233. Anders Corbett: On “Crafting” Your Gut Microbiome, Probiotics, Leaky Gut & Hormone Optimization

24:53Gary Brecka:I mean, there are some that I really trust and I'd recommend to a lot of my community. But I always say that, you know, there's... No matter what anyone tells you, there's no better hormone bacteria than one the body produces on its own, right? So if you could take my bacteria, bank them, and then if I did a course of antibiotics, repopulate my own gut with my own bacteria. I mean, there's no better targeted way to restore the gut microbiome than that. And there's even like weird papers that are published about like the bacteria you get at birth and the birth canal through the breast milk seems to have like seniority over the other bacteria.

25:34So you can like take that bacteria and it'll organize everyone else, like time to get in line. Wow. And like the first performance bacteria actually was from a World War I veteran and he was in the trenches and everyone in the trench died or got super sick from dysentery, except this one guy. He was healthy. He was fine. No problem. And so after the war, they tried to figure out what happened. And so they isolated an E. coli strain.

25:59Gary Brecka:Fascinating that he even had the impetus to do that back then. It was a scientist almost 100 years ago, more than 100 years ago. That's what I mean, yeah. And it's still sold today. You can still buy it. Wow. It's called mutaflor. Wow. And you can buy it, and it's still the same isolate of that same bacteria from that World War I veteran. Wow. And to this day, it helps constipation, helps diarrhea. It helps all sorts of digestive issues for travelers. It's a great product. So where do you see this technology that you've developed going? I mean, eventually, do you see it as like literally like a menu?

26:38Gary Brecka:You could come in and say, here are the challenges that I have. I have poor focus and concentration. I don't sleep well. I've got intermittent diarrhea and constipation. I mean, my gut's constantly bothering me. I get cramping, I get bloating. And you could dial up or dial down certain bacterial strains and repopulate the flora in a way that would address those symptoms. Yeah, I'm trying to... Well, I have a foundational model for someone that's not doing that well. And then I go up different levels depending on how customized you want to be. Okay. Right. So, yeah, tell me what exists today. So today if I send a stool sample in, what are the possibilities that I could get back for that?

27:27Gary Brecka:And I'd love to see this menu. Yeah, it's on the web. Because I want to go through the menu myself because I've got some things I'd like to get. Well, it's on the website and under the About Us page there's like the studies we can, what bacteria and what study are cited on there. and for the most part I can isolate those from people. And there's anywhere from bone density to serotonin, dopamine. There's androgen bacteria and cyanobacteria for oxygen. Those are found in like Olympic swimmers uniquely. That's like how you can identify an Olympic swimmer is by the amount of cyanobacteria in the ground.

28:12Yeah. You can identify a lot of different sports by like -

28:15Gary Brecka:So if you actually just saw nothing other than somebody's gut microbiome profile, you could say, this person's a professional athlete. Elite level. At the Olympic level. With other sports like professional basketball is a little bit more challenging, but I did saliva sampling with UFC fighters and at the World's Strongest Man. And at the World's Strongest Man, I did four tests before, during, and after the competition. Okay. And I could tell which athletes had competed two weeks earlier based on the amount of bacteria that eats lactate inside of them. Because there was still food for that bacteria.

28:54And that means that it hadn't cleared their body. Like the lactate was still being consumed by the, it's a bacteria called villanella.

29:02Gary Brecka:And the lactate is obviously what's produced when you're in extreme competition. Yeah, there's some controversy on lactate and exercise and things like that. I'm not, you know, I'm not an expert on that. Right. But at least every athlete that competed in Europe's Strongest Man two weeks earlier had elevated levels of that bacteria. Wow. And that person is tired. Right. Yeah. And then with the UFC fighters, we did saliva sampling again four times. But the most interesting difference was four hours before the fight and then within five minutes after the fight. So as soon as they're done, press, get to the locker room, and take a saliva sample.

29:39bunch of blood and saliva all mixed up are they actually willing to sit down and do a blood draw right after a fight with the you know when this guy named uh forrest griffin tells them to do it

29:48Gary Brecka:yeah yeah i love forrest yeah shout out to forrest griffin you're doing this right now it's like the last thing on my mind i've just gotten kicked and punched in the face and like maybe i won maybe i lost but you know you're like hey can i get some blood in that was a wild week so you so you sample these but i want to get back to the practical applications for like my and the audience is listening. Because all of us have something that we're... Yeah, well, I'm just talking about this stuff because that's how I get data to isolate new bacteria. Like I go, I love the stressful event, measuring that.

30:24And then that informs me what is happening to a body that goes through that, what bacteria, what food is available, what populations go up or down.

30:32Gary Brecka:So I want to go back to this concept of targeting the gut microbiome again. because I really am fascinated by this. Yeah. And we got a menu. And we got a menu, which I'm going to read because I'm also fascinated by this. But talk to me like about what you did for LeBron. Like how did, what would have been his interest in altering his gut microbiome? Because things seem to be going pretty well for him. Yeah. You know, right now. Yeah. I'm happy to talk about it. but it's been he sent me a you know I got connected through mutual friends sent me a sample in the mail and I worked with his trainer mostly of understanding how he is recovering mostly and so and through work with other NBA players it's quite a challenging season for travel and sleep is like a big issue for these guys and there are big differences in off season versus in-season microbiome content.

31:34And so for him, it's specifically for recovery.

31:37Gary Brecka:You know, it's safe to say he wanted the best gut microbiome. And, you know, again, what's fascinating to me is you can go into someone who is a professional athlete because I think at the professional athlete level, they're all looking for ways to legally, you know, without enhancing, you know, using a performance enhancement device, but to modify their biology, whether it's through red light or hyperbarics or sleep or eating very clean foods, anything that they can do to close that last gap. This is just a tool. Yeah, to close that last gap. So when you, and most of us are not looking for that elite level of performance, so I want to bring this back down to what this means to working folks.

32:25There's two types of these bacteria. the bacteria that can impact day of performance and then also day-to-day maintenance levels of your body. And what is it specifically doing?

32:37Gary Brecka:Is it reducing the lactate threshold? Is it improving oxidative phosphorylation? I mean, is it enhancing mitochondrial function? What is it that's having the impact on performance? Based on a number of papers, the villanella bacteria sits between the blood and gut barrier, and it pulls the lactate out of the blood and consumes it in the gut and then excretes another metabolite. Wow. Yeah, which is pretty cool, right? Yeah. And so overloading that over time, I think, would help recovery. Yes. No, it would help recovery here, actually, because performance degrades as you get into that lactate threshold.

33:21Gary Brecka:The longer you can maintain aerobic respiration, we know that there's aerobic and anaerobic respiration. So as you get anaerobic, your muscles start to burn, hydrogen ions build up, there's all kinds of things that are going on that are actually causing a degradation in performance. So highly conditioned athletes, higher VO2 max, better circulation, shuttling oxygen and carbon dioxide back and forth from the lung to the tissue is what really makes the difference between someone who can perform well athletically and someone who can't. But what's interesting and fascinating to me is I've never inserted the gut microbiome into that to think how could the gut microbiome push you further, either extend how long you can stay in aerobic respiration or help you recover from anaerobic respiration faster by consuming these byproducts of those processes.

34:22Yeah.

34:22Gary Brecka:You know, lactate, pyruvate, these metabolic byproducts that are degrading performance. Right. So in my biological mind, you know, if you have these byproducts that are degrading performance and there are bacteria that consume those byproducts, you have an increase in performance. Right. I mean, that makes perfect sense. You just described my whole business. Did I really? Yeah. That's awesome. That's my whole business. This menu is pretty fascinating. So these are strains that are clinically proven to enhance certain areas of performance. I won't go through a lot of these names, but bacteria one, let's just call it, found in the gut of elite athletes and acts as an energy source for the body.

35:05Gary Brecka:Increasing your ability to gain muscle mass, improve exercise performance, and exert anti-fatigue effects. There is another strain that increases your ability to gain muscle mass more effectively. and improve digestion. A separate one that increases your ability to gain muscle mass, improve exercise performance. I just read that one. Enhance your gut barrier and improve digestive system and gut function. The gut barrier is another massive. We know that leaky gut, this sort of single cell layer that lines the inside of our gut and keeps our outside environment separate from our inside environment.

35:42Gary Brecka:I mean, a lot of people don't realize that's only a single cell layer. and the gut microbiome influencing that cell layer to prevent leaky gut, which has its whole set of downstream consequences, inflammation, calling the immune system, all kinds of things. Boosting oral health, relieving irritable bowel syndrome and improving cholesterol when combined with other probiotics. And then this one is an all-around strain that promotes gut and immune health, reduces cholesterol, relieves irritable bowel syndrome, reduces allergy symptoms, prevents and treats vaginal infections. I mean, that's... I don't have a vagina, but all the other ones I want to do.

36:25Gary Brecka:Relieves symptoms of digestive disorder and promote overall gut health. Boost oral health, relieve irritable bowel syndrome, improve cholesterol, treat constipation, reduce inflammation, improve the immune system. improving respiratory and there's more and more papers published every day more and more published every day this is incredible so jumping out of the elite athlete and I love how you're called craft microbiome because you're sort of crafting the microbiome so it's a great marketing tool there but the average person listening to this podcast if they were to close their eyes and say, here's my wish list, and it started with things like gut dysbiosis because the vast majority of people do have something that they would love to fix about their gut.

37:23Gary Brecka:Maybe it's gas, maybe it's bloating, diarrhea, constipation, irritability, cramping, bloating and inflammation. Where did they start? What would a stool sample arriving to your lab look like before it turned into a probiotic for them? So I take about as much stool or saliva that covers a penny. Each of those bacteria has a different growth condition. So meaning some bacteria like to grow with oxygen, some like without oxygen, some like because these things are alive, they need to eat. So I need to put different ingredients to kind of farm these bacteria. And so once I dilute the bacteria and make these growth plates, colonies will grow on the growth plates.

38:15Little tiny single cells, but enough of that is a single isolate of bacteria. I take that bacteria, I do genomic sequencing of it to identify the strain, the substrain, and then any interesting genomic sequences within it. once I have that ID verified I put it in a media jar or a bioreactor with the same growth conditions how I found it originally and then it grows large quantities I freeze dry the bacteria it's like a goo at that point so it turns into freeze dried bacteria

38:49Gary Brecka:and this is their bacteria it came from them and then I save some of it and then I put the rest in these capsules and then ship it to you but you have it banked Yeah, I do. So you can continue to grow that bacteria. Because, you know, I have a number of professional athletes and folks that I work with. Several of them, just to give you one example, I have a very well-known athlete that had to have some dental work done. And because of the extensive dental work, they put him on a very powerful course of antibiotics. He actually did develop a jaw infection, which required another course of antibiotics.

39:31Gary Brecka:And there was noticeable degradation in performance after this massive antibiotic. Pretty amazing, right? Yeah. Yeah. And we struggled for a while. We fixed it now, but we struggled for a while to repopulate his gut. I mean, I tried all kinds of things, 38 Terra, BioComplete 3. My standard mechanisms for re-inoculating the gut, it took much longer than we originally anticipated. But if you had an, it doesn't even need to be an athlete. I want to actually just stop talking about elite athletes because most people are not looking to close that last two-tenths of a mile in performance. But, you know, just average mom and dad, you know, goes and gets some, you know, dental work done or for whatever reason, goes on a massive course of antibiotics, wipes out their gut bacteria.

40:22Gary Brecka:Where would you start with someone like that? I would try to find something called a Bifidobacterium infantis, which by most indications is the first bacteria that inhabits your gut. And it's one I was talking about earlier that seems to have seniority over the other bacteria to tell them what to do to organize. And that seems to settle down a lot of people's guts. Wow. Just kind of settle things, get them just stable. And then from there, after a few months, try to build it up from there. If you want protein to build lean muscle, but without the caloric impact or need to cut, you need Perfect Amino.

40:58Gary Brecka:It's pure essential amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, in a precise form and ratio that allows for near 100 % utilization in building lean muscle and no caloric impact. So we build protein six times as much as whey, but without the excess body fat we normally get during bulking. This is the new era of protein supplementation, and it's real. If you want to build lean muscle without having to cut, you need perfect amino. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. So when you look at people that have severe gut dysbiosis, there's a lot of people listening to this podcast that have been diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis, diverticulitis, Crohn's disease.

41:42Gary Brecka:Right. A lot of inflammation. Yeah. They're all inflammation. Itis is inflammation. and in those if they're listening to this podcast right now what benefit could they derive from working with Kraft Microbiome to actually go in and re-architect the flora in their gut the goal for me always is just to start small right and just start with like does this help you or not like because you should be able to feel better within a few days right and uh and And from there... Really? Just within a few days? Usually. That's usually the feedback I get. Like, hey, things are quiet. I'm sleeping better. I'm feeling better.

42:26And so, you know, I like to... I'm very cautious. And so I like people to say they're feeling better and then we can start isolating new and different types of bacteria for their own goals. Right? I like the consumer to kind of drive the... Oh, the consumer does too.

42:41Gary Brecka:I mean, there's nothing, you know... Right? I don't want to tell people, like, you need this. You need that. I'm like, no, like, hey, what's important to you? Yeah, and what you're doing in the lab is taking their goal and sort of selecting the bacteria. That's the thing that's so fascinating to me is that we're now, because we know that, for example, our gut bacteria will methylate tryptophan, an amino acid, into the neurotransmitter serotonin or phenylalanine and tyrosine into the neurotransmitter dopamine. I mean, dopamine is the main driver of behavior. Serotonin is one of the main drivers of mood.

43:19Gary Brecka:So you could see that if these conversions are off, you have issues with mood and behavior. Now, I've always looked at genetic methylation, you know, the deficiencies that impair. And that's the bleeding edge of the microbiome right now. Finding out which bacteria help turn on or turn off specific genes in your human DNA. So if I could add targeted supplementation for the deficiencies that these people have to targeted probiotics, that to me would be the holy grail. Yeah, it's coming. There's research published now about that exact thing. But you're already doing it. That's the fascinating thing.

43:56Gary Brecka:You've had success in these areas. And so I, you know, take this test. I tell you what my goals are. You get my bacteria and now you're trying to select these certain strains. like to improve my cognitive function or what have you. But let's actually talk about some of those conditions. Diverticulitis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, irritable bowel syndrome. All of these conditions mainly all have the common theme of inflammation in the gut. Where do you start with someone that has one of those conditions? You sequence the microbiome and then you're targeting the bacteria that will help them reduce inflammation.

44:40Yeah, just the most benign and most quieting bacteria I can. And that's usually a bifidobacterium, like one of the animalists or infantis or whatever it is. Just the most benign bacteria I can from them. And the sole focus would just be reducing inflammation. That would all be my total focus. is I wouldn't try to, you know, get like turn you into a D1 athlete right off the bat. Right, right. No, that's not their goal.

45:12Gary Brecka:I mean, they want to be out of pain. They don't want their day to be centered around their gut. Yeah. And it's one of those quiet things that just, you know, it's in the back of their mind all the time. You know, when your gut is sort of determining your choices, you're not determining your own choices. And I have hundreds of clients like this, you know, Their day is centered around the condition that they're dealing with. Right, yeah. You know, like they're literally when they get to a public event, they're thinking, okay, where's the restroom? I need to be able to access this. You know, I call and talk to all my clients right now.

45:48I'm sure that will change. But the, you know, I ask certain questions, like people that tell me they have allergies, I know I can't give them lactobacillus.

45:58Gary Brecka:Right. I know that causes problems for whatever reason. you know i also ask can you eat garlic and onions and like no i can't eat garlic or onions so that will like change a whole bunch of different bacteria that i get them and i'm not sure why this is the case yeah but i know if i we know that correlation yeah it's like no you know okay now i go and usually the bifidobacteriums are the best choice just because of all the numerous symptoms yeah that have that they've talked about i'm dude i'm super excited about this in fact if you want to be send send a message to my team at info at the ultimate human.com let's Because I really like to do these real world trials, if you will, and see if we can address their primary challenge and achieve their primary goal.

46:42Gary Brecka:Because I know that the clients I have, for example, that have eczema and psoriasis, a lot of what we do is focused on the gut microbiome, but we're not as selective. And there's a little bit of guesswork there because you're throwing the strains in there, not knowing what they have an overgrowth of, what they have an undergrowth of, and which populations they really need to target, whereas you can actually target those specific populations. That's what I find fascinating. And eventually we get there, but we're getting there, you know, it's like spaghetti against a wall, you know, to see what sticks.

47:20Gary Brecka:You're getting there by putting enough in that eventually the gut returns to its homeostatic. There's a few customers who are like, I don't care what it is, just give it to me. I'm one of those. Are you sure? Most of my VIP community is like that too. Yeah, does this work or not? Yes. I don't know. There's very, you know, this is the low risk proposition. Right, it's your own bacteria. It came from you. Exactly. That's what I love. You know, I have a saying I say all the time, more of what God gave us, less of what man makes us. So if we can actually go into our God-given strains of our own bacteria to solve the challenges.

48:00Gary Brecka:And by the way, this isn't voodoo science. I mean, they have mapped very specific bacteria, eczema and psoriasis, for example. There is a very strong correlation between deficiencies in certain strains. You're aware of that, right? Yeah. And which strains are those? I can't tell you off the top of my head, but I know the papers exist. Yeah. And so could we, and this is particularly troublesome when I get really, really young children that are suffering from this because there's nothing worse than being a mother or father and your child is suffering from this skin condition and the only option you have are steroids, the corticosteroids and anti-inflammatories.

48:41Gary Brecka:And you're stuck in this really, it's like the rock in the hard place decision because you want to help your child. The only thing that gives them some relief is something that you know is borrowing from their future. Yeah. And you know there are going to be further consequences. You just want to help them right now. You know, it's why we stick an iPad in front of our kid to calm them down because we're in a public place. But, you know, and I really want to offer some hope to them that, you know, this may be, the answer may lie in sequencing the gut microbiome and targeted probiotics to give them a lifetime of relief, permanent.

49:20Gary Brecka:Yeah, the two important technologies here are the storage of the complete biome, so as the technology improves, we can always go back to the original sample and isolate more and more and more from that original sample. So as our skill increases, that original sample becomes more and more valuable. Now tell me that you're using AI. I've done it for some evaluations of large groups of people that I'm testing, to see patterns that I can't see. Yes, exactly. Over the last 20 years in human biology, one compound I've trusted again and again is NAD+. It's critical for energy, focus, and cellular repair.

49:58Gary Brecka:But your levels drop around age 30. I used to administer NAD via IVs in my clinics, but now I take Roe Nutrition's Liposomal NAD, the first oral formula that actually works. Their advanced delivery tech gets NAD straight into your bloodstream. I take one teaspoon daily, and the results are real. clean energy, sharper focus, and better recovery. You can try it risk-free with the Ultimate15 code at checkout for 15 % off. Just put in Ultimate15 at checkout, you'll receive 15 % off, and your cells will thank you. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human podcast. So let's touch on that one for a moment.

50:37Gary Brecka:So eczema psoriasis. We know that there are deficient bacterial strains. If you were to get a stool sample from one of these children, what would be the next step? So my process would be to do deep into the research to try to find some sort of metabolite or groups of metabolites that may be overproduced in the gut, underproduced, and it'd be my intention to either find bacteria. It's a lot harder to get rid of the bad bacteria, but what we can do is outcompete the bad bacteria. And so that would be my goal is to find the metabolites that may be causing the eczema or the psoriasis and either have them consumed or overproduce the beneficial metabolites.

51:26Gary Brecka:Yeah, because we know that it's not a complete guessing game. I mean, there's quality data on the missing strains. And I think what you just touched on, I want to make sure it doesn't get missed, is that you say I'll compete because we know in a healthy gut microbiome, There are always pathogenic flora. We have healthy parasites. Every single person has Shigella and like Salmonella. Exactly. All sorts of crazy stuff. We all have SIBO going on, just not at a level that's symptomatic, right? So we all have - There's bacteria on your skin, everywhere inside of you. Exactly. But homeostasis is where you have a proliferation of the healthy bacteria.

52:05Gary Brecka:And it's not just that they're there to do their role. it's there to also suppress the negative effects from some of these other bacteria. And we know that things like highly processed foods, refined sugars, grains, genetically modified foods, foods that have pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, things like that, actually do wipe out and sometimes benefit bad bacteria. And so the idea that we could actually repopulate the gut with the beneficial bacteria and let that do the policing, right? Let the body's normal homeostatic biophysiological process keep these strains in check. Variety is good.

52:49And there's like a collapse in our Western stomachs about the variety of bacteria that we have. It's just continually going down and down and down every year. The more highly processed foods we eat, the more we live in a sterile environment, the more like all these things are just killing our bacteria.

53:07Gary Brecka:Yes, I totally agree. And so your next step would be, again, back to the eczema and psoriasis, we would try to find the deficient bacteria, repopulate those, and specifically isolate the strains that we know are pro-inflammatory and use beneficial bacteria to restore those. Yeah, to try to outcompete those pro-inflammatory bacteria. Geography is starting to be an important issue too, like where in the digestive tract they live.

53:43And also try to produce as many anti-inflammatory metabolites as possible.

53:49Gary Brecka:Can you give me some stories without names or identifying people, non-athletic stories where you actually had someone with a condition related to the gut, it could be irritable bowel syndrome, from diverticulitis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, one of these conditions in the gut, and you saw miraculous... Yeah, there was this actress that's had two or three fecal transplants in her life. Advisable or not, I don't want to say. I can't say. But to this day, or maybe not to this day, but she'd been dealing with these issues. And I took the sample. I evaluated it, I produced a report, and then it turned out I just need to continually reduce the inflammation in her body.

54:40And so I just made extra powerful inflammation-reducing bacteria.

54:43Gary Brecka:So you took her bacteria, cultured and grew it, and you expanded the flora that actually helps to reduce inflammation. And what was the consequence, the outcome for her? She had been losing her hair, she had been losing weight, and I know these actresses want to be skinny but it was getting a little crazy. And because of the reduced inflammation, her hair started to grow back. She got some movie roles, things like that. She just felt better, which was the number one issue.

55:19How about anything in the realm of one of these gut dysbiosis conditions

55:24Gary Brecka:like an ulcerative colitis or diverticulitis or Crohn's Have you had experience in manipulating the gut bacteria with positive outcomes there?

55:37It's in a side life. I did all the - Side life. In a side life. Sounds so shady. I did all the training to become a Pilates instructor.

55:49Gary Brecka:Did you really? I did pass all the - Dude, I've done two days of Pilates and I could move when I got up this morning. And all I did was the core stretch thing. It was great. It was great. So bad. So when I was done rowing, my body was a little broken. Yeah. And so Pilates helped me put back together. So I did all the training. I didn't do all the teaching, so I'm not certified. But the teachers warned you, like, hey, if a client comes in and it becomes your job to fix them, you're never going to make that customer happy. Got it. Right. And so I've taken that approach, too, with the company. Like I, you know, I can try to help, but I'm not sure I can fix everything.

56:28Right. So I try to like, you know, like, is this something, how long have you been working on this? You know, what's your doctor saying? You know, how can I be supplemental to what you're doing?

56:40Gary Brecka:But have you had a supplemental role in helping people reduce their symptoms or put these things into remission? Do you have cases where you can say, hey, this person had XYZ condition post-targeted microbiome? Okay, that's very exciting. Yeah, it is. I don't want to pay you. You're not giving yourself enough credit here. I'm trying to give you some credit. Because I really believe that this is a massive frontier for modern medicine because there's so little focus. there's a lot of focus on the microbiome, but there's so little focus on the individuality of people's microbiome and actually taking their microbiome to culture and expand it to address the conditions that they have.

57:29Gary Brecka:I mean, obviously on that list of, you know, that wish list, whatever you want to call it, you know, a lot of those things on there, I mean, check the box, probably 70 % of my audience has one of those that they would love to have addressed. The idea that you're addressing it by using their own bacterial strains to me is really fascinating. Yeah, it's a wild world. It's wild. So you have had success. But I'm also very cautious not to go against the FDA. I'm not intended to treat, cure, prevent any disease. And I don't want you to make a medical claim, but the fact that you have been, and I try to be cautious about that too, but people need information, and it's sad how frightened we are sometimes to speak about successes that we've had.

58:23Gary Brecka:Maybe we don't want to use the term cure or treat or prevent. Well, like for example, someone has high glucose. They wake up, their glucose is at 200 or something outrageous, and to solve that problem, it was first doing oral sequencing to finding out, and then which bacteria are actually living in there and then finding papers showing that you're 70 % likely to be pre-diabetic or diabetic from peer-reviewed paper if you're missing these bacteria. Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Right, and then so the process was like, okay, how do I actually develop a product for this problem? And so it's like isolate the bacteria they're missing first from me to try it if it helps them and then eventually maybe if I can keep trying to, because sometimes bacteria don't want to grow, no matter if it shows up in the sequencing, sometimes it doesn't want to grow.

59:13But then making like a mouthwash, like, hey, let's try signaling to the brain about 10 minutes before you eat your meal. Swish this bacteria around in your mouth and spit it out. That didn't work. But then finding a bacteria that actually consumes glucose and loading the person up, like take this 90 minutes before a meal. It eats glucose. I was wearing these glucose monitors for a while and I would go to Wendy's every day and eat the same meal. Oh, dude, you're killing me.

59:45Gary Brecka:It was horrible. It was horrible. But I'd go to Wendy's every day, eat the same meal, I'd take the bacteria and I'd trial it. Yeah. Right until my glucose wasn't spiking crazy. Mm-hmm. You know, I tracked it, I guess, for a few weeks where the glucose pre-supplement would spike to like 120, 140, something like that. And then post taking the bacteria, it gets up to like 115, 120. Mm-hmm. I'm like, oh, now I've handed off to the client. and now his glucose doesn't spike. Yeah, see, this is just fascinating. See, now we're getting somewhere, okay? This is what I was after, all right? And I understand we got to dance around the FDA, but we're going to get some specific answers here.

1:00:22Gary Brecka:Oh, God. Because I think if you're able to eventually get enough data to crack this code, the gut microbiome is so foundational. It's 70%, in my opinion. I mean, there's a reason why 70 % of your immune system is right outside of your gut, because that's where all the action is. There is also, in my opinion, an enormous body of data that says that the first domino to fall in the sequence of multiple chronic diseases is gut dysbiosis. So what happens is we have severe gut disruption, whether it was antibiotics or whether it was an infection or whether it was just poor food over a prolonged period of time, wiping out our gut microbiome.

1:01:09Gary Brecka:And that was the first domino to fall. And now 50 dominoes later, they've got their first autoimmune disease. 50 dominoes after that, they've got their second autoimmune disease. We know that early onset Alzheimer's, dementia, early onset cognitive decline, that's everybody's greatest fear. We know now that that doesn't start when you're 75 years old. It starts when you're 35 or 40 or 45 years old. Right. And so the possibility to intervene from a preventive standpoint, the possibility to address, I won't say treat or cure, but to address ailments that you're suffering from now that we know have strong evidence or linked back to the gut microbiome.

1:01:54Gary Brecka:This is the whole reason why I brought you on this podcast because I don't have the wherewithal, the knowledge myself, to know specifically how we do it, but I do have a keen appreciation that if we figure that out, that is potentially the panacea. In fact, you know, this woman that just passed away at 118 years old. Oh, you saw the paper. Yeah, I saw the paper. Can you talk about that for a second? Yeah. Yeah, because that's validating about everything that you've talked about on this podcast. Yeah, right. What was unique about her? I believe she had a high percentage of bifidobacterium. Exactly.

1:02:33which is a genus inside of her, a genus of bacteria. And she had it relative to someone, you know, at a midlife age or something like that.

1:02:42Gary Brecka:They said a 35-year-old. Yeah, isn't that wild, right? At 118. Yeah. So you can't just overlook that, right? No, right. So, and I believe too that, you know, when we look at Blue Zone studies, a lot of the data was regional. Meaning if you took a centenarian, from Sardinia that was eating that, you know, genre of foods and what have you. But if you had 50 years earlier put that person in a different area of the world, they would have had a different outcome. Yeah. Because their gut microbiome had adapted to that geographic location and those types of foods. and it was very adept at breaking them down, you know, creating energy from those.

1:03:35Gary Brecka:And, you know, we're such a nomad world. I mean, I did 14 cities in 18 days, right? So, and I'm very intentional about what I eat, but I couldn't control it to that extent. And so... Your circadian rhythms and all that stuff. Yes, circadian rhythms. Microbiome driven, yeah. But if we could keep the consistency in the gut microbiome, our ability to adapt to, you know, different environments and actually metabolizing different types of food. I think that to me is one of the secrets to longevity. But you're right, she had very specific strains that were in excess, especially for her age. And these were taken, the studies were done about a year before she died or something like that.

1:04:21So near the end of life, right?

1:04:23Gary Brecka:Yeah, so near the end of life and still... Still crushing it. Yeah, still crushing it largely because of her gut microbiome. Let's go to a big fear that grips a lot of people, which is Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, dementia, these neuroinflammatory conditions that cause different forms of cognitive decline. They interrupt the communication in our brain so that we appear to be losing our memory or we get disoriented or we get confused. I mean, that's everybody's biggest fear. And most of us have either had a friend or a family member and we've seen this occur. And what could somebody do now to mitigate the risk of...

1:05:13Gary Brecka:Because you did talk earlier about Parkinson's. Yeah, for a lot of these neurodegenerative issues, there are changes in the gut that happen years before the symptoms develop. And one of the easiest things you can do is get your microbiome sequenced over time because it's a dynamic system like you talked about, right? And you can monitor those changes and how they can determine if you're potentially going to develop Parkinson's or not are ratios of separate type of two different or three or four different types of bacteria, right? How is this ratio of this bacteria to that bacteria, you know, and how is that ratio changing over time?

1:05:50how does that increase your risk factor for these type of...

1:05:54Gary Brecka:So at a minimum, if I knew that I either had a genetic predisposition, which there are to some of these conditions, they're not a genetic inheritance of the disease, but they're a genetic predisposition to the disease. So if I knew I was in that risk category, or I had cognitive decline, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, that ran in my family, what would you be doing right now? If you're listening to this podcast, and that's one of your concerns, what would you be doing right now? You send the bacteria into your lab and start culturing the bacteria that combat those neuroinflammatory conditions. And we know what they are.

1:06:34And so at a minimum,

1:06:36Gary Brecka:this would be a good risk mitigation tool. Yeah, at least have an understanding of what's going on over time, right? A single test is going to be okay, but it's the over time testing that will determine a lot of risk factors. and then saving your original young bacteria, right? It's really important, right? So as these ratios of your bacteria change and you get older, you can always go back to that young bacteria that we have in storage. So if you have 30, 40, if you're in your 30s, 40s or 50s, you have either have the genetic predisposition to one of these conditions or it runs in your family, which is one of the things I don't like to...

1:07:14Gary Brecka:I don't like a lot of these familial characteristics in disease because it makes people feel like there's nothing I can do. When Parkinson's runs in my family, I'm just going to get Parkinson's. Not true. You know, Alzheimer's runs in my family. I'm just predestined to get Alzheimer's. That's why I like my product as a catalyst for change. Yeah. Like a user driven, like people are aware of these things. Yeah. Right. And it's like, oh no, like with this product, I can start the change that can happen. So right now I can send my stool and saliva sample in and I can look at my profile and I can at least begin to re-inoculate bacteria that are known to be the antithesis of those conditions.

1:08:01Correct, that can happen today. That's amazing.

1:08:04Gary Brecka:um so um in a in a in a perfect world um where do you see craft microbiome going where's craft microbiome going to be in in five years based on what you're doing now uh well i next year uh the dream just said the dream the app the dream is the application like an app on your phone that you plug in that says like, I have a meeting today. I want to run a mile and you know, I have a dinner tonight and then you have a box next to it and the app spits out, Oh, take probiotic number one, three, and six. And you have the box of like all your different bacteria, like take this one at this time, take that at that time, you know, to like show the, you know, I love that.

1:08:54Yeah. So that's the, that's next year.

1:08:55Gary Brecka:Yeah. We do that now with, you know, certain, uh, you know, with just certain supplementation. We take focus pills and nootropics and, you know, nicotine and caffeine. And, you know, so we do try to manipulate, you know, ourselves for certain activities. But the fact that we could do it with, you know, bacteria that produce neurotransmitters. Like at one point a customer wanted to get super, like, he's like, I need something for golf. Right. And so I'm like, I don't know. There's somebody with no problems in their life. Right. By the time that their biggest concern is their golf game. Well, a lot of people love golf.

1:09:32Gary Brecka:A lot of people love golf. I know, but I want to be that dude. A lot of things would go on my list before I got to my golf swing. So I'm like, I grew up, I played a little golf. I don't play that much now. I'm like, okay, so you need to be calm. You need to be relaxed. You need to do X, Y, and Z. So I made these bacteria for dopamine, for serotonin that produce this stuff. I give it to the guy. His golf game gets a little better. but what really changes them is it helps them sleep at night, right? And so sometimes you make this concoction, like you take this, but it doesn't do what you want, but then it has a benefit for something else.

1:10:08Gary Brecka:Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, that's why the gut microbiome is so fascinating. We don't realize that, you know, just saying that, oh, it produces neurotransmitters. Yeah, but neurotransmitters are the foundation of mood. Yeah. They're the foundation of behavior. They're the foundation of our emotional state. Yeah. And aberrations in those things get us diagnosed with mood disorders and mental illnesses when the truth is these are deficiencies that are expressing themselves as these conditions. And the next thing you know, you're on an SSRI. Yeah, which causes all sorts of microbiome problems. Right, which again, it's just...

1:10:51Gary Brecka:So the fact that we could get out of the chemical synthetic pharmaceutical realm and get into the bacterial realm, which is, you know, instead of saying, I, you know, have a mood disorder, and I hate these words, but a mood disorder because I have a deficiency in the neurotransmitter serotonin. So I'm just going to take a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. instead of doing that to say, I'm going to take the bacterial strain that give me the proper level of serotonin so I can just have normal mood without intervention. Like that to me is what's so fascinating about this. I mean, like I'm going to follow your work.

1:11:33I would love to select, you know, eight or 10 of my, you know,

1:11:37Gary Brecka:VIP clients or from my VIP community and see what challenges they are currently facing. that we know map to the gut microbiome. What are the risks that they want to mitigate in the future? Maybe they have Alzheimer's, dementia, or cognitive client in their family. Maybe they have an autistic loved one, which we know... Which is also being correlated to inflammation in the gut. Yeah, they're two specific bacteria in there too, correlated to inflammation in the gut. Interestingly, the FDA just approved folinic acid. Really? I didn't know that. Yeah, they just approved folinic acid, prescription strength folinic acid, which is essentially the methylated form of folic acid or folate as one of the frontline prescriptions that a physician could write for neurodevelopmental disorders.

1:12:30I know you're huge into that.

1:12:32Gary Brecka:I'm huge into that. And I was so excited to see that happen. It was like a eureka moment for me because finally something that is not chemically or synthetically altering our natural biology to fix a symptom. You have anything to do with that? You have anything to do with that?

1:12:55Gary Brecka:So, and finally something that is not altering our physiology to get the result that we want, it's going back to our physiology and saying, could this deficiency cause this symptom? And instead of going after the symptom, let's go after the deficiency. And that's why I think that, you know, whatever you want to call it, my work, my passion, which is restoring healthy physiology to get the outcomes that we want. You know, autism, I don't need to tell you about autism rates in the United States, and statistics are scary, you know, one in 5 ,000 to one in 32 children. And that is expected to double again in the next five years.

1:13:40Gary Brecka:I mean, the parabolic rate at which it's increasing. And yet we can't say this causes this. Vaccines cause autism. Acetaminophen during pregnancy causes autism. We haven't reached that. We know that there is correlations. The reason why I believe that these are correlated is because of their impact on the microbiome. I don't have the specific peer-reviewed randomized clinical trial to prove it. but maybe you do, that would vindicate me. Well, it reminds me of a paper about supercentarians and how the microbiome ages over time. And they tracked people, I forget how long, but they had age groups, it was something like 30 ,000 people they took samples from.

1:14:25All different ages from 20 to 80. And they identified specific bacteria that decrease as you age. And so that's part of the storage, that's one of the bacteria I isolate is these young bacteria. But what also was found in the paper was the amount of oxygen tolerance in the gut goes down as you age. And what that means is the bacteria that, you know, they're not oxygen tolerant, but they're fed by the increase relative to the number of pharmaceuticals you're on.

1:15:05Gary Brecka:Right? Meaning you are degrading the capacity for normopathic bacterial function the more you... We absolutely knew that in the mortality space. The more pharmaceuticals you were on, the easier it was to predict your life expectancy. Yeah, and it's now correlated or directly related to your microbiome and how much inflammation, how much oxygen tolerant you are inside the gut. Yeah, I think that's just so fascinating to me. And now that we are beginning to map causal relationships between certain bacterial deficiencies and well-known disease processes, not the least of which, you know, acromantia and cancer, for example, should wake everybody up to the absolute importance and the necessity for healthy microbiome.

1:16:01Gary Brecka:and that our modern-day lifestyle is the polar opposite of what we need to have a healthy gut microbiome. And, you know, I always talk about this theory I talked about earlier in the podcast of the one domino that falls that causes all the other dominoes to fall. And very often the first domino to fall is this dysbiosis. In fact, there are a lot of, you know, when pathogens invade us, bacteria parasites uh viruses um even even heavy metals um and mold and mycotoxin yeah the vast majority of what they are impacting is the microbiome and then the microbiome deficiency is giving us the symptoms totally yeah okay right like oftentimes for myself like um you know before you get sick or have a cold or something you'll have some diarrhea or something beforehand like a few days beforehand.

1:16:56And that was found during COVID too. They could track, uh, Google searches on diarrhea before the COVID would show up in the sewage samples that they were testing. Yeah. So like a few days before, like searches for diarrhea or gut dysbiosis or whatever, would spike a few days before actually the, uh, the virus would show up in the, in the, in the sewage or before cases. Yeah. You know, interestingly,

1:17:20Gary Brecka:whoop noticed certain trends in their whoop data, which I found really fascinating, you know, like respiratory rates starting to increase substantially in the days before they became symptomatic. So they were infected, but while the viral load was rising, before the patient even knew that they had it, they noticed this massive correlation between respiratory rates and the onset of COVID to the point where it actually became predictive. Yeah. So, you know, but again, if you're listening to this podcast, you know, what should, if someone wants to take the next step, Yeah. I feel like everyone could benefit from sending a stool or saliva sample into your lab.

1:18:08Gary Brecka:First of all, could you handle that kind of inflexion? I can handle that volume now. You can now. Recently, yes, I can handle the volume. Okay. So sending in a stool and a saliva sample, having their microbiome sequenced and at least getting on a basic probiotic coming from their own flora. Yeah, starting with one or two. Starting with one or two. Yeah. Addressing the deficiencies in bacteria that we know have major impacts on mood, major impacts on emotion, major impacts on inflammation. Yeah. So that you don't buy yourself a consequence down the road. And I like that idea better than... I mean, I know some phenomenal probiotic manufacturing companies.

1:18:49Gary Brecka:But again, this is the one size fits all, but it's all we have right now. And I utilize them a lot and there are some phenomenal products out there. Like we were talking about before, like the World War I soldier. Yeah, yeah. There's tons of great companies out there. I really, well, I want some of his. If you've got it lying around the lab, I want some of his back. Okay, good. Yeah, I got it in, guys. So, and then I'll start reselling it and maybe I'll, it's like - You should, yeah. We can sell Gary Brecca's own. Yeah. But no, I think for the vast - From Gary for the world. I like it. Yeah. Let's trademark that today.

1:19:30Gary Brecka:So I think that, you know, you send in a stool and saliva sample. You get this profile, you culture those bacteria and you begin to re-inoculate what is the worst thing that can happen your inflammation goes down your mood improves you see that your cognitive function begins to improve that brain fog starts to lift yeah and potentially you are mitigating the downstream risk of neurocognitive decline right um which is you know what none of us want i mean this woman that passed away to 118 years old I saw some of the interviews with her, and fascinating to me how cognizant she was at 116, at 117 years old.

1:20:14Gary Brecka:I mean, very, very, very good grasp of where she was, what was going on in the world, her environment. You know, she wasn't living in the past. She wasn't aloof. She wasn't despondent. And, you know, if the very things that create thought, neurotransmitters, are made in the gut, and that those are made in a factory that is run by bacteria. Yeah. There's a linear correlation between these. Yeah. So would you recommend that everyone at least start their stool and saliva sample? Yeah, just store it and get the test done. And begin to take your own probiotics? Yeah. That's fascinating. Take your own.

1:20:55Gary Brecka:What is one question I haven't asked you that you think everyone needs to know about the gut microbiome? and or could be solved by what you're doing in your lab today. One question you haven't asked. I guess where I think it's all going. Yeah. Where is it all going? Where is it all going?

1:21:20You and I talked a little bit about this the other day, but like the virome, we talked about this? Yeah. and how there's a really crazy paper and bacteria have viruses just like humans have viruses, but these viruses only attack the bacteria.

1:21:41Gary Brecka:Hold on, bacteria have viruses, what do you mean? Bacteria carry viruses. No, no, like there's a virus that will only go after lactobacillus. Oh, right, right. Yeah, and that's called like a phage. And so this crazy study of bacteria infected by a phage makes mice and makes flies smarter. Increases memory, increases, right? No one knows why this is the case, but in the flies they have a longer memory and in the mice they can solve the maze quicker. Okay. Right, early stuff. But that's really interesting to me. Like why is that happening? Yeah. I know it sounds a little scary, but those viruses have no effect on us.

1:22:29They're only dangerous to the lactobacillus.

1:22:32Gary Brecka:But then the lactobacillus has an effect on us. Yeah. And so again, we're getting back to that first domino that fell. Yeah. And soon it will be possible to model... I'm getting too technical. No, go ahead. Get technical for a second. But soon it'll be possible to model... Through AI. Yeah. Through all the metabolites produced by one bacteria eaten by another, downstream effects, like be able to create a digital twin of all the bacteria and be able to model the food you eat and all the metabolites, you know, have this many grams of B vitamins or whatever are produced, you know, which I think will be really cool.

1:23:16I think that'll be really cool too.

1:23:17Gary Brecka:Well, Andrews, this is amazing. I have a group of folks, the community that I'm building called the VIP community. So when the podcast is over, we're going to go into this VIP community because they're the community that I let know ahead of time who's coming on the podcast. And so they've looked into your background. They have a series of questions for you. If you're interested in becoming a VIP, just go over to theultimatehuman.com forward slash VIP. Sign up to be one of my VIPs. You can cancel at any time. I have a 10-month course on becoming the ultimate human in there. I do lots of live Q &As.

1:23:50Gary Brecka:I do private podcasts. I've written guides on mold detoxification, heavy metal detoxification, whole food diet, travel tips, sleep, morning routines, even exercise. And there's just an amazing community of like-minded human beings in there. So head over to theultimatehuman.com forward slash VIP and just sign up to be one of my VIPs and I'll see you in there. But I end all my podcasts by asking all my guests the same question. and there's no right or wrong answer to this question. Okay. And that is, what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human?

1:24:28I'm still very athlete-driven.

1:24:33I still want to compete at an elite level in as many different sports as I can. How old are you now? 38. Oh, you're not out. I'm an old man.

1:24:42Gary Brecka:Hey, dude, I mean, Tom Brady, you know, Cristiano Ronaldo. I mean, there's a lot. A week ago, I raced at the Heather Charles, the world's largest rowing regatta. Oh, you did? Yeah. Oh, right on. Did pretty well. We got eighth in our category. Okay. And is it age? I was in the alumni event. Okay. So former college and national team athletes. But that's awesome. You know, I want to be able to do that every year and I want to win that thing. Yeah. Every year. Yeah. You know, like one of my favorite things is, it sounds crazy, but just being able to like work out with my family and my sons. And my oldest son was over here in Dubai with me.

1:25:25Gary Brecka:And the rest of my family. He was very nice. Yeah, Cole's great. But not just being in the same industry together and building businesses together, but to have a shared part of your lifestyle because he's very athletic, so is my other son. So are both of my daughters. But to be able to just, he's 23 years old, and to be able to just go and just rock a gym session with him, do a HIITS cardio workout. I sat down last night and I was telling my friend Umar Kamani, I was like, this is the best that life gets. you know like we had a we had a great day with business meetings and then you know my son and i and a bunch of our buddies we just went to the gym we we had a trainer run us through this crazy crossfit style you know wad workout and then at the end we did these 30 second interval sprints and just to be able to do that with him i'm like this is as good as life gets and i want that for everybody because when you have your health and you're pain-free yeah and you're mobile for as long as possible for as long as your relationships deepen it really is so true well Andrew thank you so much for coming on the Ultimate Human Podcast I'm excited to talk to you in the VIP group and for the rest of you guys until next time that's just science