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The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
233. Anders Corbett: On “Crafting” Your Gut Microbiome, Probiotics, Leaky Gut & Hormone Optimization
01:27:19
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- [00:00]
Anders Courbet
There are cyanobacteria for oxygen. Those are found in, like, Olympic swimmers. That's like how you can identify an Olympic swimmer is by the amount of cyanobacteria in their gut. Really.
- [00:09]
Gary Brecka
I think at the professional athlete level, they're all looking for ways to legally, without using a performance enhancement device, but to modify their biology. Anything that they can do to close.
- [00:20]
Anders Courbet
That last gap before and after a stressful event, whether it's like a UFC fight and it's usually saliva, stool, whatever they'll give me. And, and I measure how those bacteria change and I'll try to correlate the changes I see in the profile to papers that have talked about this bacteria does X, Y and Z. I know.
- [00:36]
Gary Brecka
That there's enormity of connections between the gut microbiome and everything from autoimmune to human performance to how our mood and emotions work, but never did I understand that we can architect our own microbiome to serve the goals that we have for our health outcomes.
- [00:52]
Anders Courbet
There's a list of, of bacteria that I'm confident that I can isolate from a lot of different people. So I present someone with like a menu like, hey, this bacteria does this, this bacteria does that. Like, which ones do you think would be valuable for you?
- [01:03]
Gary Brecka
There's a lot of people listening to this podcast. What benefit could they derive from working with Kraft Microbiome to actually go in and re architect the flora in their gut?
- [01:12]
Anders Courbet
There are changes in the gut that happen years before the symptoms develop. And one of the easiest things you can do.
- [01:26]
Gary Brecka
Ultimate Human. Hey, guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human podcast. I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brecka, where we go down the road of everything anti aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. And today's podcast is going to be a fascinating podcast. I mean, first of all, because I am deeply, deeply interested in this subject. I never in my entire lifetime knew that the gut microbiome not only could. I knew that it could serve you, it could degrade your performance. I know that there's enormous, there's enormity of connections between the gut microbiome and everything from autoimmune to human performance to how our mood and emotions work, but never did I understand that we can architect our own microbiome to serve the goals that we have for our health outcomes. And that is the most fascinating thing that we're going to delve into today with our guest, Anders Courbet. Welcome to the podcast, my friend.
- [02:30]
Anders Courbet
Thank you for having me.
- [02:33]
Gary Brecka
There's an interesting theme that runs through a lot of my podcasts. And I find that the most impactful, purpose driven, passionate people at some point in their life, they solved the problem. And I know that you were a professional athlete and you were a world class rower. Yeah.
- [02:56]
Anders Courbet
At one point.
- [02:57]
Gary Brecka
Yeah. You were training at the Olympic facility. I think you placed ninth in the, in the, you know, in the world competition. And so here you are, you're, you're, you have this background as a professional athlete. You were folding shirts at one point at Brooks.
- [03:18]
Anders Courbet
Brooks Brothers.
- [03:18]
Gary Brecka
Brooks Brothers.
- [03:20]
Anders Courbet
Repping it today, right?
- [03:21]
Gary Brecka
Yeah. Oh, let's go.
- [03:23]
Anders Courbet
Let's go, Brooks.
- [03:24]
Gary Brecka
Yeah, let's go, Brooks. And, and somehow you made it into a fellowship at Harvard University.
- [03:29]
Anders Courbet
Right.
- [03:30]
Gary Brecka
And now your work has me so intrigued and I am absolutely fascinated by it. You know, we went to the, the UFC fights. Well, first of all, we're here in Dubai, right. And we went to the UFC fights and I was like, my audience needs to know about this. I normally don't do this with podcasts. I just, I want to read some, some tidbits from, from Anders background and some of the accomplishments he's, he's had with the gut microbiome just to set the tone for the rest of this podcast. So listen to this. If you're not fascinated by the end of these, these 10 line items, then this is not the podcast for you. But this, this blew my mind. Simply by altering the microbiome. He proved the concept first with livestock with 20 before it went into human trials. 25% weight gain using 400 kg less feed consumption. He then on himself gained 25 pounds of muscle in one month using a specific probiotic formulation. He was then featured on ESPN's controversial sports expose on poop doping and the microbiome performance, showing that you could alter the microbiome and significantly, significantly improve athletic performance. He worked with George Church, who's one of the world's top genetic scientists, using gut. The gut microbiome to enhance performance. I worked at the National Science foundation as a research fellow, Harvard Medical School, as a genetics fellow. He actually was able to target testosterone, growth hormone, strength, endurance and recovery, not just gut health. And you know, in, in 2012, he completed the World Rowing Championships as we, as we talked about and you know, many of his competitors have raised millions and millions of dollars, but he went this direct to consumer route with these experimental probiotic formulations and has had astounding success. So first of all, I want to gain 25 pounds of muscle in one month. So we're going to talk about that, for sure. But tell me a little bit about your journey and how you go from folding shirts at Brooks Brothers to being a research fellow at Harvard University.
- [05:50]
Anders Courbet
I know, right? I got done rowing, and I realized I had worked my body really hard, but I hadn't worked my brain. And at the World Championships, I realized that I was an amateur and all the other people from the other countries were professionals. And I realized, like, you know what? I don't want to put another four years in and try for the next Olympics. And so I moved to Boston with not really a plan, and I walked into Brooks Brothers, I got a job, and then I joined a club at MIT called igem, which is an international genetically engineered machines team. And I had really, like, no lab experience.
- [06:27]
Gary Brecka
Really? Yeah.
- [06:28]
Anders Courbet
I just sat in the back because.
- [06:29]
Gary Brecka
You'Re a very smart guy, man. I've pressed you on some of these topics, and I consider myself pretty astute with the gut microbiome, but you've forgotten more than I'll ever know.
- [06:37]
Anders Courbet
Well, this was a cell to cell signaling. It was, like, my first interaction with synthetic biology. And it was run by this guy named Ron Weiss. And the club was great. We competed at something called the World Jamboree. I was like a wallflower on it. But I got an email from the professor at mit. He's like, hey, you should take this graduate course. And so I just started showing up at this graduate course with no lab training, and I got put with these cool guys from the MIT Media Lab and bioengineers and bunch of crazy people. And then I stumbled into an internship as a biosafety officer intern. And the whole time I'm working at Brooks Brothers, and one day, George Church walks into the Chestnut Hill Mall, and I see him, and I just read his book, ReGenesis.
- [07:26]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [07:27]
Anders Courbet
And I went out and I was like, hey, Mr. Churchill, big fan. And he said, put yourself in places you don't belong, because that's where you learn the most.
- [07:37]
Gary Brecka
And so he just gave you the advice right out of the.
- [07:39]
Anders Courbet
Yeah, well, we had a little conversation.
- [07:40]
Gary Brecka
He's like, hey, son, put yourself in places you don't belong, because that's what you're learning.
- [07:43]
Anders Courbet
He's a wild. That guy's wild.
- [07:45]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [07:46]
Anders Courbet
And totally focus on the science. Just.
- [07:49]
Gary Brecka
No, no, he's an.
- [07:50]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. And like, he travels in the same clothes with just the laptop.
- [07:54]
Gary Brecka
Really. You know, a lot. A lot of these brainiac scientists are. There's no fluff. It's all just, you know, intentionally focused on their craft.
- [08:05]
Anders Courbet
And like, two weeks later, I still had my ID pass from being a biosafety officer. Internet. And I got through security and I brought some cookies. And I told the secretary, I'm, oh, I'm one of George's old students. I just want to come say hello. And she gets me a meeting that day, within minutes. And I say, hey, I'm here. Can I have a job.
- [08:27]
Gary Brecka
At Harvard?
- [08:27]
Anders Courbet
At Harvard Medical? Yeah. In the premier genetics lab in the world. And he walks right out of the office. You get this guy a job.
- [08:35]
Gary Brecka
Really?
- [08:35]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. And the secretary introduces me to a postdoc at the time. And it was CRISPR was new at the time.
- [08:43]
Gary Brecka
And CRISPR is the gene.
- [08:45]
Anders Courbet
Yeah, gene editing technology.
- [08:46]
Gary Brecka
Gene editing.
- [08:47]
Anders Courbet
She trained me how to do gene editing on George's own stem cells. Like, you know, like, how do you, like, design primers, how to do transformations, how to do gels, which I was terrible at. She was always pissed at me about it. I couldn't run a gel to save my life, but how to do sequencing, how to work with all these different companies that the lab's a part of. And then the second postdoc I worked with heard that I had been a former elite athlete. And eventually we convinced Harvard to send us to the Rio Olympics to do a sport genomics study.
- [09:24]
Gary Brecka
Well, first of all, what is a sports genomic study? But before you answer that, I want you to explain to me in my audience, like we're five year olds. Okay. How does your gut bacteria make your muscles stronger? I mean, you know, because I. Because, you know, my first foray into. Into really being fascinated by the gut microbiome was years ago. Dr. Perlmutter wrote a book called the Gut Brain Connection. He wrote another one called Grain Brain. It was the first book that really drew my attention to how foundational the gut microbiome is. And these trillions and trillions of bacteria and how they're actually not just digesting proteins and carbohydrates and nutrients, but they're actually signaling molecules. They create serotonin, dopamine. They drive behavior, they drive mood. We know now that your gut microbiome sort of gets what it wants. It has mechanisms to signal the brain to have sugar cravings and other things. And it's interesting because we think that we're in control of all of our choices, but very often we're not. The gut microbiome is in control of a lot of the choices that we make. But I've never thought about the gut microbiome, and this is what's so fascinating about your work. I've never thought about the gut microbiome as being something we can use or leverage to improve our processing speed, our memory, our focus, our concentration. And the last thing I thought would be, you know, athletic performance. So talk a little bit about, you know, as if we're five years old. How does the gut microbiome improve athletic performance? How many. How did you put on 25 pounds of muscle in a month without.
- [11:14]
Anders Courbet
There was this crazy paper from, I think, 2016, February 2016, about how people in Malawi, famine victims, and it took their microbiome, it did a fecal transplant into mice, and it took the microbiome from a Westerner and put it in a different mouse. They fed the mice the same amount of food, the same amount of water, and the Malawian mice became malnourished, like, lost weight, even though they were fed the same amount of calories.
- [11:43]
Gary Brecka
So you took the gut microbiome from someone who was malnourished.
- [11:46]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. Someone else.
- [11:47]
Gary Brecka
Yeah, yeah. And fecal transported into the mouse. And then you have other gut microbiome. Yeah.
- [11:53]
Anders Courbet
From a Westerner.
- [11:54]
Gary Brecka
From a Westerner, yeah. Same diet.
- [11:56]
Anders Courbet
Same diet.
- [11:57]
Gary Brecka
Okay.
- [11:58]
Anders Courbet
Same water, same everything. And the Western mouse gets obese.
- [12:02]
Gary Brecka
Wow.
- [12:02]
Anders Courbet
Right. And they repeat this a lot of times. And the Malawian mice with. Wouldn't grow. Right. They were stuck on a poor growth pathway, or whatever it was called. And so they found the single bacteria and they gave it to the Malawian mouse. And then all of a sudden, it returned to normal growth patterns.
- [12:20]
Gary Brecka
Wow. With a single bacteria. So by taking the gut microbiome and sequencing the different types of bacteria and looking at different types of levels, it's almost like a dial. Right. You dial up certain bacteria, you get one result, you dial it down, you get a different result. So they dialed up the bacteria, you know, in from the Westerners, and, And. And all of a sudden, these mice recovered on the same time.
- [12:45]
Anders Courbet
Yeah, they returned to, like, normal. And that's kind of what happens when you get poor sleep, you have poor diet, you know, you're overweight. Like these growth hormone pathways in your body, they don't function. They get blocked. Right. There's. And so it's not really that well understood, but this Lactobacillus rotori, a specific substrate of it, is able to remove those blocks, and then your body can start producing its own growth hormone.
- [13:08]
Gary Brecka
Yeah. You know what's fascinating, too, is as I'm getting further and further down the road of the gut microbiome, you know, we know that antibiotics wipe out your gut microbiome and that you should take probiotics afterwards. But when you start to look at how we can actually go into the gut microbiome and specifically select different characteristics based on the bacteria. So, for example, you know, there are strains of bacteria that are broadly absent in people that have eczema and psoriasis. There are certain strains of bacteria that are broadly absent in neurodevelopmental disorders like autism. And to me, that's fascinating. And the percentage and to the degree to which these specific bacteria are correlated to very specific diseases pathologies is fascinating to me because, you know, I think very often in modern medicine we, we get it all wrong. We think that things go wrong for no reason, which is why we diagnose a lot of things as idiopathic. Right. Of unknown origin. But when you think about the gut microbiome, the different, the different strains of bacteria as potentially being that root cause, this seems like something we could, you know, we could address.
- [14:35]
Anders Courbet
Yeah, Mass, there are a lot of papers that show like, changes in the gut happen years for Parkinson's. Changes in the gut happen years before you develop some sort of, any sort of symptoms.
- [14:44]
Gary Brecka
It's like Akkermansia and, and cancer. You know, they're finding these deficiencies in certain gut bacteria. Dr. Mark Hyman talks about this all the time. Much higher prevalence in patients that have certain forms of cancer.
- [15:00]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [15:00]
Gary Brecka
And, you know, I think I'm fully bought in to that, you know, but.
- [15:07]
Anders Courbet
We'Re only at the beginning. There's a lot to learn. There's a lot to learn.
- [15:11]
Gary Brecka
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- [16:18]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [16:18]
Gary Brecka
Okay. And then once you have that person's gut microbiome profile, where do you go from there? Do you say, well, what are the outcomes that you would like to have?
- [16:30]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [16:30]
Gary Brecka
And then you target those bacteria.
- [16:32]
Anders Courbet
There's a list of bacteria that I'm confident that I can isolate from a lot of different people. So I present someone with like a menu, like, hey, this bacteria does this, this bacteria does that. Like, which ones do you think would be valuable for you?
- [16:44]
Gary Brecka
Yeah, I allow, like, for the record, you're working with LeBron James. I mean, this is not like, this is not voodoo science. You know, he's not doing this in his basement and, you know, in his garage. I mean.
- [16:53]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [16:54]
Gary Brecka
And it's.
- [16:55]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [16:55]
Gary Brecka
So go ahead. So you, you, you take the microbiome and you have a, you have a menu. And they say, you know, I have focus and concentration issues. Yeah, I have a hard time focusing and concentrating. Let's, let's pick a few things. Yeah, but yeah, just to be clear.
- [17:11]
Anders Courbet
Like it's, we understand like the first tier interactions like this bacteria, and it's just starting to be. This bacteria lives in this part of the digestive tract and it makes B vitamins, it makes B12 or something. Right. And so there's a geography issue and then there's. You don't know if that B vitamin is consumed by another bacteria. Right. We don't know, like the downstream thing. So the philosophy is I just overload with that bacteria. And.
- [17:35]
Gary Brecka
But you are seeing notable results. Yeah, yeah.
- [17:38]
Anders Courbet
On blood tests. And, you know, a lot of the clients, they do quarterly or monthly blood tests and they'll show like, hey, my B vitamins actually went up this month. Or my testosterone is up like 300 points or something.
- [17:49]
Gary Brecka
Really great. Yeah, yeah.
- [17:51]
Anders Courbet
It just sits at like 7 or 800 for months and months after you've.
- [17:54]
Gary Brecka
Made this manipulation in the bacteria.
- [17:56]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [17:57]
Gary Brecka
Okay, so, so let's unpack that. You know, I would love to, to the extent that you're willing to do so, share an actual story of an athlete that came to you or even somebody that had gut dysbiosis related ailment. Maybe it was eczema, psoriasis, maybe it was, you know, chronic gut issues with digestion, food allergies, food sensitivities. Let's take a real life case that you've had and walk me through what you did from, you know, understanding what their deficit was or their goal was to getting their gut bacteria to how you either manipulated or, you know, cultured their bacteria and then what the result was.
- [18:42]
Anders Courbet
So I guess we can do two examples. One, I may. Originally, all the bacteria sold direct to consumer were isolated from me, and so there was, like, strength, endurance, and complete.
- [18:54]
Gary Brecka
Okay.
- [18:54]
Anders Courbet
And so a friend of mine had a PICC line in for years and years. He had Lyme disease. He ended up.
- [18:59]
Gary Brecka
Lyme's awful.
- [18:59]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. Horrible, horrible disease. And he got misdiagnosed and he lost a leg. It was crazy.
- [19:06]
Gary Brecka
Oh, my God.
- [19:07]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. So a PICC line with antibiotics for years.
- [19:09]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [19:09]
Anders Courbet
Right. He's got no bacteria left.
- [19:11]
Gary Brecka
None.
- [19:11]
Anders Courbet
And he does blood tests, you know, every half a year, quarterly or whatever it is. And it was like, two. It was a little low. And then he. I.
- [19:22]
Gary Brecka
What was a little.
- [19:22]
Anders Courbet
His testosterone.
- [19:23]
Gary Brecka
Oh, his testosterone.
- [19:24]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [19:24]
Gary Brecka
Okay.
- [19:24]
Anders Courbet
And then I give him the craft strength, and then it sits at, like, 8 or 900, and it's been there for, like, four or five years when.
- [19:30]
Gary Brecka
You say I give him the craft strength. So, yeah, I want to. I want to.
- [19:32]
Anders Courbet
Bacteria and craft strength.
- [19:34]
Gary Brecka
So you get. You get the stool sample. You look at the gut microbiome profile.
- [19:39]
Anders Courbet
Yeah, right. I. I don't particularly find the profile that useful. It's okay. It understands, but it tells me what you ate yesterday. Ah, right. What I. What I really like to do is before and after a stressful event, whether it's like a UFC fight or the World's Strongest man or at the Olympics or an NBA basketball game or something. And it's usually saliva, stool, whatever they'll. They'll give me. And I measure how those bacteria change before and after the stressful event, and I'll try to correlate the changes I see in the profile to papers that have talked about this bacteria does X, Y, and Z. But in this person's case with the Lyme disease, it was just like a standard 2 bacteria, Lactobacillus plantarum, and then a substrain that came out of South Korea, and then Lactobacillus rotori, that a substrain that has been shown to lower interleukin 17 alpha. And so your lead egg cells and your testes get larger, and then you produce your own testosterone.
- [20:41]
Gary Brecka
Wow, dude. I mean, there's not a man listening to this podcast right now that's not like, where do I get that bacteria?
- [20:47]
Anders Courbet
Look at those big balls.
- [20:48]
Gary Brecka
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [20:48]
Anders Courbet
Those huge balls. Yeah.
- [20:50]
Gary Brecka
You can't say big balls on a podcast. No, you can on the Ultimate Human. We're tough. So. So Lyme disease Ravaged from antibiotics. Yeah.
- [21:01]
Anders Courbet
He's a great example of it.
- [21:03]
Gary Brecka
Get the bacteria and as you repopulate the gut.
- [21:08]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [21:08]
Gary Brecka
Is testosterone. Now, the, the, the main challenges of wiping out the gut microbiome are way beyond just a decrease in testosterone. I mean, you know, Lyme patients have crushing fatigue, they have muscle soreness, they have brain fog that you can't imagine.
- [21:24]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [21:26]
Gary Brecka
They have poor focus and concentration, disrupted sleep patterns. And I believe that the vast majority of this does tie back to the gut, meaning that between the virus and the CO infections, the parasitic CO infection and the bacterial CO infection, you. You have this myriad of consequences that very often modern medicine doesn't link back to the Lyme disease. No and no. And in your friend's case, it sounds very sad. He had an amputation. Yeah.
- [21:55]
Anders Courbet
For the misdiagnosis.
- [21:56]
Gary Brecka
For the misdiagnosis. You know, which is why medical error is still the third leading cause of death. Amazing. It's not the doctors, you know, I want to not.
- [22:04]
Anders Courbet
Right.
- [22:04]
Gary Brecka
Sounds so harsh. Like doctors are intentionally doing things or they're making mistakes. It just shows you, even as far as we are advanced in modern medicine today, the paucity of understanding of true human physiology. Right. We're really just scratching the surface.
- [22:20]
Anders Courbet
That's one of my biggest motivations is I, like, see this technology, technological advancement, but I don't see the human advancing. And I thought, like, this would be a good product to, like, get us off our phones and get us. Yeah.
- [22:31]
Gary Brecka
So.
- [22:31]
Anders Courbet
So.
- [22:33]
Gary Brecka
So after repopulating his gut bacteria now, how did you what to give him.
- [22:40]
Anders Courbet
Mainly is I didn't want to hurt the guy. Right. He's been through a lot. I'm like, I would give him the most benign Lactobacillus strains. Right. It's in yogurt, which were wiped out, I'm sure, because it's in yogurts and kefir. But it's a very specific type of bacteria that has very specific function. And so I imagine these bacteria is like factories. Right. That just go into your body and turn on as a factory. And, you know, they turn on by, like the doing something called RNA sequencing. So, you know, which genes in the bacteria are actually turned on in the body versus in the. In the dormant state.
- [23:14]
Gary Brecka
Right. And we know that. That our genes don't necessarily determine our destiny. I mean, our genes are sort of the blueprint. Yeah. Where they say that your genetics load the gun, but, you know, your lifestyle pulls the trigger. Right. And so in this case, um, you, you culture these strains of bacteria, he starts to take the probiotic testosterone recovers incredibly. How about the other myriad of. Of, you know, consequences he was dealing with, like the myriad of other, I.
- [23:47]
Anders Courbet
Guess, symptoms later that year. You know, I'm friends with the guy. We go run a flat mile together, you know.
- [23:54]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [23:54]
Anders Courbet
He was able to return to athleticism, which is nice. And, you know, he's a family man. And.
- [24:02]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [24:03]
Anders Courbet
You know, this hap. He's, you know, happily married and all that stuff. Yeah, he was just living a normal life. He was a. I look up to him a lot. He's really highly educated, been a venture capitalist for, like, 15 years.
- [24:16]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [24:16]
Anders Courbet
You know, just, like, had struggled.
- [24:18]
Gary Brecka
So this changed his life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And. And I love the. I love the concept of you take my gut bacteria culture and expand those and, you know, so if I did a course of antibiotics, let's say, and you had my bacteria banked. Yeah. When I'm done with the course of antibiotics, you could give me back my own bacteria.
- [24:37]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. That's a really big deal. And I do that for a lot of people as I. And a lot of people, they'll have surgery and I'll do exactly that. They take the antibiotics, and then they get their own bacteria back to them.
- [24:46]
Gary Brecka
I mean, that. That's fascinating to me because, you know, we're trying. There are. I mean, there are lots of good pre, pro and postbiotics that are out there. I mean, there's some that I really trust and I recommend to a lot of them.
- [24:58]
Anders Courbet
Community.
- [24:59]
Gary Brecka
But the. I always say that, you know, there's. No matter what anyone tells you, there's no better hormone bacteria than one the body produces on its own.
- [25:10]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [25:10]
Gary Brecka
Right. So if you could take my bacteria, bank them, and then if I did a course of antibiotics, repopulate my own gut with my own bacteria, there's. I mean, there's no better targeted way to restore the gut microbiome.
- [25:24]
Anders Courbet
And there's. There's even, like, weird papers that are published about, like, the bacteria you get at birth, in the birth canal or through the breast milk seems to have, like, seniority over the other bacteria. So you can, like, take that bacteria and it'll organize everyone else. Like, time to get in line.
- [25:39]
Gary Brecka
Wow.
- [25:39]
Anders Courbet
And, like, the first performance bacteria actually was from a World War I veteran and who was in the trenches. And everyone in the trench died or got super sick from dysentery, except this one guy. He was healthy. He was fine. No problem. And so after the war, they tried to figure out what happened, and so they isolated an E. Coli strain Fascinating.
- [26:00]
Gary Brecka
That he even had the impetus to do that back then.
- [26:03]
Anders Courbet
It was a scientist almost 100 years ago. More than a hundred years ago.
- [26:07]
Gary Brecka
That's what I mean.
- [26:07]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. And it's still sold today. You can still buy it.
- [26:09]
Gary Brecka
Wow.
- [26:10]
Anders Courbet
It's called Mutaflor.
- [26:11]
Gary Brecka
Wow.
- [26:11]
Anders Courbet
And you can buy it, and it's still the same isolate of that same bacteria from that World War I veteran.
- [26:16]
Gary Brecka
Wow.
- [26:17]
Anders Courbet
And to this day, it's a concert. It helps constipation, helps diarrhea. It helps all sorts of digestive issues for travelers. It's a great product.
- [26:27]
Gary Brecka
So. So where do you see this technology that you've developed going? I mean, eventually, do you see it as, like, literally, like a menu? You could come in and say, here are the challenges that I have. I have poor focus and concentration. I don't sleep well. I've got intermittent diarrhea and constipation. My gut's constantly bothering me. I get cramping. I get bloating. And you could dial up or dial down certain bacterial strains and repopulate the floor in a way that would address those symptoms.
- [27:04]
Anders Courbet
Yeah, I'm trying to. Well, it's. I have a foundational model, you know, for someone that's not doing that well, and then I go up different levels depending on how customized you want to be.
- [27:16]
Gary Brecka
Okay. Right. So, yeah. Tell me what exists today. So today, if I send a stool sample in, what are the possibilities that I could get back for that? And I'd love to see this.
- [27:29]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [27:30]
Gary Brecka
It's on the web because I want to go through the menu myself.
- [27:33]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [27:33]
Gary Brecka
Because I've got some things I'd like to get.
- [27:36]
Anders Courbet
Well, it's. It's on the website, and under the About Us page, there's, like, the studies we can. What bacteria and what study are cited on there? And for the most part, I can isolate those from people.
- [27:49]
Gary Brecka
Okay.
- [27:49]
Anders Courbet
And there's anywhere from bone density to serotonin, dopamine. There's androgen bacteria, and cyanobacteria for oxygen. Those are found in, like, Olympic swimmers. You know, uniquely. That's like, how you can identify an Olympic swimmer is by the amount of cyanobacteria.
- [28:13]
Gary Brecka
Really?
- [28:13]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. You can, like, identify a lot of different sports by, like.
- [28:16]
Gary Brecka
So if you actually just saw nothing other than somebody's gut microbiome profile, you could say this person's professional athlete, elite level.
- [28:23]
Anders Courbet
At the Olympic level.
- [28:25]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [28:25]
Anders Courbet
With other sports, like, you know, professional basketball is a little more challenging. But, like, I did saliva sampling with UFC fighters and that the world's Strongest man, and at the World's Strongest Man, I did four tests before, during, and after the competition.
- [28:43]
Gary Brecka
Okay.
- [28:43]
Anders Courbet
And I could tell which athletes had competed two weeks earlier based on the amount of bacteria that eats lactate inside of them, because there was still food for that bacteria, and that means that it hadn't cleared their body. Like, the lactate was still being consumed by the. It's a bacteria called Villanella, and the.
- [29:03]
Gary Brecka
Lactate is obviously what's produced when you're.
- [29:05]
Anders Courbet
Yeah, yeah. There's some controversy on lactate and exercise and things like that. I'm not. You know, I'm not an expert on that.
- [29:11]
Gary Brecka
Right.
- [29:11]
Anders Courbet
But at least every athlete I competed in Europe's Strongest man two weeks earlier had elevated levels of that bacteria.
- [29:17]
Gary Brecka
Wow.
- [29:18]
Anders Courbet
And you could be like, that person is tired.
- [29:20]
Gary Brecka
Right?
- [29:21]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. Or. And then with the UFC fighters, we did saliva sampling again four times, but the most interesting difference was four hours before the fight and then within five minutes after the fight.
- [29:35]
Gary Brecka
So as soon as they're done, press, get to the locker room, take a.
- [29:39]
Anders Courbet
Saliva sample, bunch of blood and saliva all mixed up.
- [29:42]
Gary Brecka
Are they actually willing to sit down and do a blood draw right after a fight with the.
- [29:46]
Anders Courbet
You know, with this guy named Forrest Griffin? Tells him to do it.
- [29:48]
Gary Brecka
Yeah. Yeah. I love force.
- [29:50]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [29:50]
Gary Brecka
Shout out to Forrest Griffin.
- [29:52]
Anders Courbet
You're doing this right now.
- [29:54]
Gary Brecka
Okay. It's like, the last thing on my mind. I've just gotten kicked and punched in the face, and, like, maybe I won, maybe I lost, but, you know, that was like, hey, can I get some blood?
- [30:02]
Anders Courbet
And that was a wild week.
- [30:03]
Gary Brecka
So you. So. So you sample these. But I want to get back to the practical application for, like, my audience that's listening, so. Because all of us have something that we're.
- [30:15]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. Well, I'm just talking about this stuff because that's how I get data to isolate new bacteria. Like, I go. I love the stressful event, measuring that.
- [30:24]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [30:25]
Anders Courbet
And then that informs me what is happening to a body that goes through that. What bacteria, what food is available, what populations go up or down?
- [30:33]
Gary Brecka
So I want to go back to this concept of targeting the gut microbiome again, because I really am fascinated by this.
- [30:40]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. And we got a menu.
- [30:42]
Gary Brecka
And we got a menu, which I'm gonna. I'm gonna read, because I'm also fascinated by this. But. So talk to me, like, about what you did for LeBron. Like, how did.
- [30:52]
Anders Courbet
What.
- [30:52]
Gary Brecka
What would have been his interest in altering his gut microbiome? Because things seem to be going pretty well for him.
- [30:57]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [30:58]
Gary Brecka
You Know right now.
- [30:59]
Anders Courbet
Yeah, I'm, I'm happy to talk about it, but it's been, um. He sent me a, you know, I got connected through mutual friends, sent me a sample in the mail and I worked with his trainer mostly of understanding how he is recovering mostly and so. And through work with other NBA players, it's quite a challenging season for travel and sleep is like a big issue for these guys. And yeah. And there are big differences in off season versus in season microbiome content. And so for him, it's specifically for recovery.
- [31:38]
Gary Brecka
You know, safe to say he wanted the best gut microbiome. And you know, again, what's fascinating to me is you can go into someone who is a professional athlete because I think at the professional athlete level, they're all looking for ways to legally, you know, without enhancing, you know, using a performance enhancement device, but to modify their biology.
- [32:03]
Anders Courbet
Right.
- [32:03]
Gary Brecka
Whether it's through red light or hyperbarics or.
- [32:06]
Anders Courbet
Absolutely, yeah.
- [32:06]
Gary Brecka
You know, sleep or, you know, eating very clean foods, anything that they can do to close that last gap.
- [32:12]
Anders Courbet
This is just a tool, right? Yeah.
- [32:14]
Gary Brecka
To close that last gap.
- [32:15]
Anders Courbet
Right. So.
- [32:17]
Gary Brecka
So when you. And most of us are not looking for that elite level of performance. So I want to bring this back down to, you know, what this means to working folks.
- [32:25]
Anders Courbet
There's two types of these bacteria. The bacteria that can impact day of performance and then also, you know, day to day maintenance.
- [32:34]
Gary Brecka
Okay.
- [32:35]
Anders Courbet
Levels of your body.
- [32:36]
Gary Brecka
And what is it specifically doing? Is it reduce. Is it reducing the lactate threshold? Is it improving, you know, oxidative phosphorylation? I mean, is it enhancing mitochondrial function? What. What is it that's having the impact on the.
- [32:55]
Anders Courbet
Based on a number of papers, the Villanella bacteria sits between the blood and gut barrier and it pulls the lactate out of the blood and consumes it in the gut and excretes another metabolite.
- [33:06]
Gary Brecka
Wow.
- [33:06]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. Which is pretty cool, right? Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, overloading that over time, I think would help recovery.
- [33:14]
Gary Brecka
Yes, yeah, no, it would help recovery here actually, because, you know, the performance degrades as you get into that lactate threshold. You know, the, the longer you can maintain aerobic respiration. Yeah, right. We know that there's aerobic and anaerobic respiration. So, you know, as you get anaerobic, you know, your muscles start to burn, you know, hydrogen ions build up. There's all kinds of things that are going on that are, that are actually causing a degradation in performance. So highly conditioned athletes, higher VO2 max, better circulation, shuttling Oxygen and carbon dioxide back and forth from the lung to the tissue is what really makes the difference between someone who can perform well athletically and someone who can't. But what's interesting and fascinating to me is I've never inserted the gut microbiome into that. To think how could the gut microbiome push you further? Either extend how long you can stay in aerobic respiration or help you recover from anaerobic respiration.
- [34:18]
Anders Courbet
Faster.
- [34:18]
Gary Brecka
Faster. By consuming these byproducts of those processes.
- [34:22]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [34:22]
Gary Brecka
You know, lactate pyruvate these, these metabolic byproducts that are degrading performance.
- [34:30]
Anders Courbet
Right.
- [34:30]
Gary Brecka
So in my biological mind, you know, if you have these byproducts that are degrading performance and there are bacteria that consume those byproducts.
- [34:39]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [34:40]
Gary Brecka
You have an increase in performance.
- [34:42]
Anders Courbet
Right.
- [34:42]
Gary Brecka
I mean that makes.
- [34:43]
Anders Courbet
You just described my whole business. Did I really?
- [34:45]
Gary Brecka
Yeah. That's awesome.
- [34:46]
Anders Courbet
That's my whole business.
- [34:47]
Gary Brecka
I get 15% of everything.
- [34:48]
Anders Courbet
I'm happy to do it.
- [34:49]
Gary Brecka
Here, forward. This menu is pretty fascinating. So these are. These are strains that are clinically proven to enhance certain areas of performance. I won't go through a lot of these names, but bacteria one, let's just call it, found in the gut of elite athletes and acts as an energy source for the body. Yeah. Increasing your ability to gain muscle mass, improve exercise performance and exertion, anti fatigue effects. There is another strain that increases your ability to gain muscle mass more effectively and improve digestion. A separate one that increases your ability to gain muscle mass, improve exercise performance. I just read that one. Enhance your gut barrier and improve digestive system and gut function. The gut barrier is another massive. We know that leaky gut, this sort of single cell layer that lines the inside of our, our gut and keeps our outside environment separate from our inside environment.
- [35:48]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [35:48]
Gary Brecka
I mean a lot of people don't realize that's only a single cell layer. Yeah. And the gut microbiome influencing that cell layer to prevent leaky gut, which has its whole set of downstream consequences. Inflammation, calling the immune system, all kinds of things. Boosting oral health, relieving irritable bowel syndrome.
- [36:07]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [36:07]
Gary Brecka
And improving cholesterol when combined with other probiotics.
- [36:13]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [36:13]
Gary Brecka
And then this one is an all around strain that promotes gut and immune health, reduces cholesterol, relieves irritable bowel syndrome, reduces allergy symptoms, prevents and treats vaginal infections. I mean that's. I don't have a vagina, but all the other ones I want to do relieve symptoms of a digestive disorder and Promote overall gut health, boost oral health, relieve irritable bowel syndrome, improve cholesterol, treat constipation, reduce inflammation, improve the immune system. Improving.
- [36:49]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. And there's more and more papers, respiratory every day. Yeah. So more and more published every day.
- [36:54]
Gary Brecka
This is, this is incredible. So jumping out of the elite athlete. And I love how you're called craft microbiome because you're sort of crafting the microbiome.
- [37:06]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [37:06]
Gary Brecka
So it's a great, great marketing tool there. But the average person listening to this podcast, if they were to close their eyes and say, here's my wish list, you know, and it started with things like, you know, gut dysbiosis, because the vast majority of people do have something that they would love to fix about.
- [37:28]
Anders Courbet
Totally.
- [37:29]
Gary Brecka
Maybe it's gas, maybe it's bloating, diarrhea, constipation, irritability, cramping, you know, bloating, inflammation.
- [37:38]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [37:39]
Gary Brecka
Where, where did they start? What would a stool sample arriving to your lab look like before it turned into a probiotic for them?
- [37:50]
Anders Courbet
So I take about as much stool or saliva that covers a penny. Each of those bacteria has a different growth condition, meaning some bacteria like to grow with oxygen, some like without oxygen. Some like, because these things are alive, they need to eat. So I need to put different ingredients to kind of farm these bacteria. And so once I dilute the bacteria and make these growth plates, colonies will grow on the growth plates, little tiny single cells or not, but enough that is a single isolated bacteria. I take that bacteria, I do genomic sequencing of it to identify the strain, the substrain, and then any interesting genomic sequences within it. Once I have that ID verified, I put it in a media jar or a bioreactor with the same growth conditions how I found it originally. And then it grows large quantities, I freeze dry the bacteria. It's like a goo at that point, so it turns into freeze dried bacteria.
- [38:55]
Gary Brecka
This is their bacteria.
- [38:56]
Anders Courbet
It came from them.
- [38:57]
Gary Brecka
Yeah, it came from them.
- [38:58]
Anders Courbet
And, and then I save some of it and then I put the rest in these capsules and then ship it to you.
- [39:04]
Gary Brecka
Okay. And then. But you have it banked.
- [39:06]
Anders Courbet
Yeah, I do.
- [39:06]
Gary Brecka
You can continue to grow that bacteria because, you know, I have a number of professional athletes and folks that I, I work with, several of them. Just give you one example. I have a very well known athlete that had to have some dental work done. And because of the extensive dental work, they put him on a very powerful course of antibiotics. He actually did develop a jaw infection which required another course of antibiotics. And there was noticeable degradation in performance.
- [39:41]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [39:42]
Gary Brecka
After this.
- [39:43]
Anders Courbet
Pretty amazing, right?
- [39:44]
Gary Brecka
Yeah. Yeah. And we struggled for a while. We fixed it now, but we struggled for a while to repopulate his gut. I mean, I. I tried all kinds of things. 38 terra bio complete 3. My. My standard mechanisms for re inoculating, you know, the gut, it took much longer than we originally anticipated. But if you had an. It doesn't even need to be an athlete. I want to. I want to actually just stop talking about elite athletes because most people are not looking to close that last 2/10 of a mile in performance. But, you know, just average mom and dad, you know, goes and gets some, you know, dental work done, or for whatever reason, goes on a massive course of antibiotics, wipes out their gut bacteria. Where would you start with someone like that?
- [40:30]
Anders Courbet
I would try to find something called a Bifidobacterium infantis, which is by most indications it's the first bacteria that inhabits your gut. And it's one I was talking about earlier for that seems to have seniority over the other bacteria to tell them what to do, to organize, and that seems to settle down a lot of people's guts.
- [40:50]
Gary Brecka
Wow.
- [40:50]
Anders Courbet
Just kind of just settle things, get them just stable. And then from there, after a few months, try to build it up from there.
- [40:58]
Gary Brecka
If you want protein to build lean muscle, but without the caloric impact or need to cut, you need perfect amino. It's pure essential amino acids, the building blocks of proteins in a precise form and ratio that allows for near 100% utilization in building lean muscle and no caloric impact. So we build protein six times as much as whey, but without the excess body fat we normally get during bulking. This is the new era of protein supplementation, and it's real. If you want to build lean muscle without having to cut, you need perfect amino. Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. So when you. When you. When you look at people that have severe gut dysbiosis, there's a lot of people listening to this podcast that have been diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis, diverticulitis, Crohn's disease.
- [41:48]
Anders Courbet
Right. A lot of inflammation.
- [41:50]
Gary Brecka
Yeah, they're all inflammation. Itis is inflammation. And in those. If they're listening to this podcast right now, what benefit could they derive from working with craft microbiome to actually go in and re architect the flora in their gut?
- [42:09]
Anders Courbet
The goal for me always is just to start small and just start with, does this help you or not? Because you should be able to feel better within a few days. And, and from there, really, just within a few days.
- [42:24]
Gary Brecka
Usually.
- [42:25]
Anders Courbet
That's usually the feedback I get. Like, hey, like, I'm, you know, things are quiet. I'm sleeping better, I'm feeling better. You know, I'm. And so, you know, I like to. I'm very cautious. And so I like people to say they're feeling better, and then we can start isolating new and different types of bacteria for their own goals. Right. I like the consumer to kind of drive the.
- [42:46]
Gary Brecka
Oh, the consumer does too. I mean, there's nothing, you know. Right.
- [42:49]
Anders Courbet
I don't want to tell. More enthralling this. You know, you need that. I'm like, no, like, hey, what's, what's important to you.
- [42:54]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [42:54]
Anders Courbet
Right.
- [42:55]
Gary Brecka
And, and, and what you're doing in the lab is taking their, Their goal.
- [42:59]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [43:00]
Gary Brecka
And sort of selecting the bacteria. That's the thing that's so fascinating to me is that we're. Now, because we know that, for example, we, you know, we, We. Our gut bacteria will methylate tryptophan, an amino acid, into the neurotransmitter serotonin, or phenylalanine, and tyrosine into the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine is the main driver of behavior. Serotonin is one of the main drivers of mood. So you could see that if you're. If these conversions are off, you have issues with mood and behavior.
- [43:30]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [43:31]
Gary Brecka
Now, I've always looked at genetic methylation, you know, the deficiencies that impact.
- [43:36]
Anders Courbet
And that's the bleeding edge of the microbiome right now.
- [43:39]
Gary Brecka
Right.
- [43:39]
Anders Courbet
If finding out which bacteria help turn on or turn off specific genes in your human DNA.
- [43:45]
Gary Brecka
So if I could add targeted supplementation for the deficiencies that these people have to targeted probiotics.
- [43:52]
Anders Courbet
Right.
- [43:53]
Gary Brecka
That to me would be the holy grail.
- [43:55]
Anders Courbet
Yeah, it's. It's coming. It's.
- [43:57]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [43:57]
Anders Courbet
There's research published now about that exact thing.
- [43:59]
Gary Brecka
But you're already doing it. That's the fascinating thing. You've had success in these areas.
- [44:04]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [44:05]
Gary Brecka
And so I, I, you know, take the, Take this test. I tell you what my goals are. You get my bacteria, and now you're trying to select these certain strains, like to improve my cognitive function or what have you. But let's, let's actually talk about some of those conditions. Diverticulitis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, irritable bowel syndrome. All of these conditions mainly, all have the common theme of Inflammation in the gut. Where do you start? With someone that has one of those conditions. You. You sequence the microbiome and then you're targeting the bacteria that will help them reduce inflammation.
- [44:46]
Anders Courbet
Yeah, just the most benign and most, you know, quieting bacteria again. And that's usually a bifidobacterium, like, you know, one of the animalis or infantis or whatever it is. I just the most benign bacteria I can from them. And the sole focus would just be reducing inflammation.
- [45:07]
Gary Brecka
Okay.
- [45:08]
Anders Courbet
That's the soul. That would all be my total focus. I wouldn't try to, you know, get, like, turn you into a D1 athlete.
- [45:16]
Gary Brecka
Right off the bat.
- [45:17]
Anders Courbet
Right, right.
- [45:17]
Gary Brecka
No, that's not their goal. I mean, they want to be out of pain. They want. They don't want their day to be centered around their gut. Yeah. And. And it's one of those quiet things that just, you know, it's. It's in the back of their mind All. All the time, you know?
- [45:30]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [45:30]
Gary Brecka
You know, when your. Your gut is sort of determining your choices, you're not determining your own choices in. And I have hundreds of clients like this. You know, their. Their day is centered around the condition that they're dealing with.
- [45:42]
Anders Courbet
Right, right. Yeah.
- [45:43]
Gary Brecka
You know, like, they're literally, when they get to a. Yeah. Public event, they're thinking, okay, where's the restroom? Yeah, I need to be able to access this.
- [45:50]
Anders Courbet
You know, I call and talk to all my clients right now. I'm sure that will change, but the, you know, I ask certain questions, like people that tell me they have allergies. I know I can't give them lactobacillus.
- [46:03]
Gary Brecka
Right, right.
- [46:04]
Anders Courbet
I know that causes problems for whatever reason. You know, I also ask, can you eat garlic and onions? And like. No, I can't eat garlic or onions. So that will, like, change a whole bunch of different bacteria that I get them. And I'm not sure why this is the case.
- [46:16]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [46:16]
Anders Courbet
But I know if I.
- [46:18]
Gary Brecka
We know that correlation.
- [46:19]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. It's like, no. You know, okay, now I go. And usually the bifidobacteriums are the best choice just because of all the numerous symptoms.
- [46:27]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [46:28]
Anders Courbet
That. That they've talked about.
- [46:29]
Gary Brecka
I'm super excited about this. I'm going to take like 10 of my VIP clients. We're VIP members, and we're going to. We're going to select this group, and we're going to take their primary concern, challenge, you know, symptom, ailment, whatever you want to call it. And I'm going to. We're Going to do a, we're going to do a little sub study of our own.
- [46:51]
Anders Courbet
I would love it and I love.
- [46:52]
Gary Brecka
It because I trust me, I would have no shortage of volunteers. In fact, if you want to be, send, send a message to my team at info attheultimate human dot com.
- [46:59]
Anders Courbet
Let's go.
- [46:59]
Gary Brecka
Because I really like to do these real world trials, if you will, and see if we can address their primary challenge and achieve their primary goal. Because I know that the clients I have, for example, that have eczema and psoriasis, a lot of what we do is focused on, on the gut microbiome, but we're not as selective. And you know, there's a little bit of guesswork there because you're throwing the strains in there not knowing what they have an overgrowth of, what they have an undergrowth of, and which populations they really need to target. Whereas you can actually target those specific populations. That's what I find fascinating. And eventually we get there. But we're getting there. You know, it's like spaghetti against a wall. You know, you're getting there by putting enough in that eventually the gut returns to its homeostatic.
- [47:57]
Anders Courbet
There's a few customers who are like, I don't care what it is, just give it to me.
- [48:01]
Gary Brecka
Yeah, I'm like, I'm one of those.
- [48:04]
Anders Courbet
Are you sure?
- [48:04]
Gary Brecka
Like most of my VIP community is like that too. Yeah, yeah.
- [48:07]
Anders Courbet
Does this work or not? Yes. I don't know.
- [48:09]
Gary Brecka
I mean there's very, you know, this is, this is the low risk proposition.
- [48:13]
Anders Courbet
Right. It's your own bacteria. Came from you.
- [48:15]
Gary Brecka
Exactly right. That's what I love. You know, I, I, I have a saying, I say all the time, more of what God gave us, less of what man. So if we can actually go into our God given, you know, strains of our own bacteria.
- [48:27]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [48:28]
Gary Brecka
To serve the, you know, to solve the challenges. And by the way, this isn't voodoo science. I mean, they have mapped very specific bacteria, eczema and psoriasis, for example. There is a very strong correlation between deficiencies and certain strength. You're aware of that, right?
- [48:43]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [48:43]
Gary Brecka
And which strains are those?
- [48:45]
Anders Courbet
I can't tell you off the top of my head, but I know the papers exist. Yeah, yeah.
- [48:48]
Gary Brecka
And so could we. And you know, this is particularly troublesome when I get really, really young children that are suffering from this because there's nothing worse than being a mother, father and your child is suffering from this skin condition and the only option you have are steroids, you know, the corticosteroids and Anti inflammatories. And you're stuck in this really, you know, it's like the rock and the hard place decision. Because you want to help your child, the only thing that gives them some relief is something that you know is borrowing from their future.
- [49:23]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [49:24]
Gary Brecka
And you know they're going to be further consequences. You just want to help them right now. You know, it's why we stick an iPad in front of our kid, to calm them down because we're in a public place. But you know, and I really want to offer some hope to them that this may be the answer may lie in sequencing the gut microbiome and targeted probiotics to give them a lifetime of relief. Permanent.
- [49:51]
Anders Courbet
Two important technologies here are the storage of the complete biome. So as the technology improves, we can always go back to the original sample and isolate more and more and more from that original sample. So as our skill increases, that original sample becomes more and more valuable.
- [50:06]
Gary Brecka
Now tell me that you're using AI.
- [50:08]
Anders Courbet
I've done it for some evaluations of large groups of people that I'm testing to see patterns that I can't see.
- [50:17]
Gary Brecka
Yes, exactly. Over the last 20 years in human biology, one compound I've trusted again and again is nad. It's critical for energy focus and cellular repair. But your levels drop around age 30. I used to administer NAD via IVs in my clinics, but now I take Row Nutrition's liposomal NAD, the first oral formula that actually works. Their advanced Delivery tech gets nad straight into your bloodstream. I take 1 teaspoon daily and the results are real clean energy, sharper focus and better recovery. You can try it risk free with the Ultimate 15 code at checkout for 15% off. Just put in Ultimate 15 at checkout, you'll receive 15% off and your cells will thank you. Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. So let's touch on that one for a moment. So eczema, psoriasis, we know that there are deficient bacterial strains. If you were to get a stool sample from one of these children.
- [51:17]
Anders Courbet
What.
- [51:17]
Gary Brecka
Would be the next step?
- [51:19]
Anders Courbet
So my process would be to do deep into the research to try to find some sort of metabolite or groups of metabolites that may or may, you know, maybe over produced in the gut, under produced. And it'd be my intention to either find bacteria, that it's a lot harder to get rid of the bad bacteria, but what we can do is out compete the bad bacteria.
- [51:42]
Gary Brecka
Right.
- [51:43]
Anders Courbet
And so that would be my goal, is to find the metabolites that may be causing the eczema or the psoriasis and either have them consumed or overproduce the beneficial metabolism.
- [51:56]
Gary Brecka
Yeah, because we know that it's not a complete guessing game. I mean, there, there's quality data on the missing strains. And you know, I think what you just touched on, I want to make sure it doesn't get missed is that you say outcompete, because we know in a healthy gut microbiome there are always pathogenic flora.
- [52:13]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [52:13]
Gary Brecka
We have, we have healthy parasites.
- [52:15]
Anders Courbet
Every single person has, you know, Shigella and like Salmonella.
- [52:19]
Gary Brecka
Exactly.
- [52:20]
Anders Courbet
All sorts of crazy stuff.
- [52:21]
Gary Brecka
We all have sibo going on, just not at a level that's symptomatic. Right.
- [52:25]
Anders Courbet
So we all have bacteria on your skin, everywhere inside of you.
- [52:28]
Gary Brecka
Exactly. But homeostasis is where you have a proliferation of the healthy bacteria. And it's not just that they're there to do their role, it's there to also suppress the negative effects from some of these other bacteria. And we know that things like highly processed foods, refined sugars, grains, genetically modified foods, you know, foods that have pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, things like that actually do wipe out and sometimes benefit bad bacteria.
- [53:02]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [53:02]
Gary Brecka
And so the idea that we could actually repopulate the gut with the beneficial bacteria and let that do the policing. Right. Yeah. Let the body's normal homeostatic biophysiologic process keep these, these, you know, strains in check.
- [53:18]
Anders Courbet
Variety is good. And there's like a collapse in these western, in our western stomachs about the variety of bacteria that we have. It's just continually going down and down and down every year. The more highly processed foods we eat, the more we live in a sterile environment.
- [53:34]
Gary Brecka
Yes.
- [53:34]
Anders Courbet
The more like all these things are just killing our bacteria.
- [53:37]
Gary Brecka
Yes, I totally agree. And so. So your next step would be again back to the eczema and psoriasis. We would try to find the bacteria deficient bacteria, repopulate those, and specifically isolate the strains that we know are pro inflammatory and use beneficial bacteria to restore those.
- [54:01]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. To try to out compete those pro inflammatory bacteria. Geography is starting to be an important issue too. Like where in the digestive tract there they live. And also try to produce as many anti inflammatory metabolites as possible.
- [54:19]
Gary Brecka
Can you give me some stories without names or identifying people, non athletic stories where you actually had someone with a condition related to the gut? It could be irritable bowel syndrome, diverticulitis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, One of these conditions in the gut. And you saw miraculous.
- [54:39]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. There's this actress that's had two or three fecal transplants in her life. Advisable or not? I don't want to say. I can't say. But to this day, or maybe not to this day, but she had been dealing with these issues. And I took the sample, I evaluated it, I produced report, and then it turned out I just need to continually reduce the inflammation in her body. And so I just made extra powerful inflammation reducing bacteria.
- [55:13]
Gary Brecka
So you, you took her bacteria, cultured and grew it, and you expanded the flora that actually helps to reduce inflammation. And what was the consequence, the outcome.
- [55:25]
Anders Courbet
For her, she had been like, losing her hair. She had been losing weight. You know, and I know these actresses want to be skinny, but it was getting a little crazy. And because of the reduced inflammation, you know, her hair started to grow back. She, you know, got some movie roles, you know.
- [55:39]
Gary Brecka
Right.
- [55:40]
Anders Courbet
Things like that.
- [55:40]
Gary Brecka
Wow.
- [55:41]
Anders Courbet
Right. She just felt better.
- [55:42]
Gary Brecka
Ah, right. Okay.
- [55:43]
Anders Courbet
Which was the number one issue.
- [55:44]
Gary Brecka
Okay.
- [55:46]
Anders Courbet
For.
- [55:49]
Gary Brecka
How about anything in the realm of, you know, one of these gut dysbiosis conditions like an ulcerative colitis or diverticulitis or Crohn's. Have you had experience in manipulating the gut bacteria with positive outcomes there?
- [56:05]
Anders Courbet
It's in a side life. I did. I did all the life. In a side life, I did all.
- [56:15]
Gary Brecka
That's so shady.
- [56:16]
Anders Courbet
I did all the training to become a Pilates instructor.
- [56:19]
Gary Brecka
Did you really?
- [56:20]
Anders Courbet
I did pass, dude.
- [56:21]
Gary Brecka
I've done two days of Pilates and I could move when I got up this morning. And all I did was the core stretch things.
- [56:28]
Anders Courbet
It was great. It was great.
- [56:29]
Gary Brecka
So I'm so bad.
- [56:30]
Anders Courbet
So when I was done rowing, my body was a little broken.
- [56:33]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [56:33]
Anders Courbet
And so Pilates helped me put back together. So I did all the training. I didn't do all the teaching. So I don't. I'm not certified. But the teachers warned you, like, hey, if a customer, if a client comes in and it. It becomes your job to fix them, you're never going to make that customer happy. Right. And so I've taken that approach too, with the company. Like, I, you know, I can try to help, but I'm not sure I can. I can fix everything. Right. So I try to, like, you know, like, is this something. How long have you been working on this? You know, what's your doctor saying? You know, how can I be supplemental to what you're doing?
- [57:10]
Gary Brecka
But have you had a supplemental role in helping people reduce their symptoms or put these things into remission do you have cases where you can say, hey, this person had XYZ condition post, you know, targeted microbiome. Okay, that's very exciting. Yeah, like, I don't want to, I don't want to pay. You're like not giving yourself enough credit here. I'm trying to give you some credit because, you know, I really believe that this is a massive frontier for modern medicine because there's so little focus. There's a lot of focus on the microbiome, but there's so little focus on the individuality of people's microbiome and actually taking their microbiome to culture and expand it to address the conditions that they have. Yeah, I mean, obviously on that, on that list of, you know, that wish list, if you, whatever you want to call it, you know, a lot of those things on there, I mean, check the box. And probably 70% of my audience has one of those that they would love to have addressed. And the idea that you're addressing it by using their own bacterial strains, to me is really fascinating.
- [58:25]
Anders Courbet
Yeah, it's. It's a wild world. Yeah, it's wild.
- [58:28]
Gary Brecka
So. And you have had success.
- [58:30]
Anders Courbet
But I'm also very cautious not to go against the fda. I'm not intended to treat, cure, prevent.
- [58:38]
Gary Brecka
A disease and I don't want you to make a medical claim. But yeah, the fact that you have been. And I try to be cautious about that too, but people need information. And it's sad how frightened we are sometimes to speak about successes that we've had. Maybe we don't want to use the term cure or treat or prevent.
- [58:56]
Anders Courbet
For example, someone has high glucose, they wake up, their glucose is at 200 or something. Outrageous. And to solve that problem, it was first doing oral sequencing to finding out and then which bacteria are actually living in there, and then finding papers showing that you're 70% likely to be pre diabetic or diabetic from a peer reviewed paper if you're missing these bacteria.
- [59:22]
Gary Brecka
Yes, is exactly what I'm talking about.
- [59:24]
Anders Courbet
Right. And then so the process was like, okay, how do I actually develop a product for this problem? And so it's like isolate the bacteria they're missing first from me to try it if it helps them, and then eventually maybe if I can keep trying to. Because sometimes bacteria don't want to grow no matter if it shows up in the sequencing. Sometimes it doesn't want to grow.
- [59:43]
Gary Brecka
Right.
- [59:43]
Anders Courbet
But then making like a mouthwash, like, hey, like, let's try signaling to the brain about 10 minutes before you eat your Meal, swish this bacteria around your mouth and spit it out. That didn't work.
- [59:57]
Gary Brecka
Right.
- [59:58]
Anders Courbet
But then finding a bacteria that actually consumes glucose and loading the person up, like take this 90 minutes before a meal, it eats glucose. And let's. I was wearing these glucose monitors for a while, and I would go to Wendy's every day and eat the same meal.
- [60:13]
Gary Brecka
Oh, dude, you're killing.
- [60:15]
Anders Courbet
Was horrible. It was horrible. But I'd go to Wendy's every day, eat the same meal. I'd take the bacteria and I'd trial it.
- [60:21]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [60:21]
Anders Courbet
Right. Until my glucose wasn't spiking. Crazy. I tracked it, I guess, for a few weeks where the glucose pre supplement would Spike to like 120, 140, something like that. And then post taking the bacteria gets up to like 115, 120. My guys, now I've handed off to the client and now his glucose doesn't spike.
- [60:41]
Gary Brecka
Yeah, see, this is that. This is just fascinating. Now we're getting somewhere. Okay, this is what I was after. All right? And I understand we got to dance around the fda, but we're going to get some specific answers because. Because I think if you're able to eventually get enough data to crack this code.
- [60:57]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [60:58]
Gary Brecka
The gut microbiome is so foundational. It's 70%, in my opinion. I mean, there's a reason why 70% of your immune system is right outside of your gut, because that's where all the action is. There is also, in my opinion, an enormous body of data that says that the first domino to fall in the sequence of multiple chronic diseases is gut dysbiosis. So what happens is we have severe gut disruption, whether it was antibiotics or whether it was an infection or whether it was just poor food over a prolonged period of time wiping out our gut microbiome. And that was the first domino to fall. And now 50 dominoes later, they've got their first autoimmune disease. 50 dominoes after that, they've got their second autoimmune disease. We know that, you know, early onset Alzheimer's, dementia, early onset cognitive decline. That's everybody's greatest fear. We know now that that doesn't start when you're 75 years old. It starts when you're 35 or 40 or 45 years old. And so the possibility to intervene from a preventive standpoint, the possibility to address, I won't say treat or cure, but to address ailments that you're suffering from now that we know have strong evidence are linked back to the Gut microbiome. This is the whole reason why I brought you on this podcast, because I don't have the wherewithal, the knowledge myself to know specifically how we do it. But I do have a keen appreciation that if we figure that out, that is potentially the panacea. In fact, you know, this woman that just passed away at 118 years old.
- [62:47]
Anders Courbet
Oh, you saw the paper?
- [62:48]
Gary Brecka
Yeah. You saw the paper. Can you talk about that for a second?
- [62:51]
Anders Courbet
Yeah, yeah.
- [62:51]
Gary Brecka
Because that's validating about everything that you've talked about on this podcast.
- [62:55]
Anders Courbet
Right.
- [62:55]
Gary Brecka
What was unique about her?
- [62:58]
Anders Courbet
I believe she had a high percentage of Bifidobacterium.
- [63:02]
Gary Brecka
Exactly.
- [63:02]
Anders Courbet
Which is a genus inside of her, a genus of bacteria. And she had it relative to someone, you know, at a midlife age or something like that. Right.
- [63:12]
Gary Brecka
They said a 35 year old.
- [63:14]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. Isn't that wild?
- [63:14]
Gary Brecka
Right, yeah. At 118.
- [63:16]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [63:17]
Gary Brecka
So you can't just overlook that.
- [63:19]
Anders Courbet
No.
- [63:19]
Gary Brecka
Right, right. So, and, and I believe too that, you know, when, when we look at blue zone studies, a lot of the data was regional, meaning if you took a centenarian from Sardinia that was eating that, you know, genre of foods and, and what have you, but if you had 50 years earlier put that person in a different area of the world, they would have had a different outcome.
- [63:49]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [63:50]
Gary Brecka
Because their gut microbiome had adapted to, to that geographic location and those types of foods, and it was very adept at breaking them down, you know, creating energy from those. And, you know, we're such a nomad world. I mean, I did 14 cities in 18 days. Right. So, and I'm very intentional about what I eat, but I couldn't control it to that extent.
- [64:15]
Anders Courbet
No, no. And, and so your circadian rhythms and all that stuff. Yes, my gut microbiome driven. Yeah.
- [64:21]
Gary Brecka
But if we could keep the consistency in the gut microbiome, our ability to adapt to, you know, different environments and actually metabolizing, you know, different types of food. You know, I think that to me is, is one of the secrets to longevity. But you're right, she had very specific strains that were in excess, especially for her age.
- [64:45]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. And these were taken, the studies were done about a year before she died or something like that. So near the end of life. Yeah, right.
- [64:53]
Gary Brecka
Yeah, so near the end of life.
- [64:54]
Anders Courbet
And still, still crushing it.
- [64:56]
Gary Brecka
Yeah, still crushing it. Largely because of her gut microbiome.
- [64:59]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [64:59]
Gary Brecka
Let's, let's go to, you know, a big fear that, that grips a lot of people, which is Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, dementia, these neuroinflammatory conditions that cause different forms of cognitive decline. Right. They interrupt the communication of our, you know, in our brain so that we appear to be losing our memory or we get disoriented or we get confused. I mean, that's everybody's biggest fear. And. And most of us have either had a friend or a family member, and we've seen this occur. And what could somebody do now to mitigate the risk of. Because you did talk earlier about Parkinson's.
- [65:45]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. For a lot of these, like, neurodegenerative issues, there are changes in the gut that happen years before the symptoms develop. And one of the easiest things you can do is get your microbiome sequenced over time because it's a dynamic system like you talked about. Right. And you can monitor those changes and how they can determine if you're potentially going to develop Parkinson's or not. Are ratios of separate type of two different. Or three or four different types of bacteria. Right. How is this ratio of this bacteria to that bacteria, you know, and how is that ratio changing over time? How does that increase your risk factor?
- [66:22]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [66:22]
Anders Courbet
For these type of.
- [66:24]
Gary Brecka
Yeah. So at a minimum, if I knew that I either had a genetic predisposition, which there are to some of these things, they're. They're not. They're not a genetic inheritance of the disease, but they're a genetic predisposition to the disease. So if I knew I was in that risk category, or I had cognitive decline, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, that ran in my family.
- [66:44]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [66:46]
Gary Brecka
What would you be doing right now? If you're listening to this podcast, and that's one of your concerns, what would you be doing right now? You send the bacteria into your lab and start culturing the bacteria that combat those neuroinflammatory conditions. And we know what they are. And so, at a minimum, this would be a good risk mitigation tool.
- [67:08]
Anders Courbet
Right? Yeah. At least have an understanding of what's going on over time.
- [67:11]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [67:11]
Anders Courbet
Right. A single test is going to be okay, but it's. It's the overtime testing that will determine a lot of risk factors. And then saving your original young bacteria. Right. Is really important.
- [67:23]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [67:23]
Anders Courbet
Right. So as these ratios of your bacteria change and you get older, you can always go back to that young bacteria that we have in storage.
- [67:31]
Gary Brecka
So if you have 30, 40, if you're in your 30s, 40s, or 50s, you have either have the genetic predisposition to one of these conditions or it runs in your family, which is one of the things I Don't like to. I don't like a lot of these familial characteristics in disease because it makes people feel like there's nothing I can do.
- [67:54]
Anders Courbet
Right, right.
- [67:54]
Gary Brecka
My Parkinson's runs in my family. I'm just going to get Parkinson's. Not true. Alzheimer's runs in my family. I'm just predestined to get Alzheimer's.
- [68:02]
Anders Courbet
That's why I like my product as a catalyst for change. Like a user driven. Like, people are aware of these things.
- [68:07]
Gary Brecka
Yeah, right.
- [68:08]
Anders Courbet
And it's like, oh, no. Like, with this product, I can start the change that can happen.
- [68:13]
Gary Brecka
So right now I can send my stool and saliva sample in and I can, you know, look at my profile and I can at least begin to reinoculate bacteria that are known to be the antithesis of those conditions. Correct.
- [68:32]
Anders Courbet
That can happen today.
- [68:33]
Gary Brecka
That's amazing.
- [68:36]
Anders Courbet
So.
- [68:39]
Gary Brecka
In a perfect world, where do you see Kraft Microbiome going? Where's Kraft Microbiome going to be in five years based on what you're doing now?
- [68:52]
Anders Courbet
Well, next year.
- [68:56]
Gary Brecka
The dream say.
- [68:57]
Anders Courbet
It just said the dream. The dream is the application, like an app on your phone that you plug in that says, like, I have a meeting today, I want to run a mile. And, you know, I have a dinner tonight. And then you have a box next to it, and the app spits out, oh, take probiotic number one, three and six. And you. And you have the box of, like, all your different bacteria. Like, take this one at this time. Take that at that time, you know, to like, show the, you know, I love that. Yeah, so that's the, that's next year.
- [69:25]
Gary Brecka
Yeah, yeah, we do that now with, you know, certain, you know, just certain supplementation. We take focus pills and, and nootropics and, you know, nicotine and caffeine and, you know, so we, we, we do try to manipulate, you know, ourselves for certain activities. But the fact that we could do it with, you know, bacteria that produce.
- [69:45]
Anders Courbet
Neurotransmitters, like, at one point, a customer wanted to get super. Like, he's like, I need something for golf. Right. And so I, I'm like, I, I don't know.
- [69:56]
Gary Brecka
There's somebody with no problems in their life, right. By the time that their biggest concern is their golf game.
- [70:01]
Anders Courbet
Love golf.
- [70:01]
Gary Brecka
A lot of people I know, I want to be that dude. Like, a lot of things would go on my list before I got to.
- [70:07]
Anders Courbet
My golf swing, but so I'm like, I grew up, I played a little golf. I don't play that much now. I'm like, oh, so you need to be calm, you need to be relaxed. You need to do X, Y and Z. So I made these bacteria for dopamine, for serotonin that produce this stuff. I give it to the guy, his golf game gets a little better. But what really changes him is it helps him sleep at night. Ah, right. And so sometimes you make this concoction, like you take this and. But it doesn't do what you want, but then it has a benefit for something else.
- [70:38]
Gary Brecka
Yeah, well, I mean, you know, that's why the gut microbiome is so fascinating. We don't realize that, you know, just saying that. Oh, it produces neurotransmitters. Yeah. But neurotransmitters are the foundation of mood.
- [70:50]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [70:50]
Gary Brecka
They're the foundation of behavior. They're, they're, they're the foundation of our emotional state.
- [70:55]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [70:56]
Gary Brecka
You know, and aberrations in those things get us diagnosed with mood disorders and mental illnesses when the truth is these are deficiencies that are expressing themselves as these conditions. And the next thing you know, you know, you're on an SSRI or, you.
- [71:16]
Anders Courbet
Know, which causes all sorts of microbiome problems. Right.
- [71:19]
Gary Brecka
Which again, is just fine. So the, the fact that we could get out of the chemical, synthetic, pharmaceutical realm and get into the bacterial realm.
- [71:30]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [71:30]
Gary Brecka
Which is, you know, instead of saying I, you know, have a mood disorder, and I hate these words, but a mood disorder because I have a deficiency in the neurotransmitter serotonin. So I'm just going to take a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor instead of doing that to say, I'm going to take the bacterial strain that give me the proper level of, of serotonin, so I can just have normal mood without intervention. Like that, to me, is what's so fascinating about this. I mean, like, I'm going to follow your work. First of all, I'm doing the test and I'll, I'll let everybody know how it goes. But I would love to select, you know, eight or 10 of my, you know, VIP clients or for my VIP community and, and, and see what challenges they are currently facing that we know. Map to the gut microbiome. What are the, what are the risks that they want to mitigate in the future? Maybe they have Alzheimer's, dementia or cognitive client in their family. Maybe they have an autistic loved one.
- [72:34]
Anders Courbet
Which we know, which is also being correlated.
- [72:36]
Gary Brecka
Yeah, they're too inflammation.
- [72:38]
Anders Courbet
Bacteria. Yeah.
- [72:39]
Gary Brecka
In there. Too correlated to inflammation in the gut. Interestingly, the FDA just approved folinic acid. Really?
- [72:46]
Anders Courbet
I didn't know that.
- [72:47]
Gary Brecka
Yeah, they just approved folinic acid. Prescription strength folinic acid, which is the. Essentially the methylated form of folic acid or folate, as one of the frontline prescriptions that a physician could write for awesome neurodevelopmental disorders.
- [73:04]
Anders Courbet
I know you're huge into that.
- [73:06]
Gary Brecka
I'm huge into that. And I was so excited to see that happen. It was like a eureka moment for me because finally, something that is not chemically or synthetically altering our natural biology.
- [73:21]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [73:21]
Gary Brecka
To fix, you have anything to do with a symptom, you have anything to deal with that. So. And, you know, finally something that is not altering our physiology to get the result that we want, it's going back to our physiology and saying, could this deficiency.
- [73:41]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [73:42]
Gary Brecka
Cause this symptom? And instead of going after the symptom, let's go after the deficiency. And that's why I think that, you know, whatever you want to call it, my work, my passion, which is restoring healthy physiology to get the outcomes that we want. You know, autism. I don't need to tell you about autism rates in the United States. And statistics are scary. You know, 1 in 5,000 to 1 in 32 children, and that is expected to double again in the next five years. I mean, the rate, the parabolic rate at which it's increasing. And yet we can't say this causes this. Vaccines cause autism. Acetaminophen during pregnancy causes autism. We haven't reached that. We know that there is correlations. The reason why I believe that these are correlated is because of their impact on the microbiome. I don't have the specific peer reviewed randomized clinical trial to prove it, but maybe you do. That would vindicate me.
- [74:48]
Anders Courbet
Well, it reminds me of a paper about supercentarians and how the microbiome ages over time. And they tracked people, I forget how long, but they had age groups. It was something like 30,000 people. They took samples from all different ages, from 20 to 80, and they identified specific bacteria that decrease as you age. And so that's part of the storage. That's one of the bacteria I isolate is these young bacteria. But what also was found in the paper was the amount of oxygen tolerance in the gut goes down as you age. And what that means is the bacteria that they're not oxygen tolerant, but they're fed by the. They increase relative to the number of pharmaceuticals you're on. Right.
- [75:40]
Gary Brecka
And it meaning you are degrading the capacity for normal pathic bacterial function. The more you pharma we absolutely knew that in the mortality space, the more pharmaceuticals you were on, the easier it was to predict your life expectancy.
- [75:55]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. And it's now, in not a good way now, correlated or related. Directly related to your microbiome and how much inflammation, how much oxygen tolerant you are.
- [76:05]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [76:06]
Anders Courbet
Inside the gut.
- [76:06]
Gary Brecka
Yeah. I think, I think that's just, it's just so fascinating to me. And now that we are beginning to map causal relationships between certain bacterial deficiencies and well known disease processes, not the least of which, you know, Akkermansia and cancer.
- [76:28]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [76:28]
Gary Brecka
For example, should wake everybody up to the absolute importance and the necessity for healthy microbiome and that our modern day lifestyle is the polar opposite of what we need to have a healthy gut microbiome. And you know, I always talk about this theory I talked about earlier in the podcast of the one domino that falls, that causes all the other dominoes. Dominoes to fall.
- [76:53]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [76:53]
Gary Brecka
And very often the first domino to fall is this. Gut dysbiosis.
- [76:58]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [76:58]
Gary Brecka
In fact, there are a lot of, you know, when, when pathogens invade us, bacteria, parasites, viruses, even, even heavy metals and mold and mycotoxins.
- [77:11]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [77:12]
Gary Brecka
The vast majority of what they are impacting is the microbiome. And then the microbiome deficiency is giving us the symptoms.
- [77:21]
Anders Courbet
Totally. Yeah.
- [77:22]
Gary Brecka
Okay.
- [77:22]
Anders Courbet
Right. Like oftentimes for myself, like, you know, before you get sick or have a cold or something, you'll have some diarrhea or something beforehand, like a few days beforehand. And that was found during COVID too. They could track Google searches on diarrhea before the COVID would show up in the sewage samples that they were testing. Yeah. So like a few days before, like searches for diarrhea or gut dysbiosis or whatever would spike a few days before actually the, the virus would show up in the, in the, in the sewage.
- [77:53]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [77:53]
Anders Courbet
Or before cases. Yeah.
- [77:54]
Gary Brecka
You know, interestingly, Whoop noticed certain trends.
- [77:57]
Anders Courbet
Yeah, right.
- [77:57]
Gary Brecka
In their WHOOP data, which I found really fascinating. You know, like respiratory rates starting to increase substantially in the days before they became symptomatic. So they were infected. But while the viral load was rising, before the patient even knew that they had it, they noticed this massive correlation between respiratory rates and the onset of COVID to the point where it actually became predictive. Yeah. So, you know, but again, if you're listening to this podcast, you know what should. If someone wants to take the next step, I feel like everyone could benefit from sending a stool or saliva sample into your lab. First of all, could you handle that.
- [78:43]
Anders Courbet
Kind of I can handle that volume now.
- [78:45]
Gary Brecka
You can now? Okay.
- [78:46]
Anders Courbet
Recently. Yes, I can handle the volume.
- [78:47]
Gary Brecka
Okay. So yeah. So sending in a stool in the saliva sample, having their microbiome sequenced and at least getting on a basic probiotic coming from their own flora.
- [79:01]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. Starting with one or two.
- [79:02]
Gary Brecka
Starting with one or two.
- [79:03]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [79:04]
Gary Brecka
Addressing the deficiencies and bacteria that we know have major impacts on mood, major impacts on emotion, major impacts on influence inflammation. Yeah. So that you don't buy yourself a con consequence down the road and I, I like that idea better than, I mean I know some phenomenal probiotic manufacturing companies and.
- [79:23]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [79:24]
Gary Brecka
But again this is the one size fits all. But it's all we have right now. Yeah. And I utilize them a lot and there's some phenomenal products out there like.
- [79:33]
Anders Courbet
Like we were talking about before like the World War I soldier and. Yeah, yeah. You know there's tons of great companies.
- [79:38]
Gary Brecka
I really. Well, I want some of his if you've got it lying around the lab. I want some of his back O. Yeah, I got it in guys. So and, and then I'll, and then I'll start reselling it and maybe I'll, it's like you should. Yeah.
- [79:51]
Anders Courbet
We can sell Gary, Gary Brea's own. Yeah.
- [79:55]
Gary Brecka
But no, I, I, I think for.
- [79:57]
Anders Courbet
The vast from Gary, for the world.
- [79:59]
Gary Brecka
I, I like it.
- [80:01]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [80:01]
Gary Brecka
Let's, let's trademark that today. So I, I think that, you know, you send in a stool and saliva sample, you get this profile, you culture those bacteria and you begin to re. Inoculate. What is the worst thing that can happen? Your inflammation goes down, your mood improves, you see that your cognitive function begins to improve, that brain fog starts to lift.
- [80:25]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [80:25]
Gary Brecka
And potentially you are mitigating the downstream risk of neurocognitive decline.
- [80:32]
Anders Courbet
Right.
- [80:32]
Gary Brecka
Which is, you know, what none of us want. I mean this woman that passed away at 118 years old, I, I saw some of the, the interviews with her and fascinating to me how cognizant she was at 116, at 117 years old. I mean very, very, very good grasp of where she was, what was going on in the world, her environment. You know, she wasn't living in the past, she wasn't aloof, she wasn't despondent. And you know, if, if the very things that create thought neurotransmitters are made in the gut and that those are made in a factory that is run by bacteria.
- [81:12]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [81:14]
Gary Brecka
There's a linear correlation between these.
- [81:16]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [81:18]
Gary Brecka
So would you recommend that everyone at least start Their stool and.
- [81:21]
Anders Courbet
Yeah, just store it and get the test done.
- [81:25]
Gary Brecka
And begin to take your own probiotics.
- [81:26]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. Yeah.
- [81:27]
Gary Brecka
That's fascinating.
- [81:28]
Anders Courbet
Take your own.
- [81:31]
Gary Brecka
What is one question I haven't asked you that you think everyone needs to know about the gut microbiome or could be solved by what you're doing in your lab today?
- [81:42]
Anders Courbet
One question you haven't asked, I guess, where I think it's all going.
- [81:48]
Gary Brecka
Yeah. Where is it all going?
- [81:50]
Anders Courbet
Where's it all going? You and I talked a little bit about this the other day, but, like the Virome did. We talked about this. Yeah. And how there's a really crazy paper, and bacteria have viruses, just like humans have viruses. But these viruses only attack the bacteria.
- [82:16]
Gary Brecka
Hold on. Bacteria have viruses? What do you mean? Like, bacteria carry viruses?
- [82:21]
Anders Courbet
No, no. Like, there's a virus that will only go after Lactobacillus.
- [82:26]
Gary Brecka
Oh, right, right. Yeah.
- [82:27]
Anders Courbet
And that's called, like, a phage. And so this crazy study, bacteria infected by aphage makes mice and makes flies smarter, increases memory increases. Right. No one knows why this is the case, but in the flies, they have a longer memory, and in the mice, they can solve the maze quicker.
- [82:48]
Gary Brecka
Okay, Right.
- [82:49]
Anders Courbet
Early, early stuff, but that's it. That's really interesting to me. Like, why is. Why is that happening?
- [82:55]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [82:55]
Anders Courbet
You know, I know it sounds a little scary, but, you know, those viruses have no effect on us. This. They're only dangerous to the Lactobacillus. But.
- [83:07]
Gary Brecka
But then the lactobacillus has an effect on us.
- [83:09]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [83:10]
Gary Brecka
You know, and so again, we're getting back to that first domino that fell.
- [83:13]
Anders Courbet
Yeah. And soon it will be possible to model. I'm getting too technical.
- [83:22]
Gary Brecka
No, go ahead, get technical for a second.
- [83:25]
Anders Courbet
Soon it'll be possible to model all through AI. Yeah. Through all the metabolites produced by one bacteria eaten by another. Downstream effects. Be able to create a digital twin of all the bacteria and be able to model the food you eat. And all the metabolites have this many grams of B vitamins or whatever are produced, which I think will be really cool.
- [83:50]
Gary Brecka
I think that'll be really cool, too. Well, Anders, this is amazing. I have a group of folks, the community that I'm building, called the VIP community. So when the podcast is over, we're going to go into this VIP community because they're the community that I let know ahead of time who's coming on the podcast.
- [84:06]
Anders Courbet
Okay.
- [84:07]
Gary Brecka
And so they've looked into your background. They have a series of questions for you, if you're interested. In becoming a VIP, just go over to the Ultimate Human. TheUltimateHuman.com VIP Sign up to be one of my VIPs. You can cancel at any time. I have a 10 month course on becoming the ultimate human in there. I do lots of live Q&As. I do private podcasts. I've written guides on mold detoxification, heavy metal detoxification, whole food diet, travel tips, sleep, morning routines, even exercise. And there's just an amazing community of like minded human beings in there. So head over to theultimatehuman.com VIP and just sign up to be one of my VIPs and I'll see you in there. But I end all my podcasts by asking all my guests the same question and there's no right or wrong answer to this question. Okay. And that is, what does it mean to you to be an ultimate Human?
- [85:03]
Anders Courbet
I'm still very athlete driven. I, I still want to compete at an elite level and as many different sports as I can.
- [85:13]
Gary Brecka
How old are you now?
- [85:14]
Anders Courbet
38.
- [85:15]
Gary Brecka
Oh, you're not out.
- [85:15]
Anders Courbet
I'm an old man.
- [85:16]
Gary Brecka
Hey, dude. I mean, Tom Brady, you know, Cristiano Ronaldo, I mean there's a lot.
- [85:23]
Anders Courbet
A week ago I raced at the Head of Charles, the world's largest rowing regatta. Oh, you did? Yeah.
- [85:27]
Gary Brecka
Oh, right on.
- [85:28]
Anders Courbet
Did pretty well. We got eighth in our category.
- [85:31]
Gary Brecka
Okay. And is it age?
- [85:33]
Anders Courbet
I was in the alumni event. Okay. So former college and national team athletes.
- [85:38]
Gary Brecka
Yeah.
- [85:38]
Anders Courbet
And. But that's awesome. You know, I want to be able to do that every year and I want to win that thing. Yeah. Every year. Yeah.
- [85:44]
Gary Brecka
You know, like one of my favorite things is. It sounds crazy, but just being able to like work out with my family and my, my sons and my oldest son was over here in Dubai with me and my, my, the rest of my family.
- [86:02]
Anders Courbet
He's very nice.
- [86:03]
Gary Brecka
Yeah, he's. Cole's great. And, but not just being in same industry together and building businesses together, but be. But to have a shared part of your lifestyle because he, you know, he's very athletic. So is my, my other son, so are both of my daughters. And. But to be able to just. He's 23 years old and to be able to just go and just rock a gym session with him, do his cardio workout. I sat down last night and I was telling my friend Umar Kamani, I was like, this is the best that life gets. We had a great day with business meetings and then my son and I and a bunch of our buddies, we just went to the gym, we had a trainer run us through this crazy CrossFit style, you know, wad workout. And then at the end, we did these 30 second interval sprints. And just to be able to do that with him, I'm like, this is as good as life gets. And I want that for everybody, because when you have your health and you're pain free.
- [87:02]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [87:02]
Gary Brecka
And you're mobile.
- [87:03]
Anders Courbet
For as long as possible.
- [87:04]
Gary Brecka
For as long as you. Your relationships deepen.
- [87:07]
Anders Courbet
Yeah.
- [87:07]
Gary Brecka
Really is so true. Well, Anders, thank you so much for coming on the Ultimate Human podcast.
- [87:12]
Anders Courbet
Thank you.
- [87:12]
Gary Brecka
To talk to you in the. In the VIP group. And for the rest of you guys, until next time. Time. That's just science.