This Popular Fat Loss Shortcut Destroys Your Youth : 1437

Summary

---

The Human Upgrade: Biohacking for Longevity & Performance

Episode 1437: This Popular Fat Loss Shortcut Destroys Your Youth

Aired: March 24, 2026

Host: Dave Asprey
Guest: Hannah, Omnibiotic Expert

---

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the critical connection between gut health, metabolism, and modern trends in fat-loss pharmacology—especially the effects of GLP-1 drugs (e.g., Ozempic, Wegovy) on the microbiome. Dave Asprey and probiotic expert Hannah, representing the European market leader Omnibiotic, break down the complex science of the gut, probiotics’ true function, gut-brain interactions, the impact of new weight loss drugs, and practical approaches for children and adults to support and repair microbiome health.

---

Key Topics and Insights

1. GLP-1 Drugs and Gut Health

[00:00, 16:57]

• Mechanism & Risks: Hannah explains that GLP-1 agonists, prescribed for metabolic health and weight loss, slow gut transit time. As a result, waste lingers, ferments, and contributes to inflammation, leaky gut, accumulation of toxins, and ultimately “secondary dysbiosis” (overgrowth of undesirable bacteria).
  • Quote: “One of the concerns, especially as people are weaning off these GLP1s, are is their gut actually left in a worse position or are they really shooting themselves for their long term digestive and metabolic health?” – Hannah [00:51]
• Mitigation with Probiotics: Lowering GLP-1 dose and supplementing with specifically formulated probiotics (e.g., Omnibiotic Hetox) reduced side effects and maintained weight loss as effectively as higher doses alone.
  • Quote: “People with that lower dose of the GLP1 plus omnibiotic ketox had fewer side effects during treatment… and actually had very similar weight loss compared to the data they had on the higher dose of GLP1s.” – Hannah [18:57]

---

2. Why Gut Health Matters for Everyone

[04:08, 06:09]

• Dave shares his personal journey battling chronic antibiotic use in childhood, experimenting with odd therapies, and his quest to understand the microbiome. He frames probiotics as bioactive mini-factories—strain-specific, not general-purpose.
• The duo debunks the myth that all probiotics work the same, and note most people (and many products) don’t know which combination is actually effective for specific goals.

---

3. Children, Gas, and Microbiome Imbalance

[06:09, 09:59]

• Case Study: What to do if your preteen has excessive gas (“farting death”)? Probable causes: dysbiosis, recent antibiotics, diet, stress, or hormones.
  • Quote: “If your preteen is just farting death… at the very least, I would look at the gut and really see what can you optimize there.” – Hannah [06:16]
• Actionable Tips:
  • Start with a stool test if feasible.
  • Address with targeted children’s probiotics (Omnibiotic AB10 Kids or Stress Release Kids).
  • “Short term taking some activated charcoal can absorb that stuff.” – Dave [07:25]
  • Powdered probiotics are favored over pills for kids (and adults) for improved delivery and compliance.

---

4. Probiotic Delivery and Efficacy

[09:59, 11:35]

• Formulation Innovation: The problem with most pill probiotics is they rehydrate in the acidic stomach, harming viability. Omnibiotic’s powder is dissolved in water, rehydrating + feeding bacteria before ingestion to boost survival.
  • Quote: “If you’re taking a capsule with freeze dried probiotics… your probiotic bacteria will likely absorb that stomach acid, which either kills them or weakens them...” – Hannah [10:33]
  • Quote: “You mix it in with water… the bacteria has a fighting chance because it’s already up and going.” – Dave [11:15]

---

5. Clinical Outcomes & Practical Protocols

[12:36, 14:08; 28:26, 29:27]

• Omnibiotic AB10 is used in European hospitals alongside antibiotics to prevent C diff and diarrhea.
• Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and Stress: A study found Omnibiotic Stress Release increased morning vagal tone, improved sleep, and reduced need for sleep aids in people with depression within 4 weeks.
  • Quote: “Within four weeks… there was a significant improvement in morning vagal tone measured by heart rate variability and improvements in sleep quality.” – Hannah [13:30]
• Protocols:
  • Take probiotics during and after antimicrobials/antibiotics—don’t wait to “restore” after your gut is wrecked. Even dead bacteria confer some benefit.
    • Quote: “You get better results, taken them together.” – Dave [29:27]
  • Continue probiotics for at least as long as your antibiotic/antimicrobial course lasted.

---

6. Sleep, ADHD, Libido, and Beyond—The Gut Brain Body Axis

[19:56, 46:46]

• Sleep: Multiple studies (including a large COVID-era one) support that improving microbiome diversity with stress-targeted probiotics can significantly improve sleep and stress resilience, likely via vagus nerve signaling.
• ADHD and Neuroinflammation: Dysbiosis raises inflammation, can drive ADHD symptoms, and individuals with ADHD have distinct microbiomes.
• Libido and Fertility: Balanced gut flora support estrogen metabolism, ovulation, sperm/egg quality, nitric oxide (for blood flow), and ultimately libido and performance in men and women.
  • Quote: “If there's no blood flow in women, you get no lubrication, and in men you get no erection. So it's more intimately tied than you might think.” – Dave [37:16]
• Skin Health: The skin reflects the gut’s state; probiotics (and sometimes topical administration) can help resolve issues like eczema and acne.

---

7. FAQ Lightning Round

• SIBO and Probiotics [21:41, 24:02]:
  • It's nuanced: Probiotics when SIBO is active may worsen symptoms, so start with antimicrobial protocols, then repair with probiotics.
  • Some practitioners have even tried rectal or nasal probiotic delivery, but oral + topical are the traditional recommendations.
• Histamine & Probiotics [49:22]:
  • Some probiotics generate histamine, worsening symptoms for sensitive people. All Omnibiotic strains are non-histamine-producing.
  • Quote: “All the probiotic strains in omnibiotic do not produce histamine.” – Hannah [49:42]
• Microbiome and Childhood [57:21]:
  • The first three years of life are formative—diverse, supportive microbiomes from birth shape lifelong health, stress resilience, and immunity.
  • Vaginal delivery imparts healthy microbiota, but C-section babies (and all newborns) can benefit from targeted probiotics e.g., Omnibiotic Panda applied via the nipple during breastfeeding.

---

8. Expert Tips & Memorable Moments

• Using Prebiotics with Probiotics: Prebiotics help not just the delivered strains, but also feed the body’s existing healthy flora. Dave reports quadrupling his own diversity by focusing on prebiotic intake.
• Oral Microbiome’s Role: Swishing or gargling live probiotic powder before swallowing can help the oral and potentially ear/nasal health.
• Microbiome Diversity:
  • Fun fact: Humans are genetically more bacteria than human DNA.
    • Quote: “We're actually more bacteria than we are human DNA.” – Hannah [42:00]
  • “We're pretty much walking bags of yogurt when you think about it.” – Dave [42:27]
• Cultural Humor:
  • Dave jokes about “snorting” probiotics and the dangers of creative delivery.
  • If your kid is “farting death,” getting a dog is a practical solution… for blame allocation only! [07:16]

---

Segment Timestamps

• GLP-1 & Microbiome: [00:00–01:03], [16:57–19:31]
• Dave’s Gut Health Journey: [04:08–06:09]
• Kids, Gas, & Probiotics: [06:09–09:59]
• Probiotic Science & Delivery: [10:02–11:35]
• HRV, Vagus Nerve, Mood: [13:30–15:31]
• Sleep & the Microbiome: [19:56–21:41]
• SIBO & Probiotic Usage: [21:52–24:02], [28:21–29:27]
• ADHD, Brain, and Gut: [32:58–34:57]
• Libido & Microbiome: [35:01–37:16]
• Oral/Nasal Microbiome: [38:42–40:28]
• Children & Immune Foundations: [57:21–61:05]

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• “If you have dysbiosis in the gut, it leads to inflammation in the body, eventually also leading to inflammation in the brain.” – Hannah [33:14]
• “Our gut microbiome can influence sleep quality… within four to eight weeks, you saw significant and substantial improvements in sleep.” – Hannah [20:11]
• “You actually share more than you think in terms of your microbiome.” – Hannah [37:16]
• “It just won't work, no matter how much a PhD exercise physiologist yells at you about it and says, you're eating too much, dude. That's not the case.” – Dave [47:38]
• “Moms have a hard enough time when health is good. So wow, what a great product. I did not know about that one.” – Dave [61:06]

---

Summary Takeaways

• GLP-1 drugs can harm your youth by degrading gut health, even as they promote rapid fat loss. Without gut support, rebound and long-term metabolic issues may arise.
• High-quality, targeted, and correctly delivered probiotics are more effective than generic blends. Delivery matters: hydrated, powdered, multi-strain formulations are superior.
• Gut health affects stress, HRV, sleep, ADHD, skin, libido, and immune resilience.
• Proactive gut support in children (especially after antibiotics, C-sections, or with colic/allergies) lays the foundation for lifelong wellness.
• Your gut actively interacts with all systems in your body—and can be both your greatest ally or your biggest obstacle in health optimization.

---

For those seeking practical protocols, product info, and references, Hannah and Dave recommend visiting omnibioticlife.com (use code DAVE20 for 20% off), and consulting functional medicine practitioners for individualized advice.

---

Transcript

[Dave Asprey]

I want to know specifically about GLP1 drugs. What are they actually doing to it

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

slows the transit time in the gut, which basically means the waste and all the things that are supposed to be moving through our gut and out is sitting there longer and it starts fermenting, increases inflammation in the gut, can increase leaky gut, can therefore increase toxins that are moving through your system. And that in itself can actually inhibit metabolic processes including blood sugar regulation, fat metabolism and your mitochondrial health. We can create what's called secondary dysbiosis. So it's essentially an imbalance in the gut, an overgrowth of unhealthy, unwanted, potentially pathogenic bacteria. Your gut barrier is really what controls what is being let into your bloodstream and what is being excreted. And if your gut barrier is compromised because you have inflammation in your gut, you don't have the good bacteria that are supporting your gut barrier. That just throws that whole ecosystem off balance. One of the concerns, especially as people are weaning off these GLP1s, are is their gut actually left in a worse position or are they really kind of shooting themselves for their long term digestive and metabolic health?

[Dave Asprey (Sponsor Read)]

You're listening to the human upgrade with Dave Asprey.

[Sponsor Voice]

You can be health conscious, doing everything right and still feel like garbage. And the reason is almost always the same. Mineral deficiency. And not because you're not trying. Because modern soil is depleted. Crops today have up to 40% fewer minerals than they did 50 years ago. Your food isn't what it used to be. But here's the part nobody talks about. Nutrients don't work in isolation. Minerals and fat soluble vitamins D, A, K and E work together in your body. Vitamin D helps your body absorb calcium. K2 makes sure calcium goes into your bones, not your arteries. You need magnesium to activate vitamin D so your body can use it. Without these nutrients present together, you. Your system doesn't run efficiently. You might as well flush money down the toilet. That's exactly why I created DAKE and minerals 101D3A K2E and a full mineral stack designed to work together, because that's the only way any of it actually works. Cold plunges, red light, sauna, you can do it all. But none of it matters if your foundation is broken. Fix the foundation. Grab your Dake and Minerals 101 [e-mail]

[Dave Asprey]

and

[Sponsor Voice]

use code DAVEPOD for 15% off today.

[Dave Asprey]

You can have friends, a job, a

[Sponsor Voice]

phone full of apps and still feel alone if that hits a nerve. Keep listening anxiety and loneliness continue to climb, and research shows a deeper driver than money or politics. Many people no longer know the meaning of their lives, and many have stopped looking for it. Technology fills your attention every minute and crowds out reflection, love, beauty and transcendence. When life feels meaningless, happiness drops. Scientific data backs that up. Dr. Arthur Brooks, the number one New York Times bestselling author of From Strength to Strength, explores this problem clearly in his new book, the Meaning of youf Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness. It's coming out on March 31st. Arthur draws on neuroscience, psychology, history and philosophy to explain why the modern world makes meaning so hard to find. And then he gives you a plan to discover your life's deepest purpose. Pre order now at themeingofyourlife.com to receive a gift bundle and VIP access to his virtual launch event with Rainn Wilson, Chip Conley, Hoda Kotb, Chris Williamson, Dan Buettner, and many more. You can also see Arthur speak live at my 2026 Beyond Biohacking Conference. Secure your tick now at BeyondConference.com and don't forget to go to Themeaning of your life.com to pre order Dr. Brooks's new book today.

[Dave Asprey]

If you've listened to the Human Upgrade for more than five minutes, you've probably heard me talk about the gut. And there's a good reason for that because, well, we know that dysbiosis or gut inflammation is affects almost everyone, at least at some point in their life. In my case, it's kind of personal. I was on antibiotics at least once a month for 15 years, starting somewhere around age 7 for just chronic strep and sinus infections and things like that. So let's just say that I've had a microbiome challenge and I've invested in microbiome testing companies and I've kind of gone to the ends of the earth to understand what's going on in my gut, including one time even swallowing an electrical stimulator as a little pill that I ordered from Russia that would like, stimulate my gut. Don't do that. It got stuck somewhere and I just kept kicking my leg every 10 seconds. It was a whole other story. So I've just plumbed the ends of the earth from both ends to figure out what the heck is going on in there. And what it comes down to is there's a lot of probiotics on the market and we all know that a lot of them don't work, but we don't know why. And then how the heck would you Know which one to take or which ones to take. And I've come to look at probiotics as kind of like little manufacturing things. And so if you want this, you get this one. You want this, you get this one. And it's also an art as well as a science because you want to be able to say, well, if I have too much of this, I need to balance it with that. But then this one changes, that one changes. So it can be complex. And we're going to dispel some of those myths here with a top expert in probiotics. And when I say a top expert, this is one of the largest brands of probiotics out there, and it's called omnibiotic, and very, very big in Europe, used even in the medical system. And it's a very different type of probiotic than you've seen before. So, Hannah, welcome back.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Thank you so much for having me, Dave. It's always such a pleasure to be here.

[Dave Asprey]

This is a question that I think every parents want to know the answer to. So if your preteen is just farting

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

death, why, that's a great question. I would say, of course, you know, you have to think about the gut microbiome. It could be driven by many things. It could just be as simple as diet. Maybe they're intolerant to something like dairy or lactose, and that's causing that issue. But it could also point to a different imbalance in the gut dysbiosis. Maybe they took antibiotics and you didn't restore the gut properly after. Maybe they're going through a really stressful phase. Of course, if it's preteen, there's also hormone changes and just kind of the developing body. But, you know, at the very least, I would look at the gut and really see what can you optimize there to support their digestive health.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay, so let's say that this 10 or 12 year old is just clearing the room on a regular basis. Where do you start?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Ideally with a stool test to figure out what's going on. I mean, it could be a pathogen, it could be something they ingested and then try to address whatever you're seeing on the stool test.

[Dave Asprey]

My recommendation in that situation is get a dog, so that way your kid can blame the dog and it just makes the family so much more peaceful.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

That's a plan, too.

[Dave Asprey]

I'm a fan of short term taking some activated charcoal.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yes.

[Dave Asprey]

Which can just absorb that stuff. Because I can promise you, if your kid's fighting death, they're probably misbehaving because the level of gut toxins circulating in their body that go directly to the brain, called lps, they're actually much higher. And by the way, if you're the parent farting death, blaming your kids, you have the same problem going on. But kids are good for that, too, if you don't have a dog. So there's that. So. And then once that happens, okay, I dealt with the immediate thing. Maybe look at your last meal and Taco Bell. Sorry, it was probably you. And then you might want to look at restoring gut bacteria. I like the idea of knowing what's going on in there, but without a stool test, which a lot of parents aren't gonna do, you know, okay, you can do a probiotic, but the heck would you know which one to take?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah, well, so, you know, if something like this is going on with your child, the odds that something is imbalanced in the gut is pretty high, especially if this is not something that's happening once after a meal. Right. But it's kind of ongoing. And, yeah, a high quality probiotic can certainly help in those situations. I'm a big believer as this omnibiotic in targeted formulations, so that you're not taking a bunch of kind of randomly combined strains, hoping for specific outcomes. Instead, each formulation has specific health goals that it's addressing. And actually, we recently launched two of the products designated to children for omnibiotic. One is omnibiotic AB10 kids, and one is omnibiotic stress release kits. Both are modeled on the original adult formulations, just in a smaller dose. And the stress release kits comes in a really tasty peach flavor that you don't have to dissolve in water. But in this case, especially if it seems like something is off with the gut microbiome, I would start with the A B10 kids and give that to them and maybe give it a few weeks and see if that can move the needle.

[Dave Asprey]

And sometimes it can move the needle a lot more quickly than a few weeks.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Absolutely. Especially if people, whether it's children or adults, if you're having, you know, antibiotic side effects or just, you know, diarrhea from something you ate, it can move the needle within a few days.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay, that's really cool. So one of the problems with a lot of kids is they don't want to take pills. And I would say if your kids are doing that, just show them you're taking a pill. Buy a tiny little pill and say you're going to take it. If you can swallow water, take it, and they'll take it and then they'll just get over their fear. And my kids have been swallowing tiny little vitamin D versions since they were two years old. Just a tiny little round gel cap and they can learn and then they just lose fear. It's all about fear.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah. Or you get a probiotic that's a powder and you just dissolve it in water.

[Dave Asprey]

Oh, wait, might that work even better? And here's the thing about probiotics and pills. I'm not saying that they don't work. Some of them clearly do in clinical trials and all that. But there's a weakness that I did not know about until you taught me about it. So what's the problem with a pill form of probiotic versus a powder form?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah, so many probiotics, when you put them in a pill, they are essentially the water, they're freeze dried. So that means you're removing all the moisture from them.

[Dave Asprey]

And.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

And that also means the first liquid that they get in contact with they will absorb like a sponge. So if you're taking a capsule with freeze dried probiotics and that capsule opens in the stomach where it's very acidic, your probiotic bacteria will likely absorb that stomach acid, which essentially either kills them or weakens them to the point where they're not as effective in your intestines.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay. So that's why they don't work, because they're rehydrating with stomach acid, which seems kind of dumb. It's like you run a marathon. I'm so thirsty, let me drink stomach acid. Let's not do that. So the omnibiotic innovation is you have a small amount of prebiotics and your probiotics in a little packet and you just put it in water for like 30 seconds.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

A minute?

[Dave Asprey]

A minute. You mix it in with water, then the water soaks in, then that restores the bacteria. And then when you drink the water, even if there's stomach acid, the bacteria has a fighting chance because it's already up and going.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

And you've given it its favorite nutrients, which it starts to metabolize as it's rehydrating, which basically makes it even stronger through the journey in the gut.

[Dave Asprey]

And you have huge numbers of customers over the years. Do you even know a customer count? Like hundreds of thousands, I'm guessing.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

And worldwide for sure? Yes. Actually, omnibiotic, if you look at IQVIA data, it's number one in Europe and number three worldwide.

[Dave Asprey]

Wow. So this is large scale probiotics and a lot of Americans have never heard of omnibiotic. I certainly hadn't when we first met a few years ago. And I became really convinced by the research and just the mechanism of action. And I've, I would say, conservatively spent a quarter million dollars on probiotics over my life, just trying to fix my gut and all that. And that sounds like a lot, guys. That's over 25 years still. It's still a lot of money, but, you know, $10,000 a year is different than $10,000 a month, so. And I'm not sure that most of them did anything, to be perfectly honest. Some might have, some might not have. But I do notice a difference, very specifically with omnibiotic. I went on antibiotics last year after a surgery, and I'm like, I don't really want to, but I did because, you know, whatever not to.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

You have to sometimes.

[Dave Asprey]

Yeah. And the difference in taking your formula that's designed for post antibiotic use, which is.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

That's the omnibotic a B10. Yeah.

[Dave Asprey]

So omnibiotic a B10, like within a day or two, like, oh, things are completely normal. It was pretty astounding.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah. It's a very powerful product. And as I mentioned to you earlier, in Europe, many hospitals at this point use it alongside surgeries and patients who are taking antibiotics because they have seen in multiple clinical studies how effective if it is at reducing antibiotic associated diarrhea and other GI side effects from antibiotic, as well as having the potential to keep some of those unwanted bad pathogens out, like C. Diff, for example.

[Dave Asprey]

Wow. Okay, so there's that. I just think there's a lot of evidence for this. I'm wondering, though, a lot of biohackers are into heart rate variability. Do probiotics affect heart rate variability?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah, actually, we had a really interesting study a couple of weeks ago that came out where one of the researchers on omnibiotics, she was looking at, can we take omnibiotic stress release in patients with major depressive disorders? Because we know that in major depression, people have compromised heart rate variability and compromised vagal tone. And they found that within four weeks of these patients taking omnibiotic stress release, there was a significant improvement in morning vagal tone measured by heart rate variability and improvements in sleep quality. It took them less time to fall asleep and they needed to take fewer sleep aids to stay asleep.

[Dave Asprey]

Hannah, that answer was too good. I actually did know about that study. We did not set this up at all.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

No, I was excited. I was hoping we would talk about

[Dave Asprey]

this, but that's just.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

But, you know, I Have to say, let's. I was excited to share the study, but let's back up for a minute because I think really understanding the power that our gut microbiome has on vagus nerve and heart rate variability, it's really quite simple. When we're chronically stressed, that reshapes our gut microbiome. It increases inflammation, it reduces bacterial diversity, it can increase dysbiosis, and that runs directly through the vagus nerve. Our vagus nerve is that communication highway between our gut and the brain. About 80% of the vagus nerve fibers actually run from the gut to the brain. And so when that ecosystem in the gut is out of balance, it's essentially consistently sending threat signals through the vagus nerve straight to the brain. And what does that do? It suppresses hrv. It reduces parasympathetic activity, and it increases HPA activation. So, you know, there's a huge connection between the gut and the brain. And honestly, I think if you look at it from a biohacking perspective, if you're looking to optimize hrv, you know, trying to get your nervous system rebalanced, if that dial isn't moving with the practices you're doing, you really should be looking at your gut to see if there's anything you can address so that the dial can move with your other practices.

[Dave Asprey]

That study, which is clearly in people with depression, it took two months. You said four weeks. Four weeks. Okay, so a month. So you could try whatever formula is most appealing. Probably the stress formula.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

That's the stress release formula. Yeah.

[Dave Asprey]

And the omnibiotic stress release is something that I use, and it's designed to help you modulate stress. You've got bacteria that eat cortisol and things like that. So you take it and maybe your heart rate variability goes up over the month and maybe it doesn't, but it probably will. At least it's better than doing nothing, especially if you've tried all the things like room darkness and cold and breathwork and if it's just stuck low. I get that question a lot from people. And this is one of the areas to explore and use code [e-mail] there. I sound so commercial.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah, but you don't have.

[Dave Asprey]

I feel like I just. I'm saying that because I like. I know that people listen to the show. If I recommend something, they know that it means something and that I don't just do it all willy nilly. I love that word. It sounds like it's from the 1920s. Anyway, I do it Just because I think it's worth your time and attention. But I also make sure that you save some money on it. So if you were going to try some omnibiotic anyway, there, now you save some money. And if you weren't, dude, that's okay. Just keep learning. It's all good. So if that's one way to raise HRV and you guys know all the other stuff in my work for that, if you don't listen to the show, buy a book, whatever. I want to know specifically about GLP1 drugs and the microbiome. What are they actually doing to it?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah. So, I mean, I think we can all see the power of GLP1s for metabolic health and for people who really need them as a tool for weight loss. So, you know, we're really now in my response, I'm going to really focus on what they do to our gut. And you know, the mechanism, the underlying mechanism of GLP1s is that it slows the transit time in the gut, which basically means the waste and all the things that are supposed to be moving through our gut and out is sitting there longer and it starts fermenting. And with that we can create what's called secondary dysbiosis. So it's essentially an imbalance in the gut, an overgrowth of unwanted, potentially pathogenic bacteria as a result of taking the GLP1 a lot of people aren't really looking at that yet. And what does that mean? We know that dysbiosis increases inflammation in the gut, can increase, leaky gut, can therefore increase. So endotoxins that are moving through your system and that in itself can actually inhibit metabolic processes including blood sugar regulation, fat metabolism and your mitochondrial health. So one of the concerns is especially as people are weaning off these GLP1s, are is their gut actually left in a worse position? And therefore are they really kind of shooting themselves in the foot for their long term digestive and metabolic health? And we had researchers in Europe look at GLP1 dosing and how they can support the gut and especially tried to reduce that secondary dysbiosis and GI side effects with amybiotic Heatox. And what they found is that they essentially looked at what happens when you give a lower dose of a GLP one combined with omnibiotic he talks versus just a higher dose in data that they had. And what they found is people with that lower dose of the GLP1 plus omnibiotic ketox had fewer side effects during treatment, had less or had fewer incidences of that secondary dysbiosis and actually had very similar weight loss compared to the data they had on the higher dose of GLP1s.

[Dave Asprey]

So getting the right gut bacteria might affect how the GLP1 works.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah. Or at the very least, supporting your gut microbiome throughout treatment sets you up both for better treatment adherence, fewer side effects, and also have your gut in a more supportive state as you're weaning off of these drugs.

[Dave Asprey]

A lot of people don't know that the majority of pharmaceutical drugs that you take orally work because of what they do to your gut microbiome. So they're metabolized by the bacteria in your gut, and then they make an active compound. So if you have no bacteria or a really strong imbalance, drugs just may not work, right?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah. Or if you just have so much inflammation in the gut, you know, that's another problem. The inflammation. And then also your gut barrier is really what controls what is being let into your bloodstream and what is being excreted. And if your gut barrier is compromised because you have inflammation in your gut, you don't have the good bacteria that are supporting your gut barrier. That just throws that whole ecosystem off balance and can influence those downstream effects.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay. Is the microbiome the reason that some people just can't get a good night's sleep?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Oh, my gosh. You teed me up again for sharing some really interesting research.

[Dave Asprey]

This is so not planned.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

No, but I will say there has increasingly been research showing that our gut microbiome also can influence sleep quality. So there's two separate studies done with omnibiotic stress release. One they actually did during COVID a couple of years ago in Europe with about 10,000 participants. And it was a survey study where they looked at taking omnibiotic stress release again for four to eight weeks and the impact on stress, mental clarity, and sleep quality. And across the board, they found some really significant improvements in sleep quality in the participants. And then there was a smaller study that's actually about to be published. I'll share it with you when it is, that was also looking at the impact of omnibiotic stress release on sleep and similar results that, you know, even within a shorter duration of taking omnibiotic for four to eight weeks, you saw significant and substantial improvements in sleep.

[Dave Asprey]

Are they getting more REM or more deep sleep?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

I think this was just looking at the overall quality and how rested they were feeling in the morning. I'd have to look back at the specifics of what they were measuring, but, I mean, it makes sense. Right. Because again, kind of going back to vagus nerve and our brain chemistry and heart rate variability, when there's inflammation in your gut and your body is consistently detecting these threat signals that are being sent through the vagus nerve, and we're consistently stuck in this, like, slightly elevated fight or flight or sympathetic activation, that means you're not getting enough, you know, deep. You're not getting as much deep sleep, REM sleep. You're just. Your overall quality of sleep is going to be compromised.

[Dave Asprey]

Gut inflammation would do that just because of the vagal nerve. It makes so much sense. Okay. I've heard some people say that you shouldn't take probiotics because it'll give you sibo. Is that true?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Interesting question. So depends on what practitioner or what expert you talk to. But sibo, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, essentially means you have bacteria overgrowing in your small intestine. Oftentimes those are bacteria from the large intestine that kind of traveled into your small intestine because that flap between the small and large intestine isn't working properly. So because of that, it can happen that if you're then taking certain probiotics and they essentially just keep also flourishing in your small intestine, you might be making sibo worse. That's why at least the practitioners I've spoken to and who work with omnibiotic and with us, they often recommend first using some sort of like antimicrobial anti sibo protocol to kind of get that SIBO down. But then of course, also making sure that you support your large intestine and the gut microbiome in your large intestines to make sure that we're not pushing more bacteria into the small intestine. So probiotics can be an incredible kind of restore and repair approach with sibo. But you do have to be a little bit careful of taking probiotics if you have intense sibo.

[Dave Asprey]

Do people ever just take probiotics in the back door to avoid the small intestine?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

That's interesting. Actually, we've heard of some practitioners doing that. It can work. But the problem with that is your large intestine is so long and it's so looped and woven. I once heard a statistic that said your large intestine has the surface of a tennis court, which is wild if you think about that. So, yes, you could take it rectally, but it wouldn't have the same kind of traveling through the whole system impact most likely.

[Dave Asprey]

Got it. So you definitely wouldn't put a pill there. So you would use a liquid form like yours if you did that. But I know that's not your recommended way of using it and I've heard a few people say it really made a difference. But like I said, you're going to get a little bit of the large intestine, not all of it. So the idea would be to take it orally and then not worry about it going through the small intestine because the healthy small intestine isn't going to start growing anything. But yeah, if you know you have Sibo, any probiotic might not work until you address the sibo.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Exactly.

[Dave Asprey]

And then the antimicrobial natural ways you can do that. Oregano oil and grapefruit seed extract are really powerful for that. Any other natural remedies you like?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

No, those are good ones. I think there's also some kind of like on the market, combined ones that combine like walnuts. Walnut something. Walnut extract. Yeah, black walnut. Exactly. And oregano. But yeah.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay, got it. There's probably some Sibo Force Max 2000. Man, try that one. It's probably good. Probably I just made that up. But I've seen like some SIBO specific products that. It's mostly those ingredients though. And I'm just going to give a shout out to grapefruit seed extract. It's a bitter tasting kind of liquid that you can get. And it really helped me in my 20s and early 30s because it works on Candida and it works on Sibo and I definitely had both. And I just took it every day and just things got better and better. And when I traveled through Southeast Asia for three months, I took it every time I drank water because I was paranoid about parasites and I never got any GI problems the entire time. And everyone else, you know, these various guest houses was, we'll just say, really enjoying the Tibetan style toilets. In case you're wondering, guys in Tibet, they can't dig holes through the rock, so they build a building, like a one story building and poke a hole in the roof and then you go into the room.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

It's just interesting.

[Dave Asprey]

Yeah, let's not do that.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

A once in a lifetime experience.

[Dave Asprey]

Yeah, yeah. Unless you have sibo.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah.

[Dave Asprey]

So you want to heal that. Grapefruit seed extract, oregano, oil. But should people take antimicrobials at the same time? They take probiotics.

[Dave Asprey (Sponsor Read)]

One of the things that makes me really happy is when supplements kick pharmaceuticals ass. And I've got something for you. It's called C15 from a company called Fatty 15. And it's more effective than metformin or rapamycin. In fact, scientists are calling this newly discovered essential fat the longevity nutrient because it's the first essential fat to be discovered in the last 90 years. C15 is unlike anything else out there because it's a true geroprotector, meaning it actually slows biological aging in studies. How does that work? By strengthening your cell membranes by 80%, activating AMPK and MTOR, which you've read about in my books. That means less inflammation and a reduction of oxidative stress by 45%. Scientists have found over 36 clinically relevant health benefits from fatty 15. Public estimates are that one in three people have low C15 levels in their bodies. And if you don't have enough C15, you have fragile cells and you age more quickly. Fatty 15 supports your cells better than omega 3s or fish oil, with three times more benefits for your cells.

[Dave Asprey]

I use both.

[Dave Asprey (Sponsor Read)]

In clinical studies, 72% of fatty 15 users reported deeper sleep, better mood, healthier joints, and better energy improvement in 16 weeks. It's a pretty incredible story, and it's real. Better yet, they're giving you 15% off their 90 day subscription starter kit. Just go to fatty15.com Dave

[Sponsor Voice]

your brain is probably underperforming right now.

[Dave Asprey]

No judgment.

[Sponsor Voice]

Most brains are. In fact, you're probably not thinking as clearly, sleeping as deeply, or performing as

[Dave Asprey]

well as you could be.

[Sponsor Voice]

Braintap helps you unlock your full potential. It offers More than 2000 in app audio sessions and an innovative headset that together deliver light pulses, binaural beats, isochronic tones, guided visualizations, and 10 cycle holographic music to rewire your brain for higher performance. In just 20 minutes you can achieve deep brainwave states that would take hours through traditional meditation. It also helps regulate your sleep wake cycle, making it easier to fall asleep, stay asleep and wake up refreshed without drugs or dependency. This isn't just some trend. Braintap leads with tons of real science. They've conducted multiple studies proving this works, from enhancing memory and focus to explore accelerating cognitive learning, managing stress, and deepening visualization. Braintap is a holistic tool for peak performance in work, creativity and daily Life. Go to BrainTap.com Dave to get $100 off the BrainTap power bundle.

[Dave Asprey]

Should people take antimicrobials at the same time they take probiotics?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

That's a really good question. We get this a lot. And similar to there are still being different opinions on whether you should take a probiotic with an antibiotic or only start repairing after our thinking at omnibiotic. And a lot of the experts we work with, they would say, yes, you should support while you're taking an antimicrobial, unless you're working on something like severe sibo. Whereas we just talked about, you probably first want to get the SIBO down. But the idea here is this. Yes, you're taking the antimicrobial, which might mean that you're also going to killing some of those good bacteria in your gut and potentially some of the probiotics. But still you're kind of replenishing and supporting while you're killing off. And then the most important is once you finish the antimicrobials, keep going with your probiotics. We usually say at least another however long you took the antimicrobials to repair. So if you took the antimicrobials for four weeks, take your probiotic at least for another four weeks afterwards to really repair and rebuild and restore the gut microbiome.

[Dave Asprey]

I was early on when I take a lot of antibiotics, it's so dumb to waste your money on a probiotic and they just kill it with an antibiotic. Why would you do that? But I've seen a couple really convincing studies, this is at least 10 years ago, where they did testing of people who tried either one. And you get better results, taken them together. And the reason is probably that dead bacteria are still biological signals. So even if you do kill some of the probiotic, it's still beneficial that the good species are present. So I always take probiotics with my antibiotics. And since there's this one formula designed to survive a long time because it's hydrated with water and it's designed for post antibiotic therapy, I'm pretty sure I choose that one. Yeah, it's the omnibiotic. Was that AB10? Yeah, I literally have that in my cabinet. If I take an antimicrobial or I need to take an antibiotic, which is pretty rare, then it's just always there.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

By the way, on the AB10. Another reason why I carry it all the time, especially when I'm traveling. If you feel slightly off after eating something, you know, you're like, ooh, that oyster maybe wasn't great or whatever, then the AB10 is so powerful. And yeah, even sometimes when I travel, I switch from whatever I'm taking to the A B10 just to support my microbiome through that travel through maybe time zone changes. So that's a great travel ally to have as well.

[Dave Asprey]

How do you know what bacteria to put in a B10? Human fecal transplants are a thing, but then it's hundreds to thousands of different species. So how would you design a probiotic for post antibiotic use?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah, I mean that's all in the hands of the amazing researchers at our global headquarters in Austria. But really the science behind it is Instituto Allagosan has been around for over 30 years now and they've literally dedicated their lives and their research to our, our good gut bacteria and our microbiome. So they really understand what do these different strains do? On top of that, there are certain bacterial strains that are so called keystone strains. Those are present in the majority of healthy or really in all healthy adults or all healthy people across the world. And we know that those are essentially the strains that lay the foundation for a lot of other strains to thrive. So a lot of our probiotics are formulated with these keystone strains because we know that those are so essential. And then we look at what are the outcomes, outcomes we're hoping to achieve, and what strains do we know from our lab data and clinical study data to be doing that. And that's how these formulations are being formulated.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay, makes good sense. It just seems like such a complex problem, but with AI and all that makes good sense. I probably have a hard drive directory somewhere that's just full of all these papers going, this one strain does this and this one strain does that. And I'm just like, I couldn't possibly take all those things. So you want a combination and a good environment. And I like the fact that there's prebiotic in what you're taking. So even if I don't have exactly the species my body wanted, when I take omnibiotic, I'm getting a bunch of species I needed and food for the other ones to start growing, which is part of the strategy. Otherwise, with most probiotics, you take a pill that hydrates in stomach acid, but it also has nothing to eat when it's hydrated. And in fact, I quadrupled the number of species of bacteria in my gut using prebiotics. And since it's in there as well, I feel like it makes a lot of sense. Do gut bacteria cause adhd?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Well, let's see. ADHD is a very multifactorial condition and research has shown over and over again that everything from your nutrition to your genetics, your stress, your lifestyle can play a role in that.

[Dave Asprey]

Even your social media company.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yes, yes, that too. But we also know just again, how closely the gut and the brain are connected that certainly dysbiosis and an imbalance in the gut can exacerbate or contribute to those ADHD symptoms. And we also know from research and science that individuals with ADHD have a different gut microbiome composition than healthy controls. So, yes, and the two real mechanisms that research is kind of looking to and outlining over and over again is one that this inflammatory cascade that we talked about earlier, which is, you know, if you have dysbiosis in the gut, it leads to inflammation in the body, eventually also leading to inflammation in the brain, and also with that altered vagus nerve function, you're essentially changing brain chemistry and increasing inflammation in the brain. And the second one is short chain fatty acid production. So we know that our gut microbiome is so important for producing these short chain fatty acids, which especially things like butyrate, they can cross the blood brain barrier and directly impact microglial activity, which is our immune system in the brain, regulate neuroinflammation and even contribute to gene expression. So if you could just take all of that together, it's really kind of like, easy to see and understand how individuals with ADHD could also benefit from looking at their gut. And we see this all the time when we're working with functional medicine practitioners. Holistic health practitioners always say we have to look at the gut. For anyone, not just dealing with adhd, but anyone dealing with, you know, brain fog, focus issues, attention issues, mood issues, you always want to look at the gut because of that strong gut brain connection.

[Dave Asprey]

What impact do gut bacteria have on libido?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

That's a good question, and I think one where more and more research is coming out, too. We know that our good gut bacteria for women are essential in supporting estrogen detox and kind of our estrogen metabolism. We also know that our gut bacteria can impact ovulation, PMS, and our hormone cycle. So with that in mind, when we have balanced hormones and our overall kind of menstrual cycle is supported, that can, of course, also have an impact on libido for guys. I'm actually not sure. I haven't looked in detail at the studies. But we do know that if we have dysbiosis in the gut, that increases oxidative stress, which impacts both sperm quality and egg quality. So if you're looking at it from a perspective of fertility, that's a really important place to look.

[Dave Asprey]

Definitely. In fact, I even wrote about that in the Better Baby book, which is my book on fertility. First book I ever wrote about gut bacteria in men. And Women. But that book has been subsumed by Ann Chippy's new book. But we know that gut inflammation affects fertility, and there's a unique effect on nitric oxide. And this gets really interesting because we've all heard nitric oxide good, except for the fact that peroxy nitrite is the most toxic of all the free radicals. And it wreaks havoc on your blood vessels and on your hair in particular, and on your brain. And so, depending on your gut bacteria's ability to make nitric oxide and your body's ability to handle it, it can turn into inducible nitric oxide or endothelial nitric oxide or neural nitric oxide. And the inducible is what causes peroxy nitrite. So if you want to reduce oxidative stress, having a healthy gut bacteria that makes appropriate levels of nitric oxide, that can be really helpful. So if you take a nitric oxide thing or eat something with nitric oxide donors and you don't have gut bacteria, they can't make it into nitric oxide, which is going to affect libido in men and women and certainly affect, we'll say, performance versus libido. In other words, if there's no blood flow in women, you get no lubrication, and in men you get no erection. So it's more intimately tied than you might think.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Well, and on top of that, you share parts of your microbiome as a household. So we know that if one person in the household has something like H. Pylori, which is usually in the stomach, or candida, it's quite likely that over time, this can also get passed on, and not just through romantic partners, but even from parents to children or vice versa, through, like, you know, sharing utensils, accidentally using somebody else's toothbrush. Like, we know that a household you actually share more than you think in terms of your microbiome.

[Dave Asprey]

So does that mean that if one person in the house takes omnibiotic, that everyone else is going to magically better?

[Liberty Mutual Ad Voice]

And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual, even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Dave Asprey]

Hey, everyone. Check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

[Liberty Mutual Ad Voice]

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[Liberty Mutual Ad Voice]

Anyways, only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.

[Dave Asprey]

So does that mean that if one person in the house takes omnibiotic, that everyone else is getting magically better?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

No, but if one person takes omnibiotic in the household and also shares it with the rest of the family, then their microbiomes will all be thriving.

[Dave Asprey]

I've seen a lot of info lately about how the oral microbiome affects the gut microbiome in a major way. Have you seen any studies or is there any difference from taking omnibiotic liquid alive probiotics because it's affecting the mouth before it gets into the gut?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah, so actually a few things. So, first of all, when I think about our microbiome, it really starts in the mouth. Right. That's the first point where whatever we take in as being, you know, digestion starts. But also, oftentimes when people have candida, you can actually see it on the tongue, because our tongue has this really thick coating and it's essentially just the candida also in your mouth. So, yes, it's a huge connection. And then in terms of omnibiotic, we actually have a practitioner in New York who, for anyone who has kind of like eczema around the mouth or perioral dermatitis, he actually recommends making omnibiotic into a little paste and just putting it around the affected areas. And he has seen really incredible results from that. So there is that also kind of like the microbiome around your mouth and then. Yes, especially if you have kind of. If you're concerned about your oral microbiome, if you just swish it, kind of like almost gargle the omnibiotic before you swallow it, after you brush. Exactly. And then especially if that's the last thing you do before bed, because then you're giving your body essentially all night for those good bacteria to also work in your mouth. That can be a really great tactic.

[Dave Asprey]

Oh, that's a really cool idea, I would predict. But I bet you don't have studies that it would reduce cavity formation over time as well.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah, I don't think we have studies on that.

[Dave Asprey]

I've seen some studies showing that if you can push out, I think it's a species of either strep or staph and then the P. Gingivalis with good bacteria, that. That definitely would affect things.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah, there's actually also some interesting science around the connection between getting inner ear infections and getting, you know, throat infections in your oral gut microbiome or your oral microbiome. In Europe, they actually have a product that is. It's a lozenge that just dissolves in the mouth.

[Dave Asprey]

I was going to ask if you had one.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yes, we do. We're hoping to bring it to the

[Dave Asprey]

US But I really, I'm pretty impressed with the amount of research and just the number of papers that you published. And that said, there's also like indie, cool probiotic startup companies and I also support those because some of those are really interesting. Like there's a genetically engineered one for helping with alcohol consumption. So I feel like we're just at the beginning of like this revolution of, yeah, you can do gene therapy, at least I have, but you could also like craft this mix of things. And the delivery system just matters a lot. So I'm. Consider me a big supporter.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Thank you. Yeah. And I mean, you know, I feel like these days, every day there's some new research or new science coming out that's showing how the gut and our good gut bacteria are connected to all these different aspects of health and wellness. And that just makes it really exciting.

[Dave Asprey]

It does. What is the most unusual part of the microbiome on a human?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Good question. What do you think?

[Dave Asprey]

I don't know. It was kind of mind blowing to realize that there's a microbiome inside the brain because, oh, it's sterile. No, it's not sterile. There's actually stuff going on with bacteria that are not mitochondria in your brain that's not infectious.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah. I think for me, one of the most fascinating things is if you look on a DNA level, we're actually more bacteria than we are human DNA. And I think that just wrapping your head around the fact that there is these invisible things within us that are supporting so much so many processes in our bodies, we can't see them, but they're actually more than our human DNA. That's pretty incredible.

[Dave Asprey]

We're pretty much walking bags of yogurt when you think about it.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

You know, there's a famous researcher in the gut brain space called Professor Kryon, and he said that if your microbes are controlling your brain, do they control everything? And you know, that's a, that's something to sit with.

[Dave Asprey]

My, my most recent book, heavily meditated, I made a case that mitochondria, as members of the bacterial kingdom, are absolutely controlling us. And it became the best selling philosophy book in the country. Not it's a meditation, altered states book. And like, that was surprising, but it was because of this just different way of looking at our behavior. So I would say, given that, that mitochondria and gut bacteria talk all the time with light signaling in Addition to chemicals and probably some other stuff we don't even know. Maybe there's like a little mitochondrial dance, and they're like, hey, he's twerking. I have no idea. But all that's happening, and they are sensing reality before we do. So there's a lot of implications for consciousness around your gut microbiome. And I've certainly noticed when my gut is healthy, my ability to meditate and to remain calm when people are acting like douchebags or whatever, or whatever the things are, I'm like, you know, I've got this. But, man, have an inflamed gut and, like, some swelling and gas and just see if you're cranky.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah, absolutely. And I think for me, one of the biggest things that's such a telltale sign for me that my gut is off a little bit is I feel brain fog almost immediately. If I eat at a restaurant and something was, you know, not quite right, I wake up with brain fog, and I know it's that gut brain connection. It's such a telltale sign. And, yeah, it's just they talk to each other.

[Dave Asprey]

When my gut was really unhealthy and I had toxic mold and mercury and a whole bunch of other stuff going on, I would forget words and trains of thought hundreds of times a day. And I just got really good at hiding it. I sounded like certain politicians, and you asked them a question, they just, like, string word salad together until they remember what they were going to say. Yeah, I might have been good at that at one point in my life. And it was a compensatory mechanism for just bad brain fog. And it's gotten to the point now where if I forget a word that just ought to be there, like, that is so unusual that I notice it and I can trace it back to what I did that caused it. Oh, yeah. Well, I only did sleep two hours last night. I deserve that. Or quite often, it's, what did I eat? So for me, it's cognitive function. I don't get brain fog almost ever anymore because of all the biohacking. But inability to remember a word sign. The other one is subtle changes in the skin on my face. If I eat bad stuff or something that's happening in my gut, you wake up, there's going to be, like, micro pimples or redness or dark circles under your eyes. Those are the big giveaways. So if your skin isn't looking good, is there a probiotic thing to do to quickly restore that? You just take it orally and Then your skin calms down.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Well, I see it two ways and I think with anything related to our gut or the Microsoft, like the microbiome in general, it's usually not a quick fix. Right, because your microbiome takes a little while to rebalance. But if your skin generally, if you're dealing with acne or eczema, any kind of dryness, redness, things like that, I would one look at your skin microbiome, so what are the topical products you're using? Are you just killing your skin microbiome? I would look at your diet because we know that, you know, we need those good fats, especially good fats, and some of these micronutrients like zinc, for good skin health. And I would look at your gut because of that gut skin axis. And if you think about it, many people in the functional medicine space, they actually call your skin an external mirror of the gut. Oftentimes when the skin is inflamed, the gut is inflamed. And with omnibiotic with our customers, and also what research has shown is that omnibiotic balance is a really strong product for that gut skin connection because it helps modulate the immune system through the gut. And we know that if the immune system's out of balance, if there's inflammation, it can show up as inflammation in the skin. But also if it's more of a detox and like liver function related issue, that you're maybe not detoxing properly, your body is holding onto more toxins than you'd like, then we would really look at omnibiotic heatox to support that gut liver connection metabolic function.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay. I wrote oh geez, this is now 14 years ago and I wrote the bulletproof diet and people lost a ton of weight on it. And one of the things was the ratio of bacteriodes to firmicutes species in the gut. Can you talk about that?

[Dave Asprey (Podcast Outro)]

Yeah.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

So essentially the ratio indicates whether you have the right balance of bacteria that help regulate your fat storage and fat metabolism. And we've seen in research over and over again that when that ratio is skewed, you essentially you're holding on to more fat. So if you. Basically what this means is that if your ratio is skewed, you have more of the. Is it firmicutes?

[Dave Asprey]

I think so.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah.

[Dave Asprey]

Yeah,

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

those guys. It basically means that even if you're trying really hard to lose weight, you're exercising, you're eating well, your gut microbiome is working against you.

[Dave Asprey]

It just won't work no matter how much a PhD exercise physiologist yells at you about it and says, you're eating too much, dude. That's not the case.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

It's really the way I think about it. It's like our gut bacteria in so many ways. They're either supporting us in whatever we're trying to do or they're working against. Against us, you know. So again, going back to how the conversation started, hrv, vagus nerve, nervous system regulation, metabolic health, or, you know, your skin, your weight loss, if your gut bacteria are working well, they're supporting you on that journey. And if they're not, because your gut is broken and inflamed and you don't even have the right bacteria, then the dial can't move. You're essentially trying to optimize on top of a broken gut, which means you're optimizing around the problem.

[Dave Asprey]

Very, very well said. And you can shift that ratio by fixing your diet and very likely taking some probiotics, right?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Dave Asprey]

Do you have strains that are specifically more bacteriodes versus pterodes?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

I'm not sure about that. Yeah, I'm not sure about that. There is.

[Dave Asprey]

Yeah, I'd imagine balance is going to put you back in balance, but. Okay. And it's a really technical question. Here's another one that has just confounded me. A lot of people listening have long Covid or they have mast cell activation syndrome or histamine sensitivity. And those are all kind of the same thing. And if you're sensitive to histamine, then histamine in foods, things like soy sauce or fish sauce, a lot of fermented foods, they really mess with you. You might think it's sibo, but it's actually histamine. But some species of even commercially available probiotics make histamine in the gut. How should people think about histamine and probiotics?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Based on what I know about histamine, it's complex because, you know, it's kind of, again, multi factorial. People show very different signs of histamine intolerance and, you know, different triggers can, you know, trigger different people. But what I can tell you is that all the probiotic strains in omnibiotic do not produce histamine.

[Dave Asprey]

So that is huge. I did not actually know you were going to say that, but I was hoping you would. Otherwise, I was going to say, if you're not sure if you can use a specific one, ask your AI. But I published a list, I think that was in the bulletproof diet of here's the ones that are probably going to cause problems for you. And they're in huge numbers of the things you buy on the shelf at Whole Foods or somewhere. And there's people saying, I'm really inflamed. I'm tired all the time. And maybe you have long Covid or mold or metals or any of that kind of stuff. And then you take probiotics to fix your gut, and the probiotics turn on histamine production, and then you feel even worse, and you don't know why that could be why. So thank you for being clean at omnibiotic to just keep that stuff out.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah. You know, the other thing going back to the powder delivery, we always say anybody who is worried about how they will react to any supplement, the beauty of having a powder is that you can dose it. You can start really small. So if you have, you know, if your gut was in distress for a long time, if you have sensitivities, if you have histamine intolerance, start really small. Take an eighth of a teaspoon and see how you react, and then slowly work your way up to the full sachet.

[Dave Asprey]

Do people ever do, like, a line of omnibiotic?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

You mean like multiple ones?

[Dave Asprey]

No, a line like a mirror and a razor blade?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

No, I don't think so.

[Dave Asprey]

I just want to see the look on your face.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

I thought like a lineup. But to answer your question, you can't take more than one omnibiotic a day. So sometimes if I'm going through, you know, if I'm traveling and I'm feeling quite stressed, I will take a B10 in the morning and stress release in the evening. Just don't mix them in the same glass because you don't want the bacteria to potentially compete for the food sources that are mixed into each formulation. So, yes, you can do that kind of lineup.

[Dave Asprey]

By the way, don't snort your probiotics. That's dumb. But I used to have extreme sinus infections, and they just tortured me for years. And part of the problem is the nasal microbiome. And especially if you've been exposed to a moldy environment, the toxic mold makes mycotoxins. And then the gut bacteria in your sinuses, like, oh, no, mycotoxins, also known as antibiotics. So then they form a biofilm film that just messes with you, and it makes basically gut bacteria toxins in your sinuses next to your brain. And so I published a long time ago something called the Dave Asprey sinus rinse, which is irritating, but it works really well. And you can Google it, or I'll put a link for you. And it's just a way to clean out your nose.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

What is it?

[Dave Asprey]

You put warm water and sea salt and iodine. And, guys, this is important. If you're using warm tap water, don't snort tap water. It can have parasites that kill you in it. I'm not joking. So you have to put the iodine in there for two reasons. One, so that you don't snort a parasite, and two, so that it sterilizes your sinuses. And it goes way up in there. And the trick is salad bowl. And you dip your head forward like a dippy bird looking at the floor. And you snort. And it won't go down your throat. It just comes out in your mouth. It sounds weird. Everyone I know who's done it when they're getting a cold or a sinus infection gets better quickly. And if you're working in a hospital environment, there are actually studies sterilizing your sinuses at the end of a shift, or if you're a teacher or a parent at that matter. The first month of school when everyone gets sick, you don't have to do it. You just wipe everything out. But I was like, what would happen if I wanted to repopulate with some good stuff? So I have taken a little bit of probiotic and just put it right inside my sinuses here, saying, I'd rather have the good guys there. I have no idea if that was a good idea or not, but I did it after sterilizing everything.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

We have heard of a few people who will put omnibiotic into a neti pot or something like that and do a nasal rinse. That's anecdotal. I haven't tried it. I think you just want to be careful because you know it's very close to the brain. Just be careful what you're doing.

[Dave Asprey]

There's not a lot of things I wouldn't try once. Maybe I'd try that. But when you do at least the sinus rinse. Right, the water goes up into your sinuses and your forehead.

[Dave Asprey (Sponsor Read)]

And then later in the day, if

[Dave Asprey]

you tip your head the right way, it'll drain out. So I don't know that I want to have that much bacteria that far back in my sinuses because that could be a really nasty sinus infection.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah. So I think you're better off just doing your rins, taking your omnibiotic, and supporting your immune system through the gut.

[Dave Asprey]

If you wiped a little omnibiotic at the base of your Nose, it's probably not gonna hurt you, but I wouldn't. I wouldn't want to get all of them back there and certainly not cutter in the lungs.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

That seems like a good idea.

[Dave Asprey]

Do we know anything about probiotics and asthma specifically?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

There is research kind of showing. Right. That again, because so much of our immune system is located in the gut, and our good gut microbes train our immune system. And asthma is a kind of overdrive of your immune system in a way that our gut microbiome can have an impact on that immune balance and that immune overreaction. We actually also know, which I think is super fascinating, is that, you know, in children there is what we call the allergy march, which is essentially, you know, kids, if their gut microbiome is out of balance and certain receptors, TH1, TH2 receptors are off balance, it can actually trigger this kind of progression of allergies, which can start with, you know, eczema, go to food allergies, go to asthma, seasonal allergies, kind of, kind of escalate from there.

[Dave Asprey]

I do know that calming the immune system via that th1t ph2 immunity helps in probiotics can do that. And I had asthma as a kid, probably from the toxic mold. And that's not very comfortable.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

It's just, I think it just goes back to that immune system dysregulation. Right. And toxic mold will definitely do that to you, send your immune system in overdrive, and that can exacerbate some of these other conditions.

[Dave Asprey]

It can. And it also strangely affects the gut microbiome. So if you're eating mold contaminated foods, like pretty much all peanut butter, a lot of coffee, and a lot of grains have this Brazil nuts. So you're thinking, oh, I might be getting methionine or selenium or something. But if that goes into your gut, your gut microbes have been, well, at least their lineage has been fighting against fungus for, or mold for probably since the beginning of bacteria. So they kind of freak out. So you look at mold exposure environmentally or in your food as basically a little spark that tells your gut bacteria to shift into a more aggressive posture. So I find that avoiding mold toxins is important for healing the microbiome because you get biofilms that form in response to mold exposure. And a lot of people don't know the complexity there, but I think it's important.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

So for people who do want to eat nuts, how would you go about that? Do you know of any brands that are mold free?

[Dave Asprey]

I haven't seen mold free nuts specifically, but I would focus on macadamia and walnuts as the two that are lowest in oxalate. And oxalate's also bad for your gut bacteria and also least likely to be moldy. Macadamias are safer than walnuts from that perspective. And there may be. In fact, there's one bread. I don't know if they test for mold, but they soak and very carefully dry everything called rich nuts. And I've had zero issues with any of those. And I can feel moldy stuff. I know my system well, and I lived enough of my life in mold that I'm like, oh, yeah, that one wasn't good. Now I don't have six weeks of brain fog the way I used to from one of those, but I noticed. So, yeah, I've eaten rich nuts with great happiness. And plus, sprouting gets rid of a lot of the oxalate. What's different about supporting a kid's microbiome versus an adult's microbiome?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

So the first thousand days after birth, which is about the first three years of a kid's life, really shape our gut microbiome when we're born. We're born with a kind of, like, not fully developed gut microbiome. And over those first years, it really matures. And of course, you know, diet, lifestyle, how many antibiotics we have to take, stress can all shape that from the beginning. So from that perspective, a kid's microbiome is different. It's still maturing, but other than that, you know, especially in the childhood, that's really when our gut microbiome also trains our immune system, talks to the gut brain axis and really shapes a lot of that. And actually, one of the most interesting things I find recently is it can really impact that HPA axis activation. And so there is some emerging research that shows that how the HPA axis is shaped during childhood can actually influence how resilient we are to stress later in life. And I think that is so fascinating because essentially it just just goes to show how formative childhood is. Not just from, like, the experiences and all the things we're learning as children, but also on our fundamental physiology.

[Dave Asprey]

That is so cool. There's so much that we do know, so much we don't know. One thing that I think some people hear about now is that the vaginal microbiome transfers to the baby during vaginal birth, but not during C section. And the difference in allergies and health of kids is dramatic from that. So the most progressive places, which, in other words, is Most not hospitals will actually take a sponge and collect the microbiome from the mom's vagina and then put it on the baby. And what we did, we caught, or I caught both of my kids at home. We did home deliveries with professional help on site, which is cheaper than going to the hospital anyway. And then during nursing, in the first day, we put Lactobacillus infantalis, which is the primary species that kids need, directly on mom's nipples. So that way, during nursing, we knew that we were getting the right bacteria into the kids just to set their immune system up for a good situation.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

We do have our Omnibiotic Panda, which is the.

[Dave Asprey]

Oh, what's that?

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Oh, I've never told you about it. It's our product for basically for babies because it has those like, oh my

[Dave Asprey]

gosh, I didn't know you had that.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah, we do. And actually one of the recommendations is if you're not using bottles to mix the powder and you can actually put it on the mom's nipple during nursing.

[Dave Asprey]

I love that that's so important for babies.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Yeah. And actually the really cool thing Speaking of that th1th2 balance, if moms take it in the third trimester, you can actually positively shift that th1th2 balance.

[Dave Asprey]

Oh, my gosh.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

For the baby before it's even born. So that's a really cool product that we have too. And on the babies, we actually have studies showing that Amybiotic Panda helps with colic as well as helps reduce incidence of eczema in kids who are prone to the that. So.

[Dave Asprey]

All right, this is a public service announcement if you're a mom who's had a lot of health challenges. And I'm going to put. This is a public service announcement if you are a soon to be mom who's had all kinds of health challenges, allergies and just unexplained stuff throughout your life. This product we just talked about, the Omnibiotic Pandas, if you take that in that third trimester, the shift between TH1 and TH2 immunity is something most people have never heard of. But if you do that for your baby, you're going to save your baby hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills over the course of their life. Because getting that immune system balance right at the very start is almost free compared to, I have allergies. This isn't working. That isn't working. So I think that's a really powerful strategy and I just wish we did more for women when they're pregnant.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Absolutely.

[Dave Asprey]

Moms have a hard enough time when health is good. So wow, what a great product. I did not know about that one.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

There you go.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay, well Hannah, thank you for the masterclass on the microbiome guys. Omnibioticlife.com use code DAVE20. You can save 20% off any of the stuff we talked about. And you don't have to, but you can.

[Hannah (Omnibiotic Expert)]

Thanks Dave for having me. It's always such a pleasure to chat with you.

[Dave Asprey]

See you next time on the Human Upgrade Podcast.

[Dave Asprey (Podcast Outro)]

A Human Upgrade, formerly Bulletproof Radio, was created and is hosted by Dave Asprey. The information contained in this podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended for the purposes of diagnosing, treating, curing, or preventing any disease. Before using any products referenced on the podcast, consult with your healthcare provider carefully read all labels, and heed all directions and cautions that accompany the products. Information found or received through the podcast should not be used in place of a consultation or advice from a healthcare provider. If you suspect you have a medical problem or should you have any healthcare questions, please promptly call or see your healthcare provider. This podcast, including Dave Asprey and the producers, disclaim responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own and this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guest quality, qualifications, or credibility. This podcast may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products or services. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to herein. This podcast is owned by Bulletproof Media.