 Hey everybody, we are live Dr. Jill live you're back for another episode with a special guest again today today We're talking about gut health and the top probiotics. You should know about and you should be taking I have a lot to say about that which will dive in today Just so you know you can catch all of our previous episodes on my YouTube channel Which is just under my name on iTunes or Stitcher wherever you listen or watch podcast And please stop in wherever you listen or watch and leave a review if you're on YouTube Hit that subscribe button so that we can get this out to you and more people Today today, I have a amazing guest who's been a friend for a long time. I just think about Tom I'm an energy student a second But you were even the one who introduced me to the natural bath who ended up being in my office So we've had this really neat I remember where I was standing we're like, hey, I know this person who might be a good fit for your office And then it turned out to be a beautiful. She's a beautiful friend of mine now So thank you for that and so many other things over the years. I just appreciate You're an amazing human being and I love people like that who do great work in the business world and in the health world But also just who are amazing human beings and you're one of those so I'm super excited to have you today So for everybody listening, I want to introduce Dr. Tom Dr. Tom Bain is a chiropractic physician and a public speaker dedicated to understanding and improving the gut microbiome as a President of microbiome labs. Dr. Bain travels around the world to educate other health care practitioners on the connection between the gut microbiome and many chronic diseases His extensive understanding of supplement manufacturing and clinical experience have given him an unique ability To formulate integrated solutions for digestive and immune health in his own clinic Dr. Bain has spent over 24 years helping his patients to optimize their digestive health improve autoimmune conditions and enhance detoxification Though he's very active in his role at microbiome labs He continues to see patients a few days a week at his clinic pure balanced natural health in Glenview, Illinois Which is not far from where I grew up Tom So welcome. Thanks for coming on the show Thank you for that intro. It's very great to be here. I'm excited to talk to you Me too me too and like I said, I just think the world of you and what you've done and I love your story I know a little bit about that but I want to share it with listeners We have a lot of patients and clients, but we also have practitioners and to me It's one of those really special stories about like thinking outside the box being curious dreaming big and you've done some amazing amazing I mean, I don't know of any other company that's made such change in our field and really even transform my own practice Would you be able to share with us a little bit about your journey? Like how did this happen? How did you start? Yeah, you know, I guess I guess the one of the more pivotal points was was actually meeting my wife so I was in chiropractic school coming from athletic trainers sports medicine type of background and I met my wife and she her dad was a chiropractor and he did acupuncture and he used botanicals and and different things and it was more of a natural medicine approach to Two things and I'd start hanging out with her and started learning more about what she was learning and And then afterwards her dad said I've got two chiropractic clinics basically functional medicine clinics in the mid 90s And he was transitioning to the business side. He was he was running a vitamin manufacturing addition companies so We went there took over his practices and and he got really absorbed into the functional medicine world And and then helped him with his business and actually helped him uh sell his business metagenics is bought him in the early 2000s and so metagenics european Headquarters is an ostentatology, which is where my wife's from And where she grew up and where my father-in-law's company We built and sold to metagenics in the early 2000s. So I kind of We recognized the business side of functional medicine at a very early age of my career um, and I really You know, I I always saw patients. I enjoyed it. Um, I I but I I really feel like I make better decisions as a businessman because Of my background in in practice and and working with patients and understanding pain points for for physicians So after we sold the metagenics moved back to the u.s. And um started a Family practice in the north of berge chicago and but I always stayed active on the business side and had a few Few things it didn't quite pan out. I was importing some botanicals from germany for a while and Just doing a number of different things, but I came I became friends with caron christianan Uh through Another project and we had done a few things on the side and And he presented me with the the initial information from the scores And uh because he knew I had connections to metagenics He wanted me to to sell the sports the metagenics. So he gave me all this data on the scores and I was blown away. I was saying And uh, unfortunately for us a number of the big boys that we shopped it to they they either didn't want it Or they were just gonna they didn't understand it. I don't just couldn't wrap their heads around it Um, and then the other ones were like, well, we'll just put it on the shop next up all our other products and And and it really is it's it's such a disruptive story You know when when we first launched a company the the first two or three years We only did one lecture one webinar or when we were in a conference We did the title the lecture was forget what you think, you know about probiotics You know and it was just kind of in your face. It was like we can either do this And quietly do it or we could go out and build a playground punch the bullying with those and see what happens Yeah, and so we did we we we went with the idea that You know what was happening in the marketplace and in the mid 90s And then and and then if that you started to see Products like lack of a still lack of a still a sporogeneous, right? You started to hear Some of these things vary you had to really be into gut Know about these things but you would hear about lack of a still a sporogeneous is actually mischaracterized The soil Phyllis but but back in the days. I remember using it and being like this stuff's pretty good. What is this stuff? you know and and it kind of needs sense, but um We what you saw in in the In the marketplace is It was based on market principles. It really wasn't based on science. Yeah, right? So it's like, okay. Well the best best probiotics for jewelry. Okay. Um, where's the study that shows that right, right? There is one. Yeah More cf news is far better Okay, where's that research there are there is none. There's not one study that shows 50 billion is better to tell you in fact a lot of the the lack of digital based Research is actually done with one to two billion. Yeah They use a study on one to two billion to justify some intent Right, it just it didn't make sense and it and it was like, where does this end? You know now we got a hundred and twenty five building right where we're Stopped with this, you know So and and what are you basing it on? Right. So and and I was just as guilty. I would say I I talked in marketing talk when I talked about probiotics Well, you know, you need to rotate them every few months because blah blah blah I was like, what did I base that on? Well, that's what my rep told me. So that's what I regurgitated You know, but it it there really was no research And then the last thing that was is really it's it's an annoying component of the of the functional medicine market is this I have a research study on this ingredient And I have research study on this ingredient I'm going to mix them together and they're going to do these two things, you know, that that's not science Especially when you're talking about biologics like bacteria, you know We don't know if they cross react with each other and they don't like each other So you have to do finished product research. You have to have clinical studies on your finished product And when you look at functional medicine space There there's none there there was none in the you know when we launched and and so we kind of just took the attitude of We're going to disrupt this marketplace and we're going to disrupt it with science Before we launched spores were all over agriculture, aquaculture veterinary medicine The predominant products probiotics that are used are for based and the reason is because of those types of industries They measure results. Yes. I give my cow this And my cow is healthier than I make more money then they can justify it If they're just throwing dead bacteria at them and it doesn't do anything for the cow then the farmer doesn't continue to do it and so So we were very fortunate to uh to meet dr. Simon cutting who's uh from most premier Spore researcher in the world And he had a whole bacterial bank Wow, and then through different conversations with him we were able to put together the Five strains of spore-based bacteria that make up mega spore. Yeah Amazing. I mean, I love hearing the journey because um My own journey coincides a little bit 21 years ago. I had cancer and then Crohn's disease And that was again back in the early ages of what we knew about probiotics and things and all I remember was I did not do well on any of the probiotics except bacillus coagulans That was the only thing out of the market then I didn't know even as a practitioner I was in med school then but I didn't know what it was. I just knew this one's different, right? So it's funny one of the reasons I've always been so passionate about your company and mega spore and all the probiotics since then is Because I knew back then something was different about this. I didn't even know it was a spore back then, right? I just knew it was different and it worked it worked dramatically and it wasn't a lot of billions It wasn't a lot of you know, as you and I know never when it can be dead These have been uh embryo lized in amber for tens of thousands if not, you know longer of years and there's still no work So they don't need to be and then the fact that um all the studies on diversity That was also something that caught my attention So anyway, I've been a huge fan even before I knew it because I like what is this thing that works so well for me And that was bacillus coagulans now. I'm I'm just the still subtilists. It's one spore It's your h u 5a and it is the one that I will give to my toughest patients And I have yet to have anyone who has a reaction to it now that might be there I'm sure there are some people who would but literally it's one of those products I can guarantee that they're going to do well on even the most sensitive guys Sibo the sifo the dysbiosis the Clostridia you name it There's so many things about the spores. I am just the biggest fan And of course, that's why your company's grown because you have a product that really works So it's neat to the backstory though because you've obviously had a really great business mind And that's it took someone like you and Kiran who to really take it to the level and I'm I remember those lectures Or like who what is that? You're right But the the put river the question for us who are in practice that works Yeah, so initially we we didn't know exactly what we had right like and and and we each had day jobs and you know, this was a kind of a side hustle thing in the beginning and so, you know The one thing that we understood though was even the sport itself Um, if it's not in sport form, it's useless Um, and what we were noticing is that you know, okay one there is no there was no multi-sport Formulations in market before we came along, but then secondly Even some of the single strain Products that were in the marketplace when we evaluate them sometimes there'd be you know 30 sport forms meaning 70 percent of the product was probably Being destroyed by the stomach acid just like lack of a source of different bacteria to destroy by the stomach acid So so there were so many interesting pieces to it. So the first thing we did We could afford to be honest with you was to to have an independent laboratory Just analyze products What does it say on the label? This one says 50 billion how many how many are actually in the the capsule when you analyze And then how many survive through a simulated gastric system? So a ph of 1.2 for two hours and then bile salts For 20 minutes and so so this is a standard usp model And so we thought well, let's do it. So we took every product from the professional space And and one or two from the retail space And we analyzed them some of the products that said 50 billion on the product actually 250 billion in the capsule Now, why would somebody put 250 billion in the capsule when they're only charging you for 50 billion? All the reasons quite simple. They know their products dying on the shelf They know that they've got to have 50 billion by the expiration date. So what was interesting is the overage Um crazy amounts of overage because of the loss of the bacteria over time Uh, but it didn't matter. It didn't matter if there were one billion like there were in some yogurts, uh, that we saw There was just relatively small amounts Or we had 250 billion in in a label and a bottle that was labeled 50 billion Didn't matter how many it was. They were completely destroyed in the gastric survivability model Not right 50 percent destroyer. They were completely destroyed, you know, so so to the So then and then the spores when they survived So that was that was our first thing that we did our survives years dozen. Yeah, and that's all we had to go um, and then we've been doing some uh, some vitamin k2 research and uh, We were doing that with a research at uh university of montexas And we just happened to be asking, you know, what else you got going? What uh, what other types of research are you doing? and he mentioned What essentially was a micigun stuff Um, and and we were like and he's talked about from the perspective of card of cardiovascular Wow And yeah, and he's like I have a model what we do is we we feed a high fat high caloric Uh meal to patient and then we monitor their blood and it's five hour mark post-brand only we see a five to six X spike in their lps and uh, and then we can test that against that We can see if you can prevent it and treat it or whatever it might be And I was like that's the micigun stuff. I'm like, uh, let's do it. Why not? We had some data on h258 that the subtilists Uh work helped with the tight junctions and some things like that we had At least enough data to think well, let's give it a shot And so What we were able to show is a 45 reduction in lps But the the control of the placebo group it the lps actually increased over time So it's actually more than 70 difference between the two groups Um, so so basically this proved one humans have micigun So the first study that we did where we actually Prove that health humans have uh permeability issues in their gut and was that the study in the college students That age group or was it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so we fed college students Uh a mcdonald's breakfast or uh or was a cheese pizza from a gas station Those are the two things that we found were able to create Endotoxicity and help the patients and we were able to increase the amount of lps that was circulated through their bloodstream Wow. Now tom, I just want to pause here real quick for the listeners if in case I just flew by you So cheese pizza from the gas station and a mcdonald's breakfast And you were able to take a healthy college kid and induce intestinal permeability So I want to make sure that you're listening you hear that Hey everybody, I just stopped by to let you know that my new book Unexpected finding resilience through functional medicine science and faith is now available for order wherever you purchase books In this book. I share my own journey of overcoming life-threatening illness and the tools and tips and tricks and hope And resilience I found along the way This book includes practical advice for things like cancer and crone's disease and other autoimmune conditions infections like lime Or epstein bar and mold and biotoxin related illness What I really hope is that as you read this book you find transformational wisdom for health and healing If you want to get your own copy stop by read unexpected.com There you can also collect your free bonuses So grab your copy today and begin your own transformational journey through functional medicine in finding resilience And so then we send them home with a 30-day supply of the probiotic and then came back and did the same test again And we like you said there was a 70 percent difference between the two groups That was kind of the drop the mic moment that was when we just Exploded and growth because one we're walking into a room of say, you know, I remember going into a room with 200 of Probably the leading chiropractors in the country were in one room in in Florida for a a chiropractic nutrition convention and There had been a sales rep on before me and people were kind of They were allowed it And it was and I walked up and I said, you know when I was in in my office on Tuesday seeing patients and everybody just went And started up and started listening and then I started saying and I've got this research study and like we need to have a research We we've never heard of that. It's like, well, I know it's a thing in science Right You know just use marketing principles to do it. I know what you need Um being a chiropractor myself. I taught a lot in the chiropractors Chiropractors are first responders. They like new stuff. You know, they want to be the first ones So we grew the first year and a half. We only did chiropractic shows Um, and then we started branching out into into the functional medicine shows But it was that leaky got studied in 2017 that really put us on the map And uh, and then it was like, you know, and I I always say that I was I was in phoenix At the last week doing a lecture with a bunch of docs and it's like, you know, I I always took the approach of You know I feel knowledge is power right and so so when when I'm sitting with a patient If somebody wants to help me with patients then give me knowledge Give give me give me the power I need to help that patient And we want to be able to save the patient. Look mrs. Jones You need to take this product. The reason you take this project is these products have been proven to help patients I have your condition, right? That's that's my Right, so so Fortunately with the leaky guy, we were able to do that with pretty much everybody that's in coming into your office Like nobody comes in to flat iron. It doesn't have Evidence about the estimate bloodstream after they eat a meal Exactly. So it's it's just the reality of situation We in our studies we saw that we we eliminate what had any Condition so these are what you would consider to be healthy, but the most and 55 of them had post-prandial endotoxemia So it's it's uh, it's an interesting thing and when you talk about people that are sick Yeah, or people and then you start looking at the data as far as obesity Cardiovascular disease Diabetes, I mean, it's all wing in fact. Um, I don't know if you know this but let me show you something real quick here on my shelf That has to me. So I I used to I still teach with you guys But I've been a big fan and of course one of your, you know, lectures and I teach the cardiovascular module with Mark Houston A4m and that was my part as lps. So this is the integrative cardiology textbook And my chapter and there's on the gut and on lipopoly saccharides and the heart And it's so relevant. I mean, that's what they're teaching the cardiovascular Integrative medicine and it comes from the stuff we're talking about right now and it in there. I talk about the power of spores And again, that's partially thanks to you because you brought that to my awareness And I remember the big just like you had that aha when you saw the coffee like the same thing for me It was like that's why I've been such an advocate. So I'm like number one. This makes sense number two It works number three. You've got the data so great work because you're helping people like me go out in the world and Change cardiovascular medicine Yes, yes, and I hope it changes the industry. I hope people start being The companies start being more responsible and doing finished product political research You know, I don't think you need to go out and do a bunch of studies on a big complex But when you're talking about live bacteria, you're talking about, you know, changing the microbiome different things like this prove it It doesn't it doesn't cost a lot when and and and I say this when I lecture it's really the The futures in the hands of the docs now Yeah, they can control what happens in the marketplace by speaking with their dollars and always supporting companies That that do the type of research that's necessary to empower them to be better doctors I mean it seems really happy like you Obviously, I love the fact and you brought this up a gold times. It's so powerful when you practice You kind of lose your integrity a little bit if you stop practicing go out and just There's nothing wrong with people becoming authors or creatives or whatever everybody to their own, right? But I have such a respect for and I hopefully I will always be someone who's in this clinic with patients because That keeps you honest bob roundtree used to say it keeps me honest, right? I loved how he said that because it is true when we see because the complexity of the human being is There's not no amount of we can write them a protocol and it works for so many people But there's always going to be more complexity and when we're in the clinic we're continuing to find, you know Solutions and actually see real people and now our climate of medicine is even more complex post-covid So we need this kind of curiosity and seeking science really as a balance So I appreciate that What's so fascinating to me is like what we're talking about a leaky gut But you've already brought up cardiovascular disease Yeah, you know and when we look at this whole covid fiasco um The people who didn't make it to cope with were people that had chronic leaky gut and had that Scythe of kind based inflammation All we know the guy does such a core core core piece in fact more and more even Recently the lime conference started coming out with just a microbiome section And it's like we know the microbiome is so so powerful and the data continues to point to this So tom, obviously we you and I are huge fans of spores. You guys have created some of the best products in the world I really believe that What's the future? I mean, you've got the some of the zen biotics that can psycho biotics We call them anything else on there isn't or what else have you been working on that? You think is going to be the next level up and gut health so microbiome labs is required in 2021 by those and so Basically, you know things just got so big And you know, you've got you know chiropractor and microbiologist running A company, right? We had 125 employees around the country. We had I mean, it was just a monster. Yeah We we grew so fast during kovat I know kovat was a difficult thing for a lot of people, but We managed to grow massively And when companies around the globe were looking at us, we obviously were Checking off all the right boxes and And so we took the opportunity We had a third partner who's a little bit older and he wanted to get out and that that's what initiated some of the conversations and And no designs came along and and there it's interesting. They're biotechnology companies. They're not a pharmaceutical company. They're biotechnology They make enzymes for industrial purposes Uh, if you name whatever laundry detergent you use the enzymes that had to come from no, wow So they're a massive company, but they did do a lot in human health And so they started this human health side to their business and they acquired Right before they acquired us they acquired precision biotics, which was an irish company and uh precision biotics has some very unique cell signal molecule products Right some metabolic response modifiers some bacteria. They don't necessarily change your microbiome They don't necessarily do what the spores do But they treat real specific situations and are able to to help people in certain situations um One of the strain one of the the euro strains in my opinion Is the 1714 strain of different bacteria in aluminum and that that's in this n-biome suite of the products It's a very unique product and it helps To shunt the breakdown of of tryptophan away from the neuro inflammatory Chinary and criminalinic acid side of a neuro degenerative neuro irritant To the more neuro protective side of serotonin melatonin And so that's a strange thing and so when patients were coming in with Into the big hospitals in new york city and things like that with kovat in the beginning They were they were they knew right away these people had an elevated level in the gas. What's that all about, right? So there's Disrupted tryptophan breakdown Is part of this neuro inflammatory cascade and the information that goes along with it is kind of that It's the brush fire That when the when the kovat comes in and then it becomes the fire everywhere And then the organs he choked off and the patient dies, right? So basically the worst outcome had high levels of quinolinic acid known that forever that's cdc information so so the 1714 strain is shown To share the breakdown of tryptophan away from the neuro inflammatory and more towards the neuro protective Um, and so and and we've been able to show that in doing that We improve a patient's ability to cope with stress. Yeah We improve on symptoms of anxiety and depression as a result of that shift and in triple defibrillator And so so it's very interesting product. It's it's not You know, it's I always when we're talking it's like it's a bifurobacterium lung So oh, I'm going to eat this bifurobacterium lung. So my bifurobacterium lung levels go up. No, it doesn't work out It's an immune modulator, right? Yeah, this is a food source of peptidoglycans and those peptidoglycans are going to shift your tryptophan breakdown and help Uh, reduce some of the perceptions of stress and your ability to make it stress and to feel anxious and depressed So so it's it's it's definitely treating a symptom, you know So in from my approach, it's like I sit down with somebody and they're they're you know, say they're they're pretty uh They've been at whatever their condition is they've been at it for a little while Uh, there's some depression and anxiety that's either either at the root or maybe it's the cause of them not being able to get better Whatever you say, but when I'm sitting in front of them, I'm seeing somebody use an in the logical mess And they're they've got some mental health issues. They're they're they're anxious, they're depressed. They're not feeling well mentally Yeah, well what I could do with that is I can use the 1714 strain to treat the symptoms So they feel that uh, so that that you know, it's a little bit more of a positive feeling While I'm reconditioning your microbiome with the spores are making the the long term change to their immune and and microbiome health Um, that that will be the long term correction for all that But I can treat the symptom along the way Yeah, because it might take me three months Six months nine months could be a long time to get the microbiome back where it needs to be And uh, and some people they don't have that amount of time or or they can be a lot more productive If those symptoms were more in check So I think it's a hero product for sure. It's it's just one of those things that It's not available anywhere else. There's not Get a a food source of peptidoglycans. You know, peptidoglycans are interesting for human the development of human behaviors Right. We if you read about peptidoglycans, we we know that there's it's kind of there's some communication between mom and baby with peptidoglycans And and this initial development of personality traits has to do with with certain types of peptidoglycans But there's no food source of peptidoglycans. This is just a pregnancy thing And so but now with these bacteria, they're covered in peptidoglycans And so we're actually giving a food source of that. So it's it's very unique product. That's that's one very interesting thing And that's under the microbiome labs brand because we're now under the noblezymes on our luck along with precision biotics. So we're We're representing the precision biotics branded Ingredients in the positions market for the functional medicine They also So they have a very interesting it's a dead bacteria Instead they're telling right what we're getting is that there's no live bacteria in this thing But what it does is it gets in the stomach and it binds to h-pylori And pulls it out of the stomach out of small tests So it's a different way of addressing h-pylori introduction, which is the leading cause of stomach cancer around the world So so some very unique products, right? But what I love about it is no one's We're not we haven't chosen Our scientific basis, right? We we we know what the spores do we know when we're using spores We're changing the patient's microbiome. We're improving quality of the Strings that are in their bed in their microbiome like a garden of them, right? Like You can just throw seeds on the grass every day or you can till the soil you can fertilize it You can create an environment that's conducive for those things to grow, right? So that's what spores do They think reconditional microbiome change that so You can I can attest to that after 20 years on spores and that's the only thing I've taken honestly like It's a game changer. So if you're listening, this is zen biome and zen cope. We have them at doctors You'll health.com. I'll be sure and include links for you if you if you want to know those products wherever you're listening Um, because they really are great and just to summarize on your kind urinate quinolinic acid That got a little biochemical you and I know exactly this pathway what we're talking about But I want to for those of you listening maybe Like went over your head a little bit this quinolinic acid can be measured on organic acid testing in urine So if any of you've ever had an oat test you can look at quinolinic acid And one way you might know that you're sensitive to this or that you have high levels are If you don't do well with taking tryptophan or 5h gp You will shunt it into that pathway and create more inflammation So these are those few people that I give tryptophan or 5h gp and instead of sleeping their wake all night Or they're anxious so they don't feel well So if that's you listening this quinolinic acid pathway could be elevated And then I would recommend the zen biome cope for during the day and the zen biome sleep for at night So I love that you just talked about that pathway though because I did not I know that the effects of those But I didn't know it was related to the quinolinic acid pathway, which is profound And we're seeing it in cold water Yeah We're seeing those elevated quinolinic acid levels we're seeing dysfunctional drip Yes Oh that makes so much sense and yeah, it's way more common than it used to be so Tom this has been so good so full of good information and I again I always love learning from you and learning more about what you're doing and And just kudos to you for the business sense to bring this to market because it really has it's If I have to think of one thing out there in my store that's changed the practice the most In a good way, it's your products. It really really is so I love you No, but it's the truth though But being being a practitioner and then and then spending time with practitioners It's it's because of practitioners like you that were beyond one product, right? Because if if we just did business people we would just stay Right, let's do the biggest board exactly But there's pain points and it's like, you know, some something it's the inflammatory Valpations really kind of were our best teachers, right? But there was a need like not everybody got 100% better 100% of the time when they took the sport So we needed other products and and and it was having conversations with docs like you and getting what the pain points are And and and then thinking of things in a different way. That's how we've expanded to the whole line of products Yeah, well great work Thanks for all the good you put into the world and all the brilliance you bring and just again You've changed millions of lives because of this so Thank you, Tom And thank you today for taking the time to come on and tell your story and tell about it And hopefully in the next year or so we'll have you back again and all the new things that are coming out But I sure appreciate your time today