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My good friend, Chris Kresser, M.S., L.Ac, is back on the show. It’s been a while since our last conversation, so today, we are catching up on what’s new in his world.
As an internationally recognized leader in ancestral health and functional integrative medicine, you may be familiar with his work. He is the author of The Paleo Cure and Unconventional Medicine and the founder of the ADAPT Practitioner Training Program.
In an effort to reach more lives, he developed the supplement line, Adapt Naturals, a streamlined stack of supplements designed to meet the most critical needs.
If you are like me, you may be skeptical of the supplement industry. And there is good reason to be – financial interests, misleading information, poor quality products, and the list goes on. It is difficult to find supplements that you can trust and that actually work. With Chris’s extensive research and time interacting with patients, I put my trust in his products above the rest.
During our conversation, Chris and I chat about:
- What differentiates bio-avail multi from other vitamins on the market
- Why conventional medicine doesn’t know the best forms of vitamin supplements
- Four reasons you should incorporate mushrooms into your supplement regimen
- Nutrient synergy
- Products available in the Adapt Naturals supplement line
This is the perfect episode if you have supplement confusion, looking to update your routine or have questions about the recent popularity of mushroom-based products on the market.
Rather watch this episode on YouTube? Check it out here: Episode 262: Chris Kresser
Resources:
Connect with Chris:
Website: Chris Kresser | Adapt Naturals
Instagram: @chriskresser
Facebook: Chris Kresser
LinkedIn: Chris Kresser
Podcast: Revolution Health Radio
Episode Credits:
Thank you to all who’ve made this show possible. Our hosts are Diana Rodgers and James Connolly. Our producer is Emily Soape. And, of course, we are grateful for our sponsors, Global Food Justice Alliance members, and listeners.
If you believe in making sure that people all over the world should have access to nutritious food, please join my mission through my non-profit, the Global Food Justice Alliance. All sustaining members get early access to ad-free podcasts plus free downloads, and you’ll be helping get healthy protein like meat, fish, and eggs to food-insecure kids. That’s sustainabledish.com/join.
Transcript:
Diana Rodgers, RD
Welcome to the Sustainable Dish Podcast. I’m Diana Rodgers, a real food registered dietitian, author, and sustainability advocate. I co-host this podcast with James Connolly, who was a producer on my film Sacred Cow. I also founded the Global Food Justice Alliance, an initiative advocating for the inclusion of animal-source foods like meat, dairy, and eggs for a more nutritious, sustainable, and equitable worldwide food system. You can check it out and join me at global food justice.org. Thanks again for listening. And now, on to our show.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Welcome back to the podcast. I am so psyched to have Chris Kresser with me today. Hey, Chris, how are you doing?
Chris Kresser
Hey, Diana. Always a pleasure to be with you. Thanks for having me.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, you were such an inspiration to me. I used to listen to your podcast when I was even way before I met you when I was, you know, becoming a nutritional therapy practitioner and then a dietitian. And it’s been really great to, like get to know you through the years. And I still always refer back to your blog. Like whenever I have questions about iron absorption or different studies, I knew… I read it on your blog. So just such a wealth of information. Do you want to kind of update me and everyone else on what you’re doing these days?
Chris Kresser
Sure. Well, thanks for those kind words. I have a lot of respect for all the work you’ve done. I feel like we’ve been in the trenches together, fighting the good fight for sustainable, regenerative meat and helping educate people on some of the myths and misconceptions about meat and its health and environmental impacts. And I feel like you’ve just really taken a leadership role in that movement. And through your own personal work. And then Global Food Justice Alliance, I always get that acronym slightly, slightly mixed up. It doesn’t roll off the tongue somehow. Such important work and you know, especially because we still every year, we can set our watches by it right? You know, I see the nonsense about meatless Mondays and vegan school lunches, and blah, blah, blah. So I’m really excited that you’ve done all of this important work, and so happy to be a part of it. Let’s see, for me, my biggest piece of news probably is I launched my own supplement line called Adapt Naturals about a year ago, just over a year ago now. And the reason for that was I’ve always been interested in how I can reach more people. So I started out as just a solo practitioner treating patients, one on one. And that’s awesome. But of course, very limited in the number of people, I can reach both just the nature of that one on one work and the fact that functional medicine is still unfortunately unaffordable for the vast majority of populations not covered by insurance. So then I launched a training program for practitioners in an effort to get more people out there doing that work and serve more people. And that was great. We trained over 600 clinicians and 32 countries around the world. And that’s still going. But again, the cost of it was a limiting factor for many people. So I started a health coach training program, and 2018 with the idea that health coaching was more scalable, more affordable, more accessible, likely to be covered by health insurance. And that was a great way to get more people out there doing this work. We trained 1600 coaches in over 50 countries around the world. That program actually no longer exists for reasons we don’t need to get into here, but complex landscape, incredible work, but for various reasons. We had to shut it down. And then you know, as I was ready to move on from the health coach program, I spent a lot of time thinking about this question like how can I translate my clinical experience my research, and everything I’ve learned from treating hundreds of patients, training 1000s of healthcare practitioners into something that could be accessible to the vast majority of the population without health insurance coverage, like without any of those things, and the supplement line was was what just kept percolating into my head. And of course, I had a lot of experience using supplements myself and with patients over my 15 year clinical practice. And as you can imagine, I had a lot of ideas about what works and doesn’t work when it comes to supplements. I knew where the bodies were buried, so to speak, where all the quality issues are, how people are misled, either intentionally or unintentionally. And what was most critical for me, as a clinician and educator in creating supplements was just high quality, evidence based products that would truly move the needle that people would really feel a difference with, and that they can trust. Because there is so much garbage out there, as I know, you know, and Diana, there’s, you know, it’s like a shark feeding frenzy because the supplement business is a big industry, and people go into it for all the wrong reasons. And I wanted to just create a brand that people can trust and products that would really work. So that’s what I’ve been up to.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, let’s talk about, like, some of the differences in just, you know, maybe you could even just give a couple examples of like, the crappy version, and then the likely more expensive but, bioavailable version of like the same nutrient. Like there might be a lot of people here, you know, taking stuff that they don’t even remember why they’re taking it like, oh, this Co-Q10 that I’ve had sitting around for five years, I forget even what it does, but or then the alternative could be, you know, just that generic multi that they get at Costco or CVS and in the types of ingredients in that versus what you found is the better solution.
Chris Kresser
Yeah, so there are a couple examples I can use. Our multivitamin – Multi-mineral Phyto nutrient blend is an easy one. So most multivitamins are made with relatively cheap synthetic ingredients that are difficult for the body to absorb. An example would be folic acid, instead of folate. As you know, folic acid is not well metabolized by a pretty significant portion of the population. It’s a synthetic form of vitamin B9. And the problem is that if it’s not well metabolized, you end up with unmetabolized folic acid floating around in your bloodstream. So in addition to not getting the benefits of folate, you have this unmetabolized folic acid, which some studies suggest may even increase the risk of cancer. So obviously, we don’t want that. And we’re taking a multivitamin, presumably, we’re doing it to improve our health and increase our lifespan, not decrease it. But folic acid is cheaper than the naturally occurring bio-identical forms of folate like 5-MTHF, or folic acid, which is kind of an intermediate reactive form. So you know, we use 5-MTHF in the formula, even though it’s more expensive because it’s the form that our body recognizes and the most bioavailable and accessible to people with methylation issues. Similar with B12. You know, cyanocobalamin is the synthetic form. It’s the form that’s most often used in multivitamins, but it’s not the optimal form methylcobalamin is the more active form. And that’s the one that we use in the multi and you can… it has over 30 vitamins and minerals. So you can basically go down in each case and you know, besides we use P5P, the active form instead of pyridoxine. Riboflavin, we use R5P instead of the less active form of riboflavin. For selenium, we use SelenoExcell which is a unique yeast base form of selenium that’s more closer to what we use the Selenium that you would actually get by eating ocean fish or other foods in the diet. So that’s the biggest difference with the multi is just using nutrients as they naturally occur and in food that we eat rather than the cheaper synthetic forms that are produced in the lab and save money but are not good for our health. Another example would be Biovail-Myco which is our mushroom product. This is a really interesting thing I think a lot of people are not yet aware of this but a lot of so called mushroom products that are sold on the market are actually made with mycelium. Mycelium is a different life stage of a fungal organism. And mushroom is the fruiting body that emerges from the mycelium and most people are familiar with mushrooms. They’ve seen them. They know what they are. Mycelium is like the dense network of thread like structures that’s usually underground and informed the mycelial network is. There’s nothing wrong with mycelium per se. I mean, mushrooms and fungus are amazing organisms. But none of the studies that show the benefits of mushrooms use mycelium, maybe not none, but the vast majority use fruiting bodies. And going all the way back 1000s and 1000s of years in the traditional medical systems that first use mushrooms like Chinese medicine, they also use the fruiting bodies of the mushrooms in their formulas and in their research. So the products that are a lot of the products that are being sold now are using mycelium that’s grown in a lab with a substrate of cereal grains like sorghum, or sometimes even things like sawdust, or compost. Whereas we’re using 100% organic real mushrooms, fruiting bodies. They’re grown on natural substrates like submerged logs, because that’s what you know, that’s what the research and traditional use show is going to provide the highest levels of beta glucans, and triterpenoid and phenolic compounds and all of the things that we know make mushrooms beneficial are going to be present in higher amounts in real mushrooms than in mycelium. So, those are just two examples, but I think they’re pretty good ones because most consumers are just going to see a bottle that says mushrooms, and they’re not going to have any idea. Because the FDA currently doesn’t require the companies that are using mycelium to label it as mycelium. They’re still allowed to use the mushroom term. There is a petition now that’s been filed with the FDA to change this. And I think it will change over time just as botanical and herbal labeling has become more clear over time. I think that will happen with mushrooms. But right now, if you’re selling a mycelium product, you can call it a mushroom product. And consumers don’t have the education or information to know the difference.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, and I have I want to dig into the mushroom thing in a minute because I even messaged you, when you send me some of these. I don’t know much about mushrooms. I’ve heard mixed things about people with autoimmune and mushrooms. And you reassured me that you thought it was a good thing. But so I want to get into that in a second. But I also wanted to just ask you why you think like doctors and dietitians are taught, you know, specifically the folic acid thing. So I’m glad you brought that up first, because that’s the number one biggest glaring one. But secondly, the B12, right, and I even remember, you know, having my textbook open being in the front row of my nutrition class, and texting Matt Lelong. And him like going off on my text, you know, I was asking him like, it should say folate, right?Because all the nutrition textbooks, say folic acid, and that’s what was promoted by the March of Dimes to prevent neural tube defects. And it’s also B12. and folate are two of the most common nutrient deficiencies worldwide. And even in people that are you know, thinking that they’re getting a healthy diet fully, you know, unless you’re eating loads and loads of greens, or liver, you could be deficient in folate. So why all the misinformation out there in mainstream medicine about you know, folate, B12 and others? Is it the pharmaceutical industry that or the supplement industry or it’s just lack of knowledge? What do you think?
Chris Kresser
I think it’s lack of knowledge primarily and also deeply entrenched financial interests at this point. And it’s always some combination of both with all the issues that we talk about, right, but so so first of all, the thing that’s really surprising to a lot of people is that doctors are not typically well trained on nutrition. I mean, you know this as a dietitian, you’ve had vastly more training in nutrition than the average doctor. And yet people really rely on their doctor for nutrition advice. I’m not impugning individual doctors, there are some doctors who are incredibly well educated about nutrition, but they’ve generally obtained that education on their own, or they’ve taken supplemental coursework. They didn’t get it from their one class in medical school. And nutrition is an enormously complex topic. I mean, you take somebody like yourself or Chris, Masterjohn, someone who spent years and years studying nutritional science, I mean, those are the experts. Those are the people we should be turning to, listening to when it comes to nutrition, not the average primary care doctor. And so I think for the average doctor, they’re just trying to help their patients. They look up in their medical reference, the Hippocrates or whatever they’re using now on their phone. You know, what should I use? Oh, folic acid, okay, what’s the dose? 400 micrograms. Okay, great, you know, so that that’s pretty much as far as it goes right? There’s no deeper investigation. They don’t even know why they should investigate more, because they’ve heard of folic acid, it’s on every supplement label. There’s nobody telling them that it’s potentially problematic. And so it just doesn’t even, it’s not even on their radar as something that they should be concerned about. And I think that the same is true for B 12 and cyanocobalamin. It’s not something that most clinicians are taught. It’s not a difference that most clinicians are taught about. And, you know, when they go to… if they’ve ever given a B12 injection, cobalamin is almost certainly going to be the form that was used in that injection. If they pick up a multivitamin label, or B12. supplement label, they’re going to see that there. A lot of times when things are a certain way, we as human beings, and I think Daniel Kahneman, there’s a name for this heuristic, but we can’t… we, in our brains, we just can’t question everything all the time, like our brains would just short circuit, right? Like we have to sort of assume that some things are true, because everyone says they’re true. Sadly, that’s actually not a very accurate and precise way to live. But it’s the way that our brains have evolved to live. Because if we did question every single little thing that we saw, we would literally go crazy and not have any time for anything else. So I think it’s that heuristic, whatever he calls it, I’ve just like, assuming that because this is out there, and everyone’s using it, it’s fine and it must be. There must be nothing to investigate or consider. And then as you put, you know, as you pointed out, like there is the some financial interests, you know, there’s just like, companies make these products with folic acids and cobalamin. They’re cheaper ingredients, I can tell you very certainly that that’s the case as a supplement formulator myself, like, I know what the cost difference is, of those ingredients and raw materials. And so, you know, I think there’s just not a lot of incentive for them to change, because of the reasons that I just mentioned. So…
Diana Rodgers, RD
Right. Of anybody to put out a supplement company, you know, line, I would put my trust in your products above anyone else’s. So I was just so thrilled when you came out with them. And so let’s talk so you have two other ones. But let’s talk a little bit more about the mushrooms. Because I’m sure everyone knows that, you know, taking a multi is like just little added insurance. And I always recommend it for folks that just kind of like just in case you’re not getting everything you need, especially in you know, the best form possible. It’s just a good insurance policy to take a multi, but I have never recommended mushrooms to people. I don’t know much about mushrooms. I just kind of started dabbling myself. So talk a little bit about the types of mushrooms in here, and what the benefits are of taking them.
Chris Kresser
Yeah. So some people know I was originally way, way back trained in traditional Chinese medicine. So I’m a certified herbalist and I have, you know, almost two decades of experience using botanical medicine, in my practice with patients. So, mushrooms, the first known use of mushrooms medicinally, it was in China, possibly as long as 7000 years ago. So this is like one of the first medicines that was ever written down, you know that there have been hominid ancestor grave sites that have been dug up. I think Oxy The Iceman actually had a mush… there were mushrooms in his bag that were found when they dug him up, which is pretty amazing. That’s even further back. So we know that there’s a very long history of use of mushrooms and fungi, in cultures all over the world in various areas, various parts of the world. The Shannon van Tao gene, which is the oldest known list of edible substances, which dates back to the 29th century BC. He lists several species of mushrooms including reishi, lingzhi in Chinese and reishi in Japanese and then another addition of that text in sixth century AD, even more species of edible mushrooms. So these are incredible traditional superfoods and medicines that have a very long history of use. What’s interesting now is the modern research and what it’s showing is how closely the modern research is tracking the traditional wisdom of the benefits of mushrooms. So there are a really rich source of vitamins and minerals. In fact, some mushrooms are as high as 12% total mineral content. So they’re a great source of zinc, copper, iron, phosphorus, and potassium. But I would say that probably one of the most significant health benefits of mushrooms is that they’re very high – and it’s a unique type of soluble fiber called beta-glucan, which has been intensively studied for its benefits on the immune, cardiovascular, endocrine or hormone and neurological systems. And it’s also tremendously beneficial for gut health. And then via the gut brain axis, or the gut hormone axis or the gut skin axis, you get all these cascading benefits from the beta-glucan. They’re also very rich in phenolic compounds like terpenes. So terpenes are what make certain plant… give certain plants, the aroma, like if you smell lavender, for example, you’re – the terpenes are what are responsible for that smell. But they also have many health benefits. Cannabis, for example, a lot of the unique benefits of different strains and types of cannabis come down to the different terpene profiles. So these are being pretty heavily studied in that context. But they’re also being studied in the context of mushrooms. And so these terpenes, together with the beta glucans, and the vitamins and minerals are largely responsible for the benefits of mushrooms, you can see, I mean, it starts to get a little ridiculous if you if I review, like all of the ways that mushrooms support health. So I get I tend to like break it down into a few main categories where I tend to think about mushrooms for somebody. The first is immune support. So I think a lot of people think of mushrooms that way, particularly like reishi, Lion’s Mane, Turkey Tail, maitake, shiitake these are mushrooms that really, and this gets to your question than about mushrooms and autoimmunity, they can really boost our defense against pathogens. So there’s a lot of studies in the literature on mushrooms and how they protect against viral, bacterial, fungal and other types of infections. But they do it in a unique way. I mean, some of them are, of course, antiviral, antibacterial antifungal, but they also just support our own innate immune defense so that we are better able to fight off those pathogens. Now the concern, of course, is anything that boosts your immune system is if you already have an immune system that is boosted, that is too boosted. As in the case of autoimmunity, you certainly don’t want to do something that would just globally amplify your immune response. Mushrooms, however, tend to work more like adaptogenic herbs or substances. So some people might be familiar with the concept of an adaptogen. This is a usually a botanical, not always, but usually botanical. So Rhodiola is a good example, ginseng, like eleutherococcus, these substances have the capacity to either increase or decrease the production of stress hormones based on what’s needed in a given person at a given time. That’s a remarkable property of plant medicine, that I’m not aware of any, you know, synthetic pharmaceutical compound that does that. There could be, but I’m not aware of one. And that’s what’s a really amazing thing about adaptogens. In terms of stress, mushrooms appear to work the same way in terms of how they support the immune system. So in my practice, I would often use them in patients with autoimmunity. Because oftentimes, patients with autoimmunity would also have weak immune defense against pathogens. So even though their immune system was attacking some part of their body, their thyroid, they’re killing whatever it was, they also simultaneously would tend to get every cold or virus or flu-type of thing that came along. So they actually needed something that would quell the hyperactive immune response on the one hand, and then actually increase their host defense against pathogens. On the other hand, mushrooms are often very successful in that now, of course, this is not medical advice. individual responses can vary. There were certainly patients I had over the years that didn’t tolerate mushrooms. It’s something that you really, you know, people have to kind of try for themselves and see how it works. But I certainly don’t rule out the use of mushrooms by people with autoimmunity, I just say, you know, be like, take it easy, like start with a low dose, build up slowly. And if you get to the full dose, and you’re doing well and you’re feeling well, feeling better, then it’s probably a sign that you can continue. So I think they’re pretty incredible superfoods. And it’s really difficult to get the benefits of mushrooms just by eating them in your diet, because a lot of the most beneficial mushrooms like Reishi and Chaga are number one, not at most grocery stores. Number two, they’re bitter and tough. So they’re not good to cook with. And others have to be extracted with alcohol in order to get the active ingredients or hot water. So you have to make a tincture or tea. It’s a pain. You know, like there are certain mushrooms like Turkey Tail, which are lovely to cook and eat with. But other you know, our maitake or shiitake but many are difficult. So I wanted to make a formula that just had all the ones that are most studied in the scientific literature, and just have an easy convenient way of getting them just taking capsules and that’s why we created that product.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, I you know, as a dietitian and nutritionist who’s, you know, done some work with supplements I’ve pretty much stuck with vitamins and minerals and I’ve always considered herbs and mushrooms to be this you know, foreign territory that is really like I need encyclopedias worth of knowledge and that’s where your training really is. So I’ve just never tangled with it. I know that I had in the past I’ve done really well with like adrenal adaptogens so I’m familiar with that. And I can almost describe it. Like if you’re feeling like you’re on a roller coaster an adaptogen will just kind of make them little hills instead of like massive dips and rises and dips, mountains and dips. So you would say then, you know, what you might feel from taking mushrooms would just be kind of like more resilience to immunity, you know, colds and things like that, like, you know, what might someone like, look for?
Chris Kresser
I went on a big tangent there, I was gonna give you four categories of benefits as I think about them. But I got… it’s the immune stuff is so interesting that I got a little sidetracked there.
Diana Rodgers, RD
I do, you know, that’s when you know, there’s all these mushroom drinks and mushroom concoctions and like, you know, energy things and I’m like, I do not need an energizing mushroom as somebody who already has a hyperactive immune system. It’s been very… like when I go to these kinds of health conferences and I you know, see people giving out samples. I’m like, No, thank you because I just don’t know enough and it makes me nervous because I don’t want anything making my immune system even more active than it is.
Chris Kresser
Well, plus, have you tasted those?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Oh, yeah.
Chris Kresser
They’re dirt water. Not… Mudwater is actually the name of one of the popular brands. Yeah, you’re not wrong. It does taste like mud water. So yeah, immune benefits. Absolutely. One of the top for the another one is, the way we I talked about is a sense of calm, sustained energy. So this is another unique characteristic of mushrooms. So a lot of things boost energy. And some things relieve stress. But mushrooms do both. So what you get is like it’s very hard to describe because I think it’s a unusual experience for most people to have is just a feeling. I mean, this is the best way I can describe it have calm sustained energy throughout the day. Going back to your roller coaster analogy. It’s not like coffee like whoo, I’m flying, I’m flying then crash, you know, after lunch and then like another coffee, okay, I’m good. I’m good. Crash. Most people are kind of going like that throughout the day. And with mushrooms, it’s really more just kind of like an even-keeled sustained energy. People, you know, I’ve heard the term all day energy, without the crashes, without the jitteriness that often comes with caffeine. And then just like a buffer to stress, like we all stress. It is just the part of our lives we’re never going to avoid, that don’t even want to necessarily like some stress is good for evolution. But it’s nice to be to have a sense that like we’re a little bit insulated from it. You know, we’re not just like a live wire where everything is just kind of sent… like immediately fly us off the hook and that sort of hyper reactive stress response that so many people have. I feel like machines create a sort of buffer against that type of stress. So that’s category number two. The third category is brain health. So specifically cognitive function and mood. Lots of mushrooms have been intensively studied for this impact. They’ve been shown to elevate mood, create a kind of what scientists call a more positive affect, which just means a brighter outlook, more optimistic outlook on life, and sharpen cognitive function, and even prevent cognitive decline. Lion’s Mane is probably best known for this. There are studies that have shown that lion’s mane can even regenerate brain cells, can lead create new brain cells. It’s a pretty remarkable study. There aren’t that many things that we know of they can do that natural or otherwise, it’s very exciting research that’s being done on cognitive function and how Lion’s Mane impacts the brain and nervous system. So that’s the third category. And then the fourth one is one that I call fountain of youth or natural beauty. Because and this is actually one of the main traditional uses of mushrooms. In Chinese medicine, in fact, and I love telling people this because I think it’s fun fact, in ancient China and Egypt, mushrooms are so revered for this fountain of youth quality, that only Emperor’s pharaohs and the nobility were allowed to use them, like reishi, lingzhi in Chinese was closely guarded by the nobility and was only able to be used by that class or level of society. So mushrooms like do a lot of things like improving skin, hydration, reducing wrinkles. They lead to more supple skin, hair and nails, and restore a more youthful kind of appearance. So this is what’s pretty amazing about them, right, they have a pretty broad range of effects. And keep in mind that this is these are 100% whole foods, you know. These are super foods, and they’re foods that and they’re products that can be raised quite sustainably. They don’t have a big environmental impact and footprint because they grow on things like submerged logs. They actually have a huge environmental benefit, as I’m sure a lot of people have heard like, you know, if they’ve read Paul Stamets or seen any of the documentaries about how mycelial networks, can clean up pollution, and just and transport nutrients across huge forests, and communicate in ways that are really mind-blowing. So I’m, like totally fascinated by mycology and mushrooms in general. But the health benefits in particular are pretty amazing.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, what about… you know, I know that when people started talking about soil health first, it was all about soil bacteria. And then all of a sudden, everyone started realizing that there’s these fungal networks underground, and they’re potentially even more important than the bacterial networks. And I was always wondering about our gut health, because it’s like the soil of our bodies, right? Do we? Is there benefits in in mushrooms for, you know, our gut health, as far as you know, having not only bacteria, because we take probiotics, but then also having the know the other side of it as well?
Chris Kresser
Yeah, 100%. In fact, a lot of the benefits that I just mentioned are outcomes, if you will, gut health is one of the major factors because we talked about before the gut-brain axis, skin axis. So beta glucan, as I mentioned, that soluble fiber, it feeds beneficial gut bacteria, which then crowds out harmful microorganisms. And that has a pretty significant impact on gut health overall. And then we know that the gut is not just about bacteria. I think you were alluding to this, like there are viruses, there are fungi, there are bacteria, and that all a sort of exists in this delicate ecosystem that contributes to health or disease without a balance and it appears that mushrooms have a way of just restoring that balance in a similar way to some other prebiotic foods and some probiotic foods or even probiotic supplements. So I definitely do consider mushrooms to be in large part, because of their beta glucan content, but for other reasons to be part of a good gut health program.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Cool. So you’ve got one more and before we talk about that, too, I’m just curious, why three? Because you’ve got this one supplement that I want to chat about but you know, any plans down the road to, you know, probiotics, fish oil or omega three, DHA. I mean, there’s so many supplements that I’ve read about through you that I was a little surprised that you are launching with three but I’m also sure that launching with three is also just a good way to start right?
Chris Kresser
Well actually, we need to get you another package because we have seven products now.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Oh my gosh, okay, well, I’m embarrassed. I didn’t even know that. Okay,
Chris Kresser
That’s our bad. I think I’m gonna have to slap Logan on the wrist next time I talk to him. So yeah, like we can talk about organ. But I’ll just briefly tell you the other product side which ones too, and I can make some recommendations about what you’re talking about too. So omega, yes, we… that’s our most recent product. We released the product with ultra pure, cleanest on the market fish oil. Talk about bodies being buried and a lot of shenanigans. Like the whole fish oil industry is a wreck and so many fish oil products are rancid. We can get more into that. But it’s not just fish oil. It also contains curcumin and black seed oil, which are Yeah, and so it’s a powerful blend for any kind of inflammatory issue. Immune imbalance. I use black seed oil for many years in my practice for histamine issues, autoimmune blood sugar, metabolic problem, also immune stuff.
Chris Kresser
Yeah, I was gonna say I thought that it was like almost like a weight loss supplement, right? Because it can help well… or help with blood sugar handling?
Chris Kresser
Absolutely. Same with curcumin, you know, very, very powerful anti-inflammatory pain reliever, you know, lots of benefits for brain health, mood. And so we… this is the only product on the market that I’m aware of that combines all three of these nutrients in a single product, super excited about it. The response has been enormously positive. And that’s the most recent product. And then we have… you have I think, organ with you. So that’s another Biovail Organ, we can talk about that. Five grass-fed organs. And then we have the other two products are simpler. So we have Biovail Magnesium – mag, which is 300 milligrams of magnesium bisglycinate chelate. So it’s a buffered form of magnesium that doesn’t have the unpleasant GI side effects that like citrate or oxide.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, I am one of those people that can’t even go near any other form of magnesium at all.
Chris Kresser
Me too. Yeah, so I was selfish with me to produce the product for myself, and all my patients that I know what would work well for them. And then we have a tocotrienol product. That’s very interesting.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Say that name, again.
Chris Kresser
Tocotrienol. So this is a unique form of vitamin E. This was only really fully distinguished from tocopherol, which is the typical form of vitamin E in the late 1990s or early 2000s. That’s pretty crazy, right? But just even 20 years ago, we’re still discovering new vitamins. It’s similar to K1 and K2, Diana, which you’re I’m sure familiar with that whole story. We didn’t really know that K2 was separate. But that was like 100 years ago, there, we figured that out. And now, just 20 years ago, 20-25 years ago, it became clear that this family of isomers of vitamin E can be broken down into tocopherols and alpha-tocopherol being the primary one that most people know about most supplements that’s been studied, you know, as a vitamin E, and then tocotrienols, which are a different isomer of vitamin E and have some similarities to tocopherols, but many differences as well. And as it turns out, supplementing with tocopherols over the long term has actually been shown to increase the risk of heart disease and possibly prostate cancer when they’re taken at higher doses. This was obviously disappointing to learn about because a lot, you know, for a long time, high doses of tocopherols were in every multivitamin. People were supplementing with vitamin E because 89% are deficient. And it… but it turned out that those higher doses of tocopherols were harmful. These tocotrienols have some really powerful unique health benefits that tocopherols don’t have with none of the long-term risks of tocopherol supplementation. So that was one of our products that we launched with and is really popular as well.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, and E is something… it’s one of those nutrients that can be really difficult to get, especially if you’re kind of like more… I mean, my diet is like, you know, steak, fish, mushrooms and like some greens, but I don’t get a lot of the foods in my diet that contain vitamin E, which I would… I feel like it’s like sesame seed, there’s some kind of seeds?
Chris Kresser
Nuts and seeds. Yeah, ironically, the primary source of vitamin E for many people in their diet is industrial seed oils, which is not great. But it is what… it is one of the things like when people are taking seed oils out of their diet, which is net positive by a million times, right, they actually and they’re not eating nuts and seeds, and no more natural sources of vitamin E, they can be at risk for vitamin deficiency. And so, you know, the tocopherols, I still think it’s good idea for people to get an adequate amounts of alpha-tocopherol from food or maybe a very low dose in a supplement like in bioavailability, we have 6.7 micrograms, which is, you know, I consulted with Chris Masterjohn and many other people when I formulated the product. And that was the amount that we determined would address, you know, based on people’s background intake would get them to the RDA or just above that without causing any long term side effects or risk of alpha-tocopherol. But then you can add tocotrienols to get these incredible benefits like it helps maintain metabolic function, cardiovascular health, lots of different brain benefits, because vitamin E is the most potent antioxidant in the brain and tocotrienols are 40 to 50 times more potent as antioxidants in tocopherols, helps with bone health, particularly in perimenopausal and postmenopausal women. And they’re, you know, that’s a big concern, of course in that population and supports immune health, of course, as Vitamin E isomer would do that. So that’s a really interesting product too and one that is quite unique in the marketplace.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, and you brought up a good point too, of overdosing. So especially in the fat soluble vitamins I’ve seen. But I’ve even seen B vitamin toxicity in some people who are going to, you know, people that maybe took a weekend certification, and now they’re advising folks on supplements that they are making a commission off of, to take large doses, like mega doses of Bs, of vitamin D, and it is possible to go overboard on things and so…
Chris Kresser
100% Yeah. This is another reason I was keen to create this line is like, I just want to take the guesswork out of it for people because you can’t hurt yourself with supplements. They’re not benign, completely benign, you know, there are certain nutrients where we don’t really know of an upper limit, like vitamin C. You’ll find yourself in the bathroom at some point. But other than that we don’t, you know, there’s hasn’t been shown to be toxic even in extremely high doses. But there are others. That’s not true about like vitamin A, for example, it can can be toxic. B6 can cause toxicity. Selenium can be toxic. And calcium, when taken as a supplement can be toxic. And you know, increase calcification of the soft tissues, maybe lead to… vitamin D can be toxic at alternative doses. And I’m sure you’ve seen people that come to you taking you know, 50,000 IU of D for, you know, a year or so.
Diana Rodgers, RD
So I have a question. So I have a personal question for you because I, you know, I eat a lot of small fatty fish, I get a ton of sun, I’m extremely tan right now. And my D recently was in the tank, like wow, like it was like 20. And I ended up just freaking out and going on prescription D just to get to, you know, the mild baseline.
Chris Kresser
40 or 50.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Aha, and I still after six weeks… now it’s turning into a consult. But like, I took like, six, I don’t know six weeks of prescription strength vitamin D, just to get to 30. Talk to me because I know that there are other and now hopefully it’ll be fine. I’m getting tested again, and I’m taking a more natural form of vitamin D now just to hopefully maintain that level and slowly increase, and I feel a lot better because I was like not feeling great. But magnesium has relationship to vitamin D, calcium has relationship to vitamin D. Will you talk a little bit about those like synergistic sort of relationships?
Chris Kresser
Yeah, that’s great point. And really important thing to understand is that this concept of nutrient synergy, where a lot, almost every nutrient requires the presence of other nutrients or as cofactors to be assimilated, absorbed and, you know, utilize. So you mentioned magnesium is a classic example for vitamin D, fat-soluble, other fat-soluble vitamins like A and K2 work together with vitamin D as well. Copper and iron have a close relationship where if someone is copper deficient, they can show up, they can develop iron deficiency anemia, even if they’re not, even if they’re eating plenty of iron or taking iron as a supplement. Because copper is required for iron to get into the cells and do what it’s supposed to do. So there are countless examples of this. And sometimes if you see someone having like, a paradoxical reaction or experience, in other words, like you’re eating a lot of small fish, you’re in the sun, why’s your vitamin D low? That could be one place to look is the cofactors deficiency of some of those other cofactors. There are other potential causes that we can go into, if you want, but it does get complex. But that’s actually the another product that we have is D – liquid D3 and K2. Right? I’m not sure if we sent you that. But this is the reason I wanted to create this is because as you just have highlighted in your own experience, there’s a very particular individual need for vitamin D. You know, like this idea that everyone should just take the same amount of vitamin D is absurd. Like that’s generally what is you know, people are just given the advice like take, whatever the multiday has 400 IU, well guess what that’s going to be enough for like a very small percentage of the population. Or the flipside of that is take 10,000 iu a day, well, that’s actually going to be too much for a pretty significant amount of the population, you have to titrate, your vitamin D, based on so many different factors, like where you live, what’s the solar angle, like if you’re in Boston in the winter, you’re not getting a lot of vitamin D, no matter how much time you spend outside or in Massachusetts, but if you’re in living on the equator, you know, and you’re outside, from 10 to 2pm, you’re gonna get a lot of vitamin D in relation to that sun exposure. But then there are health factors like inflammation, which decreases the conversion of sunlight to vitamin D in the skin and decreases the absorption of vitamin D in the gut. There’s all these different things and people, you know, it’s good to just start with like, let’s say 3- 4000 IU per day, get tested. If that’s not enough, then you can gradually add until you can get to where you need to be and then you have a maintenance dose to stay at that level. So the liquid D3 and K2 is a super easy way to do that. Because it’s 1000 IU of vitamin D per drop. And then it has K2 in it as well. So you can easily go up or down based on what your needs are and it’s super clean product just as MCT oil. That’s the only other ingredient. Very easy to add to food, liquid, just drop it right into your tongue. And it’s what I always wanted as a clinician to be able to offer my patients because I always wanted… I’d be like, Okay, try 6000 They’re like, how am I going to do 6000 You know, there’s 5000 there’s 10,000 there’s no 6000 So it’s really important to customize your dose of vitamin D based on what you need.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, I have a feeling in my case, it was probably a magnesium and K2, I don’t do a ton of dairy and I don’t get a lot of magnesium.
Chris Kresser
Not eating a lot of natto these days?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. no, no.
Chris Kresser
That was a tough one. I mean, people who like it, like it. People who don’t like it cannot even get near it. It’s disgusting. So for those that don’t know that’s a Japanese fermented soy product is the highest source of K2.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Worse than mud water.
Chris Kresser
Yeah, I’ve heard dirty socks sometimes. mentioned as a taste. I don’t want to offend anyone who likes natto. But it’s an acquired taste. Let’s put it that way.
Diana Rodgers, RD
They will admit that it’s not for everyone. I think that’s just a pretty… that’s just truth. That’s harsh. That’s for sure. Yeah. Well, so folks can sign up… I feel like now I have to like start guzzling at all of these. You know, I was like tinkering around a little bit. But of course, I don’t know if you’re like me, where you just kind of go in and out of like different sort of supplement regimens and, you know, per season or you just kind of like get reminded, oh yeah, I haven’t taken whatever in a while, you know. So now I’m all fired up. So adaptnaturals.com. Where else can people follow you? Are you still doing a podcast or…
Chris Kresser
Yep. Still doing a podcast and that’s Revolution Health Radio, it’s on iTunes and Spotify and all those places. I love that. I love having conversations with people about things that I care about. That’s something I really enjoy. And, you know, still writing articles, though not at the same breakneck pace that I used to Chris Kresser.com. We’ve got 1200 I think on there at this point. And then, yeah, adaptnaturals.com is where you can find the supplements.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. It was great to chat with you.
Chris Kresser
Thanks, Diana. Likewise, really appreciate it.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Thanks so much for listening today and for following my work. If you believe in making sure that people all over the world should have access to nutritious food, please join my mission through my non-profit, the Global Food Justice Alliance. Visit sustainabledish.com/join and become a sustaining member today. All sustaining members get early access to ad-free podcasts plus free downloads, and you’ll be helping get healthy protein like meat, fish, and eggs to food-insecure kids. That’s sustainabledish.com/join. And thank you.
