Beyond The Label: How To Choose Supplements That Actually Work

Introduction and guest background 0:00

Hello everyone. My name is Doctor Richard Horowitz and I am the co-host of the Doctor Talk Healing. Lyme Summit 2.0 is my great pleasure to introduce to you Doctor James Monroe. He's a natural path down in Florida who's working for Xamarin. Most of you who know me know that most of the supplements you are swallowing every day come from Zimmerman because they are pharmaceutical grade. They're part of the Daptone protocol that I regularly use. We're going to discuss today some of those supplements, the basis, the biochemical basis of why I use them.

Why I use I mentioned the quality products. So James, thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate it. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So you're a natural past. So, tell us, how did you kind of get into that? And start working with Amgen? Yeah. So I have kind of a classic matchup ethnic medicine story in that I was really sick in my adolescence and went to the every conventional doctor got like the, the, the newest, hottest treatments and it just didn't work. And eventually, after ten years of chronic disease and being on multiple polypharmacy, I saw a natural path like physician and they talked about diet and supplements and all of these things.

And, oh my God, that diet and supplements. And almost immediately, sincerely, probably within 60 days. I was young at the time. So against medical advice, I just stopped taking all my medications because I felt fine. And I've pretty much been symptom free ever since. And so that was the point. I decided maybe I should do that with my life. So I went down that road, and then I was in practice, and, I'm you're I'm sure you've had similar experiences. I would see patients and we'd come up with, like a nutrient or some supplement that would be really helpful for them.

And they say something like, I've been using that. I've been taking B12 for six months, and we just find out they're taking a subpar product. They got off to Amazon or, you know, something that they didn't even put any thought into. So we switched them over to a high quality product. And then suddenly all of the things that we would expect to happen start happening. So that's when I really or I realized the importance of the quality of the supplement, not just finding the right ingredient, but finding the right product that contains that ingredient.

And then in practice, I was sort of, a really kind of special experience. I was in a big clinic that had, private labeled medicinally. So it was all their own branding, and they had all of the the big companies out there, a lot of really good stuff. And they would have 2 or 3 options for this and 2 or 3 options for that. And a couple of years there, I picked out my favorites. Like this one seems to be my number one. This one's my number one in this category. And then at some point I got curious, what am I actually using?

And pulled back the veil. And almost exclusively it was Alzheimer again. When there was Zimerman and 2 or 3 other companies, I ended up choosing the Xamarin. And so at that point I realized maybe there's something special about this particular company and developed a relationship with them. Just kind of, loved the company. What they stand for. It's a family owned company, the Blackbird family. I absolutely adore them. So I've had a chance to meet them. They're all still wonderful. And they said they needed some help initially, and I was like, hire me.

I will do whatever you want. And so I started with them about five years ago. And the role has kind of evolved and grown. I'm currently the medical director and senior director of innovation, so I do a lot of education stuff and a lot of marketing stuff and a lot of product development stuff. So that's kind of the whole story. But, a very long and winding road. Got it. Well, you know, the way I got involved with this years ago is when we started using, nutritional supplements. I had to use something that was going to be pharmaceutical grade, right.

And my rep at the time, Amy Salerno, who's, who's great, Amy basically started introducing me to functional medicine. And truthfully, a lot of the early functional medicine that I learned was from my medicine rep, who was teaching me this before I was going to like IHS conferences or, AFM or AFM or, you know, a for many of the conferences out there, it was actually my Simonton rep who was teaching me these things.

Why supplement quality matters 4:11

And little by little, what happened is I ended up flying down to Florida to look at the plant that's in Orlando. I was greatly impressed because I saw that the way they did it was exactly the same way that, for example, Merck or, Pfizer, anyone would do it. And in fact, you can confirm this, but the FDA has gone through the plant where we make the supplements, which are pharmaceutical grade, and basically given a two thumbs up to Zimmerman because it is pharmaceutical grade. It's just the same quality.

And and by the way, in my patients, when they're doing things like that, own protocols for Lyme, I cannot afford that. These patients are not taking anything but the highest quality supplements, because I have to be sure they're going to get better, and they're getting exactly what's in right when I say them. This is in the capsule. I know for a fact it is because I know the quality that goes into, as I mentioned. So, you know, the the ones that I've been using and we can talk a little bit about this in the process.

But, you know, for example, I use regularly in this imaging process and Acetylcysteine alum acts for lipoic acid, glutathione, which blocks an essential pathway NF kappa, B, a second pathway which lowers inflammation, and Nrf2. Simonyan is the one I'm using. It's Kirk duplex, form of tumeric. Uncle Plex, which is now your Uncle Plex for Rosen's right, which is broccoli seed extract, with resveratrol and green tea. And finally, for Nlrp3 inflammasome and for sleep, I'm using Zimmerman's melatonin due to three milligram of the five milligram, controlled release.

And, you know, these are part of my basic protocol, including the GI support with Saccharomyces. I use the Pro bio max 350 billion, immunol six beta glucan for immune support. So the company is really like integrated into actually all the protocols. And when we finally do our NIH, randomized trial, I submitted a grant a few weeks ago, for a randomized, multicenter trial. We will be including Xamarin supplements in the DAP zone trial, including, the folic acid supplement, sacral XR, L methyl folate.

So that's how much confidence I have. Why don't you tell people about the FDA coming through there? And just like because, you know, you're right about Amazon, if people buy things they don't know that it's not necessarily refrigerated in refrigerated warehouses, that the warehouses can be hot and cold. Sometimes people label things, then they check them and they find out it doesn't actually contain the product that you said in this impurities. Talk a little bit about this, because I think I've seen it and I've gone through the plant.

But you're there. Tell people a little bit about the quality of why we use Amazon. Yeah. And I'll start by saying that we absolutely love giving tours. So if anyone comes through Orlando, our doors are open. And Brian Blackburn, the founder of the company, he always says, you don't even need an appointment, just show up. But as one of the people that gives tours, please do make an appointment. But really, the point is open door policy, because we're so proud of it and no one has ever gone on a tour and been like, oh, that's lackluster.

Everyone is incredibly impressed by it. So yeah, going back from the very start, the manufacturing facility that we have in Orlando was built specifically for z imaging with nutraceutical manufacturing in mind. So it was built for that. We have, climate control and humidity control. We have these gigantic dehumidifiers that when we're doing stuff like probiotics, it drops the humidity so low, like you have to bring eyedrops with you if you're walking through there, it's just like dries your eyeballs out immediately.

And we've had, so the FDA, they don't always come by. And when you're, when you're a smaller company, they don't really care too much about, you know, about 80% of nutraceutical manufacturers don't actually get visited by the FDA. As you start to get bigger, you get more eyes on you. So we've had the FDA come in a number of times. One time they had absolutely no observations at all. I think the most recent one, they said, you're probably not going to hear from us for a while just because there's nothing to correct.

We do everything so above standard, and the part of the reason that it's above standard is we have NSF certification. And early on in the manufacturing, in the, in the life of the manufacturing facility, we actually went, the most stringent, quality control standards are from Australia. The TGA, the Therapeutic Goods Association. We had them come in and certify our facility and they they had some major notes about like ventilation, like when you open this door, the air goes this way. It needs to go that way.

So we're talking billions of dollars of investment to make sure that that was, cleared up and figured out. So that's why we've just gone to the absolute highest, highest standards that are available. And we've applied them, and we've invested millions and millions of dollars into this facility to make sure that it is completely top notch. And the result is the FDA. When they just show up, they show up unannounced. But when they show up, we go ahead, have at it, tell us what you need. And they leave happy every time.

And it's not actually a very stressful thing for us where some some people might get freaked out when the FDA comes in. We pretty much welcome it. So that really is a testament to the the Blackburn family and their dedication to making sure that they're providing the absolute best quality available. And I know when I and I've taken the tour actually multiple times when I've been in Orlando, and I know it really impressed me with the raw manufacturing is when you guys get the raw powder, whatever it is, the raw product,

Manufacturing standards and FDA inspections 9:35

they send back some of the raw product if it does not meet standards. So from day one, when that raw product comes in, if it's not meeting standards, it does not go further, right? I mean, I've watched the process including mass spectrometry, making sure there's no mold, making sure there's no heavy metals. It's, you know, it's an issue now at this point because we're all living in such a toxic world. You should just know. I mean, you would laugh if you saw my kitchen counter. I, I sometimes had patients come by, but, I mean, I'm not exaggerating.

I, I should probably like the day that I finally passed. They should examine my body to find out whether the supplements kept me alive to 100 or, you know, or whatever, because I'm literally swallowing 70 plus supplements a day to stay alive on the planet. Now, my patients know me like I have a reason for everything I do. And the truth is, is that at least half to probably two thirds of the supplements I'm swallowing are also antigen. And the same from my wife. And that's the kind of it's the same thing for my patients.

I let them know there are don't get me wrong, there are other good companies out there that we use that are also pharmaceutical grade. But Simon has always been on the top. And what I've loved about even the reps who work for Simonton, they are so knowledgeable and that I have learned so much in the functional medicine space, actually from again, from people like Amy. So I, you know, it's impressive that it's not even just the manufacturing. It's people like you as a natural, empathic doctor who's in there doing education, it's teaching the reps so the doctors understand what they're using.

It's it's impressive, you know, from start to finish what they've done. So do you have I have, as I said, my favorite supplements, like any C max, glutathione. For, you know, NF kappa B and Kirk, your plex, uncle Plex resveratrol and, green tea. And by the way, I use even the med caps tpo when people's liver functions are a little bit up. I love the med caps TPO. The the TPO is dual phase optimizers. You know, sometimes the antibiotics we're using will raise the liver functions. And we find that when we've added med caps TPO along with all the other nutritional support, we find that we can get those liver functions under control.

So, you know, I have tested clinically these it's not just a question of just what are the biochemical pathways we tested these in clinical practice now for, I don't know, maybe 20 years at this point I probably been doing it. And again, these are the supplements we're going to be using for the NIH, randomized capstone trials. So, it's really it's it's a wonderful thing, at this point when doctors are contacting you, are they contacting you also about like some of these biochemical pathways, where do I use this?

Are you are you teaching them also these type of supplements and pathways and. Yeah yeah yeah absolutely I want to if I could I want to go back to something you just said previously, that when we get raw materials in, I think this is such an important point, especially in the nutraceutical industry. We'll get raw materials in the first thing. That truck backs up into our facility, and they just go in there, make sure the truck is clean and nothing is weird about the truck. And then we put everything in quarantine.

Everything goes in quarantine. We don't touch it. We test it in-house or send it out. Depending on what the material is. It sits there and we wait until it passes all of our specifications. That's identification obviously. So it is what we expect it to be. Heavy metals, various contaminants, mold, mycotoxins, all that stuff. If it comes back clear, then we release it into inventory and then we use it. If we don't come back with clear test results, we send it back. And the very unfortunate truth is, when we send it back, that material is not destroyed.

It is likely sent to another company that might not have those same rigorous standards. So I think, yeah, I'm really glad you brought it up because it's so important. It's rare that it happens, but we do send back material. Maybe there's too much lead. Maybe something something just isn't right about it and we send it back. It doesn't just go to the dumpster. It. It gets out in a different supplement from a different company, you know, and even the expiration dates I have when I've gone through the plant, I've looked at those heat boxes that you stick the supplement set at 100, I forget if it's 100 and 3040 degrees for months, right?

Then checking the quality impurity, I mean, you're you're really putting the supplement in the bottles through the test to make sure they're holding up over time. And I will tell you, I mean, I think some of the success, the reason I feel very comfortable, using them so often is now that we're going on probably two decades of using these supplements and expanding them. You know that, again, we're living in such a toxic world, it's really difficult to know what to trust. Right? You need to know what you're putting in.

Your body is safe and is pure, and it's very rare, I think, as a physician that I can give, you know, my 100% check mark going, this is what my wife Lee and I are swallowing every day. This is what we're using. And adoption protocols, even through the NIH trial. That's how much confidence, you know, we have at this point. So, no, I, I, I remember as I've gone through the plant, it it was very impressive from start to finish, including the mass spectrometry. Just checking right every little bit to make sure the purity is exactly what it's supposed to be.

Very it's really impressive. Yeah. So, let's talk a little bit. I think people need to know, like when I, when Covid first came out, I published the first article in the world literature on Glutathione, right for the treatment of Covid 19. We published it in April 2020. Journal of Clinical Respiratory Case Reports. It's been quoted, I think, at this point over 300 times. And in that article and I have it on my website and I gave the protocol, this is before Paxlovid was around. This is before anyone had any answers for Covid.

We told people looking at the virus and looking what, you know, the likelihood was going to be and I'm not sure people know this. The virus has to lower glutathione levels. It's the same thing, by the way, for the flu, for influenza, for dengue fever, for HIV. Many of these viruses need to lower glutathione to be able to replicate. So if you look on our website, can get better.com and go into the Covid tab, you'll notice we suggested to people first thing you want to do when you get Covid. And again we tell them to check with their doctors because I can't give medical advice to patients. Of course I don't treat.

First thing you want to do is take NAC 600mg twice a day. Now, interesting about NAC and I didn't know it at the time. They found out with Covid that it causes micro clots, that some of these people were dying. And I didn't realize that NAC blocks von Willebrand factor. And probably do you know that not one of my patients died during the Covid epidemic? Not one. But I had them all on NAC 600mg twice a day. Alum Max long acting form of alpha lipoic acid, which regenerates glutathione, 30% in the intracellular compartment for good for insulin resistance.

Gentle key later of heavy metals right. Water soluble, fat soluble gets into the brain I mean fabulous it's getting all over. And then using glutathione up to 2000mg 2 to 3 times per day. And what we found is we're doing this literally within hours of people taking the glutathione on with acute Covid. This is why we published the case studies. People said they're breathing, they're shortness of breath, started getting better because the lungs contain 140 times more glutathione than any place else in the body.

And if you used up that glutathione, because you were dealing with pesticides or environmental toxins, you didn't have the antioxidants that were needed to be dealing with the oxidative stress that you got from the virus.

Clinical use of key supplements 16:58

So, you know, with that, with the NRF two stimulation, Kirk duplex, CR, Xamarin 500 and twice a day at the time we were using the Uncle Plex is the 100mg of sulforaphane glucosinolates twice a day. We've switched it over now to the Uncle Plex with Morose Kinase, but by giving people Nrf2 activation, it's another way. Also, the virus is involved in that pathway. We didn't know it at the time with resveratrol, melatonin for Nlrp3, we found that people said they got better a lot quicker from this. And again, this article has been cited over 300 times at this point.

And it's part of the Daptone protocol because people get half time reactions when you're killing off the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi or Bartonella, you get massive cytokine release. And it was ultimately the cytokine storm with Covid, just like it was the cytokine storm with hearses that were making people sick. That's how we figured this out. But it was always designed, which in products we were using from day one. And and again, I do think it probably did save people's lives. And you can you can see our initial protocol if you just go to my website can get better.com under the Covid tab, which, you know, during the Covid pandemic with you as a natural pathway, you taught to use some of these things.

Also, we're using these kind of protocols. Yeah. I want to mention that you have such a clever protocol there. As I mentioned, glue design is actually an SSL glue design, which is quite stable and able to get into the body where, glutathione is notoriously not a very stable molecule. And then another potential issue with glutathione is it struggles to get inside the cell, basically because it's a big old, giant molecule. So you have this extracellular glutathione that you're pumping into the system with that. That's the glue down.

And then the neck, in addition to being, itself an antioxidant and a mucus lytic, which is very important for, for the lung issues related to Covid. But NAC gets into the cell and that's typically the rate limiting, reagent for, for the production of intracellular glutathione. So you're kind of like covering all of these angles, that are all they all have like side benefits as opposed to side effects. But you're really just pumping antioxidant. It's into the system. And then with the glue graph and in the Uncle Plex plus my Ros in case you're activating the Nrf2 pathway.

I really like eloqua thinning. It's a product called Mitel Prime. I think it's one of my supplements. Yeah, that's a really great one too, for supporting. Again, it's an antioxidant itself, but also helps the body just to continue producing its own antioxidants. But your protocol is really it's very natural path, to be honest. But it's very clever because you're hitting all these different angles. You're putting glutathione in the system, and then you're giving the body all it needs to produce its own glutathione, and then you're giving the body stuff.

It needs to turn on the mechanisms that produce the glutathione. So very clever and very effective obviously. And it's good you mentioned the mitochondrial because when people are done with our adoption protocol, which is initially a nine week protocol, we do a mitochondria regeneration. So I use anti factors. In this case it's called it's ATP 360. But I use a kinetics from I'm to use acetal l-carnitine to shuttle those fatty acids into the mitochondria. Right. And we are using the metal prime because the mitochondrial cell membranes have no way of protecting themselves from all the free radical oxidative stress.

And as you said, I mean, I think the half life of that is in it like a month or so staying. And it's just. Yeah, I mean, it's it's amazing the system is so long. Yeah. Yeah. So you know, we've done that. We've also at this point added other things like Milo and arnica side right beside because it has good penetration. They're actually looking at it for Alzheimer's disease. But yeah, even the acetyl l-carnitine and Mito Prime are part of our mitochondrial regeneration after DAP zone. And again, those are some of the the supplements, I think, you know, and the thing about the probiotics, the thing about protecting the gut, I have not seen I'm using several antibiotics at once with adaption protocol Doxy here.

Minnow rifampin is Jethro Max that's owned or the basics sometimes I'm using is in amide of Bartonella is there do you know we have not seen a case of C diff diarrhea in years. And we're using I mean I'm using a lot of probiotics. And Saccharomyces bility is one of them stopping seeded. But we're using a half a packet of the probiotics 350 billion twice a day. Do me a favor. Explain to people what is I think it's 16 strains that are resistant. Explain just a little bit. Because I know when I looked at the lactobacillus in before, though, they were all strains that had been published in the medical literature.

Getting through the acid environment, getting into the lower intestine. And and we're finding like amazing to support the microbiome when people are doing this that they don't end up with problems with the gut. So the product you mentioned has actually 18 strains 18. And across our line of probiotics, every single probiotic goes through a number of its checklist. Essentially. Can it survive the gastric environment. Can it adhere to the cell wall. Does it translocate. We don't actually want it to translocate.

We want to make sure just stays in the GI tract. And then often a misnomer, we do not want antibiotic resistant probiotics. That's a very dangerous trait for a bacteria to have. So we we run assays to see what the the bacteria are sensitive to and then also what can kill it. And we have those profiles for most of those, strains that are in there. But we want to make sure that we don't actually give a completely antibiotic resistant bacteria, because if that gene is taken up by some pathogen or something transforms, that can be a real problem.

So these are all the things that we have. We check these boxes before we'll even consider putting it in a product. And then on top of that we package most of them the the Pro Probiotics 350 that you mentioned comes in a sachet. But all the capsules are acid resistant capsules. That gives us about another hour to survive in the GI tract. So when you combine that with the the potency and the strength of the strains themselves, there's pretty much no chance that it's going to die off in the stomach.

It gets released in the latter small intestine for the most part. And then it's easily survives into the colon where it can adhere and do its thing. But it's it's something that is very I mean, you mentioned that there all all the strains in there are tested and there are in the research. That's very important to us. And again, potentially a misnomer is Lactobacillus acidophilus, for example. That is not specific. I don't know what that means. That tells me the genus and the species, but there are multiple strains within that genus and species.

So whenever you're looking at a probiotic supplement, you want to make sure lactobacillus acid alpha was Le 14. That tells me something that's the specific strain. And so there are products out there. They say Lactobacillus acidophilus. That sounds great. It sounds exactly like the Le 14 that has been researched. It's not. So you have to make sure that there is the genus, the species and the strain identified on the product. And if it's not, what that really means is it's probably the strain is probably changing from batch to batch depending on what's available or cost and things like that.

So making sure that you do have identified strains and not just genus and species. And then of course, making sure that those strains are researched adequately. And if you look at any strain in the the Zimmerman

COVID, glutathione, and antioxidant pathways 24:18

probiotic line, you will find, plethora of research on them. Yeah. The other ones, by the way, that I love for GI support. I must have taken the optic lens guy myself. I don't know, maybe a year when I was healing my leaky gut and I think the optic guys, I think it's one of the top ones from from his image. And I mean, it's amazing how many vitamins and minerals and things to support the gut. And the guy is gastro robotic intestinal. We find that when people like me have hyperglycemia, for example, and they need a protein shake, but they want a protein shake that's like high protein, good quality protein, pea protein.

Right? And also at that point balancing out blood sugar, I find that those shakes are great for my patients with hypoglycemia, myself included, while supporting gut health. And lately we started using the optic fiber lean from Simonton because mycotoxins were finding a lot of patients are testing positive for tri code thickens. And that particular product, the up the fiber lean is the one we're using the glucose mannan to bind. The tricot thickens and pull them out. So, those are actually two of our other products, the GI products I love that we're using on a regular basis. Yeah, that is my lunch, probably 4 or 5 times a week and will probably be forever.

And something I really love about that. It's 26g of protein per serving, which is a whopping dose. And some people are concerned, can I actually digest all of that protein? But one of the really beautiful things about optical Guy, it is it contains digestive enzyme. It's called immunogen, but it's a protease enzyme that helps your body to break down. So it supports your digestion of those proteins so you can absorb them more efficiently. So you actually probably are absorbing a good amount of that 26g of protein.

And it tastes pretty good. My wife doesn't love it, but I think it's oh, you know, no, I actually like the taste of it. I found, you know, the way we did it. For those of you listening, if you need a good product, let me explain to you how we do it at home. We put it in a blender and I take frozen organic blueberries. So I take the sachet. Or at the time it was a scoop eight ounces of cold water, purified water. We put in a tablespoon of almond butter, of organic almond butter with a whole bunch of organic frozen blueberries.

And I put it in the blender and we make a thick blueberry almond shake so that I'm adding extra fat that slows down the absorption of the carbs. And I would find, like you, I mean, if I don't eat regularly, my blood sugar is dropping midday and I'm yawning. And you know, I would find that I'd be able to basically, don't advise people skipping meals. But when I had to, it was great because my blood sugar never swang and I knew I was getting the support that I needed. So, those that's the way we do our shakes.

And by the way, the kids, they don't like swallowing all the pills. We've even told them sometimes to take the thousands of pills I give them in these protocols and put them in the blender. Yeah, with the shake, because it's a thick, nice shake. Right? That I think it actually tastes pretty good, but I'm doing it with the blueberries and the almond butter. By the way. That's sounds delicious for sure, but I will say I have, two young kids and I if I ever have optically in front of them, they are I have to fight them for it.

They love it so much. So that's a good sign. The other thing, the other products that just I'll mention to people because they're also the ones I'm taking every day, is the mineral when we're chelating minerals, we're finding a lot of our patients have heavy metals in the blood mercury, lead, aluminum. And we forced to do some collation. We use four men hours a day. You know, it's funny. Most of our patients we check them for iodine. Most of them are iodine deficient. They're zinc deficient. They're magnesium deficient with RBC magnesium because 99% of the magnesium is inside the cells.

So again, standard protocols they'll practice at the Hudson Valley Healing Arts Center for men are at lunch. Sometimes we use extra magnesium at bedtime. If I need people to fall asleep, I'll I'll use the neuro with magnesium. All three and eight. Also an interesting magnesium product we can talk about, but that's become also like the standard for mineral replacement. And we find, again, when we check the mineral levels afterwards, it absorbs well into the body. People's gut seem to handle it well. I take for it.

That's also part of I don't use a multi vitamin, but I do take this. I mentioned, multi mineral with them in our every day. Yeah. That's a great point to bring up. That's something we're really proud of is the minerals that we use. And they are true key lated minerals. So the GI tract essentially this is not the most accurate description. But if you put magnesium in the GI tract then the the interior sites they see magnesium, right. But if you combine it with an amino acid and relate it with an amino acid, so a magnesium three, an eight, like you mentioned, the GI tract actually sees 3 in 8.

And those are different channels. And the amino acid channels in the GI tract are much more efficient. So if you just put magnesium in there, doesn't really get passed. It's a very difficult process to get it through the cell into the bloodstream. But you put an amino acid in there, get sucked right up. So you just sort of hide. So a sort of Trojan horse thing that, the, the minerals in these ki lated, amino acids and then they get pulled in. So this is a combination of, well, plethora, a whole, a whole complex of minerals that are all really well absorbed.

So that is likely why you're seeing, great tolerability there, because they're not hanging out in the GI tract and causing irritation or osmotic pressures or anything like that. They're getting into the bloodstream. Right. And I will say you brought it up where I'm surprised I didn't bring it up.

Probiotics, gut support, and mineral replacement 29:38

Optimum mineral is my single favorite supplements of all time. So the fact that you brought it up before me, I'm almost kind of ashamed of it. But it is such an incredible combination of, magnesium malic magnesium licensed glycine eight, which means there's magnesium metal lysine on one side, glycine on the other side. And then, as you mentioned, the magnesium L3 in it. And that combination for for me personally as well as in my practice has been transformative because I've used all of those different forms of magnesium on their own in various combinations.

But the combination of those three, I have yet to figure out any mechanism that really has been spelled out. My assumption is because of those amino acid plates, the magnesium is being pulled into different areas of the body. The magnesium L three and eight is known to cross the blood brain barrier quite efficiently, and so you're getting some magnesium pulled into the brain, magnesium malate that can kind of get pulled into the mitochondria, for example. And the magnesium lysine at glycine can get pulled into the musculature.

And so it's just from the again, I'm kind of making this up. I haven't found any research support here. But this combination of magnesium just gets everywhere in the body. And I've seen dramatic results on it for myself. I'll use myself as an example. I took magnesium every day forever. And then the first time I took optimal neuro, this combination, it was like the lights turned on, like I'd never taken magnesium before. It was really fantastic. And I've seen that response so many times. And you mentioned if you want to sleep, definitely it can be really helpful to get you sleeping more efficiently.

It can also help you wake up better the next day. Right. And and with that, with the sleep. I take, for example, because I like the fact that, I've never been a good sleeper. So I take tiny doses of melatonin in the thing I liked about it, the three inflammatory pathways that we discussed today NF Kappa B using NAC alum Max, glutathione, Nrf2, Kirkhope, Plex, Uncle Plex, resveratrol, and green tea, which is also in the Midcaps and the inner L3 P3 inflammasome is blocked by low dose naltrexone, but also melatonin.

And so I what I do is I take the three milligram melatonin from Simonyan, and I cut it into quarters to just get a tiny dose in, not just for sleep, because I recognize that all chronic diseases, chronic inflammation is underlying a lot of these. So I like actually using just a tiny bit at bedtime. Also to block that third inflammatory pathway. And again it's in Covid. So you know, we my wife and I were sick about a week and a half ago. And we noticed literally by day four we were completely well, and I think in part it's because of all these supplements.

I mean, we've got our immune system, prime, and I've probably been immune from, as I mentioned, the beta glucan, to raise natural killer cells. You know, these bugs that I'm trying to go after. In the Lyme world, most of them are intracellular Lyme, Bartonella. So you need your natural killer cells, obviously, but also they play a role with viruses and cancer. I've probably been on Immunol six, maybe 20 years, and I remember the first studies I saw on it was showing that when you combine it, I think at the time it was conflicts.

They were showing the earlier studies. The antibiotics were working more effectively when they when they were using it with it. Are you using this also, is it actually talking to people also about the immune support with it? Yeah. So I mentioned I have two young kids and they get me sick all the time, doctor, or it's just incessant. And so I started taking immune notic, the beta glucan, and then another product called Immune Essentials Daily, which is a combination of vitamin A, vitamin D, zinc NAC I started taking that.

And my wife is at the point where she's actually getting mad at me because the whole family will get sick and I'm making it through. All right. But yeah, immune is such a such a fantastic immune primer, as you mentioned, it kind of helps the body to more quickly react to invading pathogens. And that time is of the essence when you're being invaded by pathogens. So if you get the immune system responding immediately, instead of sending something over to the lymph node, getting this signal going and then bringing it back and then starting to fight, the infection is already done.

So if you get immune attacks or the beta glucan on board, you can start to immediately eradicate those invading pathogens. And I've seen it in practice and myself too, but I've seen many times at least decrease the duration of an illness and in some cases with my own family, I've just made it through without being sick at all. Yeah. And I think the last because I'm going through, I'm trying to think in my mind my favorite sandwich and supplements. But the last one I think I would discuss would probably be the, the first for line 4 to 1 when we started, you know, using mold protocols, we needed to use a high dose fast for a little coaling.

I'm still using a powder sometimes from another brand, but I will tell you that the phosphate line 4 to 1 was the only one Patricia Kane. Because she's a little bit funny with, you know, which one she likes for her mold protocol with body bile. The first line for the one from Zimmer, Jim was the only one she was willing actually to use orally. And, you know, for people that don't like the powder forms of hospital, colon or other things, it's I wouldn't say it's the best tasting supplement I've had.

I, I sometimes tell people to put it a little pomegranate juice in it just to cover the taste, but it's awful effective, by the way, for helping to push those mold toxins out of the, out of the cell membranes and then and then bind them. Those are kind of my favorites off the top of my head. Do you have any other ones that you use regularly as a natural part you're teaching doctors about? Because those are probably the top supplements I have. Yeah, we we mentioned most of them. Well, it's almost a commodity at this point, but fish oil, we have omega mono pure 1300 omega amount of pure 650.

And this is a mono glycerin fish oil, which is sort of like a pre digested fish oil you have when you consume a fat. You need to conjugate it. You need to have your bile salts. You break it down into like free fatty acids and monoliths arrives and then it's absorbed. So omega mono pure is that pre digested. It's already in the mono glycerin free fatty acid form. So the absorption is we've found the pharmacokinetics studies are suggesting three times greater absorption of that as compared to an the Leicester oil.

And then of course all of the quality control standards and making sure there's no contamination which is definitely a concern with fish oils mercury particularly. But that's one of my favorites. That's it's a top seller too. That's that's one of our most popular products, and for good reason. A lot of Americans do not consume enough omega three fatty acids. And this is a way to keep the capsule count lower. If you're trying to just get those levels up in the bloodstream and get them into the cell wall.

But you can take just a couple of these a day and really make significant changes. I use the Omega test regularly, and we've done pre and post 30 days. We're talking night and day difference you know, and it's interesting you bring it up because there was a study that just got published a week or two ago on reversing biological aging. They found that people who took fish oil supplements with vitamin D, these two things with exercise, were showing a big improvements in biological age,

Immune support, mold detox, and closing remarks 36:38

as opposed to the people that were never taking fish oil supplements or vitamin D, and it was the same thing with Covid. I mean, in the early stages, you know, even some of our government officials were saying it's good to take vitamin D, as I mentioned, makes a K to D3. I at this point only use k2, d3 when I'm doing it because it has cardiovascular protection. But it's interesting. It was just a couple of weeks ago they showed it was helping with biological age. Using like a vitamin D supplement with fish oils.

And you're right, Americans don't eat enough. And look, I won't eat a lot of fish. I've limited my fish consumption at this point to essentially once a week, because it's not even the mercury, it's the microplastics. It's the nano plastics. It's unfortunately, we polluted our planet so much. And that's part of the reason, by the way, I'm swallowing all of these supplements is my whole. Most people know my story, but my whole family died of cancer. My father, my mother, six aunts and uncles. Nobody's left except some distant cousins.

And, you know, I didn't bother to check my genes, you know, coming from an Ashkenazi lineage. But I know what's getting into people's bodies. I've already collated my own metals. So I know how to protect my body and how to get these chemicals out. We have an infrared sauna in our basement. Right. I exercise seven days a week, get enough sleep, keep the carbs out of the diet. Mediterranean diet. But basically, even though I don't think most doctors say from health maintenance perspectives, you really should be blocking NF kappa B and stimulate your inner Nrf2 and blocking Nlrp3 inflammasome.

And, you know, looking for metals. And the fact is the cancer rates are going wild even in young people. I got a call actually this morning from a friend of mine in Texas. They sent me the father's labs, and I said, has he been checked for colon cancer? She just sent me back the CT with a big mass that was just showing up. And this is, by the way, the second time in her family I've done this from afar, just looking at lab work, and I don't even know what the doctors are doing these days anymore.

But I know that in protecting my patients and in trying to get them better, I got to deal with the infections. I've got to make sure I'm detoxing the toxins. I've got to give them a healthy microbiome. And I've got to stop leaky gut right. And mast cell activation. I've got to get them to sleep, replace the vitamin and minerals. Those are like six main factors that drive inflammation with ten downstream effects, including mitochondrial dysfunction and adrenal dysfunction. And speaking of adrenal dysfunction, as long as I'm bringing it up, it's reminding me adrenal live the glandular I'm again along with adrenal essence is part of my standard protocols.

We're finding most of our patients who have chronic Lyme disease. They get inflammation affecting the hypothalamic pituitary axis and their adrenals are shot. And the adrenal essence two capsules in the morning with adrenal live instead of giving them hydrocortisone cortex. I'm finding I can do this without pharmaceuticals. And in fact, we used my wife and I also have used them in the past. So it's I mean, all I can say is thank God for this. I mentioned the company and everything you guys are doing because, to know that you're safe, to know that you've got such a high quality product.

And how many, by the way, send over like 300 different products. I don't even I can't even keep up. We're about I think we're just under 300 individual SKUs. Yeah. Because I've been following because I was on the board like 15 years ago, right, with David Rossi and everyone else. And I remember sitting around, by the way, the table this is before you came on board, we would have the most amazing conversation was the most brilliant function on this is the time when David Perlmutter was on the board with, you know, myself and David Hussey and everyone else.

I'll tell you what, a brilliant group of functional medicine docs they got on the board. Who created the supplements, right? It wasn't Brian Blackburn saying, make it or Mike Mahoney. It was coming to us and going, hey, you guys, sit down in a room for two days. Tell us what your patients need. Tell us what you think should be in them. I remember the process. It was fascinating because it was some of the best and brightest of functional medicine who was doing this and kind of look where we are now, right?

I mean, it's just that's the beauty of Brian Blackburn right there, is that he is not here's what we're going to do, and then here's what we're going to give to you. He just says, what do you need? I'm going to do? I'm going to do what you need in the best way that I possibly can. Yeah. That's really that's why Xamarin is where it is, is because he had that attitude. You tell me what to do and we'll make it happen. James, I want to thank you so much for taking the time today. This was great. I think people get a lot out of it because it's always good for them to kind of hear a little bit about the biochemical pathways and, you know, how we protect the body and which specific supplements I'm using.

And for those listening, I have a set of Substack, so it's called Medical Detective Substack. If you follow me weekly, you will see a lot of these supplements that I was just describing today. With Doctor James Monroe, you'll find a lot of these in the protocols that we're using for Lyme, for Bartonella and the rest. So, it's free to sign up, by the way, on Medical Detective Substack. Just an FYI. So, Jame, again, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so glad you're heading up the company with medical education.

Congratulations. It's a fabulous company. I've been very happy to be working with them for years. Any final comments of paper? The way people have any education or questions for you is there are an email, for example, if they have questions on the supplements, they want to know what's the best way to come? My Name is James Monroe amzn Amazon.com and Monroe is Monroe correct? Yes. James in Monroe at time again. Yeah. And then you can find me on social. You have.com. I post I post videos on Instagram, LinkedIn, Dr.

Dot James Monroe on there if you want to find me there too. But yeah, you can send me an email and we can talk more about whatever the heck you want to talk about. Great, great. Thank you so much. A real pleasure. So everyone again, my name is Doctor Richard Horowitz. I'm the co-host of the Doctor Hot Healing Lyme Summit 2.0. Been a great pleasure today to speaking Doctor James Monroe about the products that I'm regularly using and in my practice from Simon. I hope to see you again soon. For another episode.

Bye bye.