On a scale of 1 to 10, how good do you think your gut health is?
A lot of people have no idea. The gut is at the root of many people's health issues. Research shows that uncorrected gut dysbiosis can have profound effects in many different parts of the body.
Wade Lightheart has made it his life's mission to help people improve and optimize their digestion. He is the co-founder of Bioptimizer, a company that empowers humanity to achieve an optimal state of well-being.
Are you ready to learn from Wade how you can optimize your gut health from the inside out?
Watch the video below:
(Click here to watch on YouTube)
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Are you ready to optimize your gut health? CLICK HERE to learn more about the most powerful probiotics!
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Wade Lightheart is an expert on the topic of gut health.
He leads one of the world's most innovative supplement companies and is the author of many books, one of which includes the best-seller, Staying Alive in a Toxic World. Combined with his Bachelor's Degree in Sports Science and over 14 years of experience as a nutritionist and personal trainer, he has become the go-to guy by athletes and high-performance individuals alike. His approach involves working with the body, from the inside out.
Unfortunately, healthy gut bacteria is something that is often overlooked in the world of nutrition. This is why I wanted to pick Wade's brain on what gut health is, and why it’s so important to your overall health and well-being. Here is a sneak peek of our interview together. Let's dive in!
Can you share a little bit about yourself and why you've made it your focus in life to help people optimize their health and physical well-being?
It's been a long journey. I've always been interested in health and fitness. It started when my sister lost her life to cancer at 18 years old. That had a big impact on my life. Her death made me realize that health isn't a guarantee, even at a young age. I got into bodybuilding and thought that if I built my muscles up and looked good, then I would be healthy. After I competed at the Mr. Universe contest, I gained 42 pounds of fat and water in 11 weeks. I was shocked.
My entire life had been dedicated to cosmetic performance.
We celebrate high-performance athletes, models, and superstars because they look good. However, behind the scenes, these people are actually compromising their health to look good. I was fortunate enough to meet Dr. Michael O'Brien who was a super vibrant guy who had a lot of energy and strength. I asked him how I went from Mr. Unvierse to Mr. Marshmellow.
He told me that I learned how to build my body from the outside, in, not the inside, out. It made so much sense. I had blown out my digestion by taking Whey protein and traditional sports supplements. I went on a program to rebuild my digestion using enzymes and probiotics, and it worked.
Six months later, I felt great.
I had a lot of energy and I was able to perform at a higher level than ever before. Four years later, I perfected that model and started a company with my business partner, Matt Galant. Since then, we've helped over 50,000 people correct their digestive issues. Digestive-related illnesses are the fifth leading cause of death.
Gastrointestinal dysfunction is running rampant. People are bloated, tired, and have brain fog. All of this relates to the gut. I realized that there was an opportunity to address an issue that most people aren't aware of. As a company, we decided to fix digestion and we've been doing that for almost 14 years now.
Why is digestion so important and how does the digestion process work?
Hippocrates was the father of modern medicine. He said that all disease begins in the gut. This was a claim that was made over 2,500 years ago. There's a fundamental assumption that gets people into trouble which is, “You are what you eat.” The reality is that you are what you digest, absorb and utilize. That process has a series of components.
When you consume food, you start to chew it which activates digestive juices. That's the first part of digestion. As food goes into your body it travels down the esophagus and goes into the upper cardiac portion of the stomach. This is where problems start to occur. People gulp their food instead of chewing it. From there, the food goes into the stomach.
You've got about 30-60 minutes before hydrochloric acid starts to be produced by your body.
During that time, the enzymes present in the food are supposed to break it down. Humans are different from every species on the planet in that they are the only species that cooks their food. That is what destroys the enzymes. The enzymes are the difference between the living and the dead. Enzymes are essential for everything, from thinking to blinking.
If your food is undigested, naturally you will encounter a problem. Now the hydrochloric acid comes in. This starts to change the Ph levels in your body which turns off and turns on certain enzymes and breaks up food. As we get older, we don't produce enough hydrochloric acid. Ironically, acid reflux and heartburn, which are huge problems amongst the population, are caused by decreased levels of hydrochloric acid.
Once the food leaves the stomach, your body creates a bicarbonate buffer. This buffers the acid so that it doesn't burn your intestine. However, if you don't have enough minerals inside your body, it will create ulcers which are very serious. Once the food mixture goes into the intestinal tract, there are bacteria present.
About 10% of the bacteria in your body is good, 10% is not so good, and 80% may be positive or negative, based on your lifestyle and diet. When people travel they usually get sick because they don't have the bacteria to break food down, or they ingest a bacteria that they aren't used to.
The result is that their entire microbiome is thrown off. If you don't complete that whole digestive process, you will have undigested food that the bad bacteria will feed off of. The final stage in the digestive process is peristalsis contraction which allows you to eliminate waste properly.
Your gut is your second brain.
Bad bacteria hooks into our nervous system and controls our thoughts. That craving that you have at 2 am to run down the street and get ice cream is not you talking. Rather, it's the bacteria asking to be fed. Anxiety and depression are related to an imbalance in the microbiome, as are skin conditions.
In today's world, we have a mass of food that is grown on mineral deficient soil. It is grown with herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides, all of which interrupt the enzymatic process and kill good bacteria. As a result, people end up taking antibiotics for everything. Unfortunately, antibiotics don't discern between good and bad bacteria. Rather, it just kills everything.
Lastly, we have lifestyles that don't support healthy functioning. We need to get our digestion in order so that we can deal with the challenges of the digital world. It's ironic that the more digital we go, the more we've got to focus on what is going on internally. As a company, we try to identify what a person needs to do immediately in order to start seeing change so that they can take back their health.
Can you talk a little bit about some lifestyle changes that people can make in order to improve their overall well-being and the role that probiotics have to gut health?
First and foremost, it's important to point out that anyone can benefit from getting some genetic testing done. I also recommend that you invest some money into a naturopathic doctor who can determine what the right diet is for you. Doing so will allow you to get some real data so that you aren't following someone else's program.
Secondly, people need to add enzymes and probiotics to their diet.
If you're sick a lot, struggle with a skin condition, experience anxiety, or have bloating and gas, a really good probiotic would be the first place to start. Neck and neck with that is a high-quality enzyme. The challenge today is that there are so many probiotics out there, ranging from $5 to $100. They all look the same. If you aren't an expert, it's impossible to determine which is effective versus ineffective.
The reality is that almost all of the probiotics on the market today don't work. They are what I like to call, “hopes in a bottle.” The idea is that most of the probiotic strains out there are what's called “a colonizing strain” which is supposed to grow in your microbiome. Unfortunately, most of them aren't doing this. This is why we developed a super strain of patented probiotic that does just that.
Do you mind explaining how your P3OM probiotic works?
We've all heard of antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains. Antibiotics came on the scene 60 years ago. Over time, a certain amount of bacteria became resistant to antibiotics because of the environment. These antibiotics are very smart and adaptable. One of my friends is a world-class Harvard surgeon.
He told me, “Wade, the biggest threat to people in surgery is not the surgery itself. Rather, it's dying from an infection from surgery in the hospital.” When I heard this, I thought to myself, “Wouldn't it be cool if you subjected a probiotic strain to environmental conditions that turned it into a super bacteria, in the same way, that we created resistant-antibiotics?”
We took a very robust strain called l-Plantarum and put it through a Navy Seals training process.
In other words, we subjected it to extreme conditions that allowed the bacteria to mutate and grow in a way that has all of these incredibly unique capabilities. Firstly, it breaks down protein. Almost no bacteria does that. The advantage of that is that undigested protein is the biggest source of toxicity inside the body.
Secondly, it attacks viruses and bad bacterias inside the body. It doesn't only stay in the digestion system. It goes everywhere and literally cleans up all the undigested protein and wipes out all the pathogens in your entire body so that it could operate in the way that it was designed. The results for people have been remarkable.
How would you typically use this supplement?
This is an expensive supplement, so if the price is an issue for you, I would take 4 capsules every night before bed. The strain will go through the body and clean up the whole system while you are sleeping.
Within a few weeks of doing that, people start to feel better.
If your body is really compromised, I would suggest that you take a few capsules in the morning and night on an empty stomach, in addition to a few capsules with your meals. This is what I did to recondition my body. I went on a very high dosage over a 3-month period and fixed my system. Ever since then, I have been operating at an optimal level.
If someone really wanted to re-work their digestive health, what practices would you recommend they engage in?
We have a lot of specific programs that can help you with your digestive health. As I said before, we've worked with over 50,000 people. We've been able to help people with their digestive issues who are at an extreme level of dysfunction and disease. Our company is unique in the sense that all of our products are backed by a 365-day guarantee.
Secondly, we have what I call “we'll fix your digestion guarantee.” Let's say you bought the P3OM and for whatever reason, you didn't get the results that you wanted. You can contact our company, have a conversation with our trained staff, and we will send you something that will correct the issue until we find what is perfect for you.
If you don't go this route, I recommend starting with one-day water fast.
That will reset your digestion powers and save your enzymatic processes so that your body can flush out toxins. Ultimately, if you can do a 7 or 10-day water fast, you will see even better results. I also think that a lot of people would benefit from a series of 10-20 colonics and an ayurvedic cleanse, like Pachak Churna. This can be done through a 10, 14 or 21-day program. Most people don't realize how much undigested food is actually built up inside their bodies.
Do you mind telling my audience a little more about the other products that you sell?
We are all familiar with the problems that gluten has for people. What people don't realize is that gluten isn't a carbohydrate. Rather, it's a protein. Because our bodies don't break gluten down well, it becomes an undigested food, which causes bloating and in some cases, excruciating pain.
We discovered that there is an enzyme called DPP4 that actually breaks down gluten which led to us creating a product called, Gluten Guardian. This supplement will go into your body and break down gluten. It's the strongest product on the market that you can get without a prescription. It's amazing. It will allow you to have that pizza or bread without feeling sick.
A second product that we built is called HCL Breakthrough.
Hydrochloric acid (HCL) is an essential component of digestion. It kills bacteria, parasites, and viruses. A few years back I went to Bali and picked up a parasite. Because I am in my 40's, I no longer produce the same amount of HCL. I checked my ego at the door and started taking some HCL on a super high dosage.
All of sudden, the parasite was wiped out. I noticed that I had more energy, slept less, and started losing weight without doing anything in my diet. HCL Breakthrough combines all of the enzymes that make HCL more active. Plus, we put the mineral buffers in it so that we buffer the acid when it came out of the intestinal tract. This supplement is the most advanced hydrochloric acid on the market today.
Are you ready to optimize your gut health?
Wade is having an exclusive P3-OM Probiotics New Year blowout sale. I encourage you to check out all of his amazing products. If you purchase any of them, you will get an extra 10% off the prices by using the coupon code, STEFAN10. The sale ends on Friday, Jan 18th @ midnight, so don't miss out!
Some people have no idea how good their bodies are designed to feel. Be willing to invest in anything that can improve and enhance the quality of your life. Your mind, body, and soul will thank you for it.
Are you ready to optimize your gut health? CLICK HERE to learn more about the most powerful probiotics!