Well with Arielle Lorre - 260: How our Modern World is Altering Our Microbiome & How to Support Your Gut Health with Tina Anderson

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

Tina Anderson, co-founder of Just Thrive, joins the show to discuss the importance of gut health, how it is connected to so many other health conditions, and how our modern world is affecting our microbiome. She shares what we can do to strengthen our gut, what we may be doing that is detrimental to our gut health, stress and anxiety and the gut, leaky gut, how probiotics work, and getting to the root cause of health issues. This episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct, or indirect financial interest in products, or services referred to in this episode.Save 20% on a 90 day bottle of Just Thrive probiotic or Just Calm at justthrivehealth.com with promo code: Blonde20 Produced by Dear MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The following podcast is a dear media production. Welcome to the Blonde Files podcast. I'm your host, Ariel Lorry, and I'm here to talk all things wellness. From how to achieve optimal health and well-being to the best beauty tips and everything in between, no topic is off limits. I know there's so much information out there, so I'm bringing on expert guests and sharing my own experiences to help you sift through all the wellness stuff without the BS. Enjoy the show.

This episode is brought to you by Just thrive. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show. I am really excited about today's episode. I just listened back to it because we recorded it a while ago and I wanted to hear the episode so that I could talk about it a little bit here. And I just think this is such an important episode for everybody to hear. So of course, as you saw on the description, it's all about. It's all about gut health and probiotics. I'm talking to Tina Anderson. She's been on the show before. I believe this is her third time, but this is the most comprehensive and in-depth episode that we've done. And we really talk a lot about the foundational things that we can do for our gut health and

kind of conversely what things we may be doing that are detrimental to our gut health and then getting to the root cause and solutions for all of this. But it's in a really easy to understand way, which I think is so helpful because sometimes these conversations can be a little too scientific and hard to apply to our own lives. So Tina is the co-founder of Just Thrive. I've talked about Just Thrive before. I absolutely love their probiotics. We get into it all today. and she has a really interesting story because she and her husband were actually working in the pharmaceutical industry before they founded Just Thrive. And they had this moment where they won a bid with a big hospital system. And everybody was celebrating that bid.

And there was something that a sales rep said where they turned to each other and realized that they were part of the problem. They were doing more harm than they were helping people. And it all had to do with essentially manipulating cholesterol numbers so that they could sell more drugs. And in that moment, they knew that they had to make a change in their lives. And Tina talks about that in this episode about finding your life's purpose and passion. And they founded Just Thrive and they took off from there. So in this episode, we are talking, of course, all things. gut health. We talk about why it's so important. We talk about why our modern world is really

harmfully altering our microbiomes and what things specifically in our modern world are basically killing our gut bacteria. We talk about stress and cortisol and gut health. They have an incredible product called Just Calm that we talk about in this episode. We talk, of course, about probiotics, what makes a good probiotic, what to look for in probiotic. In probiotic, probiotic marketing. We talk about the research behind all of it. We talk prebiotics. We talk about leaky gut and so much more. So gut health is really something that cannot be overlooked when it comes to overall wellness. And I think a lot of people are aware of that now. And this episode has great tips for how to strengthen your gut health and maintain that. And of course, probiotics are a great

addition and right now you can save 20% on a 90 day bottle of Just Thrive probiotics or Just Com. And Tina talks about why the 90 day protocol is so helpful. So this is such an amazing deal to try these and really experience the benefits for yourselves. So you can go to justthrivehealth dot com and use the code blonde 20. So that's like getting a month for free basically, all with a bottom of the bottle guarantee. So again, you can save 20% off on a 90-day bottle of Just Thrives probiotic or JustCom at Just Thrivehealth.com and use the promo code Blonde 20. And I really think you guys are going to love this episode. So please enjoy Tina Anderson. Welcome, Tina. Oh, thanks, Ariel. So excited to be here in person. This is your third time on the show, I believe. Yes, it is.

But I was just telling you before we started recording, I think we have a lot of new listeners. and gut health is such a hot topic and such an important topic. So I think it's always really important to talk about, you know, why it's so important and really the foundational aspect of gut health and how it affects our overall well-being. So I'd love to talk about that. But you have a really interesting story and trajectory of how you got to where you are today. So for anybody who doesn't know your story hasn't heard you before, why don't you tell the audience a little bit about that. So I'm an attorney. I was in litigation for many years and working crazy hours, weekends, the, you know, the whole nighttime thing. You had like the face time in the office. And I just

was very unfulfilled. And I was doing insurance defense. It was not exciting and not really fulfilling. So I decided to go into a family pharmaceutical business where I was able to have a better work-life balance. I started having children and I wanted to have more free time. But yet I wanted to still use my legal skills. And so I was able to be in this business. And, It was great. It was really fun. I thought, oh, I'm in a business where I'm delivering life-saving medications and making a difference in people's lives. But after being in the pharmaceutical industry for a while, really started to see a lot of the abuses going on in the industry. We saw the overprescribing of medications. We saw that with our own relatives.

You know, we had one relative who she was on like one medication for like a stomach issue and then that caused joint pain. And then that, then a new medication for the joint pain, which caused, you know, skin rashes. And it was like, and she was never getting back. And this is after, you know, a couple months, she's on a dozen different medications and not getting any better. And again, we saw it in the industry. And so my husband and I are in business or we're in business together now. But at the time, we were like, you know, we need to do our life's work. We're not doing our life's work. We really need to get into something that means something to us. I'm a huge fan of Dr. Wayne Dyer. I read all of his books. And one of his big messages is doing your life's work. And we just didn't feel like we were.

You know, we saw there's a place for pharmaceuticals. We know that, you know, emergency type medicine. acute situations, but it's not necessarily someplace that I think we should be focusing on chronic conditions. You know, it's really a sick care system, not a health care system. And we wanted to be, you know, part of that, the solution of like focusing on maintenance of your health and prevention of health rather than just treating symptoms. And so we started digging into gut health. We started digging into the natural space. And what we found is that the Human Microbiome Project had launched the National Institutes of Health, excuse me, had launched the human microbiome project that told us more about the gut than we ever knew before. And so we were, we really dove into gut health,

and we were able to license these really, really category changing strains, disrupting strains in the healthcare or in the marketplace. Yeah, and I want to get into those strains in particular, but why don't we start with like why gut health is so important for our overall health? And to your point about the human microbiome project and everything. I feel like in recent years, it's just becoming undeniable that, you know, gut health is at the root of so many other things. And, you know, we've heard that it's the second brain. Some people say it is the first brain, like before the actual brain, because they correspond with each other all throughout the day. And, you know, we just know that so much disease can start in the gut as well. But why don't you

explain a little bit to the listeners just why it's so important. Yeah. And I'm so glad. that you're starting there because I think that is so important. And we all are hearing all this stuff about gut health and probiotics and do things to support your gut. But we need to really understand why. And the human microbiome project really did tell us so much. What it told us that we are 10 times more bacterial cells than we are human cells. So that's really like it's worth repeating 10 times more bacterial cells than we are human cells. Like we thought it was like our human DNA that was dictating, making us so sophisticated. It's really our bacterial cells that are, really dictating our sophistication and our health. And so this, the human microbiome project told us that

it is the gut bacteria that we have in and honest is, you know, we associate it with like gas and bloating, diarrhea, constipation. But in reality, it's, it's really every aspect of our overall health. So all of our organs are dictated. So our heart disease, cancer, diabetes, skin rashes, exima, autoimmune diseases, allergies, our mental health, Alzheimer's, dementia. I mean, it's hard to find any disease state out there that's not associated with some imbalance in your gut microbiome. And our immune system. And our immune system. 80% of our immune system is found in our gut lining.

And, you know, it's really hard for people to wrap their head around that. And so we could be taking vitamin C and vitamin D, which I think are really important nutrients. But if our gut is inflamed in any way, it's really not absorbing a lot of those nutrients. We could be eating all this really clean, healthy foods. But if our gut is not absorbing those nutrients, you know, if our gut is not absorbing those nutrients, you know, if our gut's inflamed, it's not absorbing the nutrients. And so we have to remember that. And yet, we live in this world that is so anti-bacterial. So we are so much more bacteria than we are human cells. And yet we're doing all these things to kill bacteria. You know, we've got these

antibacterial hand sanitizer and hand soaps. We've got antibiotics that are, you know, that are killing or destroying our gut bacteria. We have all of these offenders, the toxins and chemicals in our world are so disruptive to our gut health. And it's why. we're seeing this rise in allergies and autoimmune issues and heart disease and you name it. I mean, we have so many pharmaceutical products out there and yet we're a sicker nation than we've ever been. And so much of that is because of our gut microbiome is being attacked on a daily basis. You know, we evolved in nature and yet we're, we now live in this very unnatural world. And I mean, I know that we all have to right now, but, you know, unfortunately, it is very disruptive to our gut microbiome.

So it's important just to understand that when you're talking about health, that's where you start is your gut. You need to be focusing on your gut because it is truly dictating. It's your gut that's dictating when your immune system is going to respond to a pathogen. So if your gut is imbalance and not functioning properly, it won't even signal to your immune cells to activate. So it's truly your gut that is going to have, it's going to send those signals on to help your immune system start fighting something. I think in a similar way that with our health, care system, people kind of treat symptoms pharmaceutically. People sort of do that in the more holistic way as well, where like if somebody's having hormone issues, maybe they do hormone replacement,

if they are having issues with getting sick, like you said, they take vitamin D, vitamin C. But to your point, like it really all stems from the gut. Like I remember years ago, I was having gut issues, I was having hormone issues, all these different things. And then there were secondary symptoms. like fatigue and skin problems and insomnia. And we can talk about all of those as well. Like people, like you said, just think digestion, gas, bloating, whatever. But there are so many other symptoms of an imbalance in your gut. And anyway, so I was like, well, let's fix the hormones. Like, we'll take progesterone and do this and do that and whatever. And the person that I was working with was like, no. We need to fix your gut before we do any of that because you can take the bioidentical

hormones and they can help. You can treat your skin topically. You can take something for sleep, you know, whatever. But if you have dysbiosis and you have these overgrowth or you're lacking the good bacteria or whatever is happening, pathogens, all of that, that's more upstream than the rest of those symptoms. So I think that that's kind of a common mistake that people make when they are experiencing all these different things. They treat the other symptoms instead of going to that root of it, so to speak. Right. Yeah, that's my passion is just getting to the root cause of things. And, you know, it's interesting you bring up hormones because, yeah, hormones are produced in our gut. I mean, you know, our neurotransmitters are produced in our gut, you know, our happy hormones.

All, you know, serotonin is produced in our gut. And all these hormones are being produced. So, you know, if you're ever working on your hormone health and your practitioner is not talking about gut health, that's a problem, you know, because you need to be focusing on your gut health because that's where your hormones are being produced. So it's a great point. And then you can even go a little bit more upstream than that. Like I know in my case, stress was a huge issue. And the stress was affecting my gut. And then the gut is affecting everything else. So it's like it's kind of peeling back the layers of the onion. Exactly. There's that gut brain access. So the two, the vagus nerve connects, you know, your gut from your brain stem down to your gut. And that vagus nerve, I always call it the communication super highway because they're talking back and forth to each other. And, you know, that feeling of like, Like you get excited about something. You have butterflies in your stomach. Like that's real.

That's truly the brain sending signals to the gut and the gut sends signals back to the brain. It's a two-way communication that's going on. And it's really important to support that communication. And that's why, you know, I'll tell people all the time, like for gut health, you know, one of the things I recommend is meditation. You know, if you're struggling with like gas or bloating or other types of you're trying to focus on your gut health, I recommend meditating. And people are like, that's kind of woo-woo, you know, no way.

But there's when you are calm and you change. your lifestyle or you meditate or whatever it is that puts you more in that, you know, calm state, you are going to be able to, you know, that's going to send signals down to your gut to your gut microbiome. And the same is true. If you start fixing up your gut microbiome, it's going to be sending calming signals down to your brain. So there is a huge connection there. Yeah, rest and digest. Like your body isn't going to focus on digesting your food when it's running from the tiger. Exactly. Exactly. And that's what's so scary about this, you know, fight or flight. You know, we get into this fight or flight situation.

We evolved that way. We are supposed to be getting into that fighter flight response if we are being chased by a saber-toothed tiger. You know, unfortunately, in our modern world, we get a text and we get into that fighter flight response. And then we get cut off in traffic and we are in that fighter flight response. And the more we're in that fighter flight response, the harder it is to bring ourselves down. And what we're finding now is that people just are remaining in that fighter flight response and they're not coming down from it, which is so detrimental because we have this cortisol dumping into our gut. And it's just causing this inflammatory response.

You know, it causes leaky gut and then leaky gut causes all kinds of different problems. So we have to try to get out of that fight or flight response. Yeah. And I think also when people eat, like we sit down to eat with the news on in the background, sitting on our phone, scrolling the news feed or our email or text or whatever, and we're in that fight or flight state. And so, yeah, it's not surprising to me that so many people have issues in this area. Well, it's truly an epidemic of what's going on right now. And I mean, what's, you know, I'm a mother of three children. It's like the thought of like that young kids, I'm, they're adult children now. But, you know, like knowing that these young kids are being, they're all stressed out. I mean, it's, it's really, it's sad. And it is an epidemic. And we need to get kids out of that fight or flight response because that's the same pathology that we see in stress.

is that same pathology that turns out to be neurodegenerative diseases like, you know, Alzheimer's Parkinson's. It's just a more severe level. So we have got to start as a country, as a nation, to start bringing down that fighter flight and getting out of that fighter flight response. Yeah, I feel like people are getting more cognizant of it. Like as all of the technology and everything and social media, it all kind of ramps up. And I think a lot of people are realizing that it's not a sustainable way to live. But I think it's constantly going to be a battle because all of that stuff is here to stay. And it's only going to become more prevalent. And so I think we really need to learn how to manage that for ourselves. And it's not like a badge to say, oh, I'm so stressed. I'm, you know, we have to change that mindset. It's like, I'm busier than the, you know, we have to stop being like, I'm busier than you are. I've got more on my two to do list. Or I, we have to just change kind of like it. The narrative needs to change to. You know, I did meditation. Then I went to yoga and, you know, I went for a long walk on the beach or whatever it might be. And just we have to start, you know, wearing that as a badge of honor. Yeah, normalized doing nothing. Yes, exactly. So when it comes to probiotics, I think a lot of people think, okay, well, I want my gut to be healthy. So I'm going to just go to Whole Foods and buy the probiotic off the shelf, whatever one they think. What differentiates just thrive? Like what makes a good probiotic? Why don't we start there? Sure. Yeah. So the biggest thing that makes a good probiotic, or to actually just be defined as a probiotic, is to be a live microorganism that confers a benefit onto the host, which the host is the body. So the majority of probiotics have difficulty making that first part of the definition, being a live microorganism, because it needs to be a live microorganism in the gut, in the intestines, where most probiotics made up of lactobacillus and bipedobacterium actually have difficulty.

making that journey from the mouth down to the intestines alive. They die by the time they get to the intestines. We know we have the stomach acid in the stomach. It's known as the gastric barrier, and this stomach acid is killing the majority of probiotic strains. I mean, it's meant to be the gastric barrier. It's meant to keep all the bad things out. But most probiotics are dying before they ever get to the intestines. And we know this because this has been tested time and time again by independent third-party labs. So in order to be a good probiotic, it needs to be able to make that journey from the store shelf to your mouth, all the way through your digestive system into your intestines where it becomes, where it's alive. And that's the biggest difference between the

spore-based probiotics, which are the type of strains that are found in just thrive, and the majority of other probiotics on the market, is they are a spore-based probiotic, and they have this endospore shell around itself. And this is not something that we've engineered. These are just spores that are, they have this endospore shell, and it's like a hearty shell that allows it to go through that gastric system, that acidic environment of the stomach, and get to the intestines. And when they get to the intestines, they take their shell off. And we were disruptors in the market. We created an entirely new category of probiotics when we came to the market.

And it was funny because at first I was like, oh, this is going to be hard. But when I'd go to health food stores and talk to these really educated health food store owners, they'd be like, oh, my God, this makes sense. It never made sense that they needed to be in the refrigerator. You know, a lot of times we see them in the refrigerator, and it's like if they need to be in the refrigerator, what that is telling us is that it can't withstand the room temperature of the store shelf. So if it can't withstand the room temperature of the store shelf, how in the world would you ever survive your body temperature, which is 98.6, much less how would they ever survive, you know,

going through the gastric system. And the answer is they don't. So most of those types of probatics are actually dead bacterial therapy, which may provide actually some symptomatic relief. I mean, you might feel something, but it's not getting to the root cause of the issue like we were talking about. The spores actually go in there and help get rid of the overgrowth of a pathogenic bacteria, and they have the ability to take our beneficial bacteria and help make it, you know, flourish

and come back to life, if you will. So working in there for about 21 to 28 days. And what about CFUs? What does that mean? Yeah. So CFU stands for colony forming units. And so that's what you see, you know, plastered on the first. front of a package, you know, 50 billion CFUs, 250 billion CFUs. I think I've seen some now

500 billion CFUs. And there's absolutely no science behind having more is better. Many companies do this because they know that they're dying. They know that by the time they get to the intestines, they're going to die. So they're just putting a whole bunch more in there. But it means nothing as far as efficacy. Our product only has 3 billion CFUs. And we know just with 3 billion CFUs, we did something called a gut model study on it on these strains. And it showed after two and a half weeks, we saw a 30% favorable shift in the microbiome. This is just after two and a half weeks. I mean, I don't know of any study of any probiotic out there of that magnitude that could show a 30% shift. And, you know, a lot of times I'd love to use a garden analogy. So if you envision a garden

and it's stepped on and trampled on and there's weeds growing all over and you kind of compare that to your intestines and you take like ours within two and a half weeks made that garden I'm 30% better by getting rid of the weeds in the garden, by getting rid of the, or by bringing back those good plants and helping them come back to life. So it's a really, really effective approach to like, you know, going into the garden and cleaning it up. And we only have three billion CFUs. So that is just definitely like America more is better.

Our microbiologists who has been on many podcasts, he's amazing. And he always talks. He used to be in supplement development. And he would literally be in development teams with companies. And they'd say, oh, you know, this. competitor has 40 billion CFUs, I need to have 50 billion CFUs, or this one has 50, now I have to have 75 billion CFUs because everybody just thinks that's better. And that really is one of the biggest myths out there. What we need to focus on is those strains that are in the product,

what kind of shift are they truly making two-year intestines? Are they making that garden better? Are they getting rid of the overgrowth of the pathogenic bacteria? Are they helping our good beneficial bacteria come back to life? Yeah, I was going to ask, like, how much of a lot of of the products on the market is just marketing. It seems like there are buzzwords. I mean, the CFUs is an example because I think the layman would look at a probiotic and say 70 billion CFUs. This has got to be the best thing there is out there. What other things should people look for that might be misleading and just be kind of good marketing? Yeah. Well, I think the big thing is looking for companies who are doing research. I mean, that was one of, I'm a huge fan of. I'm a huge fan of,

of supplements. I take, if you could see how many supplements I take it. Yeah, what do you take? Oh my gosh. Okay. I mean, of course I take our probiotic, our just calm prebiotic. And I don't want to just say like I'm taking all of our products, but I really do take all of our products because we only bring things that are missing and needed in the market. So I GG I take, which is great for immune health. I take K-Q-10, which is not our product, vitamin C, vitamin D. Well, I take our K2 vitamin D product. I take, what else do I take? Sulforophane supplement called broccoli. that I love, it's really good for inflammation also. So yeah, I think that's about it, but I take a lot of supplements. But I know that I only want to take products that are like really researched and that

that's what's missing. You know, we kind of left the pharmaceutical industry because of the, you know, abuses that we saw in the industry. And unfortunately, you know, we're starting to see that a little bit in the supplement space. You know, everyone knows supplements are hot and that's what we want to do, but there's abuses there. And when we came into the industry, we wanted to focus on elevating the whole industry as a whole. And that's why we do. did human clinical trials. I mean, that's also unheard of in the supplement space. You don't see companies that are doing human clinical trials. I mean, they're very expensive. And they just take a lot of time and they're expensive. So we really focused our energy on the research. And that, I would say,

when you're looking at supplements, you know, getting on the phone and calling and talking to somebody and finding out about their research, going online, seeing what kind of research studies they have. because it is really important that we're finding, you know, the products that are not only that work, but have the research behind it. And not getting caught up in the, you know, doctors will tell you all the time, oh, make sure you get one in the refrigerator. And doctors are just, they're just a little bit behind on that because, yeah, like, they have the right idea. You want a live microorganism, but you don't care if it's alive in the refrigerator. What you care about is it's live in your intestines. So, and then again, don't be fooled by

like the 50 billion CFUs or anything like that. You mentioned Leaky Gut earlier. You guys have had some incredible results with Leaky Gut. You did a study on that, I believe. That is really exciting. So what was done is it was a double-blind human clinical trial done at University of North Texas using the strains that are used in Just Thrive. And they basically took 100 college students.

These were healthy college students. They had no, they weren't on any medication. They had no known issues going on. and they tested them for leaky gut. And the way they tested that is they measure their LPS toxins that seeped into the bloodstream. So leaky gut is basically these LPS toxins that are in your gut, which are really not that problematic. When your gut is leaky, those LPS toxins seep into your bloodstream and cause this inflammatory response. Or food particles could even seep into your bloodstream, which cause inflammatory response.

So the researchers, what they did is they took these 100 college students tested to see, how many of them had a leaky gut. 55% of the college students had a leaky gut. They had no symptoms whatsoever. They thought they were completely healthy. So what they did is they took that 55% that had leaky gut. They divided them in half and they gave half of them a placebo and half of them the spores. And what they found is that they said, go home 30 days, no dietary or lifestyle modifications.

Imagine what college students are doing to their gut. Just take this product and see what happens. They come back in 30 days, they test them again, and they find that the placebo group, so the group that didn't get the spores, actually they had a 32% increase in LPS toxins. They saw the treated group had a 42% reduction in LPS toxins. So the 42% reduction is amazing that we found a 42% reduction. But what's scary is that 32% increase, it shows you that it's like when you have leaky gut, it's like a drippy faucet.

Right, like how quickly that can happen. How quickly it can happen. And you have no idea it's happening. And so all of a sudden one day you have this drippy faucet and then the faucet, you know, the tub overflows and causes all kinds of damage. And that's exactly what people are seeing. Why, you know, people say, I don't know, I always was fine. And now all of a sudden I develop an autoimmune issue or I never had allergies,

but now I have allergies or, you know, I didn't have, you know, I never had anxiety. I always can handle stress pretty well. And then all of a sudden I can't. So this is what's happening with that leaky gut. So really, leaky gut is at the core of so many of our health conditions. And they estimate that 80%, if not more, of our adult population has a leaky gut. And they don't even know it because you're not seeing the symptoms until the drippy faucet kind of overflows. Right.

And it's probably dripping over the course of years. Right. Exactly. It is. It's years. And then all of a sudden, it just overflows. You mentioned prebiotics as well. So why don't you tell us the difference between prebiotics and probiotics?

because I think a lot of people get confused there. Yeah, so many people get confused. So don't feel bad you're not alone. So it's really, when we go back to that garden analogy, it's the best way to explain is the probiotic is the gardener. You know, the probiotics getting in there and getting rid of the weeds and helping those plants, you know, come back to life where the prebiotic is the fertilizer for the garden.

So it's feeding the good bacteria or the good plants in the garden or the good bacteria in your gut. And so it's important to understand that like we did not launch a prebiotic for many years. Here we are, this gut health supplement company, so passionate about gut health. And we didn't launch a prebiotic because many prebiotics on the market actually could feed the weeds in the garden. So a lot of times people will take a prebiatic and start to feel worse. And we didn't want that to happen. So we were very careful about finding these fibers that only target the beneficial bacteria. So it's only feeding those good plants in the garden and not targeting the weeds in the garden.

So in your gut, it's only helping your beneficial bacteria. bacteria grow even more. So it's just, it's like amplifying everything the probiotic is already doing. For people who feel like they eat a really healthy, very diet, a lot of diversity, fruits, vegetables, probiotic and prebiotic rich foods, how does, how do prebiotics and probiotic supplements work into that? Because I think, I can't remember if you and I talked about it or if it was another doctor that I had on my show, but I remember somebody saying that even if you're eating, probiotic rich foods, it's sort of similar to the refrigerated probiotics where they're not making it intact all the way to your gut.

Yeah. You hit the nail on the head with that. That's exactly it. I mean, fermented foods are really beneficial. I eat fermented foods all the time. I think they're really beneficial because they have other compounds and nutrients that are really supportive of our gut health. But they're not a replacement for probiotic because they would have that same issue of

survivability of getting into the ingredients. intestines alive. Now, with prebiotic foods, it's great to eat prebiotic foods because that you don't have to take a prebiotic. If you're eating a lot of prebiotic foods, you wouldn't have to take a prebiotic supplement. It's just that you're probably not eating enough of those. That's the biggest problem. We all feel like we're eating so many, you know, so much asparagus and all the Jerusalem artichokes, all these super rich prebiotic foods. But we probably aren't getting enough of them. But if you are, then you absolutely wouldn't need the prebiotic. But the probiotic, it's hard to find anything that, you know, the way these probiotic strains that we're talking about came from is from the land.

Our ancestors used to eat off the land. They would eat roots and tubers, and they would get the bacteria from the soil that they would eat off of. We don't eat like that for one. And two, our soil is just depleted of all of those important nutrients. So if we lived in a tribe in Tanzania, we wouldn't need, you know, just thrive probiotic because you could just eat off of the land and get it. those same type of bacteria, but we're not getting this bacillus from other foods. And the other types of probiotic foods, just they're having of that same issue with survivability. But they do, like I said, I'm a huge fan of fermented foods. I think the issue with prebiotics with a lot of people is that they limit those foods because people who are experiencing gut issues and they

don't really know where to start, a lot of people will eliminate things like FODMAPs and, you know, foods like onion, garlic, things that they think they might be having a reaction to, but you're depriving yourself of those prebiotics. Yes. And I think a lot of people will do something like low fodmap or, you know, avoid cruciferous, vegetables, things like that because they're bloating, because they're having digestive issues. And they do so for an extended period of time. And I believe with like something like low fodmap, you're only supposed to do that under the guidance of a registered dietitian or somebody for a short period of time because you don't want to deprive your microbiome of those prebiotics.

I'm so glad you brought that up because. that is such a good point when, you know, we are as a nation, you know, we're like, oh, we need to remove this because it causes me bloating. The bottom line is if you remove it, it's just like the same thing. You're treating a symptom. You're not getting to the root cause. Why are you not, you're not supposed to feel bloated after you eat a certain type of food? You know, like when you're eating broccoli or cauliflower, like you're not supposed to feel

bloated. That's not a normal thing. That means that there's some type of imbalance. So let's not avoid those. I mean, you may need to avoid them temporarily. fine, but your goal should be to try to reintroduce them. Even when you have allergies, you know, that's always been our goal too. It's like eventually when you start healing your gut, hopefully you'll be able to slowly start

introducing those foods because one of the best things you could do for your gut is eat that diverse group of foods. I mean, I'm always telling people, go to ethnic grocery stores. When I go out to dinner, I always try to like get something that I wouldn't necessarily cook at home just because I really want to try to introduce as much diversity from food as well as, you know, probiotics and prebiotics as well as, you know, just into my gut as much as possible. So I would definitely recommend that we try to introduce more foods. We live in the society of like, we're vegan, we're paleo, we're keto. And it's like, I'm like, let's just be, let's do all

of those things. I mean, of course, if you have other reasons that you want to be those things, but it's really beneficial for our gut bacteria to have a lot of diversity going on with our food choices. As a society, we eat like six to 12 different types of foods. Our ancestors used to eat three to 500 different times of foods a year. It's crazy. Yeah, I think I heard by a guest, I can't remember who again, but something like 30 different plants a week. I think that's the rule or 30 different micronutrients, something like that a week. And people hear that and go, what? Because yeah, we eat the same thing day and day out. But a really good way to do that, I think, is by adding things like herbs. Like, that's something that people overlook herbs and spices. And there are a lot of different ways

to introduce that diversity. Yeah, it's a great, it's such an easy thing to do the herbs just to add those in because it creates more. It's so much easier to get to that number that you're trying to get at. But I do get excited when people could start introducing foods that they otherwise had some intolerance to. I think a lot of people are avoiding gluten, and I will say I do think gluten is something we should all avoid. Not because it causes you problems, because, well, because it causes you problems, but even if you don't have an intolerance that you know of, it's very disruptive to our gut lining. So we definitely want to avoid gluten. But other than that, I think we

should be trying to introduce as many foods as we can that are healthy and real. You mentioned results in just a few weeks. How long do you recommend people to take the probiotic? I mean, is it just 365 a year? Are there initial symptoms of maybe like some of that bad bacteria die off? Might people experience more bloating and digestive discomfort initially and then like get to a good place. How long does it take to start feeling the benefits? Yeah. So what we recommend generally is to start slowly. I'm glad you brought that up because most people are fine when they start taking the probiotic. But, you know, there's maybe 10 to 20 percent of customers who will see some type of die off, like you mentioned. Die off is basically the pathogenic bacteria is dying off and it's leaving

a toxic residue. And that just will cause some gastrointestinal discomfort. It might cause some other type of discomfort, but, you know, that's a good sign. And it always makes me sad when somebody feels that and they're like, oh, this probiotic doesn't work for me. But really, what it's telling us is that this probiotic is actually doing its job. It's actually getting rid of the pathogenic bacteria. And it means that you had some pathogenic overgrowth. So you want to get, you want to stay on it. So we just recommend people start slowly, maybe one capsule every other day. You could actually even open the capsules and you can mix it. I was just going to say, put it in your oatmeal, put it in your smoothie. That's right. Oh, I used to put in my... You can bake with them too, which is like amazing. You

can sneak it to your kids or something. I know. I used to put in my son's piping hot oatmeal and you could bake with it. Like you said, we tested it up to 455 degrees. They remain completely stable. So it's super easy, you know, whether you're going to take the whole cap or half, but you can save the other half for the next day. And so I would just recommend taking it like that for like a couple days or a week and then eventually titrating up to that one capsule every day or however you want to do But it's normally just one capsule a day with food. It works better. We also study that.

These strains actually work better in the presence of food. We know that they proliferate in the presence of food, which means that you're going to get more for your money if you'd take it with food. As far as how long to take it, you know, what we see, we do see people finding results within a couple weeks. We see some people seeing results within three months. It all kind of depends. But what we really recommend is doing the three-month thing. I'm kind of passionate about that because then you start to see all the other better.

benefits. You know, we have so many times people will come to us because they're experiencing bloating or some gas. And then all of a sudden they're like, you know, I noticed that like I'm able to manage my weight a little bit better. Would this be a, you know, symptom or would this be a result of taking the product or I'm sleeping better? My mood is better. And it's like, yes, this is what's so great. You know, in the pharmaceutical industry, it's like side effects include, you know, death, suicidal thoughts, bloody stools, like all these awful things. And it's like, our side effects are like, oh, you're sleeping better. My one friend was like, you saved my marriage because I literally was so tired all the time

that she has like more energy now. She's like, I'm convinced that my husband would want to go out to dinner and I could never have the, I never had the energy to go out. So it's really fun to see the difference that you feel all around. You know, when you start going to the bathroom regularly and you start feeling like almost cleaned out and feel so, you have so much more energy and you're just, you're sleeping better, you have a better mood and better outlook on things. It's really exciting.

Okay, so we were talking before about stress and mental health and anxiety and all of that. And you have a really incredible product, Just Calm, which you mentioned before. But let's dive into that a little bit. So what is that? Yeah. So Just Calm is really excited. And unfortunately, it's very relevant right now. I mean, we launched about a year ago, a little bit over a year ago. And we saw an unprecedented launch because everybody, including children, are just experiencing this amount of stress like we had mentioned. And so, we know the probiotic alone is actually handling a lot of the stressors. You know, I mentioned our neurotransmitters are produced in our gut. So 90% of our serotonin is actually produced in our gut, serotonin being the happy hormone, GABA, which is a calming hormone produced in our gut, dopamine is produced in our gut. All of these really important neurotransmitters are being produced in our gut. So just the probiotic alone should hopefully get you 50% there. You know, we know that we're sealing up that leakiness of the gut,

so therefore we're not sending that inflammatory response caused by leaky gut into the brain, because that's one of the places that inflammation goes to is the brain. What we're doing with Just Calm is handling those external stressors. So we know we get caught off in traffic, you know, like the fight or flight that we talked about. What Just Calm is doing, it's got a bifidobacterium Longum 1714 is the name of the strain. I know it's a long name. I'll just say 1714. So that strain has been studied extensively to show that it's actually reduced

the perception of stress. So if you have more of the 1714 strain, you are one of those people that could handle stress better. You know, it doesn't get, you know, up, all upset about a text that you get or cutting off, being cut off in traffic or whatever it might be. And so we know that those external stressors that were dealt with on a daily basis are really disruptive. They're causing cortisol and cortisol just starts to dump in the gut and that further exacerbates the leakiness of the gut. So we want to bring that cortisol down. And that's what this 1714 strain has been showing. to do to actually help reduce that cortisol response and be able to handle stress and get out of that fight or flight state better. We also know that the studies have shown that it's actually

helping with cognitive function. So I have a college-age son who I'm like, you better make sure you're taking that finals or before an exam because, or you know, you're doing a presentation, that cognitive function. Does it work immediately? You know, I would say I would at least do a couple days to a week before. Yeah. Some people say, I just talk to somebody. yesterday that was like, I woke up in the middle of the night, I couldn't sleep. I took just calm. And it's like, it was amazing. I fell asleep. So, you know, you never know if that part's placebo or not. But I would say you'd want to get a little bit of that 1714 strain into you for a couple days before, you know, you take it. But placebo is real. Placios great. I love placebo. I agree.

I mean, hey, that shows you how powerful our brain is. Yeah, I agree. So yeah, and then it also, what we know the 1714 strain does is actually help change our brainwave activity. So putting us more in that fade away, that calm, that flow state that we want to be in. So it doesn't make you tired. It makes you just more in that flow state and be able to handle stress better. So it's been really, really exciting to see what it's done for people. And, you know, I always tell people, everyone's dying to take Just Calm, but I always feel foundationally you have to start with the probiotic. I just feel strongly. I would love to tell everybody take both and hopefully you will eventually, but I think you should start with the probiotic and then maybe after three weeks go into the Just Calm.

I would recommend the 90 day. I mean, just because we have a 90 day product, I just would recommend the staying on it for a couple months because then you really see the difference and you see, you know, all these profound changes and kind of track it, journal it and see what's going on and you'll see some really exciting changes. I remember when I started taking the probiotic, it worked very fast for me. And I was shocked because I, I'm very sensitive and every strain of probiotic that I had tried before, it was not good. Yeah. And my body just, loves this one. So yeah, I always, and I've heard that too, like feedback from friends who have bought it and people who follow me who have sent me messages who have said the same thing,

like that they just respond to it really quickly. So thank you. That's an amazing product. The testimonials I get never get old. I can't even tell you. I mean, I have saved voicemails on my phone that from moms, we speak a lot of autism conferences and, you know, kids on the autism spectrum have a lot of gut dysbiosis going on and just, you know, the mom's crying. Like, he's got more energy, like he's going to the bathroom, he's sleeping. You know, and it's like, when you could help a child, it's like, oh, it's the best. Yeah. And that's your back to what you were saying in the beginning, like your life's purpose.

I mean, that's incredible. I'm sure that you. Yeah, I do too. Like, how could you ever, I don't know, like, I'm sure that you didn't expect that, you know, when you guys were sitting down and deciding what you wanted to do. And it's just amazing. Like how far reaching the benefits are. I never thought we get to this point. It's so exciting. You know, and I always, whenever I'm talking to budding entrepreneurs, I'm like, you know, I like, I went small, but then I always thought small. I'm like, no, don't do that. Like think, you know, start small, take baby steps in your journey, but then always think big, you know, and I never, you know, I never thought that. So I try to tell people from the mistakes I've made. But yeah, I can't believe we're here. But when you have a product that is so effective for people, you know, that's all the work that you need to do. When someone starts to feel better. And

and they're telling everybody about it, your marketing is done. You know, it's like you don't have to do much more. Yeah, it speaks for itself. Yeah. Definitely. You mentioned meditation earlier. What are some other foundational health things that people can do or things that people can avoid to protect their gut health?

So obviously probiotics, probiotic, rich foods, diversity, stress management. Are there any other lifestyle things that we can either, like I said, do or not do? for gut health. Yeah, one of the things I would recommend is getting more in touch with nature. You know, we are so, you know, live in our houses or our condos or whatever it might be and we're working in office buildings and we're just not in touch with nature. And that is, you know, and I don't mean just walking around your neighborhood, which is good. But if you could try to get on a trail or, you know, go to, if you have access to oceans or lakes and just try to be in touch more with nature because we're getting like the ocean spray, you're getting microbes from the ocean, which is really better. That's why a lot of people who live by the ocean actually feel better because they're getting those microbes from the ocean. So trying to be more in touch with nature. And I know that's not realistic for a lot of people. And I'd like to give realistic, you know, tips. But even going outside for the walk in your neighborhood or just trying to get on a trail and being in touch with nature is really beneficial to your microbes.

And not being so not being a clean freak. That's a really big thing. You know, we bacteria has got such a bad name. It's like, oh, you know, bacteria is bad. No, you know, bacteria needs a PR campaign. less than 1% of our bacteria is actually detrimental. The majority of our bacteria is not only beneficial. It's critical to our health.

So I don't use any household cleaners that, say, kills 99.99% of the bacteria. I'm like, I try to use, I mean, every once in a while, like, if, you know, I'll use something. But mostly I try to just use, like, water with, like, some essential oils in there and just try to use more natural products. Amazing. Well, what is one thing you would like people to start? doing and one thing people should stop doing. Okay. One thing they should start doing is just really focusing on their gut health, whatever that may

look like to you, whether it's meditating, whether it's eating more probiotic and prebiotic rich foods, whether it's taking a probiotic, just, but know that that's where you need to start on your health journey for both maintenance of health and just preventing any diseases. And as far as like what you should cut out, I would say, you know, really trying to avoid antibiotics, antibiotic animal products, you know, it's not just animatics we take, but antibiotics that are, you know, found in animal products that we're eating. Those are so disruptive to our gut health. The antibiotics are killing the good bacteria as well as the bad bacteria. So just, you know, focusing on your gut health and taking baby steps and giving yourself grace along the way.

Yeah, I like the baby steps because I think a lot of people think, okay, I'm going to start today. I'm going to overhaul my entire life. And, you know, it's too much. Right. At once. It's, it's, not a, so cliche, but like it's not a sprint to the finish line. There is no finish line. No, there isn't. And I know you had asked me that before about like how long do you stand it. I mean, I would say, you know, I can't imagine a time that you would ever get off of it because you could go to a maintenance level. You could do maybe one every other day, one every third day. But the world we're living in is always attacking our microbiome, unfortunately. So that's the reason I would suggest staying on it for a wild because, you know, you really need to combat all of the forces against our microbiome.

Amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming on again. You're always invited and tell everybody where they can find Just Thrieth. Oh, thank you for having me, Ariel. I love being here. And it's so fun to do this in person for the first time. And the best place to find us is Just Thrivehealth.com. And we did a different coupon code. We did, well, it's blonde, B-L-O-N-D-E. So if you go to Just Thrivehealth.com, you could use use blonde and you get 20% off. Usually I do 15%, but I did 20% off for the 90 day probiotic and the 90 day just calm because I'm so passionate about people trying it for 90 days. They can really see a difference. Yeah, I think that's one of the big takeaways of this episode. So thank you for that. Everybody go check it out. We'll put it in show notes as well. And thanks again. Thank you.

I hope you enjoyed that episode. And if you liked it, and if you like the show in general, please take a second to rate, review, and subscribe. It goes a long way, and it's actually the best way to support the show. Also, if you want to see more about each episode, you can head over to The Blonde Files podcast on Instagram. You can go to Arialore.com, and I'm always posting about each episode over on my personal page at Arial Lori. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode. Auto-hue with sunny cars feels as if the children not be with. Diesel strangle.

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