Well with Arielle Lorre - 382: How to Optimize Digestion, Reduce Sugar Cravings, Heal Leaky Gut and Improve Mental Clarity with Tina Anderson

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

Tina Anderson is a former attorney in the pharmaceutical industry who co-founded Just Thrive after being disillusioned by what she saw. She joins the show to discuss how to use prebiotics, probiotics and digestive bitters to optimize digestion and improve symptoms related to autoimmunity, allergies, leaky gut, anxiety and other issues related to an imbalance in the microbiome. We also talk about how to stimulate the body’s production of GLP-1, reduce sugar cravings and more.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.Ads: Go to justthrivehealth.com and use code Well for 20% off. 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.

Auto-hue with Sunny Cars feels as if the children Not me's high. Giselsramble, Zandvorda. Actisvercere, verdwine, vacancy can chaotic

but who'sorgalos an auto-hurt says, Uno dos, no stress. No, no-vervicted costs, always fullledgird. So,

would auto-hue without your reis-adviseur or SunnyCars. The following podcast is a dear media production. In a world of ever-changing, wellness trends and information, what does it mean to truly be well? I'm Ariel Lorry and I'm going

to explore this with you. I am bringing you candid conversations that will equip you with everything you need to live your best life and look good doing it. Think of well as your go-to resource for all of the latest in wellness and me as your internet bestie. Well, let's get into it. Hi, everybody, welcome to the show. I have such a good episode for you today. I have returning guest Tina Anderson on. I have known Tina now for years since she first came on the podcast. I don't even know how long ago. And we have such great rapport, which always makes for a great conversation, in my opinion. And I love having her on because she is able to talk about something that can be a little bit technical and dry and confusing, which is gut health and how gut health

plays a role in overall health and well-being and specific things that we can do to improve our gut health. And she makes it really, really digestible, pun intended, and fun-intended, and fun and easy to listen to and easy to apply to our own lives. I think sometimes when I have doctors on their delivery can be a little bit science-heavy. And I love that Tina is so knowledgeable, but she's also just one of us. So we are talking about, of course, gut health today. But we're talking about some things that we have not talked about in previous episodes. One of those is digestive bitters and why this is such an important thing when it comes to digestion and your overall health of your microbiome. This is something that I am particularly interested in because I have gone deep into the rabbit hole of bile production.

So we talk about how digestive bitters can stimulate digestion and optimize digestion. We, of course, talk about probiotics and their role in gut health. We talk about prebiotics and how all of them work together to improve our overall well-being. We all know that gut health is related to so many things like autoimmunity, allergies, of course, leaky gut, mental health disorders, anxiety. All of these can be related to an imbalance. in the microbiome. So we also talk about natural ways to stimulate the body's production of GLP1, how to reduce sugar cravings, and so much more. It's such a fun episode. And Tina is the co-founder of the company Just Thrive. I love their probiotics. I've been taking them for years. I am now,

of course, also taking the digestive bitters, but they have such a range of products that you can try, and I find them all to be really effective. So you can try them and save 20% off, wide at just thrivehealth.com with the promo code well. So please enjoy Tina Anderson. Welcome back. Thanks so much for having me, Ariel. I'm so excited to be here. I always love having you. So much fun. Love being here with you. And every time you come on, we have a lot of new developments to discuss. So why don't you just fill us in? You can give us the background for any new listeners. Oh, yes. Well, thanks. Yeah, my background is kind of interesting. I'm an attorney and I was in litigation for many years. And I went to to, after working many hours and starting having children and being entirely unsatisfied in my career, I went into a family pharmaceutical business. And what I saw there were a lot of the abuses in the industry. You know, we saw the overprescribing of medications. We saw it with our own family members. They would be on one medication before, you know, they'd be on a dozen, and never getting any better. And we saw in the pharmaceutical industry just this focus on

symptoms and not a focus on treating the root cause or getting to the root cause. And so this was 11 years ago before, you know, now it's like everybody's talking about this. But back then, it was kind of a new concept. But we left that industry. My husband and I were both in the industry together. And we went on this journey of gut health and the importance of gut health. And we were able to license these incredible strains out of London University. And we were disruptors when we brought these bacillus spore-based probiotics to the market through just drive. And it's just been a really fun journey for the last 11 years. We put our life savings into it, bootstrapped. We have no investors. We have only ourselves to answer to. And it's

been really hard, but really fun. That's incredible. I didn't realize that it's been that long and also that you guys are completely self-funded. Yep. That's rare these days. Very rare. Especially when you are scaling, like you guys have, I would imagine. Yes. Well, you know, I think being an older entrepreneur has actually helped us because, like, we took the ego out of it. And we just would always put any money back into the business. And a lot of supplement companies have huge margins, and that was not what we experienced. We did not have those. These were very exclusive strains out of London University. We had to pay a licensing fee for them. So it was definitely a different journey, a very hard one, but totally satisfying. I mean, it has been so much fun, just changing people's

lives and helping people feel better. It's just, it's the best. Yeah. I am curious about the margins and then we'll kind of talk about the benefits and all that and some new developments. But is that because supplements are just using fillers or using not great ingredients, like traditional supplements that are making more revenue or something from those margins? Yeah, I think what it is is people just take basic supplements and then they just put all their money into branding and marketing and it's not as much about the quality where our money was coming. We were doing research studies. We were doing double-blind human clinical trials, which is unheard of in the supplement space. And we had these really exclusive strains that were expensive to produce. And like, for example,

with probiotics, many probiotics, let's say there's a 15 strain probiotic. They would take all of those 15 strains and put them in one vat and grow them together, which is very problematic. One strain could take over another and get rid of one strain that's listed on the label or two strains could come together. And that strain is like, it creates a whole new strain that's never even been studied for safety or efficacy, where what we've done is we have four strains and they're grown in four separate bats. So, you know, the manufacturing process is more expensive. The strains themselves are more expensive. So I think what happens is just so many people just take a very vanilla type of ingredient, whether it's a probiotic or something else, and they just put a ton of money

and marketing and branding. And you see that, unfortunately, quite often. I mean, I love when people go to supplements. I think supplements are so important, but we just wanted to elevate the standard in the supplement space. Yeah, I think that the industry as a whole is so difficult for the average consumer to navigate. So when somebody is looking for a supplement, what should they be looking for? Yeah, I think it's important to find a supplement that's DNA verified. And what that means is just that like you're basically verifying that the strains that are in the product or the ingredients in the product are actually in the product itself, that are listed in the label or are actually, actually in the product, which is not always easy to find. And unfortunately, you just have to be a

very vigilant consumer. You know, it's like you've got to call the company and ask them about their studies and their research. And it's just, it's tough. It's difficult out there. So what was it about your strain that compelled you to take this whole thing on? I mean, I know that you said that there have been double-blind studies, right? What did those studies show and why were you like this needs to be out there for the public? Yeah, the biggest difference with the spores that are used in Just Thrive is they are an endospore product. So they have this endospore shell around themselves.

The majority of probiotics on the market, like 95% of them, they're not spore-based. We were disruptors when we came to the market. The majority of probiotics are made up of lactobacillus and bifidobacterium. And they're very sensitive organisms by nature. You know, many need to be refrigerated. You know, people will say like, oh, a good probiotic needs to be refrigerated to be alive. And it's like, well, maybe it needs to be refrigerated to be alive in the refrigerator, but what happens when it goes into your body, which is 98.6, which is much hotter than the, you know, store shelf,

which it can't even survive on the store shelf. How could it ever survive your body temperature, which is 98.6? And so the spores, the biggest difference between the spores is their ability to survive the gastric system. So we have the stomach acid. The stomach is meant to be the gastric barrier. It's very acidic, and most probiotics are killed in that stomach acid. And then they are dead on arrival when they get to the intestines. And that doesn't mean that they don't do anything.

I mean, people will say I've had some luck with probiotics that are lactobacillus and bifidobacterium-based, but they're not making a true change in that ecosystem. We want to think of our gut as this ecosystem. And most probiotics will just kind of pass through, like food, where the spores have the shell around themselves, they get to the intestines alive, and then they make a true change in the gut lining. And it's why we see such incredible results with the product. I was just on another podcast earlier, and they asked me, like, you know, you guys were bootstrapped. And I'm like, well, yeah, really, when you have a product that works, it's amazing how quickly you could grow

because, you know, it works. You don't have to do millions of dollars of marketing. You just have to have a product that works, and people will do their marketing for you. I know. It's so crazy nowadays, because it seems like everybody has a brand, regardless of what category they're in. And you see a lot of brands and their strategy is to be really good at marketing and have the product maybe be good enough for a repurchase, but not always. You know, it's interesting what people's performance indicators are. Yeah. Well, and it's scary because a lot of those products sell really well. Yes. You know, because marketing sells, you know, but, you know, it's, that's why we've been fortunate it to be on podcasts like yours and like people I could explain the difference and I think it really

resonates with people and then they try it and they're like oh now I understand and it is so different than any other probiotics out there I mean it's a completely different category and it it has so many effects on your overall health because of course we know our gut has so many effects on our overall health yeah it's like the efficacy does the marketing for you you don't have to be paying all of that to try to convince people I'm just curious like other brands where they do have to be refrigerated and they don't make it to the stomach alive. What is their rationalization for that? Well, I don't think any of those brands were like ill-willed or anything.

It's just based on what we used to know about the gut microbiome. Got it. The National Institutes of Health conducted the human microbiome projects about 10 or so years ago, and it told us more about the gut than we ever knew before. And now we know how probiotics function in the gut, what we want them to do. We want a probiotic to get there alive and stay there for a while. while. Even if some of those probiotics do get there, even if some of the strains do get there, they actually pass through, similar to like food passes through, where the spores, when they get

there, they go into their live state and then they stay there for about 21 to 28 days where they're making this true change in the gut. And I like to always use like the garden analogy. If you envision a garden that's been stepped on and trampled on, there's weeds growing all over that garden, and you compare that to your gut, that's kind of the same thing that's going on with the spores actually go in there, get rid of the overgrowth of the weeds, and have the ability to bring those plants that have been stepped on and trampled on back to life. And so in our gut, it's going in there, getting rid of the overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria, and then taking our good bacteria and bringing it back to life, which is what creates diversity.

We want a diverse, lush microbiome. That is health. I mean, that is health on every level as having a diverse and lush microbiome. Yeah, I think that another thing that consumers probably experience is, a little bit of this feeling of being paralyzed. Like, can I take this kind of strange? Do I need probiotics? Do I not need probiotics?

Am I getting enough probiotics from my food? Like all of these questions, a lot of people have conditions now. Like, you know, candida, yeast overgrowth, SIBO, and there's so much conflicting information out there. So I know that, you know, you can't give medical advice or anything like that. But is it just a rule in general that everybody can benefit from this? I would imagine that all of our microbiomes are just fucked right now because of our exposures every day and our food and all of that. Yeah, no, that is a really good point because our microbiomes are really screwed up.

I mean, we know that everything that we're doing in this world is like offensive to our gut health. So when we're talking about antibacterial soaps, antibacterial hand sanitizers, antibiotics that are in our food supply, antibiotics that we take, glyphosate, which is the active ingredient, round up, all these things that we're doing on a daily basis are just reconfirial. such havoc on our gut health. And it's why we're seeing this increase in allergies, autoimmune issues. I mean, kids now have epidemic levels of allergies. I mean, when I was a kid, I knew one classmate from, and obviously that was a long, long time ago, but from kindergarten all the way through the end of high school that had one classmate that had peanut allergy. So, you know, I would argue that, yes, everybody needs to be taking care of their gut health. And it all depends on the type of probiotic. Spore-based probiotics are the same

type of probiotic strains that our ancestors used to get off of the land. You know, our ancestors were hunter-gatherers. They would eat roots and tubers off the land. Those roots and tubers were teeming with this really beneficial bacteria. And they were the spore-based probiotics. That's what was in our soil. Unfortunately, now our soil is deplete of all those nutrients. It's overfarmed. It's contaminated. So we don't have the opportunity to get those really important strains. But I do feel that I can't imagine anybody that wouldn't be benefit from taking a spore-based probiotic because of the fact that it is, it's the way we evolved. And you bring up a good point about SIBO and other conditions where sometimes probiotics are not beneficial. That is true. There are like certain lactobacillus type of

probiotics that really contribute to, for example, in SIBO, the overgrowth in the small bowel. So we know SIBO is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. And sometimes probiotics, regular lactobacillus probiotics actually will go in there and contribute to that overgrowth in the small bowel. The spores don't, because what the spores do is they do something called quorum sensing. So they are reading the microbial environment. So they are going to do something different in your gut than they are in my gut. So they go into the intestines or in that garden. They're like the gardener of the gut.

And they're like, okay, we're going to get rid of that overgrowth of the pathogenic bacteria. Maybe I have a certain kind of overgrowth of a pathogenic and you have a different one. So they're going to do something different. They're very intelligent bacteria. then they go in there and take our good bacteria and help bring it back to life. So you do have to be careful, obviously, with some probiotics. I would imagine most probiotics are probably safe for most people. But there was a study that came out that showed that some of these probiotics will actually

compete with your natural gut flora and not be able to help fight an infection or fight something that's going on. So, you know, yes, you do have to be careful. I would say most probiotics are pretty safe and benign, but it's something to keep in mind. where the spores we were meant to consume. Our ancestors consume them on a daily basis. And it is why we see such incredible results with the product. Yeah, I want to talk about some of the conditions that you have seen be treated and overcome using the probiotics. I know that, you know, you talk a lot about, like, leaky gut and the evidence and the data behind that is pretty compelling. I mean, it's incredible.

I also know I've been dealing with histamine intolerance, mass style activation, and I know. I know, that just thrive is safe for individuals with histamine intolerance, which is also tricky, again, with different strains. Different strains can not be good for people with that histamine intolerance. So that's good to know because so many people who listen to the show and so many people who follow me are dealing with this right now, which is crazy. And it makes you wonder, too, did this start in the gut? You know, I'm working with different practitioners and they're all like, you have to get your gut strong enough. Yes. Yes. And yeah, I'm so glad you brought up the histamine intolerance because you do see that with many of the lactobacilluses, they also contribute to the

histamine. And so the spores do not. We know this about the spores, so that's why it would be fine to take it if you have histamine intolerance. It's like, it's a completely different category of probiotics. So even people who like will take an antibiotic, for example, and they, people, you know, doctor will say, well, don't take the probiotic while you're on the antibiotic because the antibiotic will kill the probiotic. Well, we've tested ours. And we know that they actually survive the presence of an antibiotic. We tested it with people who were liver encephalitis patients. They were on some of the strongest antibiotics out there, and they found that these strains actually survived the presence of an antibiotic. So it would be a great probiotic to take in the presence of an antibiotic, and afterwards,

because we know if we're on an antibiotic, it wreaks havoc on your gut for up to a year, sometimes two years after being on an antibiotic. So you want to make sure you're continuing to support it by taking the spores. But like the conditions, and that's what's so interesting, the conditions that are out there. I mean, we know. We know. that gas and bloating and diarrhea and constipation, those are certainly signs, but we have some imbalance going on in our gut. But that's pretty obvious to people. What is not obvious to people is the gut-brain connection. And I think we've talked about it before, and people are hearing about it, but it's really important to understand that our neurotransmitters like serotonin,

dopamine, GABA are all produced in our gut. Not in our brain, like we've been kind of led to believe. It's 90% of serotonin is produced in our gut. Dopamins. is produced in our gut. Gaba, which is our calming hormone is produced in our gut. I love Gaba. I know. It's like, oh, so calm. So you have to take care of your gut microbiome to, you know, have better mental clarity. You have better mental health. And then skin issues. We know that, like, that's how I got my kids to start the product because, you know, they were in high school. My girls were in high school at the time they started breaking out. And they were like, oh, this is amazing how it helps. It's amazing when you start taking care of your

gut, how your skin issues, rashes, eczema, psoriasis, acne, all of those things are directly related to the unhealth of your gut or the imbalance in your gut. And then, you know, you talk about immune health. So autoimmune issues, but just overall immune health, 80% of our immune systems found in our gut lining. So when we're talking about autoimmune issues or allergies, anything like that. So it's really hard to find any non-communicable disease that's not associated with some type of imbalance in our gut health. Do you recommend that people get like a basic stool test or something like that to see where things are with their gut? Or how do they figure out exactly what's going on?

Because I think that that's another thing that confuses a lot of people. And I've been there myself where, you know, you feel like things are off. Your digestion is off. Maybe you're experiencing bloating. Maybe you have some anxiety, insomnia, some skin issues, you know, these kind of like non-specific symptoms. And then, you know, we go and we're buying all of the supplements and just throwing things at it. Do you recommend, like, assessing and then figuring out, getting a clear picture of what exactly is going on? Or is it just kind of safe to start with the probiotics, see if you experience any benefits?

Like, is there an order at which you would do things? I would love there to be, like, a stool test that really represented our entire microbiome. Unfortunately, I just, I think a lot of the stool tests out there are good, but just flawed. You know, they don't show a true whole picture. You know, they'll like, for example, I live in Chicago. So if someone went to like the west side of Chicago versus the north side of Chicago, they would have a different experience in both of those areas of Chicago. So the same thing would happen with your gut where they're not getting a true full picture of your gut microbiome.

I mean, I'm sure it would probably, it'll tell you something. So you might know you'll have some imbalance going on. But what I say is like, not what I say, what they estimate, like the experts out there are saying that 80% of the adult population has a leaky gut and they just don't even know it. And what's so interesting is University of North Texas did a double-blind human clinical trial on leaky gut or metabolic endotoxemia. And basically what they did is they took 100 college students and they tested them to see if they had a leaky gut. And the way you test that is you, it's not, unfortunately, it's not a test that we could get in a normal lab setting, but they could do it in a research setting. They tested to see if there

were LPS toxins in the bloodstream. LPS stands for lipopolysaccharides. And when those LPS toxins are in your gut, they're not really problematic. It's when those LPS toxins seep into the bloodstream that we know we have this inflammatory response by the body. So our body is recognizing it as an invader because we don't want LPS toxins in our bloodstream and we don't want food particles in our bloodstream. So we could be eating kale and all these really healthy foods, nutrient dent foods, but if those foods are in our bloodstream, they're known as an invader. They're not supposed to be there. So this study was done by the University of North Texas. They took 100 college students, and 55% of them had a leaky gut and didn't know it. These were healthy college students,

no issues at all, healthy weight, everything was healthy about them. They had no known conditions, no medications. So what they did is they took that group that had leaky gut. They divided them in half, and they gave half of them the placebo and half of them the spores. the bacillus spores that are used in just thrive. The treated group, so the ones that were on those spores, actually saw a 42% reduction in LPS toxins seeping into the bloodstream. So that was huge. After 30 days, these college students had no dietary lifestyle modifications during that 30 days. In the placebo group, they had no spores. They just went on. And they did the study on them after 30 days, and they saw a 32% increase in LPS toxins.

And the problem with that is that when you have a leaky gut, it's like you have this drippy faucet. And it's like, you know, people are like, oh, my God, all of a sudden I have an autoimmune issue. Well, no, it really wasn't all of a sudden. It was like you've been dealing with it or you're being overwhelmed on a regular basis with plastics and forever chemicals and antibiotics and glyphosate in our food. All of these offenders were dealing with those on a regular basis. And then one day that drippy faucet overflows. And then you start having this autoimmune issue or you start having allergies or you start having allergies. or you start having anxiety or depression or whatever it might be or skin issues.

So it doesn't just happen all of a sudden. So I would, yes, I would argue that most people should be taking care of their gut and there's other ways to take care of your gut besides taking a spore-based probiotic. I feel that the spore-based is a very effective approach, but it's one tool in the toolbox to start taking care of your gut health. And tell me about the addition of antioxidants. And what was the intention behind that? I'm so glad that you mentioned that.

So we actually didn't include, like, antioxidants. What we've included is a strain, a spore strain called H.U.36 bacillus indicus. That strain actually produces antioxidants in the gut. So when that strain gets to the gut, it starts producing antioxidants like astazanthens, zanthin, lycopene, beta-carotene, lutein, all these incredible antioxidants are being produced in the gut where they need to be absorbed. and a lot of antioxidants that you would just take in a capsule or whatever also have trouble absorbing and are getting surviving and getting into the gut. So the researchers at University of North Texas actually feel that that antioxidant strain

is one of the biggest reasons why we had such success with the sealing of the gut lining because one of the biggest offenders of the leaky gut is, or one of the causes of leaky gut, is oxidative stress. So now we have these antioxidants being produced right at the gut lining. and so helping combat that oxidative stress in the gut. That's amazing. I want to talk about digestive bitters because this is new for you guys. And this, I have a quote here, I think that I wrote down.

Oh, well, I wrote that it was your body's digestive activator. Yes. I love that. True? I love that quote. I'm going to start using it. Yeah. So tell us about bitters.

So it's kind of like pre-digestion, right? Yes. Yes. So digestive bitters have actually been used for centuries as an ancient, you know, tool for digestive aid. In fact, if you go to like certain areas of Asia and South of Africa, you will find people who are using digestive bitters on a regular basis. They're eating them. They're eating like things like gentian root or bitter melon and, you know, all different kinds of digestive bitters. And so we here in the Western world kind of think of like, oh, I'm going to take a tincture and you'll take it in your tongue because you feel like all your digestive. receptors are in your tongue. But really, that's not the case. Most of our digestive bitter receptors are in our gut and throughout our body. They're in our lungs, in our brain. They're all throughout our bodies. And so what they do, basically, is help produce our body's ability to create stomach acid. So we want more stomach acid. So many people are like taking, you know,

antacids to reduce stomach acid, which is so detrimental to our health. It is so detrimental. I mean, it certainly helps the symptoms. I'm not going to our, argue with that, but it just contributes to the problem. And so that's what always makes me crazy. But like sometimes you're taking something for a symptom and it's fine. But when you're taking something that's going to relieve a symptom, but it's now contributing to the problem, that's when I get worried. So we know that digestive bitters will help increase stomach acid. They help increase digestive enzyme. They also help bile production. So these are all great for just overall digestion, and you're right, they're helping our body get ready for digestion.

They're helping breaking down our food and absorbing nutrients, which is huge. And it's really supportive of our stomach and our small intestine, where the probiotic is supportive of your entire intestinal tract, particularly your large ball. When you're talking about bitters, you're talking about your stomach, really huge for that. What digestive bitters do actually is help increase GLP1 production. And that's, I know that's such a buzz thing right now, but We do know it's very clear that GLP1, we create our own GLP ones, and this is support of helping our bodies create more GLP ones.

Yeah, I just had another guest on who was talking about that as well, and she was talking about things to do and specific foods to eat, I think, that can help to activate that. And I believe that she did mention digestive bitters. And then I did have some doctor comment on it, as always happens nowadays, and said, well, it doesn't really work like GLP1s because it's not all the time. It's only for a certain period of time around when you're eating. But I would think that that's all that a lot of people need, right? Well, yeah, and I don't know that we want it to work like the pharmaceutical GLP ones. I mean, there's a place for them and I, you know, I'm not here to bash on them. I just, this is a much more

natural approach to it. So when, you know, our natural body, like when we produce GLP ones, it activates for like 20 to 25 minutes. Whereas like the pharmaceutical, GLP ones are there for seven full days. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's very unnatural. And again, it's effective for people who are morbidly obese and have, you know, weight issues that they really want to, you know, address. But this is a much more gentler approach to produce our own GLP ones. And I mean, I'm telling you from personal experience, it works. It's like, it's amazing. It's like, what do you notice? What I notice is that I'm feeling fuller, longer. I mean, that's, and less sugar cravings. And it's crazy.

That's what I think is so crazy is it also helps you have less cravings, but it also helps you just, you know, have less sugar cravings and helps you feel fuller longer. Amazing. So how soon before you eat do you take them right before or should you take them 20 minutes, wait a little bit? Yeah, probably about 20, 15 minutes beforehand. Yeah, I always try it. It's so hard to remember. I mean, I'm so used to taking my probiotic, like, you're supposed to take the probiotic immediately after your meal and I take most of my supplements right after my meal. But the bitters are definitely should be taken before your meal to get your digestive bitters activated.

Yeah, that's so interesting about the GLP one as well because I would imagine, and I have no judgment either, and I know people who are overweight who take it, who have had a lot of success. And it's kind of launched them into this healthier lifestyle and they've kept the weight off. I know people who are thinner and microdose it for whatever reasons. I think people are kind of studying the effects of the GLP ones on neuroinflammation and just systemic inflammation, things like that. I mean, PCOS, like so many applications. But I would imagine that when you're getting that for seven days and then you stop eventually because you're going to stop, there's got to be some kind of rebound, I would think. Whereas if you're doing it this way, it's more kind of like little increments. Right.

And it's more sustainable. It's kind of supporting our own natural bodies production of it anyway. So I think it's, and I think it has more, we'd have more lasting effects because it's just creating this more natural approach to it and feeling full or longer. Yeah, which we all want. Yes, we want. And then there's another piece to the puzzle with prebiotics, right? So I think a lot of people confuse prebiotics, probiotics. What is the difference and what do prebiotics achieve in the gut?

So back to that garden analogy, think of the prebiotics as the fertilizer for the good bacteria. So it's really important that we have prebiotics to help feed the beneficial bacteria. The probiotics are the gardener. They're getting rid of the weeds, the overgrowth of the weeds, and helping our good bacteria come back to life or our good plants come back to life. Where the prebiotics are, so just the probiotic alone will create diversity. Remember, our goal with gut health is to have a diverse microbiome. We want this diverse, lush microbiome with like lots of different types of bacteria in there.

And so we know the probiotic alone will help increase diverse. in the gut by like 10fold. But when you add that prebiotic in, it's actually increasing it by like 100fold. So we know that the prebiotic is basically just the fertilizer in the garden for the good bacteria. One of the problems with prebiotics and some fiber is that they don't know how to distinguish between the good bacteria and the bad bacteria. One of the things that was really important to us that we found a prebiotic that actually only targeted the good plants or the beneficial bacteria in the gut because sometimes people will take a prebiatic and feel worse because they have this overgrowth already and now you're feeding the overgrowth and you feel worse. People that happens

with fiber too. So it's something to consider when you're looking at our prebiatic only targets the beneficial bacteria. Okay. So you would take the bitters before you eat, the probiotic after you eat, and what about the prebiotic after you eat as well? Well, what I do with the prebiotic is we have it both in capsule form and a powder form, I put it in my water and just kind of sip it through the day and try to like have it throughout the day, kind of like you'd sprinkle a garden, you know, just as the day goes on. So if you're taking the capsules, it's four capsules and you just maybe take one, you know, two at one time or two later in the day, whatever, you know, but it's better to kind of sprinkle it through the day. What are some of your other non-negotiables for gut health? Oh my gosh.

Well, one of the things that I really try to encourage is diversity in your food foods, you know, so we're in the society that's like so dogmatic. It's like, oh, we've got to, we're either vegan or we're paleo or carnivore or whatever it might be. But I'm just a fan of eating a diverse group of foods. I'm really trying to, I mean, I'm guilty of it. I'm such a creature of habit of going to the same vegetables that I like and easy to make. But I'm really tried to find different things that are in season, go to the farmer's market and finding different, you know, fruits. and vegetables that are different that I don't eat all the time. So eating a diverse group of foods is really important. I think some type of calming practice, whether it's meditation, deep breathing,

a stroll. I'm a huge walker. I walk every single day outside, even in the cold winters of Chicago. How many steps do you track? Oh, yeah. Like, I mean, the other day was like 20,000 steps. I love to walk. I mean, I usually try to do 10,000 a day. But that was an exceptional day. But I just love to walk. But I'm a fast walker. But I think it's important. just to, you know, stroll sometimes, which I'm almost, my body almost can't do that, but I try to do, whatever it is that brings you calm this way, whether it's reading a book or, you know, sitting out by a body of water, whatever it is. But being calm is really important to support our gut health. And that sounds so woo-woo, but it's so true that there's this huge gut-brain connection. The brain is sending signals to the gut, and the gut is sending signals to the brain. So when you know when, like, you're excited about something, like, what happens? You get butterflies in your stomach. Or when you're you're, you're you are anxious? Or anxious. Yeah. What happens when you're anxious? You have to go the bathroom. Stomach, yeah. Yeah, or your stomach, you know, whatever. It's, there is a huge connection. And so it's really important that we find a practice that calms us down. And it is so hard in the world we live in.

I mean, it is so hard. So give yourself grace. But if you could try to like carve out time to just be calm and zoom out in life a little bit, you know, like this particular thing that you're stressing over isn't going to matter in five years. So just zoom out and just try to, you know, be as calm as possible because it will be so beneficial to your gut health. I mean, people who have IBS have like a, I'm forgetting the exact number, but like a, you know, threefold incidents of having anxiety and depression because that's, they're completely connected with each other, the gut and the brain. So there's, I'm trying to think of other things that are just so supportive. I mean, eating organic, staying away from antibiotics is super important. Of course, antibiotics save lives. So I wouldn't.

You know, if you're dying, I wouldn't say like, oh, I want to protect my microbiome, you know, but we obviously want to make sure that we're careful about taking antibiotics when they're not necessary. The CDC actually did a study showing that over 50% of antibiotics that are prescribed are actually unnecessary. And so we have to really be mindful of how often that we're taking antibiotics. Yeah, it's tricky. I mean, I used to take antibiotics a lot because I was prescribed them for any thing. I mean, for the common cold, I would be prescribed antibiotics. Even a few months ago, I had a cold, and it was like very much in my sinuses. And I was like, okay, I don't know.

It feels like it's getting worse. Like, I'm not sure. Nothing is making it better. I was doing all the natural things. And someone said, just go in a Z pack. And I'm like, no. Maybe. I mean, you start to wonder, like, okay.

And then like, you know, I have anxiety sometimes about that stuff anyway. Yeah. So I'm like, well, I don't want this to turn into something or, you know, but I didn't take it. And then I obviously got better. So yeah, they have their time and their place, but I think that we are so overprescribed antibiotics. I feel like this might be kind of controversial, but like SSRIs, I think, are really overprescribed. And I think they're life-saving for so many people. And if you are depressed or you have debilitating anxiety or whatever, then like, absolutely.

I'm not one to judge. And I'm not trying to vilify SSRIs. But I do know that they're also kind of just handed out now for everything. Yeah, and I don't think they're having much success. I mean, that's the thing that is sad about it is that they actually are sometimes counterproductive to what you're trying to do. And that's what I've always said. Like psychiatrists have had their hands tied because the only tool they've had are these SSRIs and anti-anxiety meds when really they haven't been looking at the gut. And the gut is really, I mean, 90% of our serotonin is produced in our gut are happy.

hormone. I mean, we should be focusing on our gut health before we go into, you know, let's try these other measures first and then go into some prescriptions out there. Yeah. It's kind of like when all you have is a nail, everything's a hammer or when all you have is a hammer, everything's a nail. I always miss. I'm the wrong person. I ask that one up. But yeah, but that analogy and I think that, you know, I was just having this conversation before with a neuroscientist who was on the podcast and we were talking about how everything is siloed. And I don't think that it's necessarily like the practitioners having some kind of ill intention. It's just like that's the tool that they have and they're only looking at one thing.

So that's the tool that they're going to use. And it's hard. It's hard for doctors. I think they're so constrained now too with insurance and things like that. You know, their hands are tied to your point. And it's kind of like they only have so much time. can only look at so many things. Yeah. So it's, it's hard for someone to go, you know what, let's do a stool test. Let's do a blood test. Let's look at, you know, your micronutrients and vitamins and

hormones and all of these things that really influence. I mean, it can literally be night and day. Yeah. I mean, it is, it is so frustrating. And we've been talking about this for 11 years. I mean, about how the pharmaceutical industry, the health care system is a sick care system. And And it's so frustrating because we know that people are, these doctors are being taught how to prescribe medicine and fix a disease. There's no emphasis on maintenance of our health. There's no maintenance. There's no discussion of, you know, prevention or anything like that.

It's really all about these silos that you mentioned. And I think it's so, like I'm so encouraged by podcasts like yours, getting the word out there, people are understanding, but there's just something about our society that is so, well, my doctor told me to do this, you know, and it blows my mind. the research that is out there on the gut and how it's tied to everything of our overall health. And if you go to your regular internist, it would be very rare that they would have any conversation with you about your gut, unless you had some digestive discomfort. When really we know that there's so much digest, there's so much that is associated with our gut health besides digestion. And it blows my mind.

Or like, doctors will say, like, be on a multivitamin. I'm like, you know, being on a high-quality probiotic is so much more important because when you're taking, if your gut is inflamed, it's not absorbing all the nutrients in that multivitamin. You're taking vitamin D, vitamin C, which are super important nutrients. But if our gut is inflamed, it's having so much trouble absorbing those nutrients. So it is really frustrating. But I do think that there's a shift. And I'm super excited about that.

Yeah, it seems like there's a shift. And then I also, I hear from a lot of people that it takes something like 17 years for research to then get incorporated into like the curriculum at medical school or like, be incorporated into regular practice. So it might be a while before we see those conversations, maybe another 10 years or 15 years or something like that. But now we have so many functional medicine practitioners and even traditional Western doctors who are leaving that model and becoming more functional, integrated, however you want to call it. Because I think that so many people just can't really turn a blind eye anymore to the fact that, you know,

everything is interconnected and it is not beneficial for anybody to silo these things off and just throw medication. Yeah, no. And I do think that there's some good changes, but it'll take a while. So it's like, I just always feel like we need to make our bodies resilient. And in this world we're living, we have to make them resilient. And I'm not waiting for anybody else to do it for me. Exactly. I just think like, you know, people who have sat through and listened to this podcast, I mean, They're already, you know, already, like, empowering themselves and they're interested in taking care of their own health. And I think that's huge because you just have to start researching, listening to podcasts, doing your own research and figuring out what works for you and what makes sense. Like, I'm always about, like, common sense.

What makes sense? And so I, and this whole siloed medical system, it just doesn't make sense. And you see medical doctors, like you said, just leaving that space. I mean, because for their own health, they're realizing this isn't working anymore. And so it's good that it's getting out there. Yeah, and we have so much in our control. I think that we outsource it to the doctors. And now I think that a lot of people are taking that control back

because there are a lot of things that we can do just on a daily basis to, like you said, make our bodies resilient. And, yeah, just starting with the gut, starting with things like simple movement and walks and sunlight and hydration and all of, you know, healthy diet. That can do so, so much. Even for me, like with my histamine intolerance, my primary symptom is, like, debilitating anxiety. Not mental anxiety, but that feeling when you almost get hit by a car if you're driving and your whole body goes in it's adrenaline and you're shaking, it's that 24-7. To the point where I was like, I can't function. Maybe I do have some kind of psychiatric thing. Like, this is crazy. And then I started eating low histamine, gone. I mean, and that's. that's happening in the gut. Like, it's crazy. So it's night and day.

And had I not done that, I could have, you know, been on all kinds of, you know, medication. So it can be so powerful, these little changes. It's just hard to know where to start, but, you know, trial and error. Well, yeah, exactly. And always, I mean, I feel so strongly about this, you start with your gut, you know, whatever it may be, just start with your gut, because that will make you the most resilient. And we know we want a diverse microbiome.

And I mean, this is undisputed by experts. If you have a diverse microbiome, you have health. I mean, that is what it. I mean, it's, you can't find any condition out there that's not associated with an imbalance in your gut. Like any disease out there, unless it's a non-communicable disease, it's all associated with our gut health. Do you know Kayla Barnes? I don't. She's like a biohacker, longevity expert.

She was supposed to actually come on next, but we had to reschedule. But she talks about how important the gut is and how that is the foundation as well of health. It is. And again, I just, I can't, I just, it blows my mind that conventional doctors out there aren't talking about it all the time. Yeah. Well, you're talking about it. Yes, exactly. We're talking about it today.

And everyone listening, they're on board too. So tell everybody where they can find more information. Yeah. So the best place is to go to our website at just thrivehealth.com. We're also on Instagram, and we have product coaches on the team. I never want to overwhelm everybody with all the different products that we have. I mean, I always feel foundationally you start with the probiotic because it's just so important. But then the bitters, the digestive bitters are also so foundational with like just digestion, overall digestion.

But I always say start with the probiotic and the bitters are a great addition. And then, of course, if you want to do the prebiotic and we have other, if you're dealing with really significant gut issues, then you could talk to our product coaches. We have incredible product coaches in our team that are just the kindest human souls you'd ever meet. And they are great to talk to. But yeah, you just go to just thrive health.com and you could use the code well for 20% off of any of the Olympics. Thank you so much. You're welcome. I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you liked the episode and if you liked the show in general, please take a second to rate, review, and subscribe. It goes such a lot.

long way in supporting the show. Follow the show over on Instagram at well.pod. You can also follow my personal Instagram at Ariel Lori. I'm always sharing great clips from the episodes. And we also have full episodes on YouTube as well if you want to watch in entirety. Thanks for listening. 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.