[00:00:01] Luke: So what is metabolic health? I know it has something to do with metabolism, but this is a word that is, thankfully, starting to become more popular. And I don't know that I'm totally clear on it as a general term or metric of someone's health.

[00:00:16] David: Yeah. First of all, thanks for having me here.

[00:00:18] Luke: Great to have you back, dude.

[00:00:19] David: Yeah. And it's always a pleasure to travel to Austin, visit your cool house. Metabolic health, and the opposite, metabolic syndrome, you'll hear it thrown out in podcasts, read it in blogs, and basically, it's about metabolism, about your metabolism, about people's metabolism.

[00:00:47] In the same vein, insulin sensitivity, type 2 diabetes. So basically, metabolic syndrome is when your triglycerides are high. You have high blood pressure. You have some beginnings of cardiovascular issues, cholesterol, and glucose, and insulin. So if you have high insulin, high glucose, you have trouble processing your glucose because high insulin typically allows the glucose to go into the muscles.

[00:01:25] And it may be, actually, better to back up to your original question in metabolic health. So what does a normal look like? So you eat a meal, and the carbohydrates turn into glucose, and that glucose stimulates insulin from your pancreas.

[00:01:46] That insulin creates a signal to your cells, and specifically cell receptors to receive glucose. The glucose enters the cell, and glucose, we all know is needed for energy, but it's not the usable form of energy. It goes to your mitochondria, which are the power centers of the cell.

[00:02:11] And then the reason we breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide is because the oxygen is needed for something called the Krebs cycle. And that takes glucose, which is like money in the bank. It's not the usable form of energy and creates the cash form of energy called adenosine triphosphate or ATP.

[00:02:34] And so you eat, insulin spikes, your glucose enters your cells, enters your muscles, and then it's out of your bloodstream. And then basically your cells are fed, and insulin turns off. Let's say you go to sleep. You go into semi-hibernation state. You wake up, your cortisol spikes, your glucose, because cortisol naturally increases glucose in a good way.

[00:03:08] You wake up and then you eat, and again, insulin turns on. The glucose is taken up into muscles that go into cells that give you energy, and it's a natural process. Now, the issue is what happens when glucose is always in your bloodstream and insulin is always on. There becomes a sensitivity, so things stop functioning properly. And so that insulin signal to your cells diminishes.

[00:03:40] It becomes less. So even though insulin is high, there's less of the glucose able to be taken up into your cells, and therefore your glucose levels in your blood are high. And so when that happens, it's bad. And so things called advanced glycation in products, which are basically when your glucose binds to things like proteins, it's called a sugar rust. You're rusting from the inside, and it's like reactive oxygen species. It ages you, and so it's bad.

[00:04:22] Luke: Is this related to the idea that sugar is inflammatory? Is that what makes it inflammatory?

[00:04:27] David: Absolutely.

[00:04:28] Luke: Oh, okay.

[00:04:29] David: Yeah. That's a basic framework for insulin sensitivity, metabolic health, metabolic syndrome.

[00:04:49] Luke: With metabolic syndrome, is obesity always a byproduct of that? Or can someone have that syndrome and not necessarily be overweight?

[00:04:57] David: They're hand in hand. Going back to metabolic syndrome, when you cannot process your glucose, it becomes stored as fat. And so that's why people who are obese typically have type 2 diabetes or are pre-diabetic. And they have blood pressure issues, and they have cardiovascular issues, and their triglycerides are high. And so it goes hand in hand.

[00:05:32] Luke: Continuum.

[00:05:33] David: Yeah. It's not a stretch to be like, "Okay, that person's in trouble." If you just look at them.

[00:05:42] Luke: I'm sure you've seen these memes because they're quite popular, because I think they're shot value of people on the beach in the 1950s, '60s, '70s, in all various countries and cultures, and there is not one obese person in the entire photo of dozens if not hundreds of people.

[00:06:02] If you took that same photo, pretty much most places in the world now, I'm sure, some countries more so than others, the thin people might even be the minority. Let alone if you walked into a Walmart.

[00:06:27] David: Or like Wood Grill or one of the all-you-can-eat buffets.

[00:06:25] Luke: Yeah. You're not going to find a lot of really thin people at the all-you-can-eat anything. But we're obviously in a crisis when it comes to this. And it's one of those, I think, boiling the frog things where it just becomes normalized and we don't really notice.

[00:06:41] And as I was telling you earlier, I've just been pretty much the same way my whole life. Actually, up until-- I got sober when I was 26, and I never weighed myself because I was just so emaciated. But I was 6'2, like I am now, and I was 135 pounds.

[00:06:59] I was just pretty thin. I did 30 days in treatment, I gained 30 pounds, and I went up to 165, and I weighed pretty much 165 most of my life. And then a couple years ago, I got on the raw milk tip, and I ballooned up to 195 or something. And I think probably that had a lot to do with just age too. So how does the age seem to make it more difficult for us to keep down our healthy fighting weight?

[00:07:28] David: Yeah. With age, a lot of things happen. The first thing that comes to mind is metabolism in terms of mitochondria. And so your mitochondrial function can diminish, which is why it's important to exercise and/or take supplements that perform autophagy, showing old mitochondria at the door, having them die, and be recycled to the new mitochondria.

[00:08:03] Fasting does that. Exercise does that. You can take a supplement like berberine, which we'll talk about, that can do that.

[00:08:11] Luke: Do you think Urolithin A is as legit as it claims to be in terms of mitophagy?

[00:08:20] David: I have not researched that, though, I was researching our next products in the discussion with ChatGPT, and it said that we need to have our next product be Urolithin A.

[00:08:36] Luke: Oh, interesting.

[00:08:38] David: I'm like, "What? What's the market on that?" Stuff like that. I'm like, "Okay, that's something I should look into."

[00:08:44] Luke: Yeah. I've done I think at least one show on it, and seems to me that there's enough research on it. And there's other benefits to it too, but that one's interesting. What about in terms of the mitochondrial function that, as you said, is one of the determining factors of metabolic health, deuterium depleted water? Have you geeked on that at all?

[00:09:09] David: No, never.

[00:09:11] Luke: That's another interesting one.

[00:09:12] David: What's it called?

[00:09:13] Luke: Deuterium depleted water or DDW. The idea here is that I've done a number of shows on this topic because it's so interesting. Over time, your body accumulates this heavy form of hydrogen called deuterium. It's in the air, water, food, etc. And so deuterium, for example, is much more prevalent in coastal areas than it is in high altitude, inland areas. And the same goes with water.

[00:09:39] So most groundwater, sea water is like 155 parts per million. Glacier water might be 129 or something. So over time, over eons of time, for some reasons unknown, this deuterium has become more abundant in our environment and thus in our bodies. And when this heavy hydrogen gets into the mitochondria, it gums up the nano motors, slowing down ATP production.

[00:10:08] So you can drink this water-- you can drink it as low as 10 parts per million, and basically, I look at it like giving yourself an oil change for your metabolic water. So if you drink anywhere from 10 parts per million, it'd be more like if you had cancer or something.

[00:10:25] Most people do it around, say, 65, 85 parts per million. And you basically just replace your normal drinking water, which is all about 155 with this very low deuterium water, and it displaces the older deuterium-heavy metabolic water in your body.

[00:10:46] And I've tested this, and it works. I tested my levels, and then did three months on the water, and they were down by 25 points or something like that. So it's really interesting, but it's one of those things that there's some research behind it, but it's difficult to quantify.

[00:11:09] It's like you could get on that water for three months, but how do you feel, David? And you're like, "I don't know." It's not like it gives you energy immediately, like coffee or something. But it's one of the most compelling things I've found in terms of metabolic health.

[00:11:12] David: Yeah. And I think also, it's really interesting. I'll have to have to look at one of your older podcasts on that, but when you age, you also have sarcopenia, the loss of muscle. And when you lose muscle, your glucose sinks. Where your glucose goes into the cells, you have less cells to absorb the glucose, less mitochondria to burn it into ATP, less energy. And so that's where the GLP-1s, which we can eventually dive into.

[00:11:50] Luke: Oh, it's on my list, trust me. Speaking of memes, oh my God, I'm seeing such crazy stuff about these drugs. But I don't want to go into that quite yet.

[00:12:00] David: Yeah. So basically, age, you drop your muscle, you drop cells that can absorb glucose, therefore, it's an issue. Because if you have glucose for the same reason I mentioned before, if you have glucose in your blood, it can be get stored into your fat, and once the glucose turns into glycogen, which is good, which we want, which is short-term energy stores for sprinting-- but once those stores are filled in your muscle around your organs, then it turns into fat.

[00:12:38] And so when fat stores around your organs, the organ function diminishes, and all these things happen with age.

[00:12:45] Luke: I never thought about the relationship between maintaining or building muscle and mitochondrial health. That's so funny. It's so obvious. Never occurred to me as we were talking earlier. I'm not really big on working out. I'm just not that guy.

[00:13:02] I do it like bare minimum, but that's a really good motivation, actually, in terms of aging and mitochondrial health, is to care about the aesthetics of having muscles, which I've never cared about enough to make them. But yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[00:13:21] David: So a little hack, which not related to my products, but HMB, hydroxymethylbutyrate. Basically, there's a study on 70-somethings. I think it's been a while now, but it's absurdly a large amount of butyrate. It's like eight or nine grams, like 5,000IUs. We take more than the study but of D3 with MK-7, K2. Actually, these 70-somethings' muscle, just that, no exercise

[00:14:07] Luke: Really?

[00:14:08] David: Yeah.

[00:14:09] Luke: Would that be the same as a calcium or sodium butyrate?

[00:14:14] David: No.

[00:14:15] Luke: Oh, okay.

[00:14:16] David: It would not be. Not to say those wouldn't have benefits, but-- obviously they're--

[00:14:23] Luke: Because I take those, and that helped me build muscle.

[00:14:24] David: Yeah.

[00:14:37] Luke: But I'm not taking five grams even of that. It's not the right form of butyrate, to which you referred.

[00:14:33] David: Yeah. So anyway, that's a little hack. But I'm trying desperately to build muscle because as we talked about, the longer you wait, as you age, the harder it gets. I don't want to say do or die, but it's like, okay, now's the time.

[00:14:54] Luke: Why is it so much harder to maintain muscle mass as you get older?

[00:15:06] David: That's a good question.

[00:15:05] Luke: If you put in some time and you do build a little muscle, I've noticed, as I age, it just disappears if I don't really keep it up.

[00:15:16] David: Yeah. It could be testosterone. It could be with diminishing testosterone as we age. There's just a lot of factors, even naturally produced-- we naturally produce butyrate, right?

[00:15:33] And so gut microbiome shifts. You have the microbiome of young kids, and that shifts to microbiome of older kids, like older adults. It's different. And the butyrate levels are different. But I don't feel like that's a good-- that's not a full answer. So I have to--

[00:15:54] Luke: We all have our areas of expertise. We're about to get into many of yours. But anytime someone sits in that seat, I just think of any possible question that I've wondered. Because if I wonder things, chances are some people in the audience have to.

[00:16:10] David: Yes.

[00:16:12] Luke: So going back to the epidemic of metabolic syndrome and related obesity, something that's been really interesting to me just culturally over the past few years has been this idea of body positivity and fat shaming and these kinds of things where there's, I don't know.

[00:16:35] It seems almost as-- I'm quite the conspiracy theorist, so I don't know how much of this is true, but there seems to be almost, I don't know, a push, an institutional propagandized push to normalize obesity when obesity is just not healthy. Now, I can see the compassionate intention maybe behind that.

[00:16:58] No one should be made fun of or criticized or put down or judged or anything like that because of the way their body looks. Hopefully people listening to the show or know I'm more evolved in that, and I'm sure people listening are as well. You don't judge one by some external thing. That's not even who they are anyway.

[00:17:17] So I'm all for people doing whatever they feel good with their body, even if that's being morbidly obese. But I think, for me, the difficulty is that there's a fine line between saying, "Hey, you love yourself for who you are, and we'll love you for who you are, no matter what you look like."

[00:17:35] There's a difference between that and saying, well, that's totally normal and healthy. It's like telling an alcoholic like, alcoholism's great. Keep drinking. Versus going, that's really bad for you. But if that's where you are right now, we're not going to judge you. We understand everyone has their own journey. What's your take on that as someone who's now starting to get some expertise and share information around obesity and so on?

[00:18:03] David: So yeah, that's a great question. Basically, we all know that, just from the reasons I've already mentioned, being obese is absolutely bad for you. Now, people can choose that and not care about their health. But saying obesity is okay, is wrong, from a health standpoint.

[00:21:21] There are reasons why people are obese that-- some people-- are beyond just laziness and lethargy and sloth. And so I'd say those people fit into their own category. But there's a lot of-- you just mentioned you don't like to workout. If you multiply that, but I also like to eat a lot of Doritos and sit in front of the TV and drink three, two liters of Coke a day, then that adds up.

[00:21:57] And so it doesn't make sense to say something's good that's not good. But it's also okay to be understanding like, okay, you're in that situation. And that's where one of my business partners, Martin Katz-- this part of why we came up with this GLPerfect, is he's not a weight loss clinic.

[00:22:24] He's a primary care doc. He's a family doc. But the amount of people who come in with metabolic disorder who really want help but can't get it, it's like, where do you begin? And so for those people out there who are listening, who maybe in that situation, where do you begin?

[00:22:44] And he would say, start walking. Get a wearable, like a Fitbit, Oura Ring. We were talking about the WHOOP, something where you can measure your heart rate. And so if you just can exercise, you don't have to pump iron. Just go for a walk. Get your heart rate up to zone 2. So 180 minus your age.

[00:23:12] If you do that, start with 15 minutes and build to 30 and then build to 45 and then walk for an hour. You will see a difference, that 180 minus your age, zone 2, that basically is where you burn fat. In fact, for me, I'm a swimmer.

[00:23:35] I have to really, really, really try to go slow to be in zone 2. Because I'm like zone 5 all the time. And so anyway, I would say that's a good, great starting place. And then look at your diet. The whole industrial food complex, they want you to eat fats, and they want you to eat sugars. Those give you that dopamine release, and they feel good. But they're diminishing returns.

[00:24:12] Luke: Ice cream is the best food on earth.

[00:24:16] David: Especially late at night when your melatonin is shut down, you can't produce insulin.

[00:24:20] Luke: That my poison, man. That's how I keep it real. I don't want to try to be too perfect. So in the cultural context that then, and I appreciate you being measured in your answer, but something came to mind for me.

[00:24:37] David: I don't feel like I was that measured.

[00:24:39] Luke: Yeah, you're pretty tame. I get to be the cook. I'll take the hits if they are any. You're representing a company. I'm just representing myself so people can take it or leave it. But I think that there's a balance of that compassion because I've had things on my past. I've talked about a lot, addiction being the main one that I'm sure I was judged for, and at that time when I was trapped in that, there was nothing I could do about it.

[00:25:06] It was totally beyond my control because of underlying issues of trauma and things like that. And my maternal grandmother-- you can't diagnose an addict. It has to be done by the person afflicted, but I would say she was a food addict, and she used food to medicate unresolved emotions and things like that and was morbidly obese my entire life.

[00:25:28] And then eventually got dementia. So I definitely have compassion for the plight of someone who uses food in that way. But it's not compassionate to tell them, "Oh, you're beautiful the way you are. And it's normal and fine to be that overweight." Because there's going to be a lot of suffering down the road for that person. So I think that's why I raised that question. And also, I believe that live and let live. Do what you want to do. If you're not hurting anyone else, go nuts. That's my motto.

[00:26:00] David: And there can be a level of beauty, but I think what we're both saying is like a red flag going off. It's not loving to say you're fine when you're not fine health wise. I think that's what perhaps your question is getting at. And the loving thing to do is say, hey, there's some easy steps you can take.
[00:26:31] The other thing I was going to say, we was going with the high sugar, high fat, like eat vegetables. Holy smokes. If you fill up on veggies, not with lots of oils or just eat vegetables, and they'll fill you up, and they're good for you. You get your micronutrients. Eat organic, grass-fed, grass-finished meats like beef.

[00:26:59] Those will provide a level of satiation so you're not hungry. And for the love that is good, do not drink sugary beverages. That's if you can just get away from those. My non-water of choice, I throw some electrolytes IN water. It's tasty, and the LMNT, I don't know if you use those.

[00:27:32] Luke: I have.

[00:27:33] David: I think they're great. So anyway, those are some suggestions, but I'd say walk for 15 minutes, get a heart rate monitor, get your heart rate up, and then build.

[00:27:45] Luke: Over the years, I've noticed sugar be demonized by the big food. And then I've noticed fat be demonized. So there was a period where everything was low fat or no fat. And then no sugar, etc. And then they do use aspartame in place of the sugar and the seed oils in place of the fat.

[00:28:02] And a lot of it, I think, was just marketing. It's cheaper to sell fat from the rape seed oil than it is fat from grass-fed pasture raised regenerative tallow. You know what I mean? And coconut oil.

[00:28:17] David: There's quite a bit of tallow out there not being used.

[00:28:20] Luke: Totally. Yeah. Thankfully there are some companies getting hit to that. What's your take on do saturated fats, and I'm talking about the healthy ones, coconut oil, ghee, etc., do they actually make you fat, or is that propaganda? And does sugar in a healthy form, I don't know, coconut water or something like that, make you fat? Do healthy sugars and fats also make you as fat as the toxic substitutes?

[00:28:46] David: Yes, they do make you fat.

[00:28:49] Luke: Damn it.

[00:28:49] David: No, not as much as the unhealthy substitutes. And the reason for that is what's going on. With a seed oil, it's high in omega-06 fatty acids. It's rancid, probably, and so it has a lot of oxidation. And so your antioxidant response system needs to be revved up to deal with that. Or you get building of plaques right in your cardiovascular system. And so will that happen with tallow? No, not in the same way. Unless it's rancid as well.

[00:29:35] But I think a lot of the movement for replacing seed oils with natural oils, I wish it were more prevalent. Our friend and I ate at The Well and no seed oils. Because every time I eat at a restaurant, there's this low level of anxiety I have. Like, what is in the food?

[00:30:02] Luke: I know.

[00:30:02] David: What are they hiding?

[00:30:05] Luke: I'm even more psycho. I'm like, "What's their cookware? Are they using Teflon? And are they using tap water to make that broth or the soup or whatever?" It's crazy. I used to think about this when you go get a bowl of rice somewhere. It's like there's so much water in it. I used to eat a lot of Korean food, Japanese food as well in LA, and then I realized like, "Oh shit, you just have a big pot in the kitchen with LA tap water.

[00:30:30] The bowl of rice is just soaking up all that tap water. You can get really orthorexic and neurotic about it, but it's also a balance of awareness. There's a reason why you often feel like crap after you eat at a restaurant.

[00:30:45] David: And that's the seed oils. Yeah, Mexican for me. We would eat at this local Mexican place. We could walk in. Finally, I'm like, I've never left here feeling good after eating. I'm like, forget this. So yeah, I think coconut oil is saturated, but it's good for you. I use Nutivas. I use Kasandrinos olive oil. I know them. There's one source, a family-owned--

[00:31:24] Luke: Olive oil that actually has olive oil in it.

[00:31:27] David: It's a huge issue.

[00:31:29] Luke: I know.

[00:31:31] David: We're in a group together, and we're sitting down. They're explaining how the olive oil is a commodity, and most of it's cut with other oils, and it's old. So it's an issue.

[00:31:46] Luke: Yeah. You can really tell the difference. If you get some organic, cold-pressed, legit olive oil in a dark glass, it's a different experience than if you go down to the local grocery store and just get cheapest regular olive oil. You can tell.

[00:32:01] David: I'd say buying their olive oil, it seems a little cheesy, but it's been life changing for me. I'm like, "Oh."

[00:32:12] Luke: What's the name again??

[00:32:12] David: It's called Kasandrinos.

[00:32:13] Luke: Kasandrinos. All right, we're going to put that in the show notes at lukestorey.com/mara2, M-A-R-A. So anything we talk about will be applicable there, you guys. What about the impact of toxicity on obesity and metabolic syndrome? Obviously, most of us are becoming aware and pertinent to this conversation about eating in restaurants. It's just unavoidable at a certain point.

[00:32:38] You just got to live and eat as clean as you can and just accept that there's certain things that are going to be stuck in your body for a while, if not forever. But if we become really burdened by toxins, how much does that contribute to weight gain and so on?

[00:32:57] David: I will say this isn't exactly your question because I'm sure there's a connection, but I will say most toxins are stored in fat or toxins are stored in fat. And so, as you balloon, as you have fat stores, you need to be careful when those fat stores come off because you will be releasing toxins. Absolutely. And so, unashamedly, I'll plug broccoli with the sulforaphane and our product basically is the best natural detoxifier because it is the best for phase two, but it works in all three phases.

[00:33:46] And so phase one being it makes the toxin less toxic. Phase two, it makes it water soluble and serum. Phase three, binding and excreting. And so if you can get one that does all three, then you're in business. Now, you have these doctors with their get Dr. Adams detox protocol. I just made that up, but excuse me if that's real. And they have 50 things, and it's like 150 bucks, and you're like--

[00:34:22] Luke: Or 550.

[00:34:25] David: They can charge whatever they want. And you really don't know if they have 300 ingredients in them and it's none of them. So it's basically, maybe it works. Most likely it works in phase one. But phase one basically, when the toxin is released, you want to slow down the process.

[00:35:00] And a lot of these, the whole detox flu, when you're detoxing, is you have all these toxins in your system and you're trying to process them. And so what sulforaphane does is it slows down that process so you have less and less toxins in your system. But your phase two is ramped up, and so it creates a pipeline versus a bulge at one side.

[00:35:27] Luke: It's not like knocking down the dam and getting flooded by those toxins.

[00:35:30] David: Exactly. Yeah.

[00:35:32] Luke: Another great thing about BrocElite, your product, which I love, I've been on, I don't know. When were we here last day? A year ago?

[00:35:37] David: Two. Two years.

[00:35:37] Luke: Two years ago? So I've been on it that long. Is I hate eating vegetables. You were talking about vegetables. I was like, "Oh God, I can't do it." Salads. there's a few things, carrots. But broccoli, oh, hell no. I've never liked broccoli. So when you showed up a couple of years ago with your BrocElite product, I was like, sick. This is like eating 10 pounds of broccoli without having to do it and getting the benefits of it. So well played.

[00:36:04] David: I will have to cook for you sometimes.

[00:36:06] Luke: You can make broccoli taste good?

[00:36:07] David: I can make vegetables that you will not only just tolerate but enjoy.

[00:36:14] Luke: Really? Wow. You'd be the first.

[00:36:16] David: Okay. I will put it out there.

[00:36:17] Luke: Yeah, that's a constant joke between Alyson and I because she'll make me dinner, and it's like, I just pick the vegetables and throw them away.

[00:36:25] David: Yeah.

[00:36:27] Luke: Just like, where's the meat? Give me the meat. Throw the rest of stuff.

[00:36:29] David: It was an issue because like with Maura's-- I cooked for Maura, and we ate healthy for the first three years of cancer journey. She got to a place where it wasn't tasty. It was healthy, but not tasty. And she came to me. We had this mini family meeting. She's like, "I love you David, but I would rather die than keep eating this way." I'm like, "Oh. Well, that's pretty clear."

[00:36:54] Luke: Yeah. No compliments to the chef there.

[00:36:57] David: And so I took that on myself that it has to be healthy, it has to be tasty, and easy because we had two babies, and two little kids. And so I couldn't spend all the time in the kitchen in the world. So healthy, tasty eating. Most of our recipes on my blog it has to be those three.

[00:37:18] Luke: Cool. Wow. Congratulations. You might be the first one to have done it. Last thing before we go into-- actually, there's a couple of things I want to cover, and then I really want to focus on the GLP-1 issue because it's becoming so prevalent, it's really important to people, I think, understand that.

[00:37:36] Have you looked into the effects of blue light and EMF on obesity? I've seen some stuff about, especially with blue light, like shift workers and things like that, that are directing their circadian rhythm and their circadian biology from being under that blue light and this high EMF environments and insulin and sensitivity. I don't know exactly what the correlation there, but I've heard some things in the periphery.

[00:38:02] David: All right, so let me see if I can do this justice. So basically, when you wake up, cortisol spikes. You get glucose, you wake up. At night, you have melatonin that arrests your insulin production. And so you don't want to have a sugary meal. That's why you don't want to have a sugary meal late at night.

[00:38:29] And so when you sleep, you're in somewhat of a-- it's like a mini hibernation. And so what that does is-- and especially with deep sleep, that allows your body to process toxins in your brain. And it allows the flow of the lymphatics. And so people who are always exposed to blue light, if you're circadian rhythms are screwed up, that screws up brain function.

[00:39:11] One of the centers of weight and brain function is the hypothalamus. And so that's where leptin functioning-- so leptin being the hormone where you feel satiation and you don't want to eat. You don't want to store fat. You want to burn fat. And so if that's messed up all of a sudden, that can be inflamed with your brain toxins not flowing. That can mess up the situation.

[00:39:49] Similarly, ghrelin comes from your brain, which is the hunger hormone, where you feel hungry, and it's natural. If I'm talking about eating, we were just talking about eating rice and lunch. Austin, eating at The Well.

[00:40:11] Luke: I think it hit when you said grass-fed beef.

[00:40:13] David: Yes. If we talk about--

[00:40:14] Luke: I started getting hungry.

[00:40:16] David: If you talk about it, it automatically--

[00:40:19] Luke: That's ghrelin.

[00:40:20] David: It doesn't have to be like, oh, I'm hungry, but there is a level that it increases just thinking about it. And so, yeah, that's ghrelin. And so, yeah, that whole system of hunger, non-hunger, gets messed up. That's the Cliff's Nest version. Easy.

[00:40:41] Luke: Great. Yeah. I think there's definitely something to that, and because, again, back to the shift workers, they're one of the sickest cohorts of people. I'm thinking of people that work in hospitals all night and sleep all day, that kind of thing. I mean, they're just getting hammered.

[00:40:57] David: Their melatonin's screwed up. And so melatonin is-- people who use it for sleep are taking too much because it's like nanograms, micrograms that your body produces. But the mega dosing, especially with cancer and stuff like that, there's a place for it.

[00:41:25] It's an amazing hormone and does so much. And so if that itself, if that was the only thing that was screwed up by working late, then that would be enough to mess you up. And so if you are a night nurse or a-- Maura was a night nurse, and there's huge number of night nurses, women who get breast cancer.

[00:41:52] And so be sure to work with a functional doc about what levels of melatonin you should be on because you should be on it.

[00:42:03] Luke: For sure. And get yourself some Gilded by Luke Storey blue blockers? I made my own blue blockers just because at the time, the ones that were out were just really embarrassing to wear. You look like a welder or something or like a '90's grand rock or something. That's funny, though, on a good day maybe.

[00:42:26] You know what's interesting about becoming blue light aware as I have been for many years now is you really start to-- it's like when you don't use toxic cleaners and personal care products in your house, smelly stuff like Glade air freshener. You become so sensitive to it. And I've found that that's true with blue light too because it's like non-negotiable.

[00:42:50] I don't ever go anywhere without wearing blue blockers at night-- very rarely. Well, I don't go out a lot at night anyway, but if I ever do, or driving home at or something, I wear my amber glasses, and the whole house is outfitted with, at the very least, incandescent bulbs. And man, if I go to an Airbnb or hotel or something, it's just like-- I feel like it's a cop pulling me over with their spotlight in my face.

[00:43:19] You become so sensitive to it. And it's like, no, this is actually how sensitive an indigenous hunter gatherer would've been if you shine a freaking headlight into their face. It's like we're that sensitive naturally. I think we just get desensitized from living under LED bulbs are entire life.

[00:43:36] David: I had had a mini-split AC in my room last night at a certain Airbnb. And I'm like, "This dog ain't going to hunt." It's all the way up in the wall, so I had to get a chair, put a towel over it.

[00:43:55] Luke: Dozens of times, my friend. I actually travel with like black Gaffer's tape now just because there's so many of these indicator lights on in hotel and Airbnbs. You turn the lights out, especially if you're lucky enough to have blackout curtains. There's no ambient light. You're just like, "What the hell?"

[00:44:11] Our whole house is like little pieces of red and black tape over anything that's plugged in because it's so freaking annoying. Once you get used to not living with it, when it appears, it's just like incredibly disruptive.

[00:44:22] David: But I will say, I have a red light, a LOOM, so I turned off all the lights early, turned that on for light to do stuff. Had my blue blockers on, and with my boys, it's really hard to function that way.

[00:44:42] Luke: Yeah. I'm very privileged in the sense that I don't have kids yet. I would like to. I want to really bad, but they're not around. But yeah, I tell this stuff to my friends who are parents. I'm like, "Yeah, try that with an 8-year-old." You know what I mean?

[00:44:53] David: Yeah, I will say I slept the best I've slept in months last night. Even with all these other random blue things that I tried to block, but just with the blue blockers, I was like, "All right." It was great.

[00:45:08] Luke: It makes a huge

[00:45:09] David: Yeah.

[00:45:09] Luke: All right, let's get into GLP-1. What is GLP-1, first? Let's lay that out. And then I want to get into some of the peptides and pharmaceutical versions of that because that's really the main thing I wanted to grill you about today.

[00:50:25] David: Yeah, that's a great question. So what are GLP ones? The most prevalent one out there, it's a pharmaceutical called Ozempic. We've all seen the commercials on TV maybe, on the internet. And so there are others out there as well. But what preceded the pharmaceutical was the peptide semaglutide, which is in Ozempic, but they created that with some other things to have a patent on it.

[00:50:51] In fact, the pharmaceutical industry tried to take the semaglutide from the natural health peptide industry, and they fought back and were able to block that as well as some other peptides. But what does it do? How does it work to help people lose weight?

[00:51:12] And so the first thing, and again, going back to what we talked about at the beginning, when your insulin is high, it signals to your cells to receive glucose. And so the semaglutide, the Ozempic helps increase insulin, which helps process the glucose, put it into your cells.

[00:51:37] And so that's the first thing it does. And the second thing is it slows gut motility, which basically, there's a low level of constipation in everybody who's taking the GLP-1s. And so when your gut motility slows, you're less and less hungry.

[00:52:03] Luke: That's kind of a double-edged sword because constipation to me is like one of the worst things you could ever do to yourself, especially in the toxicity we're living in.

[00:52:13] David: Bingo. So what that means is that the food that is in your gut stays there longer, which allows the toxins in the food to get into your system that much longer. And so again, that's an aside. Let's go back to how it works.

[00:52:37] And so basically, increased insulin, slowing of the gut motility, for many people, including a friend of mine, increased stomach acid, and so that can help break down food, but really, depending on the amount you're taking, it can be a problem. And so this friend basically had to carry around some sodium bicarb to neutralize the acid.

[00:53:07] Luke: Getting heartburn?

[00:53:08] David: Oh, yeah. All the time.

[00:53:11] Luke: Wow, burn, no pun intended. I used to have that. It's terrible.

[00:53:20] David: So basically, this is a side effect. It's not like, "Hey, we're going for this, so you lose weight." But nausea. And so you just don't feel like eating because you're full, but also because you're a little bit nauseous because if you eat, your stomach has to get revved up, and it's just like, "Oh, I feel bad."

[00:53:41] And so that's the experience of the GLP-1, and it works really well. People lose weight on GLP-1s. And now what is that weight? Is it body fat? Some of it, but up to 40% can be muscle, which you don't want to lose when you're aging. The statistic is 25 to 40%. It's 25 if you actually have a high protein intake and are doing resistance training. It's 40% if you're just not doing anything.

[00:54:21] Luke: That's nuts. Do you think that's true of the pure peptide, the semaglutide version too? Or are some of the negative effects exclusive to the pharmaceutical version where they monkey around it so they could patent it?

[00:54:38] David: I'd say it's about the same.

[00:54:39] Luke: Wow. Damn. Because when I first heard about this, to me, it was just another peptide. Semaglutide. Oh, cool. I haven't taken peptides for years. I had no idea that it was related to something in the pharmaceutical realm. Not that I'm always opposed to using pharmaceuticals. They have their place at times, but they're always something that's a last resort for me.

[00:55:03] But I wonder how many other people out there that are fans of peptides were taking or are taking semaglutide and not knowing that they're basically taking Ozempic.

[00:55:13] David: If you're going to do one, that would be the one, because it's less adulterated. But if you do have-- okay, I don't want to poo poo. I think there are places and people who could benefit from GLP-1s. I think what we're witnessing to in today's society is everybody wanting them and doctors pushing them. A friend of mine's, no joke, dentist is in a state that where the dentist could prescribe. It's like, you want to be on a GLP-1. Just like, what? Why would you--

[00:56:01] Luke: You have fat gums.

[00:56:02] David: Yes. Fat gums, fat teeth. Anyway, I think there's definitely an overuse of the pharmaceutical currently. And part of it's because people want to be on it, and you have actresses and actors on it.

[00:56:17] And it's an issue because there's Ozempic face, which is people, their face is sunken. And so that can be an issue. The issue is when you're losing weight so quickly. That's not healthy. About a pound, half a pound a week is healthy, I would say. That would be at the upper limit. And a pound a week, we've had some testimonies with our stuff.

[00:56:57] I'd say that can be healthy. It just depends on how you're doing it. But with these GLP-1s, it's much more than that. We talked at the beginning, low insulin levels mean low glucose. Those two combined, longevity and health. High insulin, high glucose. Can lead to impairment and early aging. And so having your insulin on with this GLP-1 isn't necessarily the healthiest thing.

[00:57:47] Luke: That, 25 to 40% muscle loss to me is--

[00:57:52] David: It's the opposite direction because--

[00:57:53] Luke: That's alarming. You don't want that, especially if you're older.

[00:57:58] David: Especially if you're older. And so it's the opposite because you want to be building muscle so that you have a place for the glucose to go, like we talked about. So your metabolism is healthy. It's higher. And so, again, there's a place for it for some people. I'd say most people, it's overused.

[00:58:21] And the last issue and the last part with these GLP-1s is they're expensive. So it's about 1,000 bucks a month without insurance. With insurance, it can be less. And we're seeing it rise with the economy and issues with employment. If people lose their insurance, they have to come off because they're not going to pay 1,000 a month. And so what do they do that?

[00:58:51] Luke: Probably gain the weight right back.

[00:58:53] David: Yes. That's why we came up with the GLPerfect. And so having a natural alternative, which we can get to it again later.

[00:59:05] Luke: Cool. That later can be right now. We've got a bottle of it right here. GLPerfect. I see what you did there. GLP. And I haven't taken it yet because I'm-- well, I'll ask you about it, but I already barely eat. I just have no appetite, probably to a point that's not that healthy. But I know someone living in this house that's excited to try it.

[00:59:36] David: Awesome.

[00:59:36] Luke: Who has much more of an appetite.

[00:59:37] David: Yeah, yeah.

[00:59:40] Luke: So obviously there's a market need. It's really smart that you went, "Hey, there's another way to do this where we don't have the side effects and it's going to be more of a gentle, gradual thing. Run me through the process of-- I see the impetus for it or the inspiration for, but how did you start to put together the formula? And then you tell me how it works.

[01:00:00] David: First of all, going back, my business partner, Martin Katz, primary care doc had a lot of people coming into his clinic. Hey, doc. Put me on GLP-1s. He's like. "No." And also, people coming in with metabolic syndrome who need help. And so coming up with an option that is healthy, that doesn't check the boxes of the GLP-1s necessarily in all the same ways, but yet is effective.

[01:00:36] And so there's three ingredients. One is berberine, one is alpha-lipoic acid, and the third is EGCG, which is the phytochemical from green tea extract. Where do you want to start?

[01:00:59] Luke: I guess you could break down the three ingredients because each of those on their own is pretty useful in some cases. So maybe just explain how each of those work.

[01:01:09] David: Yeah. And so berberine, I'll start there. We have a berberine product already, and that's a bioavailable. The issue with berberine is it's an ancient molecule. I think there are documents from ancient China 3,000 years ago where it's been used, so it's been around for a while.

[01:01:34] And so the issue though is with bioavailability, and we talked about this a little bit in our last time together, but the issue is it's about 0.6% bioavailable. So if you take 1,000 milligrams, about six milligrams gets through your gut barrier. So that's not really enough to make a biological difference.

[01:01:59] And so what we do is we have this organic carrier molecule that I like to use the analogy. It's like smuggling, smuggles, the berberine through your gut barrier, so--

[01:02:17] Luke: It's a nutrient mule.

[01:02:18] David: It's a nutrient mule. Maura was a bible smuggler into China, so she didn't have it in her backpack or her hand walking through the immigration into China. She had it hidden. And so it can get through the border, and so it can be given to the people that want it.

[01:02:44] So that smuggling metaphor is one that I like in that the berberine is attached and hidden in this carrier molecule, and it gets through the gut barrier in a pretty sizable amount. And so what does that do physiologically? Berberine, basically, it's great for sleep.

[01:03:19] Early on, in having a berberine product, I was looking for testimonials. What are people experiencing? And so we actually launched berberine specifically to get people into ketosis and to manage their blood sugar. And so the whole ketogenic diet, anti-cancer, high glucose being pre-cancer, low glucose being anti-cancer, and again, aging as well.

[01:03:52] We wanted something that could help get in people into ketosis quickly. And so with our BerbElite product, we did a study. You basically eat dinner. You don't eat overnight, skip breakfast, and you take two of our berberine product called BerbElite, and you'll be in ketosis by noon. So about five hours later, take it at 7:00.

[01:04:23] Luke: I wonder if this is one of the reasons that I am never hungry during the day because I take your stuff in the morning.

[01:04:27] David: You take BerbElite?

[01:04:28] Luke: Yeah. Among a few other things in rotation, but yeah. Like this morning, I took, I think, two of each of three of these bottles that sitting here. But I'm always wondering why whenever I'm around other people, everyone is always way more obsessed with food than I am. I just don't care. I'm not interested, which, it's socially awkward to be honest, because everyone wants to eat all the time. It's just irritating. But I wonder if that has something to do with it.

[01:05:04] David: Yeah. Most likely. And so maybe half your dose and see what happens.

[01:05:12] Luke: Just force down some sausage before I take it or something.

[01:05:15] David: Yeah, yeah. And so when I sent out this email to the people who are using BerbElite. 75% of them came back and had testimonials about how it helped their sleep, which is super surprising to me because I had, again, wanted it as a blood glucose and ketosis aid.

[01:05:41] Getting into ketosis quickly can be really important and helpful. And so I go to PubMed and I'm like, "What is up with this?" And find a article that has become one of my favorite articles. And it's basically how berberine outperformance Valium as a sleep aid.

[01:06:01] Luke: What?

[01:06:02] David: Yeah. And so basically the mechanism is an increase in serotonin by 30%. And this is from the gut because the berberine in the studies are not bioavailable, and then increase in dopamine by 25%. And so those together help with the sleep function.

[01:06:31] Luke: That's interesting because I've noticed a slight nootropic effect from the BerbElite, and I thought I was just imagining, but that would make sense.

[01:06:37] David: Yes.

[01:06:38] Luke: Huh.

[01:06:38] David: So it's helpful for sleep. And then it's helpful for weight. How is it helpful for weight? So the BerbElite that we sell actually has a different mechanism. The berberine and GLPerfect, we attach it to our carry molecule, and that's how it's bioavailable. And so with that, it's actually highly bioavailable, even more than BerbElite, so much so that like you have to be careful.

[01:07:18] Luke: Really?

[01:07:19] David: Yeah. And so as an aside, I took-- my blood glucose is typically under 100. One day I measured it, it was 115, and I'm like, "Whoa, what the heck? So I took three. And then two hours later, I measured it, and it was 70, which is a huge, huge jump in that time.

[01:07:46] And so unless you're keto adopted, 70 can be a little bit low. If it gets lower, people can be in trouble. And so John, our research scientist, who is the brains of the operation, he took it. His blood glucose was 95. He took two. 30 minutes later, he measured it, and it was 82.

[01:08:11] And so it's not quite the dramatic, but for the time, that's a sizable jump. And both of us, I was at my desk sitting, and he was at his desk sitting. So it wasn't like we were walking around burning. And so that whole idea of basically dropping blood glucose, if you're eating a meal, you can take it with the meal, and it mitigates the sugar spike, which actually, as we know, it can be not healthy.

[01:08:44] If you can, you want to keep your blood glucose levels pretty level. It can be small humps, but not like a, piu piu.

[01:08:53] Luke: Do think it could be used as a hack for eating bunch of sugar?

[01:08:58] David: Absolutely.

[01:08:59] Luke: Yeah?

[01:09:00] David: Yeah.

[01:09:00] Luke: Nice.

[01:09:00] David: Yeah. And people do--

[01:09:02] Luke: I love me some sugar sometimes.

[01:09:04] David: Yeah, yeah. No. And people do that from the standpoint of-- there's people I know, or I guess you're now added among them. "David, I want to eat a pizza. Can I eat a pizza and take some BerbElite and not have the--" Sure. I like pizza like the next guy. Again, the issue is the sugar spike, and you want to at all costs mitigate that. Well, not at all costs, but it's not healthy. And so berberine does that.

[01:09:42] Luke: I want to back up for one sec. When you're talking about the delivery molecule, this smuggler, is this different than, say, a liposomal?

[01:09:54] David: Oh, it is different. It's much more effective. And so liposomal, like Meriva with curcumin, Meriva is about three times more bioavailable than regular curcumin. With ours, our CurcElite actually uses the carrier molecule.

[01:10:14] With ours, it's much higher. And we haven't done a study in berberine because berberine is insidiously hard to measure in blood plasma. But we have and great with green tea, so the EGCG, and we did that this past fall. And part of the reason it's part of the formula, is that the EGCG bound to our carrier molecule is 250 times more bioavailable than regular green tea extract.

[01:09:43] Luke: Damn.

[01:10:54] David: Yeah. And it's plausible to say curcumin and berberine are higher as well, or high bioavailability. And so what else is going on with berberine? Well, probably with weight and metabolism, one of the biggest things going on is, the induction of AMP kinase. AMP kinase is the master metabolic switch.

[01:11:29] And so what happens when AMP kinase is turned on is basically your-- it's the opposite of metabolic syndrome. So you have less fat production. You have more glucose being burned. You have lower triglycerides. Your glucose is going into the cell, and then your mitochondria is functioning properly to create ATP from glucose.

[01:12:02] And so all those combined are really important for metabolism. And so the fact that berberine increases AMP kinase, it increases your metabolism, and that's huge for weight.

[01:12:21] Luke: Wow. Badass. This a smuggler molecule too probably explains why you don't have to take like 15 of your capsules. For all of them, it's like two capsules, and they're relatively small. And I've always wondered though, is this really doing anything? It doesn't seem like a lot of material, just raw material.

[01:12:40] David: First of all, we don't have any filler in them.

[01:12:43] Luke: Which I appreciate it. Thank you for not having a bunch of bullshit recipients in your products. It's so annoying to me when I find something that looks cool and then I look at the ingredient deck and it's like, I don't even know what this stuff is. That's why the capsules are so huge, because they're putting all this other random shit in there.

[01:13:00] David: To get them in the capsules, a lot of things don't flow into capsules, and so they have to-- it's not just to rip people off. It's to try to make it, in most cases--

[01:13:13] Luke: Faster production.

[01:13:14] David: Yes. And so we just have a different way of putting it into the capsules. We just stuff it in. It's slightly slower, but we can do that because we're smaller and we're-- liken us to a handcrafted microbrewery where we have our hands on every part of the production.

[01:13:35] Luke: You're not [Inaudible]?

[01:13:36] David: No.

[01:13:37] Luke: To that end, you just reminded me of something that-- I always like to just whistle blow on some things within the supplement industry that I find problematic, one of them being that issue. And some of the excipients are probably relatively a nerd and not a big deal, but some of them are not so great for you.

[01:14:00] But the other thing is, is a lot of brands, I notice-- not really ones that I have on the podcast, but just things I see as I'm doing my research out there as new products emerge and things like that, I try to keep my finger on the pulse, and that is, someone will use an ingredient studies proving efficacy of that particular compound. But the studies are based on a totally different dose, a much higher dose. And not even taking into account the bioavailability, which you just discussed.

[01:14:36] What do you think about that? What do you see as someone in the manufacturing side of it?

[01:14:42] David: Oh, it's a marketing ploy.

[01:14:46] Luke: Because I can make a product and be like, "Oh, resveratrol is great for you. It's in my product. And here's the study." But in the study they were using therapeutic doses, and the dose that I'm selling you is not therapeutic.

[01:15:01] David: I don't want to label everybody as insidious and just wanting to make money. I think some people are ignorant in that and just don't know. Because not everybody has a science background. And some people don't realize there's a threshold amount.

[01:15:24] They think, oh, if five milligrams gives a 5x response, one milligram will still give a response. Well, maybe. Probably not. In most cases, no. There is a threshold where it's like a light switch. If you turn the light 25% on, it's not on. You have to turn it all the way up. So it's binary. It's either on or off.

[01:15:54] And when it's on, that doesn't mean you can't put it on more. So I think people have to be careful. They have to do their research. I don't think you can trust every supplement company. And there's a lot of noise. There's a lot with our BrocElite product, sulforaphane.

[01:16:17] We have the only naturally derived stabilized sulforaphane product on the market. You go to Amazon, everybody has stabilized sulforaphane. And they have crap loads of it. And it's much cheaper than ours. Why is that? Well, if you go look on the back of the label, oh, it's sulforaphane glucosinolate, which is not sulforaphane. It's the precursor molecule. So they lead with what they lead-- that, I think, is some ignorance, but a lot of it is wanting people to think they have what they don't have.

[01:16:52] Luke: Yeah. That seems to happen too when there's an innovation, that there's bandwagon jumping. Someone goes, "Oh, man, I can make some money on that." This, whatever, novel compound is gaining popularity because there's some studies coming out that are supporting that.

[01:17:10] So people get dollar signs in their eyes, and they're just like, ooh, I'm going to throw out a product next week and claim that it has these benefits based on studies that are legitimate, but not necessarily the dosing that has proven to be.

[01:17:23] David: Yeah. I will say there are, I think, three brands right now on Amazon that in the label they say they have sulforaphane, not on the marketing front side, but on the supplement facts, which is illegal. But if you ask for their certificate of analysis, COA, it's glucoraphanin.

[01:17:41] Luke: I understand.

[01:17:43] David: And just like, okay, should we have a side business where we sue people and make money?

[01:17:48] Luke: Yeah, right. Amazon's a pretty sketchy place to get supplements in general anyway. I usually go, and if I'm going to buy something on Amazon, which is, I don't know, creatine or whatever, just something basic. I'll put the label in ChatGPT and just be like, is this legit? And it'll read the skews and things like that. It's pretty good at being able to determine if it's bootleg or the real thing.

[01:18:15] David: Yeah, that's good.

[01:18:16] Luke: Yeah. Okay. Tell me about the green tea extract. Is this related to the ghrelin?

[01:18:24] David: Yeah.

[01:18:32] Luke: So I noticed even if you drink green tea, it has a little bit of an appetite suppression effect. And that's in much lower concentrations than what you're working with.

[01:18:35] David: Yeah. I want to highlight two more things with berberine real quick.

[01:18:39] Luke: Okay.

[01:18:39] David: So one is it inhibits something called gluconeogenesis. So when you have low glucose, your liver can actually take proteins and transform them directly into glucose, which is not what you want if you're trying to be in ketosis. The berberine inhibits that. And so the other facet is it increases brown fat production. So brown fat is what you're going for with the cold dips. You increase brown fat when you are dipping water that's less than, I think, 52 degrees.

[01:19:22] Luke: I'm must have a lot of that fat.

[01:19:24] David: You probably do actually.

[01:19:25] Luke: I'm in that thing nonstop, dude.

[01:19:27] David: So that fat is actually the opposite of adipose, white fat, in that it turns on metabolism. It burns fat, the other fat.

[01:19:38] Luke: That could be contributing to my lack of appetite too.

[01:19:41] David: Yeah.

[01:19:42] Luke: Never thought about it.

[01:19:42] David: Yeah. So those are two important things. So we love berberine. Most berberine actually, you'll read about-- well, this study says this regular berberine that's a fraction of our cost decreases blood glucose. That's in probably more like six to eight weeks. And so it takes a long time, whereas ours does it in hours. That's a big, big difference.

[01:20:11] Luke: That's cool. Why is berberine yellow? Is it made of a flower or something? Is it like a shrub, or what's the origin plant?

[01:20:19] David: Yeah, it's a flower.

[01:20:20] Luke: Oh, okay.

[01:20:22] David: A plant. Yeah.

[01:20:22] Luke: Because it's super bright yellow.

[01:20:23] David: It is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, green tea extract, EGCG, is another part of our GLPerfect. And we have that in there specifically. And you hit the nail on the head for ghrelin. Again, with it being attached to our carrier molecule's, about 250 times more by available than regular green tea, and it turns off ghrelin really effectively. And so you may not want to take it, but when your wife takes it, there's zero hunger.

[01:21:05] Luke: Really?

[01:21:06] David: Yeah.

[01:21:07] Luke: Maybe I should take it, but only late at night. Because that's when I start craving sugar.

[01:21:12] David: Yeah, true actually. And then the other facet of that--

[01:21:15] Luke: It doesn't have caffeine in it.

[01:21:17] David: No.

[01:21:17] Luke: Okay.

[01:21:18] David: No. So it's extracted. And so ghrelin, it's the hunger hormone. And so we wanted to have-- you read about green tea extract, and typically, in the studies, the EGCG provides about two pounds of weight loss over a four-to-six-week period. But nobody really talks about the satiation effect.

[01:21:53] But with ours, because it's so much more bioavailable, we haven't done a weight loss study. There's probably a bit more weight loss. But certainly, you can feel like-- then that's most of our testimonials about the product, is I'm not hungry, I'm not hungry. I don't want a snack. No need to snack. Don't need the midday snack.

[01:22:13] So that's different than a GLP-1 in that those people aren't hungry either. But if they eat, they can get sick, and they just don't feel good. If somebody on GLPerfect eats, they're fine. They can eat.

[01:22:31] Luke: Oh, interesting.

[01:22:32] David: Yeah. And so that's, I think, a big differentiator. And again, why did we create GLPerfect? We wanted to have an option for people coming off-- again, there are reasons people are on GLP-1s. The doctors recommend it, and that's fine. It's helping people. But there are a number of people who may not want to be on them or want to come off or need to come off. And this is a viable option.

[01:22:56] Luke: You just read my mind. That's what I was going to ask you though. Is this the methadone of the GLP-1 drugs?

[01:23:05] David: It's not going to give this dramatic weight loss that a GLP-1 will. It will be slow and steady wins the race.

[01:23:13] Luke: What if someone was in a metabolic crisis and under a doctor's supervision? They were a legitimate viable candidate for a GLP-1, and they shed a bunch of weight. They made some lifestyle changes, but they don't want to be on that drug for whatever reason, be it financial or otherwise.

[01:23:30] Is it possible that this wouldn't enable them to keep the momentum going versus someone who's very obese and thinks that this is going to give them the instantaneous results that a drug would?

[01:23:52] David: I wouldn't necessarily put it as momentum because the momentum from the GLP-1 can be fast. So this will be an option for them at the very least to have something that helps them from reverting.

[01:24:07] Luke: Yeah, yeah. And because it's like if you've taken this drug and you've made zero lifestyle changes other than the fact that you just don't eat like you used to because you're not hungry and you go back to a sedentary life eating what you used to eat, obviously you're just going to gain the weight back, right?

[01:24:24] David: Yeah. So that's a good plug for exercise. Exercise naturally increases the GLP-1s. It just works. So it does a lot of things with your metabolism, and it's not just you're burning calories. It helps with sleep. It helps with everything, and muscle building, cardiovascular.

[01:25:02] Our supplement or the Ozempic drug, you don't want to look at them as silver bullets. You want to look at them as tools. You want to have a inclusive, healthy lifestyle with exercise and nutrition.

[01:25:21] Luke: Is there anything else about the green tea extract that's important?

[01:25:24] David: It's an antioxidant, so that's important. And it reduces inflammation, so that's important.  NF-κB, not quite as much as a curcumin, but it's one of the benefits in terms of-- and those can be important with weight as we just discussed earlier. But mainly it's the ghrelin.

[01:25:51] Luke: Okay, got it. And then what about the third ingredient? What's that?

[01:28:16] David: Alpha-lipoic acid. I talk about alpha-lipoic acid as the most amazing supplement that nobody talks about.

[01:28:25] Luke: It's old-school.

[01:28:26] David: It is old-school. And I forget the name. If you look at the old literature, '50s, '40s, it had a different name, and they renamed it. It was like, tri something acid. Before we go into the weight loss or weight issue, how it helps with weight, historically, I've talked about alpha-lipoic acid in terms of helping with liver enzymes.

[01:29:00] And so it's pretty amazing if you have an issue with your liver enzymes taking even one dose of alpha lipoic acid. Does amazing things. John [Inaudible] sister had liver issues, and he made some alpha lipoic acid, a slurry, for her and saw the movement of the needle. I've had friends who have taken it, seen some really significant improvements with alpha-lipoic acid and liver enzymes.

[01:29:36] Luke: How would one know if they have issues with liver enzymes?

[01:29:39] David: You'd have to get a physical lab work.

[01:29:42] Luke: Got it.

[01:29:43] David: Yeah. And I just actually signed up for Function. Have you heard of Function labs?

[01:29:48] Luke: Mm-mm.

[01:29:49] David: They had a special, like 350 bucks. I heard it on a Huberman podcast, but it's like you get your whole battery of labs.

[01:29:59] Luke: For 350 bucks?

[01:29:59] David: On sale. It's like 400 normal.

[01:30:01] Luke: Wow. It's a lot to some, but it's much less than you would pay normally.

[01:30:08] David: Yes. And you don't have to go to the hospital, I don't think. I'll see how they do it.

[01:30:14] Luke: Cool.

[01:30:18] David: And then lipoic acid, also, it's a co-factor in the Krebs cycle. So Krebs cycle again, how do you take glucose, money in bank and make it into the usable form of energy or cash money? And the ATP is a co-factor in that. And so if that's low, the alpha-lipoic acid is low, then that gets slowed down. And so having plenty of that cofactor can keep the energy production running. Unlike berberine, it's water soluble, so it has no bioavailable issue issues, but like berberine, it works with AMP kinase.

[01:31:07] We talked a little bit ago about the berberine going through the blood-brain barrier, and I'm not sure it does because alpha-lipoic acid does. And so that's one of the distinction factors. And what it does is it impacts the hypothalamus and leptin. And so with obesity, your hypothalamus can be not working properly, therefore, your leptin production isn't working properly.

[01:31:41] Leptin, again, the I feel satisfied after a meal hormone. And so when that's working properly, you're not storing fat. You are utilizing glucose properly. You're not feeling hungry. So to the opposite of metabolic syndrome. When that's dysfunctioning, you feel hungry often, and you're storing fat, and your glucose sinks aren't working. Glucose into the cells.

[01:32:16] Luke: I wonder how much that has to do with people's issues around overeating and weight gain when they think it's hereditary or they have some imbalance or something like that. I think there's been a prevalent bit of misinformation around people that just accept, oh, this is how I am. It runs in the family. It's hereditary, whatever it is. I have a hormonal imbalance. I wonder how much of it is actually that.

[01:32:51] David: Yeah, it could be.

[01:32:53] Luke: Or you can't ever feel satiated, and so you overeat. Outside of like any emotional drivers. Just physically not being able to feel like you've had enough to eat.

[01:33:06] David: You don't even have to take our product. You can buy alpha-lipoic acid itself and test it. And so I'll also take it with-- and we talked about this-- this is side note, NAC and glycine, the GlyNAC.

[01:33:26] Luke: You sent me some. Is it in a plastic bag? I was like, "Ooh, cutting edge. This isn't out yet." My first thought I was like, "I don't think, they labeled this because this looks sketchy." But I trusted this. It is what it is.

[01:33:38] David: Yeah, so, it's GlyNAC, no filler. Again, before we started producing it, I was having to take 35 capsules with filler. And then without filler, 20. Still a lot, but it's a big difference. It's 15 capsules.

[01:33:59] Actually, because I take it with BrocElite, I'll take 6 to 8 a day now, because I think the BrocElite is a driver of glutathione. So NAC and glycine are the building blocks for glutathione. And if you have a driver in there that's pushing it, I don't think you need as much of the substrate.

[01:34:23] Luke: Are there other benefits to taking GlyNAC other than endogenous glutathione production? Or is that kind of the main reason people are into it?

[01:34:35] David: Yeah. That's the main reason. But if you add alpha-lipoic acid to that, it's almost synergistic. So it'll rev up that system that much more. And so I like to take the those together.

[01:34:55] And so blood pressure, I got about sort of the beginnings of some not normal blood pressure, and John was like, "Take off the alpha-lipoic acid before bed." And this was with all blood pressure meds. You can take them in the morning, but they really don't work until it's in the evening that they work.

[01:35:18] And so that's where the deep sleep is important, because it's the repair time, where your capillary beds are getting repaired in your body, especially kidneys. And if you're not into the deep sleep, that repair time diminishes. And so, anyway, alpha-lipoic, again, superstar supplement, old-school, super cheap. But we have it in there specifically because of how it works with the AMP kinase, blood glucose, and the leptin.

[01:36:00] Luke: You're going to bring it back, dude.

[01:36:01] David: We're bringing it back.

[01:36:02] Luke It was dying a slow death at the GNC at the mall. Back to the '70s supplement stack. But yeah, that makes perfect sense to put those together. I want to let people know for the next week after this comes out-- what do we got going here? I saw a promotion. I want to make sure to tell them. For the next week, you listeners and viewers get an exclusive 25% off all Mara Labs products when you go to maralabs.com/luke and use the code-- guess what it is? LUKE.

[01:36:36] And then after that, it looks like that code will still get you 15% off, and we'll put links to all of that long information at lukestorey.com/mara2. I'm stoked, dude. I think that as I just see on social media, the side effects that are attributed to these GLP-1 drugs look to me pretty problematic.

[01:37:02] I don't know how much of the hype is true and how much is fear porn, but people send me stuff all the time. I'm like, "That looks gnarly." As I said earlier, if it was just the muscle loss, it doesn't seem like something that would be sustainable. And what you've done here is very cool because not only is it going to enable people to start to manage their weight, but also I'm getting there's a lot of other benefits to these three ingredients, especially with your delivery system and the synergy between the three of them.

[01:37:32] So it's like even if you didn't have a weight problem, sounds like it would just be something great to add to your regimen anyway. So I'm super stoked to share this with people. And that said, as you've alluded to, if someone's in a metabolic crisis and they need to lose weight fast with their doctor, I'm sure those drugs have their place.

[01:37:58] But that's, as I said, always my last resort. For people that didn't hear your prior episode, and we will, of course, link to that in the show notes, give us a little rundown on some of the other things that you guys make because I guess, as we discovered, it's been a couple years now. Time flies. I feel like it least nine months ago.

[01:38:13] But I've been on your stuff on a regular basis now for this whole time. Once I learn about something and I'm convinced that it's legit and really good for me, I just start taking it. And then if I see that I'm getting results and I feel good about it, I keep doing it. But then in the interim, I forget why I was doing it.

[01:38:31] So if someone came to me today and said, "Why do you take their curcumin, their CurcElite?" I'd be like, "I don't know. A couple of years ago I talked to this guy David, and it was compelling enough for me to add it to my regular protocol, but then their information evaporates” So maybe for myself, anyone listening that's using your stuff or is curious about it, give us some more info about the other things.

[01:38:54] David: Absolutely. So with BrocElite, if you're doing the GLPerfect, if you have some added fat around your belly or wherever that you think you're going to be burning, those fat stores actually store toxins as well. So you will actually be releasing toxins.

[01:39:16] We recommend with the GLPerfect, to take BrocElite. So if you're feeling yucky when you're losing your fat, it's because it's the toxins. The BrocElite is a fantastic detoxifier. It works in all three phases, and it's great for brain health.

[01:39:39] It's produces something called brain-derived nootropic factor, which is at the center of protecting existing neurons, but also creating new neurons. It turns on something called the antioxidant response system, which is basically over 300 different antioxidants, unlike a vitamin C where it's one antioxidant combines with one prooxidant, and they can't each other out.

[01:40:12] The sulforaphane in BrocElite actually turns on the system that releases these genes, and it releases 300 different antioxidants over 72 hours. So it turns on and stays on.

[01:40:28] Luke: Damn. You know what I just thought of? That's probably a really good internal EMF protector.

[01:40:36] David: How so?

[01:40:37] Luke: If we're talking about oxidative stress and free radicals, there's a number of issues with EMFs depending on if it's magnetic, radio, whatever. But the main thing is it causes free radical storm in the body. So I'm always thinking in the head like, hmm, you can do things in your house to kind of shield and harmonize and all those things.

[01:41:01] But I'm always looking for ways to be able to help the body be more resilient. Because the fact is when you go in the world, you can't control if there's a freaking cell tower next to you as you're at the red light. I don't know. I'm just saying. If it's activating all those onboard antioxidants, it's probably, I would assume, good for that just in terms of biological resilience.

[01:41:28] David: Sure. Yeah. And people have a response to pain, so it does work with decreasing NF-κB. It turns on the NRF2 pathway. Both of those are two sides of a coin of pain. So one is decreased, one is increased. And a lot of people notice their pain drops quickly within days.

[01:42:05] And so that's great. It's water soluble, so it doesn't have an issue getting through the gut barrier, so it's not attached to our carrier molecule. We just stabilize it. And again, a lot of supplements say they have stabilized sulforaphane.

[01:42:21] They have the precursor molecule, which may or may not get transformed into sulforaphane in your gut. Again, with all of these, we have 100-day unconditional money back guarantee, and that's designed just so people won't feel the anxiety of trying it. We stand behind-- most people notice a difference.

[01:42:42] Luke: That's pretty solid integrity-wise. Do you ever have people that take 29 out of 30 capsules and try to return it?

[01:42:48] David: It doesn't matter. Yeah, they'll take all of them.

[01:42:52] Luke: I just think as a business owner, I'll be like, "Shit. What if there's like scammers out there and they actually like the product, but they're just trying to get free?"

[01:42:59] David: There are people like that, but they're few and far between.

[01:43:06] Luke: Most people probably aren't going to go through the trouble of doing that.

[01:43:09] David: Yeah. We stand by it, and we want people to try it. And the idea is that they like it, they see the benefit, and so it's a win-win. They'll be willing to pay to have that benefit. And it's like, absolutely, I want this. So if that's not the mindset, it's fine. We will give them the money back. And so that's on the first bottle. Try it. And if you don't notice anything, we'll return the money. So that's BrocElite. It helps with hair loss. I had a doctor--

[01:43:51] Luke: Oh, shit. I may need to be mega dosing that.

[01:43:52] David: It's got a DHT, the bad form of testosterone. As men age, their urine stream becomes slower and slower. So I had a doctor, a friend of mine, Ken Brown, called me, is like, "This should be a urinary, a prostate product because I stopped taking it and I started peeing more slowly, and then all of a sudden I got a new shipment in and--" He was off it for a couple months, and then he is like a 13-year-old again.

[01:44:25] So anyway, those are some of the benefits of BrocElite. This one is CurcElite Pro. We have regular CurcElite. I sent this to you because you talked about the allergens in Austin. So it's potently antihistamine, and so we recommend two a day. But if you're in a histamine storm with mast cells, you want to take more.

[01:44:58] I say take two every couple of hours until that storm passes, and you notice a difference. And then you can take a maintenance dose of two a day. It's also potently antisenolytic. So senescent cells being the zombie cells, all the cells around those zombie cells are receiving the secretions of cytokines that kill them. And so it's pro aging. And so the quercetin, it kills those cells and shows them the door.

[01:45:32] Luke: Oh, that's interesting. I didn't realize that. I didn't realize that when those cells aren't useful anymore and they're on their way out, that they're also shitting the bed as they do. Just when I think the physical health isn't challenging enough, it's like, oh God, that thing happens too.

[01:45:51] David: I will say with BrocElite, not all cells are senescent, but old cells need to be shown the door too. So autophagy is anti-aging. You want old cells to be shown the door or die and be recycled. And so it promotes autophagy. Same with mitochondria. Old mitochondria need to die and then be recycled into new, and BrocElite helps with mitophagy. It has five distinct mechanisms that are anti-aging.

[01:46:25] Luke: Wow. That's so epic. And in the-- what's it called? Sulfora-- how do you say--

[01:46:31] David: Sulforaphane.

[01:46:34] Luke: Sulforaphane. That's a hard ass word. Is that only found in nature in broccoli?

[01:46:39] David: Correct. Yeah. So basically--

[01:46:41] Luke: That's such a trip

[01:46:41] David: It was discovered in 1992 at Johns Hopkins, but they early on saw that it was not stable. So you can make it by masticating broccoli sprouts or seeds or mature broccoli. But if you try to store it, it degrades within hours.

[01:47:01] Luke: Is it more abundant in broccoli sprouts than full flowered broccoli?

[01:47:06] David: Correct, about 50 to 100 times more.

[01:47:08] Luke: Really?

[01:47:09] David: Yeah.

[01:47:10] Luke: Interesting.

[01:47:12] David: Yeah. So one of our capsules of BrocElite is the equivalent of two and a half pounds of mature broccoli in the amount of the chemical.

[01:47:20] Luke: Really?

[01:47:21] David: Yeah.

[01:47:21] Luke: Damn. Where do you guys get all this broccoli?

[01:47:25] David: So we extract it from the seed.

[01:47:29] Luke: Oh, from the seed?

[01:47:30] David: Yeah.

[01:47:32] Luke: I'm picturing a massive, acres of hydroponic broccoli. You get it from the seed. That's cool. I was on this sprout kick recently. I think they're called The Sprout Company. Make a really cool little jar. It's like the easiest way I've ever found to make sprouts. And even though I don't like vegetables, I really love sprouts. Like radish sprout and broccoli sprouts.

[01:47:56] I'm going to do it again, but it was a little high maintenance. It's like you got to rinse the-- even though they did it really well. No shade to them. I'm just not a big kitchen guy. But I do think that eating enzymatic-rich, living foods like that is probably a really good idea.

[01:48:12] David: That solves--

[01:48:14] Luke: Yeah. But if you just give me a pill, I'd rather do that.

[01:48:16] David: That solves your vegetable crisis. If you just do sprouts, those are super foods.

[01:48:22] Luke: Yeah. You can tell when you meet sprouts. There's something about them. They just have a certain vitality, a certain energy to them. It just feels good. Your body's going, "Yes. Do more of that."

[01:48:33] David: Yeah. And so microgreens are close cousins. They're three days. They're seven days. And those, you can buy. You don't even have to grow them. You can buy them at Whole Foods. We grow, but we also buy.

[01:48:46] Luke: Nice.

[01:48:48] David: And then the curcumin, CurcElite. So basically, every curcumin product on the market, you'll see is the best. At least that's what they say. Everyone is like, we have the best curcumin. We have the best curcumin. We have the best curcumin. So my friend calls it the curcumin wars.

[01:49:05] And so basically, how do you know who's the best? There's a study that came out a number of years ago now that looked at all the bioavailable curcumin. So basically, regular curcumin, the issue is curcumin's not bioavailable. Regular curcumin's less than 1% bioavailable.

[01:49:20] But you read all these studies, curcumin does so many different things. But those are typically cell studies, so it's put directly onto the cells, so it doesn't have to get through the gut barrier.

[01:49:37] Luke: Oh, that's sneaky. And this is derived from turmeric, right?

[01:49:42] David: It is, the turmeric root, similar to ginger.

[01:49:45] Luke: I'm glad you say it correctly. It's one my neurotic pet peeves when call it turmeric. I bet you there's thousands of people listening, they call it turmeric, and they don't put the r. It's turmeric or turmeric. There's an r in there, people. Come on.

[01:50:00] David: So the curcumin, similar to sulforaphane, which is the good molecule in broccoli, the curcumin is the good molecule in-- have to make sure I say it properly now, turmeric.

[01:50:17] Luke: Yeah, you did it. As long as we get the r in there, I'm satisfied

[01:50:23] David: And so it's about 5%. It's extracted. So in this study, looking at the bioavailable forms, there's Meriva. There's Novasol, cur95. Curcumin with bioperine. Novasol was the highest bioavailable.

[01:50:56] And so what Novasol is though, it is 97% detergent, so polysorbate 63% curcumin. So what it does is it aggravates your gut lining, and so the curcumin gets through.

[01:51:10] Luke: I've heard this with the black pepper extract.

[01:51:12] David: It is the similar issue. And so with both the of them, you take curcumin because you want curcumin to get to your cells to turn off NF-κB, which is the holy grail of inflammation. So it's the pathway that the pharmaceutical companies are going after to decrease inflammation.

[01:51:43] And curcumin is the best natural molecule at downregulating, the NF-κB pathway, decreasing inflammation. So again, similar to the BrocElite, you can take our form of curcumin, and within 24 hours, your pro-inflammatory markers are decreased about 30%. So that's enough. You can feel the difference. It's probably 33, 34%.

[01:52:11] Luke: That's impressive.

[01:52:27] David: Yeah. That's the whole point of attaching it to the carrier molecule, is we want to have the most bioavailable forms of these molecules outside of straight IVs. And so this is pushing the envelope. Novasol is highest bioavailability, but it increases inflammation. Doesn't drop inflammation.

[01:52:49] Luke: That's not good.

[01:52:50] David: Similar with the bioperine forms. So you just want to be careful. Novasol is slightly bioavailable than ours, but instead of-- ours is the second most bioavailable, but it's the most bioavailable with also dropping inflammation, which is what you want. It's the whole reason you're taking the curcumin.

[01:53:19] Luke: Yes. Would there be any benefit to eating a lot of curry or having just a very turmeric-rich diet? There's probably reason why some of our ancient peoples ate a lot of that root.

[01:53:35] David: Yeah. I'd say it would be microbiome specific. It's not going to get through the gut barrier, but I actually am a very big fan of non-bioavailable curcumin for that reason, is it actually is great. First of all, 70% of your immune system in it is in your gut. And because it's the forward-facing part of where your food comes from, and so much food is toxic, has toxins rather in it and that promotes inflammation, having curcumin in your gut that just stays, goes through slowly is great.

[01:54:16] Because those cells at the lining are seeing it and are receiving the benefit. So I'm a big fan. But it also modulates the gut microbiome. And so it's pro good gut bacteria, similar to the berberine, which in admission, huge benefit of berberine is modulating the gut microbiome in a positive way. What else did we have here?

[01:54:48] Luke: This one appears to be new,  ResverElite. I don't think I've seen this.

[01:54:52] David: Yeah.  ResverElite has resveratrol. Again, low bioavailability. Resveratrol is responsible for what's called the French Paradox. So basically, French people eat lots of fatty foods, drink lots of wine, but have low cardiovascular disease. And it's shown that there's more to it than that now.

[01:55:18] Luke: Like living in the Mediterranean, being in sun, and being grounded all the time.

[01:55:20] David: Being in community.

[01:55:24] Luke: Yeah.

[01:55:24] David: Yeah, there's a lot more to it.

[01:55:27] Luke: Walking up and downhills on little cobblestone--

[01:55:30] David: Riding bikes in the street. Yeah. Exercise, exercise, exercise. There's a saying that I didn't come up with, but I use it unashamedly, is that exercise is king, nutrition is queen. If you have both of them, you have a kingdom.

[01:55:47] Luke: Nice. I like that. I need to work on one of them. I think the resveratrol, this is the word that I have already done pronouncing, and that sulforaphane one, so I'll give people pass on the turmeric. I remember years ago when this came into vogue. People were using it as a means by which to justify drinking a lot of red wine.

[01:56:14] David: Yeah. So it's not bioavailable.

[01:56:17] Luke: So drinking red wine's not going to give you a therapeutic--

[01:56:19] David: No, it's not. So the issue with resveratrol is there's the first pass metabolism. So basically, 95% of these molecules get filtered out by the liver in the first pass. And resveratrol gets upregulated into cells immediately. So you can't do a traditional blood plasma concentration study because of that. And so with ours it gets to the gut barrier. So that's the first issue.

[01:56:56] And then because of the carry molecule, it lasts a bit longer after the first pass. What does resveratrol do? It's good for longevity, is the main one. It turns on the setuin pathways, which are good for longevity. Certain one, specifically. And David Sinclair was the guy who popularized resveratrol.

[01:57:27] A lot of biohackers are anti-resveratrol because he sold his company to a pharmaceutical company who tried to create a biologic similar to what Ozempic did with semaglutide, but they do a different type of molecule that didn't work. And so the company folded and everyone's like, resveratrol doesn't work. But we have shown in our lab that it's good; it works.

[01:57:59] Luke: And it's derived from grapes?

[01:58:02] David: It can be derived from grape skins. Ours is derived from the Japanese knotweed.

[01:58:07] Luke: Oh, interesting. And with more labs, it seems to me that me that all of the compounds you use are plant derived or nature based. Do you have any synthetics?

[01:58:20] David: No.

[01:58:21] Luke: Oh, interesting. I'm not against synthetics, but my preference would be something that at some point existed in nature and not just in a lab.

[01:58:31] David: If you think about it, peptides can be considered synthetic, even though they make a lot of sense naturally.

[01:58:39] Luke: Yeah. I was actually writing a little bit about psychedelics yesterday and approaching this, I don't know, preference that's sometimes a bit elitist. People in that space vilifying anything synthetic like LSD or MDMA or something and saying, oh, it has to be ayahuasca mushrooms or synthetic DMT versus the DMT that'd be found in ayahuasca, for example.

[01:59:08] And I was thinking about it. It's like, if you believe there's a creator or some god that made all of this, it's like, well, okay, so you will only take that organic product, whatever it is, psychedelic or not. But if you believe that there's something that created everything, then it would've also created humans, and humans become chemists and go into a lab and make some things.

[01:59:35] It's like you trace everything back. I mean, it's all created by nature because humans are nature. For me it's a matter of like, does it work or not? And does it have any side effects that you could avoid if you found it in a natural form?

[01:59:48] David: Yeah. I like to think about it because I do believe God is creator and that we are co-creators under him.

[01:59:57] Luke: Yeah. That's a great way to work. Well, man, thanks for coming back, dude. Thanks for continuing the innovation. And as I said, I'm really excited about this latest one because I think it's a really important niche to fill for people. And yeah, I'm excited just actually, even though I'm not trying to lose weight. I am interested in not eating so much late at night and seeing if I can shift to the window of hunger to a different time in the day.

[02:00:25] And I'm stoked to get feedback from people too. So if any of you guys listening try the GLPerfect and are getting results, definitely let me know because I'm always curious what happens in the aftermath of these conversations.

[02:00:39] Oftentimes I don't really know what results people are having or what their experience is unless I happen to run into them out in the real world and they're like, "Hey, I heard this episode on this or that, and I started applying that information and I've had X, Y, and Z changes.

[02:01:03] David: Yeah. And really quick, 25% off mara-labs.com/luke. And 25% off over the next week as--

[02:01:15] Luke: Epic.

[02:01:16] David: Yeah. So try it. We have money back guarantee. So if it doesn't work, just let us know. We'll give you your money back.

[02:01:23] Luke: Thanks for doing that too. I think it's a really good business model that a lot of people in this space could follow. It's like, I don't if I'm going to spend money on something. Even if I know I'm probably not going to return it, it feels good knowing I could. If I'm spending 50 bucks on something, it's like a waste.

[02:01:42] Actually, that just happened. I ordered some plants from Home Depot for 300 bucks, and I didn't shop around. I was like, "Yeah, Home Depot, they deliver, whatever." And then I realized it had a five in the title, so I thought I was getting five of them for 80 bucks.

[02:01:58] And then I looked more closely today. I read some of the Q&A, and it's like, no, it is pot size number five, not five gallons. But they have a arbitrary number system one through five. And I was like, "I'm not spending 80 bucks on one of these little scrawny plants. So I went to see if I could return it, and you can. So once they arrive, I can drive them down to Home Depot and get my money back.

[02:02:24] I don't know. I think that that's a good policy in general for all business, if somebody selling a product. It'd would be harder to do with the service-based business, but with the product, it's like, dude, if you don't like it, you should have a window of time when you can get your money back. That's just like how it should be. It's the most ethical way to sell it.

[02:02:42] David: Yeah. We want it to be a win-win.

[02:02:44] Luke: Yeah.

[02:02:45] David: Well, thank you so much for having me. It's great to be back, and love our conversations.

[02:02:49] Luke: Yeah, me too, man.