[Luke] All right, David Roberts, we're here for our what is now a yearly appearance on the show. It seems like about once a year you have something new and exciting to share with me, and so uh, I'm stoked to have you back.

[David] Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

[Luke] Yeah. So what has the progress been on your GL Perfect at Marra Labs? I think that's what we talked about last time. For those watching, you can see it right here. A natural alternative to GLP-1 drugs, which of course now are becoming pretty controversial due to possible side effects. How many of those can be accurately attributed to the drug or not, I don't know, but there's a lot of buzz that's both pro and con. I think you guys were on the kind of early part of that wave going, "Hey, in case there are any cons, here's something that has no side effects that you can take," that is, you know, at least close to as effective if not definitely going to help people. What's the latest on that whole scene before we get into the microplast?

[David] Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think since we talked about it, the, there are about 100 known side effects to GLP-1s, and there are about as of, like, beginning of this month, 3,900 lawsuits against the pharmaceutical companies making them. And Really?... it's a, it's kind of a big deal, yeah. Oh, my God. And it's not too surprising because of how people are using them. a lot of people are, who should probably not be using them are to get that extra weight off, and so yeah. I think, you know, the thing that has come about in the research is there's a lot of muscle that gets lost in that weight loss. And so the the number being thrown out is 40 up to 40, up to 40% of the weight that's lost is from muscle, and that's not great because muscle is your life insurance policy, right? You want muscle for to be a glucose sink so you don't go into insulin resistance, and you have a strong metabolism. And so the great thing that we've seen with the GL Perfect is the three ingredients in GL Perfect not only you don't lose muscle when you take it it's, they're muscle protective, basically. So EGCG from green tea extract, alpha-lipoic acid, and berberine all have work slightly differently in regulating myostatin, which is the enzyme that degrades muscle. And so that's important to, an important distinction. And I wouldn't say that GL Perfect is as effective as a GLP-1 because it's like, 'cause that GLP-1 agonist is sitting right on, you know, in your brain on the, on that receptor, and it's like if you're thinking about, you know, music analogy, it's like it's taking a hammer to a note on the piano. Instead of pressing it with your finger, you're banging it with a hammer. So you're banging the heck out of it, whereas with our version it's more balanced. It's more like, you know, a beautiful... You're using all the keys. and so GLP-1s are effective, but there's side effects because, you know they, it just sits on that receptor for so long.

[04:11]

[Luke] I didn't realize there were that many lawsuits happening.

[David] I saw it on your face. Yeah. Yeah.

[Luke] Dude. I mean, I'm you know, I'm social media kind of keyboard warrior trying to keep tabs on things 'cause it's part of my job. But what I see in that space is a lot of really scary looking celebrities.

[David] Yeah, the, you have the Ozempic face,

[Luke] Right? I mean, like-

[David] The sunken cheeks...

[Luke] Ozempic everything. Yeah. You know, and I don't, I don't know that's what they're doing, but, you know, there's some pretty alarming cases of a few of the celebrities looking really emaciated. And what's interesting is it's like they're being put on the cover of Vogue magazine, and it's like that look is now being promoted, which of course I'm a conspiracy theorist or a conspiracy analyst as I'd like to say. And so I'm thinking, "Hmm, you know, there was a time not too long ago when the body positivity movement was happening, right? And everyone celebrating being overweight and obese," and of course I'm a believer, you know, live your life as you want to, and no one should be shamed for the way their physical body looks because I believe that we're not a body anyway. So it doesn't really matter. but now it seems to be in the media the trend is swinging in the other direction, like way past the point of the heroin chic trend in the '90s when the models- Yeah... were exceedingly thin.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] But it's interesting to see how... I wonder what the levers are that are controlling that, the optics there, right? It's like somebody's trying to sell more food and sugar and whatever, and then someone's trying to sell being skinny. Someone's trying to sell something. It's not by accident that these trends kind of come and go.

[David] Yeah, I mean, I'd say they're almost one and the same. The companies that are selling the sugary foods are also promoting the GLP-1s for the weight loss. So they're getting you fat, and they're giving you a solution from the fat. Right. I mean, it's... Anyway, it-- who knows is Yeah... honest answer.

[Luke] We'll never know. Right. There's some goblins in a, in a boardroom somewhere going, "Ha," rubbing their hands together.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] It Let's put the population in a boomerang, you know, with these trends and watch them, you know, watch them grow larger and then get smaller and grow larger. But yeah, it's just interesting that someone could look at someone who looks very unwell, dangerously unwell, and be like, "That's my idol. That's what I wanna emulate."

[David] Yeah. That is unfortunate, for sure. So yeah. I mean, I think with the folks that come onto our GLP perfect, typically they've been on a GLP-1 and have had side effects. And, you know, once you come off the GLP-1, it's-- you can gain weight back because of that muscle loss. and so this is an... again, it's a gentle alternative. and it's great you know for people coming off GLP-1s as far as getting something that gives you some of the same benefits without the side effects.

[07:19]

[Luke] And the main benefit, as I understand it, is just being less hungry, feeling more satiated, not having the impulse to eat more than you need to or should?

[David] Yeah. I... So the EGCG from the green tea extract is Just amazing at downregulating ghrelin, which is your hunger hormone. And so the other benefit-- So basically, when you eat it or take it, you're not, you're just not hungry. And so you can eat. So unlike a GLP-1, if you've taken it where you can't eat because your gut motility is slowed and so you are, you're just physically full, so you can't eat. The GL Perfect basically downregulates. You aren't hungry, but you can eat. So you, if you go out socially, you know, you can actually eat. But it just reduces the food noise, so you're not snacky all the time and just Yeah. Eating whatever. It just provides a bit more discipline. the other thing is the alpha-lipoic acid and berberine are both great at reducing glucose spikes. So if you eat something sugary, like, you know, you drink a Coke or you eat a cookie, you'll get a huge glucose spike, and that will give you a dopamine rush, right?

[Luke] I'm very familiar with that, yeah.

[David] That's right. I remember this

[Luke] Conversation. Yeah, talk to me at, like, 10:00, 10:30 every night. There's a little demon inside me that's like, "You need ice cream."

[David] Yes. So, you know, one of the things that I'll say is with nighttime eating, so if you ate ice cream at 10:00, so that, you know, and you have the red light. So once you have melatonin start being produced, it blunts your insulin production. And so that glucose, unfortunately will get into your circulatory system, and you'll have blood, sugar in your blood all night because you don't have insulin. Damn. And so, and so if you take berberine, though, and alpha-lipoic acid, that will get the glucose metabolized, put it into your, the muscle, so you just don't have glucose in your blood sitting. Or, you know, if you, if your muscle's loaded, then it'll just make fat. So.

[Luke] I remember you mentioning something about that I think in our last conversation, which by the way, for those that want to hear more from David, you can find the past two episodes at lukestore.com/mara3 the number three, and we'll put everything we talk about of relevance in the show notes. I remember you mentioning something about the blood sugar thing and the berberine in your Berba Elite. And so, I took that as, like, license to just eat all the sugar I want. But one thing I wanted to get clarity on, if I'm going to fall prey to a sugar binge, would it make more sense to take the BRB Elite before said sugar binge- Sure Or after?

[David] So if you don't want the glucose spike and, you know, you have some discipline towards when you eat that bowl of ice cream then yeah, I would take it a hour and a half before- Okay... that. So you can set your alarm, Luke, for 9:00 every night.

[10:27]

[Luke] Yeah, totally. Yeah, it's bad. I mean, it goes in waves. It's just funny 'cause I don't... I'm not really hungry during the day. I mean, my wife has to tell me to eat constantly 'cause I just won't eat. When I'm working and-

[David] Yeah...

[Luke] I'm a little, I'm on a lot of nicotine and I just, I don't know, I'm in the zone. Like, eating is Sure... what I'm thinking about during the day. But I think what happens for some guys like me, kind of the skinny ectomorph type that's not really driven toward a lot of calories if I don't eat during the day 'cause I don't feel like eating, then, you know, I'll have a nice dinner, but then I feel like there's a caloric deficit there, and hence the cravings way after dinner that's like the body's going, «Hey, we want more calories.»

[David] Yeah. So

[Luke] I would- If I, if I do eat a breakfast which we got these great pancakes, these gluten-free pancakes, Love & Yum, shout out to Love & Yum. We'll put Love & Yum in the show notes 'cause they're awesome. If I get up and eat a bunch of those and maybe have a snack at lunch, and then have my normal dinner, I find that I don't get the food cravings after dinner like I would if I kind of fasted all day.

[David] I agree. I'm gonna pull, put a... throw out, a friend of mine just came out with a protein pancake, which is-

[Luke] Oh, really?

[David] Yeah. Let me just... Sorry, one second.

[Luke] That's okay. I'll keep the audience entertained while you look it up. So he's looking up another great new pancake. Oh. yeah, the Love & Yum pancakes are awesome, and So

[David] Gluten-free?

[Luke] Yeah, they're... The whole thing, yeah. Love & Yum. As someone who's not historically eaten a lot of breakfast, I find if you put a stack of those pancakes in front of me, all of a sudden I become a ravenous breakfast eater. And I put wild blueberries in them, and it's a whole thing in our house now.

[David] Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. what do you put on top of them?

[Luke] Maple syrup, and usually some ghee or butter. Yeah.

[David] So yeah the protein pancake is, it's Eat Solea, S-O-L-E-A. And I think there are, like, 20 grams of protein per serving. So it's whey, it's whey based, but it's fluffy Nice... um-

[Luke] Eat Solea.

[David] Yeah, Eat Solea. Okay. We'll find

[Luke] That and put it in the show notes.

[David] Uh-

[Luke] Support you, buddy.

[David] Yeah. And so I will say, you know, the more protein you can eat in the evening, the less that you'll have that craving. But if you take two of the GeoPerfects at dinner, that would also blunt that craving. Awesome. And so it's almost a, it's, it is... Yeah, so part of the it's, I wouldn't say it's just caloric deficit. You get that dopamine rush, right, that we were talking about. And so because of that because you're getting that dopamine rush, that's the feel-good molecule, that's what you get, you know, when you snort a line of heroin. You know? It's the same thing. and so there's-

[Luke] Maybe there's a lot less vomiting afterward.

[David] Whoa, sorry. Sorry, I didn't mean to... I... Strike that.

[Luke] No, I got it. I get it.

[David] Um-

[Luke] It's a good analogy. I mean, all drugs are doing something similar in a different way. I forgot. I forgot. Uppers, downers, at the end of the day youYeah Looking for the state change.

[13:28]

[David] Yeah. And so anyway, I think that just as a suggestion, that might be a good strategy for it to... Because it's, it is food noise, right? So you're like, "Oh, I need that." But there's also like you're looking for that dopamine rush. The berberine actually increases your dopamine 25% and your serotonin 30%, so there's a... In a mouse study. there was a paper on how berberine outperforms Valium as a sleep aid, and that's why. And so you'll naturally increase the dopamine, but you also will blunt the... if you do have that sugar that night, you'll blunt the sugar spike, which is part of the reason it's a, you have the it's a craving, right? Yeah. And it's cyclical. So the more you do eat that ice cream, the more you want it the next time, because you're like, you have the memory of how it made you feel, and it made you feel good.

[Luke] That's interesting. So it sounds like sulforaphane, is that pronouncing it right? Sulforaphane?

[David] Yep.

[Luke] And berberine, I mean, that sounds like a nootropic stack. If it, if it's giving you the dopamine and serotonin boost, or at least it's doing that in mice, you figure that it's doing some of that in humans, I mean, that sounds like something that one would want to do at the start of a workday or an intense focus day or a day of podcasting.

[David] Yes. so I, yeah, I definitely think, you know, because sulforaphane Increases brain-derived neurotrophic factor, a BDNF naturally that it's-- it can be characterized as neurotrophic for sure. So, and yeah, we both had some before we sat down.

[Luke] Yes, I did. And I just thought, oh, I'll just take some because it's here, but I didn't realize there were-- it would actually help me. what's the latest on sulforaphane? For those that didn't hear the prior episodes, maybe talk about the broccoli derivative Yeah Give them a little foundation for that. And then is there any new research or anything that's come out about it? I'm starting to see more buzz about that. Also, even just people encouraging eating broccoli sprouts and things like Yeah... to get more of it in your diet.

[David] For sure. Yeah. So, I mean, just the background of what sulforaphane is. It's a molecule from broccoli. It's derived from broccoli. It was discovered up at nine-- up at Johns Hopkins in 1992, and since then, there are over 2,000 research papers written on it. Most of them coming from Johns Hopkins because they actually created a center called the Chemoprotective Center surrounding that molecule. So and so they had a huge broccoli sprout growing operation to have sources of sulforaphane for their research. And so the thing to keep in mind is that basically if you have a head of broccoli and you start chewing it breaks the cell wall down that releases an enzyme called myrosinase that takes this precursor molecule to sulforaphane called glucoraphanin, and it converts it into sulforaphane. So basically, the sulforaphane is not stable. And so if you swallow the broccoli that you've just chewed, you'll get a slight benefit. But if you try to harness it and put it in a capsule, it degrades within hours. And so-

[16:36]

[Luke] Oh.

[David] But the glucoraphanin is stable. So all of the broccoli supplements on the market, except for ours, which is called Broccoliate, has the glucoraphanin supplement in it. Now, there are more and more coming out daily that on the label, th-th-- not just on the marketing. On everybody's marketing, they're promoting sulforaphane so that's kind of deceptive. But on the supplement facts, there are about six of them that say they have sulforaphane, and they do not. If you a-ask for the certificate of analysis, it will say glucoraphanin. So some of these companies- Ah. I don't know if I'd say probably half of them. the other th-- yeah, is that deceptive or they just don't understand the science? I don't know. But it's not right. The other thing to watch out for is even if you see sulforaphane on the label or in the supplement facts often they'll say sulforaphane glucosinolate. The glucosinolate is the precursor. So sulforaphane glucosinolate is literally precursor of sulforaphane, which is called glucoraphanin. And so anyway, We go to conferences all the time, and doctors, and if we speak, doctors will come up. You know, we'll put that we're the only naturally derived stabilized sulforaphane supplement on the market. Everything else has glucoraphanin. And inevitably, a doctor will come up, "Well, what about mine?" And then, you know, it says sulforaphane glucosinolate. It's the precursor. And this one guy one year, he came up, and I just said it just like that. "It's actually glucoraphanin. It says sulforaphane glucosinol- glucosinolate. That's the precursor." And he starts tearing up 'cause he realized he's been thinking all these years, he's given his patients this, thinking it's sulforaphane, but it's not. Because you know, people and marketing companies and even, like, Rhonda Patrick thinks that the glucoraphanin is better, and it's just not. Because it doesn't necessarily convert in the body. The myrosinase, that so like there's different products that pair the glucoraphanin with the myrosinase, the enzyme, to, and oh, the, there will be an enzymatic reaction once you ingest it in your gut. well, no, because you have stomach acid that digests myrosinase, and myrosinase isn't stable either. So even if you have myrosinase, you know, that's left that hasn't degraded, once you swallow it, your stomach acid will denature the protein and will digest it. Right. And so it's just, it's a marketing ploy.

[Luke] God, there's a lot of expensive pee out there.

[David] Or a lot in this, in this case, of expensive poo.

[Luke] Yeah. Okay. Okay. I mean, I like that you're diplomatic about it. And to be fair, I'm sure like that, you know, doctor who developed a product is not knowingly being deceptive. for it's probably a mix of just lack of education or incompetence. Exactly. And then on one side, a lack of integrity, you know? Sure. Which is one of the things I enjoy about my job is meeting people like you, and really, I mean, I don't say like I never like grilled you, but-... I, you know, I'm basically inviting people like you to convince me what the best path is and how to avoid people like me wasting their money on stuff that's just marketing hype and doesn't work, and in worst cases, taking things that are actually harmful that are marketed as as beneficial, which is more rare, but still happens, and I've experienced that myself without, you know, I hear about some new novel supplement and start taking it, and I experience some side effects 'cause I took too much or it just didn't do what it said it was gonna do, or there are side effects that I wasn't warned about, so.

[20:19]

[David] I will say that we so we have a full lab in our building, and we put, we grow because broccoli was created for Mara, who my late wife, who died of breast cancer, so we always look, we always have breast cancer cells or often have breast cancer cells growing. And then we did this study where we put glucoraphanin on, directly on the breast cancer cells, and they actually grew them. Whereas Oh, shit.... if you, if you put sulforaphane directly on the breast cancer cells- That's not good... they, it kills them. And so now I'm not saying that if you swallow a glucoraphanin supplement, it's gonna do that grow your cancer, but it was interesting to see on the cancer cell, the they're called MCF-7s, that happened. And I will also say that, you know, we talk about wasting money. One of the things that I'm kind of anti-supplementation of, What's the the master antioxidant is-

[Luke] Glutathione?

[David] Glutathione. So glutathione is also a protein and you, if you swallow it gets, you know, basically... They're expensive too. Yeah. But if you swallow it's like that's gonna get digested, you know, in your stomach acid. And so you can take IV glutathione, you can take the patch. They have the patch as ion or ionic or whatever it is. Yeah. but that's not gonna get into your cells. The best way to increase your glutathione is to do GLNAC, so glycine and NAC, 'cause those are the precursors of glutathione, and sulforaphane. Take our Broccolit and that actually naturally increases... So the NF-, Nrf2, which goes into the nucleus and tells your cells to switch on the endogenous glutathione. So if you have all the building blocks, it takes them and starts cranking out glutathione big time.

[Luke] Really? Yeah. That's cool.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] Kind of makes sense because it's a sulfur-based compound, and glutathione definitely has a sulfur kind of element to it, too. Like, if you smell glutathione, it has that sulfur smell, much like broccoli does if you let it sit on the counter for a minute.

[David] Yes.

[Luke] You know what I mean?

[David] Yes.

[Luke] I recently got turned onto this company called The Sprouting Company. Have you heard of them?

[David] Mm-mm.

[Luke] It's really cool. They... You know, I used to be into sprouting back in the, I don't know, late '90s, and it was a huge pain in the ass. They'd get moldy, and it just, it's a disaster. It wasn't sustainable, so I just kind of gave it up. But because I really despise the taste of 90% of the vegetables out there I actually like sprouts. I do, too. Like, I'll crush a huge bowl of sprouts- Yeah... no problem. It's really good. So I used to make them, gave up on it. This company contacted me, and they sent me their little system, and they have a really cool sprouting jar that's kind of suspended on a little stand with a mesh lid. Yep. And then they supply you with the seeds, whatever, you know broccoli seeds and various other legumes and things like that, and then you just basically change the water every day for a few days, and next thing you know, you have a massive jar of sprouts. Jar, yeah. But what's interesting is they sent me a few months ago, a new batch of the seeds, and on their broccoli seeds, it said, don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty... It definitely said whatever times the sulforaphane as regular broccoli- Yeah... or regular sprouts. It might even have been, like, 300 times if I'm not mistaken.

[23:39]

[David] Yeah, it's 50 to 100.

[Luke] Is that what it is?

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] So they seem to have bred their broccoli seeds- Now-... in a way that produces more sulforaphane.

[David] Yeah, there are ones that are patented that are up to, like, 300, yeah. But I'm... I would be interested to see that. I will we're, as we're always on the hunt for seeds, right? 'Cause we go through a ton of seeds. But back in 2020, I bought seven organic brands on Amazon and a organic broccoli seeds, and we tested them, and six of the seven did not make sulforaphane.

[Luke] Really?

[David] Yeah. And so, it's, and then we, I did it a year later, six months later nine, and I bought nine brands, and eight of the nine did make sulforaphane. And so, I, all that is to say That's a, that's a thing. You may not be getting sulforaphane if you're sprouting. Now, if that company tested it, then they know. We also we're not a seed company, but out of kind of courtesy, we offer... We sell half pounds of broccoli seeds, and we know, because we measure it, that every half pound will yield at least 400 milligrams of sulforaphane. So that's just a FYI.

[Luke] So if I was using great seeds and sprouting even your seeds that aren't, you know, your primary product, as you said, but if I, you know, just happen to be really into sprouting- Mm-hmm... and I wanna get the sulforaphane, and if I'm getting 400 milligrams out of that bulk material, how does that translate to if I just, like, don't wanna make sprouts and take Broccoli? In other words, like, how many of the best broccoli sprouts would I need to eat in terms of weight to equal a couple capsules of Broccoli? Yeah,

[David] Two capsules would be about three ounces.

[Luke] Oh, okay.

[David] Yeah, so not... It's... That's doable. Okay. so but then that's also, if you translate it into mature broccoli, it's five pounds.

[Luke] Yes. That ain't happening.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] Oh, my God. Broccoli is so gross, especially cooked broccoli. I don't know how people do it.

[David] I think the thing also that you need to know is because the sprout, again, has the myrosinase, the enzyme in the cell wall, you have to chew it well to maximize that chemical reaction.

[Luke] Ah,

[David] Okay. And so you know, if you're going after the if you're going after sulforaphane, I just suggest juicing juicing the sprouts- Mm. Mm... 'cause you'll have you'll have broken all the cell walls down. Let the juice sit for about 15 minutes, and then you have, you'll have some sulforaphane.

[Luke] Cool. Yeah. Cool. I love geeking out on this stuff. Yeah. It's... I hope it's interesting to the people listening. I always just, like, take it for granted everyone wants to get this nuanced, you know? but I try to think of, you know, if I was the listener to this show, what would I wanna know, Well,

[David] I mean, Those

[26:39]

[Luke] Are the kinda questions I ask

[David] And part of why we did, we did this, we came up with Broccoli, I grew broccoli sprouts for Maura, my late wife for four years. And the boys were one to three when we started. You know, I was cooking, I was doing all the things, working, and yeah, like you said, you get mold, especially in the summer times, and you'll lose a crop, and we were growing a ton. We were growing enough... The joke is we were growing enough sprouts for 10 families because we were juicing them every day. And so the... You know, if you lose a crop or it's just labor-intensive or you're you can't travel with them. They don't travel well, and so having an option for something to travel with or if you lose a crop, you know... I think the other thing to say is that, you know, contrasting glucoraphanin supplements with Broccoli, the glucoraphanin supplements just have One precursor. It's glucoraphanin that makes sulforaphane if you actually get it converted. So the actual sprouts and what's in broccoli have a more about eight other cousin molecules to sulforaphane. Hmm. They're called isothiocyanates, and that's basically sulforaphane is one of them, and then there are about eight other cousin molecules to sulforaphane that's naturally in broccoli, in the broccoli sprout- Right... in the broccoli seed. And so all of the research that you read about, except for a little bit is from Hopkins where they have a broccoli sprout beverage that has the whole spectrum of those ITCs, so isothiocyanates. Now we add one from watercress called PEITC phenethyl isothiocyanate. And that's because the research shows there's this true synergy with sulforaphane. So additive effect is one plus one equals two. Synergistic effect is one plus one equals five. And so there's a five times induction of this good pathway that we're trying to get called the NRF2 and so that's super strong signal your, a super strong message to the nucleus to just do all these good things.

[Luke] That's awesome. Yeah. I love watercress actually.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] It's a great thing to wild forage.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] Every once in a while I come across them in a creek and I'm just like, "Ah, that's the best ever."

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] If you get it wild, I mean, it's really potent. It's quite spicy.

[David] If you have ever sprouted watercress seeds, that is so potent it, you get a tingling on your, in your mouth.

[Luke] I personally love that.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] It must be so fun for you guys to have your own lab. I feel like I would just be like geeking out on that so hard.

[David] Yeah. No, it's been it's been great to be able to have a lab to-- if we have a question, we can answer it.

[Luke] Right.

[David] Takes a little bit of time, but-

[Luke] I mean, 'cause I see a lot of supplement companies, I'm guessing probably jump on a bandwagon trend 'cause they wanna make a buck, and then it's being made in some shady ass lab in China. Which by the way, last time I said that, I got kicked off TikTok. I've had to make like five new TikTok accounts. You can talk about vaccines, whatever you want on TikTok. Don't talk about- Oh, because

[29:51]

[David] TikTok is owned by China.

[Luke] At that time, yeah. 'Cause we tried to we, I got kicked off. And I was like, "What? What was it?" And it was a clip that I said something very similar. I was like, "Yeah, the, in China they make a lot of inferior, potentially contaminated, if not just completely ineffective supplements." And TikTok did not like that. They kicked me off. Here's what's up. The longer I've been in the health space, the more I've realized that the environment around your body is just as important, if not more important in some cases, as the things you put into it. You can eat clean, sleep eight hours, take all the right supplements, but if your body's swimming in a sea of wireless signals twenty-four hours a day, that stress can sabotage a lot of that hard work. And that is why my Quantum Upgrade subscription is still active after all these years. It's pretty incredible. It creates a coherent quantum field around my home that harmonizes EMF so it's less disruptive to my biology, and I can even take it with me when I travel. There's no pills to take, nothing to track, no devices, nothing to remember. It just runs in the background while I get on with living my best life. And what I love about these guys is that they're always innovating. They recently added a growing library of boosters that let you personalize your experience from recovery and deep sleep to creativity, travel, and even meditation. So you can log into your account, set your booster, and run. So to upgrade your life, get over to lukestory.com/quantumupgrade and use the code LUKE15 to start your 15-day free trial. 'Cause if you're gonna invest in your health, don't ignore the environment in which you live. That's lukestory.com/quantumupgrade.

[David] Yeah. So I mean, a lot of supplement companies, in fact, most of supplement companies are marketing companies. They're run by marketers who aren't scientists, who don't know the difference of like what is a typical broccoli supplement versus our supplement. What's a typical berberine supplement that does, is.7% absorbed through the gut barrier versus something that is more absorbable. Um-

[Luke] Yeah...

[David] And so it's just, you know, it is what it is, but it's, it is Great in the, you know, to have scientists like John Gilday, who's our chief science officer, who stabilized sulforaphane and has was, is able to be a, created a carrier molecule, which is a hemp protein that we chemically bind a sea-based carbohydrate to, and that's the carrier molecule we have a patent pending on. And then we can load it with curcumin, we can load it with berberine, we can load it with resveratrol or quercetin or EGCG, and you, it gets smuggled through the gut barrier in a way that is a large enough amount gets in so that the cells, gets to the cells and you see the biological difference that you see in the literature. And so, like with EGCG, so they call them good molecule from green tea extract. We did a test and it's 250 times more bioavailable, so more absorbed than regular green tea. So that's a huge difference. And so a lot of the bioavailable supplements like the Marivas, like the liposomals will be at three times. So-

[33:17]

[Luke] Wow.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] That's a crazy innovation.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] I mean, you guys, can... If this patent goes through, could you license that technology- Absolutely... to other companies? Yeah. That's amazing.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] I know a lot of people-- I was into the liposomals a long time ago when they were very, before you had like fancy Quicksilver Scientific and these more sophisticated companies. But I get liposomal glutathione and SOD and things like that, and they would be like these thick I guess they would use like uh, sunflower lecithin. Mm-hmm. They'd be like these thick gelatinous drinks that would go bad very quickly- Yeah... and they were hard to kind of stomach. But I always the idea of bioavailability has always been interesting to me because I know, you know, a lot of what you take doesn't actually end up in your cell, which is the whole point of getting it in there. And to your point, the studies that are impressive when it comes to ingesting different molecules for health benefits are all studies that are, that are referencing what happens when it gets in the cell and how it actually interacts in your body. Yeah. And yet there's a huge chasm- Gap... in that knowledge, right? Yeah. It's like, "Oh, I heard this thing's good for you, so I'll take it." It's like, well, yeah, it's good for you if it gets where it's supposed to go. Otherwise, again, back to expensive excrement.

[David] Yes. Yeah. And so when Mara was alive, most of my research was figuring the, trying to answer that question. Unfortunately, you know, it you know, there weren't a lot, there weren't real good options. And so, you know, we were trying to create stuff, and that's how we created BroccoLite. but you know, that was a bit, a bit late. And I just-- I'm-- Our company exists to give, you know, people who have, you know, health issues options that really work, so that when you see that literature that talks about that cell study, you have an option that you know enough of the molecules are getting in through the gut barrier to the cells to make that benefit that you're reading about.

[Luke] Yeah. Also, the the entourage effect that you speak of too, I think that's something that's often missing with our sort of reductionist, extractive, scientific way of thinking, where you isolate one particular molecule and you forget about the other co-factors that actually make it work, that potentiate its effects, you know? Yeah. You can see this in in the cannabis industry, for example, right? You have people that are finding the extracts of CBG, Yeah... THC, the different THCs, et cetera. And then someone will come along and go, "Hey, maybe God designed the plant," you know, "with all of these different you know, enzymes and co-factors that interact and support one another for a reason." You know, I think that's one of the kind of downsides of the supplement industry too, is that reductionist perspective that is kind of ignoring the wisdom of nature that Absolutely... everything, you know, it puts everything in an entourage. That's a great way-- It's a great word to describe it, that it's like everything is working together, and any one of those things might be good for you, but much less so in isolation.

[36:24]

[David] Absolutely. And so then that is what we found with BroccoLite and keeping the all-- the cousin molecules to sulforaphane in the capsule, and then adding the one from watercress, that basically it works amazingly well. it works better than just sulforaphane alone. And, you know, we did a study, actually, this is interesting. We had a sulforaphane extract from a lab company that it's not a-- wasn't for personal use, but we put them on cells and we put our Broccoliate on cells. So we-- They're... These cells are renal proximal tubule cells. They're how you do the lethal dose 50 tests, where you determine what at what concentration will 50% of the cells die, and then that determines the tox-toxicity load. And so this uh, my coworker and friend, John Gilday, did this study. And I don't know why he left them over, mm, over the weekend. So usually you have to change the media, and you have to, you have to, you know... If you want things to... You want to answer the question that you're trying to go after, you have to take care of the cells and look at them daily and stuff like that. And so he came back in Monday thinking everything was gonna be dead. And so he had put the cells that had just the sulforaphane were dead. The cells that had broccolite on them, like these are kidney cells grew more kidney cells.

[Luke] Really?

[David] Not only were they not dead, they had more of them in there. Wow. Which doesn't happen if you-- 'cause your... The culture media is optimized, and he'd never seen that happen before, and so he's like, "What's going on?" So essentially that spectrum what did you call it?

[Luke] Full spectrum?

[David] Yeah. The having- The entourage? The entourage. Yeah. Having the entourage of what naturally is in the broccoli seed, plus the added one actually did something to the cells to fully more optimize them. And so, you know, there is actually a protective effect on kidneys from broccoli. Not only is there not a lethal dose, it's protective.

[Luke] That's amazing. Wow. I love that. it's funny, I thought, "Oh, we'll just touch on this other topic and get into the main topic I want to cover, microplastics." But, you know, the Anyway With you is constantly innovating, so there's always more to talk about. Yeah. tell me about your shift in interest from the many, the numerous, innumerable environmental toxins to zeroing in on microplastics. shockingly, it's a topic I've not really covered in depth- Yeah... so I'm excited to share that with people. It's something we're starting to become more aware of. what piqued your interest in that?

[David] Yeah, I mean, it it... Our interest got piqued when a researcher out of North Dakota, John Budvig was able to... He, Without our knowing it, he bought some broccoli plus and he basically did a study. He had a hypothesis he said he wanted to test, and he thought that if you take sulforaphane, it will mobilize microplastics out of your cells so that you can excrete them. And so he showed that. He used Bryan Johnson's blood test, and he and he showed that he actually had the highest blood microplastics level after they were mobilized anyone human that they had seen at that time. So that was last June of And so that was June of 2025. And so we heard about the study in August, which is when I texted you after I was here. I was like, "Oh my gosh." We, um-- And so that got us interested. And I mean, I think it's important also to just-- Not everybody knows what-- I mean, of course, microplastics have been talked about a lot. But a microplastic is basically a microscopic, so sort of a diameter of your hair fall-- your hair's or less that size piece of plastic that basically gets sloughed off regular plastics. So things like if you heat your food in the microwave in plastics food storage containers, lots, loads of plastics can get leached and incorporated into that meal. In the literature, it says, you know, up to hundreds of millions of microplastics particles. The thing that is interesting is we actually did our own internal study to see once it's mobilized, once the microplastics are mobilized out of the cells, do they get out through sweat? Do they get through the, your urine? Do they get out through feces? And the answer is that some, very little through sweat and urine, but some. Most of it gets out through feces because it gets into the lymph, into the bile, and excreted that way. But it was very difficult to find a negative control because microplastics are everywhere. And so we finally got a negative control from some reverse osmosis water, some very purified water, and were able to do the study. But we had to-- If you think about a lab, like glass is discouraged because-- and plastics are encouraged because you don't want stuff breaking, right? And so the Petri dishes are plastic. The pipettes are plastic. and so you know-- And I think there was a recent study that showed that You know, it is some of the numbers out there may be inflated because it's so-- because of just the environment.

[42:09]

[Luke] Right.

[David] Getting, you know, you know, it-- the food from the microplast-- or the food in the plastic containers where you see microplastics leaching in, how much of that is atmospheric in the lab when they're testing it? It's just a question. I mean, I

[Luke] Mean, also it's like if your lab technicians are wearing a polyester blend smock, that's getting aerosolized.

[David] Everything.

[Luke] Right? It's

[David] It's everything. So it's a good question to ask. I think we're early on in knowing but it's a problem because plastics are porous and plastics are-- have these plasticizers like BPA, like phthalates, that make the plastic not brittle, but they're bendable. And so the BPA, since the microplastics are porous like a sponge, they'll get-- you know, you'll have thousands of these BPA molecules in the plastic that you ingest. And so that's an issue because BPA is an endocrine dis-disruptor. It's a estrogen mimic, and so, you know, estrogen is a hormone. It's a signal. It tell, you know-- it tells your-- women's bodies w-what to do, w-to do something and when. And so if you have this estrogen-mimicking compound, you basically-- that's, uh... It can, it-- the body sees a second signal, and so you can have irregular menstruation, right, i-in older women. In younger women young girls, they can go into puberty earlier 'cause they have a false signal. Same with boys. Boys can go into puberty later, okay? And so there was a recent microplastics documentary on Netflix in March that was released, and they looked at six couples and-- who are having trouble getting pregnant. And they basically did this m-microplastics and other toxin remediation of their homes, getting them out and getting, like, glass food storage containers instead of plastic, stuff like that. And so, you know and they measured their blood for BPA before and after, and there was a drop, right? And three of the-- two or three of the couples got pregnant months later. and it's a-- it's not causation, it's correlation, and it's not-- it wasn't a very science-y study, but it was more for entertainment and just... But it was pretty interesting, right? And that's because, you know, the-- you know, we were talking about this earlier, the microplastics found in men's testicles and in their sperm. And so basically, the-- when the microplastics are in the sperm, it can cause both lower quality sperm as well as a lower sperm count. So less sperm, and the sperm that you are getting has poor quality. And so, you know, that could be part of the issue with the, with the infertility. But it's just-- it's, again, we're still learning. two weeks after the microplastics Netflix documentary was released RFK and Health and Human Services had a a call to basically researchers. They released a hundred and sixty million for research around microplastics that has never been done before. So answering some of these basic questions. And so that's pretty exciting to see, you know, the ball getting moved forward.

[45:32]

[Luke] It's so frustrating because you could just use hemp instead of oil to create all the same products that plastic makes. It's so annoying. You know, I think there's this inertia to capital capitalism, right? Where there's a resource that can be capitalized, and we kind of as a species get stuck on this track where it's like, wow, plastic and rubber? I mean, obviously it's really useful.

[David] Sure.

[Luke] We can get oil from the ground and make all of these electronics and every product, sneakers, car tires, whatever. Like it... The world is basically a plastic world. Of course, I'm, you know, a naive someone who envisions a different future or a different world. Yeah. It's like most of the stuff we're using plastic for you could derive from hemp, and it would be even better and also biodegradable and harmless to humans. It's just so frustrating when there's a viable alternative, but we seem to just kind of... We're just sort of in this habit of doing things, and these corporations are created that sell, you know, develop and sell these products, and they're... It would be probably too impractical and costly for them to completely switch tracks Yeah Be like, "Oh, we're gonna abandon the way we, you know, Dow Chemical or whatever, the way we've been doing things for 100 years. Let's stop that and innovate and go in the other direction." You know, I'm sure a lot of them aren't, you know, interested in harming people, but it's like the money seems to drive the innovation or the lack thereof.

[David] Yeah. Yeah, I mean, even my... You know, I get bike whole cow at a time and freeze it. And but I it, the, so it's completely grass-fed. It's super organic. It's the best you can get, right? And then it comes in plastic wraps. Yeah.

[Luke] I know.

[David] It's, yeah, it's just like, oh. I mean, but what else is he gonna do? You know? That's right. I don't... and so, you know, I, but I will, to, you know, encourage you, and I think you've seen probably, I get bombarded with these alternative brands with alternative clothing right now. So bamboo is big. but just, oh, we don't use plastic, you know, these brands. Yeah. And so and I, you know, it's just like, oh, cool, you know? And buy... And so I've been buying more of those, the like shirts that are 100% natural fibers. and so they're starting to get out there, which is encouraging, especially considering... And workout clothes too. Yeah. Especially considering like if, I don't know, you probably heard Lulu Lemon leggings have like 10 times the allowable or average of those forever chemicals. And so I think there's a couple lawsuits going on with them right now. It's just like how do you get that many forever chemicals in a pair of leggings?

[Luke] You have to be intentional.

[David] I don't know. It's just like, what?

[Luke] How can we make some poison booty shorts, you know? It's almost like

[David] They set out to do it. It seems like it. I mean, I'd, I would be surprised if they were intentionally doing that, but it's just like, but how? You know? Yeah. And so you have these expensive brands, this expensive brand of, you know, Lulu Leg, Lululemon, and you think you're getting maybe something quality, and it's just like You're not.

[48:48]

[Luke] What's crazy too with the, like, fitness and yoga clothing category, the irony there, of course, is that this is clothing that you're purchasing to do something that supports your health. You know what I mean? Where it's like, I don't know, you could get, like, winter gear, God knows, you know, just whatever day-to-day clothing that's more utility- Yeah Intended, right? That is actually healthy or at least not bad for you. But it's funny that the main culprits seem to be kind of in the fitness and yoga space, and those are the, you know, arguably the most health-minded consumers out there, and they're getting really the worst possible option.

[David] Yeah. And I've seen, like, flying here I was surprised to see the number of young women shifting from the tights to, you To the baggy warm-up shirt, pants and sweatpants. And now those could be cotton. They probably aren't 100% cotton, but they're certainly not... Most of them probably have a blend which is better. And so yeah, I mean, you know, the issue is when you're... Just think for a moment of when you're drying your clothes and you pull the lint trap, the lint out of the lint trap. When mine, I pull it out, and there's the trap, and I just scoop it with my hand, and there's this plume of dust.

[Luke] Right.

[David] And, you know, we have probably 75% of our clothing is polyester or nylon or spandex. and that cloud, that's microplastics. So I always hold my breath.

[Luke] Totally.

[David] So-

[Luke] Well, also just think about, like, what, you know, the stuff that's that's getting through that filter that goes out the stove pipe out your roof. Yeah. Right? It's like in this neighborhood from people running their dryers, there's probably microplastics in the

[David] Air-

[Luke] Everywhere... just from dryers.

[David] Just from dryers. Let

[Luke] Alone everything else.

[David] But, you know, indoor-wise, if you have ever seen, like, the I mean, probably you could do it here, but the ray of light that comes through and you can see the dust particles- Mm-hmm And the ray of light, yeah. you know, depending on how much microplastics you have in your house, like a rug, most rug... This rug is probably wool.

[Luke] Yeah,

[David] Yeah. But most rugs are plastic, you know. And so, or even, like, a couch. We have a couch that has the foam in the, in the cushion, and you bang it, right, and there's this dust, and that's microplastic.

[Luke] Dude, it's a, it's a battle out there- Yeah... to try to have a plastic-free home. I mean, I've been aware of this issue for some time and you know, when we moved into this house, we... I had a few pieces of furniture that I brought with me from LA, but because it was a bigger space and a different space, we had to buy things. Yeah. And it's like, it's laborious, man, to go... 'Cause I do all my shopping online 'cause I just don't like going in the world-... 'cause there's too many, there's too many humans in the world and then I have to deal with them. they probably don't wanna deal with me either. But okay, so we have, like, wool rugs just 'cause I like Persian and Moroccan rugs and stuff. But recently we had a moth infestation, and so I did this whole AI deep dive on how to get rid of these moths 'cause they're destroying these really beautiful Yeah... very expensive rugs. And so I went to get the rug pads, right? And you can't get, like, real wool Rug pads, they're all made of, like, recycled tires and plastic, and I just finally had to concede and go like, "Well, at least those are underneath the rugs." Yeah. But man, it's hard to get... This is why our furniture is mostly leather, but inside this leather, if you turn this chair upside down, it's all made of plastic.

[52:24]

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] Right? The little net thing on the bottom is plastic. It's like it's freaking everywhere. And when it comes to buying clothing, to your point earlier, I worked in fashion for a long time, so I'm pretty adept at online shopping. Yeah. You know, it's, again, I prefer just to have things shipped to the front door instead of going out in traffic, et cetera. But every time I go online and shop for clothes, it's just like I go, "Oh, that's a cool shirt." My immediate thing is, like, going to the materials and care drop-down. It's like 20% polyester. It's like, "Oh, man. Nope. Next." And a couple years ago, I put out a a merch line, T-shirts and hoodies and hats and stuff like that, and I went through, I mean, a dozen... It's called print on demand 'cause I'm, you know, I have to-- I'm not gonna make merch and sell it out of my garage, so you do print on demand, which means a company has a stock of of the garments, and then when someone places an order, they print whatever your design is, right? I went through 10, 12 companies just to get all-cotton T-shirts, which was almost impossible. No one had organic cotton, which is a whole other issue, right? 'Cause cotton is grown with pesticides, so even all cotton is not the greatest, but I thought my ethics dictate if I'm gonna wear something, I have no problem selling it to people. But if I wouldn't wear it, I'm not gonna sell it. When it came to the hoodies, there was not one company that made hoodies that didn't have at least some plastic blend in them, and I just finally caved and I was like, "Well, technically I would wear it 'cause it's not really touching your skin." And I was able to justify wearing them myself and selling them, but even that I didn't feel good about. And a couple you know, listeners even gave me shit, and I'm like, "No, I know. I get it. Trust me, I tried."

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] You think like if there's-- I know a few people as OCD as I am about stuff like this, and it's like, dude, if there was an all-cotton hoodie out there, trust me, your boy would've found one. They just didn't exist, and so, you know, eventually I abandoned that project 'cause it was just a lot of work and not a lot of return on it. But that is all to say, even if you become educated about microplastics, it's freaking hiding everywhere. It's really difficult to avoid. I mean, it's like a full-time freaking job just to de-plastify your life.

[David] Yeah. And so, I mean, it can sound overwhelming, but I will say the kind of three biggest bang for your bucks as far as steps to take if you're interested in this topic is basically first is indoor air. So over 60% of your microplastics exposure is from the indoor air that you breathe. And put a HEPA filter in the room that you sleep in because that's where you are indoors most. Yep. And so a HEPA filter that can more than handle the size of your room. You want it above and beyond the minimums, and so maybe 2X of your room size. And so that's the first step, and that will reduce things dramatically. Second is get a reverse osmosis filter on your drinking water. You don't have to have it on your whole house, though you can, but that's expensive, right? we were talking about that earlier. Yeah. There are brands maybe... There-- You can get them for as cheap as 5,000 whole house five to 7,000. But the ones on your drinking water from Amazon are, like, three to 400. And so that, you can get in the game there. So that would reduce your microplastics as well, 'cause it's in the drink municipal drinking water.

[55:46]

[Luke] So there are microplastics in tap water? Yeah. Untreated tap water?

[David] Yeah. Second, or the third is throw away all of your plastic food storage containers and drink storage. And so if you have... Yeah, so basically you can replace them for with glass. I have the glass. I also have stainless steel that have metal tops that I can put in the oven. But I put, have glass that does-- they do have plastic tops, but they're sealed with silicon. And so that's, from my perspective, that's good. And also coffee cups. So don't never put coffee in plastic, because the heat is what leaches. And so coffee cups and then a stainless steel coffee cup, a stainless steel drinking, water drinking water bottle. so I just carry those. I don't have this one right here, stainless steel that I carry everywhere. And so the issue with coffee too is basically, I mean, I'm staying at a hotel. It has an... It's a nice hotel. It has nice coffee. It has a pod that's plastic. It has a machine that's plastic, and you're supposed to heat the water, so you're getting hot water in plastic that goes through the plastic pod. And then you have a paper cup that it goes in, and that's safe, right? 'Cause it's paper. But no, it has plastic. It's lined

[Luke] With plastic.

[David] It's lined with plastic, so you're getting three different exposures. And the water that you pour water into the-

[Luke] The tap water that's going

[David] In. Yeah. Or-

[Luke] Also those little those little coffee pods-

[David] They're plastic

[Luke] You know, too, are also plastic.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] It's crazy. I caved. We were traveling recently, and you know, I went into a coffee shop and got a cup of hot coffee in one of those cups, and instantly my mind's like, "Oh, I remember a video I saw on Instagram where they, like, melted the cup and showed how much plastic was in it." It's like, cool, I just swallowed a credit card. You know? It's like...

[David] Yeah, I actually got I got called out on... I was on a podcast. Sit there, like, "Well you do you actually do any, or ingest a credit card size of plastics a month?" And there was a study out of Australia in 2019 that basically said that you did. But they said it was up to a credit card size amount of plastic each week, and the question posed to me was each month. And I was like, "You know, hopefully not, but probably yes." and this guy called me out on it on Instagram. and His big thing was, yeah, you shouldn't worry, like, w- 'cause you don't know right now. And, you know, I don't think you-- my, what I always say is it's probably not a credit card size, but even if it's a 10th of that, so credit card is five grams, even if it's a 10th of that, it's still a huge amount of microplastics. And so we don't know how much you're ingesting 'cause everyone's different. But if you if I'd say do those three things that I said and, you know, you should basically have some peace of mind there. His big thing was we shouldn't worry about this 'cause we don't know, and I think worry jumps up your jacks up your cortisol, and so that's... It's not as much a worrying and a fear as, like, it is an issue. Yeah. And you if you if-- and you should be knowledgeable and take steps. And is that fear or is that being conscientious? You know.

[59:07]

[Luke] Yeah.

[David] And so when I talk about this, I'm like, it is a budding field of science that we're trying to know more and more about. but don't fear, but be conscientious and take steps.

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[David] Beautiful. I think that's really important because the

[Luke] Psychological element is critical, right? I mean, I talk about EMF a lot, right?

[David] Yeah. And it's

[Luke] Like even now I still have to discipline myself and not go into a sort of fear response, even if it's subtle or subconscious, because I know I'm right next to a cell tower. I go in a building that's full of a bunch of Wi-Fi and smart technology and so on. So my mantra to myself and what I promote is, like, build awareness and get educated, but there are just so many things that are beyond your control, and I know from experience trying to exert control over something that isn't controllable only creates more anxiety. So now I'm getting a double hit. Now I'm, like, drinking- You know what I mean? Now I'm, like, drinking the microplastics in this great hot coffee I just got, which I'm taking a hit on, but I also now I'm, like, reinforcing that with the belief that I'm harming myself and the fear of what's going to happen. And so you're getting, you know, multiple negative inputs versus just going, "Hey, I'm aware of this, but it's convenient and I'm willing to take the hit, and I'm just gonna, you know, use my positive mindset to override at least the emotional and the psychological part of it." You know? It really is a... It's a fine balance there, and I think a lot of people that make money God bless them, on coming up with solutions to some of these problems do often rely on the fear aspect in their marketing. You know? That's like you see it on almost, you know, every webpage. It's like, "Hey, this thing's gonna give you cancer. Here's the solution." You know? It's like a lot of the marketing leads with fear Yes... you know, there's a reason why it works. You put someone in a state of fear and they become susceptible to your sales tactics, you know?

[1:02:40]

[David] Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, I think it is important to say that the first step in dealing with microplastics is decrease your the burden of the toxins. So of... That's any toxin really, but if you're talking microplastics, you know, again, HEPA filter in the room you sleep in, RF filter on your drinking water, get rid of all plastic food storage containers. The... If you do those three things, so you'd be way ahead of everybody else. I Yeah... you know? And so, you Get a-- And then get a HEPA filter maybe in your living space that you spend the second most amount of time in. Begin slowly transitioning out your clothing to more natural fibers. and, you know, just the, these steps, the, they're very doable. And then I think the thing that I'm most excited about is, you know, what we talked about earlier, the broccoli showing that-- So basically, what happens when you ingest microplastics, it gets into the cell and it gets engulfed in this organelle called a lysosome. It's basically this vesicle that that swallows up different things that are not from the cell. So it could be microbes. it could be misfolded proteins, things that you want to digest and potentially recycle. And so then when the microplastic gets in there, it gets engulfed in a lysosome and-- but it can't get digested because it's not digestible. And so there's a buildup in the cell, much like the in a kitchen sink where you get food built up and it stops up the sink. So you can clog up a cell and end up killing the cell. So what the broccoli does, what the sulforaphane does is it unstops the sink, and so it essentially spits out goes to the cell wall, the lysosome spits out the microplastic, goes into the interstitial space. This gets-- makes it way, its way to the lymph, to the bile, and then you excrete it out in your feces. And so but and so that's important because you're actually not just decreasing the amount that you're getting exposed to, you're actually You're actually getting the microplastics out of your blood and out of your

[Luke] Body Well, that, yeah, that's that's where I wanted to go next. I mean, I think we've done a good job. There are some practical steps you can take, right? To just... And it's an incremental process, right? I mean, we still have some plastic things around the house. Yeah. I'm sure not everything I own is 100% cotton or wool or whatever, but I'm, you know, making progress as I become- Yeah... more aware of that. But the question, I guess, is what you just started to lead into is the difference in terms of the process of detoxification when it comes to a plastic, like, molecule versus something like glyphosate or other pesticides. Is there a different in terms of-

[1:05:42]

[David] Yeah, there is... how

[Luke] We get them out of our body?

[David] Yep. So it's a different pathway. So there's microplastics, which is a particle, right? And the microplastics are porous, and so they have these plasticizers. There's things that make the plastic not brittle but bendable, like BPA or like phthalates. And those, unfortunately, are endocrine disruptors. So your endocrine system sends out hormones, and that hormones are signals that tells your body to do different things. And so for women, estrogen helps regulate your menstruation and menstrual cycle. And so if that, if the BPA is a, an estrogen-mimicking compound, it-- and that's present in a large amount in a woman's body, it's like, it's like a false signal on top of an actual signal. And so, and it-- your body may have trouble determining what's what. And it's like having two different television shows on top of each other in one television, so the, there's the shows are signals, and you might be able to tell the two shows But you're not gonna understand the plot, right? Because it's gonna be garbled. And so that's much like having a, these endocrine disruptors in your body than we mentioned earlier. It can cause irregular menstruation, it could cause infertility issues. And so you want to be able to not only detox the BPA out, which the sulforaphane can do because it stimulates all three phases of detox. It'll it will detox detoxify the actual particle. But to get that microplastic out the microplastic particles out of your body, it's a different pathway that... And so again, sulforaphane in the Microplastx supplement that we're offering basically unclogs the kitchen sink. But if you think of the resveratrol, which is the good molecule in wine that's supposedly responsible for the French paradox, I don't think it is, but it's it is an anti-aging supplement. But what that does is it works differently in that same pathway of sulforaphane that to increase the piping. So increases the pipes so more can come out. So it's a one-two it's a one-two punch of getting those microplastics out of your body into your feces.

[Luke] Is there any truth to the idea that microplastics can also transport other nasties like heavy metals and pesticides? Exactly.

[David] Yeah, absolutely is true because they're porous.

[Luke] Ah. Yeah. So they'll absorb other crap that you don't want in your body.

[David] Yeah, I don't know. I'm not a plastics expert, but I know that they-- since they're porous, they have, they do have other toxins in them. So that's why it is important to not only get the microplastics detoxed through like this Microplastx and have things that bind them in your gut so they don't get into your, into your body to begin with or into, through your gut barrier to begin with. But it's also important to actually detox both the plastic and the chemicals that are housed in in the plastics.

[1:09:00]

[Luke] And where in the body do the microplastics typically accumulate the most? And is there any viable data to support the idea that for men, in particular, that it gets stuck in their testes? I think this got a lot of our attention. You know, it's

[David] I don't, I don't know. I know one thing, um-

[Luke] I mean, sometimes these things It's, I think it's

[David] Everywhere...

[Luke] They end up online and, you know, you go, you just kind of take it as true and do we really know that? And does it matter? I mean, do you-- we just know, hey, it's bad for you. Let's take less in, let's get it out however we can. But it's interesting to me to think that sometimes these toxins that we ingest or breathe in mobilize and end up having an affinity for different organs and parts of the Yeah... that make them more problematic.

[David] Yeah. And so the So the first answer is everyone's different, so I'm not su-- I wouldn't say like okay, everybody's-- it's gonna wind up in your kidneys. So that's I think important clarification. But certainly there have been studies that show it's in brain tissue, right? And so it can cross through the blood-brain barrier. Actually, if you're breathing through your nose, they the p-plastics can go up through a passage into your brain that way. And so that's important to know. And so, you know, again, getting them detoxed, getting the microplastics out of the body is important. I think where there is a natural process that happens, you don't have to take our supplement that-- Because if you think about it, we would be, like, we would have plastic things, you know, coming out of our bodies if we somehow didn't get them out. But if you wanna get them out in a way that you get a boost for health, then this is, this is a great o-option. And so I think I've heard-- had friends do the blood filtration. Have you had that, heard that being done? Yeah.

[Luke] Yeah. I did something called EB02 a couple times a couple years ago, which is like you have a needle in one arm and a needle in the other arm, and they run, they run it through a filtration medium. It's like a dialysis-

[David] Yeah...

[Luke] Sort of situation. Yeah. And then they ozonate it. Yep. And it's really interesting because you see the color of your blood change, you know, because of the oxygen- Yeah... I guess, and the ozone reaction. But at the end of it, you end up with a yellow bucket of foam. You know, it's really-- And that's kind of a sign of all the inflammation in your body. Yeah, it's really interesting. I felt, you know, it was not that comfortable to do because you're sitting there kind Yeah... you know, really wired up. But I like the idea. I've seen this become kind of popularized recently, these kinda treatments. Yeah. It's almost like just running your entire, you know, volume of blood through some sort of filtration medium and cleaning it up and putting it back in.

[David] Yeah, I mean, so I've, I had friends who do that's more particulate than just foam that comes out. And so th-that's like, well, what is that stuff? Ce-certainly some of that's plastic. So, you know, to your question, where does it li-- you know, where does it end up? we know that it ends up in male testes, you know, and it ends up in brain. So my business partner John Gilday, is a kidney expert, so he would, he would work-- get kidneys from the University of Virginia, and he would, he-- his basic lab was nephrology, so he would slice up the kidneys in these m-- microscopic portions to put them on slides to look at them to study. And so he saw numerous basically numerous kidneys where because the plastics are reflective under a microscope, you can see the plastics. And he just had kidney-- he had kidneys that were so just unusable 'cause they were so filled- Oh, no... with plastics, like, he-- they would just have to get rid of it because they-- you couldn't see anything. Right. Just the brigh- the bright reflection. And so-

[1:12:49]

[Luke] It's obscuring the data that you're after.

[David] Yeah. And so basically there's... You know, it's pretty small, the size that it's I think it's actually in the nanometer size that can get through, pass through the glomerulus to get into the urine. and so you're-- you can pee out the smaller stuff but the larger stuff can get, can get caught. And so anyway, it's-- I don't know all the different places they end up, but certainly those are three Okay... I know through the research and through this personal experience that-

[Luke] I know we already covered some of the other sources, but I keep thinking of other ones. there's one thing that I, again, you know, you hear things, is this really true? Makes sense to me. But you know, when you get takeout in the black plastic, I heard that's all of that black plastic or the majority of it is made from like melted down electronics, like old computers and shit like that, which just sounds bad. So anytime I've-- I don't get takeout a lot, but if I do and it's like some hot chili or something like that in one of those things, I'm like, "Ah, that can't be good."

[David] No.

[Luke] But other one I thought of was y-you were talking about lab equipment, right? These Petri dishes and things like that being made of plastic and therefore making it difficult to test. another one that I've always wondered about is like medical IVs. You know, there's a lot of these like IV places, and I remember one day I'm sitting there getting an IV Mm-hmm And I look up and I'm like That's a plastic bag that stuff's sitting in. You know, I wonder if you're getting any from that too. It just seems like it's everywhere.

[David] Yeah. I mean, that's the it's a great question of as far as what are some unusual places that you wouldn't necessarily think microplastics are-

[Luke] And chewing gum is another one I heard too. I haven't heard that. Like, regular gum is, like, made with plasticizers. So anyway, I don't wanna get stuck on the negative. I'm

[David] I just wanna... I do wanna throw out too so to your point, I had to stop eating, getting takeout from our favorite Thai place and our favorite Indian place, which is-

[Luke] Do they use those black, like, recycled VCRs or whatever they

[David] Use? Yeah. And it's... 'Cause it's all hot. And so, you know, I'd say with the IV bags, if you keep them cool, like 'cause like PVC pipe in your houses like, if those are cool, they're not gonna be sloughing off many, if any, plastic. but that's also why it's important to have the reverse osmosis filter at the source of your drinking water. So but a apple, there's a study showed basically a million microplastics on an apple because of the natural wax coating, and I think they actually spray an additional wax coating on. And so you'll want to, whether it's a million or whether it's 50,000, like you know, the thing I read was a million you'll want to actually scrub that apple and to get that wax coating off or just peel it. The peel of the apple has... is loaded with nutrients, so maybe just, Right... scrub it.

[Luke] Right.

[David] Um-

[Luke] With like a Chore Boy, you know?

[1:15:49]

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] If you really want to scrub it.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] I mean, it's funny, if you, if you buy even, like, an organic apple and you go, "Oh, I'm gonna run it under some water in the sink," it still has that coating. You know what I mean? You really would have to have something- Just scrub... kind of abrasive- Yeah... to get that, the outermost coating

[David] Yeah... of it. Yeah. And so that's one that people don't necessarily think about. And then, like, the have you ever seen those, I call it... used to call them fancy teabags? They're like, um-

[Luke] Oh, yeah.

[David] Yeah... they're like triangle shaped. Yep. Pyramid shape. that's made of nylon. Yep. 'Cause they're shiny. And I don't know if it's true, but the, again, I researched it and I, it would, they would have to be really small particles, but a billion up to a billion in one, like... And I'm just like, you know, if you think about that seems, like, extreme. But it's, if they're nano-sized, then maybe. But regardless, that's, you don't wanna be putting nylon- Yeah... in the, in your tea, basically, 'cause yeah, that's gonna have a lot of microplastics. Totally. And

[Luke] I'm glad you mentioned that, 'cause that was one that kind of started to make the rounds early on. I thought, "You know, it makes a lot of sense," 'cause I mean, if you hold one in your hand, you can feel that it's nylon or plastic, and then you're pouring boiling water

[David] Yeah...

[Luke] Drinking your healthy tea, you know? Yeah. And it's like, ah, God. Sometimes it's so annoying being a part of the human race.

[David] Yeah. And you have to think, like, who-

[Luke] Why aren't we forward-thinking? Like, let's think about the long-term, you know, cost of some of these things rather than the temporary gain. So if I own a tea company, again, they probably don't know they're doing that, right? But I'm just picturing myself, I'm the CEO of a tea company, and I learn that information. We're immediately making the switch. Sure. And we're coming up with a solution to that, you know? But a lot of these things, even as they gain public awareness and gain some traction in the media, the companies are very slow to pivot, you know? And then someone smart, an entrepreneur, would be like, "Hey, I'm gonna make a tea company that's, like, plastic-free bags." And all of a sudden, you know, they find that's a viable business model. Sometimes businesses are created just because there's a vacuum Yeah... that's begging for a solution, which is, we got a table of your products sitting here for that same reason.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] So it's, you know, I guess there's a double-edged sword to it. But going back to solutions, I wanna be positive here. Yeah... are there any viable tests to discern, to determine one's microplastic burden? Like, have we figured that out yet?

[David] Yeah. so Brian Johnson has a blood test. it's called Blue something and that at least a year ago was the only microplastics blood test on the market. I think there are tests for BPA as well, which is a proxy because the BPA is in the microplastics. But I like-- I don't like-- I'd rather just get, let's do the microplastics. And then he does the sizes, so he'll tell you the sizes of the microplastics, so I think they're really- Oh, interesting. And the interesting thing is, the really interesting thing is that the majority of the microplastics are larger than cells, so they actually don't get into the cells. They get into-- They're just in your body.

[1:18:55]

[Luke] Oh,

[David] Weird. And so, yeah. And so-

[Luke] So they're not that-- Some of them aren't that micro, or they're, you know, they're not nano. Actually,

[David] I think, I think there are more nanos than-- But you can't measure them. Y-

[Luke] Ah.

[David] You-- There's a, there's a- 'Cause they're

[Luke] Nano.

[David] There's a threshold. Too

[Luke] Small.

[David] Yeah, there's a threshold right... of the resolution of the equipment can't get down that far. So internally in our, in our lab, like, it under, you know... It's hard for us to do, like, under a micron or under a certainly under 100 nanometers. that's sort of a cutoff for us. But there-- If you think about it, likely, yeah, they're just-- I think it was just interesting that there are, they're all the spectrum of sizes of microplastics in your blood.

[Luke] Right. I think the testing is, has always been interesting to me because I wanna see results from the interventions that I'm spending time, energy, and money on, right? So it's like I would wanna go get whatever viable microplastics test there is, do a three-month Yeah... of getting your microplastX product hard every day in a committed way, then retest and actually see if it's working or I'm gonna, you know, up my sauna game and take more saunas or whatever it is. Yeah. Doing zeolite or any kind of binders or other detox protocols. I think sometimes it's it's not as-- we're-- It's difficult to build momentum and, like, self-discipline if you don't have a way to actually track the results of whatever you're doing. I think testing is good for that 'cause it kinda gets your attention, like, "Oh, shit, I don't want that in my body." Okay, then you start finding solutions. You apply those solutions, but if you don't retest, you kinda don't really know if whatever you did was effective or not.

[David] Absolutely. And this gentleman who actually did the test on himself, he did it in a one, n of one study. And so he did day zero were his baseline. Then he took actually a lot of a product. He took 100 milligrams, so that's 20 capsules, which I would not recommend. And then on day It was the same as baseline. Or day so day zero, day one, it was the same as baseline, so 24 hours after he took it, same as baseline. And then day two, so day zero, day one, day two, he had a huge spike, the largest blood microplastics reading that the Brian Johnson's company had ever seen in a human. And then Day three was below baseline.

[Luke] Oh, interesting.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] So did you deduce from that your product is mobilizing the microplastics, hence the hockey stick- Exactly... rising- Yeah... and then the dramatic fall?

[David] Yeah, so basically it mobilized the microplastics for excretion. Oh. That was, that was the conclusion of the study. And then he did a follow-on study to show it that, like, actually came out into... Most of it came out in feces. And so and then this follow-up study, his blood microplastic spike was a lot lower than the, than the one he did a year before.

[1:22:03]

[Luke] Interesting. Yeah. Is this just one of your customers who did this on his own

[David] Volition? No, it's a researcher. He's a lysosome expert out of North Dakota. He had a theory, so there's a paper that was showed. So cholesterol gets taken up by lysosomes as well, and they can get planted on the artery walls, the vessel walls, and then they can get oxidized and can cause hardenings. And so if you there was a study that showed taking sulforaphane releases the cholesterol out of the lysosomes, so you can you can excrete them essentially. And so he's like, "Oh, I bet this is how... This is the mechanism for, same mechanism for microplastics." And so, and sure enough it was.

[Luke] Wow, that's cool.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] So interesting thing about-

[David] He's a customer now.

[Luke] Yeah, I bet. I bet, dude. Well, that's the thing. I mean, if you can show someone before and after results, to me that's... I don't know. I'm just a geek and I just wanna see the data. I just, I like seeing data like that. But it's also helpful with self-compliance, right? It's like I, you know, I buy a bottle of your supplement or whatever- Yeah... and I think, "Eh, I take it for a little while" and I go, "Eh, I don't really notice anything," and then it sits on a shelf. But it's not gonna sit on a shelf if I have, like, a, an AB test of my biology, right? And I can see like, oh, wow, there was an improvement. Obviously, that's gonna compel me to discipline myself to keep taking it on a regular basis- Yeah... and compound those effects over time.

[David] Yeah. And so we have a seven-day microplastics detox protocol that's online. It's free with every purchase of the Microplastx bottle supplement. But basically, you know, instead of detoxing in three days, you can spread it out. You can you do it... It's more gentle, so I wouldn't recommend taking 20 capsules. Yeah. And just getting the big spike.

[Luke] I might do that, but I wouldn't recommend anyone else does. That's right. I'm learning over time to be less reckless, but it's a slow process.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] For the next week, you guys listen up here, Lifestylist listeners can get an exclusive 25% off all Mara Labs products when you go to mara-labs.com/luke. And of course, we have a code there. The code is Luke. And that gets you the 25% off for the next week. Then, you know, of the release of this episode. Then after that code will still get you 15% off, which is amazing. interesting thing about your unique product line, and I love interviewing people that are doing something novel and unique because let's face it, everyone has, like, the best vitamin B or whatever. You know, it's like, I don't know, some of the old school supplements, it's just like, okay, you can't really improve upon it. Yeah. But what's interesting, I think, like with MicroPlastX, for example, you guys seem to have, like, four or five compounds that are your kind of suite, your favorites, right? And you use different amounts of them you know, in your different product line. But it seems like with the MicroPlastX, and maybe you can break down some of the other components of it, because I haven't read the label carefully, but it seems like even if microplastics weren't your primary concern- Sure... that you're still getting all of these other benefits because it has all the other awesome stuff that you guys have proven clinically to be effective. True.

[1:25:12]

[David] Yeah. So like we com-- like that's true with GeoPerfect. Like all three of those individual products are supplements are fantastic for your health outside of you know, weight. And so we ta-- you know, there's a lot of different re-- and we've talked about a few of those. But similarly, like resveratrol is great. It's great for it turns on SIRT1, which is an anti-aging pathway. David Sinclair had a whole bunch of research on resveratrol and anti-aging, and basically people ditch him and ditch resveratrol because the company he started was trying to do a biologic a synthetic resveratrol, which failed, and everyone's like, "Oh, resveratrol failed." Well, no, resveratrol did not fail. It's a natural compound. But the pharmaceutical version, the synthetic version that they tried was not successful. so resveratrol is a wonderful product. So but the issue with that one is it's not bioavailable. Right. It doesn't get through the gut barrier. So again, we attach it to our carrier molecule, and it's I, you know, there are, um-- I don't know of other resveratrol bioavailable supplements out there. I was on talking with Dave Asprey, and he alluded that there was. I said this, like, "We're the only I think we're the only resveratrol product that's bioavailable." He's like, "Ahaha, no." But he didn't tell me who else has it. maybe it's, uh... I don't know. But anyway, though they're the only one, it's the only one I know of actually that is bioavailable. And so it's a, it's a wonderful supplement. it's our research scientist, it's resveratrol, our Resveratrolite is his favorite of all the ones we make. Really? Which is pretty interesting 'cause we have a lot of good ones. Um-

[Luke] That's compelling, especially coming from someone who understands them, and I'm assuming has an unlimited access and supply.

[David] Exactly, yeah. So, you know the other-- so it's the Broccoli it's the Resveratrolite, so we've talked about those two. And then the fenugreek and beta-glucan, basically that combination, it binds microplastics in your gut before they get into your body. And so it's slowing the amount that gets through by binding, so you can just poop it out without it Oh, cool... getting through the gut barrier. Yeah.

[Luke] So if one was gonna knowingly take a hit and eat some takeout or have a Starbucks or something, you kind of have a line of defense, kind of like how I use your Berberite to try and cheat my sugar habit.

[David] Yes. Yeah. yes.

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[1:30:02]

[David] So that is, again, it's buddi- a budding area of research, and so there... My gut feeling would be yes, but there's no, there's no research on that at present. I will say one differentiator with our supplements too is we purposefully do not include any fillers or flow agents, which can be even more than half of what you're getting in the-- a capsule.

[Luke] Okay? Dude, thank you for that, by the way.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] One of the first things I look for when I, you know, I get approached by a lot of companies that want me to make them money, and, Mm-hmm First thing I do is I go on their website, go right down to the ingredient deck, and look for excipients. Yeah. And I think a lot of that's probably hype. I mean, I don't know how terrible it is if you have a little magnesium stearate every day in your supplement or something like that. But it's like if they're only doing it to make the encapsulation process cheaper, then to me, I'm like, "Just charge me more for your manufacturing," right? I'll eat the cost as a consumer, because I just don't want any of that extra shit in there, silicon dioxide. I mean, I don't know what this stuff is.

[David] You just named the two... I mean, they're-- So they're GRAS, so generally considered safe.

[Luke] Yeah, by whom? By whom? You know, the same people that tried to put a freaking shot in my arm-

[David] We-- So yeah

[Luke] For

[David] The past five years. We have as a you know, company just like I'd rather not have that stuff in my body, you know, because we take a lot of supplements. and so they just don't know what it does. So I yeah, it's a better... Well, so it's not only that, like, we don't have it, but we want to include more of our product in the capsule. We don't wanna waste the space, 'cause we want each capsule that you ingest to make a biologically relevant difference, and we can't do that if other crap's in there. Right. And so we purposely do that. And so, and part of it was, like, when you're Like Mara was sick. She had capsule fatigue. She was taking like 100 capsules a day, and like, it just like, "Ugh, can't The

[Luke] Struggle is real

[David] Another capsule."

[Luke] You know what? Honestly, over the years, I've grown in the habit of just emptying out most of my capsules, and I just make disgusting tasting little tonics, you know? So there's... Thankfully, I don't have a real strong gag reflex. I can drink some nasty stuff. I don't have to do that with your capsules because you don't put weird shit in there, A, but also yours are very small.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] You know, versus other capsules. If you, if you buy a supplement on Amazon or something, right, and it's like one of the larger sized capsules, and you look at the effective dose of milligrams, whatever, vitamin C, whatever it is, right? Say it's 100 milligrams. You're like, "This capsule is much bigger than 100 milligrams, right? What is the rest of that stuff, and why is the capsule so big?" And then you can put the bulk weight on your little jar, right? It's like such and such fractions of an ounce or whatever. It's like, well, how much of that is actually the effective ingredient versus these other additives and excipients?

[1:33:02]

[David] Yeah, and so-

[Luke] Like with the mushroom industry, right? There's a lot of like sawdust in a lot of these mushrooms.

[David] Yeah. No, thatIt's crazy... it's, that's a great point. I mean, I, the-there's a sleep supplement and I know the guy it's his, whose brand it is, so I won't say his name, but or the product, but basically I did, I basically weighed, took what you did, and I have this really small scale that can go down to like a really small measurement. So I put the powder on, just the powder onto the scale and weighed it. And then I added up the active ingredients. So it was like 5-HTP, tryptophan, whatever. and then it was 68% of the powder was protein powder and the flow agents. So only... So the, what's that? So under so like 42% or 32% rather, was the ingredients you thought you were buying.

[Luke] Right.

[David] And I mean, and who's, nobody's gonna actually weigh that, do that experiment. Yeah. But it's just like, you know... And anyway, it was disappointing to say the least.

[Luke] Have you seen any viable data in terms of any of those flow agents and excipients like silicon dioxide, magnesium stearate, which sometimes they'll call vegetable stearate, and I'm like, that's kind of like vegetable oil, you know? Yeah. It's just like, oh, you mean canola oil?

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] Right? Have... is there, is there any proof that these things are actually not good for you, especially taking, you know, taking it over the course of a long time? Or is, are people overly neurotic and concerned about the excipients for no reason?

[David] I don't know of a study. I do know that John Gilday, who reads-- who's our research scientist, who reads a lot he has said something about that. But I, what I'll do is I'll do a deeper dive, and we'll send that to you in case you-

[Luke] I'd love that. Yeah. I'm curious because years ago, there were very few companies that would market themselves as excipient-free. We don't use fillers, binders- Yeah... et cetera, like you guys do, right? And they would use that as some of their marketing ploys. And then I was like, well, why? And then there would be kind of scare tactics around how bad those things were for you, but I never really got to the root of like, is it really something we need to worry about or not? Or is it just something that some of those, you know, early pioneer companies were using as a marketing toy, ploy to kind of like convince you that magnesium stearate is really bad for you so that they can sell you their product that doesn't have it? Does it really matter?

[David] So, I mean, it goes back to, it goes back to most supplement companies are marketing companies. They do not make their own supplements. We make... We do everything from buy-- We get the powder, we put the powder in the capsule, put the capsules in the bottles And we ship out. So we have full control over the quality of our supplements. The, all, basically all of the supplement companies online have third-party manufacturers that, who make their supplements, and so they may never even get a bottle, right? Right. It just goes... And then, and then either those third-party manufacturers also have a shipping arm that ships them out, or they get shipped to the shipper who's not the company either.

[1:36:26]

[Luke] Right.

[David] And they get shipped out.

[Luke] It's kind of like the print-on-demand merch system that I described earlier. Yeah. Yeah. It's like I never was in the factory, you know?

[David] You didn't do it.

[Luke] I'm trusting these third parties to do it right. It's kind of one of those situations.

[David] And so part of it is to get powder in capsules, it, often powders are sticky, and so you want... Or they have to flow into the capsule, and that's not an easy proposition if it's a light, it's light powder, like berberine's really light. And so adding the magnesium stearate or the silicon dioxide allows it to flow into the capsule more easily. And so we have a specific, 'cause we know how to do that, we have this specific encapsulator that instead of it flowing and using gravity, it's an auger. It stuffs it in there. So we stuff- Oh,

[Luke] Wow

[David] We can get more of our powder in one capsule. And that's, again, it's a, we, it's a, it's a philosophy. We want we want to get you as much of the powder that we're selling you as possible in one capsule.

[Luke] That's interesting because your capsules are also very dense.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] You can't really, like, squeeze it in your finger. Like, you can a lot of them, you can almost, like, smush it in half

[David] And that's because of the auger. We're stuffing it in there-

[Luke] Interesting...

[David] Because we want one capsule or two capsules to change your biology.

[Luke] You don't want to create capsule fatigue.

[David] Nor do we. Well, we want to so yeah, we want to keep the capsule small, but we want the amount of powder in the small capsule to make a biologically relevant difference.

[Luke] Tell me about the two-step detox strategy of MicroPlastX.

[David] So basically you want to first of all, get the microplastics out of your body, so we just talked about that. So the Resveratrolite. uh, so the broccoli unstops the kitchen sink, so it unclogs the, so the lysosomes open and release the microplastics so it can mobile, be mobilized for excretion, and then the Resveratrolite basically widens the pipe so more can get out at one, in one time. Now, the other facet of that is just getting ahead of it and binding the microplastics before It gets through your gut barrier into your cells. And so the beta-glucan and the fenugreek does that. It binds, so you can just-

[Luke] Oh, okay...

[David] Poop it out.

[Luke] So with the, with the fenugreek and the beta-glucans, would that negate the necessity of taking zeolite or activated charcoal or something like that along with your product? Or I mean, would that be overkill, or is it kind of already achieving that binding and removing effect?

[David] Yeah, I'm not sure either shilajit or activated charcoal bind to microplastics. Oh. I don't know either way, but-

[Luke] I don't either...

[David] I have I have a friend who's also doing a microplastics supplement, but it's more for binding, and he is not talking about either of those compounds. Oh,

[1:39:36]

[Luke] Interesting.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] Okay.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] As we talked about before, there's, like a byproduct of some of the compounds that you use that have a nootropic effect.

[David] Yes.

[Luke] And I just realized as I'm looking at my notes, fenugreek, I don't even know what that is, but that's something I see in a lot of nootropic formulas.

[David] Fenugreek, it's the it's-- you make licorice with fenugreek.

[Luke] Oh, okay.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] Is it like an anise seed, kind of similar to it?

[David] Yeah, it's the seed. It's a seed, a seed, yeah.

[Luke] And have-- do you know of any of its, like you know, brain-supportive effects, or am I imagining that? I feel like that is an ingredient I've seen in some of these, like, stacks of nootropics and-

[David] Yeah, I've not, I've not heard about that, no

[Luke] 'cause you might be inadvertently creating great nootropic products without even trying to do that.

[David] Yeah. Which is

[Luke] Kind of cool.

[David] Yeah. I have not... I don't know either way about that.

[Luke] Okay. and that's great. I love it when, I love when guests, instead of just bullshitting and making up an answer, are like, "Yeah, I don't know." Great. Next question. with Microplastx, is this something that someone would be kind of taking indefinitely because we're constantly inundated with microplastics, or is this something that you would recommend someone, you know, pulses through periodic protocols?

[David] It you can do it either way. I mean, so I will add, you know, you asked for, asked for the two-pronged detox. I'd add a third prong of the detox is because BPA and phthalates are in, like, a sponge, you know, the microplastics are porous and have those chemicals in them. Those are the plasticizers that are endocrine disruptors. Having a detox of those through the Nrf2 pathway that sulfor- sulforaphane turns on is important. So it's getting the microplastics out binding the microplastics before it gets in, and then getting the chemicals that were released from the microplastics out.

[Luke] Yes,

[David] Yes. Yes.

[Luke] I used to think burnout was just the price you had to pay for being productive. Then I found something that helps me stay focused for as long as I need without feeling smoked afterward. It's called NuCalm. It uses a neuroacoustic software to help shift out of fight or flight and into deep recovery in, like, 10 minutes. And the cool thing is there's no gadgets to buy or haul around. You just throw on headphones, open the app, and within minutes you start to downshift or upshift if that's what you're looking for. I've been busy writing a book for the past couple years, and it's one of the most mentally demanding things I've ever done. I'm talking hours and hours of deep focus, revisiting old memories, and organizing a ton of ideas. So before I start a writing session, I'll use one of their Flow State tracks to get me into zen. Then I'll lock in with a Focus track for the next few hours of writing. And I'll tell you what, my wife can attest to this. When I have those headphones on, it's literally impossible to distract me. I'm like a machine. Then afterward, I'll use Recharge or Rescue to help my brain and body recover from hours of intense work. Just 20 minutes of that feels like a full nervous system reset, and NuCalm science supports that. I highly recommend you check out NuCalm, and here's how you do it. Go to lukestory.com/nucalm to start your free seven-day trial. That's free seven-day trial, folks. You'll also save 15% off your subscription. So whether you need better sleep, sharper focus, or a fast reset, NuCalm has a track for it. And again, here's the link, lukestory.com/nucalm. That's N-U-C-A-L-M to get that 15% off. And whether or not you buy it, I highly recommend you at least give yourself seven days for free I mean, obviously, like you sell these things, so my answer would be if I wanted to make money, like, "Oh, you gotta take this every day for the rest of your life." Oh, yeah. It-- you know, or is this like something that we would do in, you know, four times a year I do a month-long run or something like that? Or do you look at it as more of a herbal tonic kind of thing where you just want a steady diet of it to kind of keep the burden down as you continue to accumulate more of them? 'Cause obviously we could, we could l-eliminate all microplastics and phthalates and all the things from our body and start with a clean slate, but the minute we, like, breathe air, you know, we're taking in the microplastics again. So it seems like we're constantly replenishing, even despite those of us that are gonna use air purifiers and RO water and get the plastic out of our clothing and all this stuff. It's like it's just unavoidable. So seems to me it's something that you would wanna proactively kind of, you know kind of be on a consistent protocol with versus like a periodic hardcore detox.

[1:44:20]

[David] Yeah, I think you can do either. I think if you do the quarterly detox, microplastics detox, yeah, that will decrease your microplastics burden. But if you uh, you know I don't wanna be accused of scaring people, fear-tactoring, you know. But I mean, I d-got a degree in public health from Johns Hopkins, and one of my favorite to-topics was environmental toxin, environmental pu-public health because we are, we are exposed to not just microplastics, but all sorts of toxins every day. And so, you know, if you-- so having a mechanism to kind of Detox those environmental toxins you're getting exposed to regularly, having a detox regularly makes sense to me.

[Luke] Yeah.

[David] You can't overdose. You... the-- there's no like, "Oh, I need to come off and give it a break." there's no paper that shows that. There's no fatigue of the Nrf2 pathway.

[Luke] Right.

[David] And so yeah, from my standpoint I take it every day. and I think the slow and steady wins the race is better than sort of the what this gentleman did in his research where he took 20-... broccoli and vroom, jacked up his microplasticy- Right... and I think, you know, he-

[Luke] We call that a heroic dose around here.

[David] Yes, it's a lot.

[Luke] But yeah, I mean, I also think that question is sort of born out of not everyone has the resources to be on, you know, these novel, sometimes very expensive supplements- Yes... for the rest of their life. So it's like, okay, what's the most bang for my buck? Should I take one capsule a day for, you know, a year, or do I wanna like, do like this guy and kind of hit it mega dose? Seems to me the more moderate way would be just, you know, the minimal effective dose over a longer period of time, which is gonna counteract the chronic exposure.

[David] Yeah. I think that's, uh... I would agree with that. And again, most people aren't even asking that question. So if you're asking that question and you take one MicroPlastx capsule a day, you're light years... And you're doing the remediation, HEPA filter, RO filter, no plastic food storage containers, you're light years ahead of everybody else. And so again not being fearful, but being active and taking steps is important.

[Luke] Yeah. Being-- I like that, just having awareness, being proactive and not like being crushed by fear. Again, 'cause most of the stuff we can't control. I mean, it's like we're on the planet we're on, and it kind of is what it is for the time being. We're swimming in this, you know, just absolutely toxic soup on so many levels. So I think that's, that is a really important point that you keep bringing up is it's, it does, it does us no good to be afraid, but it does a lot of good to take some practical, logical measures to at least, you know, help us meet somewhere in the middle 'cause there's so many things that are just beyond our control.

[David] I have to say this. there was a, um... So last week, I think it was Wednesday, I got a call from one of my friends who's like, "There's-- I just saw this Instagram Reel that basically the protein powder I use, which has valine and isoleucine in it causes cancer." And I'm like, "Send it to me." And so this, it's a doctor, and he generally I like him. I've seen a couple of his things, and he's, he, we get along. But he starts off his video, he's like, "I'm not I'm not I'm not saying this to make you afraid, but..." And I'm like, anybody who starts off his video saying, "I'm not saying this to make you afraid," is trying to make you afraid. And so basically he was talking about two different research. One is how N-NMN causes cancer.

[1:48:11]

[Luke] Oh, shit.

[David] Which it doesn't.

[Luke] Okay, good, 'cause I take a grip of that stuff.

[David] And then how these two amino acids, valine and isoleucine, spread cancer in this mouse study. I'm just like Now, I mean, there are all sorts of holes in the studies that... And did, were their results true? Yeah, but that doesn't equate that then we should stop taking NMN. Because cancer's a metabolic disease, and and a NAD, which is made from NMN, basically is at the center of metabolic health. And so it's, you know... So anyway, I'm just like this, no, eh.

[Luke] There's a lot of noise out there.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] You know, which is one of the things I enjoy doing here on the show is hopefully cutting through some of that noise and trying to find factual information that's actually helpful to people and doesn't just put them in a state of fear and fight or flight and then leave them with no solutions.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] I've been there myself. It sucks. When I started learning about all this stuff, I mean, it was like I wanna go, like, hide in the closet. It's like you can't tell... You can't even live without being completely hammered by EMF and blue light and all the things. It's like at a point, you know, you kinda just gotta learn to live your life and do what you can and-

[David] Yeah

[Luke] Not worry about the rest. Yep. do you see any potential issues in mobilizing if I was to take your MicroplastX and, you know, a moderate dose, is there any potential risk of mobilizing the microplastics faster than my detox pathways can handle?

[David] Yeah, that's a good question. So because it's not a typical detox pathway, it's more of a mobilization into the lymph so that it's-- you're moving it towards the excretion versus like in regular detox, let's say you're doing a detox protocol, and there are three phases of detox, which those three phases of detox aren't what we're talking about when you're getting microplastics out of your body. But typically, the first phase in these protocols is sped up, and that first phase often is basically to make the the toxin more water-soluble, so it can get into your circulatory system. and that step from that is a chemical reaction, and you're making a new chemical, and if that new chemical is that often is more toxic than the original toxin. And so if you're speeding up phase one and you're not keeping up with the phase two, you actually get a buildup, and it's called the detox flu. It can make you sick.

[Luke] Right, a Herxheimer reaction.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] Yeah.

[David] Yeah. And so and so actually sulforaphane slows down phase one Speeds up. It's the best natural molecule at phase two, so it speeds up phase two, and it works in three, phase three, which is binding, excreting. And so so it's actually a I think it's perfect. I think it's the best way to detox a lot of chemi-- like, there are papers on heavy metals, there are papers on benzene, which is in the exhaust, you know, fumes and smog, stuff like that. but with microplas- with microplastics being mobilized for excretion, there's not the same, like oh, once it's in the lymph, then you're gonna get get sick, like in a phase- Right Phase one.

[1:51:36]

[Luke] Right.

[David] It's not, it's not like that. now that said, we're still early on in the research and so are there other issues of mobilizing that many microplastics? I just don't know. Okay. You know? But it's a good question, and it's one that probably deserves-- I mean, I think over the next two years as the money for research from the Health and Human Services has been, NIH has been released to, for specifically on microplastics, some of these questions will be answered.

[Luke] Awesome. Speaking of that my last question for you, my friend, is do you have any plans for controlled trials with the MicroPlastx?

[David] So we do all of our-- You know, we do internal research and so just for our own benefit. and so the blood micro-- the blood microplastics tests, they're like 600 bucks a pop, and so that's pretty expensive to do an actual study. I think as those prices come down, the answer is yes. Um- '

[Luke] Cause you have to have obviously an adequate number of subjects, and you have to run those tests repeatedly over and over again to Yeah... the results,

[David] Right? Now, we do, we are in dialogue with a researcher in Texas who has a pig lab and could do, Oh A couple, a couple pig experiments using micropl- MicroPlastx. So there-- that is in the works.

[Luke] Oh, cool.

[David] Yeah. Oh, cool. But it's not human.

[Luke] That made me think of something else. I wonder if for those of us that consume animal products, I wonder, I wonder, I wonder how much of that has microplastic byproducts from our cows and pigs and chickens being full of plastic too.

[David] Yeah. I mean, so-

[Luke] Not to end on another negative note, but I mean, we know like, you know, large fish in the sea, right, bioaccumulate heavy metals. They live a long time. They eat smaller fish, and so the higher up the food chain you go, at least in the ocean-

[David] Yeah...

[Luke] Uh, the higher level of mercury and things like that you're gonna find.

[David] Exactly. The swordfish, the shark-

[Luke] Yeah...

[David] The tuna. I think, but also if you think about, so the the metric, the number is basically per gallon of s-ocean water anywhere 8,500 particles of microplastics.

[Luke] Oh my God.

[David] And so is that a lot? Is it not much? I mean, it's, it is what it is, and it's surprising, right? 'Cause it's... You think some water is maybe cleaner than others, and that may not be ca-the case now. it's, microplastics have been found on the Everest all the way down to the deepest part of the ocean. I forget the-

[Luke] Oh, man.

[David] And so if you, but if you think about just the fact that microplastics are in the ocean and then, you know, and then your bottom feeders like shrimp like clams, like mussels you know, I probably Would... I haven't seen a statistic of what... Are they loaded with microplastics? But, you know, I would be concerned that they might be.

[1:54:39]

[Luke] Yeah. Common sense would indicate that's probably pretty likely. Are oysters bottom-feeders?

[David] Yeah. All, yeah. They're-

[Luke] Oh, goddammit. '

[David] Cause all of their-

[Luke] Oysters are, like, my I mean, I don't particularly like the taste of them, but they're just so nutrient-dense. Whenever I have a chance to eat them, I do, but-

[David] Yeah. Well, you have microplastics now, so.

[Luke] Yeah. Exactly. That's another hack. We're full of hacks here. All right, dude. Well, thank you again for joining me on-

[David] Yeah, absolutely.

[Luke] I wanna encourage everyone to go to the show notes at lukestore.com/mara3, and we'll put links to anything we can, including the special that you guys have running for the listeners, and thank you for that. And thank you for continuing to innovate and be awesome. I mean, there are so few companies out there that I feel like deserve deserve people's business, and you're one of them, so thank you for doing it, doing it well, and doing it right, and your attention to integrity and efficacy. Like, there's no point in spending money on shit that doesn't help you, so thank you for doing something that actually works.

[David] Yeah. Well, thank you for saying that. And I... Let me add that we do have a 100-day 100% unconditional money-back guarantee. So we encourage people to try our products, mainly because we think that you'll notice the difference. And and so we want the burden to be on us and not on you. So if you're Wow "This is, this is crap," which it's not, but if you think that, then just email our customer service, and we'll send you your money back.

[Luke] Damn, that's epic. That's like 1950s old-school American... Alice and I today were talking about how bad customer service is and stuff, and just, you know. I mean, you have an issue with an airline, or we just had one with Airbnb, and we're just like, "Oh my God," like, "What happened to the world?" You know? There's... I don't know. There just seem to be fewer companies out there that maintain some level of integrity, so that's cool.

[David] Yeah. We have a big customer service department. mainly ask questions. Our return rate is under 2%. It's like one and a half, one a quarter.

[Luke] Wow.

[David] So it's really low mainly because, again, we know it works. But everyone's different. And so if you're like, "Okay, it's not working for me," it's okay.

[Luke] Yeah.

[David] We'll refund you.

[Luke] Well, also with the product line that you have, it's, you know, the results you're gonna see are more subtle than something that's really heavy-hitting, like some of these nootropic formulas. You take it and you're like, "Holy shit, I feel it," you know? Yeah. I-... your products aren't designed, as far as I understand, to be something where you're like, "Oh my God, I feel it," you know? It's a cumulative effect.

[David] Well, yes and no. Like so dreams, so people who take Broccoli have vivid dreams, about a quarter of them, and that's the nootropic effect. And then we've shown basically both our Broccoli and our curcumin product decrease pro-inflammatory markers around 30% in 24 hours. So Really?

[Luke] That fast?

[David] Yeah. So that's enough, so if you have joint pain, it will be, um... you'll notice a difference Ah, okay... in the morning if you take it in the evening. And so that's most of our testimonials are people who are like, not that their joint pain has improved, it's my joint pain is gone.

[1:57:49]

[Luke] Damn.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] Wow, cool.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] Cool. Maybe that's why I... Sometimes I take so much stuff, I can't attribute the results to any particular product. Sure. but that said, I've been taking your stuff for probably three years Yeah On a pretty regular basis, and I could say that I have less joint pain than I used to.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] I can't directly attribute it to yours, but if that's one of the common results you're getting, it very well could be the case.

[David] Yeah. I wanna, for some reason, this came to my head, but skin too. the because skin is related to Nrf2, I was on a podcast and they, we started off his partner had been taking it and hadn't changed anything except she started taking Broccoli, and her acne cleared up in two weeks. Oh, wow. She'd been trying to get it cleared for months and months.

[Luke] Wow.

[David] And and she's like, "This is amazing." And so the, your skin... actually we partner with different skin companies and do cross-promotionals because it's so good for skin.

[Luke] Oh, interesting.

[David] Yeah.

[Luke] Is that why you're reverse aging over the three years I've known you?

[David] Oh, that's kind. I did this Instagram reel that was like, "I'm 53. These are the six supplements I take to feel like I'm 33." Somebody in the notes were like, "He's 53, and he looks like he's 63." Oh,

[Luke] Come on.

[David] It was pretty... I... It made me laugh, but it was like, okay, you that I actually- Touche...

[Luke] I actually love I love internet trolls sometimes. They're super funny. Oh, I don't get a lot of it, but, you know, sometimes I do, and I'm like, "I gotta give you credit. That was pretty clever," you know? Yeah. Unless it's just someone doesn't put a lot of thought into their trolling post. I'm like, ah, you're just an instant block. But if there's some modicum of truth in it, I actually find it helpful- Yeah... and and oftentimes entertaining.

[David] Yeah. I mean, I have people regularly guess that I'm in 40, you know, so I mean, I think skin-wise and I think the, you know, my hair is turning a little gray, as is yours.

[Luke] Welcome to the club, man.

[David] Yeah. So anyway, but I thought that was funny. Skin is if you have skin issues, if you wanna keep your skin young, I would certainly recommend Broccoli.

[Luke] Awesome, man. Well, thanks for the refresher. Yep. I'm reinvigorated and stoked on what you're doing, and yeah, I'll be taking the hell out of your stuff- Well, thank- Until further notice.

[David] All right. Well, thank you so much for having me.

[Luke] Big thanks, you guys, for hanging with me on this week's episode and making me part of your journey. Now, before we wrap up, let me tell you about a project I've just leveled up. After years of neglect, my YouTube channel just got a makeover, and if you haven't checked it out lately, you are missing out. Every new podcast episode now comes with a trailer so you can sample the vibe before diving into the full show. And with a library of 600-plus episodes to explore, you'll always find a conversation that hits home. And there's another cool part. YouTube is also a place where you get your questions answered from me directly. So drop a comment, and if your question's a good one, I'll do my best to answer it. So if you wanna get in the mix, head over to youtube.com/lukestory and make your voice heard. Whether you want a quick hit from the trailers, to binge through the years of archived wisdom, or to join the conversation yourself, youtube.com/lukestory is where it all happens

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