Dr. Justin Marchegiani and Evan Brand talk about spore probiotics and their importance in modulating the immune system. Learn about Th1 and Th2 immune system, understand the negative effect of vaccines on them and know the role of probiotics in the imbalances created by vaccines.
Gain information on some of the probiotics strains and know how their acidity and timing of intake impacts absorption. Discover the answers and explanations to questions about lectins and digestive enzymes in relation to probiotics.
In this episode, we cover:
03:00 EMF’s and Infections
06:29 L. Gasseri and Histamine
09:16 Th1, Th2 immune system
18:55 Paleo template and IBS
24:48 Lectins
Evan Brand: Oh, life is good. I don’t remember the weekend. The weekends are so weird once you have a baby. I'm sure you figured out the same thing. The weekend is just like, it go by and then all of a sudden, it's Monday again. And I just love working so much that it's like, “Oh, it's Monday, my favorite day of the week.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I feel the same way, too. I love Mondays coz I love getting back in the swing and creating content and seeing patients and getting all these uh—great feedbacks of people getting better or you know, you get challenging cases that really cause you to roll up your sleeves. So I definitely like that, for sure.
Evan Brand: Me too. And how was it for you?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It was great. Uhm—this weekend, my wife—coz we’ve been—we had a baby like a month and a half ago, it’s the August 21st and for the first, she went out Friday and Saturday night. And I had babysitting duty. It was great.
Evan Brand: Oh man, I’ve never done that myself_ the 15th month old.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Not yet? Yes. She went out and she gave me a bottle, you know breast milk in a bottle. And just gave me uh—you know, a little bottle but, you know, it created a little balance there because she's been basically breast-feeding often on every hour or two for the last six weeks. It's hard because she was—
Evan Brand: Did she text you the whole time missing the baby?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, I was kinda giving her updates. But she was feeding, doing the SNS and then pumping and then the time that all finished, the next feeding started in 45 minutes. You can imagine that for five or six weeks. It’s really hard. Now it’s getting like two hours after or an hour and a half to two hours. So now it's like, “Oh, it’s getting a little bit better.” You know, two hours, you can at least close your eyes and get a little bit of be restorative sleep in there. So that’s good.
Evan Brand: That's great. Cool. So you were uh—you were the babysitter.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s it, man.
Evan Brand: That’s awesome.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Life is— it's crazy how life is, man. Just things continue to evolve and you get satisfaction out of different things. You wouldn’t think it. Holding your baby and having them smile at you or just hold your finger whatever could be that satisfying but—ain’t it funny how that all changes?
Evan Brand: I know, man. It’s great. It’s like DNA trick. So we’ll take care of them.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Now, we wanted to talk today about the probiotic, speaking of DNA. We want to talk about probiotics. And probiotics—again, we’re gonna hone the topics. We talked about probiotics before but we’re gonna really address the area of spore probiotics which are like the cell walls of the specific spores called bacillus spores. There’s a couple that we use in our clinic called Bacillus Clausii Subtilis and Coagulans. Bacillus Coagulans, Subtilis and Clausii. Those are the big ones that we use and these are the basically the cell wall of these kind of bacteria which is the spore. And they have an awesome, awesome benefit of modulating the immune system. Couple other things we find – a lot of these microbes in our body— fungus and bacteria and parasites— EMF's or electromagnetic frequencies have a real negative effect on making these infections worse. And what refining is some of these bacillus strains, some of the spore strength can really help combat against the negative effects that EMF has with some of these critters. That's another good benefit. I’ll open up the floor to you here, Evan.
Evan Brand: Yeah. So EMF— I mean I've done episodes on this since the inception of the podcast in 2012. So it was five years of talking about it in some shape or form. The more I learn about it, the more that I learned it affects everybody’s systems. So like you just say, uh—I’m gonna say it in a different way. The EMF can actually strengthen the virulence of these infections. So someone’s got parasites, yeast, fungus— we may need to look at bringing probiotics in and really upping and upping and upping the beneficial bacteria to try to counteract the effects of EMF. Now just because you're not sensitive to EMF, doesn't mean that it's not a factor, right? You might not have the headaches or the— the ringing of the ears that a lot of people talk about where the heart palpitations. Like you may not have true EHS like Electronic Hypersensitivity Syndrome or EHS or they have different names for. If you're not that sensitive, it doesn't matter. You're still going to benefit by protecting yourself and protecting your microbes by using either these bacillus spores that we’re going to talk about or just by using other types of probiotics. And at the right time, uh— one thing I wanted you to hit on Justin is talk about the timing of bed and how we can work this in because many people go to whole foods and they buy a probiotic and they take it and then come back to us and they say, “Dr. J and Evan, I took probiotics and I feel worse. What's going on?” It's all about timing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes. So there’s a couple different things. So a lot of probiotics like your bacillus uh—sorry—your lactobacillus, acidophilus, right? Your bifidobacter kinds of probiotics, right? These probiotics tend to be more acid-sensitive. Now there are some that Evan has in his line that are acid-resistant because during this—this like a sphere that it kind of is acid-resistant. And taking that and kinda get through some of stomach acid. We may also just hide it on an empty stomach to bypass the stomach acid so we can have that bacteria intact when it gets to the small intestines, the colon. And then we can have a lot of benefits with immune modulation. We can have uhm— a lot of benefits of boosting up the healthy bacteria so we get better B vitamin pers—uhm— increase coz we get the good bacteria produce a B vitamins. Also, healthy bacteria, I know with the bacillus strains that we see, one of the great things as it helps convert sugar to vitamin C. And vitamin C is super important for collagen, for immune function, for oxidative stress, right? Oxidation is the apple that you cut open then it sits on the countertop and turned brown or the nail left outside that gets rusty. That's oxidation. That’s a loss of an electron. Antioxidants like vitamin C can help donate electrons to prevent the oxidative stress. So healthy bacteria and particularly the bacillus strains can really help with the vitamin C uhm— conversion from sugar, which is great. And then your other strains like the bac—like the lactobacillus acidophilus, right? These produce acids, which are great coz acid– acidic environment actually keeps a lot of the bad bacteria and fungus in check from growing. That’s why a lot of people do great with apple cider vinegar. It is like this cure-all because the acetic acid has got a very low pH that makes it really hard for microbes and not so nice microbes to work and also can stimulate your own HCl production as well.
Evan Brand: Yup. We have a question from Haley. She said she read that the strain L Gasseri reduces histamine. Have you ever heard of this? Yes. I have heard of certain strains of probiotics helping to reduce histamine. I don't know if this is correct, but I remember seeing that the Rhamnosus species—I could try find this journal I had bookmarked— I believe the lactobacillus Rhamnosus was something that actually increase histamine, which is why some people may feel worse. I just found it here. Histamine production by lactobacillus Rhamnosus. And Haley just said she read other strains can increase. Yeah. I've read the same thing as well, which is why typically, we’re gonna use a combination. And we’ll likely going to have a blend. So if you've got some things that are stabilizing histamine, you're typically going to counteract the other one that could increase histamine.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Again, people that typically are histamine-sensitive, a lot of times probiotics in general can create histamine intolerance. Uhm— so I see a lot of people that will just do a really good, you know, lactobacillus or bifido bacter or lactobacillus plantarum, whatever, like that may cause them to get bloated or gassy. If they are probiotic intolerant, one of the things we go to is we go to a spore-like probiotic because people that are histamine-sensitive tend to be able to tolerate that well. And one thing we like about the bacillus spores is it’s acid resistant. So you can actually take it with food, which can make it a little bit easier to process than taking it may be on empty stomach. So we like that.
Evan Brand: Yeah. Now, like you mentioned, you and I use some specific types of probiotics out there. They can have an encapsulating technology, where you can reserve them.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: So this doesn't mean that you have to ditch all other probiotics. It just means unless you’re using the formulas that Justin and I have, if you're not using ours, then you want to use a spore-based because all the other ones, unless it says, “Hey we've got some special— if you're looking at the label— unless it says, “Hey we got a special tableting technology that protects from stomach acid” you’re kinda wasting your money on most of the probiotics.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, absolutely. I know the ones that we typically use they will put like colony forming units on there, which you know, that's like how many probiotics that are in there. There’s a couple of things to look at. Number one is— is that the colony forming units of the probiotic that were put in there when it was bottled? Or how many they expect to be in their expiration one or two years later? So number one, when we put the CFU on that bottle, that's gonna be how many we expect to be there in 1 to 2 years later when it expires. So, you’re ideally adding so many extra in there. So you're compensating for potential things that may knock it out like heat or shipping or storage stuff. Just things that are normal with getting that product to the patient. So when you know what’s in the bottle there, you're typically getting more than what’s in the bottle because we have to make sure we overshoot and compensate for all the little mishaps that may lower it.
Evan Brand: Right. Well said. So, talk about the immune system a bit. You wrote some notes before the show about the TH1 and the TH2 immune system. Can you talk us through that and kinda break down what TH1 is, and 2, which some of us are TH2 dominant in the modern world now mainly from vaccines. And that the TH1 system, this kind of seesaw can be balanced out with the use of these spore probiotics.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Great question, Evan. So a lot of people their TH2 immune system is over stimulated and your TH2 immune system— think about it— it's the antibody-based immune system. It’s the humoral-based immune system. So the whole goal of like your immune system is you have like the front-line defense. This is like the Army Rangers, the Delta team; Seal team six, the Navy SEAL’s, right? These are the people, they get in there first and they make—they make stuff happen, right? These are the guys that go in there first. They radio back and then the infantry comes in second, right? So they give the infantry, they come in a few days later once they got Intel and you know everything's been surveilled, right? All the special forces, they radio in the special forces are the cytotoxic or the natural killer kind of that cytotoxic first branch of the immune system, the TH1. And the TH2 is kinda more that delayed antibody-based immune system that comes in after the fact. And when we look at what vaccinations do is they boost up to give a little bit of that compound that you're trying to develop an immune response to i.e. the infantry and you’re trying to boost that up. So you’re trying to keep basically this infantry that’s hanging out, that’s waiting—that’s waiting for that critter to come in. The problem is when you boost up that infantry more, more, more, more, more, more, well, there’s collateral damage that can happen like allergies and other issues on the immune side if you continue to boost it up too high. And that’s why one of the big trade-offs that has happened with a lot of vaccinations over the years is a lot allergies, there’s a lot of ADD, there’s a lot of other parts, a lot of symptoms that can happen just because that a part of the immune system is so over stimulated. And when we dig to some of these bacillus spores, right? That can help knock down the TH2 by boosting up the TH1. Think of it as a seesaw as one side goes up, one goes down. So when you boost that TH2 up so high, you're basically decreasing that cycotoxic, those Navy SEALs, those Army Rangers, right, that Delta force, right, that were lowering that. So by knocking that seesaw down on the TH2, we do it by boosting up the TH1 and those bacillus force can be super helpful at doing that.
Evan Brand: Yup. And medicinal mushrooms, too. We can stack mushrooms on this.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Evan Brand: …with these and we can help modulate TH1. So—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: We can totally do that.
Evan Brand: We got a couple questions. We have one about food combinations, we have one about infrared sauna. Here's one from Tessa that's on-topic about probiotics. “Is it good—is it good to take with digestive enzymes?” I guess you’re saying, “Is it good to take digestive enzymes and probiotics together?” My answer would be no. Generally, just because the stomach acid is likely going to kill those. Now even if you are taking a super high professional grade formula like Justin and I are using with you, still, we don't want to try out a breakdown that technology. If we can preserve those bacteria and get that to the colon, where it’s really gonna do the good thing, I would take your probiotics before you go to bed. Because there’s no competition for stomach acid at that time.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Yup. So I think taking up probiotics in the morning when you get up first thing or before you go to bed at the very end. Take your enzymes with food typically you can do enzymes before meal, too.
Evan Brand: Uh-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhm—again, but typically, with the meals also fine as well. And regarding uhm—did you ask about food combining, yet?
Evan Brand: Well, I didn’t read the question yet. I just said best food combinations. Once you can't go wrong with like meat and salad.
Justin M: Yeah. It’s typically meat and non-starchy. Meat and non-starchy vegetables, chicken and broccoli. Those kind of things. Typically, fruit by themselves. Again, that may cause blood sugar stuff. So, again, I typically only deal with food combining stuff where maybe starch and fruit are eaten a little bit away from things if there's a lot of digestive issues. And if there’s a lot of like fructose malabsorption, when you really can't digest much fruit either, fruits gone.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And they may not be able to tolerate much starch. And again, some of these changes when you go lower FODMAP, too. When you go lower FODMAP fruit or lower FODMAP starch that may get better. And if you also up the HCl and the enzymes, some of those symptoms that you may see a relief from when you food combined correctly, right? You may not need that.
Evan Brand: Yup, well said. There were two other things we wanted to mention about the TH1, TH2 system. One, you mentioned like ADD or you know, some type of developmental problems like autistic children, they could have an issue with—with their TH1, TH2 balance. So this is where the spore biotics can come in to the equation and fix it and then also food sensitivities. Now a lot of the stuff gets better, too. You know Justin and I talk so much about parasites things like H. pylori infections, bacterial infections that are suppressing stomach acid. So food intolerances are typically related to the gut, but also, we found that this whole immune system thing can also be a factor and just by getting more beneficial bacteria and the right strains as well, all the sudden food sensitivities go away and you can start adding stuff back in that you used to not be able to tolerate.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Some of that just because there is a little bit of peanut oil sometimes in some of the vaccinations as a preservative and uhm—there’s also uhm—some proteins in there. So a lot of peanuts, you know, peanuts the last 20 years has been a huge one. I mean you can’t even take a lot of times peanuts into a regular elementary school.
Evan Brand: I know. It’s crazy.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So I think that’s part of it. I there’s a lot of theories that are out there saying that. So, I mean, may not be super hard evidence on it, but we know that the amount of vaccines have, you know, triple, quadruple over the last 20 years since 91 really—1991. That—that could be a driving factor. That would make sense, for sure.
Evan Brand: Yeah. I was glad uh—Eric Berg. He put out a video about vaccines. Did you happen to see that one?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: No, I didn’t.
Evan Brand: He has a good video. Look it up when you got time. But it was a good video. He was just like, “What’s my take? People asked me.” He’s like, I don’t like him.” And he's got full list of all the different things that are inside of those and then plus he talks about all the different things that were deemed safe by the FDA like DES that all those women were taking and then you have all these different birth issues—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Thalidomide—with the—with the kids with uh very short arms.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. And again, on the vaccine, though, too, if you look at—there’s a big study that was done. I think in 2014. But they looked at kinda vaccine dosages across, you know, how many dosage, or how many individual vaccines across all the countries. And I think it was a lot of the Scandinavian countries that had 75% less vaccinations and better health— better overall health.
Evan Brand: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So I mean, I think just kinda keeping in mind that there may be some benefits from vaccines, but it's not health never comes from a needle. Not just because you get a vaccine, it does not replace sleep and nutrition and hydration and obviously, a cleaner environment, too, which is huge, right? Plumbing and those kinda things make a massive difference when it comes to infectious disease. But these countries show that you know, much less vaccines dosage-wise, huge difference. I mean they were much— you know, far beyond us health-wise.
Evan Brand: Yup. So if you can’t go back in time and change how you were vaccinated as a kid, this could also give you inspiration about how you approach adult vaccines. Coz now I've got a lot of clients I know you do, too that are approaching us and asking us about shingles vaccines that the doctors are really pushing hard for people over age 60. And then also the flu vaccines, which I've had people who get the flu after they got the flu vaccine.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. It’s a live attenuated virus. You look on the vaccine inserts, it’s 20% chance of having flu-like symptoms because of the vaccine. It’s on the insert. I mean this isn’t even controversial stuff, unless you actually go in there and ask for the vaccine insert like I have. And then you just_ the side effects and you say, “Hey, look here’s a side effect right there. And it’s I mean, chills, malaise, headaches, you know, achy, tired—that sounds like the flu to me. What do you think?
Evan Brand: It is. I mean, well, it is the flu. And the issue, too, with the CDC is that when they're making those flu vaccines, they’re only coming up with certain strains, right? So if there’s another strain outside of the one you got vaccinated for, you'll still get the flu that year and still feel terrible.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: Plus, you’ve got the aluminum and what other preservatives or things in there that are activating that virus for your or—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right. Totally. So kinda the idea is when the vaccination side is your manipulating your infantry, right? You're boosting up, you’re getting a special reserve of that infantry that’s gonna be specially trained for that one little critter that comes into your body, which you know, definitely has uhm—some use for. Now, my philosophy is let's just get your immune system so freaking strong.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Let’s get all these infantry guys lifting weights and— and you know, rock-solid with the nutrition and diet, so then they’re so ready to go. They’re gonna just plow through any critters and that’s kinda what we’re talking about with all the diet, lifestyle, the nutritional support, uhm—the nutrients to up regulate the immune system, the probiotics like mega spore biotics is one that we use. We’ll put a link below for the link here, my store for that. If you wanna see that. It’s the one that I use. It’s a bacillus clausii, subtilis and coagulans strain that can help balance that TH2, drop it out, pop the TH1—that’s great. Uh—also, medicinal mushrooms like __and other herbs, too. Astragalus,__—
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Andrographis, uhm—silver, vitamin D, of course, glutathione. These are all great immune modulators so we can really get that infantry boosted up and stronger, right?
Evan Brand: Yup. Perfect. Rachel, nice to see you. She's got a question, “My husband was regular before we went Paleo / Primal, but since about two years, he's slower, no longer pooping daily, we eat lots of veggies, he's not a stress personality type. Any advice to improve? Justin, what do you think?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, off the bat, very simple. I would look at just increasing a little bit more starch, little bitt of sweet potato that may shift things, number one. Uh—n number two, make sure the veggies are cooked if you’re doing this more raw stuff, and that's causing him to backup, do a little bit more cooked, steamed, sautéed— that’s number two. Number three, adding some enzymes and HCl. Uhm— and then number three, get your gut looked at. If there’s still issues with maybe dysbiosis. What happens is sometimes that starch can help feed some of that beneficial bacteria and that gets drop-down when the starch goes down. So pop it up a little bit of sweet potato, plantains, squash, may give that good bacteria a little pop. Uh— but in the meantime, it’s just as a palliative. Uhm— not pooping daily, not passing 12 inches of stool daily is not good. You get something called autointoxication where you start to reabsorb a lot of the toxins in your stool. So a little bit of magnesium citrate daily to keep those bowels moving and then taper off uhm— down the road. You know, give yourself a few weeks to kinda make those changes and see if you can be regular on your own.
Evan Brand: Rachel, I believe you've got your stool test back from— from me. Uh so look on there, too. Uh—you know, one thing that I would suggest, too, get your husband a stool test and look at the beta glucuronidase enzyme like Justin is talking about with autointoxication piece. We can measure that with the enzyme and we can fix it. Milk thistle and supporting the liver and getting rid of gut bugs but you know, if there's H. pylori or parasites or other bacterial infections that he could have, you guys could be passing things back and forth. The infections could be slowing down the motility. I just put out a podcast with this guy, Ken Brown, who’s a gastroenterologist and he was teaching me more about methane and how certain species of these uh— bacteria during SIBO cases are actually slowing the bowel transit time. So, literally, bacterial overgrowth could just be the culprit due to the methane production. And of course, he’s selling his supplement to reduce methane but if you just fix the SIBO, that will also get your bowels more regular. So I hope that helps.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it. Very cool. Well, anything else you want to add about uhm— spore based probiotics?
Evan Brand: I think it's something that should be in everybody's toolbox. I don't know if it's the silver bullet. I don’t know if it's the—you know, a lot of people find something that helps them, so then it's like this is the only thing you can use out there. I still think there’s other benefits to other probiotics that we use, but I do think it should be in everyone's toolbox and they should at least consider looking at it and potentially using it. Could you just randomly go and take it if you've got a bunch of symptoms? What's your take? I've had so many people take probiotics so willy-nilly and they feel worse. So I really think it's important to get tested first before you spend your money on this.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I find that's— it's one of those things where it is other deeper issues there. It's not gonna be a root causal thing, right? There’s too many other things going on in motion. The more other things are happening in motion, and they aren't stopped or they aren’t addressed, that it may help a little bit, but it may make no difference at all. So I always say get the low hanging fruit under control and then if you want to add it, then great. If you want to work with a functional medicine provider like us that kind of get things lined up for you, make sure everything's in order, and then add it in. Some patients I see, it really doesn't change anything; Some patients, it makes it a little difference; some patients, it makes a huge difference. But we’re not ever hanging your hat on one thing, but sometimes one thing can make a big difference but we never expect to. So then we’re always pleasantly surprised if we get one of those great cases.
Evan Brand: Yup. Well said. Well, I’d say, before we just become a rambling man, we can wrap it up. I think this was a helpful episode for people. Add it to your toolbox, do a little bit of research. I think we may have done other shows. I'm sure we hit on probiotics all the time, but—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think so.
Evan Brand: But if you’ve got, if you’ve got people in your family that have issues maybe they just won't change the diet, they could potentially get benefit. Maybe if you're looking for that one thing to try to get someone started into this field of functional medicine, maybe that spore probiotic is the first step. And then maybe that excites them and that encourages them to pursue the diet, the lifestyle, the sleep, the stress, the infections, the testing and all that. If that's the catalyst, then that's awesome.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. How we talk about any supplement is in kind of context of a whole program. Like we’re doing all these different things, we’re addressing all these things and then this is another maybe piece that we plug into. We’re not saying, “Oh, we plug this piece into someone who doesn't—who’s not doing a darn thing.” We’re plugging it into a program.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Where everything is being looked at. So that’s just kind of our context. S if you’re one of these people that aren't on a program or aren’t doing anything diet or lifestyle wise that's really healthy and then you think it’s gonna be that magic bullet, just want to make sure we set your expectations accordingly. And just, you know, don't forget that majority of antibiotics aren’t just true antibiotic prescriptions if they are in the food supply. So being more organic and eating healthy animal products healthy fats, that’s gonna be helpful so you won’t get that antibiotic exposure which will throw off your gut. And healthy gut bacteria, it produces nutrition, right? Uhm— good bacteria eats, poop and poop nutrition. Bad bacteria eats nutrition and poop. In other words, back it up. Good bacteria provides nutrients in your body just like I mentioned with the spores and the vitamin C which then helps with vitamin K which then helps with vitamin D, of course, and healthy bones, too. But it also—the bad stuff produces a whole bunch of crappy toxins. LPS, lithocholic acid, etc. These things help open the gut lining, make your gut a little bit more leaky which then gets that TH2 immune system overreacting because you got all these undigested food particles that you start developing an immune response to. Not so good. That really gets your TH2 now even more jacked up.
Evan Brand: Yup. Well said. We have one question from Neil. He said, “Do you think lectins are an issue?” Some are saying lectins are real problem, other say beans and legumes are one of the common factors of the blue zone areas. The blue zone, for people listening, that's like the people that are living to 9000+ years old. They are eating a lot of beans and such. “Love the podcasting.” Thanks for the feedback, Neil. Justin and I when we talk about grains, for example, like with rice pressure cookers, the way to do it. If I do any organic white rice, it's typically like a treat for me. I put it in the pressure cooker I tend to feel much, much, much better. But beans, I don't really do beans. Justin, what’s your take?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’ll do beans every now. Uhm—but like maybe once a month, but it's all about context. Let me give you, for instance. “Evan, our massage is good for you.
Evan Brand: (laughs) I would say yes.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, great. Our massage is good for you. Do they feel good when you have a really bad sunburn?
Evan Brand: Oh, not really.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: No. Well, think of your gut as like a sunburn. Like your gut, it’s all irritated and inflamed with critters. So the more sunburn and the more intense that sunburn is, the more you may not be able to handle things that have lectins or these gut-irritating compounds in them. So the sunburn gets better, you can handle that nice massage. Your gut gets better and healthier and more infection-free and more good bacteria build backup. Could you tolerate a little bit of uh—legumes here and there? Yeah, more than likely. Some may not, right? There’s not a be-all end-all thing but some may. So it's all about the context. Typically, the less inflamed you are, the better ability you have to adapt to a stressor like lectins, for instance.
Evan Brand: Yes. So now I'm gonna say the guys name because I don't want to give them anymore—uh—anymore press he deserves. But there's a lot of anti-lectin people out there—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: And it's just like, to me, it's a sales pitch. It's probably gonna sell a lot of books coz it’s like, “Oh, my God! Plants are bad for you.” And then I had people emailing like, “I might as well just starve to death. I can’t eat this, I can’t eat that. I might as well starve to death.” And I just—I’m not a fan of any—I’m not a fan of promoting things that instill fear in people. I agree with your analogy. I miss your analogies, by the way. That was a good one.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That was a good one, right?
Evan Brand: Did you come up with that right on the spot?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Off-the-cuff, man. It’s how my brain thinks. If I can’t create that analogy, if I can’t wrap my head around it, I can’t expect, too, either.
Evan Brand: Well, that was a good one. And so back to my point. I don't want to instill fear upon people. I agree with your—your strategy and your analogy. Lectins— sure, if you did beans and rice every day, maybe you could have some issues. But if you’re infection-free, your adrenals are healthy, you’re going to sleep on time, you've got good relationships, you like your job, you like your boss, you've got a great spouse, like you could probably do more lectins, more rice, more beans whatever. And maybe you could get away with it and feel okay.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. If it was in your 80-10 or 80-20 or 90-10, yeah, you know, it’s part of your 10 or 20, you probably would be okay, borrowing all the things you said.
Evan Brand: Yup. I’m sure we can ramble on about that point. That was a great question, though. Uh—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then, also, too, certain foods and have more lectins. Of course, grains are going to be the bigger offender, right? And then you know, you have your legumes, right? Your beans or lentils, but you know, just soaking them has a huge reduction in getting those lectins down. And even vegetables that do, just cooking them can have a huge effect on reducing some of them. So a lot of times, it’s not just the sheer amount. It's well, how can you prepare to reduce those lectins as well.
Evan Brand: Yup. The pressure cooker for me has been a game changer for the rice.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. And just the Paleo template or autoimmune template is a start. I think has probably the best effect at reducing most of those right there, off the bat.
Evan Brand: Yup. Tessa had a question. “My brother has celiac disease. Are probiotics a good idea in his case?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, you—you’d wanna really do a bunch of things, but would probiotics be a part of that plan? Yeah, absolutely. You do a six-hour protocol with this. You'd remove the bad foods. You replace enzymes, acids. You would repair the gut lining and the adrenals and the hormone systems. You remove the infections. You retest or you repopulate healthy probiotics, then you retest.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I agree. Celiac is quite a bit—celiac is the manifestation, but there's probably 5-6-7 puzzle pieces that have to be laid out.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.
Evan Brand: Probiotics maybe 5% of the equation, it may be 15%, who knows until we—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. And if you add in some good probiotics, like in my line Probio Flora or something like that. Would that be helpful? Yes. But if he did it in conjunction with drinking his wheat beer and continuing to eat grains all day, it may be like using—it may be like using a beautiful golden nail on some rotten wood. It’s just like, “Argh, it’s not enough.”
Evan Brand: Right. You got to go deeper. Even the diet— we've had celiac clients and patients that come to us where even the diet is not enough because it got infections that are tearing apart that gut lining, creating that leaky gut situation and they’re reacting to everything. So even the Paleo or a gluten-free diet may not be enough. And usually it's not. That’s why we do what we do.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Bingo. Love it, man. Hey, let’s chat again real soon. We got information coming up for our listeners. Have a great rest of the week, Evan.
Evan Brand: Take care. You guys, if you need to reach out, justinhealth.com evanbrand.com We are available.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And if you like the audio quality, guys, give us the thumbs up. We’re making some tweaks, we’re making some changes. Give us a share. Sharing is caring. We appreciate it. Leave a comment below. We wanna know what you think about. Give us feedback. You drive kinda what we want to talk about next and we’ll answer those questions to you, too.
Evan Brand: Yeah. Don't be a lurker. Give us some comments. Your comments are our oxygen.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. I don’t want you creeping in those YouTube post. We want you out there kinda getting some good info. We appreciate it.
Evan Brand: Alright. Take care.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Evan, take care, man. Bye.
References:
https://justinhealth.com/products/megasporbiotic/
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