If you’ve exceeded the pleasure that you’re getting out of pizza, cake, wine and everything else, diets may not just be suitable, as they are temporary. In order to get that lasting change, you really need to engage in a lifestyle shift.
In today’s podcast, Dr. J. invites Thom King to share his experience and insights that led to his writing of the book “Guy Gone Keto”. Watch as they tackle about the effects of sugar to our body, safe and natural sweeteners, how meat have more nutrition than vegetables and all other good things. Sharing is caring!
In this episode, we cover:
00:41 The Springboard of Discipline: Engaging in a Lifestyle Shift
08:23 Healthy Sweeteners
10:56 Effects of Sugar Intake Frequency to Insulin or Blood Sugar
16:57 Allulose, Stevia and Monk Fruit
21:17 Sugar Alcohols
23:04 Benefits of Ketogenic Diet on Thyroid
48:15 Metformin
33:46 Importance of Journaling
Thom King: Dr. J., such pleasure being on here. Thank you for having me and uh– this is truly an honor.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well thank you so much. So, let's just dive in a little bit and just talk about your book. What inspired you to write this book, “Guy Gone Keto” and– and what are the top 2 or 3 things that you're hoping for the readers to– to pull out of it?
Thom King: Uhm– well the book was a– the book kind of draw organically so, I had, you know, I– I own a– a food manufacturing business and a– ingredients supply company. And we supply sweeteners to sports nutrition companies, I love those companies, uhm– actually supply and manufacture ketogenic-friendly foods. So, I was in Vegas for trade show and went out with uh– with a customer. And they bought dinner and I way overdid it as usual. Uhm– went back to my room with a– beautiful luxer, and– could not stand to look at myself in the mirror. I was 35 lbs. overweight, I– my blood pressure was like 190/99 and I– I felt like a tremendously huge fraud because I'm catering to the– to that particular industry and not following at all so, at that point, sort of the pai– the pain of my, I guess dishonesty, the pain of my, you know carrying extra weight and being sluggish, and not following any type of discipline, I've exceeded the pleasure that I was getting out eating the pizzas and the cake and the wine and everything else, so at that point, I'm like, “Look, I need to make a lifestyle change”, so I really started doing a lot of journaling. And I was doing data collection on my weight, my blood pressure, temperature, I mean, all of the data points that I could find. And– err– and also like, use it as a springboard for discipline, so after about a 6 to 8 months period, I basically had a book on my hand. So, I just took it to it to an editor and, we added a day and it's really– it's more about my journey–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –on making a lifestyle change than it is keto. And, so the take home, I would say for your listeners on this, uhm– the points that I wanted to– I– I guess bring up in the book are– it– you can't actually have a diet like, diets are really temporary–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –solutions.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: In order to get lasting change, you really need to engage in a– in a lifestyle shift.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Thom King: Uhm that's one thing, and then the second thing is, why does it take to– to make a lifestyle shift and what are those– what are the components of the discipline uhm, you know, that's required.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very good points. Yeah, I mean, when I work with patients personally, we're always talking about what's the template, right? The template kind of gives us the flex– flexibility with our macronutrients, uh– some people may not need a– a keto template. I think most, tend to go better with a– you know a lower carb kind of paleo template so to speak. And typically, when your carbs get low enough your start spitting ketone as an alternative fuel source. And then, there you go, you have the keto diet is kind of off of that so we can adjust macronutrients in– in a bunch of different ways. But I think the commonality that needs to be present in all diet or lifestyle shift is where you need high amount of nu– nutritional density. Lot of nutrients per bite, we need an anti-inflammatory diet, right? Not with the junky omega-6 uhm– fats and the trans fats, and a high sugar stuff, and then we also need low-toxicity organic, you know, low hormones, all those good things. Any thoughts in that?
Thom King: Yeah, a lot– a lot is the definitely coming up for me. Uhm– and so, when you know, when you're working with your patients, and– you know, you're [clears throat]– when you say dense micronutrients, I mean, are you referring to– like more– like I would say, uh– like carbohydrates or vegetables, leafy greens, preciferous vegetables, you know, that– you know that have like those micronutrients, and then also you know, the– the fiber. Is that the– is that what you're talking about in–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: –this nutrition?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, so, of course like, uhm– vegetables, bone broth, uh– organ meats are incredibly nutrient-dense. If we really look at a lot of the nutrient-density– you know scales that are– that are more out there today, they kind of favor a lot more of the vegetables. But when you're really lo– and– and they also hinder. They have a negative impact for salts and saturated fat which isn't really fair because that kind of negates the nutrients that are actually found in an animal products. But once you kind of control for the sodium and for the saturated fat, and you just look at the nutrient, you'd be surprised at how much nutrition’s in like, bacon, or high quality uhm– meat, especially organ meats. It's pretty insane. Uhm– if you look at the amount of– let's just say, uhm– nutrition that's in like, 8 ounces of grass fed meat, you'd had to have 15 cups of kale to equal it. So yeah. So–
Thom King: Wow.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –we're looking at the vegetables, we're looking at the high quality uh– meats, and even organ meats to a possible, 'cause those are super nutrient-dense.
Thom King: Right. And so, you also mentioned like, anti-inflammatory, like properties of particular food? And, so, I found in uh– you know, in– in a ketogenic lifestyle, particularly uhm– you know, with me, it's that I've been giving a lot of my– I guess fats– some of my fats, put a lot of my proteins from dairy. [Clears throat] you know, whey protein, KCN, and– and stuff like that. What– what are your thoughts on– on dairy and inflammation?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well I think, whey proteins are one of these proteins that tends to be– it's lowering KC in about 99% KC free and also 99% lactose-free. So most of the negative effects that you're gonna see in dairy are gonna be in KC and they're gonna be in lactose, right? You hear lactose intolerance, people can't break it down. They get bloaty or gassy.
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then KC tends to be the more inflammatory component. So, when you do whey protein, you don't like get that. Whey proteins are great– are great precursor to glutathione which is just like awesome master antioxidant because the amino acids are so– uhm sulfur-rich. And uhm– you know, I think there's a lot of like, what's tonight price talked about, you know, activator X, which is just Vitamin-K2, it's commonly found in ghee or grass fed butter. So, I think if you're doing like, those good he– healthy, higher quality dairy thing is better. I think some people tolerate, you know, the milk and the cheese, better is well, especially if it's raw, unpasteurized, those kind of things. I don't even do well with that, I get bloaty and gassy. So, I think it's really individual but if you're gonna do the dairy, it– you know, you wanna make sure it's raw, unpasteurized. But I think the– the butter and the ghee tend to be awesome, really good.
Thom King: Interesting. And do you find– do you find that fermented dairy is easier to tolerate?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well I think fermented dairy is gonna be better. But just because you want, you're gonna have more B-Vitamins and– and more vitamin-K2 and such. I– it just tends to be have more enzymes. Those enzymes are gonna help with the processing of lactose, processing of the KCN. So just kinda like, predigest it a lot for you. So, they– and that's kind of a benefit, but when I'm dealing with patients like, I'm cutting dairy out initially, but then that's one of the first things we'll have back in are gonna be like ghee and then butter. And ghee is just like a more clarified, filtered-out butter. It's just les K– less KCN, less lactose.
Thom King: Interesting. And then so, don't you need– you need Vitamin-K2 in order to– to be able to absorb Vitamin– uh– Vitamin-D3, right? Is that right?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah but, connect the D3 and then A and then– uhm– Vitamin-K2 is really important. It kind of help escort the calcium into the bone. So, we wanna have healthy, strong bones as well. And then on that note I wanted to highlight uhm– 'cause you're in– in the– in the sweetener industry, and I know that, you're kind of like, you're looking at things like stevia–
Thom King: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And you– yeah monk fruit which are really interesting, and I've seen a lot of uhm– different videos where people are testing their blood sugar and I've seen it not actually go up, I've seen it actually drop a bit. What's been your experience with kind of a healthier sweeteners that are out there?
Thom King: Well, so, I'm like huge on that a collection. And so, part of that data collection is I pull blood continually so–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: I'm trying to see where my blood sugar levels are, I'm trying to see where my ketone levels are. So, and– and plus, since I provide ingredients, you know, to food manufacturers, I always make sure that I'm testing you know some of our sweetening systems and even the compounds we carry on myself. So, like I feel confident when I go in the lab but, you know, that what I'm– what's going out to the consumer is, you know, is– uh– you know, is healthy or at least they've he– healthier options. So–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Thom King: –I've– what I've done is I've– I've pull blood sugar, you know, after consuming Aspartame and–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –I've pull blood sugar after consuming uh– Sucralose. Uhm– I blood– pull blood sugar levels with stevia and monk fruit. And I've found that stevia and monk fruit don't affect my blood sugar levels whatsoever–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: However, like Aspartame and Sucralose does. And I'm not sure if it's because of the uh– like dextrose or maltodextrin that they use to, you know–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Thom King: –to– you know to– to cut it. Or uhm– another theory that I had and I think that this might not be too far off is that, your body– you know, your body recognizes things that are– exist in nature. And you have the ability to metabolize those particular things are recognizes it. And I think when you put something that's been chemically manufactured like sucralose which is a– chlorinated sugar molecule, uhm– you know, or– or Aspartame which is a modified phenylalanine. You know–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Thom King: –your body doesn't recognize those. You know, it's like, “Hey, this is super sweet, why do I do with this? I don't know what it is”. So, you do get the– you do get the benefit of calorie abatement. Uhm– but the downside is that your body doesn't really recognize it and you– it– what's it say– uh– insulin response. Uh– what the– what are your thoughts on that?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, I think I've seen some of the same date. I've known some of the functional medicine docs that have done like, you know, they– on their YouTube page. They said, “Hey, you know, let's– everyone, let's a study and let's test your blood sugar, you know, fasting 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours. Let's compare regular meal then let's add a little bit of stevia to your coffee or to whatever that drink is, mo– and then monk fruit”. And I've seen, you know, it's not a scientific study, but you know, these studies cost millions of dollar to do–
Thom King: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –in a formal setting, so I think this is– this is even better because it is instantaneous.
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And I've seen people test their blood sugar and then they post their data really showing it didn't go up, if not, dropped.
Thom King: Hmm…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And my– my big concern is I think it's– I think it's a viable alternative, and it's something that I use sparingly.
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: The question is, is there like a dose-dependency where you frequently added so much, or maybe there starts to becoming a problem because you are telling your brain sweet. Now in punctuated periods, you know, 20% of the time, 10% of the time, it's probably okay– do you find if it's– if it's frequent all the time that you're starting to increase insulin or your blood sugar may go up over a longer period of time?
Thom King: Uhm I have not found that to be the case with myself. So–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay.
Thom King: I actually use bo– uh– we have a proprietary sweetener called KetoseSweet– uh KetoseSweet+. And it's actually a blend of allulose, uhm– stevia and monk fruit.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Allulose is that new sugar alcohol I'm seeing? Couple places do. I wanna hear on that later on. I'll– I'll plant the seed now, we'll– we'll come back to that. That's great.
Thom King: Perfect. That's– that's ___[12:00] sweeteners, so, you know, and I– wha– I'd noticed this over the past few years, you know when I really, you know, became a– committed to leading a ketogenic lifestyle, that my– uhm– my desire for sweets actually went down quite a bit, and foods that I would normally have eaten before, uh– you know, before I– I started keto, uhm– just don't– they taste way too sweet to me. Like some of the bars that I used to eat, super sweet. So, I think that your palette shifts uhm– you know when you engage a– uh– a keto diet and you don't–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –have the desire to– to have the– you know–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –have stevia or monk fruit. As far as like dosage levels go, uhm– I mean, we've got scientific papers that we use in conjunction with you know, with a formulation, and we– err– generally suggest that people stay under 5 to 10 grams of– of stevia or monk fruit, uhm on a daily basis. Uhm– and that is a lot– that's a lot of stevia and a lot of monk fruit. But–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.
Thom King: But– you know, at that point 'cause I've dosed myself to that level and I've dosed myself to a hundred grams of erythritol, I've dosed myself to a hundred grams of uh– uh– allulose and so, I mean, I've tested blood sugar levels and– you know, also, you know jotted down notes on– uh– you know, like GI effect, because if you have too many like alcohol sugars, it can definitely cause bloating cramping, diarrhea, uhm– which you know, nobody wants.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: No, that totally make sense. And I'm just curious, so, I like to also see– I've seen that as wll with the blood sugars not going up. I really like to see what fasting insulin's doing. Is insulin for– potentially compensating at any level at all? Is insulin rising even though blood sugar's dropping? Maybe insulin's rising to compensate for that? I just precarious, you have any data on that?
Thom King: I don't have any data on that. I mean, I would certainly collect data on that. Is there– is there a way to test for– for T4 and T3 uhm– like a home kit or something like that without having to go in and pull blood?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: With T4 and T3, yeah there's a couple of lab CRT and already in Valley lab's definitely have them. And insulin I think you— I think you probably just have to just get like a– a ___[14:21] to have that done.
Thom King: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Go everything in there with– I be curious, but I– I do know that those are gonna be things that typically don't increase the blood sugar as much. Now one thing I– I do notice though is that some people that may have a negative experience, and I'm seeing just a lot of maltodextrin and corn sugar–
Thom King: Hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And some of these sweeteners. What's the deal with that?
Thom King: Uhm it's cheap. [Laughs] So, any time you–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Does that defeat the purpose though? I mean, people are– are consuming these products to avoid sugar and then you have sugar in it. Which is like, “What?”.
Thom King: Well, I mean, it– it's that– I think that that's typical and, you know, in food manufacturing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: That– you know, [clears throat] there's– it– it's tough 'cause it's the– you know, people are trying to keep an eye on their cost of good sold, right? They're trying keep high margins and– and the food that they're selling. And– and maltodextrin and dextrose are so cheap that it's easy, you know, it's easy to use that as a– as a uh– as a filler or a bulking agent. So, uhm– you know, when you– when you look at typically like a high-grade sucralose, it's gonna be 700 times sweeter than sugar. So you can't really put something 700 times sweeter than sugar into little pocket, uhm– because– it there be a minute such a small amount you wouldn't be able to actually detect it. So, you do have to use in those particular situations bulking agents. And so for larger, you know– uh manufacturers that don't have, you know a contingency of consumers, uhm– you know that lean into natural uhm– they're not even gonna question, you know, maltodextrin. But–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Thom King: ___[16:02] getting to your– to the point of– yeah, it's completely counter– counter productive and counterintuitive to add back sugar into something [laughs] you're trying to cut the sugar out. Well, so, yeah, it's ab– absolutely 100%.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It seems like on a liquid, you're probably have more ability to– to manipulate that because it's a liquid, right? You can use a glycerin or some kind of liquid carrier that– you know, you don't need a certain– a– a bulking if you're using liquid drops. So, I'm just curious, uhm– what's the alternative if you are trying to– to get it in a powder. Which are company using what have they found to be better.
Thom King: Uhm– we use lots of different, you know, uh– uh different sweeteners and different sweetening systems depending on what uh– you know, depending on the– the functionality in the outcome that the customers looking for like–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Can't we rate down the ingredients in your keto-sweet product?
Thom King: Sure. So, uh– we have a product called a KetoSweet+ and it is– it's allulose, stevia and monk fruit. And we have it both in a powder form, and we have it also in a liquid.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Is there a bulking agent with though with that at all?
Thom King: That's the allulose. So, we usually–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh.
Thom King: The allulose is the bulking agent 'cause allulose is only about 70% of sweetened sugar. So–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I see.
Thom King: — in order to get to parity with sugar, we add stevia and then we add monk fruit as well. And so what we found is that, the combination of stevia and monk fruit actually mask each other's off notes. Uhm– which is–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Aaahh.
Thom King: –super interesting. And then, you know, adding those two high intensity sweeteners to allulose which is 70% is sweetened sugar brings it to parity. So, our liquid– our liquid– KetoSweet+, I'd say you can compare it to like DE-42 high fructose corn syrup, or like–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: –any of like kerol or syrup that you would like, you know at the store. Uhm– and then, the– the powders just– very-very similar to sugar. Uhm– it's not a sugar alcohol, it's actually considered– still considered a saccharide, uhm–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay.
Thom King: So, think fermentation. So basically–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Thom King: Uh– allulose exist in nature in small amounts.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Thom King: It's been considered a rare sugar.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: And so, basically, take a– uh– fructose molecule and you treat it with an enzyme. So think fermentation.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Thom King: And then, metabolite after that is a rare sugar called allulose. So– in allulose, your– you know, your– your body recognize it, recognizes it because it exist in nature. But your– because it's been– you know, because it's been enzymatically treated, your body is unable to metabolize it. So, it just basically goes through urine and feces and doesn't affect blood sugar levels or uh– ketones. And what I have found is it actually drops your blood sugar levels slightly. Uhm– and I think it's because of the enzymes that are used to– to manufacture that. Uhm– the beauty of the allulose, is its functionality. So, it participates in mallard which is the interaction of proteins and sugar that causes uhm– or creates a ___[19:13]–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: So you're using it in the baking process when you are making cookies or a cake, you're not gonna get something that's like brick, you are actually gonna get something–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Thom King: –that's you know, crispy on the outside, fluffy and moist, you know, in the middle. So, it has that functionality and, I mean, to me, this is gonna be most definitely a– a game changer.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, this– this allulose– and I have a couple of dark chocolates too that I– I do consume that are very low sugar that have allulose as this kind of sugar substitute. So I am seeing that catch on. And allulose is not in the same family, it's like a paleo like– like xylitol or erythritol–
Thom King: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –this is a– a polysaccharide you're saying?
Thom King: It is. So, it's actually a– [crosstalk]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah?
Thom King: It– well, it's actually a monosaccharide.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Monosaccharide is in the sugar?
Thom King: Yeah, but it's not– but it– yeah, it's definitely not at all like– like an alcohol sugar like xylitol, or maltitol or any of those–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And you don't get any bloating if you consume too much?
Thom King: Uhm– I've dosed myself to a hundred grams, which is like err– like, 4 times which you, you know, you should be taking in, probably even more than that. And what I noticed is that, I had– it created some gas but it didn't create like cramping or laxation. Uhm, I think that whether was happening is a level of fermentation. So, there's probably some, you know, some bacteria in my gut that's metabolizing it and–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: –off-gassing, but it wasn't anything serious. And a hundred grams of that is a lot, like you have to force yourself to get it at your body.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, that's like 3 and a half ounces, that's– that's a decent depth for sure.
Thom King: It is. And so, at that point, I would say don't exceed that. I would say if you're going to use allulose or something like that, uhm– you know, not to exceed maybe 15 or 20 grams.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay. Let– it makes a lot of sense. Uhm– anything else you wanted to highlight regarding other sweeteners? Is this the only major sweetener you have, or do you have any others like, what's your opinion on like the birch bark xylitol? Any other opinions on the sugar alcohols, anything else you carry similar to that?
Thom King: Yeah, we carry all of the sugar alcohols, we carry xylitol, we carry–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –uh erythritol, and I mean, right now, erythritol is probably our biggest seller like we have an erythritol stevia blend, and we are able to process it in a natural powder so it dissolves into solution better, uhm– you know, companies that manufacture bars that are sort of extruded process, are able to use that sweetener, you know, 'cause it– it does dissolve uh– easier, so, in my opinion, like– so I have worked quite a bit with paleo's, uhm– paleo’s have a tendency to increase water activity in the lower intestine.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: Uhm– which is– which can lead to bloating, cramping, diarrhea, uhm– xylitol I find, I mean, when you start talking about the m– maltitols of the world.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Thom King: Maltitols of the world, the laxation effect that those had is pretty extreme.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Thom King: And I would say away from those unless you have really doped up the tolerance to sugar alcohols. Uhm– xylitol is a little less, but still pretty intense. If you over consume xylitol, you'll definitely get a laxation effect. And I would say that the least, the– the sugar alcohol that has the least amount of– of uhm– of GI impact is gonna be erythritol.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay.
Thom King: And I think I would still recommend that people stay under 15 grams of erythritol per day.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think the big issue with a lot of these a m– m– mo– most are gonna come from uh– GMO corn. So, you could potentially get that round up– or that– that– that glyphosate pesticide uhm– potential trace in there as well which is common with a lot of the corn processing.
Thom King: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Like the birch park, tends to be a little bit more of uhm– let's just say the unadulterated form.
Thom King: Right, yeah. And we– you know, we– we have very– every one of our raw ingredients that comes in, uh– third party tested. So, and I mean, if you guys are– like any of your audience are gonna do business with, you know, with a ingredient company, you should actually 100% demand third party testing and see evidence of a thrid party testing. And part of our third-party testing is to test for like a GMO protein indicator. So, we're always looking at, you know, we don't anything in-house that's GMO at all.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Interesting. I'm just curious, what are you finding in the– I mean, I'm not saying you guys did this but what have you found in the past when you started testing these things, did you find any of the round-up residue, did you find any lead or metals or mycotoxins that kinda– can you give us some of the bad stuff you found, in the past?
Thom King: [Laughs] Those are awesome questions. Uhm– and that is why we started doing third party testing. So, uhm– you know, I would say 10 years ago, when we just started getting into third party testing, we would find crazy, like shovel handle, uh– glove, like all sorts of adulteration in the products that we are getting.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hold on, I wanna make sure I heard that. So, like, meaning like, particulate of a shovel handle? Particulate?
Thom King: No, I mean a shovel handle.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Like an actual piece of it in there?
Thom King: Yeah. And–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, okay– I think the whole handle, you mean?
Thom King: No, probably 68 inches of the shovel handle.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, my gosh! How does that happen? Like it's crazy.
Thom King: I have no idea, or in the glove, like we found the glove, and–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, got it.
Thom King: –so, I mean, a lot of these things– you– I mean– we– we do visual testing, so every– you know, all the raw– and this is back in the day. And we– we you know, we would– obviously not use those particular ___[24:51] after that, but anything that we bring in now goes into QC's cluster. And we– you know, and we send it out for third party testing which test for heavy metals. Uh– test for Coliform, you know, various like yeast–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, bacteria.
Thom King: Or– uh– pe– uh– petrochemicals, uh– GMO protein indicators. So– we– we tested all that way, and I would say that our current blenders that we have in place, we don't generally run into issues with them, uhm– I like to also add that everything that comes in and goes out of here runs through a metal detector. Uhm– you know, so, we– you know, we're able to– to pull anything out that maybe the smallest piece of uh– of metal that, you know, got into it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: But, uhm– when we– so when we start vetting new ingredient suppliers, I mean it's a pretty– it's a pretty rigorous uh– uh– task for them, you know, they have to give us all of their documents, their organic search, we send it off for third party testing, uhm– we will bring in, you know we could just bring a load from them, and then all of that gets tested. So, uhm– I wish more companies did that, because we've had products coming through our warehouse once we send 'em to third party, boom, they're out of our warehouse and it's like, no, this isn't what we ordered. So, everything has to fall within a spec. And I would– it was really highly encourage, your– your listeners, to– I mean, and I know that they're probably are getting a lot of their supplements through you and you've already vetted those companies, well I would say, oh, my God, like, I would say that, we're just sweeteners. So, this is like, not a big deal but when you start looking at companies that are selling supplements and they've got a lot of compounds going in there, it– absolutely everything should be third party tested because I know in the supplement industry, 75% of the supplements out there don't even contain any active compounds.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I agree. And this is a problem and that we test all of our– raw ingredients independently and I found increases in lead and some of these–
Thom King: Oh yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –raw material back, and that can happen, of course, you know, you just over time find out who the best ones are–
Thom King: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –where the qualities at. And then so you are also testing for like, round-up and or GMO type of contamination as well?
Thom King: Yeah, and I mean, in petrochemicals and heavy metals. So we test–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh.
Thom King: –for cadmium and lead, and, I mean, we've had products come in specifically from China which is kind of interesting, uhm– you know, that are showing up super high in cadmium and lead.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: So, we do– I do a ton of formulation for companies. So companies will send us their product then in order for us to push it through our queue– our-our RND, uhm– we've gotta have ___[27:35] and then we also get that third party tested. And I found that, there's a lot of P-Protein, uhm that is out of China that is super high in lead. And–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh.
Thom King: –I think it's just because of the amount of the petrochemicals that get better in the air and then settle out into the soils. So, uhm–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Thom King: Yeah, so we test– we test for– yeah, we test for all of those things–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally
Thom King: Uhm– you know, and– occasionally we find something but– at the more rigorous our– our testing has become, the more we are able to weed up the suppliers that are unscrupulous.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, very good. Now we talked a little bit earlier about in some of the benefits of being ketogenic earlier on the thyroid. I wanna just kinda peg you back to that because you are asking me some questions in the pre-interview like, you know, who's gonna benefit from the ketogenic diet on– on the thyroid side? And this is a question I get a lot because you have some data– uhm, people saying, “Well, I– my thyroid gets worse or weaker on a ketogenic template and some gets better”, and I think a lot of it has to do with how insulin-resistant, how numb someone's cells are to insulin. So the more numb you are to insulin, your body has to compensate by making more insulin to overcome that numbness. And I think that's the big issue and kind of the physiological imbalance that's driving a lot of issues with people's heath and thyroid, and finding healthier sweeteners like you mentioned, getting the carbs down can really dese– uh– really increase the sensitivity, meaning it lowers the insulin–
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –and that allows thyroid conversion to happen better because insulin's a big blocker of thyroid conversion if it's too– too high. Just answer that question.
Thom King: Right, yeah. And I mean, I found that with my– with myself. So, I was carrying about 35 lbs of extra– uh– of extra weight. And I mean I was definitely insulin– uh– resistant. And so, I did show a depleted T4, uhm– you know, when I started, and then that T4 leveled out. Uhm– but I'm not sure like on a– real long-term basis, uhm– how the thyroid will be affected, I mean, I test– like I do a batch test and–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: –and like I do full blood panel batch test and then I also uhm– do stool sample once a month–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Thom King: –to track my microbiome.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay.
Thom King: So, yeah, I'm like, really– so I've really found some interesting stuff in this data collection that I've– have done. But I found that the ketogenic diet really did help my insulin resistance so I became more– more sensitive but you know, another– I– I would have like a question I guess, have– have you do you have any experience with uh– berberine with your patients?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean, I use berberine a couple different ways. Uhm– with some patients it's typically used in my SIBO-clearing programs where we'll try to knock down SIBO or bacterial overgrowth.
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And this– a bunch of different berberines, Goldenseal, ___[30:29], Barberry, you know, those kind of things. Obviously, yeah, berberine HCL. Uhm– but berberine's also a really good insulin-sensitizing compound. It can really help lower your blood sugar, and– and lower your insulin levels. So there's some really good benefits there as well.
Thom King: Right, 'cause I added that as a supplement and I almost wonder if that was, you know, if that really helped me become more uh– you know, more sensili– sensitive to uh– to insulin. And another thing too, is I'd like to hear your thoughts on– on Metformin.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I think uhm– berberine kind of works similar, in a similar way it helps us uh– on the insulin sensitizing side. Metformin ‘s gonna work more by decreasing like the glucose absorption in the gut, and then it also kind of shuts down gluconeogenesis in the liver. Uhm– part of that decrease in the glucose absorption though, it can also decrease the absorption of B-12. So, if you're on Metformin or Glucophage, you really wanna be on some supplemental B-12 on top of it. Uhm– and then, you know Metaformin's relatively natural like the extract from Metaformin comes from the French Lilac flower, so it's–
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –it's kind of on the natural side, uhm– but I tend to like be more impartial for like the Berberines and the other more nutrient-based insulin-sensitizing compounds. But if people are on it, you know, you just gotta make sure the B-12's dialed in there too.
Thom King: Interesting. And do you feel like getting a B– uh– B-12 supplement with it or just increasing the amount of like– of– of uh– like organ meat would– would suffice?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I would just be a– I just make sure you're on at least a good Malt tea with some extra B-12 on top of a really good diet.
Thom King: Interesting.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A– a– and again you can monitor that with you functional medicine doc like, you know, I like methylmalonic acids are really good tests to look at to assess your B-12 levels. Whien methylmalonic acid goes high, that actually means lower B-12, right? Methylmalonic acid gets metabolized to succinic acid. And so you need B-12 to make this conversion happen. So if there's not enough B-12, methylmalonic go– acid goes up, if you don't have that B-12 that convert it. So, let's ___[32:31] if people are gonna be on it, you wanna be careful because, you know, lo– low B-12 can cause, you know, alzheimer's dementia-like symptoms.
Thom King: Interesting. And then so, do you find like with your patients, that– that taking– taking these vitamins and supplements orally and/or do you feel like there's greater efficacy in IV's?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well the– I mean, I think IV's are good, the problem is they're impractical for people to do daily, that's the only issue.
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Just because uhm– you know, people got a work, they don't have, you know, 30 or 40 minutes to get drip in there, and that can be more expensive but–
Thom King: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –uh– Iv's here, they I think can be really good but, ideally you want good food and supplements are those easier take–
Thom King: Defenitely.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And that's the big benefit. If I see patients that do a lot of gut issues then we will go on the– s– the sublingual B-12 side, and that can really help too because it can kind of get more of the absorption via the oral mucosal kind of buccal tissue versus the gut, and that can help too.
Thom King: Wow, awesome. [Laughs]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then I'm just curious–
Thom King: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: What other– like what other key things, you know, you wrote the book, Gu– uh– uh– “Guy Gone Keto”, and you also–
Thom King: Great.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –come up some of these great sweeteners. What other cool tools are out there that you found kinda as– in your transition to a healthier diet, and making a lot of these health thing you think really impacted you?
Thom King: I would have to save the th– the thing or modality that had the greatest impact or what I found was the– the– the– lent itself to the success that I had was probably journaling. So, you know, that is– w– you know– and being mindful. So, when– when I get up in the morning, one of the first things I do, grab a cup of coffee, sit down and I start to journal, and you know, I journal with real intentions of things I wanna manifest. Uhm– you know, I do some data collection like my weight and blood pressure. Uhm– so, I think journaling was really-really-really huge. And really taking time to do that first thing in the morning sets the– sets the stage for your day. And then within that, I incorporated what I called “My Arrow of Power”.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Thom King: Uhm– journaling, run, cycling, you know, I do try, and then you know, every other day, I do yoga and then I finish out my workout with a meditation. Uhm– and I think that those real things can actually helped me the most.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That's really good to hear, that's excellent. That sounds like something like a little Tony Robins kind of morning progress. That's what it sound like.
Thom King: [Laughs] I'm totally influenced by Tony Robins.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That's cool. And then I'm just curious too, just kind of piggyback on a couple things, where do you guys source your Allitol from the mean like– not like what company but like, wh– what's the raw ingredient it comes from?
Thom King: You mean the allulose?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I'm sorry, Allulose. I said Allitol– Allulose. Great.
Thom King: I don't know but that's a weird interesting compound. That's not like the– the mix of– [laughs] of– erythritol and allulose.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly, exactly, totally.
Thom King: Uhm– so, we– so I've been working woth allulose for the past five years and part of it was so new, uhm that the supply chain really wasn't there.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: And we weren't really able to verify stuff, so we won't add– we won't add something as an ingredient unless we're– unless we're 100% confident that the supply chain is solid, and also reliable like everything is– that arrives is within spec. So, the– the allulose, you know, we've got 3 different suppliers, and all three of those suppliers uhm– are using non-GMO uhm– corn fructose uh– substrate to– to enzymatically create the allulose.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Got it. So it's corn fructose but it's GMO-free and– and ___[36:11].
Thom King: Great.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Are they able to separate the– the sugar from the protein component pretty well?
Thom King: I think so, I mean– 'cause when we third party test, we're not showing any proteins. Uhm–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh good.
Thom King: So, I mean I– I– I don't have any reason to believe that there's any problems with the– the– with them separating it. I know that they use like what's called resin– resin column uh- filtration. So it pulls out like any of the pure– the– the impurities of– so– yeah, I mean we've been working with it for a while, and we third party test it and we haven't found any– you know, any proteins in it to indicate that there's, the– you know, the genetically modified uh– corn was used in that process.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So someone was gluten-sensitive and one of the ___[36:55] out, you'd feel like it would be filtered enough, it wouldn't be a problem for them?
Thom King: Uhm- well, we're also uh– allergen free– uh– facility, so we always test for– we test for gu– uh– you know, gluten? Uhm– and absolutely the allulose is gluten-free.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Good. And if they were sensitive to corn, like the corn protein like the zein protein, you feel like it'd be– it'd be filtered enough for there wouldn't be an allerenic reaction to it?
Thom King: Yeah, I do, well, 'cause we test for proteins and there's no proteins– there's no proteins left in there, so I would– I would feel confident thst, uhm– yeah, that, that people, they are sensitive to that but not, you know, be affected by it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very cool. Well, we're gonna have to put some links down below where people can find the KetoSweet+ formula–
Thom King: Oh.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Anything else Thom you wanted to highlight for the listeners here?
Thom King: Uhm– no, not really. You– we were the– the questions you asked worked totally through, and I appreciate that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I appreciate you comin's on. Anything else you wanna leave to listeners with for just– how– how they can find more about you and more about your products too?
Thom King: Uhm– well if you want to get a copy of the book, and we also have uh– we released a line of ketogenic uh– condiments like ketchup, barbecue, sauce–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, cool.
Thom King: And– teriyaki sauce. And so, if you just go to guygoneketo, you can find all of that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Thom King: Uhm– you can reach me through that too. Uhmm– all of the social medias under this Thom King, T-H-O-M, K-I-N-G. Uhm– reach out to me if you ever got– if you ever have questions. If they want to buy the KetoSweet+, I think kwe– the KetosSweet+ is available on the guygoneketo site. It's also available on steviva.com, that's S-T-E-V-I-A “dot com” that's we have all of our compounds on there available for retail. And if they wanna see what kind of madness we're up to in the– in our lab, they can go to iconfoods.com and follow us on linkedIn and you can see some of the craziness that goes on in our lab, things we're inventing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very cool. And is it possible the coke with the KetosSweet+?
Thom King: Oh, absolutely, yeah. So, it does– it does actually participate in maillard at lower temperature, meaning that uhm– like with sucrose or table sugar, you– you’d probably about a hundred and forty-five–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –to a hundred and fifty-five as when it starts to caramelized, and you're gonna noticed that you're gonna get that a little sooner with the uh–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –with allulose, probably in the 130 to 135 range.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Thom King: So, probably wanna bake it and cook at little lower temperature for a little– e– extended period of time.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: But then, you know, other than that, yeah, you can– cook and bake just like you would for a sugar.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Awesome Thom, well, thanks for all the great information here today, appreciate it. And you have a phenomenal day.
Thom King: Thanks, you too Dr. J., thanks for having me on.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Thank you. Bye now.
Thom King: You're welcome.
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