the bossbabe podcast - 149. Why Your Gut Health is Linked to Energy and Anxiety with Tina Anderson

Episode Date: February 16, 2021

Join BossBabe Co-Founder & CEO Natalie Ellis and special guest Tina Anderson to hear how your gut health impacts your brain health - from your energy levels to your anxiety and the tangible things you can start doing today to better your gut health. BossBabe Launch Formula Training: https://go.bossbabe.com/launch-formula1 Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/bossbabe Use Code "BOSSBABE" To Save 15% On Just Thrive: https://justthrivehealth.com/ Follow:  BossBabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie: @iamnatalie

I am so excited to announce that I am hosting another brand new free training on how to have stress-free sold-out launches. I have two dates and times available so I'm going to link you below. Make sure you sign up soon because we have a cap at how many people we can have there. This is for business owners who've already made sales and are really ready to accelerate their business this year. So what I'm going to be doing is teaching Boss Babe's four-part launch framework. The exact framework that we have used to make over eight figures in revenue through launching organically through social media. It's an incredible framework and the best part is it's incredibly simple. So if you're really, really ready to level up this year and take your business to the next level

and you want to see a massive cash injection through launching and you want to know how to do it with less stress and more success, then you're going to love this. And at the very end of the training, I'm going to be extending a really exclusive offer to join me inside of online launch school. So it's going to be a really, really amazing training. So the link is below, go sign up, pick the time zone that works best for you. And I'll see you on there with either champagne or coffee in hand, depending on the time of day. And with that, we'll dive straight into the episode. There's a huge gut brain connection that people really don't realize that there's the vagus nerve that connects the gut to the brain and they're both sending signals back and forth to each other

all the time so we're just huge believers of trying to get to the root cause of an issue and not just masking it with a pharmaceutical welcome to the boss bay, a place where we share the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance, and learning how to balance it all. I'm Natalie Ellis, CEO and co-founder of Boss Babe and your host for this episode. Okay, so life update. We are building a house. We are officially building a house. We've kicked off the whole process and it is terrifying. It's really exciting, but it's terrifying. You know,

when you're making decisions that are very permanent, well, they feel permanent. We just hopped off a call where we were deciding like what the outside of the house color is going to be and the windows and the door. And obviously all of those things are changeable, but I don't want to pay all of this money to get it a certain color. then in a few months time regret it and want to change it so that's all happening nothing too stressful just yet I think the stressful part comes more towards the move-in and like dates and things like that so that's really really exciting and I'm just so excited that we get to do this together this has been such a massive dream of mine and I have my vision board on my phone and on my desktop background so I'm constantly looking at my vision board and the exact house I'm building looks like

the one on my vision board it's this white farmhouse style house and oh my god it just feels like a dream come true so I'm really really excited about that that's what's happening and so we're going to be leaving LA next week which is really exciting so this week I'm in Colorado for a couple of days just switching off having a bit of solo time some of the girls are here but we're just really doing our own thing and talking and visioning and strategizing because we're already a couple of months into the year we've got Q2 coming up I just really want to get ahead of things and know exactly where I'm going that's always really helpful me. So that's kind of my life update. This episode you're going to love. You know that I'm obsessed with biohacking. So anytime that I get to geek out on that stuff,

I'm just delighted. And this time it's all about gut health. Gut health affects everything. And I learned this the hard way because I had gut inflammation. So I can really attest to this but gut health affects energy, skin, anxiety, focus. Like a lot of the time if you have brain fog or anxiety it might not necessarily be from not enough sleep or mental health. It could be in your gut. There's so many different things that could be causing that and gut is one of them or if you're having issues with your skin that could be starting in your gut. If you're finding that you really are low energy that could be starting in your gut on top of that your immune system that's really really important so looking after your gut and taking the right supplements could be really strengthening for your immune system which now

more than ever is really important one thing i learned a couple of years ago was that not all supplements are created equal so you can't just go on Amazon and type in probiotic and buy the cheapest option or vitamin C and buy the cheapest option. They're all very different and their quality of the ingredients is really different. And I actually started buying Just Thrive from my grandparents about a year ago when someone else recommended to me. I think I heard it on a podcast. I started buying it for them and it has changed their life. And I'm not actually saying that lightly. Beforehand, they weren't taking a lot of supplements and they definitely had leaky gut and inflammation and things like that. And this supplement has changed the game for them.

So I've been buying it for a really long time. I actually have the doggy version. So Nala gets it every now and then. Me and Stephen have been taking it daily for about a year and can really, really attest to seeing a difference. Stephen used to have a lot of food insensitivities and that went away I mean it wasn't overnight it was a good couple of months but that went away which was really really cool to see so we dive into all that stuff we also dive into the business side what it looks like to build a supplement company because I know so many of you are interested in that so you're gonna love this episode if you decide to buy Just Thrive, which I highly recommend it. I do not recommend supplements lightly. I take this really seriously and I really do love Just Thrive and I'm fully behind it. If you decide to buy it,

use the code BOSSBABE because you get discount. So you'll save a few dollars by using that. So with that, let's dive straight in. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Hey Tina, welcome to the podcast. Hi Natalie, thanks for having me.

I was just saying, I'm so excited to dive into your story before we even talk about your product, which I'm obsessed with. You have such an interesting story. How did you go from being a litigation attorney to being an entrepreneur in the wellness space and having, I think, one of the best probiotics on the market? Oh, well, thank you. Yeah, it's been quite an interesting journey. As you had mentioned, I am an attorney and I started my career journey as a lawyer and I was doing litigation for many years. And then just after having children, I decided that I really needed

more of a work-life balance and I wanted to spend more time at home and be around for my kids. So I had the fortune of being able to go in as general counsel for a family pharmaceutical business. And so I was in the pharmaceutical industry for many years, and my husband and I both were, and we just started to notice a lot of the abuses in the industry and the rampant overprescribing of medications. And in fact, one example that always comes to mind is when we were awarded this really large contract for one of the largest hospital systems in the country. And basically, we had won this bid and the pharmaceutical manufacturer rep came in and said, now my job is to go into every doctor in this hospital system and have them lower the

number that they prescribe the medicine for. So in essence, like encouraging doctors to prescribe the medicine when maybe a patient didn't necessarily need it. And, you know, there was a part of me that was shocked when that happened. And then there was another part of me that thought, you know, this is happening with relatives that we, you know, that are all around us. We had one relative that started on one pharmaceutical. And the next thing you know, she was on a dozen different medications because one, you know, she maybe she went on it for joint pain, and that caused stomach issues and the stomach issues started causing skin rashes. And then, you know, she was never getting better. And you see that all the time with, you know, the side effects that

they all, you know, happen and the side effects that people experience. And so we just weren't doing our life's work. We just knew that I'm a very deep thinker. I read a lot of Wayne Dyer and Norman Vincent Peale. And we just, my husband and I both knew we were not doing our life's work. And so we delved into research and well, we also knew that we were really into natural health. That's the way we lived our lives already with our children and kind of the way I was even brought up. And so we just really did not want to go that route with our kids. And we wanted to do our life's work in our careers. So we started researching about the microbiome and how important it is and learning more about natural health and particularly gut health and how important it is. And this was actually shortly after the human

microbiome project was launched by the National Institutes of Health. And we learned so much. It was incredible. And what we really learned is that the gut really is related to every aspect of our overall health. And then I always say just being at the right place at the right time and saying my daily affirmations and meditating and lots of prayer, we were actually given the opportunity to license the exclusive rights to these bacillus spore-based probiotic strains from London University by one of the leading probiotic researchers in the world. And from there, that's where Just Thrive Probiotic was born. And it's really been the most gratifying and rewarding career journey I've ever been on.

I feel like I'm even more excited for what's ahead. I love that. So when you noticed there was something wrong in the market here that you wanted to change and you wanted to go out as an entrepreneur, what did that journey look like from deciding, okay, this is what we want to do to be then given the license to be selling the probiotic? What was that journey like? Well, the journey to get the license was, like I said, I feel like we meditated on it and prayed on it. We were, it was amazing. My husband had a colleague who reached out and said, you will not believe,

we were looking at all different types of natural products to get into, but we really didn't want to just be a me too product. There's a lot of companies out there and a lot of entrepreneurs, and that's okay. I mean, they take a product and they just try to do it better. In our case, we just knew that the current probiotics on the market were not the right way to approach gut health. And so we wanted to do something that was different. And so through, like I said, being at the right place at the right time, we were able to license these exclusive strains. And what that looked like was, you know, we had to purchase the, you know, we've kind of put our whole life savings into this and purchase these exclusivity to these rights. There was a large

US corporation that was actually interested in purchasing these strains, but the scientists behind them was worried that they would shelve the strains. And because the whole probiotic story was already out there in the marketplace, and that they were worried that they would shelve these strains and not give them out, you know, put them out to the public. So we were able to purchase them. But you know, like I said, it was our life savings. And so and we thought, oh, that's definitely the hardest part is purchasing the strains. And then I was like, oh, no, there's so much more that's involved in being an entrepreneur and marketing a product and bringing it to market. You know, we knew we had the research, we knew we had the studies, and we knew it worked with so differently than any other

probiotic on the market, but we didn't know how to market. We didn't know all that stuff. So it was quite a journey. It was funny. I was so naive when I got into this because I thought, oh my gosh, this is the greatest thing. Everyone's going to buy it. Then you realize that, oh wait, you have to actually know how to properly market it and get it in front of people to see how great this product is. Yeah. And I think every entrepreneur needs to start out with a bit of naivety because if you really know all the things that entails, you probably wouldn't stop before you even get started. I always think that like, thank goodness, I thought that it was going to be way easier than it really was. So when you got the license for

this product, what did that look like to actually getting it out to buyers and starting to market it? Because you must've been coming from a totally different background with not a lot of experience in marketing, I'm guessing. So how did you start to tell people, hey, I've got this really amazing product? Well, you know, we created the website and that was not as successful as I had hoped. And so, you know, we had a website, but it wasn't a great e-commerce website at all. And so what I started to do was just call health food stores. I just started on the phone with health food stores. I mean, literally, I was cold calling them.

And, you know, and then we started doing some webinars with industry magazines and really getting into the science. And what I found out is that a lot of these health food store owners and staff are just so educated about the human body. I mean, sometimes I feel like they know more than even my own, you know, at the time, my own doctor, you know, who was just a conventional allopathic type of doctor. And it was pretty incredible. And they really are knowledgeable. And a lot of them really want to dive into the science. They want to see the studies that you have. And I, you know, I remember as like it was yesterday, the first store that purchased. And

to this day, they are one of our biggest customers. And they're a tiny little store outside of Chicago. And they're incredible. And there's this tiny little store that has trust built up with their consumers and their customers that walk in the door. And then the next thing you know, then we got another store, and then we got another store. And then the next thing you know, we had maybe like 10 or 15 stores, which sounds so little, but it allowed us to now afford to go to trade shows. And we started heading to your natural products, Expo West and Expo East and all those types of trade shows. And then you just start talking to other brands. You're in the industry. You just start talking to people and you start to understand the shows that you should

attend and how to get in front of people. We would start speaking at different shows and events, and that was really great, but you need the money in order to do it. And so we were bootstrapped, we, you know, just did it all on our own. And we've never had any investors or anything, we've really just been careful about how we've spent our money. And our big focus is science and education. And we need we try to focus our attention on science and being in front of audiences that will, that are appreciating the science. We speak at autism events, we speak at paleo events, vegan events. I mean, you name it, any audience that is focused on really, you know, understanding the microbiome and its importance. And so then a couple of years after

that, we got connected with Mastermind, a group of entrepreneurs who really were amazing. And they kind of got us on the right path on the e-commerce side. And then we started really exploding with email marketing and social media marketing and social media content and all that kind of normal e-commerce route. So it's been really great because I feel like we've diversified our business really nicely. We have a really strong health food store presence. We're in all 900 vitamin shops, many, many chains throughout, maybe smaller chains throughout the country. And we have a really nice Amazon presence. And then primarily now it's our online presence, which has really built up over the last probably three years. Yeah. And it's so great to hear when you said at the beginning, we launched the website and it didn't really work that well. So we started cold calling to get into health stores. And it shows that in the beginning, and I mean, always, but pivoting is really important. You're not always

going to get it right first time, but being willing to learn and pivot is really important. So then the shows that you're talking about, how did you first find out, okay, I should be going to shows and what were you learning about those shows? And were you being introduced to different stockists? Yes. So I learned about the shows really from talking to a lot of the health food stores. They would talk about, are you going to Expo East, Expo West? And then I quickly Google what's Expo East and what's Expo West. And then I started looking and it was like, oh my, it was so pricey to attend a lot of those. And so, and then, you know, but those are the shows where a lot of the brands will exhibit at. And so all

the health food stores attend. So it's not open to the general public. It's really just open to people who own health food stores or, you know at least theoretically, it's supposed to be like that. A lot of people in the industry are there and it's gotten really big. I think the last one that was 80,000 people attended. It's one of the largest shows that you would see out there. But lately, we've been doing more, or we still do those, but we are doing a lot of the consumer shows too. There's shows like biohacking, different type of shows and paleo effects and upgrade labs and different types of shows like that where there's consumers and then you meet different influencers in the space who are really focused on bringing science back

products to their audiences. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity, which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place. So it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus

on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial. Go to kajabi.com slash Boss Babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's kajabi.com slash Boss Babe. Yeah, and it's so good to hear that you managed to do all of this without taking outside investment too because I think there's a misconception that you need outside investment to be able to get into stores to be able to have that success. So what was it like for you getting these big orders from stores and still being self funded? Was that, you know, hard in terms of cash flow? Or was it

something you learned as you went along? I think the hardest part about that was not even cashflow as it was what it did to me and to my body, you know, because we were very careful about not hiring my husband and I doing this all on our own. And then we would hire like a contractor here and there to do things. But we really, it was, I would say three to four years into the business, I was still answering the info at emails at Just Thrive because I felt like, first of all, I love the interaction with the customer. I loved it. It was so much fun. Like when you and I just got on and you said, oh my God, I love this product. I mean, I can't tell you how that feeds my soul when I hear those types of testimonials from people. And then a lot of it,

because we are so science heavy, I'm like, nobody else could ever answer these questions. I mean, we need to get to the science and I'm the only one that could do it. And I think that's a problem a lot of entrepreneurs have. And I will tell, I would caution any entrepreneur to not go that route because all I want is to empower people with their own health. And that's one of the missions of our company that's very important to me. And yet I found myself completely burning myself out. I have three children. I'm very involved in their lives. They are, you know, my daughters are college athletes. We'd go fly to California for her swimming. We would be at my son's basketball game, my other daughter's basketball game in

college. I mean, we were running around. I'm running a business. I mean, I was doing everything. And I think that the minute we hired our first employee, it was like we grew exponentially because it allowed me to now grow the business. You know, when you're in first employee, it was like we grew exponentially because it allowed me to now grow the business. When you're in the business, it's so hard to grow the business. And so that was incredible. And now we have a whole team, a COO who's really doing so much of the work, but it was a journey. It was definitely a journey. But the cashflow thing, I was very, very careful about how we spent our money, very careful. I always made sure that we had adequate profits in order to be able to keep the inventory going. And now, obviously, I have a team around us.

But that was really important to me that we were healthy from a financial perspective. And sometimes, I don't know if that comes with age or what, but that was very important to me. But to a fault, I think, because I do think I held off on hiring. And since we have this team around us, it's been, oh my God, our growth has been exponential because my theory is that you hire people who know a lot more than you. And that's what I've done.

I feel like every single person on my team knows so much more than I do in their particular area. And that's why they're on the team. And that's why it works so the team. And that's why it works so nicely. Yeah. And I really do think hiring your first employee, it's often the hardest because you're like, who should be my first employee? What should the role be? And can I afford it? It's almost that leap. But once you do it and you get someone in, that's a really good culture fit. They're really good at what they do. Then you're like, wait, how do I find more of

these people? And it gets easier. I definitely in the beginning had this narrative, oh, it's so hard to hire, or I have no idea what I'm doing. And it really is the kind of thing that just comes with experience. You just learn what to look for, for your specific company. Yes, exactly. Exactly. I couldn't agree more. And I love, I think that has been the biggest surprise of being an entrepreneur is, I think the most fun I've had is seeing what our products are doing for people. But then the next most fun part has been building the team because I love our team. I love every person on our team. We have such an amazing culture and it's really been a really, really awesome experience. And especially with everything

going on in the world, you know, back in, you know, with coronavirus and then most recently what we've been all experiencing and just, you know, being there for them and having check-in calls with everybody. And just, I really do feel like we are a big family and I know people caution you not to call your team in a family, but I feel that way. I feel really strongly that culture is really so important to building a brand, but just having a lot of fun as an entrepreneur. Yeah, I agree. I've heard that too before. I think it was Netflix founder who was talking about seeing your company as a sports team, seeing your team as a sports team and not a family.

Yet, when you do hear certain people talk about that actually you really do want to see them as a family because bringing them into your culture and supporting them and making them feel safe and heard I think is actually really important and we feel the same at Boss Babe we kind of heard that motto and the more we looked into it we were like that just doesn't really resonate with us we want to have a team that you know eventually we know they'll leave and they'll probably go and do their own thing or they'll join a bigger company but we want to be able to supporting them in that whole journey. And so I think it's great to see people like that. But I want to talk about Just Thrive because I actually discovered Just Thrive because I had friends over at my house and I was taking

my supplements and one of them was probiotic and they said, what probiotic are you taking? And I told them and they were like, oh, have you not heard of Just Thrive? Apparently it's one of the best and I hadn't. And so I went away to do some research and what I was finding was just blowing me away. And I even got in touch with you guys and just told you how much I'm loving the product. And so I would love to understand when it comes to probiotics,

what is something that people should be looking for? Because honestly, when I was taking them, I just thought, okay, this is saying good things on the wrapper. It sounds good. I didn't really have any idea what I was doing. Yeah, right. No, I understand. There's so much confusion out there about probiotics. So the biggest difference with Just Thrive probiotic is that it is a spore-based probiotic. And that is very unique and different and rare in the US.S. supplement market. Spore-based probiotics have been used in Asia and Europe for over 60 years. Sometimes it's a pharmaceutical, in fact. But they are the most well-studied and for both safety and efficacy probiotics that you would find

on the market. And so the majority of probiotics on the market are comprised of lactobacillus and bifidobacterium strains. And so that's what you're going to see. Most conventional probiotics are made up of those strains and ours is not. Ours is made up of spores and we purposely did not put lactobacillus and bifidobacterium type of strains in our product because we knew that they have a lot of difficulty surviving the gastric system. So most probiotics have a great deal of difficulty getting through the gastric system. So most probiotics have a great deal of difficulty getting through the gastric system. In order to be defined as a probiotic, it needs to arrive alive in the intestines. And so most probiotics are live microorganisms that you'll find them in the

refrigerated section, let's say at the grocery store. And the idea is that, oh, they're live bacteria. And so they have that part, right, is that we need live bacteria, but we don't need them live in the refrigerator. We need them live in the intestines. And, you know, they can't even withstand the room temperature of the store shelf. So how in the world will they ever survive the journey home from the grocery store and then the body temperature, your own body temperature, which is 98.6? And the answer is they aren't. But then let's say they do. Let's say they do survive and they get to the gastric system, they get to the stomach. The stomach is known as the gastric barrier. It's a very acidic environment. Most of those strains would be killed off. If they weren't killed off by the temperature of your body, chances are they're going to be

killed off by the acidic environment of the stomach. And so what happens is then you're getting dead bacteria into your intestines. And so dead bacteria will do something for people, you know, people will say, but I've taken those probiotics, and I do feel something and you may feel something, but they are basically dead bacteria going through and passing through, like food passes through your intestines. And so the spores that are found in Just Thrive are very different. They have they're called a spore because they have an endospore shell around themselves. And it's not anything we've engineered or we have not entericoded them or anything like that. These are the way these strains are found in the soil.

And so these strains years ago, our ancestors got these strains from the soil. They would eat their roots and tubers and they would eat the soil while they were eating their food and they would get these bacillus spores. And so that's what these are, the spores. They have this endospore shell around themselves, so they make them very hardy. So when you swallow them, they're dormant actually in the bottle. So they're not live in the bottle, they're dormant. And then you swallow them, they're dormant. They get to the gastric system, which is super harsh and they're dormant and they still have that shell around itself. And it's not until it hits the intestines that these strains actually recognize it as being their home. And then they take the shell off, and that's when they become

alive. That's when they go into their live vegetative cell state. And when they get there and they're alive, they start to read the microbial environment. So they're looking around your intestines and deciding, okay, what do I need to do there? They're kind of like the gardener of the gut. Do I need to clean up weeds like someone get rid of pathogenic bacteria? Or do I need to help those plants that have been stepped on and trampled on in the garden and come back to life? So they're going to do something different in your gut than they're going to do in my

gut. And that's why we always say it's great for kids because you can give it to kids because it's the same thing. You don't need to give them any less because they're going to go read the microbiome environment and do what they need to do in each and everyone's gut. And so these spores actually stay there for about 21 to 28 days where they go to work, working through every part of the intestinal tract and kind of cleaning up that guard. And then they eventually will leave the body after about 21 to 28 days.

So it is such an effective approach to gut health. Like I think I mentioned in the beginning, we do everything based on science. Science is very, very important to us. Our first study we did was a survivability study, and it was done with a, they compared a leading selling probiotic at a major health food store with a 50 billion count CFU product. and with our strains, our spore-based bacillus strains. And they found that 99.99% of the 50 billion count product died by the time it got to the intestines where the strains, the spores survived 100%. So that was one of our first tests. One of our second studies we did was a gut model study, which is really fascinating.

There's only two universities in the whole world that do this type of study, and it's actually a simulation of the gut. And so what the study showed is that after two weeks with these strains, it created a 30% favorable shift in the microbiota. So now we have something that's actually showing that it's like cleaning up that garden by 30% in just over a two-week period. So and then of course, we have our leaky gut study, which is groundbreaking. And we are the only probiotic that I'm aware of that has a double blind human clinical trial on leaky gut showing that it's reducing the LPS toxin level. So the spores are totally different approach to gut health. It's a completely different category of probiotics. And they're just so super incredibly effective. And it's been really fun to see what people have, you know, how it's really changed

people's lives. It's so mind blowing hearing how intelligent the product is. It's crazy. So when you talk about the leaky gut study, what specifically was that? How is the probiotic helping leaky gut? And for anyone listening who isn't entirely sure what leaky gut is, can you explain? Sure. So leaky gut is the nice thing is it's very much what it sounds like. It's basically leaks holes in your gut lining. So, you know, we have our intestines so that things don't seep into the bloodstream. We don't want, the food is not supposed to go into the bloodstream. Toxins are not supposed to go into the bloodstream. So we have this nice gut lining that is to protect us from any of these particles to seep into the bloodstream.

When we have a leaky gut, the tight junctions in the gut open up and food particles could start seeping in. Toxins like LPS, which is one of the main toxins, lipopolysaccharides, that actually seep into the bloodstream. When those particles are seeping into the bloodstream and these toxins are seeping into the bloodstream, this causes this inflammatory response by our immune system. The immune system recognizes that something shouldn't be there, you know, and now it has this constant inflammatory response. And, you know, for a while, it's fine. It's, you know, the immune system responds. But after over time, when you're constantly having this immune response, it's not healthy for you. And that's why people are starting to develop,

you know, if you have allergies, you have autoimmune issue, almost certainly you have a leaky gut. But they're estimated that 80% of the adult population has a leaky gut because don't even know it because the world we live in is just creating such a bad environment for our gut health anyway. So in the study that we did, actually, they took University of North Texas did the study, they took 100 college students, tested them if they had a leaky gut. And the way they tested it was they gave them a challenge meal. So they gave them a very unhealthy, some type of fast food restaurant meal, and they ate it. And 55% of the subjects that were tested actually had LPS toxins leaking into their bloodstream. So of those 55%, they split them in half and they took gave half of them the spores

and half of them a placebo. They came back after 30 days, no dietary or lifestyle modifications during that 30 day. And you know, we know what college students do to their bodies. So they didn't have to change anything different. Just take the either the placebo or the spores came back after 30 days, gave them another challenge meal. And the treated group, the group that had the spores had a 42% reduction in LPS toxins in their bloodstream. And the worst part is the placebo group had a 32% increase in LPS toxins. So what that's telling us is that every time you're eating and you have a leaky gut, it's causing this, it's increasing that, you know, amount of toxins that are seeping into the bloodstream, which is,

you know, terrible for our immune response. But now there's studies, I mean, leaky gut is responsible for virtually every type of, you know, disease condition out there. So I mean, there was a study that came out that showed that the number one driver of Alzheimer's is heightened LPS toxins in the bloodstream. There are studies on heart disease with heightened LPS toxins in the bloodstream, cancer, diabetes, I mean, you know, it's hard to find any disease that is not associated with heightened LPS in the bloodstream. So and the way to avoid that is not associated with heightened LPS in the bloodstream. So, and the way to avoid that is by sealing up that leaky gut. So this is a profound study. Like I said, there is no other product, not only probiotic,

I don't know of any other product out there that has a double-blind human clinical trial done by a university showing these types of results with one capsule a day. You know, it's incredible. All right, I hope you enjoyed the episode so far. Stay tuned as we share a bit of info about who supported this episode. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. New beginnings, new years means new opportunities to grow your business. And if part of your strategy is adding new team members to your team,

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which is my favorite way to do it. So when your business is ready to make that next hire, find the right person with LinkedIn jobs. And now you can post a job for free. Just visit linkedin.com slash boss babe. Again, that's linkedin.com slash boss babe to post a job for free. Terms and conditions apply. And we're back. Let's jump straight into today's episode. Yeah, and what is so disappointing is how leaky gut symptoms or gut symptoms generally are seen as so normal. You know, bloating or lots of different things. I'm sure you can fill us in on what symptoms might look like if you do have any kind of gut issues, but I feel like they're seen as very normal or you're given actual medication, which my assumption is could make your gut even worse than when you first started. Yes, I could not agree more. And that's why I had mentioned one of the big, you know,

missions of our company. And one of the core values is that empowerment of people, because I feel there's a place for pharmaceuticals and there is certainly a place for them in emergency type medicine situations, acute conditions. But when you have some type of chronic condition, it's really important to get to the root cause of it. Why do I have this? Why do I have an autoimmune issue? What is going on with my gut? Why am I having anxiety and depression? There's a huge gut brain connection that people really don't realize that there is a massive, there's the vagus nerve that connects the gut to the brain. And they're both sending signals back and forth to each other all the time. So we're just huge believers of trying to get to the root cause of an issue and not just masking it with a pharmaceutical.

Pharmaceuticals may be necessary until you get to the root cause of it. It may be necessary until you figure out what the problem is and get until you're, you know, focusing on that. But we really, we encourage people to just get to the root cause of things. And, you know, one of the reasons we invest in studies, which are not cheap. Obviously, studies are very expensive. But the reason we do that is we really want to see people going to supplements. And we are trying to raise the bar. There are so many great supplement companies out there. And unfortunately, there's a lot that are not so great and who just are trying to create a business and aren't really focusing on having high quality ingredients. But we want to raise the standards so people do turn to supplements and do turn to trying to prevent illness or prevent things and or maintain their health rather than treating issues, you know,

with pharmaceuticals. So I really that's really one of my passions is just trying to get people to think differently about how they take care of their own health and focus on maintaining their good health and preventing things from happening by taking care of their gut microbiome. For anyone listening who is feeling like they could have some gut microbiome issues and they're interested in getting to the root cause, what symptoms might they be having, even if they're not major? And then how would they even start to figure out what the root cause is or get support that's not medication? Yeah. So I would say, you know, obviously when people have gas and bloating, constipation, diarrhea, irregular bowel movements,

you know, any type of gastrointestinal distress, chances are there's something going on in your gut. I mean, it's pretty, pretty basic that that would be going on your gut. But I think what people don't always understand, like I had mentioned, is that whole gut brain connection. So people may have, you know, some anxiety or depression or mood swings, or, you know, that is directly related to the health of your microbiome, skin rashes, skin issues that people have related to your microbiome, people with joint issues, like, you know, people with rheumatoid arthritis, that's an autoimmune disease, you know, probably stems from the gut. And so there are, you know, it's like, it's really hard to find any disease that is not associated with an imbalance in your gut. So for any health condition,

I think the number one place you start is taking care of your gut health. And, you know, that could be, you know, of course, in my opinion, I think taking a high quality probiotic is number one place you start is taking care of your gut health. And that could be, of course, in my opinion, I think taking a high quality probiotic is number one, what you do, but there are lots of other things that we could be doing, things like meditation. I mean, when we talk about that gut brain connection, meditating and being calm and changing your lifestyle to have a calmer lifestyle is really important for taking care of your gut health. Also avoiding glyphosates and avoiding Roundup main ingredient is glyphosate and it's wreaking havoc on our gut. So trying to buy organic as much as possible, trying to eat out or trying to avoid eating out as much as

possible, which I guess that's one of the silver linings and what we've all been going through these last couple of months is that more people have been cooking at home. The not silver lining is more people are probably drinking more alcohol and eating more sugar, but which are two big offenders of gut health. But, you know, antibiotic use is a huge offender to our gut health. So we really want to make sure that antibiotics save lives and they are at times necessary, but there certainly is overprescribing of antibiotics out there. So just really trying to avoid antibiotics. And unfortunately, antibiotics are in our food, you know, that we

eat too. So trying to eat as clean of a diet as we possibly can. And, you know, just trying to avoid some of those things as much as we can that are offenders of gut health and just really trying to start with gut health. I mean, that is really the number one place to start. I don't know any other I think magnesium is another super important supplement that I would suggest everyone take to most 90% of the population is deficient in magnesium. There are certain things I definitely would say are really important, but I mean, gut health is where you start for sure, ground zero. Yeah. I've heard the same thing about magnesium too. And I've been taking that every day and really notice a difference. When it comes to say someone has gut issues and they start taking a probiotic, how long really should they be waiting

to see results? If it is a gut issue, should they be seeing results quickly? What would that look like? Yeah, that's a great question, Natalie. I think that it's obviously very different for every person, but I would say average, you'd probably see something within two, two and a half weeks. But you know, most people by 30 days, they're going to start noticing a difference. And there are the cases where maybe it takes three or four months. I don't know, for some reason, sometimes people with skin issues may have a little bit harder of a time to see differences, but usually it's within your two to four weeks, I'd say you'd see a difference. And there are many cases where it's a couple days that they start noticing a difference. So especially when you have some irregularity in your bowel movements, people see a difference.

We always tell people to start slowly, though, because these strains are actually cleaning up that garden. They're getting rid of a lot of the toxins. And so there could be sometimes something called the die-off effect. And so they may feel some gastrointestinal discomfort, but that's no cause for concern or alarm. That is actually a great sign. It means that the strains are actually working, but we never want people to be uncomfortable. So we just would say, go slower.

You could take one every other day, or you could take a half a capsule every day. You could open the capsules and mix it with food and could take a half a capsule every day. You could open the capsules and mix it with food and save the other cap for the next day. But it's really important to, I mean, not to get worried about if that happens. It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes people are like, oh, wow, I really had to go to the bathroom a lot when I started. Or, oh, I didn't go to the bathroom for a couple of days when I started. It could manifest itself in different ways, but it's just something called die off. It's just a very normal reaction when you were cleaning up what's going on in the gut. And a lot of times it's really more of a sign letting people know

that, boy, you really did need this. But we never want people to be uncomfortable. So we just say, taper down the dosage to whatever amount you are comfortable with. And then once their symptoms improve, is that something they stop taking or do you continue taking it even when you feel really good? Well, the reason why I would say to continue taking it is because I mean, I take it every day. I've never had any gastrointestinal issues in my life that I knew of. And I took it every day just because I know the world we live in right now is so harmful to our gut microbiome. And we know the importance of the microbiome too. I mean, the most important thing that I didn't even discuss was immune health. I mean, just our immune system and how important it is. And so 70 to 80% of our immune tissue is found in our gut lining. I mean, this

is critically important during this time. So people are taking vitamin C, they're taking all these different zinc and all these great supplements too. And those are great things to be taking during this time when there's viruses going on, but there's viruses going around all the time. We're always faced with viruses and our gut is the mechanism in our body that is fighting these viruses. So that is another really important reason to take it. So I have, it to me is like more important than a multivitamin. It is, it's really, we know that 70 to 80% of our immune system is found in our gut lining. We know that if we're not taking care of our gut, our gut lining is getting destroyed. And therefore,

the immune system is not able to fight off pathogens and toxins and viruses and things like that. So I would always suggest that you continue taking it. People, if they'd like, they could take a maintenance dose of maybe one every other day, way more effective than taking just a run-of-the-mill conventional probiotic that you find out there because those are dying and they're not really making a shift in the microbiome. So it's something I take every day. My kids take every day. My parents, my neighbors, everybody I love, they take it every day. And what about time to take it? Should it be on an empty stomach? Should it be in the middle of

the day? Does it matter? No, the time of day doesn't matter. The only thing that does matter is that we did a study that showed that these strains work better in the presence of food. A lot of people think that you should take it on an empty stomach because that's been what probiotic companies have been telling people to do. And the reason that they wanted people to take it on an empty stomach is the pH of your stomach is higher, which would allow for greater survivability. But we actually did a study on it and it showed that these strains work better in the presence of food. So we always suggest taking it maybe right after a meal or five to 10 minutes after a meal, they'll work better. It's not dangerous or bad to take it on an empty stomach. It's just that you're going to get more for your money if you take it on a full stomach. And can you also just tell people a little bit about the

other products you have? Because I also have everything that you have. I have K2, I have the Gluten Guardian. So for anyone listening, can you give them a bit more info on that? Yeah, you bet. So we have our probiotic, which is a spore-based probiotic that we've been talking about. Then we also have our prebiotic. And so our prebiotic is also very unique. And just even before I go any further, one of the other big missions in our company is that we will not bring something to market that is already out there. We're very focused on doing things that are missing and needed in the market. So we did not, it would make sense that we would have launched a prebiotic shortly after we launched our probiotic, but we didn't because we couldn't find a prebiotics that fibers that were actually only targeting the good bacteria.

See what happens is is prebiotics sometimes be problematic for people because they could feed the good bacteria and the bad bacteria. So they're not just feeding the good plants, they're feeding the weeds in the garden. So we have something we call a precision prebiotic because it actually only targets the beneficial bacteria. It's not feeding the bad bacteria to make a problem worse. So very, very thought out formulation. And it's really important because we have a study with the pro and the pre that actually show that they are actually increasing the diversity in the microbiome and also increasing these keystone strains like acromancia, bifidobacterium, fecalium bacterium. These

are three strains that if you have more of in your body, they have told us now, the studies are showing us now that that means you have health. I mean, it is like having more of these types of keystone bacteria is actually correlating with better health, overall health. So we know that the combination of those really do a nice job with that. But again, if you're going to start out, I would always start out with the probiotic, then add in the prebiotic. And then our Ultimate IgG is a really great product, especially at this time when we're dealing with trying to make ourselves be immune from all of these things going on in the world. Ultimate IgG is comprised of immunoglobulin G. So immunoglobulins are the antibodies in your body. Immunoglobulin G is one of the most abundant antibodies in our body. And the role of it is to bind toxins and like pathogenic bacteria, viruses, mold toxins,

environmental toxins. The role of our normal IgG is to do those things, bind these toxins, and then the body safely removes them from the body through defecation. So our IgG is just more of that. It's more IgG in the gut to help get rid of other pathogens that come into our body. So we actually discovered this product. Our microbiologists and I were invited to a group leading researchers from the world on HIV because of the work that we've been doing on the spores with the gut lining. And so we discovered this IgG product and we were able to get the ingredients for this and bring it to our audience too, because it's another great support for gut lining. It's also great support to help get rid of some of these, help your body soldiers, kind of get rid of the bad guys in your gut. And then we have our Gluten Away product. Our Gluten Away product is really developed for the accidental exposure to gluten. It is not meant to say, oh, you know, you can now eat gluten at all. That's

not, it's more that we know the devastating impact gluten has on people with celiac, people who have very bad gluten intolerances. And this has an, it's a very thought out formulation also, but one of the key enzymes is tollerase G that goes in and literally breaks down the gluten to non-toxic levels. So there was a study done on gluten foods that were labeled as gluten. 500 foods were tested and upwards of 50% of them found that there was gluten in, even though they were labeled as gluten-free, both at restaurants and the supermarket. So really important to take it if you have a lot of gluten issues. It's also great even if you don't have gluten issues, because we know that gluten is also one of the biggest offenders of that gut

barrier. I forgot to mention that, but the gut barrier, we know that every time somebody eats gluten, it's actually causing the gut lining to be compromised. So really important. So those are our gut products that we focus on gut health. And then we have vitamin K27, which is kind of in that same theme of we only bring products that are missing and needed in the market. Vitamin C to me, magnesium, those are all super important products out there, but we don't bring them to the market because a lot of companies are doing that very well. We brought vitamin K27 because this is really, really important. Our vitamin K27, anyway, the job of vitamin K27 in the body is to remove calcium away from the arteries, like the heart where you don't want it, and to put it into the bone where you do want it.

So it's kind of directing, it's like the traffic cop for, you know, directing the calcium throughout the body. We don't want it by our arteries, but we do want it in our bone. And that is the job of vitamin K27. The problem with many vitamin K27s on the market is they're not stable. They have trouble not surviving. They just have trouble staying potent on the store shelf. And so ours is guaranteed. This is a pharmaceutical grade that is used in the pharmaceutical market in other countries. And so we've gone through all the rigorous testings. We also included the main two cofactors, which are magnesium and zinc in our formulation. So we have the topmost absorbability. So really great product line, if I could say so myself, because it's really, we know that it's taking care of our gut health and other things that are really important. But vitamin K2 is such an important

nutrient that so few doctors even know about. And yet it's making such a difference for people. Yeah, I've been taking the K2. I've had the IgG and then with gluten away. So I probably take it in a way you shouldn't. Like if I am trying to guard myself away from gluten, but I'm at say a party or something where things are really limited, I'll take it before that. I just feel much better than if I slip up and have gluten. I never had intolerances to gluten in the past, but when I cut it out a few years ago, I noticed that if I ever go back to it, I do get reactions. So that's been really helpful for me just to have. And I always take it if you go when you eat out or you're eating at a friend's house, because you just don't know. And it's been really helpful. me just to have. And I always take it if you go when you eat out or you're eating at a friend's house because you just don't know and it's been really helpful. Right, right. No, I agree. I think you're taking it perfectly fine. It's just

whatever way you want to take it is fine. I just think that gluten is really, really damaging. A lot of people think they don't have a gluten intolerance. Like you said, we all do. We do know that the gluten is actually destroying the gut lining, you know, one day at a time. So really, really important that we're trying to avoid gluten as much as possible. And when we can't, we try to take something that could help, you know, protect us a little bit more. Yeah, exactly. So where can everyone find out how to buy them, find out more about the company? You could just go to our website that's probably the best way just thrive health.com and i mean if you want to call us there are numbers on the website and we have an amazing customer service team they love talking to our customers they're just amazing

people and they're really knowledgeable on the products and the science behind it so see i was able to find great people to take that over for me. But it's really Yeah, I mean, just go you go just thrive health.com. Love it. And I'm gonna put all the links as well. If anyone listening, all the links are below in the show notes. Tina, thank you so much for being on here. I've learned so so much. So thank you. If you love this episode, please subscribe, download a few more, and please leave us a review. I really want to hear what you enjoyed, what your main takeaways were, and I also want to know what you want to hear us talk about next. To say thanks for leaving us a review, we'll send you a copy of

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