In week 11, part one treatment for gut dysbiosis and mild fungal overgrowth is different from what is listed in part four in the final review notes. Which one and when? Are they interchangeable?

First of all, Prescript Assist is no longer available, so that is why we have removed it from the protocols. That was a soil-based organism product that was distributed by Enviromedica but was manufactured by somebody else. There was a big issue where there were some discrepancies between what the manufacturer said was in the product than what was actually in the product. They sued each other, and that product is now off the market or at least not on the market in the form that it was in before.

The Seed product is a new product that wasn’t available in I originally planned the course, and I think it has some very interesting properties. One is that It has a delivery system that allows it to survive the stomach acid and make it to the large intestine where these microbes are needed. This is kind of what I think of like probiotics 2.0 or the next generation of probiotic that will actually allow the organisms to survive the digestive process and get to the colon. Two is it’s a very, very science-backed product. All of the strains in there are the ones that are the most supported by research, and I know the founders of the company, I’m actually an adviser to the company, and they are legit scientists who are really working to create an evidence-based product that can actually make a big impact. The fact that it has this delivery system also gives it some advantages. One of the reasons we didn’t use lactic acid bacteria, which are in the Seed product like lactobacillus and bifidobacteria with patients with SIBO is they often reacted to it, and I think one of the reasons for that is that those bacteria will be deposited in the small intestine as the product transited to the colon. Whereas with Seed, I think since it’s protected from digestion in the stomach and small intestine, you don’t get a dump of bacteria into the small intestine, and that makes it more tolerable for people who have SIBO in addition to making it more effective.

Terraflora the product that it replaced is a product that Enviromedica manufactures on its own as their sort of follow-up to Prescript Assist which they were distributing before. It’s a soil-based organism product that is very similar to MegaSporeBiotic, but the difference is it can be ordered directly by patients. There is only a difference of one strain between Terraflora and MegaSporeBiotic. I think they are probably fairly interchangeable, but you might have patients try either one or depending on whether you want them to order through you for the MegaSporeBiotic, or they can order themselves for Prescript Assist, not a huge difference there.