28. Why Your Probiotic Probably Isn't Working, And What to Take Instead

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If you've ever taken a probiotic for weeks, felt nothing, and quietly concluded they just don't work for you, this episode is for you.

You are not wrong that something isn't working. You may just have never been told that the probiotic on the shelf and the probiotic in the research paper are often not the same thing at all.

Why this episode matters

The microbiome is one of the fastest-moving areas in all of health research, and most patients are either taking nothing, taking the wrong thing, or being sold on claims that have no clinical backing. Dr. Mark Su sits down with Ben Myers, an educator and representative for Microbiome Labs, for a conversation that cuts through the noise. Ben brings years of deep education in probiotic science, strain-specific research, and the expanding connections between gut health, mental health, and women's health.

This is not a product pitch. It is a conversation between two people who want you to understand what is actually happening in your gut, and why that matters for the rest of your body.

What you will learn

The difference between dead-strain, live-culture, and spore-based probiotics, and why the category you are taking changes everything about your results.

Why strain specificity is the single most important and most overlooked factor in probiotic selection, and how the same species name on two different bottles can mean completely different outcomes.

The science behind psychobiotics, including how one specific strain has been shown in peer-reviewed human clinical trials to regulate cortisol, shift tryptophan metabolism toward serotonin and melatonin, and change brainwave patterns in people under stress.

How the vaginal microbiome works, why recurring bacterial vaginosis and yeast infections keep coming back after antibiotics, and what precision probiotic therapy is starting to offer as an alternative.

Why fixing the gut first is still the foundation, and how that foundational work connects to skin health, sinus health, mental health, and far more than most people expect.

A moment worth noting

One of the most honest exchanges in this conversation happens early. Dr. Su acknowledges how hard it is for patients to know who to trust in the supplement space, especially when practitioners themselves sometimes have financial incentives tied to what they recommend. It is a rare moment of transparency, and it sets the tone for everything that follows.

Dr. Su's perspective

The goal was never to overwhelm you with strain names and research codes. The goal is to give you enough of the picture that you can stop throwing things at the wall and start asking better questions. The research on the gut is not slowing down. And while we do not have every answer yet, we have more than enough to take meaningful, targeted action.

Links and resources

Microbiome Labs: microbiomelabs.com

About Ben Myers

Ben Myers is an educator and representative for Microbiome Labs with years of experience working alongside functional medicine practitioners. He came to this work through his own health journey and a deep passion for making complex science accessible. This was his first podcast appearance. It will not be his last.

Ready to stop guessing and finally get a clear plan?

Join Dr. Su for the Ask Dr. Mark Clinical Q&A Call, a small-group call limited to about five people each month where you can bring your real questions and get real direction.

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Connect with Dr. Su

rootseekhealth.com | @rootseekhealth

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only.  Information discussed is not intended for diagnosis, curing, or prevention of any disease and is not intended to replace advice given by a licensed healthcare practitioner. This podcast and its guests may have direct or indirect financial interests associated with products mentioned.

Transcript

Episode Introduction

Dr. Mark Su 0:09

I'm Dr. Mark Stu and welcome to the Functional Medicine Reality Podcast. Join me and our community weekly as we bring you unfiltered health from inflammation to longevity. Real stories, real people, real solutions. Experience real life health changes from both patients and practitioners. And learn how to turn cutting-edge information into real results in your own life so you can feel better, live longer, live healthier, and be confident and clear in your healthcare choices. Let's get real and get results.

Why We Talk To Supplement Reps

Dr. Mark Su 0:45

I'm Dr. Mark Sue. I'm joined today by Ben Myers, who I'm going to introduce just a little bit more in a second here. But uh once again, thanks for joining us. We are here, as always, to help be truth tellers and create clarity to help people make better decisions, not only be aware about the tools in functional medicine world, but the applications of them, but also talk about the good, the bad, and sometimes ugly around functional medicine and the more realities of the applications of such. So, all that being said, today we're talking with Ben Myers. I've asked him to come on. He is a representative for, he is our representative for a supplement company called Microbiome Labs. All right. And this is so this is not a promotional session. This is not a sales pitch session of any sort. We've done this once before. And the reason that we're having someone come on who represents a supplement company is because we as practitioners, my colleagues and I anyway, we learn so freaking much from people like Ben. All right. There, and so, you know, I've said this to you before, Ben, I'm not just hyping you up. Like you, you have a lot of information and you see so many other practitioners and you have such a lay of the land of what other practitioners are doing. So we look at these opportunities as sort of networking opportunities, quite honestly, as I've if I haven't said to you before. We learn from you not only about your company and products, but also we learn about what's kind of on the horizon many times with science and research. And also we get a sense without having to spend the effort talking to other practitioners, like what other people are doing. Okay. So the bottom line here is this if you're checking in today, if you're a practitioner and you know microbiome labs, you'll have a sense already of some of the topics that we're gonna discuss. But we're gonna, we're not just talking about microbiome labs, all right? We're talking about the science behind the topics that microbiome labs serves with a lot of their products. Secondly, if you are a practitioner and you're not familiar with microbiome labs, all the better. You're gonna get an introduction and um, you know, for the sake of, we we believe in this company, and so we believe that you you and your clients will get your patients will get benefit from using the products if you choose to do that. More so if you are a patient, right, then the benefit and intention of this session are two things. One is we want you to get a sense of the power and benefit and application of various supplements that we'll hone in on today. And especially if you're a skeptic, I think you'll get a sense of where a lot of the grounding and foundational principles, the science behind all of this derives from and why we're so selective about which companies we use and why we're so convicted about the products we use. Otherwise, if you are an individual who is a health enthusiast as a patient or out in the general public, no doubt, I'll just say you're gonna find a lot of interesting stuff here. Cause when we get done with our sort of lunchtime sessions with Ben, my mind is just spinning all over the place, but I'm so fueled and energized, and I'm like, okay, we gotta like when can you come back and when can we talk again? Right? Because it's it's just so um stimulating and fun on top of everything else. So I'm gonna shut up here, Ben. Let me let you introduce yourself, if you will. And I'm sure, you know, a little bit of disclaimer as, you know, being a representative of companies. Let me hand the mic to you.

Ben’s Story And Disclaimers

SPEAKER_00 3:52

I one, I appreciate all the kind words. I really do. I do have a big passion for what I do, and I've always seen myself more as an education asset for people who, you know, practitioners who want to learn about the information that I'm privy enough to know about and through my company. Uh, I do have to disclaim I'm not here on behalf of microbiome labs. I'm here on behalf of us having good conversations and you wanting to have a conversation with me. I also want to put a disclaimer up that I am not a certified medical professional, a doctor, I'm not a nurse practitioner. Nothing I say is to be taken as medical advice. Uh I'm here simply to share information and knowledge that I've learned over a lifetime, but mostly as far as my background, believe it or not, I went to school for construction technology management. I never spent a day doing it because I learned real quickly. I like talking to people and went into sales, but by the time I was in my mid-30s, my health was bad. And I ended up going into medical sales and out of the sales I was doing because it was just better and I was my more of a passion. And I got lucky enough to get go through some companies, most notably Interagam, um, was on the forefront of functional medicine. And even back then, we couldn't use the word leaky gut. I was I was going into gastroenterologist offices and avoiding using the word leaky gut, which we know now is as e-coated as metabolic endotoxemia and therefore very much accepted in modern allopathic medicine, but has been called leaky gut for a long time. And luckily enough, I came across microbiome labs, and I know we're going to talk a little bit about who they are and that kind of stuff, but that's kind of my background. Um I try it's my rabbit hole, I'm passionate about. So I spend a lot of time and trying to make sure I know all I can about what I'm talking to you and other practitioners about to answer those questions and help you with your everyday good work of trying to help other people's overall

When A Supplement Used To Be Rx

SPEAKER_00 5:43

health.

Dr. Mark Su 5:43

Yeah, I'm not sure I remembered that you worked with Interogam. I mean, um just to put a little context on it for anybody who's listening who wasn't didn't listen to the previous, didn't hear the previous session that we did with an individual similar to yourself. We trust her very much. She's with a different supplement company, but we did talk about um so Interogam made, and I I just say this to give an example, again, more speaking to the skeptic here out there, okay, if to late public skeptic, interrogam, correct me if I'm wrong, makes slash made immunolin as a raw ingredient that was a prescription originally. And we talked, we tell patients this all the time in the office, hey, this is a supplement, but it was originally a prescription and then it became a medical food, and then it was under regulation. You can only use up to a certain dosing, you know, under this supplement category. But this was, you know, potent stuff. It used to be a prescription, right? And for people who are skeptics, it's like, wait a second, what do you mean? This is supplement. What do you mean it used to be a prescription? How'd it become a supplement? Like it puts a whole different spin to someone who's a skeptic.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Yeah, I I believe it actually still is available by specialty pharmacy as a prescription for as an as a prescription medical food.

Dr. Mark Su 6:46

So I've never done it before because it's too expensive.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Yeah, it's like six hundred dollars. But it makes no sense.

Dr. Mark Su 6:51

Because you guys so to put it out there really quickly here, you guys and the previous the company from the uh other individual we did the uh the podcast recording with from the other supplement company, you guys are the two companies. I I think other companies make it, but you're the only two companies we use that has a product with that same immunolin that you used to represent from EnterroGam.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

We're the two major companies that most people would know the names of. There's a few others, and there's a few other companies that use it as an ingredient. They still make, and you're correct. It's called immunalin, would be the generic. And at five grams or above, it is still a prescription medical food because that amount of oral immunoglobulin from serum-derived bovine sourcing couldn't be intaked in a 48-hour ingestion period by a human. Basically, if you sit around and drink bovine serum, you couldn't ingest that much IgG in a 40-hour period. So therefore it's a medical food. Much like insure, you can go to the grocery store and buy insure for nutrients, oh, you know, intake over the counter. But if a severe person with nutrient deficiency were to go into the hospital, there is a prescription medical food dosage of insure that's only available by prescription. I didn't know that. Yeah. So what we are is that exact same thing. There's a prescription medical food dosage of five grams or more of immunalin that is only available by prescription at less than that that can be recommended as a supplement and purchased without a prescription. They have the same mechanism of action. I believe it's under three 2.5 grams or less.

Dr. Mark Su 8:20

Yeah, that's why we call it 2.4 grams.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

The supplemental. And in use of that, that's pretty much what it is. It's the daily dosing as a supplemental dosing. So immunalin's used at five grams or above for specific acute needs. And those types of acute patients would continue to take immunalin at one to two to three grams daily for specific disease states. And that is what our the other company and us offer is a daily supplemental version of that prescription medical food. Right.

Dr. Mark Su 8:50

Yeah. So uh not to get ourselves too caught in that rabbit hole, but it's just a uh I I love that topic. I think I've done some social media posts around that too. I love that particular topic with immunolin because it is such a you can't argue against when people say like supplements all suck, there's no they're they're not worth it, or whatever else. I'm like, let me just tell you about one example. Yeah. And not that they all not most supplements don't have that kind of background by any means, but you can't argue against it, right? I mean, this this is like a legit FDA regulated prescription. It's just when it it's all like semantics and regulations when you stick it under this kind of category and that dosing, then it goes under the supplement category, but it's actually a prescription as well, right? It's it's just it just reframes things for the people who are skeptics. And I'm always talking to the skeptic in my head. So anyway.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

There's adequate we reasons to be skeptical on a lot of things, especially with everything we see on, you know, the social media platforms and some of the claims that are being thrown out and you know, names that are being dropped on specific things. It makes the whole industry very cloudy on who to trust. Who, you know, who's out there making claims and who's not making claims and who's backable. But there definitely is a medical-grade efficacy-shown portion of the supplement industry that has scientific backing. And we can go into a lot of the stuff of how microbiome labs has helped push that forward. Uh, it's one of the reasons I love working for them is we do that. We're one of those companies, and there's other ones out there as well that do

Trust, Regulation, And Money In Wellness

SPEAKER_00 10:17

that.

Dr. Mark Su 10:37

And that's what um, so I will propose we don't need to go into that rabbit hole here today because in the previous recording with Leah from the other company, we we went into more of that stuff, like on an industry level, you know, that sort of like regulations and certifications and stuff like that. And um, and so as I said there, and I think I've said in other social media posts, like it just if I'm a lay person, knowing what I know, if I'm a lay person, like how the heck am I supposed to know which companies to trust or not trust or whatever else, and you know, everyone's saying different things, you know, this credibility sources. But as a practitioner, you know, if I'm talking to say like a mainstream practitioner colleague, they're gonna have a lot of the same questions, right? They're gonna feel like, well, it's not regulated and you don't know what you're getting and blah, blah. But it takes some work and effort. But once you step in and have some of those conversations, if you care enough to as a practitioner and have the heart and the mission to want to, and then you know, to help patients, it's not actually that hard in the big picture to to get comfortable and learn, you know. And some of it is like there's a little there's a trust element, no doubt. But Microbiome Labs is one of those companies, as I've said before, that we have trust in because of the very things that you said.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

So having said that, to you to your point, real quick though, I I would I would definitely say for the your the people listening that are patient, you know, that they're patients or consumers or the general public, I have always said the best source for information for them is their practitioner, is someone like you, a trained medical professional who has the ability to look through and see, well, is somebody actually presenting research or is somebody just making a lot of claims? And so to go to a medical professional and ask their advice, even if it's something you're not using to look over, versus taking what you see online as truth is is a much better way to handle your own health than it is just to try things you see online.

Dr. Mark Su 12:25

And I think that's where some of the good, bad, ugly, the ugly sort of comes in here, in my in my opinion, because it's it's then it's work, right? I mean, or it's it's it's a little like you gotta make an appointment. There could there's a cost involved a lot of times with the functional practitioners, they don't actually take insurance. And then there's the like, you know, appointment time that could be who knows how far down the road. Uh it's a lot easier when we have the fingertip information, quote unquote, even if it's not really as credible or whatever from social media, right? And and a lot of the social media information is coming from practitioners also. But then we get that situation where you and I both know, right? And I'm not trying to throw shade, it's just, you know, a lot of practitioners, I'll say we, okay, because I'm a practitioner too. Yeah. There there's some ulterior motives there from practitioners too, right? Because there's money involved. Yeah. Right? It's either it's not just about sort of trying to establish business with a, or if you will, or patient care. Then over time there's been an evolution towards financial gain from selling the supplements. And so it's not easy. I'm just going to say to be transparent, it's not easy. If I'm a lay person, knowing what I know, it is not easy to at all to discern all these different factors and variables that are influencing the information that I'm getting. And it's it's not it's far from transparent. So it is hard, but but it's not to minimize I I don't detract from what you said, you know, uh that uh information with practitioners. Having a ideally, if people have a trustworthy relationship with some kind of practitioner, and again for me, I've said it before, it doesn't even absolutely have to be a prescribing practitioner, right? It could be a nutritionist, health coach, whatever. You've worked with a lot of these folks as well, these uh sort of like what we might call um ancillary or or sort of uh um paramedical uh professional um roles. They're they're more and more helpful and necessary, but it's just having the trust with whoever it is. And hopefully that practitioner um is transparent and has enough self-awareness and knows the limitations, myself included, to know if I don't know the answer, I'm not gonna like lead you down the wrong road. I'm gonna help you direct you or find you the right answer because I can't I can't be that person.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

I have found that exact thing one of the most helpful things in my career and being more of an education than a salesperson. And I give so many young people that same advice. I'm sure you've noticed it when I've talked to you and you've had a question. My response, if I don't know, is I don't know that, but I'll find the answer out to you for you. And that helps me. That's one of my great parts about my job is I get to get asked questions that I don't know the answer to, and that gets me to go do, go do the research. Go, go jump down the new rabbit hole and go find out what that answer is, and and you get to learn and grow more and be more helpful to others.

Dr. Mark Su 15:02

Yeah, and that's why you enjoy what you do. I mean, and again, you're one of those people like you don't know, but the you know, a colleague in Connecticut, okay, I won't say here because I don't just for privacy, but um, she, you know, she and I talk on a most almost weekly basis, and you came up last week. Okay. I don't remember why it wasn't about this recording, okay. But she just said she just said she said the same thing. She was like, Oh, Ben, I love Ben. I love Ben. He like, he's a wealth of information. Like, you know, he just he brings energy every time. And I learned so much from him. I'm like, I know exactly what you're talking about, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:32

I appreciate you have to tell me offline who that was.

Dr. Mark Su 15:36

Kudos to you for deciding to make a change into doing something that is, you know, that you're passionate about, because I say to people all the time that the percentage of people in America who actually enjoy what they do for work, much less actually really enjoy or love what they do for work, is so small, right? And a lot of times there's compromises to finding that lane because it's harder or it doesn't make as much money or whatever the case may be. So kudos to you. And uh and we're benefiting from it. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Well, thank you. Thank you. I'm glad I didn't pick the construction technology management path. I get to love what I do, so it's an option.

Dr. Mark Su 16:09

Yeah, it's just it's just not your lane per se.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 16:12

So let's just let's jump into a couple uh questions I was thinking about to throw your way. So uh let's go ahead and start with gut health, right? I mean, quick, quick background. How I came across microbiome labs is from who I think

Why Gut Health Advice Gets Vague

Dr. Mark Su 16:23

was the founder, right? Kieran? Yeah, Karan or Kieran. Karan. Okay. So I saw him present. So this gentleman, I saw him present um I've seen him present many times. Just um saw him at the A4M conference, you know, uh in December of 2025 as well, uh. Just uh around the conference, et cetera. Nonetheless, heard him present at a conference called the Forum for Integrative Medicine, TFIM. I believe that was the first time I heard him. It was probably, I don't know, 2018 or something like that. Okay. It was before the pandemic for sure. And uh so I mentioned to you, you know, he presented on, you know, nowadays I mention this because some people who are health enthusiasts, the practitioners will definitely know this term acromantia. All right. Acromansia is this strain of bacteria in the gut, and he was talking about it being a cornerstone bacteria. Right? I don't I'm not saying he came up with this, but he's uh he's a microbiologist researcher by background, am I right?

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Correct. Yeah, that's uh we were founded by Karan, who is a microbiologist who previously did research and so patented strains and sold those to companies that are now our competitors, as far as if you want to say competitors or other companies in the in the space. And then he partnered with Dr. Tom, who was a functional medicine doctor, who was wanting to start a company that was based on science. And you hear that a lot. But I'll I'll let you finish on if you want to finish on your how you came about to us.

Dr. Mark Su 17:40

Well, I I just was impressed with him, right? I mean, just by the information, he seemed very uh transparent and integral. And and again, it was all science-based about, again, back to leaky gut and otherwise, right? That you that we need acromancia in order to build a healthier microbiome more sustainably and more effectively, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. All right. So that that's the basis. And then we got to become familiar with microbiome labs, and then over time with yourself. And um, there's just a lot, a lot of great data behind the microbiome products, which gave us great confidence up front, because again, I'm a skeptic at heart. So given that gut health is the basis and foundation, in my view, my POB for microbiome labs, pretty sure that's true. I I'm pretty sure you would agree.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

I agree it's a found fundamental way of how the entire body functions. Aaron Powell Sure.

Dr. Mark Su 18:27

So given that gut health is such a foundational staple, both to you know, all things start in the gut, right? People talk about that a lot. Um I think it was Socrates who said that, but practitioners say that all the time, especially in the function medicine world, right? And given the evolution over the many years, but it's just faster and faster, you know, the gut brain axis, the gut hormone axis, leaky gut, leaky brain, leaky butt, leaky gut, leaky heart, you know, there these are all like uh terms that we throw around to illustrate the point. But there's science behind all this, okay? But for me, so coming out again, a little bit of a sort of skeptical side, if you will, for me, when I'm talking to patients all regularly and about a variety of symptoms and topics, right? People will say to me all the time, I'm working on my gut. I'm working on my gut. And I have no idea what they're talking about, right? Some people, what I mean is some people, when they say they're working on the gut, they're trying to eat more fruits or vegetables, or they're actually just taking fiber. It could be over-the-counter fiber, it could be uh professional grade supplement fiber, whatever, but it could mean anything and everything, right? And then someone could say, I have anxiety and I read about this, about the gut brain axis, and I'm working on my gut. But what I'm getting at here is this here's a statement, I'm gonna ask you to kind of sound back on it. The analytical side of my brain says, yeah, we have all this research, all this data, but the specifics of the application of that data towards gut health is still kind of murky and not really ready for prime time in most cases. In most cases. Okay. And so the question is like, how much do you agree or disagree with that statement, right? I am a big believer in probiotics. I've said to everybody, mainstream population health level for America, right? If there's three things that I would recommend for everybody, it's not in rank order probiotics, vitamin D, and fish oil. If I'm just for the general public, everybody across the board. But I'm not gonna tell people, like, if you take probiotics of any kind, whether it's microbiome labs or someone else's, I'm not telling you that just because you're taking that, you're gonna be able to definitely avoid this or you're definitely gonna feel better in this way or get better in that way. And even if the person says, Oh, I found research data that says, hey, I did that stool test, and I'm low in this species, and that species is in that product that I'm taking, but that's not a direct predictable outcome. That's what I'm getting at, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah, you're you're 100% correct. And that's what you're describing is basically where 10 years ago Karan and Dr. Tom were sitting at, um, and why they made microbiome labs in general. Jeffrey Bland,

The Three Probiotic Types That Matter

SPEAKER_00 20:39

whose name's very, very well known, was very much towards this idea 25 years ago. And it's been Humps and Hurdles to get to where we're at now. Uh, but even 10 years ago, the majority of research was was and in a lot of cases still is done by microbiologists whose that's their job. And that's what Quran used to do. He was a microbiologist who would look for strains that did specific things and show scientifically that those strains did those, what the mechanism, you know, what that species or that strain, what its functionality was. Now, what other suppl what supplement companies would do back then would be to go purchase one strain off of this microbiologist that had good research on it, and another one off another microbiologist, and another one off for another, with the idea that we're gonna put all of these in a broad spectrum probiotic and make the level a certain amount of billion CF. And if you to and then make the claim that if we take this daily, it should help our gut. And much like you were saying, that's where you hear a lot of people say, I'm working on my gut. And what I think is lost in a lot, especially in the general public, and even a lot in a lot of practitioners that I go and talk to, is what exactly gut functionality is, and what the three types of probiotics are, and what they can do. So probiotics are basically one of three types. Either one, they're what's they're transient, meaning as they travel through the body, the dendritic cells and immune cells that are in your body sampling everything that comes in, see those things, sample those, and have a positive or negative response. So your immune system, your entire nervous system, for the most part is completely made. They're all the neurotransmitters. All the short chain fatty acids, all the metabolites and things like that, for the most part are all made in your gut because of what your body's doing. And when those dendritic cells see a specific strain, they'll take a they'll direct your immune system or your enteric nervous system or XYZ system to do something specific. And that's a transient probiotic, and they can be very helpful. We have several of them gut brain.

Dr. Mark Su 22:43

Just to just to quick summarize, clarify for a couple terms. So dendritic cells are a type of white blood cell. So it's part of the immune system. And when you say enteric, we're talking about gut. So you're talking about immune system, immune cells specifically in the gut, these dendritic cells, and you're basically saying, you know, for the lay public here, especially. So yeah, you you we take these um probiotics that are transient or temporary, like they flow through kind of quickly, but they're kind of uh sending signals and to the immune system. The immune system then takes that information, then sends further signals to regulate. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Exactly. Very good, very good way to say that in a in a way that's more understandable. And they can be very positive in that way. However, as they finish going through your system, you take them in a capsule, they go through, and then they exit your body naturally. And while you're taking, they may have positive effects. And we have several of those in our category, and they can do lots of good things, but they don't make permanent changes in anything for the most part. The second type is a probiotic that's gonna specifically do a specific function.

Dr. Mark Su 23:42

So for instance, before we go on, sorry. Yeah. So if it's not something that makes a permanent benefit, so can you you know just entertain us for a second? What's the what's the primary or top two reasons people would take that just temporarily? Like, you know, the skeptic here might say, like, sounds like a band-aid.

unknown 23:57

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 23:57

So you got to keep taking it forever. What's the point?

SPEAKER_00 23:59

That's honestly one of the things we talk about. If it if the the it's a transient and it's temporary, it doesn't solve an underlying cause. And that's where I was going to it, where Megaspor and what Kowan figured out was a major difference. Actually, why would people take that?

Dr. Mark Su 24:15

Or are you saying um, yeah, that's less like passe, and that's what we've gotten away from in the more professional grade, better quality probiotics because it doesn't have enough benefit long term. Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_00 24:26

So there are specific things that can be done. So, for instance, like a zinbiome gut brain reset. It is a bifobacterial long and 17-14 strain. And it ends chronic cortisol expression, re-establishes gut brain signaling, and changes tryptophan metabolism into serotonin and melatonin by blocking the kinene pathway. That was a whole lot of stuff. And we can dig into that, what those all mean later if we want to. But we also know when we stop taking that, there's a during a washout period and a human clinical trial, all those things go back. So what we need to do is fix the underlying cause because of that. It's without going into a bunch of details, it's why we see a lot of probiotic interventions in things like SIBO and stuff like that that make a good change but reoccur.

Dr. Mark Su 25:07

So going back, as far as like, um, are you saying that these temporary probiotic benefits, the temporary benefits we can get from this class, first class of probiotics, are you are you saying there really isn't as much benefit for them anymore? Or are you and the we this is just where we started from in the evolution and history probiotic industry? Okay. So you're not using the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

It's kind of where we started, and we didn't realize back then that this was temporary and it wasn't making a permanent change. But at the same time, a lot of the companies knew, well, as long as they take it all on a regular basis, they feel better. And as a business model, that's a great thing to give somebody that makes them feel better, function better, that they can never stop taking.

Dr. Mark Su 25:45

So let me ask you that because uh I was thinking already, I didn't know if you were going to say, well, yeah, no, there's times that we want that we want that just transient benefit because someone's going through like traveler's diarrhea or C. diff and they're in the hospital or whatever. Like I could think of those kind of scenarios, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:58

And those are that's a great example. So yes, I I should say there are there are reasons to take transient probiotics. We have ones that, like I said, we have ones that we take that what the the optimal reason to take them isn't a permanent or chronic condition. They're fixing something temporary. For instance, during weight loss, taking acromansia can be very helpful. Now, taking acromancia doesn't increase the acromansia population permanently in your gut. But while you're taking it, what that acromancia does for someone, for instance, who's losing weight and on a with a dietitian and they're going through that whole process is very beneficial to repopulate the gut with acromancia where you never have to take it again.

Dr. Mark Su 26:39

And by the way, I'm just gonna quick sidebar, I didn't say it earlier, but I mentioned with Karan and Acromancia where I first heard that the cornerstone bacteria, you know, that's in the trend that's trending these days because it's such a topic with the whole weight loss, as you said, GLP1s, and there's even a company or more that are touting and sort of uh branding their probiotics specifically for weight loss because of just heightening acromancia. So anyway, yeah just a quick side note, but connection full circle.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

It's actually funny with Karan and that, um, and we can get towards all of this later if we want to. We had to go back when acromancing became very popular about two years ago. Quran actually went back through his old studies on megaspore with megapri. And megaspore is a for rebalancing the microbiome, reducing inflammation, creating a new environment that's balanced and functional in the microbiome itself. And then megapri, he went through and looked for specific prebiotic oligosaccharid fibers that feed those good commensal bacteria in order to regrow them. So the gut is a very simple.

Dr. Mark Su 27:43

Again, mega just for everyone, megaspor biotic and megapri are two products that microbiome labs makes.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

And so he went back through and went, well, well, acromansia, yeah. Kenneth turns out I wonder what happened in our study, because we didn't specifically document it in our findings. When you take megaspore and then you follow that with our prebiotic, our probiotic followed by our prebiotic. And he went, Well, we got to put this debt out there because it increased natural acromancia by feeding the acromancia that was in your gut already. It increased it by 8,000%. So we kind of went, well, wait a second, why would you pay to continually take acromania when you could actually fix the environment and then feed the acromancia so that they grow and take up more space naturally than to take that ongoingly? So again, that's a difference of the old way of thinking, or shouldn't say the old way, a previous way that was most popular of transit probiotics and taking them constantly versus what spores and Quran was able to show with megaspore, which ends up being why don't we fix the actual underlying cause and heal the environment?

Dr. Mark Su 28:51

So this goes, this is a natural segue back into bringing us back into your category two.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Yes.

Dr. Mark Su 28:57

Right? The category two are go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Category two is basically probiotics who, when taken, are

Spore Probiotics And Strain Codes

SPEAKER_00 29:03

going to do a specific function themselves. So acromancy would actually be a better example of that. You're taking acromancing not because the body's sampling it, but because once it's there, it's going to do something positive in its environment because it naturally does. And that's going to be beneficial to the patient. But once again, it's doing that while it's going through the body. It's going, it's not going to stay. There are some examples now that we have found. 15 years ago, I don't think they had a single example of a probiotic that when taken, naturally commensulate and repopulated in the gut. There are actually some that are out there now that can be done that. But most people, I think, when they're tuning into social media or they're they're they're thinking about probiotics, even as medical professionals, that somehow when they're taking a probiotic, they're adding this permanently to the person's ecosystem inside their gut. And that's just it's it we've learned it's not the case. So that moves to the third type of probiotics, which is spores. And that's where Karan really was the pioneer by inventing a way to get spores to open up, be able to be fermented, closed, and then open up again in the net, in the microbiome. And the big difference between spores and those two other things is one, it was nature's actual evolutionary way for a bacterium to make it inside the human gut. Our spores, there are spores that are natural to soil, there's spores that are natural spoil spores that are natural to other environments. He collected his from healthy human microbiomes for what they were doing specifically. And what spore refers to is not fungus or vi or mold. It's simply the name given to genus of bacteria who realized and evolved to form a case and shell around themselves and go into like a hibernative, non uh functioning full uh uh stasis for up to millions of years, and then open back up and spring back to life. And I've always thought of them just like seeds. They're kind of they're kind of like a seed, but see seeds once it become a plant don't come back to a seed, you know, and and and go back into their shell, but very similar. The big difference would be when you me or you ingest a spore or anyone, and they they make it to the stomach acidity and small intestine, they literally are hitting a pH and environment that's different than the outside world, and that wakes them up. And they put little receptors that stick outside that shell to kind of test the waters and see where they're at. And since ours are derived from healthy human gut, you have in your own everybody's body out there, you have receptors in your lumen, in your intestines that reach out and grab onto spores specifically. And they basically give them a little handshake and say, Yep, you're right, you're in a healthy human gut, you're in a gut, go ahead and open up and come to life. And they do, they shed, they open up, uh, and they do what's called quorum sensing, which in for the general audience basically means they evaluate their environment, and depict on what signaling and what they see is around them in that little microuniverse, it depicts what actions they're gonna take that they're capable of. For instance, our Bacillus subtilis 8, which we have patented, makes up to 24 natural antibiotics and antimicrobials.

Dr. Mark Su 32:11

It literally Can I just stop a second? Like, it's just funny how you just roll that right off your tongue. Like say that again. Which one?

SPEAKER_00 32:17

The Bacillus 1824. Bacillus subtilis 1858. That's actually, I'm glad you brought that up. That is a great educational moment that I blows my mind how much I say and I don't realize other people may not realize it's what you do, but I mean it's it's a reflection of like how bright you are.

Dr. Mark Su 32:32

And I mean, I'm gonna say right front, like you know, I've never said to you, I don't know if I'll ever learn all these different strains of all the bacteria in the guts, right? Like for me, it's it's like Star Wars. I mean, when you we talked about this last time you were here, when you're talking about, oh, this strain of like a H2579 or whatever else, right? And then I'm like, okay, what's the difference between that one labeled as such and this product versus that product? Like it's all like Star Wars codes for me, okay? I'm just being transparent here. Yeah, and I'm a bad friend. I'm not one of those savants who just remembers all the codes, okay? So you just rattle them off your tongue. It's just it's just entertaining, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

I talk about it on a regular basis. So get trust me, other companies' numbers and strains, I am not as able to roll off that way. But you bring up a good point. One thing that everyone should realize, and I wish was spread out more, was exactly what those mean. Because so many people go to XYC pharmacy or supermarket and pick up a probiotic bottle and look on the back and say, well, that's a that's familiar. I know this name, whether it's bacillus subtilis or not. Kuran helped bring about was doing human clinical trials and functionality clinical trials and published papers that are peer-reviewed on specific strains. And what that means is in the words bacillus subtilis HU58, that means that of the genus in taxonomy back from junior high school of Kingdom Phylum Family Class, genus, species, strain, XYZ, dogs are all of the canine species. However, chihuahua, a hyena, and a wolf, and a Saint Bernard would all do different things if put into a room full of people. And so you really want to have, if you're gonna pick a canine to be your pet, you really want to be specific on what strain of the canine species you're gonna go out and bring into your home. They're all of a different so bacillus is a genus of the great illustration, by the way.

Dr. Mark Su 34:24

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Yeah. Bacillus is a genus of bacteria that all have several, you know, have things in common in that taxonomy tree. Subtilis is the species. So it's a single species of that genus. Strain. It's a is it a chihuahua, is it a wolf, is it a coyote, is it a hyena? You know, what is it? H U means Hollandaise University, which is located in London, England, and it's strain number 58. And that strain is patented because that strain does something very specific. That's strain number 57 and 56 and 55, none of them do. So just like a uh just like the dog analogy, we're looking at a specifically specialized version of a species that does something very specific. And that's where you see a lot of even practitioners and medical doctors that are not aware that when they see a research paper on it on a specific bacteria, that just because those bacillus subtilis, that genus and species name, may be the same as the research paper they saw, it doesn't mean that that probiotic in that bottle or that they're looking at does any of what that other research they showed does. And unfortunately, you do see lots of people, or just lots of entities, use that little loophole or gray area to make claims and stuff. And that's where you got to be very careful and and try and talk to a medical professional because that tends to be a good way that people make a lot of claims on products that don't necessarily or may not be true.

Dr. Mark Su 35:57

Um so if I can pull out just for a second, like summarize, right? Because that that was a a lot of great info. And so in application form, like with uh in real life where the rubber hits the road, right? I could have three patients who are all say they have like quote unquote IBS, right? Irritable bowel syndrome. Let's say they all have very similar life experiences. So one person's saying, um, yeah, I'm working on my gut and they're taking a probiotic of some sort, right? But it's a categorically for all comers who are taking who have IBS, I can say with confidence and feel good to say, you will benefit from a probiotic. But if you have IBS of a specific kind of symptomatology or due to a specific kind of mechanism or a couple mechanisms that we can identify, and if we happen to have data that says, hey, people who have that kind of mechanism, either in symptomatology or in a marker, we happen to also know that if you use Bacillus subtilis 58, that there's a predictable outcome that you will feel better and get better. But if somebody else is a third patient, it's like, well yeah, I have the exact same symptoms and I'm taking probiotic, and it does say bacillus subtilis, but it's not the HU58 version, it's HU24, they may not have the same outcome, right? And then we got people like throw the baby out with the bathwater because, like, you got some people who are like, oh, I took Bacillus subtilis and it didn't help me. Well, but yeah, but unfortunately it's the wrong one. Or it wasn't, it wasn't the one we had the predictable outcome for. And then you have other people like, oh, I took a probiotic, it didn't do anything for me. Well, was it like, you know, a dead strains that you got over the counter? Was it even uh does it even have bacillus subtilis, whatever? I mean, the part that's ugly for me is that it's it's it's it's a reflection that we have so much information now that it's almost a little overwhelming because then the more you know, the more you you're sort of obligated to know even more, and then and then it gets so granular, but to learn all that is not easy. Very much not easy. But at the same time, it also speaks to well, we can't just globalize generalize and say, well, probiotics didn't help me. Or that they're not worthwhile or they're you know, they're being skeptical, like, oh, they'll suck or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

Yeah.

From Grenades To Sharpshooter Probiotics

SPEAKER_00 38:00

And unfortunately, and especially with practitioners that have been in in the medical health for decades, lived through a time where we couldn't even look down to see what a strain was. That all the data was just on species. So as a worldwide commerce, probiotics just had species. They didn't have a specific strain. And now we know that strain matters. Our Zen biome gut brain reset is two different strains of the same bifobacteria long. And both of them do completely different things. You can buy each one of them individually, one's for IBS diarrhea and constipation, one's for resetting the gut brain access and reducing stress, anxiety, and improving sleep and reducing depression. Both of them have completely do completely different things. And if you look under a microscope, they look completely different. But 20 years ago, they could have easily both been in the same probiotic or interchanged, and nobody would have known the difference because they didn't understand what the specificity and what the difference between this strain to that strain did.

Dr. Mark Su 39:01

So I guess to try to create that and put some more tangent take-home messages around what I just said, it's not to part of it, someone could interpret what I just said as um, yeah, it's all too complicated. But I guess uh what I'm just um reflecting on is number one, there is a lot of research that is, I mean, we all know, I think we could all agree, no matter who we are listening or you and I, that research around the microbiome and gut health matters is has just continued to accelerate and explode over the last decade and it's just continuing, right? There's it's not going the other way. Having said that, the prime time application of the information that is amassing so far, there's still a lot to be learned and put into action. And so we're in that place right now, as with a lot of things in health, where we have a lot of information, but the application of such is still kind of to be to determined. But it doesn't mean we just wait and fiddle our thumbs and uh wait for perfection of the information. We can still take action. We just have to be, I would argue, we just and tell me what you think. We need to be just mindful about our expectations as both practitioners and as patients, right? I could recommend probiotics for everybody, but if you have a specific gut issue, then okay, do we have enough data to say this is going to predictably benefit you? Even if not, you're still gonna benefit from the totality of the data about microbiome benefit from probiotics of whichever sort, the category two, category three. But we want to be clear about expectations so that we don't go, oh, that didn't work and toss out the window per se.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, very much so. Just because we don't know everything doesn't mean to stand still and wait for that all to come about. We have decades before we're gonna find out what every microbe in the universe does, if not at hundreds of years. It's it's it's too vast to stop. And we know that over overall, there's lots of good benefits that we're getting. And and for the most part, don't get scared and say that since I don't know something, I'm not going to try and do something positive for my health. That's not what I I would advocate at all. What we're more looking at now is specificity on what exactly can we do. And that's what the fun part about what I'm learning in the last five years, six years is the specificity. So, for instance, like I said, taking probiotics daily has a positive benefit. What the we're looking into now is what can a physician like yourself, what data can we get you on what a strain does that can do something very, very specific and acute and you know, sharpshooter versus, you know, a grenade approach. You know, instead of saying overall, what can we do for clinical application? And that's what's fascinating right now is with megaspore, what we showed was, and to my knowledge, it's still the only probiotic that say this, we can actually reverse and make the garden of the microbiome functioning again and reduce inflammation throughout the body. That gave the ability to basically connect to all the systems from the gut. So when the gut's functioning correctly, because like you had said earlier, that affects the entire nervous system, the immune system, all of those systems. And those are all connected to your lungs, your heart, your skin, your brain, your liver, all of those things. But we're looking at specific strains now and getting into what they can actually do acutely. And that is fascinating. The idea of actually being able to, and I gotta be very careful with the words I say, to have a specific acute result by taking a specific strain of bacteria that does something very unique. For instance, our pylogard, it velcro's onto H. pyloric. We went through 700 strains and we found the outside of one that literally velcro's do something bad. And it's like, oh wow, that's that's so unique of something that's already in mother nature that solves a problem that previously only had a solution that did a lot of harm.

Dr. Mark Su 42:50

Yeah. Yeah. So I think um, we're talking about uh per precision medicine or personalized medicine as time goes on and more information is gathered. But at the same time, again, I I try to advocate to patients that the totality of data about probiotics for gut health is so established that there's still benefit on that foundational level. And then it's more of a question of whether we can get an expected outcome with specific needs or symptoms with a more, as you say, sharpshooter approach with specific strains. So if that's the case, how about we take a pivot here? So if we kind of land the last two, we go in the direction of two more topics I'll suggest. I'll propose. And we go down this road here of more precise um therapies now. Okay, so probiotics.

Psychobiotics For Stress And Sleep

Dr. Mark Su 43:33

So let's stay on that for a second. We go down the road of two specific targeted therapies. You have now, and I'll say so. One of those topics is um psychobiotics. Okay, so I I did a social media post on that some time ago, but um, because I love that. It's just a fun term to say. Okay. It is. So you have you have now like three times alluded to in this so far the Zen biome. Zen biome. Right. So let's talk about for a second biotics and um, you know, just a little bit uh without getting too technical on the the precision of those specific strains for mental health as measured outcomes from improving gut terrain through the microbiome, which I just love talking about. Again, it's another one of those like talking to the skeptics, like you'd hey, look at this data. Randomized blood double blinded placebo controlled trials. Like, what more are you gonna ask for? Right. And then we want to pivot and lastly to um a bit of the vaginal microbiome and what's come down the road recently with that. Time time uh you know distribution at your discretion here. But yeah, why don't we start with uh psychobiotics first for a second?

SPEAKER_00 44:32

Yeah, so our zinbiome line, there's a cope, sleep, and gut brain reset. They all contain the single-strained Zin uh bifobacterial long 1714. And again, another big ramble off on things. Just 1714 is the thing to remember, is in all of those. And it is scientifically fascinating probiotic. And they literally found it through research on looking in healthy human guts who literally handled stress, anxiety, never got depressed, you know, happy go lucky, great sleep schedules. And they went, wait a second, let's see if all these people have something in common. And they all had this same 1714 strain. So they pulled it out and they said, let's see what it does. And they went, wow, if we recreate this and put this in somebody else's microbiome, well, the same thing happened and it did. And so we have multiple human clinical trials now, showing everything from reduction of stress, anxiety, depression, markers, and quality of life to an increasing uh quality of sleep. And the 1714 strain does something very specific. It's a transient probiotic, like we mentioned earlier, as that goes through the body, the immune system and dendritic cells sample it. And it has three main things. One, it re-establishes signaling between the gut and the brain. And like we had said, their system connects. The gut and the brain is more than just a system connect. The stem cell that we all have when we're all in uterine, and our stem cells are splitting, the cell that becomes your brain and the cell, the stem cell that becomes your gut are actually one and they split, and there's a vagal nerve that connects them, and that literally signals for your entire life. And that's how they talk back and forth, and that can become encumbered as well as what's called the HPA access in getting in the weeds. So the first thing it does is it reestablishes your gut, your brain talking to each other. The second thing it does is it reduces, can can end chronic cortisol expression.

Dr. Mark Su 46:24

Cortisol builds So right now you're again, you're talking about the 17-14 strain.

SPEAKER_00 46:28

17-14 strain. Your body sees it and it says, wait a second, I need to go take a look at cortisol. Wait a second, we're making way too much cortisol in the morning and we've got all these peaks during the day. It evens that out and gets the body to start creating and regulating cortisol correctly again. And the reason is cortisol negatively affects your brain, cortisol negatively affects your gut. And so it regulates that. The third is the most important thing it does. It actually changes the way that the bot the tryptophan your body makes metabolized. So we all make tryptophan, we get it on Thanksgiving turkey on Thanksgiving, but your body makes it every single day. And that's one of the ways your body gets serotonin and melatonin. And most people know serotonin, people take drugs to get more serotonin because of because of its effects, but it does lots of things in the body. And melatonin, we know a lot of people take melatonin, you know, supplementally as well at the grocery store for all the things it does with sleep and calmness stuff as well. Your body makes that out of tryptophan. But if you have leaky gut, if you have systemic inflammation, the body can force that, your immune system can force that metabolism of tryptophan to go down what's called the kerinine pathway. And that turns into, can turn into clinolinic acid. And quinoline is something that you can test for in your in blood test. You can do Dutch testing, which tests over a period of time to see if that clinolin is raised.

Dr. Mark Su 47:47

We're actually Dutch and I'm not I'm not sure it's available in commercial uh re uh typical conventional testing. No, no, no. Something you organic acid testing of all kinds of companies, or like you say, the Dutch hormone testing. Yeah, it's it's in a bunch of functional panels.

SPEAKER_00 48:01

Yeah. It's something that that a lot of practitioners would be able to would would know, but the general public would probably be not, that this is a measurable thing that can can be related and shown towards stress anxiety and all those things we're talking about. And when the body sees the 1714 strain, one of its mechanisms, it tells the body to start making a metabolite that blocks that kerinine pathway. So when you're taking 1714 every day for a number of weeks, the body slowly as slowly quits making as much quininic acid and quiniline, which causes that anxiety stress and starts making more serotonin and melatonin. And over a period of time when we have more serotonin and melatonin and less quinilinic acid, the natural reaction is the body is going to be less depressed, less anxiety, have better sleep quality. And that's a great example of, and that's a true psychobiotic. So that 1714 strain was the first psychobiotic to actually break that barrier and say, we have peer-reviewed double-blind placebo human clinical trials showing this happens. They actually went further, and a well-known European psychiatrist tried to prove that it was fooy, I guess a good way to say it. So did a four-week study doing brainwave pattern scanning while get putting people through stressors. And literally, after three weeks, called Karana but said, I got to pull books off the shelf. He's like, You actually change brainwave patterns in less than four weeks when people are put in stressful situations. You're making more changing the brainwave patterns of these patients because of those mechanism vaccine. You don't take the probiotic and then your brain wave changes. But that change in what you're doing with tryptophan and cortisol and that and that signaling over time changes the way your body and your brain handles stressors when it's brought into it. That's a phenomenal thing to say as far as like you were saying, a what we can do now with specific strains and the research out there.

Dr. Mark Su 50:02

Yeah. Very cool. And I'm I'm guessing so this is a I'm guessing that's like uh that's more sort of uh unpublished or uh inside information, if you will, right? Shop talk.

SPEAKER_00 50:10

No, you can actually go watch all you can I could I could send to you those clinical front lists.

Dr. Mark Su 50:14

That brainwave activ that brainwave that was actually put out there to the public?

SPEAKER_00 50:19

I'm almost positive that one. Yeah. I'd have to go back and look at the thing, but I I mean I don't I don't want to give the doctor's name because I don't know if I have a port to you. I'd have to look at it. I'm almost positive that was published and available on PubMed.

Dr. Mark Su 50:31

Oh, okay. Wow. Okay. Wow. It was more my curiosity because it was I was I was thinking that was another example. I never heard that story before, but you know, there's a number of those kinds of stories that it things never hit publication. They never hit like conference presentation even. They're sort of they're sort of uh known and documented, but not publicly released information. And then it's a matter of how much we as practitioners or professionals like learn these things from each other and um you know and then it becomes a trust value topic.

SPEAKER_00 50:59

But nonetheless, I think we're thinking about five human clinical trials that have been peer-reviewed, published, and given a p-value to show that just like a drug, just like drug companies do, we go through all those same steps and show this is scientifically significant and replicable, which is important. That's the that's a big thing like you're talking about efficacy and believability. Is there are companies out there like us, uh, you know, not just us, that do that. They take their product and they put it through the same rigor a drug would, so that we know what to expect and not not an overall idea of what could happen.

Dr. Mark Su 51:31

Aaron Powell When I talk to patients about conventional versus functional medicine, I say conventional mainstream medicine is very limited in tools comparatively, but it's very predictable because they spend a lot of time and money and effort to isolate it as many variables, so it's a lot more predictable in outcome. Yes. Functional medicine tools, much, much broader in possibilities and options, but it's less predictable. There are some things that are much more predictable, but there's a lot of pieces that aren't so predictable. Thankfully, functional medicine, we're not talking about like you're in the ER, you just broke your leg, you had trauma, and we're not we're not talking about acute management for the most part. We're much more chronic. So we have room to kind of you know explore the different directions if we don't have more predictable outcomes. But there are areas like you're describing here, like with Zen Biom and Psychobiotics, that there is predictability many times. It's just a matter of how we as practitioners or in social media, whatever, are presenting that as this is much more predictable. And other times people are kind of exaggerating the claims or creating some hard-to-meet expectations.

SPEAKER_00 52:26

Aaron Powell I love your analogy. I'm I'm gonna steal that from you and use that as far as allopaths. They're still versus folks. So it's a good it's a good way of uh making that visual and understandable.

Dr. Mark Su 52:35

Aaron Powell In the sense of now, this is why I'm asking you to go into these, because I love we started out by talking about hey, probiotics, there's still a lot to come, right? It's still beneficial for everybody, I'll argue. Um, and it's evolved over time from these sort of like just transient to more, hey, we can actually more sustainably alter the environment for better, right? Um and now into the spore biotics, et cetera. But now shifting over to um a couple pieces of uh some some products and outcomes that are much more predictable. So you talk you've talked about the the psychobiotics, and then uh do you wanna anything more you want to say on that, or should we shift to the like the vaginal microbiome topic?

SPEAKER_00 53:09

Um I think a nice, uh fun little s side note on that. Because we have three three products. One's a cope, one's a sleep, one's uh um called gut brain reset. The cope and the sleep are simply just do I want to take the 1714 strain the daytime or at night? The third one, the gut brain reset, uh kind of tops on what you're talking about. It adds in a second strain, um, which is the same exact bifobacterial longum species strain of species, but a different strain. It's number 35624. And its activation is at the gut barrier. So what we found is that one, that 35624, has been around for 25 years, has hundreds and hundreds of studies on what it does. It's been very well known as a transient probiotic for IBS diarrhea and constipation. And it's the most recommended GI by gastroenterologists for constipation and diarrhea. And by itself, it has about a 30 to 40% success rate on reduction of quality of life. What we found, though, is when we put both of those two together and did a clinical human clinical trial of actually reestablishing the gut brain, reducing depression, reducing anxiety, reducing chronic cortisol while taking that other strain, it blew up the success of that 35624 strain. Putting those two together for constipation uh or diarrhea all of a sudden became more than 50% successful in total resolution and almost 80% successful in uh quality of life uh change, which it I mean, it it fundamentally was like, oh my goodness, when you've fixed the entire issue, it becomes very much more successful. And kind of like you're saying as a sharpshooter, it's an it's another example of how doing in-plot product human clinical trials can tell you and other practitioners and the general public what to expect, but also touches again on that just because it has the same genus and species name, that number at the end very much changes what the actual bacteria does. But yeah, that was my little try. Sorry about that. I think that's a good idea.

Dr. Mark Su 55:10

Yeah, no, I'd I want to note um because no, it's it's helpful for me also because um Yeah, yeah, because it it's always good for another past for myself for sure. Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 55:18

And I think whether you were going the next one, you

Vaginal Microbiome Balance After Antibiotics

SPEAKER_00 55:21

you were talking about the vaginal microbiome and that little avenue that we've now in the last uh twelve months ventured down. Or is that what is that what you were thinking?

Dr. Mark Su 55:29

Yeah, yeah. It's just it's another it's just a we could land there as a last piece. It's just another it's another example of something that's more predictable and specific, right, as in targeting.

SPEAKER_00 55:38

Aaron Powell Yeah, there's there's lots of general ways you can handle things, and there's lots of specific ways you can handle things. The underlying cause, what we've what we've found at all of our research in general overall at microbiome labs is when you fix the gut itself, which is what megaspore does, literally, end inflammation around the body as much as possible and make a garden in the gut that functions the way it's supposed to, then everything else gets better. So even with the psych the psychobiotics, you want to fix the gut as well. We got to that problem because the gut wasn't making those things correctly to handle that situation. We see it in the skin as well with our clinical trial on Megaspor. We started noticing things in our clinical trials on XYZ, and we noticed improvements in those same participants in the in the clinical trial that weren't related. So, for instance, on the skin, we saw acne decrease and skin elasticity increase and skinner overall health and wrinkles get better. And we went, well, what happens? When the gut makes butyrate at the right area and sends butyrate to the skin, because the skin can't make butyrate. Guess the skin has what it needs to actually heal itself. All of our different bodies have their own micro environment themselves. They have their own microbiome in the skin. Your mouth has a microbiome. That is one of the big hot topics now is the oral microbiome and its effect on the entire body. It gets most of its microbes from the gut. There was a great paper just got released. I saw it this morning for the first time, so I haven't read through, on the upper respiratory, your sinuses and esophagus. And what species are they finally finished classifying what species should be there. That hadn't been done before. Nobody had really looked into the sinus to see what bacteria should be living there in a healthy sinus. And now we know that. And what they found, all those ones that are there come from the gut. It was like, oh yeah, you fix the gut, and you can actually be able to do that. Vaginal canals the same way. Um, the vaginal balance that we came out with, there's lots of good women's health probiotics on the market that do lots of different things, but we went after it the same way we went after the gut, which is what does that environment look like when it's healthy? And that environment healthy as one of four state types, one of four species of lactobacillus as the one, hopefully one and only, but one of a few strains. The gut should have lots of different things and be balanced. The vaginal microbiome should have one, ideally, strain of lactobacillus that makes lactic acid, hydrogen peroxide, and biocertificates. And that's what maintains homeostasis of the vaginal canal. And the female hormone estrogen makes glycogen, and glycogen is the food source for that lactobacillus. And it makes a cycle by that functionality pre-menopause that keeps everything or premenopause and post-puberty, that time frame in balance. When that microbiome turns diotic and we don't have the DLactic acid and the hydrogen peroxide and the bioserfacants, that gives a window for things like yeast and Gardanella and other pathogens to make a home and change the pH and it becomes an environment that can be infected or be overrun.

Dr. Mark Su 58:56

Basically, what you just said was when the estrogen in one sequence, when the estrogen falls out, then there isn't the production of fuel source, the glycogen, to feed the bacteria that uh make up this healthy environment. And so the environment becomes imbalanced, and then we have the dominoes start to fall.

SPEAKER_00 59:13

Exactly. Or an intervention has happened that caused the lactobacillus to go toway. So even if we're making enough estrogen, which making enough fuel source, and say, for instance, we take a ZPAC or we do an antibiotic treatment, the lactobacillus in the vaginal canal is highly, highly, highly, highly, highly susceptible to any antibiotic. It is one of the most killed-off species. And if that's brought down low enough, just you know, someone gets a virus. You know, there's lots of reasons and good reasons why people should take antibiotics. I've, you know, I'm I'm not against antibiotics, but when that happens, it knocks that level down. Well, here's a big problem. When that's there, you're not making lactic acid, you're not making the hydro peroxide. If Gardanella or something else, yeast or something comes in, they eat that fuel source from estrogen as well. So then we have an environment where estrogen's making garden or making glycogen and it's feeding the pathogen and not the lactobacillus. And then we have an overgrowth. And unfortunately, the main way to handle that up until now is always to do an antibiotic and try and just wipe it out again and hope everything grows back the right way this time.

Dr. Mark Su 1:00:19

Or commonly people are taking probiotics when they're taking antibiotics. I mean, for me, there's a lot of patients in our in our office practice who um, you know, they're not total mainstream, but they're not they're enthusiasts, but um mild enthusiasts. And so they may not even be taking probiotics regularly. But then when they're taking antibiotics, they're gonna take a probiotic.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:37

Yeah. And the hard part with is, and I will say uh for a blanket statement, go to your healthcare practitioner and find one that that survives. Most probiotics are killed off by antibiotics. You want to rebuild after. Luckily, we have that's one of the reasons we have restore flora. Sacromyces bolardi and spores are both antibiotic resistant, so you can take them alongside an antibiotic regimen and protect the Bacillus subtilis HU58. I talked about actually makes a biofilm to protect commensal bacteria so the antibiotic doesn't kill them off. That's phenomenal for being able to protect and reduce antibiotic-associated diarrhea. In the vaginal canal, though, that's gonna get wiped out. And it doesn't mean that you shouldn't use antibiotics by any means. And it doesn't mean that every time that's gonna turn into a pathogen overload overload. And it doesn't mean that you should, and by no means am I claiming use vaginal balance instead of an antibiotic for quota fluid. That's not what I'm uh at all what I'm saying. But what we were able to show with that product is we have these lactobacillus species that don't need to be a suppository, but we found specific strains, again, a specific number of that lactobacillus that when taken orally somehow know to go from the gut to the vaginal canal. And we actually showed a 200% increase of those exact strains within five days of taking them orally. So they somehow they know they're supposed to go there. And once they're there, they start making delactic and elactic acid and hydroperoxide.

Dr. Mark Su 1:02:06

And so Or could it be secondary signaling to those bacteria to proliferate and grow?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:12

So uh that we do know once there, the person is if the female is still making estrogen, pre-premenopausal, um, and still making estrogen to make the fuel source uh glycogen, that it will feed that lactobacyls and it will stay. At the very beginning, when we first started talking, I said there are some bacteria that will uh actually reha rehabitate. And so 60 to 90 days of that rehabitation by orally taking those strains actually does rebalance that vaginal microbiome post an antibiotic used or post-an infection so that it can continually stay in a homeostasis.

Dr. Mark Su 1:02:51

Yeah, we just may not know. I'm guessing we don't know for a fact that the bacteria is traveling from the gut to the vaginal.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:57

We don't know exactly how it gets there. We do know that we and we've done the study showing that those strains didn't exist in a vaginal human vaginal microbiome. We showed introduction of that that that strain orally and then showed a 200% increase of that specific strain in the vaginal canal within five days of that same human. So we know they make it there. We just don't know the mechanism, whether it's perforating the gut barrier and going, whether it's translocating from exterior. I know that's not a fun little topic that it's locating from outside the gut microbiome to the vaginal microbiome, but we know it does make it there.

Dr. Mark Su 1:03:33

Okay, yeah. Yeah. So it's called uh vaginal balance, right? And this is another example of the probiotic, if you will. It's another example of something that is very specific with an intentional target of we understand how to to the extent that we just discussed, a mechanism of how it works, the predictable outcome. And uh, in this case, again, in contrast to a sort of broad probiotic for gut health as a whole, in this case it's a specific type of probiotic with a specific type of strain and a specific uh number and everything with the strain type to affect that outcome. Yeah. In this case, for women who have recurring, we've talked about this uh at least once, if not twice over, but uh specifically for women who have recurring well, we could just say generic vaginitis as inflammation of the vaginal tissues or recurring vector vaginosis, recurring UTIs.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:25

Yeah. Right? Yeah, it's it's exactly. Your typical person that won't say I might want to take this with somebody who who has issues with those type of things, UTIs, uh vaginosis, those types of things. And what we're really doing is we're re-establishing that vaginal microbiome so that the environment itself can take care of itself in the future. It can protect itself, uh, but at the same time it can help eliminate some of those things as well.

Dr. Mark Su 1:04:49

Aaron Powell But this one is also more of a um transient at this point, not a spore. It's not a spore, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:56

So No, it's not a spore. And it is transient through the GI tract, but it does know to translocate down to the vegetal canal where if there's still estrogen making the fuel source for it, it will stay there and keep repopulating. In the in the GI tract, no, it will not stay there in the GI tract and start commensulating.

Dr. Mark Su 1:05:15

But if uh so is there any awareness that if a woman is taking this, then if they stop the vaginal balance, then is there still a healthier vaginal environment for six weeks, twelve weeks or whatever, or don't know right now?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:28

That's the nice part about this one. It is one of those few probiotics that will maintain its um uh maintain itself there. So typically um sixty to ninety days would be the length of time to take the probiotic for. And if still making estrogen, that strain will stay dominant in the vaginal microbiome post that, as long as there's estrogen to make a fuel source for it to feed itself and keep recreating. It's one of the few ones that are at that can actually show it does that.

Dr. Mark Su 1:05:59

And as far as we know right now, what's what's been studied as far as how far out is that still the case?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:03

It depends on the study you're talking about. Uh the study you're talking about. Weed without getting in a bunch of different weeds, it should last forever. We actually have on some of those, some specific strains in our pregnancy support, where we've shown that those probiotics. Are actually passed on through a vaginal birth to a baby, and then when nursed, are still seen seven years out in the child. So there are specific strains that have been documented to stick around. It's just not the majority of what you're going to see on the shelf that can be that resilient and stick around for that long. It's not the it's not the typical in probiotics.

Dr. Mark Su 1:06:43

Right, right. But to be clear, uh with vaginal balance as a product, we could we could say to patients like, you you take this for like three months, and then you can call it a quits, and we're anticipating with more predictable outcome, the majority of women, you're not going to need to necessarily continue this. Now, if they start to fall into symptomatic patterns like before, then all right, they might be an outlier, or yeah, we may just have to cycle and do it again for one to three months or something like that. But yeah, the nice thing is this isn't like a forever thing necessarily. Again, assuming there's some estrogen there, et cetera.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:13

Assuming there is some estrogen there. But at the same time, you also have to look as with any type of treatment of anything, you have to look at external factors. If someone is living a lifestyle that's going to basically reoccur, or you'll cause the exact same problem or the same situation in the hell in their health as happened before, then you can ongoingly take it. And as you said, with people that have we do have a study where women who had ongoing candida overgrowth or for the yeast infections reoccurrent regularly for over two years, that were given over the course of a year, half weren't given um a placebo and half were given a part of our vaginal balance. And then halfway through the study they flipped, and they the part that got the probiotic got the probio uh got the placebo at the other half. Out of the majority of the women in the study, those that got the probiotic in the first half of the year dropped out because they refused to go on the placebo because they'd never gone six months without a without a yeast infection in years. They were literally like, I'm not stopping this. And they were going to keep continuing. And they're like, this is my daily probiotic from now on. Understandable. Yeah. But but for the general population, that that's not an ongoing issue where genetics or other internal things are happening. Yes, 60 to 90 days should last. And as long as things stay the same and stay in the environment stays the same, yeah, it should be good to go.

Dr. Mark Su 1:08:38

Uh that was a pack lot of info, Ben. I I kind of assumed it would be, but uh I I loved I loved it. I I I learned as I usually do from you for sure. And uh, you know, we talked through

Where To Get Help And Discounts

Dr. Mark Su 1:08:49

yeah, sort of like a broad-based, um, so it was very much gut health uh microbiome-based, but we kind of anticipated that. Um and then we started from the more broad-based picture to um these specific target outcomes, which was awesome. So um thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:04

You're welcome. I hope everybody enjoyed a little bit of it. I I didn't uh but this is my very first podcast. So I hope it I went well. That was awesome. Fantastic.

unknown 1:09:15

Good.

Dr. Mark Su 1:09:15

Good, good, good. Is there anything else? I'm honored to be like it to think of it as like that was the first time because um that was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:21

Well, I I hope so. I hope so. I I'm not the person who likes to jump in front of the camera. I'm typically the person taking uh cameras or videos, and then every people watch it afterwards and say, no, let's do that again and somebody else do it.

Dr. Mark Su 1:09:34

I don't know. When we're talking with you, like, you know, you're you're you uh yeah, you're you know how to spearhead and lead the charge and you know in our conversations. So uh you know, just again, kudos to you for following your own life path with your own heart and your direction in life. You know, I I'm not just blowing smoke at you, you know this. We, you know, we think extremely highly of you. Colleagues I know who know you think extremely highly of you. Um you do you this is after all that, I gotta imagine there's people listening going like, he was in construction management first. Like, what? Like, how is like the guy is like a brainiac. I mean, yeah, so look, uh keep following your own life pattern, beat into your own drum. That's it's uh you're doing a great job. We we we very much appreciate you on behalf of RootSeek. So uh and again, now kind of pivoting toward toward the audience. Again, the goal of this kind of conversation, as I said, is information education, of course, number one. But number two, it's more this is how we uh sort of reflecting the other practitioners I that I work with as colleagues at at RootSeek specifically, especially uh RootSeekHealth.com. This is how we think through a lot of the complexities of what's in functional medicine. It's not a one-size-fits-all. It's not even uh always a predictable outcome, but there's so many more tools and options than in the conventional world. Uh, we focus very much today here with you, Ben, on the microbiome topic, but also the extensions of gut health into so many other areas of health. And so thanks for kind of giving us that information. And again, if you're a patient who you've never worked with a functional practitioner, but you have interest, you can reach us at rootseekhealth.com. If you are looking for a second opinion, uh, we don't want to create fragmentation and too many cooks in the kitchen, et cetera. But if you are not getting enough support that you need for any number of reasons, we will respectfully be happy to um come alongside you also and be privileged to do so. Again, you can reach us at rootseekhealth.com. And uh we're all we're we're focused on our mission values of being accessible, being virtual across the country, being affordable. We know what our colleagues are, what their cost structures are like as well, and we're dedicated to keeping costs uh low. And we have a very big focus on community and power in numbers, working as a team, working with folks um from a multifaceted approach so that we can uh bring the best of all worlds. Because look, we we as practitioners or me as a doctor, we kind of suck at a lot of areas of healthcare, all right? And then there's other areas folks who are non-prescribers, they're limited in some of their scope of practice. So we've come together as a team to uh bring sort of like the best of all uh the best of all worlds to the table to help people get better faster. That is our mantra to help sick people get better faster and to help those who are longevity-minded to continue thriving for longer. So everything that you talked about here today, Ben, in some way or another, whether we specify it or not, I think our is really applicable to our audience, our patients. So I just honored you. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it, and I'm so honored to be that this was your first time. I'm kind of bewildered that it was your first time, but thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:24

You're welcome. Well, it's not my first time talking. No, no. I definitely have I got into this uh I got out of construction because I was better at talking than I was at engineering and math. No, I and if you ever want me back on again, if I did that well, I'd happy I I really did enjoy this, Dr Dr. Mark. So yeah, if you ever wanted to have me back on or have another topic, I'd definitely do this again. Maybe you're just that good of a host though. Maybe I I don't want to put this.

Dr. Mark Su 1:12:49

I love it because it's like we don't we try to keep this just we sketch it out, but it's conversational, it's informal. We see where it goes organically, but you know, we we don't we're we're not like going looking for people just randomly to fill spots, right? We're looking for people who we know who they are and what they bring to the table, and there's a reason I asked you, right? And just again, that's that was flying colors. I I can't believe it was your first time doing a podcast. So thanks for thanks for entertaining me. And yeah, we I'm not one who feels like we got to keep rotating new people all the time. Yeah, there's there's great value in not just uh consistency and knowing what we're getting, but also it's it's about the quality of the person in your shoe and you more than you know, more than clicked all those boxes. Yeah, we'll do this again. Good. Good, good, good. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:29

Uh thanks so much. Yeah. You enjoy hey, by the way, get home safe.

Dr. Mark Su 1:13:34

Emotional piece. Okay. This is so this is not this is not uh at the risk of sale is sounding whatever, but we did this the other time with um Leah with the other company as well. So we're gonna do this. Um this has we have no financial affiliation with uh with Ben and Microbiome Labs and in some kind of direct kind of way at all. But uh for those folks who are listening here, if you are interested in um using any of those, uh let's say those three products we kind of talked about, okay? Micros uh megaspor biotic, the all-encompassing sort of heal the gut, repopulate the gut um sporbiotic, megasporbiotic, zen biome, any of the three, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:08

Cope sleep, cope sleep, or dual or cope sleep or dual gut brain reset.

Dr. Mark Su 1:14:13

Any of those three, uh the zen biomes, and then the third one, uh the vaginal balance. If anybody has interest in um using those, send us a direct message through our website or through the the podcast link. And uh yeah, we'll find we'll we'll get you that for a 30% discount. I think that's the max we can uh are allowed to do through FullScript. So we'll send you a discount for product for 30% if you're um hearing this within a uh uh three-week period. A three-week period of the launch of this of this recording. Is that fair, Ben?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:46

You are a generous, generous man, Dr. Sue. Very good.

Dr. Mark Su 1:14:48

30% in three weeks is the number three. I don't know. We could have said six or seven, but uh you know, we won't go there.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:53

No, that's that is that's more than generous. That's that's that's really nice. I appreciate I appreciate you. Having faith in those products, I know you've used some of those as well before yourself.

unknown 1:15:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:03

Your in your practice. I appreciate you offering that to your to your listeners and your watchers very much.

Dr. Mark Su 1:15:08

Yeah, good stuff. It's good stuff. We trust it. All right. We're gonna click off here. Thanks so much, Ben. Again. Have a good one, Dr. Sue. All right.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:16

Just the way it might be.