Dr. Justin Marchegiani and Evan Brand get into an in-depth discussion about probiotics, on what they can do for you and where you can get them. Listen to this podcast to find out more about the benefits of good bacteria in your body and where you can source them out. Find out what the recommended ones are according to Dr. Justin.
Discover the different probiotic supplements, the different strains, and what foods contain probiotics in this interview. Learn more about how probiotics can influence inflammation by reducing it. So if you're having digestive symptoms, this podcast is for you to get more information on how you can naturally reduce digestive symptoms.
In this episode, topics include:
2:03 What are probiotics and what they do
7:17 Beneficial fermented foods
10:58 Probiotic supplements
17:50 Mood benefits amd effect of taking probiotics
30:03 Lab testing
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Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Evan, it’s Dr. J, man. What’d you have for brekky?
Evan Brand: What did I have? Oh, I cooked a bison burger.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Bison, nice.
Evan Brand: I–I ate probably about 8 ounces. I made–I took a pound of bison, cut it up into 4 sections so I had about 4–4-ounce patties and I ate two of them. I put some aminos on there with some different spices–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.
Evan Brand: And seasonings. It was great.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s awesome, man.
Evan Brand: And I did some organic blue corn chips.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So Jeopardy question of the day. How many grams of protein were in those 8 ounces of bison meat? What do you think?
Evan Brand: Mmm. That’s a good question. I’m gonna say about 30 grams.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I would guess a little more. Typically about 4 ounces would be about 25 to 30, so I would say probably closer to 50-ish.
Evan Brand: Well, that’s–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I could be wrong.
Evan Brand: That’s good.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I’ve done a couple of blog posts on that. So we’ll have to have that like our kinda trivia for the week if anyone can get it exactly right.
Evan Brand: What do they win?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Can’t use Google. They–they win a consult with you.
Evan Brand: They got the very big prize right there.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Pretty big prize, absolutely. So I had coffee with some butter and MCT which is great, kinda my staple in the morning. Before that, I actually had some bone broth. Well, I made a–my wife actually made a stew last night. She put like–I think it was a big pork shoulder with the bone in with some vegetables. We did some onions. We did some carrots. We did some celery and we did some broth with a little bit of apple cider vinegar to help kind of pull some of the minerals out of the bone. A little bit of sea salt and I just had maybe 4 or 5 ounces of meat and some vegetables and some broth that was great. And then my coffee, and then some of my adaptogens, it’s not the medicine. I’m rocking it, man. Just in between patients here, had 4 patients this morning, and then I got you here and then I got 7 more patients this afternoon or 8 more patients this afternoon.
Evan Brand: Good Lord. It’s a busy day but we’re rolling right along.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, absolutely. I mean, this is–this is fun for me. I know it’s fun for you, too.
Evan Brand: Oh, yeah. It’s a blast.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Cool. Well, today, we’re talking about probiotics a bit. I’m excited. What a great topic to talk about. Anything you wanna add off the bat?
Evan Brand: Well, so probiotics are a foundation for me in terms of helping people. It’s almost–it’s almost like nutritional insurance, like a good quality multinutrient or multimineral, multivitamin. I would almost consider a probiotic a multivitamin in a way to basically ward off all of these other issues that we have. There’s the link between the gut and the brain that we know about and I found some research that’s even talking about anxiety being helped by having a good amount of certain probiotics. So who knows what we don’t know about bacteria and what it can do for us in terms of our health?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. Well, let’s kinda dig in. So probiotics, what are they? Well, essentially they’re beneficial bacteria, right? You take the word pro, that’s beneficial or form, and then biotic means life. So it’s a life-affirming type of bacteria. It’s beneficial. We like that and probiotics have a lot of different benefits. They actually produce nutrients. They actually help stimulate the production of B12, buterate, and vitamin K2 which is super important. Alright, buterate is that same fat in butter. I love this little factoid that vegetarians and vegans don’t understand but with good beneficial bacteria they’re taking a lot of that plant matter they’re eating and they’re actually turning it into buterate, the same fat in butter. So it’s like, “Hey, you can ferment it and you can ruminate out the buterate in your gut or you can just actually eat the real thing.” Which I prefer to eat that smooth goodness, don’t you?
Evan Brand: Amen.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it. So we have vitamin K2, right? We have B vitamins. We have B12 production, not that it actually produces it but it helps absorb it because B12 is it’s bound to this protein in the stomach called intrinsic factor and then we reabsorb it at the end of our small intestine called the ileum. So it’s really important for B12 absorption. We get small chain fatty acids, right? This is like butter. Butter’s a small chain fatty acid. We get other healthy fatty acids. We get a lot of our immune cells modulated. IgA is one of these important immune cells that lines our gut. And then also beneficial bacteria eats poop and poops nutrients, where bad bacteria eats nutrients and poops poop. So it’s kinda like a tongue twister in your head, right? But if you think about it, good bacteria spits out nutrients. Bad bacteria steals your nutrients and eats–or steals your nutrients and spits out toxins. So we’d rather have the latter. We rather have the–the toxins going into good nutrients.
Evan Brand: Maybe shall we talk about what destroys good bacteria in the first place, how people get themselves in trouble with overgrowth and things like that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so we kinda just went over the benefits, right? Right, that’s important. Gut lining, nutrients, right? It’s gonna help with good gut motility, keeping the gut moving is important because if it’s not moving, we reabsorb toxins. This is called auto-intoxication. These are all important pieces. Now to your point, let’s talk about what actually hurts it. So some of the big things that’s gonna hurt it are gonna be antibiotics. It kinda makes sense, right? One is pro. One is anti. So antibiotics are a big one especially if you’re not following up with probiotics. You then create this rebound overgrowth of more bad bacteria or more fungus which can make that lower probiotic issue even worse. I would say overconsumption of sugar. I’d say having water that is unfiltered where there’s chlorine in it and such. Pesticides and/or GMO foods are gonna be bad because pesticides kill bacteria in general including good bacteria. I’d say gut infections are gonna weaken the–the gut tract. It’s gonna skew that bad bacteria to good bacteria ratio. And then it’s also gonna cause low enzyme and hydrochloric acid levels which if we can’t break down our food, it sits in our tummy and rots and putrefies and rancidifies and creates more stress. And then obviously, you know, grains and refined foods and you know, medications and such. All the chemicals in the medications and gluten and such. Do you wanna add anything?
Evan Brand: Yeah, I would even go a step further and say adrenal issues could be tied in because if you’re stuck in sympathetic, you’re in that fight or flight all the time and now you’re not actually producing enough HCL. To me, it seems like at the top of the food chain, if you’re stuck in that mode, you’re not gonna be able to have the same healthy digestion in the first place, that’s gonna be able to break down your food and everybody that has adrenal fatigue, a lot of the times, and I know you see this, too. Digestive issues come along with that because the body is trying to run from the tiger and is not actually absorbing and breaking down all the amino acids and assimilating it and things like that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. So those are some of the big things off that bat, filtered water, eat organic food, cut out the sugar, only use antibiotics with life-saving situations if you really need it; if not, use herbs. And then try to get fermented foods in your diet. I’d also say not getting enough fermented foods. So let’s–let’s run down some beneficial fermented foods.
Evan Brand: Kombucha is the–I–I mean, I love the Kombucha. It’s the easiest way for me because I don’t have to eat anything. I just get to drink it. So you and I talk about our love for GT Dave’s because of the low sugar content and I like raw cheese, too. I’m actually okay with dairy. I had some last night. We did a–a bison stew actually last night. We took some Pacific–they have a bison broth. So we use that–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: As a base and we did some stew and I just added a couple chunks of some raw cheese into the stew and it was all melty and gooey. Oh, it’s amazing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Are you sure you’re able to handle it?
Evan Brand: I think so.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Are you sure? Because I’m–I’m–
Evan Brand: We’ll see what happens.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Tempted to give you like 5 Paleo demerits right now but I’m holding back.
Evan Brand: I–I know what you’re–I know what you’re saying. Yeah, I mean, so I’ve cut it out for 6 weeks.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You added it back in and you did okay?
Evan Brand: Yeah, and I did okay.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay. Yeah, myself like I did–I had a patient get me like a big gallon of raw milk last year and I wasn’t sick the whole year. I was feeling great and then I had a couple glasses of that raw milk and then next day I was sick for 2 days.
Evan Brand: What happened?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Like, whoah. Just sore throat, like super runny nose. Just like it kinda hit me all of a sudden then it really came in and around, just I would say within 12 hours of that milk consumption. So I think for me, there’s some kinda compromising effect with even the raw dairy, even like the–the milk kinda thing. I do really good with butter though. I feel great with butter. I feel great with ghee. So it probably has to do more with that casein protein in the dairy that’s affecting it.
Evan Brand: Now some cheese does, I mean it–it just causes all sorts of symptoms with me. Sometimes I’m okay though. I don’t–I don’t do it too much. It’s more of a treat, but when I do, it’s–it’s great. Yeah, I like Kombucha, too. I like miso soup. I have some miso that I’ll make at home or sometimes I’ll do to like a–like a Japanese restaurant. They’ll have miso there. I know there’s a bunch of other fermented foods, too.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Got it, yeah, absolutely. So I would say Kombucha, GT Dave’s. I love the ginger kind. Again, be careful. There’s a lot of other Kombuchas out there. You might as well as be drinking soda, folks. I mean, yeah, you get some of the extra B vitamins and probiotics, but when you’re getting 20 or 30 grams of sugar per, you know, glass, that’s not too good. So after Kombucha, low sugar Kombucha. GT Dave’s my favorite. They should be a show sponsor, I think. We should reach out.
Evan Brand: That’s a good idea.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I know. Sauerkraut would be next. Love that. I like a–
Evan Brand: I used to eat tons of sauerkraut. I haven’t eaten much here recently.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Sauerkraut’s great. I–I like Bubbies. Bubbies rocks. Kimchi is good, too. That’s kinda like your spicy sauerkraut, right? It’s kinda like the–the Korean, kinda Asian cultured veggies with some spices on there. Next, I’d say coconut kefir is a really great one, especially if you can avoid the–the carrageenan and such, some of those binders. So coconut kefir rocks. Next I would say, natto which like a fermented soy. They’re natto, miso or tempeh can be great. Tastes absolutely awful. I would never take my advice and actually eat it. But there’s a lot of beneficial effects with enzymes and vitamin K2. People that are lacking in K2 can be a great source of it. After that, I would say yoghurt. So yoghurt, if you can tolerate. You may do better with a goat or even a coconut kinda based yoghurt to start. But if you can handle like a raw grass-fed cow one, that’s great. On top of that, I would say a–a beet kvass is phenomenal as well. Beet kvass rocks pretty good, could be a little tasty, too and it’s from beet. People don’t get too much beet so it’s a really good hypoallergenic source.
Evan Brand: Now, do you do probiotic supplements yourself? Do you take different capsules or spheres and things like that?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm. Yeah, I take a dif–a couple different kinds. I rotate through them. Again, it’s so hard to get the amount of probiotics you really need through food. You can but you know, it’s tough. I–I do sauerkraut. I do also fermented pickles are really great. I do Kombucha. Those are my big 3 and then I get some probiotics in just because some of the strains that I–I get in the probiotics I take, I don’t really get in some of the food per se. So yeah, definitely. I definitely some. I think we’ll go to that really soon. We’ll talk about some of the benefits and some different strains. Anything else you wanna add about that?
Evan Brand: Nah, I think that’s good coverage there.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, cool. So off the bat, there’s a couple big probiotic brands that are out there. VSL3 is that big patented one. You get a whole probiotic supplements in there. The bifido bactrim, bifidobacterium brevi and longum and infantis and lactobacillus aphido– acidophilus, lactobacillus plantarum, lactobacillus paracasei, bulgaris, streptococcus thermophiles, right? There are all these big, you know, Jeopardy-sounding words and that’s in like the biggest kind of–that’s like the medical-grade probiotic. That’s the–the VSL3. That’s a really big one for IBS or IBD, etc. We have a couple of versions in the clinic that we use our self. One I like is by a company called Klaire Labs. They have one called Ther-Biotic Complete that works great. We actually custom formulated one ourselves in the clinic called Probio Flora. If you go to our website–we’ll put it below. You could check our store. But that’s one that has about 6 or 7 of those top strains which are great. They’re packaged in a sphere that allows maximal potency and absorption. A lot of people are looking at the CFUs. That’s the colony forming units. You know, on the bottle, how many you have. The best companies will always write down the CFUs at expiration typically 2 years from the manufacture date. So if you see like 20 million or 30 million per capsule, the–the best companies will do it at expiration so it’s like typically 2 or 3 times that. If it’s 2 years from expiration, so that’s good. The bad companies will put what’s in there, when it’s manufactured, and then when you actually get it, it’s probably, you know, 50 to 70% reduced. So you gotta be mindful of that. You’re gonna get what you pay for when it comes to probiotics. So I like, if you’re gonna go to the medical route, the VSL3, it’s more of the medical sponsored one. Ther-Biotic Complete’s a great one. We have formulated Probio Flora, that’s a phenomenal one that–that we created. There’s also specific prebiotics and phages in there that are great at feeding bacteria and also knocking down–knocking down bad bacteria as well, because these phages are patented by Eli Lilly over a hundred years ago. They were kind of gonna be used before antibiotics were created and patented to knock down bacterial issues. And then antibiotics were created within 5 or 10 years after and that was synthetic so they could patent it, so you–you don’t patent–you can’t patent natural things so they went with the synthetic patent and that, you know, phage type of formula which just sat on the shelf and a couple of companies have taken it up and they’re adding it into their probiotics to act as a prebiotic–pre meaning it feeds good bacteria. It feeds it and it also knock–knocks down some of the bad ones. So that’s the Probio Flora that we have. The next I would add is one of my favorite that I typically combine is one called MegaSpore. That’s a pheno–a phenomenal product that actually uses specific bacillus-based strains. Bacillus coagulant strains that are very good. They tend to be anti-inflammatory and they tend to be helpful even with people that are really sensitive to probiotics. They tend to do very, very well. So we have like the bacillus subtilis, the bacillus licheniformis. We have the bacillus coagulants.
Evan Brand: Does that one have the rhamnosus–bacillus rhamnosus, RH?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think it actually has that one as well. It has a couple of different bacillus strains that are phenomenal that are anti-H. pylori. And one of the things that people forget about probiotics is they–they can really help influence inflammation, right? They can really reduce inflammation and if you’re having digestive symptoms, we typically talk about doing kind of the probiotics after the killing, kinda have as that receding, refeeding effect. But we can do it actually even during killing or before especially if it’s helping with the inflammation, it’s helping with the regularity, it’s helping with the digestive symptoms. It can be a great way to reduce a lot of these symptoms naturally without creating problems.
Evan Brand: Yeah, so the one that I was talking about the rhamnosus, the reason I mentioned that one–that was when I first started getting into like researching about probiotics and that was the one where they found that it–the lactobacillus rhamnosus showed “significantly fewer stress, anxiety, and depression-related behaviors”. This was in mice obviously, but a lot of these things do translate over to humans. So I’ve seen many probiotics that contain that rhamnosus, so you could say it’s an anti-anxiety–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh that’s–
Evan Brand: Effect, too.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s great, I love that. Yeah, I’m pretty sure the rhamnosus is in in the Probio Flora that we–we formulated here. I’ll pull that up in a second and I’ll see if that’s the case. Is there anything else that you wanted to add, Evan, to some of the probiotics that I listed? There’s a few more I’m gonna go after in a minute.
Evan Brand: I think that’s a pretty good cover. I mean, the truth is there’s so many out there and like you mentioned, if you’re just rotating through, that’s gonna be the best way to ensure that you’re covering your bases and you’re not just sticking to one brand. The interesting thing is that human–I think it’s called the Human Biome Project. It’s that guy out in Africa where he’s sampled the gut biomes of different people in Africa and the variety of species in their gut is incredibly massive compared to us, like United States people we have very low variety in the species of beneficial bacteria where Africans over there that are eating a more traditional diet, they have, I don’t know, 5 times, 10 times–it was a crazy number, amount more of good bacteria. So that’s just to say vary your diet, get exposed to dirt, go play outside. You’re gonna get probiotics that way. There’s some that live on your skin. It’s not just in the gut. They’re out there in the world. So–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Got it.
Evan Brand: Yes, clean your hands if you’re in a nasty place, but it’s fine to go and play in a lake and sw–you know, swim around and play in the dirt, too.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and you mentioned the rhamnosus was the anti-anxiety–
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: One, right?
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, we have that in the Probio Flora. It’s in the–it’s in the lactobacillus rhamnosus which is again–
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s another good one. And we see a lot of people when they go on these probiotics, they have significant mood benefits. Whether it’s anxiety, depression, or just even brain fog reduction and we really hypothesize it. That’s really due to the inflammation reduction. Remember inflammation in the gut, inflammation in the brain. So if we reduce inflammation in the gut, we’re automatically having a very positive effect on the brain.
Evan Brand: I think I’m gonna go take some probiotics after this podcast. I didn’t take mine today.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it. Love it. Next I would say here would be Prescript-Assist. That’s a good one, that’s a–much of–much of a soil-based one. Again–
Evan Brand: See I’ve heard–I’ve heard people having bad reactions to that. I don’t know. I don’t know if it was like a Herx reaction or what, but I remember hearing, I don’t know if it was a client of mine of somebody else’s. They said they started the soil-based stuff and they had like a flare-up. Do you know anything about that?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’ve seen it from time to time. People that have significant gut bacteria balance ratios that are like off like a lot of pathogenic bacteria, throwing good bacteria in the gut that’s really out of balance can create this type of die-off reaction because of the competitiveness of the good bacteria with the bad. And we see this type of histamine response or probiotic intolerance where they feel like crap. So when that happens, Prescript-Assist probably wouldn’t be the best. That’s got 29 different soil-based strains. I typically go more to the MegaSpore product because it’s just more anti-inflammatory and people that, especially have none–have like the extra lactate bacteria in there, the extra lactate, d-lactic in the there. The d-lactic is an organic acid made from the bad bacteria. We’ll see that on an organic acid test. We’ll go with more of the MegaSpore and sometimes even the Probio Flora because it will help. It’ll be more beneficial. But sometimes we can’t even do that. Sometimes we really have to work on killing before we go in and actually do some of the receding. So we have to do more on the weeding, right? Killing and then do some of the–the seeding or throwing down the seeds. And we throw down some of these probiotics. They’re not gonna last like forever. Some of these are just transient. They’re gonna go in for a couple of weeks, maybe a month and then pass through us. That’s why it’s good to always have them in our diet or rotate them through every quarter or so or get a new bottle here and there, and then also have some fermented foods in your diet because they’re not gonna be living there forever, but while they pass through they’re having some really great benefits along the way.
Evan Brand: Yeah and something that you said, without saying directly. There is an order of operations to this whole madness. There is a method to the madness. So if you hear this and like, “Oh man, I’m just gonna go buy everything on the shelf and just go for it,” maybe not, maybe you–may need to dig a little bit deeper first because I’ve–I’ve heard many a stories and I know you have, too, where people they hear something and then they go and go buy it and do it and then they’re like, “Huh, why is this not working? Why is this not giving the effect?” Well, there’s other stuff under the hood that could be happening first.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Big time. I hundred percent agree with that. So when we deal with people with gut issues, again making sure the big stressors for the gut are out, right? The sugar, the antibiotics, the pesticides, the chemicals, all that crap; the grains gone. That’s like number one. Number two, we’d wanna dig in a little bit deeper because if we’re just taking probiotics but you have an infection, that can definitely mess things up. That’s just like throwing down a whole bunch of seeds in your garden when there’s a whole of weeds there. So a lot of people are gonna benefit from doing some weeding first. Again, some will actually benefit by throwing some probiotics down. You’ll know because you’ll feel better with the probiotics. You’ll feel better. People that are more sensitive, the MegaSpore or the Probio Flora will be a better way to start. But from there, a good stool test will be required to see, is there a SIBO infection or overgrowth? Is there an H. pylori or parasitic infection. I just had a patient one hour ago, came back with H. pylori, Giardia, and Blastocystis hominis, right? Three major infections. We can’t out–we can’t out probiotic those infections. We have to go in there and wipe them out and then this person will benefit–benefit far more by adding in these awesome probiotics next.
Evan Brand: Yeah, a lady I think I was talking to you last week, she popped up with Cryptosporidium. She was having this once a month–it was once a week or once a month–I can’t remember what she’d said where–boom–diarrhea pops up and then it goes away. So that’s been happening for years and she never thought anything of it. It’s just like, “Oh, it’s normal.”
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It’s normal, right?
Evan Brand: That’s my weekly diarrhea cycle or what–whatever her time period was. I’m like, “That’s not normal at all.”
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I know. Yeah, what’s normal and what’s typical are two different things. And frankly people don’t know how good they can feel until you get them to that new level–
Evan Brand: Yes.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And they look back and they’re like, “Crap, how did I ever put up with that?” Like–
Evan Brand: I know.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You know, it’s just kinda like you don’t realize how dirty you were until you take that clean shower and you’re like, “Wow, like I feel really good right now.”
Evan Brand: Well, I think you get conditioned by the media, too, right? Because every commercial is about XYZ drug or bowel problems or depression, or whatever, so you think that you just have to tolerate it because everybody else has that. That’s like, “No. Just because it’s common doesn’t mean that’s normal.” And that you should just live with it, right? Just be a man. Just be tough. That’s why our client base is heavily slanted towards females because I think guys like us, we–I don’t, but maybe guys in general have a problem admitting like, “Okay, something’s messed up with my gut, I need to dig deeper and figure out what’s going on.”
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. I had someone I know come to me and they were just kinda complaining about something like they’re health issues and they were just saying, “Yeah, I’m just getting older and this is what you have to look forward to.” And I’m just like, “Hell, no.” I’m like, “You’re eating grains–grains. You’re so inflamed. Your blood sugar is in the pre-diabetic range. Your gut flora is all messed up. You take antibiotics all the time. You don’t have any beneficial flora in there. That is–that is not my destiny. That’s not my future. I am taking responsibility and accountability for my health. I’m investing in better foods, better supplements, sleep, et cetera.” And again, this person could have the same benefits, too. But they just don’t have that awareness and haven’t taken the time to educate themselves and also take the actions, right? You can educate yourself til the cows get home, but you actually have to put the right things in your body, do the right things with your body regarding rest and sleep to get the benefits.
Evan Brand: So here’s a question for you. You and I both will go out to certain restaurants–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: Now, obviously we try to go high quality as possible. Is this something that you personally just turn an–an eye to or you’re like, “I know this is a good quality steak, but there could still be some–some antibiotics in it maybe.” I mean, even the nicest steakhouse, they may not advertise antibiotic-free. Do you just take some extra HCl and turn an eye to it? Do you drink the–the water at the restaurant? Like, what do you do?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, good, better, and best. I just put out an article for Paleo Effects, it will be out this weekend on how to stay healthy during the holidays. And I think because the principles that were in that article ring through, but good, better, best, right?
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: If you follow Pareto’s principle, when you do the right stuff 80 to 90% of the time, I can get away with the suboptimal stuff. I can go to a steakhouse, get a really awesome, you know, dry age steak that maybe grain or corn-fed and get away it. Yeah, I’ll bring HCl and enzymes and no, I never drink the water because I can just get some Pellegrino or some Voss or in–in Austin, we do Topo Chico which is mineral water, and I can get really good clean water sources. I bring my extra enzymes, maybe I take some extra Vitamin C or N-acetylcysteine or charcoal or fiber to help bind up any toxins. So good, better, and best. If there was a grass-fed steak in the menu, would I have chosen it? Heck, yeah. If not, well, am I not gonna eat an awesome steak like at, you know, Forbes steakhouse up in California or at the–what’s the one I went to–it’ll come to me here in a bit. Nice little steakhouse in Austin, one of the only steaks that are dry age down in Austin and I–and I went and I had it just last week and it was great and I just did all the extra things I could do to–to mitigate the–the side effects.
Evan Brand: Yup, I–I figured you’d say that and I’ve tasted Austin tap water. It is not good. It tastes like grass. I mean, there’s so much–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow.
Evan Brand: It–it’s awful and I’m sure it’s fluoridated, too. Lowell tap water here is voted like one of the best tap waters ever but it’s still fluoridated so in a pinch, you just have to do your best. Now if I’d–had like a Berkey system and filtered out this tap water, I would probably not do spring water anymore. I would probably just do tap and take out the fluoride because it tastes so good here.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Yup, totally. I agree. So with steaks and stuff, I always do my best. I mean, I’m not willing to–to not have a steak,
Evan Brand: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But at home, in my house like I got grass-fed steaks. I got grass-fed rib eyes. I got Delmonicos. I just buy them in advance–
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And have them so then I’m good to go, so then I could have a good healthy steak at home but when I go out, I do my best. If there’s a grass-fed on the menu, I try to get it. And then you could even take some probiotics afterwards to mitigate any of the potential residual effects of any antibiotics being in there. But typically a good steakhouse though, they’re gonna have at least the hormone-free stuff kinda dialed in.
Evan Brand: Right. It’s just funny how we have to have this discussion where 60 years ago, it wouldn’t have existed because there were no corn-fed cows.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yeah. I mean, it just comes down to like–
Evan Brand: Everything is grass-fed.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Oh by the way, just to give a little props. Fleming’s was the steakhouse here in Austin.
Evan Brand: Oh, awesome.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: They’re a big chain but I like them. They have really, really awesome dry age steaks. I mean, there’s something about the dry age steaks that’s got a little bit of a flavor they have off it. Oh, my gosh. It’s amazing. I don’t do them too often because you know, because you know, you get all the extra grains and stuff in them but–or the potential residue but you know, when I go out, I really enjoy that. I bring the enzymes, the HCl, and all the stuff I mentioned and it can be a good way to mitigate the damage.
Evan Brand: That’s cool.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So kinda summarizing here, we talked about some of the big foods, right? Probiotics, sauerkraut, fermented pickles, beet kvass, maybe some–some yoghurt or cheese if you could handle it. We talked about our favorite probiotics, or my favorite at least, the VSL3 or a Ther-Biotic Complete. My patented or my–my blend of Probio Flora and then also MegaSpore and Prescript-Assist are really good one. There’s another one by Garden of Life called Ultra Defense. That’s a good one or Primal Defense I think. That’s a good one. My go-tos are the Probio Flora and the MegaSpore and sometimes the Ther-Biotic. Those are my–my big ones there. And then outside of that, if you’re having issues, you wanna dig deeper. Look at the gut infections. Look for H. pylori. Look for other parasitic imbalance or even SIBO that could be really skewing the beneficial bacteria ratio.
Evan Brand: That’s great. Yeah, and a lot of people think, “I’m in the United States, how am I gonna have a parasite?” It is far common. I mean, before you and I started talking every week, I didn’t think it was that common. But now that you and I both talk and test this stuff like, “Wow!” It is a lot more common than–than you would expect, parasites and different pathogens.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah and I–I’ve seen it, you know, statistically, the CDC says more than 60 to 70% of the people in this planet have parasites, and again, yeah, a lot of that is gonna be third world but you know, up to I’d say 50% of people in this country in the US probably have a parasitic infection. Now the question is, is their immune system strong enough to kinda keep it at bay and kinda isolate it and keep in the straitjacket, yeah. But once you start getting sick, once you start getting stressed, once the HCl and the enzymes get promised, then the adrenals get compromised, BAM! Now you’re gonna actually have to get that infection removed or eradicated typically before you really start to get better.
Evan Brand: And everyone loses HCl with age. I mean, you look at Dr. Wright’s book–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: What book?
Evan Brand: Why Stomach Acid Is Good For You, you see the chart of HCl production decreasing after about age 25, 30, and starts really dropping downhill so it’s no surprise that people have a mid-life crisis at the same time all of these other, you know, biochemical factors start going against you.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and then even CBS News here says the CDC says at least 15% of the United States population has a parasite. And I would–I would gander to say that that’s much higher because the typical labs that most doctors are using to diagnose parasitic infections are just terrible labs. They’re your hospital-based labs that’s a single sample. They’re not doing multi-vial. They’re not looking at PCR or polymerase chain reaction, looking at DNA. They’re really missing the boat on a lot of these stuff and we see lots of people that have come in with their conventional Quest or hospital stool testing with negative results and then we run some of our more specific lab testing and they come back positive.
Evan Brand: Yeah, that’s–that’s the most mind-blowing part about all this, it’s quality does matter in terms of–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Huge.
Evan Brand: Lab testing. It’s gotta be a functional medicine-based lab company. You don’t want it to be just your standard run-of-the-mill generic stuff. It doesn’t cut it. I can’t tell you how many times people–even with blood work. My doctor said all my blood work is perfect. Yeah, because they’re measuring the blood that doesn’t really change. That–some measurements on your blood are not gonna change even if you are sick. But as soon as you throw in even one biomarker, like vitamin D, then you realize you’re 50 points lower than you should be, you know. That’s when you get us the stuff that matters.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, not to mention the standard laboratory ranges are based on 95% of the population, right? Two standard deviations in any direction for all you stats nerds out there. So go to an airport, you tell me that 95% of the population is healthy. No way in heck, alright. No way in heck. We know that typically a more optimal range would be kinda like that middle 25% of healthy people and then you can go kinda to the slightly suboptimal to that middle 50% range and then go out from there in different derivations. But to say 95% of the people are healthy and derive that laboratory range off that? No way.
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So we gotta remember that. Lab tests can also be helpful if we’re using functional ranges, too.
Evan Brand: Yup, totally.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, anything else you wanna add to this stellar episode here, Evan?
Evan Brand: That’s it. This was fun. It was a good one.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So do you have in–in your store that’s probiotic-based that you wanna recommend to the listeners?
Evan Brand: Mmm. I don’t think so. I don’t think I have put that on there yet. I’m slowly building up that store as you know.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: So I don’t think right now I do. I will. I’m still coming up what my fancy probiotic name. I’m not sure what it is yet.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean, we all kinda create the probiotics that we think are gonna be the best and I do it one based on how I feel and then two, on how I can get my patients better because I need to have a clinic effect so I can really help my patients who are sicker really get to new level of health. So I like the Probio Flora. I like MegaSpore. Those are some great ones and if anyone wants to pick that up, justinhealth.com/shop is a good place. Outside of that, all the other feedbacks are gonna be helpful and just don’t forget one thing. This is so easy to forget but the hormones are a really important piece because a lot of people are super inflamed and we forget that our natural anti-inflammatory comes from the adrenals and if your adrenals are really shot, that hormonal system one is really in dire need of repair, it’s gonna be hard to regular inflammation and that’s gonna be an important because if you can’t regulate inflammation, your body is gonna be in a more catabolic state and it will just break down faster than it builds up which isn’t a good recipe.
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Anything else you wanna add, Evan?
Evan Brand: That’s it. Go leave a review for the show on iTunes if you haven’t already. It takes a couple of minutes but it’s huge for us to stay in the top of the charts. We are competing with Vegan podcast at the top of the charts and maybe they’re promoting organic produce which we do, so that’s fine. But this is the–this is the–the only way to make sense what we’re talking about here to get people better and to live at that top 1% of the population in terms of vitality. So review that show, help us be up in the top of the charts. We appreciate it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Great, just for everyone else, too. Evan and I are in the trenches seeing patients every week. So a lot of podcasts that are out there are really just theoretical stuff which is a great. A lot of that is still true, it doesn’t take away from it but we’re actually providing clinical, applicable information that’s right there from our working with patients every week. So just kinda remember that. Use it. Apply it yourself, because if you’re not applying it’s not really–it’s just, you know, for Jeopardy knowledge.
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And just kinda remember that and if you look and dig a little bit deeper with your health, reach to Evan, reach out to myself, if you’re kinda on the fence and again, continue sharing this info with people that could really benefit from it.
Evan Brand: Yeah, practice is more important than just theory and a lot of people are just theory. I think this, I think that, and they put it up and the world’s like, “I’m gonna try it.” But it’s never been proven with a client like we’re doing. So–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Evan Brand: Keep that in mind when you’re listening.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, knowledge is really only power if it’s applied.
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Cool. Awesome. Well, this may be the last podcast before Christmas and the holidays here but hopefully not, but if it is, Happy Holidays to everyone and Happy New Year, too!
Evan Brand: Absolutely, likewise, man.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Alright, Evan, have a good one.
Evan Brand: You, too. Bye.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Bye.