益生菌 补剂 Michael Bush

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益生菌行业的发展与消费者责任

@Michael Bush : 我对医疗保健行业的现状感到不满，他们主要关注在人们生命的最后时刻尽可能多地通过治疗疾病来赚钱，而不是关注如何保持人们的健康。我看到了将益生菌应用到食品和饮料行业的巨大机会，因为消费者已经厌倦了服用过多的药丸。消费者喜欢益生菌能添加到日常食品和饮料中，而不是每天服用胶囊或药片。益生菌行业正在蓬勃发展，并且越来越对消费者负责和友好，同时我们也看到了更多高质量的临床研究。现在益生菌的应用越来越专业化，例如用于缓解压力、激活GLP或减轻症状，甚至用于治疗复发性肾结石或痛风。

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我曾对医疗保健行业的现状感到深深不满。他们更关注在人们生命的最后时刻尽可能多地通过治疗疾病来赚钱，而不是关注如何保持人们的健康。这种现状促使我转向了益生菌领域，并看到了巨大的机遇。

2006年，我开始接触益生菌行业。彼时，Danone正大力推广Activia，消费者们却普遍感到“药丸疲劳”——每天服用大量的胶囊和药片让他们不堪重负。我敏锐地察觉到，将益生菌应用到食品和饮料行业，将是满足消费者需求，并推动益生菌市场发展的重要突破口。

我们成功地将一种拥有38项已发表临床研究的益生菌，应用到了大量的食品和饮料产品中，覆盖了70个国家和1400多种产品。消费者们欣喜地发现，他们可以通过饮用康普茶、食用松饼或谷物等日常食物来摄取益生菌，而无需再每天服用胶囊或药片。

益生菌行业正在经历一场蓬勃发展。 它正变得越来越以消费者为中心，越来越注重产品质量和透明度。同时，我们也看到了越来越多高质量的临床研究，涵盖益生菌、益生元和后生元等领域。

益生菌的应用也日益专业化。 如今，我们看到针对特定需求的益生菌菌株层出不穷，例如：缓解压力、激活GLP-1受体、减轻各种疾病症状，甚至用于治疗复发性肾结石或痛风等。 一些公司甚至利用人工智能技术筛选数百万菌株，寻找具有特定代谢产物（例如GABA）的菌株，以精准地应对特定健康问题。例如，我参与的Verb Biotics公司就开发了一种能够显著提高大脑GABA水平的益生菌菌株，这在缓解压力和改善睡眠方面展现出巨大的潜力。

未来，益生菌领域将继续探索新的可能性。 这包括开发更多针对特定器官和组织的专业菌株，以及探索创新的递送方式，例如缓释技术，以优化益生菌在肠道内的作用。 同时，高质量的临床研究将继续发挥关键作用，确保益生菌产品的安全性和有效性。

消费者也需要提高自身的认知。 选择益生菌产品时，应关注菌株的具体名称（属名、种名和菌株名），并查阅相关的科学文献，了解其功效和安全性。 避免选择成分不明确或使用“专利配方”的产品。

总而言之，益生菌行业正处于一个激动人心的发展阶段。通过持续的创新和研究，益生菌将为人们的健康带来更多益处，并改变我们对健康补充剂的认知。

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D:2025.07.09<markdown>

00:00

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01:04

I can't tell you how often I hear, oh, I'm a little OCD. I like things neat. That's not OCD. I'm Howie Mandel and I know this because I have OCD. Actual OCD causes relentless unwanted thoughts.

01:17

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02:05

The information provided in this podcast episode is for entertainment purposes and is not medical advice. If you have any questions about your health, contact a medical professional. This content is strictly the opinions of Lucas Owen and is for informational and entertainment purposes only.

02:23

The references, claims and scientific information linked to any products are only applicable to those listeners who are based in the US. If you are outside the US, this information does not apply to you. It is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of medical advice or treatment from a personal physician. All viewers of this content are advised to consult with their doctors or qualified health professionals regarding specific health questions.

02:52

Thank you for listening to the Boost Your Biology podcast. My name is Lucas Owen. I uncover the most cutting edge health information on the planet, ranging from hormones, nutrition, supplementation, fat loss, biohacking, longevity, wellness, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the Boost Your Biology podcast.

03:17

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back to the boost your biology podcast. Today I have a special guest joining me in the studio, Michael Bush, who co founded growth ways partners who has a wealth of knowledge around novel formulations, probiotics, supplements, and a whole lot more. Michael, welcome to the podcast. Thanks. Glad to be here. Awesome. So Michael, maybe let my audience know how did you find yourself, you know, so fascinated into the supplement space?

03:44

Well, I started out in the healthcare industry. And so around 1999, I became so disenfranchised by the healthcare industry. Basically, we're trying to make as much money as possible by treating as many things as possible at the last possible moment in people's lives. And so it's not about keeping people well, it's about

04:08

you know, making money off of illness. And so I kind of made a transition. At the time, I went and worked for a bioinformatics company, did a turnaround over there, and then we sold it. And then I went to a kind of a medical device, but more of a services company. And then after that, I just began consulting. And as luck would have it, I had a friend who was a CFO at a probiotic company called Gnaden Biotech in Cleveland,

04:35

and he asked if I would come in and look at their CPG business, and I said, I'm not a CPG guy, but I'm sure somebody is. And then eventually they called to see if I would come and look at their patent portfolio and kind of see what they had going on from a technology standpoint and realized that what they had was this really novel probiotic

04:57

that they hadn't published studies around and all this other kind of stuff. And they had a supplement business. They had a line of supplements in about 50,000 stores at the time. And the brand was, you know, selling well. We had nine SKUs. But I really saw opportunities after kind of meeting with consumers and talking and looking at what the trends were back in 2006.

05:21

It was when Danone was really making their push with Activia and consumers were basically experiencing pill fatigue. They were just like, I've no mass. I've had enough. I take enough capsules and tablets in a day. And so we saw opportunities with this particular probiotic to put it into food and beverage industry primarily. So that's what we did. And we went whole hog. We sold the supplement business in 2012 to Reckitt Benkiser.

05:48

And so they're running that brand now. And we ran the ingredient business. We sold that to an Irish ingredient and services company called Carrie in 2017. And by that time, we were in about 1400 food and beverage products sold in 70 countries.

06:07

The consumers were loving the fact that they could have a probiotic that had 38 published clinical studies on it. But rather than having to take a capsule or a tablet every day or a gummy or whatever, they could drink a kombucha or they could have a muffin or they can have cereal that were fortified with it and things like that. And so I just fell in love with the natural products industry and the people I met and the probiotic industry just really intrigued me. I was deep in it.

06:36

But it got to the point where at one point I was the president of the International Probiotics Association.

06:43

I saw so much room for advocacy in this space and the probiotic industry continues, just grows like crazy. It's continuing to grow. Next week is one of the largest international probiotic association meetings in Vancouver. And so it's just great to see the industry just taking off and becoming more and more consumer responsible, consumer friendly. And we're starting to see more and more quality clinical work being done around probiotics, prebiotics, postbiotics.

07:12

It's just, it's a great industry. I just really enjoy it. And it's like watched it change lots and lots of lives. Well, that's really fascinating that you've seen it evolve so much over the years. You've sort of seen the typical standard probiotic capsules and then the different product formats. What do you think is like really interesting

07:31

in trend right now in terms of product format? Is it more liquid or is it food? You still see food. You see lots of capsules. You still, I mean, if you look at the probiotic industry in general, it's still the largest place probiotics are sold or in yogurt, fortified yogurts.

07:50

um, to this day. I mean, it's, it's the lion's share of the industry, but, um, and so what I'm seeing today format wise is it's still kind of remaining the same, except for you're seeing more and more probiotic fortified foods and beverages. And now you're seeing prebiotics and postbiotics going into foods and beverages as well, where you can never put any probiotic in those before. Um, and then format wise, or excuse me, like

08:14

When we look at the direction that probiotics are going into, it's almost exactly what we predicted 10 years ago. And that was in 2006, it was all about digestive and then it became about immune. And then you started seeing some heart studies happening.

08:30

Now you're seeing everything is specialized. You're seeing specialty strains for stress. You're seeing specialty strains for, you know, GLP activation or mitigation of symptoms. You're seeing specialty strains for things like recurrent kidney stones or even things like gout. And so, and then lots of work is being done now and has been done in the sports nutrition space around the way proteins and probiotics, you know, work together.

08:59

Well, this is really exciting to explore because I've always also been excited about the fact that these probiotics are going to become more specific to certain organs and tissues and cellular pathways. I know last time we spoke, you mentioned a specific probiotic that has been shown to raise GABA levels profoundly in the brain. So do you want to share a little bit more about that? It's crazy. So it's a company called Verb Biotics. I happen to be on their board and I helped. It was a spin out from a company called Ginkgo Bioworks.

09:28

But so they screened using AI and other techniques, 200 million strains, and they were specifically looking for a metabolite. And they were so rather than doing what most people do is they find a probiotic, they're like, yeah, this is interesting. Let's see what it does.

09:45

They, VIRB sets out and they do everything from a mechanism of action first. So they said, we want something that produces a clinically valid amount of GABA in the gut. You know, the neurotransmitter it's been shown, you know, incredibly helpful for stress and sleep. And so after straining all those or screening all those strains,

10:08

They narrowed it down and then tested a bunch. And then ultimately they found it's a special lactobacillus plantarum, which is it's a LP815. And what it does is when it gets down in the gut is it actually produces clinically relevant amounts of GABA in your gut. And it has been shown they've now done three clinical trials on it and they're all showing results.

10:31

you know, really good significance in reduction in stress in humans and also in companion animals.

10:39

So they're showing in dogs and cats, I mean, you know, there's, you've got all kinds of anxiety effects going on in dogs and cats and the GABA has been helping them tremendously. And it's the same thing in humans. It's working out really well. And it's, it's just one example of like being able to take the technology that's available now, looking at this huge variety of organisms. I mean, if you think about a screening, you know, screening 200 million strains,

11:07

I mean, even screening, screening 200 a couple of years ago was wildly labor intensive. Well, now the technology is, yeah, so advanced. The ability to pinpoint molecules and even bacteria is just phenomenal. And would you call that, because I've always sort of spoken favorably about certain probiotics that can, like,

11:26

Like, technically speaking, they're classified as like a psychobiotic, right? So with this one, this one could be… You could, you could, you know, all the organizations are trying to figure out how to define various. And so they're kind of like, it's still a probiotic. It does what a probiotic does. I mean, a probiotic has a globally recognized definition by the WHO. And so it certainly does what a probiotic is supposed to do.

11:51

but it's yeah interesting it's its main uh purpose in existing is for stress mood and sleep are there any i mean akkermansia you've probably seen that popping up a lot and i've spoken about it already like many favorable benefits for the body you know metabolic support even helping with insulin sensitivity are there any other specific strains that

12:14

Like you're hedging your bets, so to speak, that it's an up and comer. Yeah. I mean, so butyrate is like the king of the gut, you know, it's cracked for gut bacteria and, but taking, um,

12:27

Butyric acid or taking butyrate is not exactly a fun proposition. I don't know if you've ever been around it, but it's smells awful. It's really hard to formulate with. And so same company, Verb, is working on a butyrate producer that is specifically

12:45

geared towards just producing butyrate in the gut rather than having to take some sort of coated butyrate or butyric acid. And that is a very interesting novel organism that has not been made grass yet and that will be.

13:02

- Why do you think so much focus has been on butyrate though, specifically out of all the other short-term fatty acids? - It's just from, I don't claim to be an expert on this topic,

13:15

It tends to be the most active when it comes to really stimulating the growth of gut bacteria. It's just, like I said, it's like crack for gut bacteria. You put some butyrate in there, it grows like crazy. And it's like if you look at what's going on in the prebiotic world, one of the things everybody's looking at is can we combine this prebiotic and a probiotic to force this prebiotic to…

13:40

to help the prebiotic to help the production of the butyrate, but not seeing a ton of butyrate producers that are producing enough that it really makes a big difference. What about in terms of, because obviously you mentioned the GLP-1 action, I've seen some strains mentioned in preclinical studies that they can increase GLP-1 levels. Are there any that you think have merit or it's still too early days? I think it's too early. I mean, I think that…

14:09

What people have done is they've said, you know, what does the scientific literature say? Okay, you know, throw some fiber in the gut and it's a GLP activator, right? So if we would use the logic that, you know, hey, we can make a bar, put five grams of fiber in it and call it a GLP activator.

14:28

I mean, we're not necessarily being honest with our consumers. Because the consumer, when they hear GLP, they think one of the GLP drugs. So they think, “Well, if I eat this bar, then I won't be hungry and I won't have to worry about getting a prescription for Ozempic or anything.” It's certainly not like that. If it were General Mills or Quaker Oats, they would have been the weight loss. The secret of weight loss would have been oatmeal every day.

14:54

And so you're seeing some things. One of the most interesting things I've seen in a while is a probiotic and they haven't published the data yet, but a probiotic that has shown significant, I mean, really significant reductions in the symptoms and side effects related to taking the GLP. So less nausea, less of the, you know, all of the things that typically GLP, you know,

15:23

Apart from the appetite suppression. Yeah, exactly. It's got all the things that you want and none of the things you don't want. Exactly. That's pretty cool. And that was kind of one of those studies that they did.

15:38

And they were really surprised at the effect that it had. And so I think you're going to see some more research going on around that area as well. You know, like what can you do to take alongside your JLPs to either make them less, you know, to reduce the side effects so that you can increase compliance, but also at the same time, you know, they're just as effective because, you know, it's not too effective once you stop taking it.

16:03

Outside of the realm of probiotics, Michael, any other, because my audience loves hearing about new ingredients and things like that. Is there anything else you think that

16:12

I mean, have you contributed to over the years in terms of pioneering or trademarking any ingredients? I mean, lots. And so, I mean, our, you know, the one that we sold, I was the CEO of Gnaden when we sold it. And that was, we trademarked that. That was trademarked Gnaden BC30. They've now changed it to just BC30, but that's the product that's in literally thousands of SKUs of food products.

16:36

I'm working with a company right now, it's a weird analog. It's not necessarily what you would call a functional ingredient per se when it comes to human health. But one of the issues that we're having is with artificial preservatives, sodium benzoate and all these other ones. And so a company I'm on the board of is a company called Kinova. And it's really interesting. They actually take the throwaway stems of button mushrooms

17:04

They pull the chitosan out of it. And so, cause there's chitosan, most chitosan that's in the market comes from shellfish. And so this is actually a vegan chitosan. And then it's spelled, this is CHI. Yeah. And so, so it's interesting ingredient on its own, but then we further process it and it becomes a,

17:28

Preservative, a natural, completely organic preservative that you can replace things like tunnel pasteurization. You know, you can you can replace in certain applications, especially beverage applications, all of the artificial preservatives.

17:43

And you can even list it on the, one of the interesting things about this particular ingredient is it's a great preservative that gets rid of these artificial preservatives. And you can actually list it on your label as a natural flavor because that's kind of its standard of identity. So when you look at an ingredient list on a food or a beverage that contains it, it won't even say contains any preservatives because it really doesn't. It's categorized as a flavor.

18:10

And the rationale for using that would be to extend the shelf life? Yes, so to eliminate the use of artificial preservatives, or in many cases, like for example, if you take a company like Poppy, for example, they use tunnel pasteurization. So they put the stuff in a can, it goes through this tunnel, and they do the tunnel pasteurization. And it costs about two cents a can.

18:36

to pasteurize a can of beer, a poppy, whatever. For less than, for a cent or less, you can use

18:45

you know, this organic ingredient. And it does the same preservation that the tunnel pasteurization does without having to use all the energy and without having to use the tunnel pasteurization at all. And it also increases carbonation. So it's kind of one of those things that's interesting. It's like one man's trash is another person's treasure. And in this case, you know, we take all the throwaway stems from these button mushrooms and create this really interesting preservative.

19:12

Yeah, fascinating. So you're saying it's basically like an analog or a variation of chitosan? Yeah, so we take the chitosan and we actually refine it further so that it then has the properties that it needs molecular weight-wise to act as a preservative.

19:29

Yeah, because a lot of… This is sort of a side tangent, but in terms of thickeners, fillers, and additives that are oftentimes added to products such as titanium dioxide or magnesium stearate, I'm not sure why magnesium stearate gets a lot of hate, personally. I've never really understood that. Because it's just magnesium and stearic acid. Stearic acid is…

19:52

not unhealthy. Yeah, and a lot of people are just, they're just using it as like a flow agent. So it's typically in minuscule, you know, even the titanium dioxide, it's in minuscule, you know,

20:05

amounts in a capsule or something like that. It's funny when people get concerned about what's in a capsule. You feel like asking them, did you look at what you ate for lunch today? Because, you know, or you'll have somebody that they'll, you know, they're like, they switch supplements because they want a veggie cap. But

20:24

It's the only thing vegetarian that they do in their whole life is not used. Like what's the, well, the alternative is oftentimes gelatin, right? And gelatin, gelatin is a health food because it's got like glycine and I don't understand the logic sometimes. And now they're even doing, you know, gelatin made out of, you know,

20:43

seaweed and things like that. And so it's, there's becoming natural or vegan options for just about everything, but it's going to be a while before we've got everything covered.

20:54

Are there any, though, in terms of like that you think that consumers should be cautious of, like in terms of maybe sweeteners or dyes or colors, things like that? A lot of people are really sensitive to sugar alcohols. And so, you know, like erythritol. Yeah, erythritol, things like that. People are super sensitive sometimes. You know, there's the research that's being done on the artificial colors. You know, it's certainly not my specialty, but it's but there's just

21:23

I kind of just look at it like the shorter the ingredient list, but without exception, when you look at an ingredient list, whether it's on a food or on a supplement, if you can't find out about the things that are in it, I'm not a fan of proprietary blends. I'm not a fan of not knowing how, when somebody puts in the probiotic world, you'll see has 30 billion CFU and then they'll list 15 strains.

21:52

But you don't know if it's 29.9 billion CFU of some Eric acidophilus and then a whole bunch of nothing of the others. So, you know, there's, you know, there's, there's the labeling requirements or, you know, guidelines that should be followed that, that if, if folks are following them, then typically a company that you can trust. And if you see somebody obfuscating in some way or another, there's typically reasons.

22:18

And with that proprietary blends, I fully agree with you, Michael. I've always been against that. And even like, it sort of makes me wonder though, as myself as a formulator person,

22:28

yes, I've got great formulation ideas, but I really would rather be transparent on the label and show this is how much of each ingredient. But then it's also like, okay, but how does Lucas protect his formula? Patent it or trademark it. You can trademark it. And if you're going to then, if you're going to do clinical work, if you're going to do any clinical trials on, for example, a proprietary blend, you trademark that blend name, whatever you want to call it,

22:57

And so therefore, if anybody in the future tries to use your clinical trial on an exact, you know, you on their own proprietary blend that happens to be the same.

23:09

all of a sudden they're violating your trademark. There's also the ability to patent formulations. And so if it's a truly novel formulation, you know, getting a patent isn't the hardest thing in the world. And so, and I often encourage people, it's like, you know, do your patented trademark work way ahead of time so that you're not building a market for someone else who's, you know, faster or smarter than you to take advantage of.

23:37

Okay. Yeah, definitely. We'll definitely have a chat offline about that because obviously we spoke about some great combinations. What about, Michael, in terms of, let's talk about caffeine. Caffeine is a, you know, everyone knows about caffeine, mostly in the context of pre-workouts, but in terms of, you mentioned something really interesting about an encapsulated caffeine. Yeah, there's been a number of companies that have

24:03

been able to, because, you know, if you have, if you take something, you know, somebody, you give somebody 400 milligrams of caffeine and you're like, you know, good luck to you because it's going to just dump into your stomach all at one time. And you're going to have this huge bolus of caffeine. There's a number of companies that have taken various technologies and

24:23

And they've been able to coat that caffeine where basically what these coatings do, it's imagine like extended release drugs or, you know, it's typically used in drugs. But so you'll coat the caffeine so that it breaks down over the course of, say, four hours or six hours.

24:42

And so you have so your your, you know, your PK study will show that, like, you're actually keeping the caffeine, the caffeine levels at an adequate level to keep you caffeinated for a certain period of time.

24:57

And you don't have that spike and you don't have that crash afterwards. And it's, you know, it's just a very cool technology that is now extending beyond caffeine into things like probiotics and to other functional ingredients where you, maybe you want to, for example, there's, there's probiotics out there that you want them to grow in the small intestine. There's other ones you want to grow in the large intestine. And so you could hypothetically say,

25:24

coat these, these, the probiotics so that the ones that you want to go into the small intestine are dropped, they are completely protected from stomach acid and bile salts. And then they drop off half of the load in the small intestine and they drop off what's supposed to be in the large intestine and the large intestine.

25:41

really interesting ways to deliver these functional ingredients. And like I said, you're starting to see a couple of companies that are out there really doing some innovative things in that space where now we're starting to see more of an extended release approach to things outside of just capsules and protection and things like that. You're actually coating the ingredient themselves.

26:08

I always find it really fascinating exploring different like routes of administration. I mean, I've always been really fascinated by sublingual administration because I've always like, I've been trying to understand like how does it, which molecules actually have the capacity to work sublingually. So if you have

26:28

Had any experience or like looked at products in that format? Yeah. I mean, back in the day, we did a bunch of work on thin strips and, you know, sublingual a little bit, but I mean, it's the same concept. Basically, you're trying to get, you know, you're trying to get the molecule to,

26:44

you know, make it, you know, avoid digestion, you know, something that's broken down. And so sublingual is cool. I mean, it's like if you look at some of the medications that are on the market that are sublingual, you know, just makes them work much more, you know, because the molecule is small enough, they just get right through. You probably recall a couple of years ago, everybody and his brother was trying to do everything transdermally.

27:07

And so you could get a patch for anything, but you're like, okay, well, these molecules are so giant, they're never making it through the skin. And so, but sublingual is a, it's a neat technology for things where it, you know, where the application is there. I've seen B12, I've seen sublingually, you know, and then lots of drugs. Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned the transdermal route. That's oftentimes I've seen a lot of, yeah, formulations that make big promises, right?

27:35

But deep down, it's like, there's no way that's actually making it into meaningful quantities in the bloodstream. There's some sort of law that applies for molecules to be able to pass through transdermally. I can't remember what it was. I forget as well. But there's a certain molecular weight that's just not getting through, that's just not making it into the bloodstream. The molecule is just too big to get through the skin and out of the patch and everything else. What about in terms of like…

28:04

A big area of like optimization is like hormonal health specifically. I mean, male testosterone optimization, that's a huge market, you know, that's, and it's testosterone levels are not getting better across the board. It's we're going down. Same with fertility, anything in that realm you think is pretty interesting to share with my audience. So, yeah,

28:26

On the testosterone side, not as much from the gut side of things. On the women's health side of things, it's incredible what's going on because, so I'm 57 and it makes me feel incredibly old that now millennials are going into perimenopause.

28:42

And so in in what we found through our industry is that when millennials start, when it starts to happen, you better have the supplement engine ramped up because they're much more likely than Gen X or especially than the baby boomers to go something route.

29:00

And so you're starting to see some really interesting things like in the women's health and the hormonal balance. There's a company called Nouri, N-O-U-R-I, that's a probiotic company, but it's very focused on women's health.

29:14

They've got a men's health product coming out, but the women's health, because I mean, not only do you have the hormonal issues that you need to deal with and the metabolic issues to deal with, but you also have the vaginal health side of things where probiotics can make a big impact. And so it's just from a hormonal balance side of things, I think that we're going to see

29:37

I mean, every company I talk to is looking at men's health. You know, it's, it's in the men's health side, you know, there's been a lot of work been done around, you know, sexual health and sexual wellness and women's health. You're seeing more work being done around menopause, hormonal balance and vaginal health. And so it's, so in both, you know, both categories are booming and nobody is not looking at it. I mean, it's,

30:04

Especially women's health. I mean, they just, you know, there's, they just take the, you know, they take responsibility. Women tend to take responsibility for their healthcare much more than men do, which is why they go to doctors regularly and men die in the parking lot of doctor's offices. Yeah. Well, that's an interesting pathway there. Michael is looking at the, you mentioned certain types of fibers before.

30:28

I do want to explore a little bit about that because there has been one particular fiber that I've been talking about and educating quite a lot on, which is the PHGG, the partially hydrolyzed guar gum. Are there any types of fibers? I mean, the psyllium husks have been well-known for years, but…

30:47

Like how has that space evolved? So the fiber market has become two things. It's become, you've got fiber, just regular old fiber that does its fiber thing. And then you have the prebiotic market. And it's,

31:00

not all fibers are, are prebiotic and not all prebiotics or fibers, but, but, but some of the more interesting ones are the types of fibers where you can get really good clinical benefits without having to take large quantities. So for example, inulin, which is what is the most popular prebiotic. A lot of people are super sensitive to inulin causes gas, lots of people,

31:27

And the dosages are in the 5 to 20 gram range. Really hard to stuff in a capsule. It's even hard to put into a food. If you're putting 5 grams or 10 grams of something into a food, you're eating up a lot of space. Like a protein bar, for example, they sometimes put inulin. But there's fibers out there now where they can make their full claims and they can make the full benefit.

31:54

at a gram or two grams. So there's some short chain phoses, FOS. It's a fructooligosaccharide. So the short chain phoses are, you know, have been studied very, very well. There's one called Nutraflora that's been studied exceptionally well. It's very helpful for, you know, gut health, immune health, and some other things. And then there's a xylooligosaccharide, which is

32:19

Not actually classified as a fiber, even though if you and I saw it, we would go, that looks like a fiber from where it comes from, but just has a chemical structure that makes it so that it doesn't qualify as a fiber at this point. But the xylooligosaccharides, you're seeing it two grams, two and a half grams a day, really good digestive immune and other types of end support. What are they classifying it as if it's not a fiber? They're just calling it a prebiotic.

32:49

Okay. So, but then you've got, you know, you've got the human milk oligosaccharides, which are really blowing up right now, especially for infant formula and things. HMOs are prebiotics. You know, the guar gums and things like that are considered prebiotics. But now you're even starting to see, you know, there's some companies, they have a, there's a prebiotic on the market. It's actually a phage. So it's actually a, it's like, or it's a combination of, and so it's like,

33:19

It doesn't look like a prebiotic to me. It's certainly not a fiber, but it has a prebiotic effect. And so you introduce it in the gut and it makes the good bacteria grow and doesn't support the growth of bad bacteria. And so it works just like a prebiotic. It just happens to be a phage. Interesting. Well, what about in terms of like, we spent some time mentioning, so you're saying beneficial bacteria, like when people say it's increasing the growth of beneficial bacteria,

33:49

Like most people probably think lactobacillus family or whatever species and bifidobacteria, like lacto, bifido, but bifidobacteria.

33:58

Deep down, there are so many. I mean, there's many, many strains in our gut that we can't cultivate. I mean, there's some really important. They're called commensal. Are they commensal? Yeah, exactly. And so they do really important things. There's a bacteria called phacobacteria prosnitiki, I believe. And this particular bacteria is incredibly important for a variety of things, including reducing inflammation.

34:26

Well, no one's been able to figure out how to grow this stuff outside of the human body. I mean, you know, people have looked at some of these like acromantia is another one. I mean, there's, there's these strains that are like strict anaerobes where you have to grow them and hold them and everything in the, in the presence, you know, you can't have them in the presence of oxygen.

34:44

And so they're amazing strains. And so what the industry is trying to figure out is, is how do we make these amazing strains grow in the gut, considering that we can't do it outside of the gut? That's where prebiotics are coming in and things like butyrate and things like that. Because, I mean, we all have, you know, lots of different types of bacteria and fungi in our gut.

35:09

And we want to make sure that we support the growth of the good bacteria and we don't let the bad bacteria get out of control. And so what a lot of these do is they help with that balance and they help, you know, the good prebiotics will help the good bacteria grow and not support the excessive growth of E. coli or salmonellas or clostridiums that we all have in our gut all the time anyway.

35:32

Yeah, that's a great point you mentioned. In terms of the… So what makes lactobacillus and bifidobacteria so easy to synthesize? Like why are they so ubiquitous? They're just good growers. I mean, you know, they're…

35:46

And they were like the strains that were originally identified as, you know, causing a benefit. Way back when I used to do a presentation, it was like the history of probiotics. And one of the things I found amazing was, you know, Genghis Khan, I believe it was, used to, they found that, so they used to preserve the milk for the soldiers in the intestines of camels.

36:10

And so that's the container they would use. And then they would realize and they were realizing that the people that drank the milk were healthier than the people that didn't. And I didn't know why. But the reason was, is what was happening is, is it was fermenting the milk and turning it was basically giving them super probiotic fortified milk that was being stored in this camel intestine.

36:30

And so, and what they found early on was, is the strains that were doing this were lactobacilli, bifidobacteria, bacillus. And so now we're starting to see people expand outside of those worlds. And there was a taxonomy change a couple of years ago too, where they changed the name of a bunch of probiotics. And so that I think,

36:54

Made people feel a little more comfortable not having to put lactobacillus or bifidobacteria as the genus so that consumers would recognize it.

37:03

Fascinating. Well, what about, cause you mentioned that, that aspect there, but in terms of like the kefir market as well, you've probably seen, you know, that evolve quite a lot over, over, over time. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, there's, there's great products on the market that have tons of, of, you know, beneficial bacteria in it. You know, some of them that you look at, you're like, I hope it does. I mean, it has many CFU of something that,

37:30

But in the probiotic world, it's all about strain efficacy. So you may have a kefir may have 30 strains in it, and you may find that two of them have some function outside of turning your milk into a fermented beverage.

37:51

And so, which is why, you know, our kind of general guidelines that the probiotic association has is, you know, you should label genus, species and strain. And if you don't see that strain listed, it's probably because it wasn't studied. We don't know what it does. And it's just a generic, who knows, could be could be just turning milk into yogurt and it could be doing something, but we don't know.

38:14

What about in terms of, because my audience will probably be wanting to know, is there a database for consumers to identify a list of strains that are like from most studied to least studied? Or is there some cool database that you recommend for consumers? You know, there are a couple of databases that have been released.

38:35

being built for a long time. I'd be happy to send you a link to a couple of them afterwards. But, you know, really, you know, probiotics are one of those things where, you know, there's a handful of organisms that do the lion's share of the work in the market, and then lots and lots of other strains that have been studied. And then you have the generic

39:03

probiotic list. You've got acidophilus. And like I had mentioned earlier, it's all about the strain. A number of years ago, a university looked at, there's the most studied strain on the market in the world is a strain called Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG. It's the strain that's in culturel. It has literally, I believe there are over 2000 studies on this strain.

39:26

And so, and it's, you know, universities and everybody's done, everybody's studied the strength. But so what they did was, because what we were finding is, is you'd go to, you know, a retailer and they would have a compared to cultural.

39:42

But the problem was, is the only people that could buy cult, the black bacillus GG were the people that were making cultural. So the others weren't actually compared to, it's not like a seed of menathan that you can do compared to Tylenol. Yeah. It's not like a strong reference material is what he's saying. And so basically,

39:59

like for example, this university, they used the Lactobacillus GG as the zero, as the reference material. And then they sequenced 99 strains of other Lactobacillus rhamnosus. And they were anywhere from 99.9% similar all the way down to 86%. And so to put that in comparison, we have way more genetically in common

40:27

to chickens than the 86% strain has to black faciles GG. But still people are using the strain saying it's the same thing. And so, you know, that's kind of like, that's a heck of a reach, you know, when you're that far apart genetically. And so it really is, the strain is everything.

40:46

The research has to be done on the strain. You'll see, oh, acidophilus does that. You're like, which one? Some do, some don't. And so you have to, so I would advise consumers to really be looking for that strain designation. If it doesn't exist, it's probably not there for a reason.

41:05

because they're trying to, you know, trying to shortcut something. And and if it does exist, it should be easy enough to put it into the into Google and pull up any PubMed articles or whatever, as long as you have the strain designation. All that's public information. Really fascinating.

41:23

What about a lot of my consumers or like audience would probably want to know about like stacking, combining strains. They don't, they're probably thinking, do they compete when they're in a capsule, when they get broken down? What are your thoughts on that? I mean, there's not been a ton.

41:40

ton of studies done specifically about the interaction of various strains. Like in the capsule, we don't have to worry about it. They're just hanging out, doing their thing. Once they get into the gut and they start germinating, the question is, is like, are they going to out-compete each other for nutrients? If you put it in perspective, somebody just the other day asked me, they said, you know, I need, my gut's all screwed up. I had a microbiome test. It's all screwed up. I need to take a pro, which probiotic will fix my gut? And I said, that's like saying,

42:08

which thimble should I use to fill my swimming pool? I mean, you may be able to do it over time or with enough thimbles full, but you've got hundreds of trillions of CFU of bacteria and fungi in your gut, and you're going to throw a billion CFU of some probiotic every day in a capsule, and a portion of it's going to die, and then you're going to get what the studied remaining amount

42:33

And it may do a thing that it's been studied for. It may help move an immune marker or something like that. But if you think that that one probiotic is going to fix your gut, you're going to be disappointed. And so I do recommend like people are, you know, the general rule of thumb is, is if you're going to be on an antibiotic, take a probiotic like FloraStor. So a yeast-based probiotic. They're not killed by the antibiotics while you're,

43:02

Every other probiotic should be killed by the antibiotics. It's kind of like one of those we don't want probiotics to be antibiotic resistant and so And then when people finish up with antibiotics, I kind of recommend it's like a well-documented You know List of strains, you know in a product whether it's you know Jaro or Garden of Life or you know one of these types of organizations that have well studied strains in their in their products and

43:29

do that for 60 to 90 days along with like a cultural or a digestive advantage or all like I do. I just, if I have to, God forbid, if I take antibiotics, I'm taking, you know, four or five probiotics for the next, you know, 30 to 90 days and not having issues with

43:47

I also encourage people, you know, get your gut tested. You know, there's good companies out there doing testing. There's a company called Biome, for example, based out of Cleveland, Ohio, and they actually test fungi levels as well. And so you may find people

44:03

their gut bacteria may be out of whack because they've got a huge dominant amount of a certain candida strain or something like that. And your typical microbiome testing doesn't really look at fungi. And so I encourage people to do it on a regular basis. And if I was a probiotic formulator making products as part of my, and I was selling a subscription-based model, I would include probiotic, I'd be including gut testing every six months

44:32

through the life of my subscription. It shows consumers that what they're trying to affect. Yeah, it's an objective measure will always impress a consumer because they're not always in tune with how they actually feel as well. And in terms of you mentioned there around the Flora store, you said…

44:51

flora store and then a combination of other probiotics when you're using an antibiotic. Well, so the antibiotic, I generally recommend to people, you know, don't stop taking your probiotic when you're on antibiotics, because even the cell walls of probiotics often have an effect on the immune system. So like a lot of postbiotics, what are they? They're typically they're just heat inactivated

45:15

probiotics. Sometimes they're a metabolic gamish and the cell walls. But, you know, so if the antibiotic kills the bacteria, the cell wall is still intact. But then, you know, start, you know, then kind of take a multi-strain product for a while and then, you know, then get back to your routine.

45:36

And obviously include healthy fibers and prebiotics along the way. And it really helps mitigate some of the problems that people have with antibiotics. We should also dispel the myth that all antibiotics wipe out gut bacteria, because that's not true, right? Because not all antibiotics actually…

45:56

you know, get metabolized in that way where they're actually, because some of them are only absorbed, what is it, in the stomach or something? Well, and there's antibiotics for gram negatives and antibiotics for, you know, other types of things. And so, yeah, I mean, certain antibiotics and I'm not, I don't have my antibiotic and probiotic interaction list in front of me, but some antibiotics, you know, hey, if you take Cipro, you're probably going to have problems with your gut bacteria. But if you're taking Cipro, you probably got something bigger going on than a little

46:25

you know, a little diarrhea during your, your antibiotic treatment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you're referring to, cause I've used the word, the abbreviation Cipro for another drug before in this podcast. Cipro is like that super antibiotic that they would give you if you were like, if you, if you got anthrax. Yeah. Yeah. So like really, really intense, not, not Ciproheptadine, which is a different drug that I've spoken about. It's, it's Cipro. What's the actual drug name? Ciprohexamethasone.

46:54

- Ciproflaxin or something? - Yeah, Ciproflaxin, yep. - Yeah, something like that. Okay. Well, in terms of my, I mean, another side tangent is also looking at like a traveler's diarrhea protocol. You might wanna mention some other, I mean, I've got some other great ingredients in mind in terms of like activated charcoal, some sort of like binder, but yeah, what would you say for consumers, yeah, looking to prevent traveler's diarrhea? - So a couple of years ago we went to India

47:23

I wanted to try my solution for this and it was take Florastor. So it's Saccharomyces boulardii. So I started taking Florastor about 30 days before we left along with my regular probiotics. I added Digestive Advantage, which is BC30, the spore former. So I was taking the Florastor and BC30 and Culturel

47:51

the entire time that we were in India and before.

47:55

Zero problems, no problems whatsoever. In fact, I can proudly state that of the tour group that we were with, they were all people we knew, I was the only person that had zero digestive issues. It may also have to do with the fact that we would stop at a roadside restaurant and they would go to the home-style restaurant and I would say, I think Domino's pizza would be good. It would be a good choice at this particular rest area. And so, but…

48:22

And I mean, I travel all the time. I was in Mexico a couple weeks ago and we were in Japan last year. I've never had a problem

48:30

And I think that, you know, by adding the florist store and things like that, it'll prevent the traveler's diarrhea. You know, if you, you know, if you wind up getting sick, you know, active activated charcoal is great for like binding with stuff in the stomach. But if you're taking activated charcoal, you're doing it, you know, ahead of time or you're doing it because there's a problem. You're typically not going to start taking activated charcoal ahead of time because, you know, it's also grabbed some of the medications we're on and things like that.

48:58

Yeah, because I've got a story when I was in London. Funnily enough, I went to the supermarket and I bought what I thought was already cooked chicken. But it was actually uncooked chicken that was left in the fridge. And I remember I got back very late that night, but I was starving and I opened the fridge and I saw the chicken. It was already crumbed as well. So I thought it was already cooked and I took a bite, swallowed it. It was pretty dark. And then I'm like,

49:27

Five seconds later, I realized I just swallowed uncooked chicken. And then I took like heaps of activated charcoal and

49:36

And I was completely fine. Plus, I mean, it was in the refrigerator. Salmonella doesn't do so great in the refrigerator. And usually you have to have quite a bit or an E. Coli or something. Hopefully. And plus, it was the UK. They've got good sanitation practices in their chicken processing plants and things like that. And so.

50:03

No, really, really interesting. Well, Michael, if my audience wants to connect with you, I've got a lot of supplement formulators that, that listen to my podcast and, you know, people that want to get in touch with you, where can they, where can they find you? Growthways.com. So my website for, you know, I have an advisory firm. So growthways.com I'm on LinkedIn and things like that, but always glad to hear from folks. You know, I've been in this space now, you know, 20 years almost. And so it's, yeah,

50:30

I love it and I also, one of the things I love and enjoy doing is I wrote a book last year about growing to sell your natural products business. And so I love working with entrepreneurs, especially earlier in the game.

50:48

Or as they get prepared to sell their company, you know, what do we do? You know, how do we how do we make sure that we get the maximum value when when we sold Gnaden? I'm still proud of the fact that we sold it for industry high multiple 24 and a half times EBITDA. And so, yeah. And so so by using some of the practices that we that we used and developed there when we were running that business and previous ones before that,

51:13

It's all about making sure that you're maximizing value. And even if you don't plan on selling the business, maximizing value is pretty important because the value could be going, could be cash in the pocket of the company versus, you know, wasted money on things that you're just burning cash.

51:32

Oh, definitely. And that's not something that I've really thought deeply about because I've only just launched my own supplement brand. You know, I'm planning on being in this for at least another like 15 to 20 years because I absolutely love the idea of formulating. But you never know, like there might be opportunities that pop up.

51:49

you know and i need to be sort of ready for that well and it depends too on how what what you're doing with your business you know a lot of businesses in our space are venture capital backed or and then they once they get successful maybe the private equity firm will take them for a second shot or they're sold to a strategic um but the natural products industry is

52:07

is a very particular industry when it comes to starting to sell businesses. And it's just because a lot of us in the industry, we've never built a billion dollar brand, but we could build a $50 million brand or a $100 million brand, but getting it from 50 million to a billion is what Procter &amp; Gamble does or Cary does or Novanesis or companies like that.

52:33

Nestle, for example, they're great at that. And so they're great and they have very ideal targets that they want to acquire. And I think that everybody would be well served to put themselves in a position to be one of those preferred targets rather than, “Oh no, what am I going to do with my business? I'm making money, I'm just…” But are you building yourself a business or are you building yourself a job? And so it's the big difference.

53:02

Yeah, really fascinating. Well, make sure to leave that growthways.com link in the podcast show notes. But otherwise, Michael, you've shared so much wisdom and yeah, really insightful stuff around the probiotic space and the prebiotic market. I mean,

53:17

Definitely make sure to, everyone, if anyone's listening into this podcast and wants to get in touch with Michael, definitely do so. He's a wealth of knowledge. And if you guys have enjoyed today's podcast, please do leave it a five-star review. It really does help with the algorithm. And please do share the podcast around. That definitely helps to increase the reach of my podcast. Otherwise, Michael, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you. Awesome.

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</markdown>

D:2025.07.09<markdown>

迈克尔・布什，是 Growth Ways Partners 的联合创始人，在新型配方、益生菌、补剂等方面拥有丰富的知识。

迈克尔・布什说自己一开始在医疗行业工作。1999 年左右，他对医疗行业感到失望，因为这个行业基本是通过在人们生命的最后时刻治疗尽可能多的疾病来赚尽可能多的钱，而不是致力于让人们保持健康。于是他做出了转变，当时去了一家生物信息学公司工作，完成了公司的转型，之后把公司卖掉了。接着他去了一家类似医疗设备但更偏向服务的公司，之后就开始做咨询。幸运的是，他有个朋友是克利夫兰一家名为 Gnaden Biotech 的益生菌公司的首席财务官，朋友请他去看看公司的消费品业务，他说自己不是消费品领域的人，但肯定有人是。后来他们又请他去看看公司的专利组合，从技术角度看看公司的情况，他发现公司有一种非常新颖的益生菌，却没有围绕它发表研究，还有补剂业务，当时有大约 9 种补剂产品在 5 万家商店销售，品牌卖得还不错。2006 年，在与消费者交流并观察趋势后，他看到了机会。当时达能大力推广 Activia，消费者出现了 “药片疲劳”，他们吃够了胶囊和片剂，所以他看到了将这种特定益生菌应用到食品和饮料行业的机会，于是他们全力以赴。2012 年，他们把补剂业务卖给了利洁时，现在利洁时在运营这个品牌，他们则经营原料业务。2017 年，他们把原料业务卖给了一家爱尔兰的原料和服务公司 Carrie，到那时，他们的产品已经进入 70 个国家的约 1400 种食品和饮料中。消费者喜欢这样的益生菌，它有 38 项已发表的临床研究，而且不用每天吃胶囊、片剂或软糖之类的，而是可以通过喝康普茶、吃松饼或强化谷物等方式摄入。他就这样爱上了天然产品行业和遇到的人，益生菌行业也让他非常感兴趣，他深入其中，还曾担任国际益生菌协会的主席。他看到这个领域有很大的倡导空间，益生菌行业发展迅猛，下周在温哥华将举行国际益生菌协会最大的会议之一。看到这个行业不断发展，变得越来越对消费者负责、对消费者友好，而且围绕益生菌、益生元、后生元的高质量临床研究越来越多，他觉得这是一个很棒的行业，很享受其中，也看到它改变了很多人的生活。

卢卡斯说很有趣的是迈克尔见证了这个行业的诸多演变，从典型的标准益生菌胶囊到不同的产品形式，他想知道目前在产品形式方面有什么真正有趣的趋势，是更多液态形式还是食品形式。迈克尔回答说仍然能看到食品形式，也有很多胶囊，现在益生菌最大的销售渠道仍然是强化酸奶，占行业的绝大部分。如今在形式上，虽然基本保持不变，但越来越多的益生菌强化食品和饮料出现了，而且益生元和后生元也开始进入以前不能添加任何益生菌的食品和饮料中。就益生菌的发展方向而言，和 10 年前预测的几乎一样，2006 年主要关注消化，后来转向免疫，之后出现了一些关于心脏的研究。现在则是各种专门用途的益生菌，比如针对压力的专用菌株、针对 GLP 激活或症状缓解的菌株、针对复发性肾结石甚至痛风的菌株，在运动营养领域，关于蛋白质和益生菌如何协同作用的研究也很多。

卢卡斯说这确实很令人兴奋，因为他一直也期待这些益生菌能更针对特定器官、组织和细胞通路。他提到上次聊天时，迈克尔提到了一种能显著提高大脑中 GABA 水平的特定益生菌，想让迈克尔多分享一些。迈克尔说这是一家名为 Verb Biotics 的公司，他是该公司的董事会成员，这家公司是从 Ginkgo Bioworks 分拆出来的。他们利用人工智能等技术筛选了 2 亿个菌株，专门寻找一种代谢物。大多数人是先找到一种益生菌，觉得有趣，再研究它的作用，而 Verb 则是从作用机制出发。他们想找到能在肠道中产生临床有效量 GABA 的物质，GABA 是一种神经递质，已被证明对压力和睡眠非常有帮助。经过筛选和测试，他们最终找到了一种特殊的植物乳杆菌，编号 LP815。这种菌进入肠道后，能在肠道中产生临床相关量的 GABA，目前已经完成了三项临床试验，结果显示能显著减轻人类的压力，对伴侣动物也有效果，在狗和猫身上，GABA 对它们的焦虑症状帮助很大，对人类也一样效果很好。这只是一个例子，说明利用现有的技术，研究大量的微生物，以前筛选 200 个菌株都非常费力，现在技术先进，精准定位分子甚至细菌都变得很容易。卢卡斯问从技术上讲，这种是否可以归类为心理益生菌，迈克尔说可以，虽然各机构还在努力定义各种类型，但它本质上还是益生菌，符合世界卫生组织对益生菌的公认定义，只是它存在的主要目的是缓解压力、改善情绪和睡眠。

卢卡斯提到阿克曼氏菌经常被提及，有很多有益作用，比如代谢支持，甚至有助于胰岛素敏感性，他想知道还有哪些特定菌株是迈克尔看好的后起之秀。迈克尔说丁酸盐是肠道细菌的 “王牌”，但服用丁酸或丁酸盐不是什么愉快的事，味道很难闻，也很难配方。同样是 Verb 公司，正在研究一种丁酸盐产生菌，专门用于在肠道中产生丁酸盐，而不需要服用某种包衣丁酸盐或丁酸，这种新型菌株还没有获得 GRAS 认证，但将来会的。卢卡斯问为什么在所有其他短链脂肪酸中，丁酸盐受到这么多关注，迈克尔说就他所知，丁酸盐在刺激肠道细菌生长方面活性最强，就像肠道细菌的 “兴奋剂”，只要有丁酸盐，它们就会大量生长。在益生元领域，很多人想把益生元和益生菌结合起来，促使益生元帮助产生丁酸盐，但目前能产生足够量丁酸盐的菌株并不多。卢卡斯又问在 GLP-1 方面，他看到一些临床前研究提到某些菌株可以提高 GLP-1 水平，想知道迈克尔认为哪些有价值，还是说为时尚早。迈克尔认为为时尚早，人们参考科学文献，认为往肠道里加一些纤维就能激活 GLP，于是就想做一种含有 5 克纤维的能量棒，称之为 GLP 激活剂，但这对消费者并不诚实，因为消费者听到 GLP 会想到 GLP 类药物，以为吃了这种能量棒就不会饿，不用开 Ozempic 之类的处方，但事实并非如此，否则通用磨坊或桂格燕麦早就靠燕麦片解决减肥问题了。不过他也看到一些有趣的事情，有研究显示一种益生菌能显著减轻服用 GLP 药物带来的症状和副作用，比如减少恶心等，这很 cool，他认为未来会有更多这方面的研究，看看能和 GLP 药物一起服用什么来减少副作用，提高依从性，同时保证药效，因为一旦停药，药效就没了。

卢卡斯问除了益生菌领域，他的听众喜欢听新成分的消息，迈克尔多年来是否在开创或注册补剂成分方面有贡献。迈克尔说有很多，他曾担任 Gnaden 公司的首席执行官，他们卖掉公司时，公司有一种名为 Gnaden BC30 的专利产品，现在改名为 BC30，这种产品存在于数千种食品中。他现在合作的一家公司，有一种奇怪的类似物，就人类健康而言，不一定是功能性成分，但现在面临的一个问题是人工防腐剂，比如苯甲酸钠等。他所在董事会的一家名为 Kinova 的公司，他们从废弃的蘑菇茎中提取壳聚糖，这是一种素食壳聚糖，通常市场上的壳聚糖来自贝类。他们对这种壳聚糖进一步加工，使其成为一种天然、完全有机的防腐剂，可以替代隧道巴氏杀菌，在某些应用中，特别是饮料中，替代所有人工防腐剂。这种成分有趣的一点是，它作为一种很好的防腐剂，能去除人工防腐剂，还可以在标签上列为天然香料，因为这是它的标准特性，所以在含有这种成分的食品或饮料的成分表上，甚至不会标注含有防腐剂，因为它实际上被归类为香料。卢卡斯问使用它的目的是延长保质期吗，迈克尔说是的，是为了消除人工防腐剂的使用，比如对于 Poppy 这样的公司，他们用隧道巴氏杀菌，每罐成本约 2 美分，而使用这种有机成分成本不到 1 美分，能达到同样的防腐效果，还不用消耗那么多能源，也不用进行隧道巴氏杀菌，还能增加碳酸化，真是 “变废为宝”，用废弃的蘑菇茎制作出这种有趣的防腐剂。

卢卡斯说这有点偏离主题，但关于增稠剂、填充剂和添加剂，比如二氧化钛或硬脂酸镁，他个人不太理解为什么硬脂酸镁受到那么多批评，因为它只是镁和硬脂酸，硬脂酸并不不健康。迈克尔说很多人把硬脂酸镁用作助流剂，在胶囊之类的产品中含量极少，二氧化钛也是如此。他觉得有趣的是，人们会在意胶囊里的成分，却不去看看午餐吃了什么，还有人因为想要植物胶囊而换补剂，可这可能是他们一生中唯一做的素食相关的事，而明胶其实是健康食品，含有甘氨酸，他不理解这种逻辑。现在甚至有用海藻等制作明胶的，几乎所有东西都有天然或素食的替代品了，但还需要一段时间才能普及。卢卡斯问有没有消费者应该谨慎的成分，比如甜味剂、染料或色素，迈克尔说很多人对糖醇很敏感，比如赤藓糖醇，关于人工色素也有相关研究，虽然不是他的专业领域，但他认为不管是食品还是补剂，成分表越短越好，如果不清楚成分表上的东西，他不喜欢专有混合物，在益生菌领域，看到产品标注有 300 亿 CFU，列出 15 种菌株，却不知道是否其中一种嗜酸乳杆菌就占 299 亿 CFU，其他的几乎没有。如果公司遵循标签要求或指南，通常是值得信任的，如果公司在某种程度上含糊其辞，通常是有原因的。

卢卡斯说他完全同意关于专有混合物的看法，作为配方师，他更愿意在标签上透明地标明每种成分的含量，但又想知道如何保护自己的配方，是申请专利还是商标。迈克尔说可以注册商标，如果要对专有混合物进行临床研究，就给这个混合物起个名字注册商标，这样如果将来有人想用你的临床试验结果来宣传他们自己的、恰好相同的专有混合物，就侵犯了你的商标权。配方也可以申请专利，如果是真正新颖的配方，申请专利也不是很难，他经常鼓励人们提前做好专利和商标工作，以免为别人做了嫁衣。

卢卡斯问迈克尔提到的包被咖啡因是怎么回事，迈克尔说很多公司能够对咖啡因进行包被，就像缓释药物一样，这种包衣能让咖啡因在 4 到 6 小时内分解，药代动力学研究显示，这样能使咖啡因水平保持在足以让人清醒的水平，不会有峰值，也不会之后崩溃，这种技术很酷，现在不仅用于咖啡因，还扩展到益生菌和其他功能性成分，比如有些益生菌要在小肠生长，有些要在大肠生长，理论上可以对益生菌进行包衣，保护它们免受胃酸和胆汁盐的破坏，然后在小肠释放一半，在大肠释放另一半，这种输送功能性成分的方式很有趣，现在有几家公司在这方面做了一些创新，除了胶囊和保护措施，更多地采用缓释方法，对成分本身进行包衣。

卢卡斯对不同的给药途径很感兴趣，特别是舌下给药，想知道哪些分子有舌下给药的能力，迈克尔有没有这方面的经验或了解的产品。迈克尔说以前做过一些关于薄条和舌下给药的研究，原理是让分子避免被消化，对于那些容易被分解的分子，舌下给药是个不错的选择，他见过舌下给药的 B12，还有很多药物也是舌下给药，这样效果更好，因为分子足够小，能直接通过。几年前，很多人想做透皮给药，什么都想做成贴片，但很多分子太大，根本无法通过皮肤进入血液，有一个关于分子通过皮肤的规律，只是他忘了具体内容，但超过一定分子量的分子确实无法进入血液。

卢卡斯说优化荷尔蒙健康是一个重要领域，特别是男性睾酮优化，市场很大，睾酮水平总体在下降， fertility 也是如此，想知道迈克尔有什么有趣的内容可以分享给听众。迈克尔说在睾酮方面，从肠道角度来说研究不多，但在女性健康方面，情况令人难以置信，他 57 岁了，现在千禧一代开始进入围绝经期，行业发现当千禧一代出现这种情况时，必须加大补剂的生产，因为她们比 X 一代，尤其是婴儿潮一代更有可能选择补剂。现在有一些有趣的产品，比如一家名为 Nouri 的益生菌公司，专注于女性健康，也有男性健康产品即将推出，但女性健康方面，不仅要处理荷尔蒙问题和代谢问题，还有阴道健康，益生菌在这方面有很大作用。从荷尔蒙平衡来看，每家他交谈过的公司都在关注男性健康，在男性健康领域，关于性健康和性 wellness 已经做了很多研究，在女性健康方面，关于更年期、荷尔蒙平衡和阴道健康的研究也越来越多，这两个领域都在蓬勃发展，尤其是女性健康，女性往往更关注自己的健康，定期看医生，而男性则不然。

卢卡斯之前提到了某些纤维，他一直在宣传部分水解瓜尔胶（PHGG），想知道除了众所周知的洋车前子壳，这个领域有什么发展。迈克尔说纤维市场分为普通纤维和益生元，不是所有纤维都是益生元，也不是所有益生元都是纤维，但一些更有趣的纤维是那些只需服用少量就能产生良好临床效果的。比如菊粉是最受欢迎的益生元，但很多人对菊粉敏感，会胀气，剂量在 5 到 20 克之间，很难装入胶囊，也很难加入食品中，如果在食品中加入 5 到 10 克，会占据很大空间，比如蛋白棒有时会加菊粉。现在有一些纤维，比如短链低聚果糖（FOS），其中 Nutraflora 研究得非常透彻，对肠道健康、免疫健康等都有帮助，还有低聚木糖，虽然从来源看像纤维，但化学结构使其目前不被归类为纤维，每天服用 2 克或 2.5 克，就能很好地支持消化、免疫等功能。卢卡斯问低聚木糖不被归类为纤维，那被归为什么，迈克尔说只是被称为益生元。

卢卡斯说当人们说益生元能促进有益菌生长时，大多数人可能会想到乳杆菌属、双歧杆菌属等，但实际上肠道中有很多我们无法培养的菌株，比如共生菌，它们很重要。迈克尔说确实有很多重要的共生菌，比如 Phacobacteria prosnitiki（可能拼写有误），这种细菌在减轻炎症等很多方面都非常重要，但没人能弄清楚如何在人体外培养它，阿克曼氏菌也是如此，还有一些严格厌氧菌，必须在无氧环境中培养、保存，这些菌株很神奇。行业正在研究如何在肠道中培养这些无法在体外培养的神奇菌株，这就需要益生元和丁酸盐等物质，因为我们肠道中都有各种细菌和真菌，我们要确保支持有益菌的生长，不让有害菌失控。很多益生元就能帮助维持这种平衡，促进有益菌生长，同时不支持大肠杆菌、沙门氏菌或梭菌等我们肠道中本来就有的细菌过度生长。

卢卡斯问是什么让乳杆菌和双歧杆菌如此容易合成，以至于它们无处不在。迈克尔说它们容易生长，而且是最早被发现有益处的菌株。他以前做过一个关于益生菌历史的演讲，其中提到成吉思汗，据说他的士兵用骆驼的肠子来保存牛奶，他们发现喝这种牛奶的人比不喝的人更健康，当时不知道原因，其实是牛奶发酵后，变成了富含益生菌的牛奶，而当时发酵牛奶的就是乳杆菌、双歧杆菌、芽孢杆菌等菌株。现在人们开始研究这些之外的菌株，几年前还有一次分类学上的变化，很多益生菌的名字被改了，这可能让人们更愿意使用除乳杆菌或双歧杆菌之外的属，因为消费者也能认出来。

卢卡斯问开菲尔市场的演变情况，迈克尔说市场上有很多很棒的产品，含有大量有益细菌，有些产品的 CFU 数量看起来很多，但在益生菌领域，关键是菌株的功效，一种开菲尔可能含有 30 种菌株，但其中可能只有两种除了能把牛奶变成发酵饮料外，还有其他功能。国际益生菌协会的一般指导原则是，标签上应该标明属、种和菌株，如果没有标明菌株，可能是因为没有研究过，不知道它的作用，只是一种通用的菌株，可能只是能把牛奶变成酸奶，也许还有其他作用，但不确定。

卢卡斯问有没有供消费者查询菌株研究情况的数据库，从研究最多到最少排列，或者有没有推荐的数据库。迈克尔说有几个数据库正在建设中，之后可以发链接给卢卡斯。在益生菌领域，有一些菌株做了大量研究，还有很多其他菌株也有研究，另外还有一些通用的益生菌，比如嗜酸乳杆菌。几年前，一所大学研究了市场上研究最多的菌株 —— 鼠李糖乳杆菌 GG，也就是 Culturel 中的菌株，有超过 2000 项研究。因为只有生产 Culturel 的公司能买到鼠李糖乳杆菌 GG，其他人无法进行比较，所以这所大学以鼠李糖乳杆菌 GG 为参考标准，对其他 99 种鼠李糖乳杆菌进行了测序，发现它们与 GG 株的相似度从 99.9% 到 86% 不等，我们和鸡的基因相似度都比 86% 的菌株与 GG 株的相似度高，但仍有人说这种菌株和 GG 株一样，这太牵强了，所以菌株至关重要，必须对菌株进行研究，不能笼统地说嗜酸乳杆菌有某种作用，因为不同菌株效果不同。他建议消费者一定要看菌株名称，如果没有，可能是有原因的，想走捷径，如果有菌株名称，很容易在谷歌上找到相关的 PubMed 文章等，这些都是公开信息。

卢卡斯问很多听众想知道不同菌株的组合使用，它们在胶囊中分解后会不会相互竞争，迈克尔对此有什么看法。迈克尔说关于不同菌株之间的相互作用，研究并不多，在胶囊中它们只是共存，没问题，进入肠道开始繁殖后，问题是它们会不会为了营养而相互竞争。有人问他肠道菌群紊乱，做了菌群检测，吃哪种益生菌能修复肠道，他说这就像用一个顶针去填满游泳池，可能需要很长时间或很多顶针，肠道中有数万亿的细菌和真菌，每天吃 10 亿 CFU 的益生菌，一部分会死亡，剩下的可能会起到研究中显示的作用，但想靠一种益生菌修复肠道，会失望的。他建议服用抗生素时，服用像 Florastor 这样的酵母基益生菌，它们不会被抗生素杀死，其他益生菌则会被抗生素杀死，因为我们不希望益生菌有抗生素耐药性，服用完抗生素后，服用有充分研究的菌株产品，比如 Jaro、Garden of Life 等公司的产品，持续 60 到 90 天，再加上 Culturel 或 Digestive Advantage 等，如果他自己服用抗生素，接下来的 30 到 90 天会服用 4 到 5 种益生菌，不会有问题。他还鼓励人们做肠道检测，有很多好公司在做，比如俄亥俄州克利夫兰的 Biome 公司，他们还检测真菌水平，可能会发现有些人肠道细菌失衡是因为某种念珠菌菌株占主导，而典型的菌群检测不会关注真菌。如果他是益生菌配方师，销售订阅式产品，会每 6 个月提供一次肠道检测，让消费者看到产品的效果。

卢卡斯说客观的测量结果总能给消费者留下深刻印象，因为他们并不总是能意识到自己的感受，他还提到迈克尔说过服用抗生素时用 Florastor，再结合其他益生菌，他想确认是不是所有抗生素都会破坏肠道菌群，因为有些抗生素可能只在胃里被吸收。迈克尔说有针对革兰氏阴性菌的抗生素，也有针对其他细菌的，某些抗生素，比如环丙沙星，可能会对肠道细菌造成问题，但如果服用环丙沙星，可能有更严重的问题，而不是抗生素治疗期间的轻微腹泻。卢卡斯说环丙沙星是治疗炭疽时用的强效抗生素，通用名是环丙沙星。迈克尔接着说关于旅行者腹泻的预防，几年前他去印度，想试试自己的方法，提前 30 天开始服用 Florastor（布拉氏酵母菌），加上常规的益生菌，还加了含有 BC30（一种芽孢杆菌）的 Digestive Advantage，在印度期间也一直服用 Florastor、BC30 和 Culturel，结果他是旅行团中唯一没有消化问题的人，这可能也和他选择食物有关，比如在路边餐馆，其他人去家庭式餐馆，他会选择多米诺披萨。他经常旅行，几周前在墨西哥，去年在日本，都没有问题，他认为提前服用 Florastor 等能预防旅行者腹泻，如果生病了，活性炭有助于在胃里结合有害物质，但一般不会提前服用，因为它也会吸附正在服用的药物。卢卡斯分享了自己在伦敦的经历，误吃了未煮熟的鸡肉，之后服用了大量活性炭，没有出现问题，迈克尔说冰箱里沙门氏菌不容易存活，而且英国的鸡肉加工厂卫生条件好，可能没什么问题。

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D:2025.07.09

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