, just in case people are unfamiliar with both of you. We'll start with you, Tina. Yes. So, um, I'm the co-founder and CEO of Just Thrive. I started it with my husband about 11 years ago, and we found out about these incredible probiotic strains, and that's what brought us to the market. But we were really frustrated. We were in the pharmaceutical industry. We were very frustrated with the abuses that we saw in the industry with the overprescribing of medications. You know, here we were in an industry thinking we were making a difference, making the world a better place. And, and while we were in the industry, we saw pharmaceutical reps come into our office and say, my job now is to go to every doctor in this hospital system and increase, um, or decrease the number that they would prescribe a medication for. Like, in other words, you know, give a number when the, uh, medication wasn't necessarily necessary. So, um, we saw the abuses in the industry, but we also saw the abuses with family members where they were on one pharmaceutical masking symptoms, another pharmaceutical masking another symptom, and then never getting better. And so we really wanted to do something that was more in line with who we are, the way we lived our lives with our three children. And through, I, you know, a lot of prayer, meditation, being at the right place at the right time, we met Karan. Um, and Karan told us about these incredible that were licensed out of London University. And from there, Just Thrive probiotic was born. And it's been the most gratifying career journey I've ever been on.

Okay, so I'm, I'm Karan Christian. I'm a research microbiologist. Um, I had prided myself on something called bridging the translational gap, right? So the translational gap is this area where there's a lot of research going on in institutions like universities, the NIH, and places like that, and very little of it actually translates into things that impact humans, right? Because a lot of research at university level is being done for the sake of research. That's what they do professionally. And every study that they do opens up and asks more questions, and they get deeper and deeper and deeper into it. Really rarely do things translate into things that actually affect people. So my goal was, because I understand that part of the research and I understand the needs in the market space, I want to bridge that gap and take technologies that are being developed and bring it to humans and do human studies and develop products for it and all that. So that became my focus. Probiotics and gut space became a huge area of focus for me because as a microbiologist, I understand microbes in their whole life. Uh, and then I had the privilege of meeting Billy and Tina and working with them to help develop Just Thrive. But in relation to you, you were not in the pharmaceutical space at all? Nope. I was in academics. Yeah. Okay. That's right. And so when, with now with everything going on and, you know, a lot of the press around the pharmaceutical industry, you know, I think sometimes people start to think like, oh, there's like this big bad wolf. But I'm wondering, based on both of your experiences, is this like an incentives mismatch type thing? Is it like, why is there so much bad press now when it comes to the pharmaceutical industry? Not, you know, obviously, we all know some of the harms that these medications have done, but what do you think it really is coming from?

Yeah, well, I've always said that I, of course, there's a place for pharmaceuticals, and they save lives. Often times, I just have never felt felt that they, it's a place where you go for root cause issues. You know, when there's a root cause, they're great for, you know, covering up a symptom or treating a symptom, but they're not focused on getting to the root cause. And that's something that we really wanted to get into. And I do think that, you know, they're just, they're very incentivized to have influence. They have influence on our media, they have influence on our medical schools, and that's where the problem is. I mean, there is a place for pharmaceuticals, but it has just gotten out of control.

Yeah, there's, there's a big gap also in terms of, you know, how you get a pharmaceutical to market and what that then looks like fiscally, right? So, um, number one, it, the cost and the time that it takes to get a drug to market means that that drug has to service a huge marketplace and they have to have protection. So it has to be patented and it has to be unique. Um, they're not going to be able to utilize simplistic approaches. They have to use the most complex approach because it has to be something no one's ever thought about, a compound that no one's created, because they have to get patent, uh, protection on it, right? So it costs, I think the last numbers I saw on average about $600 million to bring a drug to market, you know, in seven, eight years. And pharmaceutical companies fail 99.9 times out of a thousand times in terms of developing products, right? So they might spend $10, $15, $20, $30 million on 999 compounds and only one of them makes it to market. And so that entire structure means that they have to charge so much, they have to go after to the most, um, obscure mechanisms and all that that just interfere with processes rather than solving the actual health problem, right? And then if you think about it, it's, it's they're incentivized for the people to continue to need the drug and be sick because they want people to take it forever because they have to make up all the losses that they've had.

It's funny that you say that because this is like random, but the most famous eye drop brand. My, uh, nanny was her eyes were getting red, red, red, red, red, red. She couldn't figure it out. She went to all these doctors. Her head was feeling like tight, like all, she was feeling horrible. Her eyes were so red, and she was using her eye drops. And today she came to me and she said, my doctor told me to stop using this huge brand of eye drops, and it's gone. Wow. And I said, yeah, because, I believe that a lot of these companies, like you just said, to your point, like they want you to keep using their product. So why not keep the eyes red, right? Because then you have to use it every day.

Mhm. I also think the problem is with these issues. And Tina, you, you kind of hit on the head. Is there, there's a lot of sick care going on in this country where someone has an issue and instead of figuring out why they have the issue, they just, they get on a pharmaceutical and then they stay on it. And then it's almost like if you say, hey, let's get to the root so we can get you off that, it's like, no, this is how I'm living my life. This happens with depression, this happens with, you know, um, with obviously medical, um, supplies that are, once people get sick with something. And what I like talking about with you guys is we talk a lot about why people get sick in the first place. And the way it, like, I rationalize it in my brain is if somebody comes to me and says, I'm broke, I, I want to know why. Like, I don't just say like, okay, well, I'll help you and I'll, like, give you a loan and you keep doing the same behaviors over and over. I want to say, like, why are you broke? Are you spending too much? Do you not, do you carry too much debt? Do you not have a, like, do you buy things you don't need? But it's like, imagine just like giving somebody a loan over and over and over again, they just keep doing the same thing without ever figuring out like why it is in the first place. Does that make sense?

Yeah, in fact, we were just talking about this before we came on because we were talking about how, how great it is right now that the awareness around toxicity and wellness and all that is increasing. There are people like Casey and C means that are doing amazing jobs getting the word out there on how toxic our food supplies and drink supplies and all that. And Tina and I were talking about how we've been talking about these kinds of things for decades now. And it's great the awareness is increasing, but what that awareness shows us is is that we are sick and we are living in a toxic environment. Our role is to figure out exactly what to do about it, right? So what can you do at an individualistic level to undo the damage and the toxicity that the food supply, the drinks and the beverages and all the things that we consume, uh, the air we breathe, and the impact that that has on us? For us, it's about revealing what that does to the individual system and then what can you do to intervene, right? So we've talked about this topic of gut health with you guys for a while now, but I, I wonder now with everything going on and the awareness that's happening, what are you coaching people to start thinking about if they want to start making changes right away? Like, they, they don't feel as well as they should. Like, what are you, what are you saying right now?

Well, I think one of the things that's been brought to light, like we talked about, is with RFK talking about all of the chemicals out there, the glyphosate, the pesticides that are sprayed all of our, our food. I mean, that's not going to go away tomorrow. So, and one of the reasons I feel like he's talking about this is because of the damage it's doing to the microbiome. It is literally destroying our gut health. Those glyphosate processes. Um, we want to live as clean as possible because all of these microplastics, all of these forever chemicals are really wreaking havoc on our gut. And we know now that the gut is responsible for virtually every single aspect of our overall health. I mean, it's hard to find any system in our body that's not directly implicated by the unhealth or unhealth of our gut.

I feel like Roundup is like the next mesothelioma. Remember those commercials? Like, were you exposed to mesothelioma? Please call 1-800-I'm your lawyer. And then, like, you would call and, like, you could get in a big settlement. Like, I, Roundup is really [ __ ] and here's something we just found out. The dogs, you walk your dog outside and you let him play on someone's lawn for a second, or they pee or whatever, they're walking on the ground and they get it on their paws and then they bring it in the house. It's just, you could spiral.

You know what else they got that what taking a real hit today? I don't know if you saw this one. Devastating for Girl Scout cookies. What's wrong with that? I love Samoas. Samoas. They, they found was like the high, like super high level of glyphosate in the. Is that why when you eat one Samoa, you want the whole box? So good. You can't stop. I heard that it's, you know, some of the most toxic cookies that you can have. And that's, that's a shame because we're not, you're going to really take down the Girl Scouts. Pull it up. I swear. Like, so sad.

So let me, um, describe a study we did on up, right? So we did this with King's College, uh, in London. Um, we took, and this is in a pediatric, sorry, in a pediatric gut modeling system. Uh, the reason why you can do it in a gut modeling system is you can't subject kids to the harmful effects of glyphosate, which we do every day, which is crazy. But the ethical boards will not let you do that in a research study. Um, so this is, we took a pristine, three-year-old's microbiome. Uh, and this is, uh, a child that we had to find in some fjords in, in, in Norway because we were looking for a child that, uh, was was born vaginal birth, right? Nursed for almost a year, had no vaccines at that point, had no courses of antibiotics or anything, any medication. And, and she had a perfectly pristine microbiome. So we inoculated this artificial gut that has everything from a, from the stomach all the way down to, uh, end of the large intestine with her microbiome. And then we replicated it in three other systems, right? And then we stabilized it by feeding it food, like normal fiber, protein, carbohydrates, and so on. And this is a, a beautiful, pristine, diverse microbiome, ideal if you would look at it from, from on any perspective. Then we said, okay, let's feed it every day, U, serial level of Roundup, which is the level of Roundup that's accepted by the EPA in the US as quote unquote safe, right? And we wanted to use both the, um, the commercial product Roundup, but then also the active ingredient glyphosate. And the thing is, the version we want to use, which is the most commonly used version in North America, we couldn't get it in Europe. So we had to ship it from a Home Depot in Florida to, to London, right? Because you can't buy it. It's been banned in Europe across the continent. So we fed this child's microbiome for three weeks with serial level of Roundup. And by the end of the three weeks, there, the gut microbiome looked like that of somebody with years of inflammatory bowel disease. It's so messed up.

Can I ask, like, just like a strange question? Is like, who, who's signing up for this, this experiment? No, it's not. Wait, it's not the babies. They, they took it in a Petri dish? No, we, we had a full mechanical gut system. So it's mimics an entire real. I need to clarify. What we did is we, we collected the, the child's, uh, fecal matter for for weeks and then we inoculated the system with it. Sounds fun for the child. I got, I got to keep up here. But, but here's the crazy thing, right? It sounds crazy that we would do a study like that on a child, but there are 50, 50 million children in the US that are in that study right now, right?

Well, what I was going to ask you, like, one, the thing I was also going to comment on was like, it's a little, it's such a shame that it's so hard to find a pristine gut. I think that's what you're saying. Like, you could, if you wanted to do that with a 50-year-old, you literally, you can't. By the way, if you guys are looking for something other than Roundup for your lawn, I work with Sunday Lawn Care, and it's 100% non-toxic lawn care. And my landscaper texted me the other day and was like, holy [ __ ] Lauren, this is, this is amazing. It's working so well, just as well as the toxic ones. What else is Roundup found in besides lawn care products?

It's all our food. Yeah, all our food and all our water. It, it's used in agriculture. That's the biggest use of it.

Is there a way that's natural that you can get it off? Like, I soak my strawberries in vinegar and baking soda. Are there any things like that that we can do to get it off of our produce?

So, unfortunately, no. You can get a portion of it off, but it actually makes its way inside the vegetables. It's organic, then it helps, then you reduce, uh, the, the exposure to it quite a bit, they say. So they, you know, what, I don't believe anything anymore. So they say, I guarantee you, if we took an organic strawberry, let's do a test. You and I can do a test and let's see how much Roundup is on it. Oh, I bet this that not only is will there be Roundup, but then all the versions of Roundup that are in the organic space that they, that they can use, right? So, and then of course, not to mention all the microplastics and for forever chemicals and chlorine and things that are on it. Have to move to Europe. You basically have to move to a fur in Norway. Not even a lot. I mean, a lot of Europe has banned the types of things that we use here, which is crazy that we haven't caught up to that. But again, there's incentives misalignment there, right? Um, but so our goal is, is that we can't escape most of these things. We can try to minimize them. We can't escape them. So then what can we do within our own system to try to undo some of that damage, right? Because the, the, here's the good news on that study. So in the three weeks, in the three-week period, the gut changed so much of that child. It started to look like somebody who had inflammatory bowel disease. Then we said, okay, can we keep feeding the gut the same glyphosate, but then add spores, for example, the probiotics? So we started adding the probiotic spores, and then we started to see a reversing of those negative changes, even though we were still adding in the glyphosate-ridden cereal into it.

I'm taking my probiotic right now. So, so we, like, well, so there's a way of combat, adding some of these things that inevitably we're going to be exposed to. You also mentioned antibiotics.

Mhm. What's interesting about antibiotics to me is I found out that if you were given penicillin when you give birth, that's a round of antibiotics for your baby. Is that correct?

It's not quite a round of antibiotics. No, I think I think the analogy that they're making there is that it is a, um, a chemical impact on your baby. Got it. That is that can hinder some of the microbial transfer from baby to mom, okay, during the birthing process, right? Um, but there isn't data that I've seen that it has that, NE, that antimicrobial like effect on the baby. Um, the, the most important microbial transfer occurs, uh, during the birthing process itself, assuming you can do a natural birth. Now, a certain percentage of women have to do C-section for various medical reasons, but even if you did a C-section, beyond that, you can of course, uh, undo some of that by taking vaginal swabs and swabbing the baby around the mouth and nose. But then breastfeeding and skin-to-skin contact with both mom and dad overcomes some of those negative effects.

We did delayed bathing for like, or bathing for like two weeks. Or Michael was like, I'm like, I don't give a [ __ ] if the baby smells like a vagina. We just, I'm like, I don't want to give the baby a bath for both my kids. I'm like, just, we, you know, like clips get pulled from the show sometimes. Obviously, sometimes I don't know if you saw this, but we had one like where we talked about delayed bathing and people lost their mind. They said that like there was like child services go because, you know, it, it was in relation to to what we're talking about now, which is the gut microbiome and keeping some of that and and not just cleaning the baby off on day one because not necessary. But it, you should, the internet went nuts on this stuff. Do you believe in delayed bathing? And then if you do, is there, when can you start to give the baby a probiotic? Like, can you do it when they're newborn?

So my kids started getting spore-based probiotics at week two. Wow. Yeah. Week two. They got a little dabble of it, little bit of powder, and that you just put in the mouth or on the nipple before they attach. Oh, that's SMS. Perfectly fine. Easy to get them to do it, you know, it's just a little dabble. And it, and it mimics what is supposed to happen in nature, right? Because in nature, when you, you know, for millions of years as humans were evolving, or our ancestors were evolving, or our version of our ancestors were evolving, babies were born in the dirt and they were born, you know, and they were putting things in their mouth, right? So this is one of the, uh, interesting things about babies that I always thought is like, if you think about the weird behaviors that they have innate in them, they sample the world with their mouth, right? And as adults, we lose that. Or even as teenagers, we lose that. When we see something new, we don't pick it up and go put it in our mouth. Speak for yourself. Um, and, and so, but babies, that's the most natural thing. Everything goes in their mouth, right? So imagine our ancestral babies laying on the ground and just putting rocks and dried dung and everything in their mouth because they're sampling the Earth and they're sampling the environment. They're getting those microbes into their system. And, and there are studies that show that environmental bacteria work with your natural microbes in your gut to build the gut-associated lymphoid tissue, which is the largest immune system, immune organ in your body. Unless there's Roundup on it. If kids are out now and they're playing in the dirt and they fall down, they get sand in their mouth, like that should be something for parents to be overly concerned about? Not, not at all concerned. They should be happy about it, given there, you're in a natural environment, right? This is what I tell, I tell Michael this all the time. I'm like, H, they'll be fine. Yep. Michael's a little more like, uh, clean around the baby. Yeah. I'm a little more like, H. Well, let me, let me give you a study that that actually followed this, right? They, they followed thousands of moms. They looked at two different groups of moms, right? So group one, our moms, when the baby drops their pacifier, they pick it up and they clean it with a wipe and then they give it back to the baby. Group number two were moms that pick it up, clean it with their own mouth, and put it back in the baby. And they found that the moms that cleaned it with their own mouths had babies with much lower incidence rate of allergies. And what about the mom that just wipes it on the jacket and shoves it back? Even better, right? But so there's something about mom's saliva that also has immune components to it that helps a baby. It's HW Tua on it. HW Tua. It's a HW we only there.

Okay, so, so really, there's no, like, any age you can start with with the spores? And it, with the spores, yes. And you just, what I would do, and I would take a capsule and I would put it on my hand if I, when I have a newborn. Yep. And then I can sprinkle it in their bottle or put it on my nipple. Yep. Yep. That's it. That's it. Just a little sprinkle of it. Yep. Just a little sprinkle. Just with tip of your finger. And after two weeks, you waited? Yes, we did. Because we wanted to make sure that there were no other complications of the child's perfectly healthy and normal and eating and pooping properly as they should, right? Um, and, and so at that point, we're like, okay, great. Now, um, my, my, my son was was starting to, um, develop allergy-like symptoms early on because he was C-section, he was breached the whole time, right? So he had to be born C-section. And we could already tell that he was kind of red and sniffly and sensitive to things in the beginning. So that was part of why we waited for a few weeks. But then once we started giving him the spores, he did amazingly well.

So what are other weird, not weird, cool sciencey microbiome things that you do for your kids that maybe, like, normal people don't know?

Yeah, well, so number one, you guys may not, I don't know if I've spoken about this before, but I really encourage, or at least did not discourage my kids from eating their boogers. Oh, right. Wow. Town will be thrilled. Boogers are like essentially like environmental vaccines, right? So this is another one of those behaviors I tend to observe in kids that's going to go viral. Protective Service. Yeah. Here I thought the, no bathing. Let's hear about eating our boogers. We haven't talked about this on the show. Yes. Okay. So this is important. So here, and this is where I started thinking about it, right? So when my son was about three or four, we were at the playground. He's hanging out and talking to a bunch of kids. And the conversation comes up, they all talk, are talking about how they eat their boogers. And I was thinking to myself, and I was like, I totally ate my boogers when I was a kid. And then you stop at a given point, right? Almost naturally, in part because society tells you not to. But just remember, if you go back in your mind, you remember pulling this nasty thing out of your nose, and for some reason, your instinct is to eat it.

I didn't eat my boogers. I hate to. I didn't eat my boogers. You didn't? Are you sure? I'm not saying I didn't pick my nose. I did not eat my boogers. Did you? I was not a booger eater. I don't think I'm, you know, I think I, again, like, I start eating them. Yeah. I maybe I maybe lean on more of like, maybe the Japanese side of me, the cene. My grandmother would have just whacked me in the head with a spoon, probably.

So, so then you have to wonder, what, why is there a tendency to eat these things, right? Um, now, this happens naturally in your body whether you want to or not. So when you breathe in things, you're going to capture allergens and microbes and all that in your respiratory tract, right? And they get trapped by mucus. The mucus adds immune factors to it, antibodies, and so on. And then we have something called a mucociliary elevator. Whether you do it or not voluntarily, things are all moved up from your lungs and your upper respiratory tract and they drop into your throat. So you do effectively swallow your boogers naturally, whether you know it or not. Now, but kids do it deliberately when they pull it out and they consume it. It is basically antigens, so viruses, bacteria, allergens, and all that that are covered with immune factors that they're sending into their gut, which is their largest sampling site for their immune system. And their immune system gets to learn what is in their environment that they need to build protection against, right? So it's essentially a way of the immune system reading the natural environment around you.

So take your Dr. Thrive probiotic and then stick your finger in your nose and get a nice booger and eat it. God, for dinner. I didn't. My son will be thrilled. His finger is stuck in his nose. I'm like, that finger. It makes, it makes a ton of sense when you explain that. It's basically this is the body's best way to understand the environment. Yeah. And then guard against things that are harmful. Yeah. Because if you think about it, our immune sampling tissue, that's the part of the immune system that learns what is in the environment, right? Because our immune system is designed to adapt to whatever environment you're going into. The antigens and the dangers are different, right? But the immune system doesn't have an outward-facing component. And so it's taking cues from our eyes, uh, things that go into our eyes and drain into our throats, our mouth, our nose, things that may even go through your skin to learn the environment. Michael's gonna have me try to eat something else if you're not careful. You're getting real close to something.

You, is this why, so when I first moved to Austin, we didn't, obviously we didn't live here forever in 2020, the, the first time I experienced like cedar allergies, I thought I was done for. I was like, I was like, I was going to write my will and I was like, it's finished. And then after about a year, like I don't get it at all anymore. Then spring came, one spring, and there was the flowers were blooming and I got nailed again. But then again, now I don't get anything. And we just had a bunch of friends and family move here, and they're starting to experience it. Is that because they're not used to this environment and their body has to build the defense of being in this new environment?

Yes, the defense and the tolerance. So there's two parts of the immune system, right? The first part of the immune system is a very inflammatory response. And this is especially true in adults when you go into new environments because that's the faster acting part of the immune system. So you go in, you breathe in a new allergen like cedar, you mentioned that you're never used to, your innate immune system goes, I don't know what the hell this is, I'm going to attack it. And you're getting all the histamine response and all that, right? Then, if your gut is healthy, so this is a good indication that your gut and your immune system is pretty healthy, your gut and your immune system takes over and goes, let, let us examine this new thing and figure out, is it something we need to constantly attack or is it something we build tolerance to? And then your immune system decided, because of the support of your gut, that we should build tolerance to it. So now you can experience it, but your immune system just throws some Ig antibodies to it, and it doesn't release all the histamines and all that, right? So, so, and I just want to keep up with you here. Sometimes when you talk, I have to like, really think. If someone continues to get bombarded with the histamine response and the inflammation, could that also be a reverse indication that the gut is not healthy enough to develop the immune response?

So then you have to focus on healing the gut. That's absolutely correct. Yeah, because to shuttle the immune system from from that first inflammatory response to the tolerance response, so that's called oral tolerance, that that shuttling it requires a healthy microbiome. It's the microbiome that actually does that for you. It's, it's super interesting because your immune system is like an army that has all of the equipment, it has the guns and tanks and bombs, but it has no general. So it has like no understanding of what is friend and what is foe. So it just attacks everything, right? And then the microbiome actually tells the immune system, hey, you don't need to attack that, you need to build tolerance against that. That's food, you don't need to attack that, and so on, right? This is why when you lose your M, your, your gut health and your microbiome goes into disarray, we become food sensitive, we, we develop allergies, we develop autoimmune conditions. Autoimmune conditions are merely your body losing tolerance to your own tissue, right? So it's just attacking everything.

So, okay, last thing, and then I know Lauren wants to jump to the next thing. If, you know, you're going into allergy season, you live out in a place like Austin, are you better off to start maybe like doubling the dose of your probiotic because you could do that, knowing you need to build a greater defense, or would you just stick with a normal dose of Just Thrive?

You could. I do that, especially when I travel, knowing that my body is going to probably encounter new antigens that I'm not used to. I double it when I travel. Um, now, if you're someone that does get the seasonal allergies and it, it is heightened at certain times of year, you can absolutely build up to that by doubling the dose, okay? And, and even paying more attention to your microbiome and your diet and so on. And just to clarify, and I know we've talked about this so many times, but you can't like overdo, yeah, the Just Thrive probiotic. You can, just these were the same strains our ancestors used to get from the environment every day. They'd eat roots and tubers off the land, and they'd get these same bacteria that are the same type of bacteria that are in Just Thrive.

I remember when I was like 21, I started getting allergies and I started taking an allergy pill every single day to combat the allergies. And then I had this healer tell me, stop the allergy pill, the allergies will go away. And I stopped it and I was miserable for two weeks, and then they went away. So, so what you're saying is my immune system chose to flush out the allergies after two weeks, yep, without the pill.

That's, that's exactly right. So, so here's what happened in that case, right? So you, you actually bring up a really interesting case. So the allergic response is a part of your immune system called the innate immune system that's responding to what it thinks is a danger. And so it's trying to throw everything at it. It's throwing histamine and leukotrienes. These are compounds that give you the sniffles and all, all of the allergy-like symptoms. Now, what your body needs to do is do that for a period of time until it learns to build tolerance. Now, if you stop that response by taking the antihistamines and all the allergy meds, you're effectively stopping step one of building the tolerance, right? So, so then you'll just keep ending up hitting a wall on that step one. You'll get some symptoms, you stop it, the, uh, the allergic process stops, rather than running through it and getting to that tolerance. So you just have to be miserable for a little period of time. You just have to be miserable, assuming your gut is of course healthy to shuttle you to that next phase, right? That's the key part, because if it's not healthy, you'll just be miserable for as long as the allergies are around.

What about parents with children that children that have allergies? I hear a lot that children have egg allergies or gluten or they're lactose intolerant or they're really sensitive. What nut allergies? Now, a lot of nut allergies. We see that everywhere. Why is this happening more and more and more? And what is the root cause of it?

Yeah, there are, there are two really important drivers of this. Number one is a skin, and number two is a gut. Right? And the skin is a surprising part of it. So let's talk about the gut first. So the, so the, the gut microbiome is critical in tutoring and teaching the immune system how to function, right? And developing those, um, developing the top tolerance to things in your environment that aren't harmful. So our kids are being born C-section, they're eating crappy food, they're not getting enough fiber, they're taking lots of courses of antibiotics. All of those things decimate the gut microbiome, which then increase your risk for developing allergies because your gut and your immune system are not communicating, right? So that's one reason. The second reason is the skin. Now, one of the things you guys have done with the delaying the bathing, that's a good first step in ensuring that their skin is healthy. See Michael, right? You hear that the microbes? So because the skin microbiome, exactly. Vaginal juices all day long, right? So they're going to pull that clip for sure. It's time to bottle that. Bottle that in boogers and we're good. Start a brand. Just vagina. Exactly. I love it. Just boogers. Just boogers. Um, so, so here's what's happening with the skin. So just like in our gut, our gut microbiome is getting decimated, our skin microbiome is getting decimated too, because of course, we're putting lotions and things on our babies that have parabens and phthalates and all of these things on it that are horrific for the skin microbiome. So kids and babies are developing eczema and dermatitis at an alarming rate. Right? Here's a crazy thing. The skin is a barrier. When you develop eczema and dermatitis, you lose the barrier function of the skin. So peanut antigens, for example, can travel through the skin and enter the body. Huh? And so this is something called the atopic march, right? Which is starts with atopic dermatitis, which is the eczema, psoriasis, and those kind of things. And then the atopic march is where allergens make their way through the skin into circulation. So they're not going through the normal digestive route, which is where you build tolerance in the gut, right? So they're going right into this, the circulation, and your immune system is going haywire because it's like, what is this stuff coming through the skin, right? It's not normal for these antigens to enter to the skin, cu the skin is a barrier. But you lose the barrier function, it's coming through the skin, your skin, your immune system mounts a horrific response against it. Now you have severe allergies against these things. So when you combine the dysfunctional gut and dysfunctional skin microbiome, kids are screwed, right? This is why we have an epidemic of asthma, allergies, and atopic dermatitis.

So say someone has a child with like bumps on their arms, what do you tell them to do?

Um, so number one, clean up their personal care products, right? So, um, they, they really need to be careful of what they're putting on their kids' skin. So the types of soaps they use, types of lotions in the bath. I always tell Michael, you have to wash this, the, like, sometimes you like, take them out of the bath, like, you have to wash the bath, like the soap off the kids. You got to be careful. You're going to be on bath time, dude. You do have to get the soap off. I get the soap off. I take the thing, I get the fresh water. God, because before me, who knows what you were doing? No, I, I have a whole thing now. I got a system. Okay. Go ahead. Well, okay. And then also, you don't always need soap for the kids either, right? So if they've been playing in the dirt's like freaking out, right? I love soap. I, if they're playing in the dirt, yeah, you can, you can actually just rinse them off in the shower, warm water, and they're good to go. They're fine. So we don't need to sterilize their skin, right? That's so that's number one. Number two, working on their gut. So the gut-skin axis plays a very important role for what your skin microbiome looks like based on what your gut microbiome looks like. So there's a deep connection. So a probiotic like the, like the Just Thrive can help a lot. And then if your skin, if your kid's skin is actually really bad and there's bumps and irritation, you can actually take spores out of the capsule, mix it in a, in a nice lotion, and actually apply it to the skin as well.

If somebody wants to do, people are going to want to know how to do the lotion. What do you do to make a lotion? What do you mean? You just take it and open it? Yeah, I would just take a handful of lotion. You pull apart the capsule, take a little bit of pinch of the powder, mix it into that lotion, and just apply. But I think like a good brand of lotion is really important. There's a brand called K Pure. It's a small business, and she does non-toxic products. It's K P R E, like that's a good one. I think to mix it in with.

That one we use. Yeah, that's the one we use. Um, I don't even know. I just use, use what's in the drawer, right? You have to literally be so, you have to be like a scientist when it comes to these products because they lie. They do about what's actually in them. They'll write natural ingredients. Like you have to like be a psycho about it.

Because a follow-up question of that, we've been spending a lot of time on kids, but I imagine if you can heal a kid's gut earlier, it's much easier than trying to heal a, a grown adult's gut.

Yes. We have a lot of friends who, because of our relationship to this show, come to us and say, like, hey, I got, you know, they're our age, they got gut issues, maybe they're drinking a little too much, you know who I'm talking to. Um, but, you know, if you are, if you're talking to somebody that's an adult and they feel like their gut is just destroyed, outside of saying, get on the pro, like, what's the protocol you put that individual on? They're just like, if they're, you know, not for kids, for adult. For adult, yeah.

So I've, um, I've been teaching kind of a microbiome course to to consumers. And so I break it down to what I call my, like, the five pillars. And you have to do something in each of these pillars in order for your gut to really revamp, right? Especially the adults that have gone through years of just decimating their gut. Um, so the first one is food. So what are you feeding your gut? Um, you want to diversify your diet as much as possible. So you want to get as many polyphenols, fibers, lean meats, all of that stuff into your system. Fiber, especially, right? Fiber. You want 30, 40, 50 grams of fiber a day.

Give us examples of your favorite fibers. So I use from a supplement perspective, I use Just [ __ ] State Psyllium Husk. But if not, I eat a lot of things like plantains, I eat, uh, sweet potatoes, um, I eat, uh, organic oats, nuts and seeds. I eat a lot of nuts and seeds throughout the day. Um, and then people should just Google soluble fiber, insoluble fiber, and get a mix of both. Okay. Right. There's a lot of options out there.

Do you do the husk in a pill or do you take it in a powder? I take a powder. The Organic India Clean powder. It's a terrible experience. It's not great tasting or anything, but it's just so good for you, right? You froth it up or you just put it in water? What do you do? Just put it in water and raw dog it down with one with 8 oz of water. Yeah, like two heaping tablespoons. How do you give that to your children, or do you not give that one? Um, I don't give that particular one to my kids. I use a, um, a, a fiber I think called Sunfiber, okay, which is a fruit-based fiber. So it's got polyphenols and fiber in it. It solubilizes better and it goes really well in smoothies. So for them, they get it through smoothies.

You guys should launch a fiber project. Funny, we were just talking, we're talking about that. Because here's the thing, fiber is, is probably the most well-researched macronutrient there is. There was a study that came out about three years ago that involves a million subjects, right? And they showed for every 10 grams of fiber you add to your daily diet, you reduce your all-cause mortality by 10%. Wow. It's also fiber cancels out carbs. Sugar. So if there's 20 grams of carbs, right, it's act, and there's, I thought it was carbs. Simple carbs. Yes. Non-fibrous carbs. Yes. Okay. So there's 20 grams of carbs in a, and I'm just making this up, in a protein bar, but there's 10 grams of fiber. Isn't it 10 grams of carbs? It, it is. And the reason it cancels it cancels out the carbs is because it blunts what we call the postprandial insulin response, right? So fiber slows down the digestion and it slows down the digestibility of the simple carbs.

I haven't seen you eat a plantain in a while, Michael. I eat a lot of kiwis. Those do, those have good fiber. Fiber. And the kiwis. Spinach. Spinach. Yeah. A kiwi. Every single kiwi. Spinach. Yeah. Um, so that's pillar number one is feeding the microbiome high diversity, high fiber. Pillar number two is what you don't expose your microbiome to and what you do expose your microbiome to, right?

So you want to really try to clean up your personal care products in your home. So reducing the use of chlorine-based cleaners and things with antimicrobials and all that. And then getting outside and getting some natural dirt, like exposure on a regular basis.

Pillar number three, stress management, which is a hard thing for most people. But you can use just calm, you can use meditation and all that. Because stress is the number one driver of dysbiosis in the gut, right? And it's the number one cause of mortality worldwide. Stresses and the resulting dysbiosis that it creates.

Uh, number four is exercise. Uh, and exercise in particular, lifting, right? So a lot of people don't quite know this, but one of the benefits of lifting, of contracting your muscles under weight, is the muscles release something called myokines. Myokines are these chemical messengers that make their way to your gut, dramatically increase the diversity of your gut microbiome, seal up the gut lining, and reduce inflammation. So muscle contraction is actually really good for your gut microbiome.

And the last thing is supplementation. We all need a probiotic, prebiotic, bitter, uh, compound because those, we just live in too toxic of a world to not help the microbiome that way. So let's talk about what you guys are doing with the bitters. Tina, I don't know. I mean, we went to dinner the last time you were in town. I don't think you had the bitters then.

No, we, the bitters. Yeah, we just launched it about a couple weeks ago. Really excited. Um, bitters, you know, they're natural plant compounds that have been used for centuries, um, as a digestive aid and natural. You know, and they just, I love bitters because they've stood the test of time. You know, they have, it's the way we evolved, just like the spore-based probiotic strains, we evolved with these strains, we evolved eating them on a regular basis. And same thing with bitters, we need bitters on a regular basis because we evolved that way. We have thousands of bitter receptor sites throughout our entire body. Um, and we always think of, like, bitters being in our tongue, but in fact, bitters are throughout our entire body. And we have bitter receptors in our immune system, in our gut, in our lungs, our heart, I mean, all throughout our body. And, um, they're just, it's something that we need. And it was really important to us to have a comprehensive formula for our customers.

And how do you take it? You just take it about 10 to 15 minutes before a meal. So you just drop it or you take, oh, no, so that's the other exciting thing. It's not a tincture. It's actually a capsule. And that was really important to us because, of course, the tinctures have alcohol in them, and some people don't want to take alcohol or they don't tolerate alcohol well. Also, they don't have that bitter taste. I mean, most people don't take the tinctures of bitters because of the bitter, bitter taste. That's very frustrating.

To, I was going to say, like, when I, when you, when we first started talking about bitters before we started, I was like, like Angostura, because whenever I, whenever I have a stomach ache or whenever I get the hiccups, like that's what I do. But there's alcohol in it, so obviously you can't do that. Okay. You also used to make cocktails for me with that. Well, you still do. Listen, if you want to make some proper cocktails. I remember my grandma would always do this before she would eat a meal because it would help with her digestion. And then we had Dr. Darl on, who's fabulous, and he said, it's so important, Lauren, to take a digestive before you eat, 30 minutes. So this is all adding up to me.

So what is the difference between someone who takes bitters before they eat and someone who does not? Well, a lot of people who take bitters will have less indigestion, they'll have less heartburn, those types of things. B heartburn, right? Now we know that. Yeah, I mean, we know that the digestive bitters are increasing stomach acid. See, that's one of the biggest problems. Most people are taking all of these antacids to reduce stomach acid. I just, that's what I did last night. Yeah. And I mean, our, our stomach acid is there to protect us. It's there to protect and support our microbiome. So we are, you know, as a society, almost addicted to the addicted to these antacids. And what these bitters are doing are actually increasing our stomach acid as a protective mechanism. It's also increasing the production of short-chain fatty acids. It's increasing our own body's GLP-1 production. So, um, helping with satiety and helping us, you know, help helping us with appetite regulation. And we know that it's, you know, helping us curb cravings, particularly sugar cravings. So the GLP-1, you know, we've already, we've naturally produced GLP-1s on our own already. And so digestive bitters are prod helping produce the GLP-1s. So instead of waiting to get the heartburn and fix it with an with an antacid, is that how you say it? Antacid, like I did last night. Um, you would do the digestive before, and that's going to prevent the heartburn from even happening. That's right. Yeah. And, you know, and, uh, that's absolutely right. And help you digest the food that you're actually eating, right?

So there's a really interesting evolutionary connection with bitters, right? So if you think about all of these really important digestive functions that are regulated by something called bitter receptors, you go, why did our body develop these receptors for bitter compounds to conduct really important functions? And the functions are releasing hydrochloric acid, you know, moving the food through the bowels, releasing bile, releasing pancreatic enzymes and digestive juices, um, you know, upregulating satiety signals, up-spurring fat burn signals. All of these things. Why did we outsource that to bitter compounds? Right? And as it turns out, there's some really cool evolutionary biology behind this. So number one, it indicates that humans were likely omnivores. We ate all kinds of things throughout our course of evolution. We ate lots of plants and roots and tubers and seeds and nuts and all that. Most of those things contain components that are bitter within them. Now, there's other dangerous things that are bitter as well. So within certain plants, there can be toxins that are bitter. And so we have a lot of bitter receptors on our tongue to try to ward us or warn us against those particular noxious substances, right? So when you eat something and it's really astringent on your tongue, you go, oh, I'm not going to eat that, right? So you spit it out. So that's one of the reasons for the bitter receptors on the tongue.

Now, if you eat plants and things like that that are coming in, your body is telling you to slow down digestion because plants require a longer time for digestion. So it's slowing down the motility and slowing down the digestive process. So the bitters are signaling to your digestive tract to do that. And they increase HCL, hydrochloric acid, they increase enzymes so that you can properly break down these substances, right? And at the end of the day, the other interesting evolutionary significance is during times of, um, scarcity, right? Imagine people who lived in the Northern Hemisphere. There weren't many animals to hunt and things like that. So they gathered and they ate and foraged a lot of berries and things like that. These bitter compounds in plants actually provided a higher degree of satiety because they bound the bitter receptors in your intestines, made you feel more full, and then they also sent signals to the brain to increase serotonin, so you felt happier. So through the course of human evolution, when they went through these periods of scarcity, they could be starving and really depressed, or because we developed these bitter receptors, you could actually feel more satiated and feel happier. So that's another effect of bitters. You know, if you're taking them before your digestion, you'll end up, or before you eat, you'll actually end up eating less and you'll feel better about what you ate as well.

Wow, how innovative. I know. And I think it's interesting because the probiotic is largely responsible for the large bowel. I mean, it touches every part of the intestinal tract, but the bitters are focusing on the stomach, which is largely overlooked and overworked for that matter, and the small intestine as well. So you kind of think of the probiotic as handling the large bowel, and the bitters as handling the small intestine and the stomach. And you guys gave us a code. It says for a limited time, you guys can save 20% off on your first bottle of digestive bitters and probiotics. You guys can just go to Just Thrive Health.com and use promo code skinny.

The bitters almost sound a little oily in a natural way, in a much more natural way. You know, that's that's funny, right? Because GLP-1 peptides and agonists are getting so much attention, and what they are really doing is taking advantage of a natural system that we've developed in response to eating bitters for thousands of years. H, right? The bitters. So there are these cells in your intestine called L cells. L cells make the GLP-1, make the GLP-1 compound that binds the receptor, which is what the peptides, the prescription peptides are trying to do, right? So we're naturally adapted to having that system to provide satiety and improve blood sugar regulation. All you have to do is really take bitters with your with your food, like our ancestors did for most of their meals. We just stopped doing that.

What is your opinion on GLP-1s? I have to ask you because you're the microbiologist. Yeah. So there, there's a couple of thoughts I have on it. Number one, I think there's a group of people that could really benefit from it, right? So if you're morbidly obese and your metabolic syndrome, um, symptoms and disease and comorbidities are so bad, you probably need to lose weight in that very aggressive manner, and it could save your life. So for those individuals, I think there's a there's a space for it. Uh, for people who are trying to lose 20 pounds, 25 pounds, I think it can be incredibly, um, disruptive to their system, right? And the risks are too high. Um, the, so just, just understanding how this works, right? So natural GLP-1 compounds are designed to hop on the receptor that they bind to, and they hop on and they hop off in 20, 25 minutes, right? That's how the natural system is supposed to work. The reason why you can take these shots once a week is because they've designed the the agonist to sit on the receptor for seven days. Oh, wow. Right? So something natural that is supposed to happen in a few minutes, they're prolonging it to seven days. That in itself scares the [ __ ] out of me about these things, right?

Why does it, what are the risks from that? So the risk from that is that you are prolonging an effect that your body has naturally designed to be a quick effect because you don't want the effect of GLP-1 happening 24 hours a day, seven days a week, right? Because it'll cause you to, number one, not eat enough. So a lot of the people I know that have used it, that are using it to lose 25, 30 pounds, they basically stop eating, right? And they're kind of wasting away in many ways, right? Uh, and as a result of that, your blood sugar regulation can go haywire. Your pancreas can undergo a lot of inflammation and stress. So there's an association with pancreatitis for people. And then now we're seeing that, you know, there's immune dysregulations and so on because it's such an unnatural way of using that system, right? So there's a natural way of using it through food and diet and bitters and berberine, for example, right? Uh, but then the drug version of it is so unnatural in how it functions that for the typical person, it can probably be, uh, or it will be more than likely a negative effect.

Yeah, I, you know, I again, like I think to your point earlier, like there's a place for it, but what I just tell people as it comes up in our private life, I was like, if you're fighting for that extra 20, even 25 pounds, I, it's not easy, but there are natural ways over time to do it. And you spoke about stress earlier. If you start doing the things required to lose that weight in a natural way, you will help manage your stress, you will feel better, you'll feel like you've made it, like a real accomplishment. Like there's, there's so many benefits to going that route, whether it's eating better, weightlifting, all the things that we know to do and know how to do if we pay attention to get the information. Um, and so for me, it's just like, it's such a better long-term effect to go that route as opposed to saying, I'm going to take this shot and then, you know, maybe end up with a result that I'm not happy with in the long run.

Before you guys go, can you each share your favorite gut-friendly meal? My gut-friendly meal, I'm assuming you're going to take your bitters before it. Yes. Gosh, I'm trying to think of what I, I feel like I eat so well. Um, I, it's mostly a diverse group. So I'll have, I have my kiwi. I, every, before every my first meal of the day, I always have kiwi. Um, I love to eat eggs. Um, I eat a lot of, I always have arugula and, um, I eat a lot of beans too.

You also do a smoothie that you told me that you put your Just Thrive capsule in, which I do for my kids. Michael and I will make a smoothie and open the capsule. I don't think it was me. I don't do smoothies. That's so funny. No, I don't think it was me. It was you on an episode. Someone came on and said they opened their capsule. It's probably Kiran. It was probably Kiran. May, it was Kiran. Does smoothies? Definitely smoothies. Yeah, for the kids to make it easier for them. They, and they love making it themselves, right? So we have a bunch of, uh, fruit that we froze, cut up and froze, sitting in the freezer. So they just go in there and they put some yogurt in, they put some fruit, and then they know to open the capsule and put the capsule in the smoothie. Um, and they, they mix it up and do that. Just put one in there. Just one in there. Yep. For them, it's perfect. One a day is perfect. When we travel or they have the sniffles or they're getting flu or something like that, I bump it up. I give them one twice a day, or sometimes two at one time. So you don't do the gummy? You do the, you open it. I open it. Yeah. My kids are too little to take a pill. I'll do it in their smoothie, but they love the gummy. The gummies taste good. That's that's the big benefit of it, right? Yeah.

Um, so my, my favorite, uh, gut-friendly, probiotic-friendly, sorry, microbiome-friendly meal would involve, um, starting with the with the digestive bitters, and then I take the probiotic with the first bite of food as well, right? So that, that is ritual to me. Um, I also don't drink a lot of water with the meal. I drink a minimal amount of water, right? So I don't want to, um, fill myself too much with liquid. Um, and then, and then I love lean meats, so lean fish, um, and and really hearty meats sometimes. So I almost have, I'll often have two different protein sources in my meal. So I'll have like a fish and a lamb, or a fish and a steak of some sort. Um, and then a number of, uh, of like healthy grains, like I love, uh, whole quinoa, um, beans, arugula. And then I always sprinkle my meal with nuts and seeds. Um, almost always just add like a bunch of sunflower seeds or nuts or cashews and things like that.

That's the other thing I, we, Lauren and I talk about it's like, it's a very Western thing, I believe, to have these ice-cold drinks with the meal. I got yelled at, and it's funny because I mentioned, like, I had, she passed, but I had this Japanese grandmother, and she taught me from a young age, like, you don't drink ice-cold drinks. And then during the meal, you don't really even touch the drink until you're done with the meal. I had a Korean doctor come to, uh, our hotel room last time I was sick, and he was like, you do not drink. But I wanted. But the reason I bring this up is I wanted you to, because you said you don't have the the water with. Can you explain scientifically why that there could be a benefit of doing that?

So number one, um, when the first place that your food goes after you chew it is in your stomach, right? And you really want it to mix with the hydrochloric acid. Water is a buffer, a spring agent. So if you drink a bunch of water with it, you're actually neutralizing the effect of the acid. So you screw up the first step in digestion. The presence of the hydrochloric acid also then causes the rest of your digestive system to prepare for the food coming in by releasing things like pepsin and pancreatic enzymes and so on. So you could interfere with those signals as well if you're drinking a bunch of water along with it. Uh, and then finally, once it gets into the small bowel, you want some moisture in there, but you want the microbes or the enzymes, sorry, to have access to the food. If you drink a lot of liquid with it, you dilute the enzymes quite a bit, right? And then finally, in the large bowel, once the food has gone down there, that's when you send the water down. So a couple hours after your meal, you send some water down. The large bowel will utilize the water as much as it needs and then absorb what you need for hydration through the colon, right? And the rest of it will end up coming out through excretion. So this, so I was like explaining to people, or especially Del Lauren, why I don't, I don't like to drink water during the meal. Like that's the, I didn't know Michael thinks he was doing a TED talk. It was just to me. No one. But the point is, like, because I see these, I see people and they have these, like, huge, and I also feel like huge chugs with all this, it's ice cold. And I just, to your point, like, to me, naturally, I feel much better when I eat without the beverage. And then have it. Anyway, I'm going to go take my bitters and eat my boogers.

Um, if you guys go to Just Thrive Health.com, use promo code skinny, you could save 20% off. Uh, thank you both for coming on. You're both welcome back anytime. It's always an interesting conversation. Thanks. Where can everyone find both of you to say hello and the brand? Just Thrive Health.com is the best place. And on Instagram, you go to Just Thrive Health. Also. Okay. Yep. And then, uh, I have an Instagram page called Kiran Biome, K I R A N B O M E, where you'll find lots of fun facts and figures and tips. I'm sure you never know what you're going to get with you. Thank you guys for coming on. Thank you.