Healing the Microbiome: A Deep Dive into L. reuteri

On Thursday, April 24th, FMCA hosted a special Ask the Expert webinar exploring the connection between gut health and emotional, metabolic, and cognitive well-being.

Renowned cardiologist and #1 New York Times bestselling author Dr. William Davis joined FMCA Founder and CEO Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum to discuss groundbreaking research on the microbiome—and why one specific strain, Lactobacillus reuteri, is creating so much buzz. Drawing on insights from his book Super Gut, Dr. Davis shared how modern ailments like fatigue, anxiety, and premature aging can often be traced back to disruptions in gut flora.

In this interactive session, Dr. Davis and Dr. Sandi explored:

• The surprising ways gut health influences mood, brain function, skin, weight, and aging
• Why L. reuteri may be the most important microbe you’ve never heard of
• How the four-week Super Gut protocol works—and why it’s so effective
• How health coaches can help clients restore microbiome balance for long-term transformation

Plus, attendees got an exclusive look at the Super Gut yogurt recipe—a simple, at-home method to reintroduce L. reuteri and other beneficial microbes into the diet through powerful fermented foods.

This replay is a must-watch for health coaches and wellness professionals looking to deepen their understanding of the gut-brain connection and apply the latest microbiome science in their work.

Watch the Replay

Healing the Microbiome: A Deep Dive into L. reuteri, With Dr. William Davis:

Watch Dr. William Davis and Dr. Sandi Making Super Gut Yogurt

Join Dr. William Davis—#1 New York Times bestselling author of Wheat Belly and Super Gut—and Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum, founder of FMCA, as they walk you through how to make the famous L. reuteri Super Gut yogurt. Watch the video below:

More Gut Health Resources

If you’d like to keep exploring the gut microbiome, we’ve got you covered. Here are some top resources from FMCA on gut health, the gut microbiome, and how health coaches can support clients on their path to better digestion and overall wellness:

Podcast Episodes:

• Heart Disease and Gut Health, With Dr. William Davis
• Nurturing Gut Health in Mothers and Babies, With Cheryl Sew Hoy
• The Gut-Brain Connection, With Dr. Vincent Pedre
• AI-Powered Gut Microbiome Testing, With Leo Grady

Blog Articles:

• Healthy Poop 101: The Health Coach’s Guide to Digestion
• 5 Ways to Restore Your Gut Health

Webinar Replay:

• The Gut Microbiome: Uncovering Secrets to Enhanced Health and Wellness

Transcript

Dr. Sandi: I want to welcome Dr. William Davis, and I want to share a little bit about how this came about. I was a big fan for many, many years and met Dr. Davis at a conference, the A4M Conference. And as we started to chat, it turned out that we are from the same community. So, as a result, we were able to film something live that just happened. It came about, and it was in my kitchen. So, we thought that the first part of this webinar, we would show that video. And then we would answer your questions. So, Dr. Davis, again, welcome. And do you want to say a few words as I get ready to share my screen for our video?

Dr. Davis: Sure, Sandi. So, this is part of the Lactobacillus reuteri movement, the microbe I first chose to play with maybe, gee, six, seven years ago now. And by sheer dumb luck, I happened to pick a microbe that’s probably among the most… There are many important microbes, right? But Lactobacillus reuteri is probably at the top of the list of microbes you can replace. And we do so by, as Sandi points out, making yogurt as a way to increase the number of microbes dramatically about a thousand fold. That’s part of the reason why we get these huge effects upon restoring it.

Dr. Sandi: So, I’m going to share my screen, and we will get started on a video.

Dr. Sandi: I’m Dr. Sandi Scheinbaum. I’m founder and CEO of the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy. And I am so excited because you are in my kitchen today, and with me is a special guest. This is Dr. William Davis. He is the author of “Wheat Belly” and “Super Gut.” And today, he is going to show you how to make a special yogurt and also other varieties. So, I’m so excited. I have been making this yogurt, and I love it. Not only do I love it, but my two and a half year old twin grandkids love it too. They keep saying, “More yogurt, more yogurt.” And I think you will be saying that too once you make it. It is super easy to make. Dr. Davis is here to show us how.

Dr. Davis: Thank you, Sandi, and thank you for using your beautiful kitchen. So, Sandi’s laid out all the pieces we need. You know, don’t make this harder than it is. It’s really very simple. It’s no more difficult than getting some seeds in your backyard garden, planting seeds for tomatoes. It’s really not that different. So, Sandi has a batch she made previously. So, you’ll see, as often happens, there’s some separation, which is normal. There’s curds, solid, and whey, the liquid. We can use either or a combination of the two.

So, let’s start by putting the dry ingredients in first in a clean container. So, we’re going to put in a source of the microbe. Now that microbe could be a little of the prior batch. So, I’ll take maybe a couple of tablespoons or so, curds or whey, right? That should do it. That’s all you really need, because these are serving as seeds. I’m going to put that there. Then, we want to add a little bit of prebiotic fiber. Do we have some…? Aha, yes, thank you.

Dr. Sandi: It has inulin in it.

Dr. Davis: So, inulin. Now, we’ll be coming out in the future with a sterile inulin because occasionally there’s a contaminant in the inulin. Most of the time, this is only occasionally a problem, so don’t get too worked up about that. I’ll just grab this for now. And you need to buy a tablespoon. Oh, sorry. There is a container in here.

Dr. Sandi: There’s a little scooper.

Dr. Davis: All right, let’s do that. So, that gives it about a teaspoon, so let’s add, let’s say, two or three teaspoons.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah, usually I do about four. I measure… So, you’re saying about a teaspoon of that.

Dr. Davis: Yeah. So, you can play with the proportions. If you’ve got a lot of inulin at the bottom at the end of the process, ignore it. Don’t worry about that. Or, stir it up and you can consume it yourself because remember, inulin is a prebiotic fiber that’s good for you and the bacteria in your gut. So, don’t obsess too much about the quantity of inulin. And then we’re going to make a slurry. The reason for that is we don’t want the inulin to clump. Mm-mm. Things are getting harder and harder to open, doesn’t it?

Dr. Sandi: Yes, I know.

Dr. Davis: Okay. So, add maybe a couple of tablespoons. That’s it. And then here Sandi supplied a whisk or a spoon, either way. And you want to just break up the clumps of of inulin. Now, another way to do this… So, we’ve used a little bit of Sandi’s prior batch, but you could also use a source of the microbe as a probiotic. And ones I would advise is a capsule of the reuteri biotic or a capsule of the Adiponexin. The Adiponexin has additional ingredients, but that’s okay. The only change will be because there’s a carotenoid, astaxanthin, in the Adiponexin, the first batch you get will have a pink tinge to it. Ignore it, that’s the carotenoid. Subsequent batches will lose that pink tinge, but it won’t have the collagen peptides, hyaluronic acid, or astaxanthin. So, if you want those things, you can add them yourself as bovine collagen, other things.

This becomes really helpful because, Sandi, other people say they’ll have friends, daughters, mothers, sisters who are saying, “Sandi, I love what it’s doing for you. Give me some.” Well, come on. This is going to cost a lot of money. So, you can show them how to make the yogurt, and they can add the bovine collagen, hyaluronic acid on their own if they want to. But let’s pretend I didn’t add the prior batch. Let’s add something. Let’s add the microbes from one of these products. So, that’s the Adiponexin, okay? We got this business.

All right. You can see the capsules are pinkish. That’s from the astaxanthin carotenoid. So, let’s pretend I didn’t add a little bit of the yogurt. I’m going to start instead with the capsule. So, same process. Now, open the capsule, pour it in. See the pink color? If you can see that. And we don’t want that clump either. So, we’re going to mix it so there’s no clumps. So, very simple. Just make the slurry so there’s no clumping.

Dr. Sandi: Mm-hmm. Is it true that we don’t need to vigorously beat it and blend it too much?

Dr. Davis: No. In fact, if you’re too vigorous, you start to kill those guys.

Dr. Sandi: That’s right. It hurts… So, I wanted to make sure. Yeah.

Dr. Davis: So, I’ll top it up with the rest of the half and half. Of course, we’re using half and half because I think Sandi and I agree, we reject this idea of limiting fat. Ironically, the most healthy part of dairy is the fat. People are buying skim and low fat. You don’t need to do that. It does not cause heart disease. That is nonsense. Now, we’re going to add a second one, right? Top it up. So, the same. It doesn’t have to make more for another week or more. Okay, all right. After a long struggle…

Dr. Sandi: Hardest part of making the yogurt for me is getting that open.

Dr. Davis: That’s the hardest part, right? So, add… We’re going to use about a quart here. That’s pretty standard. Stir lightly and then cover. Now, you want to make sure a few things. You want to make sure your utensils are clean. These are steel, so they’re clean. But sometimes devices have a joint where maybe the rubber or a plastic handle meets metal or other material, that right arrow right there is a source for contamination. Be particularly attentive to any potential dirt or, fungi, or mold in those locations. Likewise, if you use a stick blender, if you’re using coconut milk, make sure those blades are clean. That’s another source of contamination. And so everything here clean.

So, we’re going to put this in Sandi’s… She’s got a yogurt maker. So, as you likely know by now, 36 hours at human body temperature, so roughly 100 degrees Fahrenheit. 36 hours, that’s my method because we want the microbe to proliferate, to double. Microbes don’t have sex, right? There’s no male/female microbes. They just double themselves. And so if reuteri doubles about every three hours at human body temperature, we allow it to double 12 times in 36 hours. That’s why we get numbers like 300 billion per half cup or 120-milliliter serving. So, this goes on for 36 hours. Sandi has, at the end of that process, a wonderful thick yogurt that has all those fantastic effects.

Dr. Sandi: And I usually make mine around 7, 8:00 in the evening because I don’t want to time it so that it’ll go off 36 hours at 3 a.m. And so I’ll make sure that it’ll be 36 hours, so that it’ll be about 7, 8 a.m. And that’s great. Then I put it in refrigerator. And the one thing that we need to do for this particular yogurt maker, I assume it’s for all, is to add water to it before we would turn it on.

Dr. Davis: We may need to show that part. So, this device uses a water bath, so exactly right. So, you’ll get a little more uniform dispersal of the heat.

Dr. Sandi: Well, this is fabulous. And as I said, this is my go to. I love it. It’s delicious. And I will sometimes add it to smoothies as the final step, or I eat it as my dessert. I’ll put some cacao nibs and some fruit in it, and it is so yummy but also good for you.

Dr. Davis: Right. You mind if I say something about SIBO yogurt?

Dr. Sandi: Oh, please do.

Dr. Davis: So, those of you following this conversation know that there’s also something that I call SIBO yogurt, and all that means we’re going to ferment Lactobacillus reuteri, Lactobacillus gasseri, and the original recipe was for Bacillus coagulans where we recently replaced it by Bacillus subtilis. And the rationale was easy. We want microbes that colonize the small intestine because incredibly half the U.S. population has allowed the overpoliferation of fecal microbes—E.coli, salmonella, campylobacter. These are unhealthy species that had been allowed to proliferate because of our overexposure to antibiotics, glyphosate, herbicides, etc., and remarkably have been allowed to ascend into the 24 feet of small intestine where they live and die rapidly. They live about several hours. That’s it. Trillions of microbes where they don’t belong in a very permeable small intestine, and they’re toxic compounds in your blood stream. And that’s how microbes in the small intestine can be experienced as depression, anxiety, dementia, in the skin, it’s rosacea, or psoriasis, or seborrheic, or eczema, or in the uterus, as premature labor or, in the prostate, as prostatitis, or in other words, we have to reconsider, rethink all we thought we knew about human disease in light of the contribution of microbes in the gastrointestinal tract but specifically in the small intestine.

So, one of the things that we can do is combine three microbes, Lactobacillus reuteri, Lactobacillus gasseri, Bacillus subtilis, because all three colonized the small intestine which is very unusual. Most microbes don’t do that. Most probiotic microbes don’t do that and produce bacteria since natural antibiotics effective in killing those fecal microbes. So, now in the original formulation, I fermented all three. So, I would add a capsule of gasseri. I’d add a capsule of Bacillus subtilis or Bacillus coagulans, and we co-ferment. And that worked about 90% of the time. Ninety percent of people just with that co-fermentation would get rid by hydrogen gas measurement. And we have the AIRE device that we have no relationship with. It’s just a unique device. You don’t have to do that but in case you want to track the hydrogen gas production that reflects the infestation of your small intestine by microbes.

More recently, I think it’s better to individually ferment each one, reuteri separate, gasseri separate, Bacillus subtilis better. The reason why we shifted from Bacillus coagulans to Bacillus subtilis is because the coagulans proved to be kind of unreliable in dairy. We’re getting wild variation in numbers. So, it’s since converted to much easier to ferment Bacillus subtilis. And one source of subtilis… I love when it’s inexpensive, Sandi. So, I got this at Aldi’s, $2.19.

Dr. Sandi: Oh, fantastic.

Dr. Davis: It’s labeled kombucha. It’s not kombucha. Kombucha is made with a SCOBY. This is made with one microbe, Bacillus subtilis, the DE111 strain. I’m sorry about these crazy numbers. I didn’t make them up. But this will be a source, and we’ll show separately how to make the sparkling juice, or you can get Bacillus subtilis. Another strand is HU58. You can get that from Microbiome Labs. We have no relationship except we know the founder. He’s our friend.

Dr. Sandi: I know him too. He’s a friend of mine. We love him.

Dr. Davis: And you can use that to make yogurt. Reason I’m not really fond of using this to make yogurt is it maybe effervescent. An effervescent yogurt, a little bit strange, right? But same principle, 36 hours, human body temperature, and then consume each individually. The reason we did that, if you co-ferment all three, we don’t know what happens at batch 5, 8, 10. There could be a shift in the relative numbers of those microbes. And so to prevent that, we ferment them individually and consume a little of each. And that has proven to be spectacularly effective in normalizing breath hydrogen gas, meaning you’ve gotten rid of the SIBO and thereby the contribution via endotoxemia for all those modern health conditions.

Dr. Sandi: That’s fabulous. I can’t wait to try that.

Dr. Davis: Thank you, Sandi. Thanks for doing this.

Dr. Sandi: Well, thank you. Thank you for being in my kitchen and showing everybody how to make this yogurt and now how to use this kombucha to make this new product. This is wonderful. Thank you so much. Bye, everybody.

Dr. Sandi: All right. Well, that was so informative, and before we get to our questions, we’ve got a lot of questions that have come in, but having viewed that video now, Dr. Davis, any comments?

Dr. Davis: I should have clarified this issue, Sandi, that when we ferment the Bacillus subtilis, you have two… I may not have been crystal clear about that. Two choices. You can make it a sparkling juice using that DE111 strain from that kombucha, and there are other kombuchas that have that same micro… It doesn’t have to be that brand. Costco, for instance, has a kombucha made with that brand. And you ferment at 90 degrees Fahrenheit for 60 hours. So, you’ll need something. I use a sous vide device. Whatever device. And if you live in a tropical climate, put it on your patio. You can do that too.

Dr. Sandi: Wow.

Dr. Davis: Or you could use the HU58 microbe and ferment it either individually or co-ferment. A little confusing. This is all evolving, Sandi, but it has proven. I know I originally created the SIBO yogurt idea just as a way to give people some relief from all the gastrointestinal distress people are having. I did not expect them to get rid of SIBO. That took me by surprise. Now we need to do a formal clinical trial. It’s going to be a little tricky because we can’t have people making yogurt on their own in a clinical trial. It’s too much variation. We’ll probably either have to supply them with some kind of capsule form or have a central laboratory make it for them and supply it to them, kind of expensive. So, we will do that down the road.

But so far, you know, Sandi, if I said the solution for this, for all your gastrointestinal other problems, is to remove your small intestine surgically. You should say, “Well, you better be damn confident that’s really necessary.” What if I said the solution is something that looks and smells like yogurt you make in your kitchen, and you know what? You can get smoother skin and a restoration of youthful musculature and increased… Older males get an increase in testosterone. Older females get a restoration of vaginal moisture. There’s an increase in libido. There is an amplification of the immune response. There’s all the effects of oxytocin. That is an increase in intensity of love and affection for the people close to you, desire for human companionship. There’s increase in generosity. There’s an acceptance of other people’s opinions. How confident do you have to be? You don’t have to be because it’s not a drug, right? There’s no side effect.

The only adverse effect, Sandi, we’ve encountered is what you’d expect when you kill fecal microbes. Whether it’s with the SIBO yogurt or an antibiotic, you’re killing things, and there’s a sudden surge in endotoxemia. And that can be experienced as depression, anxiety, panic attacks, trembling, jitters, rapid heartbeat, slight fever, muscle aches, nightmares, but it’s transient. It’s a sign that you’re killing off microbes.

So, you can always cut back for the first few days on the quantity of yogurt you take in, or you can take something like activated charcoal, 1,000 milligram capsule. And you don’t want to do that all the time because it binds nutrients also, but you can do it as needed, and it blunts those feelings within about 15 minutes. But that’s the only adverse effect we’ve encountered.

I should mention the other adverse effect is people who have terrible histamine intolerance, because reuteri produces histamine, a normal signal molecule. It’s not abnormal to have histamine. If you didn’t have histamine, you would be dead. So, reuteri produce a little histamine, and you should tolerate. But if you have histamine intolerance, the problem is not the reuteri, the problem is you and your SIBO, your severe case of SIBO.

In which case, you can try, once again, lower quantities. Rather than a half cup, say you could do maybe a tablespoon and see if you tolerate. If you don’t, that’s when we revert to some kind of antibiotic regimen. It could be a prescription antibiotic like Xifaxan. It could be an herbal antibiotic. The only two that have had any kind of validation are the CandiBactin-AR, -BR and the FC-Cidal with Dysbiocide. Both have had some validation to show that they work. In fact, they are more efficacious than Xifaxan.

But I would only do that because the difference here, Sandi, is if you do the SIBO yogurt, it kills fecal microbes but it also begins the process of rebuilding and restoring healthy microbes, like faecalibacterium, Akkermansia, Ruminococcaceae. If you take an antibiotic, it kills everything. It kills bad guys, like those fecal microbes, and it kills the good guys. So, it does not start the process of restoring healthy microbes. So, you use the antibiotics if you must. But if you can, I think the SIBO yogurt is a superior method, and you get all those other benefits.

Dr. Sandi: That is so good to know. One of the things I love about this yogurt is that, who can teach how to make it? Health coaches. This is certainly within scope. You are not recommending a supplement. You are teaching them something that is a preparation people can do at home in their kitchen. So, I want to get to some questions. There’s been wonderful questions. And look, there’s some that came in that are more general and then we’ll get to the specific yogurt-making questions. So, a question came in, is there an herbivore gut microbiome and an omnivore gut microbiome? One mainly fed by fiber, the other by the things like TMAO. So, do you want to try to comment about that? Is that true? What are the benefits of each?

Dr. Davis: No question. Every creature has a unique microbiome signature that differs based on many things, The structure of their gastrointestinal tract, their species, whether they’re mostly omnivorous, carnivorous, or herbivorous. So, herbivorous, for instance, tend to have more prevotella, for instance. Carnivorous creatures tend to have more hydrogen sulfide producing species like desulfovibrio. So, there are differences. But what I would not tell you is to avoid meat because of TMAO. That is nonsense. I’ve had that conversation with the scientists who published those data. So, what he did was he fed people fish, chicken, poultry, beef, pork, and watched the TMAO, trimethylamine N-oxide level go up.

Conclusion of his group and of the media is don’t eat any animal products because it increases the blood levels of TMAO, which may cause platelet aggregation and heart attack. Mistake. They treated the gastrointestinal microbiome as a black box, assuming everybody has the same micro… which, of course, is completely not true. And more recent science tells us that it’s people who have had a disrupted microbiome, especially weighed towards proteobacteria, those fecal microbes, and Bacteroides species. So, if you’ve got a disrupted microbiome, you’re going to produce more TMAO. It’s not the food. It’s not the input. It’s the microbiome that produces the TMAO, because think how unnatural it would be that humans don’t eat any. That’s not natural.

And so I don’t make too much of that TMAO business. It’s interesting science but false. By the way, Sandi, I tell you half my life is batting down misinformation. Not just providing good information but trying to get people to stop misinterpreting data or prematurely interpreting data. Many people said, for instance, a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle reverses heart disease. It does not. That was a false conclusion based on flawed science, serious methodological problems, and never showed that in the first place even though it’s often repeated, even covered by some insurance companies oddly.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. That’s so important, to clarify and deal with misinformation. Is it true that serotonin and GABA produced in the gut cross the gut-brain barrier?

Dr. Davis: Yeah, but I don’t think it’s a big effect. I think there are better ways to address mood. This is evolving. This whole world is fascinating, Sandi, this world, your work, right, of psychological health and so called psychobiotics. So, this question has been asked: Are there specific microbial species that upon restoration will improve mood? So, there have been a lot of efforts in this direction. For instance, there’s one study showing that restoration of Lactobacillus helveticus and Bifidobacterium longum improves mood. I’m a little skeptical. I made yogurt out of those two, and I got depressed. So, I think the effects are inconsistent.

So, right now, it’s unclear whether there’s this special silver bullet microbe, restore this and your mood gets better. Now, reuteri does not improve depression, but it does improve your well-being, which is, as you know, as a psychologist, is distinct from depression. Well-being is satisfaction with your life, where you are in life, satisfaction with your relationships, satisfied with your career and your activities. So, what reuteri does is it improves well-being, but I can’t say it improves depression. That has never been shown.

What I’ve said I think improves depression is getting rid of SIBO and endotoxemia and fungal overgrowth. Tell you, Sandi, I’ve gained a new respect for the effects of fungal overgrowth, whether it’s confined to the colon or involving the entire small intestine, SIFO, small intestinal fungal overgrowth. Some of the worst hatred, violence, anger, sleep disruption, and sugar cravings come in people who have fungal overgrowth. And the great thing is once you recognize that and you push back… You can’t get rid of fungi. You need the fungi to some degree. It helps maintain order. But if you push back overgrowth of fungi, you get wonderful effects on psychological health. So, it’s not just a single microbe, at least given current evidence. It’s going after SIBO, SIFO, endotoxemia.

Dr. Sandi: So, so important. So, there’s a comment: If our gut microbiome is very strongly established, not welcoming new bacteria that easily, if that’s true, why would it be important to have probiotics if they won’t establish as part of our microbiome eventually?

Dr. Davis: That’s not true.

Dr. Sandi: That’s what I thought.

Dr. Davis: That’s not true. You can easily establish new microbes. You could prove it to yourself. You could do something like get the reuteri yogurt and then do a stool analysis pre and post. And you’ll see that reuteri, for instance, will appear in high numbers in your stool. By the way, people sometimes say, “Oh, they don’t survive stomach acid or bile.” That is not true. They survive in high numbers. It varies from species to species, but the ones I told you about, Lactobacillus reuteri, Lactobacillus gasseri, and Bacillus subtilis are all… There’s high survivability. All you need to do is do it. You don’t have to do this. It’s very expensive. Do a stool analysis pre, stool analysis post, and you’ll see the high counts of those microbes, so you can’t implant it.

What we can’t do is do what your mom did for you. So, let’s say mom gave you a microbe like reuteri at birth, in your passage through birth canal, breastfeeding, contact. So, mom gave you reuteri, and you would have that for a lifetime unless you got exposed to antibiotics. Most of us by age 40 have taken 30 courses of antibiotics. For every 1,000 children, over 1,300 prescriptions for antibiotics are written every year. So, more than likely, you’ll lose the reuteri. But if you weren’t exposed to those things, you would have that reuteri for a lifetime.

Now wait a minute here. We get reuteri as a yogurt or as a probiotic, and it takes up residence maybe for a week. Well, why the difference? Probably not because you can’t, we say, engraft them, it’s because we probably haven’t provided the entire community. Microbes are just like people. We don’t live in isolation. We have a partner. We have families, neighbors, coworkers, communities. Microbes are very similar. They collaborate with each other. And I think that the flaw we have and what we’re doing the way we currently do it is restoring microbes almost in isolation. And maybe, who knows, 5, 10 years when the science is better, we’ll say something like, “Okay, let’s restore reuteri with these eight other species that all support each other and let it take up permanent residence,” but no one has worked that out yet.

Dr. Sandi: So, question came in: should the reuteri be rotated with other probiotics? And I would assume you are saying we’ve already discussed some others. And what about other strains, for example, Akkermansia?

Dr. Davis: So, with reuteri, I encourage everybody to… At the very least, let’s say you do the four weeks or more of the SIBO yogurt to get rid of your SIBO. Some people have to do it longer. If you said, for instance, I took antibiotics for four years for acne or whatever, you may have to do it for several months to get rid of your SIBO. But once you complete all that, I would encourage you to either take the SIBO yogurt or at least the reuteri intermittently, like, three times a week or so because we don’t know how to make it take up permanent residence. Remember, if you’re enjoying effects like a reduction of skin wrinkles and a restoration of youthful musculature, deeper sleep with vivid dreams, increased libido, who would want to lose all that? You just turned the clock back 10 or 20 years. Why would you want to lose that?

So, until we figure out how to have it take up permanent residence, I would do it intermittently. So, there’s no point rotating. It’s not like these things kill each other. There are microbes that kill each other, but these microbes that we’re talking about, reuteri, gasseri, Bacillus, they don’t kill each other. So, there’s no point in rotating. There are many other microbes. Now when you when you talk about Akkermansia, you’re kind of talking about what some of the people call probiotic 2.0. The problem with Akkermansia, Faecalibacterium, and some others that are very beneficial is they die upon exposure to oxygen. That’s why there’s a current product and more research trying to find a way to protect it from oxygen.

So, there’s a company called Pendulum. They released an Akkermansia product about, gee, four or five years ago. And when I got it for $196 for a 30-day supply, I called the chief scientist, Dr. Orville Kolterman. He’s now retired. I said, Dr. Kolterman, don’t tell me things you’re not allowed to tell me because it’s proprietary. How many microbes in each capsule? It’s not listed on the bottle. He says, “Well, anywhere between 1 and 100 billion.” What? So, imagine we call the bank and say, “Hey, how much money in my checking account?” “Somewhere between $1 and $100,000.” Well, which one is it? So, since then, they’ve reissued the product as 100 million. I think they recognized that you really didn’t have that much survivability.

Now here’s something. Patrice Cani’s group from Belgium, that was the original group that discovered Akkermansia in 2001. They figured out that you can even kill the microbe, and it still has beneficial effects, mostly reducing blood glucose and hemoglobin A1c, though it doesn’t take up residence because it’s dead, so a little disadvantage. But Akkermansia, you can replace, but it’s… Now here’s the kicker, though. Ninety-five percent of you already have Akkermansia. Why would you pay up to $200 a month to restore Akkermansia? And here’s another issue to know about. We have several studies now. If you do something good for health, it could be lose weight by some means, it could be eating fermented foods, which is really important, it could be the SIBO yogurt, Akkermansia appears seemingly out of nowhere. How? It’s like saying, “I had a pile of rags in my garage, and it turned into rats.” That’s not how biology works, right? How can you get a microbe appear out of the blue? Well, the presumption is that it was there all along hiding in the mucus barrier. When you supply a stool test, you’re not getting microbes hiding in the mucus barrier. You’re just getting the poop from the rectum, right? And you’re not getting a sample of the microbe sequester hidden in the mucus lining of your intestines. So, the presumption is that Akkermansia is hiding.

So, my point in all of this is that, why first take Akkermansia? Why not take something that blooms Akkermansia? And that could be inulin, fructooligosaccharides that you can get as a powder or as onions, garlic, shallots, or root vegetables. It could be hyaluronic acid, Sandi. One of the most interesting things, ladies say, “Oh, don’t tell me about hyaluronic acid. I put it on as a very expensive serum right here, so I lose my crow’s feet.” I tell them, “What did that do for the skin on your abdomen?” Nothing. The real power of hyaluronic acid is orally, where it increases dermal collagen, dermal moisture, yes, but it also acts as a fiber. It’s one of the rare fibers that comes from animals. And that fiber blooms Akkermansia. Hyaluronic acid blooms Akkermansia. Now, because most people have abandoned consumption of brain, skin, and tongue, so we don’t get much hyaluronic acid, so we get it as a powder and it blooms Akkermansia. The oleic acid of extra virgin olive oil blooms Akkermansia.

In other words, why not bloom Akkermansia? And if you want to prove it, do a baseline stool analysis, no Akkermansia, wait three months, repeat it after taking all those things that bloom Akkermansia and see if you have it. Maybe you can save $200 a month. Now if you don’t have it, okay. Maybe that’s the case for a supplement taking Akkermansia. But this is true for a number of microbes where there’s a challenge in trying to protect it from oxygen. Faecalibacterium is one of the most productive microbe for producing butyric acid in the gastrointestinal tract, a major mediator of numerous beneficial effects, like reduction in blood pressure, blood sugar, loss of abdominal fat, better sleep, better dreams, all kinds of great stuff, but it dies upon exposure to oxygen. So, that’s going to be among the new crops of probiotics, finding some way to preserve their integrity or bloom them and save your money.

Dr. Sandi: Very, very interesting. So, let’s turn to a few questions that came in, specifically about making the yogurt: so, if someone doesn’t eat dairy, what about coconut? And what about buying coconut yogurt at the store?

Dr. Davis: You can make it using coconut milk and coconut milk is the easiest. Just make sure there’s no additives like gel and gum or xanthan gum. Guar gum is okay. Guar gum is a little different. It’s a fiber, but there’s some additional steps because coconut milk likes to separate in the solids and aqueous, so water. So, number of things we have to add, we add guar gum, about a teaspoon of guar gum. We hit it with a stick blender for a minimum of a minute, and then we add the fiber and the microbe. You don’t want to blend the microbe. It kills the microbe. And that has worked pretty well. There’s some variation in that recipe, but pretty much adding guar gum, stick blender, then adding microbe. That’s worked pretty well.

Dr. Sandi: Sounds good.

Dr. Davis: You can ferment all kinds of things. You can ferment hummus, salsa, cabbage. I fermented all kinds of things. Now there may be variation in number of microbes you obtain, but now here’s something to bear in mind. Think about fermenting microbes as falling. This is a bit of a generalization, but it holds largely true, into two general categories. Microbes that ferment at human body temperature, reuteri, gasseri, right? And then microbes that ferment at room temperature. Those are the microbes you find in sauerkraut, kimchi, kefirs. Those are Leuconostoc, Weissella, Pediococcus. So, in other words, if you just tried to ferment reuteri at room temperature, you’re not going to get anything. And so you want to keep those two kind of separate. So, you choose your microbes properly and don’t get disappointed.

Dr. Sandi: Gotcha. Is it important to have organic milk when you’re making the yogurt? Someone’s using nonorganic goat milk.

Dr. Davis: You know, in general, not just in dairy but in general, it’s been shown now that people who choose organic… Organic’s not perfect. Hopefully, when you buy organic, it really is organic. And one of the problems is herbicides like glyphosate have become so overwhelmingly ubiquitous that even organic food has residues of glyphosate in it. So, it’s not a perfect world. But people who do choose organic, whether it’s dairy or green beans or cabbage or whatever, do have lower levels of herbicides and pesticides and probably have better health as a result, the long-term. And remember, herbicides, especially herbicides, including glyphosate, are antimicrobial. When Monsanto first applied for its patents for glyphosate, they applied it as an herbicide and as an antibiotic. They knew it was a very potent antibiotic. What they didn’t know at the time was that it’s an antibiotic of the worst kind because it kills probiotic species, doesn’t kill fecal microbes. So, it’s like this thing perfectly made. So, it’s likely that science has not been done yet. It’s likely glyphosate, ubiquitous in all… Everybody here, everybody, sadly, listening has glyphosate detectable in your hair, skin, urine, poop, everywhere. It’s in your drinking water, it’s in your air, and it is a potent antimicrobial.

Dr. Sandi: So scary. So, here’s a question we get all the time, and that is: do you need that special yogurt maker? Can you do it without one? And, also, do you have to heat the milk? We talked about that when you were in my kitchen.

Dr. Davis: It helps to have a device to keep… If you’re going to be doing reuteri, you need something around human body temperature. You need 98 to 102 Fahrenheit. I say 100 degrees Fahrenheit just to be easy to remember. That could be a yogurt maker, and it’s ideally, a yogurt maker that has adjustable temperature and time. It could be a sous vide. There’s basin sous vide, slow meat cooker. Could be a stick sous vide. They make a lot of noise, but they work very well. It could be an instant pot. Some of the instant pots have a yogurt setting. Just be careful. If you choose a device that you just picked off the shelf, you want to test the temperature. A lot of yogurt makers are meant for fermentation of other microbes like Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus. Streptococcus thermophilus, heat lover. So, they set those yogurt makers for conventional yogurt at around 110 to 114 degrees. That’s a temperature that kills reuteri. So, if you have a conventional yogurt maker, let it run for half an hour with a thermometer in it, $8 thermometer, and see what the temperature is. If it’s running at 114, 112, you know you can’t use that device, at least not for reuteri. You’re going to have to get another device. If you’re lucky enough to live in Phoenix or Miami or Galveston, where it’s hot a lot, you could put it on your deck or on your windowsill, somewhere where it’s hot. You can’t do that where we are right now in Chicago where it’s a beautiful warm day, 66 degrees.

Dr. Sandi: And regarding heating up the milk…

Dr. Davis: Oh, yes.

Dr. Sandi: The ultra pasteurized? You don’t have to do that?

Dr. Davis: No, you don’t have to. The reason that came about is conventional yogurt makers who use milk, not half and half, will heat the milk to get better mouthfeel. Well, we use half and half, you get better mouth feel already. Now one thing to think about. Once in a while, people will get a contaminant. You know, the air is filled with fungi and mold, and your hands, your breath, your utensil, your kitchen cup are filled with microbe. We don’t think of it that way. But every once in a while, someone will have a contaminant. If you get a batch that smells foul and separates, now tough things up. When you first make your first batch from a probiotic, you will get separation. That’s what we call the first batch effect. Your subsequent batch is made from a little of the prior batch. They’ll be thick and smooth and uniform.

But let’s say you made seven great batches. All of a sudden, there’s a stinky, foul smelling batch with grotesque separation. That’s a contaminant. Where did it come from? Well, most commonly, that issue I made in the video with you, Sandi, a utensil that has a joint and has allowed some bacteria or fungi in there. It could be because from incomplete cleaning of your utensils or your bowls. It could be because you sneezed on it. It could be because you made it in the path of airflow from your air conditioner or your heating. Or it could be that there’s a contaminant in the inulin you used. And so it’s uncommon, but it does happen every once in a while for that reason. I’m trying to get everybody sterile inulin. It was not easy because I reviewed about 10 commercial sources of inulin. They all had a low level of contamination with Bacillus cereus, which is a spore forming microbe. And it’s really tough to get rid of. If you boil it, it doesn’t die. If you bake it, it doesn’t die. If you call it names, it doesn’t die. So, I’m trying to find a way to… But you could always try to preheat it to 180 degrees Fahrenheit, but that doesn’t kill it. It’ll kill only some of those microbes. So, you could do that for the sake of minimizing contamination if you’re having problems with contaminants. Most people do not.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah, I made it about 30 times. I had one bad batch, and that was in Arizona. So, I don’t know what happened. So, want to get to the questions that have come in through today’s Q&A. We’ve got some great ones. I believe you already talked about that die off symptoms two weeks into yogurt consumption. And then Carol says, she was wondering: are you still endorsing the FoodMarble SIBO device? And how do you feel about direct to consumer testing?

Dr. Davis: Yeah. Here, I’ve got mine. Here’s the most recent one that measures hydrogen gas and methane. It’s a very nice device. You blow into it, talks to your smartphone, scale of 0 to 10. You don’t need to do this, but if you’re uncertain, in other words, you have some weird symptom you’re not sure it’s SIBO or not, this can be helpful. Now the protocol for using it, you have to look at my “Super Gut” book because the instructions that come with the device are not entirely correct. I know the inventor, Dr. Aonghus Shortt in Dublin, Ireland. I’ve called him. He’s a nice guy, but he’s an engineer. He’s a PhD engineer, and it took a while to understand. Because when he first invented it, he did it for his wife who had irritable bowel syndrome and was put on a low FODMAPs diet. And he saw her having a struggle, having bloating, diarrhea when she got exposed to something. So, he invented this device to help her identify what was wrong.

Well, he releases it in 2018. I get a hold of him. I call him. I say, “Aonghus, no, no, no, no. This is a mapping device you invented.” I’m telling the inventor what he invented. I said, “This is a mapping device. If you use it by the right protocol, it tells you where microbes are living in your gastrointestinal tract,” because microbes produce hydrogen gas and methane and we do not. But you have to use timing. And so there’s a very specific protocol. It’s very easy, and so you can use it. I find it also very useful if you have a recurrence. Let’s say your original symptoms of SIBO were anxiety, nightmares, and skin rash. You eradicate your SIBO with maybe four to six weeks, whatever, of SIBO yogurt. And then eight months later, you have diarrhea and depression. You say, “Well, what’s going on here? Could this be SIBO?” And, yeah, it’s SIBO. The reason for the difference in symptoms is every episode of SIBO can be dominated by different microbial species. So, maybe the original problem from antibiotics was you had too much E. coli and Klebsiella and Citrobacter, and the recurrence was too much staphylococcus, streptococcus, the enterococcus, completely different bunch of symptoms. So, that’s where I find the AIRE device helpful.

But because the treatment for SIBO that I’m advocating, the SIBO yogurt, is so benign and so beneficial, you don’t have to be confident. Like I said earlier on, if I said the solution was remove your small bowel surgically, you better be damn confident. What if the solution is something you make in your kitchen that tastes like yogurt that gives you better skin and libido and muscle and youthfulness? You don’t have to be confident. I also would tell people to look for telltale signs of SIBO. Fat droplets in the toilet, fat malabsorption, excessive triglycerides or fat, stool test. You’re not absorbing fat because there are fecal microbes in your duodenum. Conditions, any food intolerance, whether it’s FODMAPs, nightshades, legumes, histamine intolerance, those are all signs of SIBO. The problem is not the food. The problem is you and your SIBO. Or, conditions that are virtually synonymous with SIBO, fibromyalgia, virtually synonymous with SIBO. Irritable bowel syndrome, very high likelihood. Restless leg syndrome, very high likelihood. Obesity/type 2 diabetes, about a 50% likelihood, and on and on and on. Very high likelihood in so many different conditions. But, you know, once you know that, you have been given the key for magnificent control over health. And not just physical health but mental and emotional health also, and your appearance, and your weight, and the location of muscle and fat.

Dr. Sandi: Yes, that’s why I love your work. We have a question about the Digestive Advantage probiotic for SIBO yogurt containing titanium dioxide, carrageenan. Which probiotic would you suggest instead?

Dr. Davis: So, don’t sweat those things because at the first batch, it’ll be dilute, and then it’ll be gone in subsequent batches. So, you’re right. These probiotic manufacturers don’t always keep in mind that we don’t want those things in there. But it’s present. It’s diluted in a quart with your first batch, and then subsequent batches made from little to prior batch. It’s so diluted, it’s going to be meaningless. So, don’t sweat those things. It’s only if you took it as a probiotic habitually, right? If you only took the probiotic where those kind of additives become an issue.

Dr. Sandi: Okay. I think we answered Sean’s question. He’s making coconut yogurt with reuteri, gasseri, and I think he’s blending it together. And it comes out green and pink and separation. So, how do you know if it’s safe?

Dr. Davis: It’s not safe, if you’ve got green, pink, orange, or black.

Dr. Sandi: Yucky. Avoid.

Dr. Davis: Those are fungi. Those are molds from the air. So, it means your utensils were dirty. You sneezed on it. There’s airflow. So, remember, there’s fungi everywhere. It’s really all over your kitchen counter. It’s in your kitchen sink. It’s all over little sponges you use to clean things. It’s on your hands, on your face, on your clothes. So, when I made the video with Sandi, I was a little sloppy in putting utensils on the counters. They were just go through the motions. But when you make, you shouldn’t do that, right? Don’t put your utensil on the counter in between stirring. You want to be meticulous about… You don’t have to sterilize with alcohol or something crazy, but you want to be careful. Everything should be washed in hot, soapy water. Don’t touch things before you put it in the yogurt. Don’t allow your utensils to contact other things. So, just be careful. Remember, you’re growing things. And it’s very easy, in particular with fungi, to contaminate the yogurt. And I fear, Sandi, we’re making it sound harder than it is. I think you’ll attest to the fact, it’s really very simple.

Dr. Sandi: Okay. So, it is simple, and I can attest to that. Okay. Can pomegranate juice be fermented with Saccharomyces boulardii, like the recipe you have for apple cider?

Dr. Davis: Yeah. Yeah. Pomegranate is easy. So, what we’re talking about is what I call sparkling juices. So, you know, in general, we should avoid juices, right? Because they’re very high in sugar. Well, the great advantage of fermentation with, let’s say Saccharomyces boulardii or Bacillus subtilis is that those microbes consume the sugars for you if you let them go long enough. So, with Saccharomyces boulardii, I let it go for about 48 to 72 hours, and it ferments out all the sugar, and you’ll have… It won’t be sweet anymore. So, you can taste it if… Let’s say after 48 hours at room temperature, by the way, for Saccharomyces, if it’s a little sweet, let it go another 12 to 24 hours. Taste it again. Let it go until there’s almost no sugar left because you don’t want sugar. But remember, be careful. Keep that cap on loosely or vent it every so often or go to a beer brewing store and buy a vent cap because there’s so much… You’ll see it bubbling after 24 hours. You’ll see so much carbon dioxide being produced. If you tap it too tightly, you can actually have the container explode in your kitchen. You don’t want to do that. So, I make sure that you’re venting the CO2, the carbon dioxide.

Dr. Sandi: So, if somebody needs to be dairy-free or is lactose intolerant, is this fermentation process likely to be better for them in terms of lactose?

Dr. Davis: One of the advantages of this prolonged fermentation method we use is it allows maximum conversion of lactose to lactic acid. So, almost nobody remains lactose intolerant. Actually, let me say it again. Almost nobody cannot consume the yogurt if the problem was lactose intolerance because there’s almost no lactose remaining. It’s been converted to lactic acid. Now even better, that level of lactic… That’s why it’s so tart. The lactic acid acidifies the yogurt. So, if we were making conventional yogurt, the FDA says you must achieve a pH of 4.6 or less to call it yogurt. We’re getting a pH of 3.5. Remember, the logarithmic scale is… I’m sorry, the pH scale is logarithmic. So, 3.5 is about tenfold, 1000% more acidic than conventional yogurt. That level of acidity breaks down or denatures the casein beta A1 immunogenic protein of dairy. So, it may not eliminate its immunogenicity to provoke an immune response, but it reduces it. So, we haven’t eliminated the problems with dairy. We’ve minimized them. But especially lactose intolerant people almost always can can make this yogurt.

Dr. Sandi: Fantastic. Okay. Well, Taylor says she has made it for a year. She has it every day. And any new publications, anything since “Super Gut” on particularly the small intestinal fungal overgrowth and IMO, anything that you would care to share.

Dr. Davis: Not on fungal overgrowth. We’re doing a lot of work on what I call body composition. So, one of the tremendous problems associated with conventional methods of weight loss, whether it’s reducing calories or GLP-1 agonist, like Wegovy or Ozempic or Mounjaro, or even a bariatric procedure, those are all… People don’t think of it this way. Those are all variations on the same theme, reducing calorie intake. And we know, Sandi, we know with good evidence that when you reduce calories, regardless of the method, about 25% of the weight you lose is muscle. And when you lose muscle, your basal metabolic rate, the rate at which you burn calories is reduced permanently. And even if you maintain a low calorie intake, you will regain the weight as all fat, not muscle. That loss of muscle accelerates your path to falls, fractures, frailty, loss of independence, and we now know, with good evidence, you’re going to die several years earlier. We now have about 50,000 people in several databases showing us if you lose weight the wrong way, you abbreviate your life because you lost muscle. That’s why it’s so wonderful that reuteri brings back youthful muscle. And there’s some other things you can do. One of the things we do is we restore collagen peptides and hyaluronic acid that also adds some muscle effects. There’s a lot of things you can do to maintain and restore youthful muscle. But now what was the original question, Sandi?

Dr. Sandi: Yeah, it was fungal overgrowth.

Dr. Davis: Oh, yes. So, we’ve been working mostly on body composition, because I think we’ve stumbled away to specifically target the most problematic form of fat, abdominal visceral fat, and maintain muscle. So, we’re about to start another clinical trial. We’re going to formally validate a lot of these things as well as try to explore the mechanism of action. We’ve not done work in fungal overgrowth, but the world of fungal overgrowth needs to be better charted. Here’s a question for you. If you take the brain of someone who died of dementia and you look for fungi in the brain, the brain is filled with multiple species of fungi, Candida and many others.

Now is that just a benign accompaniment or is it part of the process of dementia? You’ll also find, by the way, oral microbes in the brain or Porphyromonas gingivalis, Fusobacterium nucleatum. Are they causal? What role do they play? So, let’s say you’re noticing you have fungal infections on your eyebrows, on your scalp, behind your ears, under your breasts, in your groin, on your toenails. Is that a sign of disseminated fungal infestation, including your brain? Well, tough question because no one wants to get a brain biopsy, and there’s no imaging method to find out. That is a very problematic area that’s not been properly explored. But I wonder if the people who have… So, if you have a type 2 diabetic, for instance, it’s very common for them to have Candida fungal infestations everywhere. Skin everywhere. Sinuses, airways, and probably brain. What do we do about that? Should that person get a systemic antifungal agent? So, this is an evolving question. So, we’ve not done those studies, but I do think that fungal infestation is a major underappreciated issue.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. Absolutely. So, we are drawing to a close, and I want to say, first of all, you will get a recording. And there’s been requests for the recipes. Of course, we will put the recipe in that email that you will receive as well as the brand of yogurt maker that was used and the strain of probiotics and the company. We can list that as well. And there’s been so many great questions. A lot of questions came in about dairy, and I believe we answered that in terms of using something like coconut milk, sheep milk. Somebody asked almond milk. So, there seems to be a lot of interest in alternative types of milk. And let’s see. For someone with high cholesterol, will eating this regularly raise it?

Dr. Davis: All right. That’s a whole few hours of conversation. Suffice to say, what I tell people is go get a big thick black magic marker and cross out your LDL and total cholesterol. It’s a fairy tale. There never was evidence that cholesterol causes heart disease. It was meant to be a crude indirect marker for the actual particles in the bloodstream that cause heart disease. You can measure them. I’ve been doing it for over 30 years. And you’ll find that saturated fat, total fat, has nothing to do with heart disease. There are real causes. I just posted a YouTube video as well as a podcast, my “Defiant Health” podcast. The real causes of heart disease, the tragedy of statin cholesterol drugs and cholesterol is it took everybody’s attention off the real cause. That’s why your hospital may have added an $80 million new cardiac care wing. And that’s why 80 million Americans now take a statin and cholesterol drugs, and there’s been no reduction in heart disease because they don’t work, because it’s based on a flawed concept. Not to say you can’t do spectacular things in stopping or regressing coronary disease. You can. But it has nothing to do with cholesterol. It has nothing to do with saturated fat. It has to do with pinpointing the real causes and addressing it. So, a little bit off topic for today, but see my YouTube videos, see my “Defiant Health,” see my… I have thousands of blog posts, and there’s probably, I don’t know, a hundred posts just on that question.

Dr. Sandi: Yes. So, please refer to those. We will put those resources, when you receive a follow-up with this recording. The book was “Super Gut.” And I want to thank you, Dr. Davis. This has been really a wonderfully informative webinar. We’ve had record attendance. And I’m sorry if we did not get to your questions. We did our best to answer most of them. And if you can reach out to us, we can do our best to, again, continue to answer those. But this has been really informative, and we are so thankful for you. And we’d like to have you back to do a repeat performance, so that we can, as health coaches, be just the crucial individual who is going to help people have better gut health and better overall health as a result. So, thank you so much.

Dr. Davis: No, Sandi, I’ll add, health coaches are in a perfect position to do these kinds of things. The doctors aren’t going to do it. You think the doctor’s going to show you how to make L. reuteri yogurt? No. So, you guys are in perfect position to do extraordinary things. And thank you, Sandi. Thank you to your team.

Dr. Sandi: Thank you. Thank you so much, and thank you everybody who attended today. Bye now.