Meet Dr Nicole Beurkens
Dr. Nicole Beurkens’ career has spanned many areas of human development, health, and wellness. While she has served in diverse roles of licensed psychologist, teacher, consultant, board-certified nutritionist, researcher, and advisor, her guiding principle has always been the same – provide people with information and tools that empower them to become the best version of themselves. Nicole’s advanced degrees in education, psychology, and nutrition have allowed her the opportunity to support children and adults in a wide variety of inpatient and outpatient settings, including her own award-winning clinic. She’s partnered with companies and brands to reach people around the globe with the innovative research, strategies, and products that get to the root of their challenges, and help them feel and function better.
Now she is proud to be leading the team at Berkeley Life as CEO, to bring the life-changing power of nitric oxide to the forefront of medicine, mental health, and people’s everyday lives. This represents the continued evolution of her mission to show the world that with the right foundations in place every human being has the capacity to thrive.
Listen to the episode on Spotify here or on your favorite podcast platform.
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Podcast transcript:
Welcome back to the urban monk podcast. Dr. Pedram. Shojai sitting here with my kid’s soul and Sophia. Hi, showing them how editing software works and how I do my bumpers. So one of these days you might be hearing one of their voices on this today. I’m with Dr. Nicole Burkins. I love her she’s great child psychologist.
, then went and studied nutrition, really dove deep into why nutrition was causing some of the things she was seeing in her clinic. , and has helped thousands and thousands of people. , since then she just got moved into a really interesting chapter of her life, where she’s the CEO of Berkeley life, doing some interesting stuff that y’all will hear about soon enough. , she’s wonderful.
She’s a dear friend and she’s onto something. Let’s go
Dr Pedram Shojai: It is good to see you. Welcome to the show.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: So great to be here. Thank you.
Dr Pedram Shojai: So I’m a big fan of the work that you’re doing. Always have been, the fact that you are doing something new and cool doesn’t surprise me at all. There’s a two letter acronym, which is also a two letter word that I like a lot, that we use a lot with, you know, the, the use of a healthy prefrontal cortex and the negation of impulses.
Dr Pedram Shojai: But it’s not that, no, this is the NO , and I think that it is, , really not talked about enough within the context of what we’re, where we’re gonna go today. And I’m really happy to have you here to share it. So let’s, well, first off, what is No.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Yeah. It’s, you know, this is a confusing thing for people. No. Is nitric oxide not to be confused with. Nitrous oxide, which is where a lot of people go in their mind, it’s like, no, no. That’s the stuff they use at the dentist. We’re talking about nitric oxide. No, which is a critical signaling molecule in the brain and the body that I agree with you is not talked about enough.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: It is a critical foundation for everything that we talk about in health and wellness without adequate, no levels in the body, we just simply can’t have systems in the brain and body that function well. And so I’m on a mission to talk about this more, to bring this more to the forefront because your listeners, your community, they’re doing all kinds of things to support their health and wellness for themselves, for their kids, for their partners, for their families. And yet this nitric oxide piece is such a foundational component. And, and the great news is, as we’re gonna talk about. There’s so much low hanging fruit there that we can do to support our nitric oxide levels. Once we understand why it’s important and how to look at those levels and how to increase it.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: So this signaling molecule, what’s interesting, there was a Nobel Prize actually awarded back in, I think it was 1998, um, some tie tos and clinicians discovered the importance of nitric oxide as a signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system. And it was this amazing discovery because what they found is this eno, which is a gas that’s produced in the body, a couple of different ways that we can talk about it, is a potent vasodilator. What does that mean? It means it helps to relax and expand the blood vessels throughout our body. Why is that important? Because blood flow, healthy blood flow throughout our entire system is critical for every part of our brain and body function. It gets oxygen. Throughout our entire body, it gets nutrients where they need to go. It allows for the proper tone and regulation of everything related to our heart function, related to our blood pressure. It is actually acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain. So this signaling molecule is key and this relaxation and this regulation of tone in the blood vessels. People often associate with blood pressure.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: They think, oh, I’ve got high blood pressure, and they’re told, oh, you need to, reduce your blood pressure. Well, what does that mean? It means relaxing the tone of all of these vessels so that they’re not constricted and they can allow blood to flow freely through them. It’s why Blood pressure that starts to elevate when it starts to get, you know, towards hypertension.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: And high blood pressure is such an indicator of a whole bunch of health problems, right? Because when blood flow starts to slow down, when it starts to get stuck, when our blood isn’t flowing through our system the way it needs to, that’s a problem across the board. So nitric oxide, this no is critical for that. And because it’s so critical for healthy blood flow, that makes it critical for just about every process throughout our body.
Dr Pedram Shojai: So when I think of, signaling molecules, there’s a few places things can go wrong, , in the actual signaling, right? But then also not having the precursors to have the thing that does the signaling. And we live in a complicated world with complicated, , chronic conditions. At this point, what’s the lowest hanging fruit?
Dr Pedram Shojai: Like where are most people off in this pathway?
Dr Nicole Beurkens: . Well, this requires understanding the two Pathways that our body can use to make nitric oxide. And it’s really important to understand this and I can explain it, um, simply. , but it’s important to understand because as we age, and, and I don’t even mean like getting into our really older years, I mean like even getting into middle age, one of these pathways starts to really break down, which makes it important for us to understand the other pathway. So the one that most people are familiar with is, through our endothelial cells, when we eat proteins that have amino acids in them, one of those amino acids that we can take in through protein and that our body also produces is called l-Arginine. And this is the pathway that most people are familiar with, where we take in l-arginine that is converted in our endothelial cells through an enzyme called Enos endothelial nitric oxide syntase. And it. Converts that arginine into nitric oxide. So that’s one pathway and that’s a great pathway. And that pathway functions really well up to a certain point in time. Unfortunately, by the time we reach 40 years old, the vast majority of us have lost already 50% of our capability to produce nitric oxide through that pathway. And that’s because of the world that we live in, exposure to toxins, sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, not getting good sleep, all of these things that reduce the capability of our endothelial cells to produce that enzyme that converts l-arginine into nitric oxide. So while we’re young and healthy. That’s a great pathway. The problem is as we start to get older, that breaks down. So the good news, is that our bodies are incredibly wise and we have a backup plan. Our bodies have a plan B for producing nitric oxide, and that is through a pathway called the nitrate. Nitrate nitric oxide pathway. And how that works is we consume nitrates in our diet. Now, nitrates are high in foods like dark leafy greens, so spinach, arugula, bok choy, beets. Those are some of the foods that have, um, high nitrate content. And what’s interesting is those are actually the foods that are heavily promoted in things like the dash diet or the Mediterranean diet. These dietary nitrates are part of why those diets are promoted as being so effective for supporting our health. So let’s say we eat our arugula or we eat our beets, we’re taking in those nitrates and those in our mouth, in our saliva. Get converted to something called nitrite, and that conversion happens through our oral microbiome, so that community of microorganisms that lives in our mouth, most people are familiar with the gut microbiome.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Well, we have an oral microbiome as well. Those microbes convert the nitrates from our spinach, from our arugula, from our beets into nitrite. We then swallow that nitrite in our saliva and in the acidic stomach. Then that nitrite is converted into nitric oxide gas. So this is also a beautiful simple pathway through which our body can produce the nitric oxide that we need.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: And the good news about that is that pathway stays intact throughout the lifespan, unlike that first pathway, whereby the time we’re age 40, we’ve lost 50% of it, and then we lose another 10% every decade that goes by. That nitrate nitrate pathway that stays active throughout the lifespan. So that’s really what we want to be focusing on and leveraging.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: When we think about how we can support nitric oxide levels in our body, it’s through making sure that we’re getting enough dietary nitrates, whether that is through the food that we’re eating or that’s through taking nitrate supplementation. That’s going to be key for any one of any age with a chronic health condition because chronic health conditions impact the ability of those endothelial cells, , in that first pathway to produce that.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: And certainly anybody over the age of 35 or 40 needs to be thinking about. Using, that nitrate pathway and making sure that they’re consuming enough nitrates in addition to other things that we can talk about, that, that you can do. But that’s sort of, uh, the, the simple science behind how we produce this miracle molecule, this nitric oxide gas that then is so important for supporting all of these elements of, of health and proper function.
Dr Pedram Shojai: So let’s dig behind curtain A for another minute. I don’t wanna give up on, . Us middle-aged folks,
Dr Nicole Beurkens: That’s
Dr Pedram Shojai: eating l-arginine isn’t gonna do it because the conversion isn’t going to work. What, like what’s breaking in people crossing over that line? That is hard to come back from.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: , so what happens as we age for all those reasons that I mentioned is that that Enos, that endothelial nitric oxide synthase enzyme becomes what we call uncoupled. And quite simply, what that just means is it breaks, it stops being able to do the conversion that it needs to do, which is why sometimes people when they’re younger, they’re like, oh, I’ve been taking L-Arginine, or El Citruline, which is another, you know, component of that. You know, athletes will do that. People who are really into, um, bodybuilding or those types of things, l-arginine supplements are really common. And often when people have heard about supporting nitric oxide levels, they’ve heard about l-arginine supplements. So you’ve got people taking multiple grams of those supplements if. Enos enzyme is working properly. If you’re young enough, then that’s great. The problem is you can be, you know, 40, 50, 60 years old, you can take as much of that as you want. And it is not going to turn into nitric oxide simply because your endothelial cells aren’t able to do that conversion. And the problem then comes if you’re taking large amounts of an arginine or a citruline supplement to support that, and your body can’t utilize that and convert it. Now you get this massive buildup of l-arginine or El Citruline in the system. And that can create problems, particularly for people who maybe have M-T-H-F-R mutations or other kinds of issues. You just don’t wanna get that building up excessively. And this is sort of, , what I’ve discovered is a. An unfortunate secret in the industry around not really telling people that these supplements are good for a certain age, for a certain purpose, but that they’re not going to do what you’re expecting them to do under certain conditions. And one of those being, getting older. So I just think it’s an important thing for people to understand.
Dr Pedram Shojai: So, endothelial cells, , we find them in a lot of places. Let’s talk about where they’re found in the body and what the function is in different parts, because I think this is a bigger story than has been told. I.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Yeah, it’s interesting because when people think about endothelial cells, they tend to think about, again, blood pressure, cardiovascular system. Yes, absolutely. Endothelial cells line, the entirety of our blood vessels. So if you think about all the blood vessels that run throughout our entire body, it’s endothelial cells that create the lining. And these endothelial cells have what we call these tight junctions, which means they’re very, they should be very closely connected and they seal off. Lining of those blood vessels wherever they are in the body. So they create this sealed system, that blood then can flow through. In the case of the cardiovascular system, blood can flow through there and these endothelial cells. Um, and, and the lining then of these blood vessels is very responsible for what we call permeability, which means, , keeping the things in that are supposed to be in and allowing things out that are supposed to get out and when they’re tightly, interconnected. And when those linings are working properly and those endothelial cells are healthy, our body is happy and healthy because things stay where they’re supposed to stay.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: And things flow in and out of, um, you know, our tissues and our vessels and our cells the way that they should. But when that starts to break down, when our endothelial cells start to become dysfunctional and nitric oxide plays a big role in that, then what we get is these endothelial cells that are not tightly interconnected.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: We get these endothelial cells that start to get inflamed. They start to, , create stiffness. Our blood vessels where we’re supposed to have this nice, flexible, kind of supple, endothelial, um, lining that allows blood to easily flow through. Well, people think about that when they think about heart disease and, you know, plaque, arterial plaque in those arteries that can lead to heart attack and things like that.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Well, what’s happening there, those blood vessels, the lining, the endothelial lining is getting stiff. It’s breaking down. It’s not functioning properly, and that’s because those endothelial cells. Aren’t healthy like they need to be. And that’s because they’re not getting adequate amounts of nitric oxide to support their ability to function the way they’re supposed to function. So that obviously has impacts then for blood flow and our cardiovascular system. But I love the question that you asked because endothelial cells are found, they, they form the linings of tissues throughout every organ system in our body. So we have endothelial cells lining our entire gut. System, , our brain, all of our organ systems, our skin. And so if we think about the fact that this endothelial, these endothelial cells need to be healthy and functioning properly, to seal off all those systems, to allow for the proper things, nutrients, and other things to flow in and out properly in the case of the gut, to be able to keep pathogens and things inside, proteins inside, not allow those out into the bloodstream.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Right? What do we call it when that happens? Leaky gut, right? And now we talk about things like leaky brain and we’re hearing talk about things like leaky skin. What are we talking about there? We’re talking about a breakdown in these endothelial linings of these organ systems, which comes down to these endothelial cells not being able to function properly. And this is critical then for the nitric oxide story because we know that nitric oxide is a key component of allowing endothelial cells to function properly. And so when we have anything like leaky gut or endothelial issues with blood pressure, with cardiovascular, with any system in the body, we want to have that. Lead us to think about NO because we want to strengthen and support the health of our endothelial cells, support the integrity of the endothelial lining throughout our body in all of our organ systems so that they function properly. And you know, I think leaky gut is probably a thing that your audience is most familiar with.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Like, I know that you talk about that quite a bit and, and that’s been out there, you know, for, for people to hear about for a while. Well, there’s a lot of people who are doing a lot of protocols to heal their gut, right? They’re doing the probiotic protocols and they’re on the special diets and they’re taking all the things to, to heal their gut. Well, what was really interesting to me as I started diving into the research on nitric oxide, was discovering that, oh, wait a minute. Leaky gut is about endothelial lining problems in the gut, right? It’s about this permeability this, this relaxing of these tight junctions, which then allows things that should stay in the gut to get out in the bloodstream where they cause all kinds of problems. And I thought, well, wait a minute. Why aren’t we talking about then in the realm of gut health and healing, leaky gut nitric oxide? Because nitric oxide is key. And the research shows this, that it is key for supporting endothelial cell health. It’s key for supporting proper permeability. And in fact, that mucosal lining, that entire endothelial tight junction lining of the gut and that mucosal layer that’s so important and that people are doing a lot of things to try to heal and repair. You actually can’t fully repair it and seal it off without having adequate nitric oxide levels. And that’s a piece that I think. Wow. We need to be talking about that. People need to be aware of that so that they can do all the things that they need to do to be able to fully heal from those, um, those leaky gut kinds of issues.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: And same goes for skin, brain, you know, whatever. But I think the gut is just something that so many people are aware of and thinking about. And this nitric oxide piece is a, is a part of that puzzle that we need to be considering.
Dr Pedram Shojai: I’ve seen a lot of gut formulas come and go. I haven’t seen nitric oxide in any of them. And so I think, , this gut microbiome story is writing itself every week, right? Like it, the science is new, it’s emergent. But I think that this is a really interesting point. , and Dr. Burkins has shared some of the research already with me, which is fascinating, look, this is a thing.
Dr Pedram Shojai: How the hell did we miss this? Right? If you have leaky gut and it’s not getting better, , this might be a part of, this array of, of interventions that need to be there to fix this, right?
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, there are some formulas and things out there that have l-arginine in them. There is some recognition that, okay, nitric oxides important, but let’s go back to our earlier conversation about those pathways, right? If you are a person over the age of 35, or you are a person with a chronic illness, which if you have leaky gut, you are a person with a chronic health condition, your endothelial cells can’t make use of the L-arginine to produce the nitric oxide.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: So while it may be well intentioned to have a gut formula that has some L-arginine in it. It’s not the right application because you’re not going to get to the desired endpoint, which is increased production of nitric oxide to be able to support those endothelial cells. So that’s where this piece about being aware of your nitric oxide levels and then taking steps to improve those through that nitrate pathway becomes so critical through diet, through supplementation of nitrates, through, you know, all the other kinds of things because l-arginine, um, in your gut formula is not going to cut it, , because of those, those reasons that we talked to you about
Dr Pedram Shojai: So how much of a chicken and egg is this? It’s gonna challenge the way I parent. Like if I stuff a bunch of arugula in their faces now, is that going to save the day? Because the nitric oxide will feed the all arginine, , , and keep that pathway going. Or is there a breakdown? Are we just feeding our kids wrong?
Dr Pedram Shojai: Are we feeding ourselves wrong Up, up to the age of 30 and breaking this down.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Well, it’s really, so here’s the thing about nitric oxide is we have to, every 24 hour period be giving our body what it needs to produce it. Because nitric oxide gas actually just exists for milliseconds. Right? It’s there and then it’s, it’s gone. So we need to continuously be producing it, um, which is why you can’t measure nitric oxide directly in the body.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: We can indirectly measure it through nitrate and nitrite levels, but once it converts to nno, it’s a gas, it’s there and then quickly it dissipates and goes where it needs to go. And that’s why it’s called a signaling molecule, right? So it’s not one of those things where it’s like we can store it up, or if we feed our kids well, you know, then when they’re older, they’ll have it. This is part of us being humans, thinking about how do we need to be fueling ourselves food-wise? Um, how do we need to be living our lives from a lifestyle perspective to be able to, in every 24 hour period, have our system be able to produce enough of this. So the question though, around why does the function, why does that pathway that involves our endothelial cells start to break down? It’s a great question and it does lead to, , or, or is connected to a lot of how we’re living a. Right. We, most people, children or adults are not eating a nitrate rich diet. Uh, forget about nitrate. It’s just a nutrient dense diet, you know, plain and simple. So there’s that piece. There’s the piece of air quality, there’s the piece of soil quality, which even under the best of conditions, even you and I. Doing the best that we can for our kids around what we’re feeding them. We’re still living in a world where the soil that things are grown in the air that we’re breathing, the things that we’re exposed to just by living in the world are far more problematic than they were 20, 50, a hundred years ago, right? So we have breakdown of those systems and, and breakdown of endothelial function simply as a result of being a human in the world in 2023. But there are also these pieces too, of one of the ways that endothelial cells stay healthy has a lot to do with lifestyle things. Things like, are we moving enough? Are kids moving? Are we moving? Are we getting the physical activity? Are we breathing properly? And you know, you and I have had lots of fun conversations about breathing and breath work and all of that. And I think some people are aware that good deep nasal breathing is one of the ways that we can support our nitric oxide levels. But how many people. Children and adults go through life not breathing properly. Right? And, and sometimes especially, you know, if we think about even how endothelial function can break down even earlier for some people and even children, if they are mouth breathers, right? If they have sleep apnea, those kinds of things are going to be more problematic that they drive lots of chronic disease.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: And part of that is because they start to create endothelial problems earlier on. So things like making sure that our kids and that we are knowing how to nasal breathe, that we are not mouth breathing in our sleep, that we’re getting good sleep. What’s one of the top ways that we create oxidative stress in our body? Getting bad sleep at night. right? That is a driver of oxidative stress. What does oxidative stress do? It creates inflammation. What does inflammation do? It negatively impacts our endothelial cells and function creates all those leaky barriers, creates those issues. So a lot of the things that we talk about more broadly in health and wellness that all of your listeners know are the good things to do. Sleep well, manage your stress, get exercise, eat a nutrient-dense diet, , do some breath work, have a mindfulness practice, all of these things. At the root of that, what is one of the critical things that all of those. Activities are doing, all of those interventions are doing, they are supporting our ability to produce healthy nitric oxide levels and to maintain healthy nitric oxide levels in the body. That is at a root level why all of those things are recommended and work because they are supporting our nitric oxide levels and because we need adequate nitric oxide levels to support every part of the human body. So it’s really that simple when you think about it that way.
Dr Pedram Shojai: I love that. So maybe 15 years ago, everyone basically recommended take acidophilus. All your problems get solved, take acid off this, right? And we realized, okay, maybe, maybe it’s a little more elaborate than that. And we’ve kind of come full circle to understanding that you gotta feed your friends.
Dr Pedram Shojai: So now we’re talking about inulin and pre prebiotic fibers, and now we’re studying all the butyrates and all stuff that these bacteria are producing when we feed them, right? So, okay, we have to eat nitrate rich foods. Are there specific strains? Is there one strain? Like what’s the player in the mouth that really helps
Dr Nicole Beurkens: yeah.
Dr Pedram Shojai: make this happen?
Dr Nicole Beurkens: So this is key. This is really so key because you can be eating a nitrate rich diet, and if you have a dysbiotic oral microbiome, which simply means your oral microbiome’s outta whack, it’s imbalanced. Same kind of thing as happens in the gut, right? When we don’t have the right balance of the good guys and the bad guys, um, you get problems well in the mouth.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: What happens then when you have dysbiosis in that oral microbiome? You don’t have the specific types of bacteria that are needed to convert those nitrates into nitrite so that they can be converted into nitric oxide. So here’s where the microbiome piece of the story comes into play, and not just in the mouth.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: The mouth is the first part of that conversion. You have to take the nitrates and turn it into nitrite, but guess what? You swallow it into your stomach. Now you need to have the right pH. Your stomach needs to be acidic enough and you need to have a healthy, balanced gut biome to be able to do that next step, that final step, which is converting the nitrite into nitric oxide. So here’s where we run into the intersection of these issues, right? So somebody who has. Problems in their microbiome, oral and gut. Why? Maybe they’ve been taking a lot of antibiotics because of various conditions. Um, maybe they aren’t sleeping well. Maybe they’re eating a highly processed diet. You know, all of the things that we know can disrupt the microbiome. Maybe they’re taking, proton pump inhibitor medications, those PPIs for, gerd, reflux heartburn, those kinds of things. Well, here’s where that becomes problematic. It shifts the pH of the stomach. If you’re taking PPI medications all the time, you’re not going to have the right acidity in your stomach to convert the nitrite into nitric oxide.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: So you start to see how all these things layer on one another. And is it any surprise then that by the time people hit middle age almost everybody’s testing low on nitric oxide? Because we have to think about all these different layers. So in the mouth. , there are several strains that have been identified that research is still in its infancy as just like so much as you said that the microbiome research story changes every week.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: I mean, the, the amount of stuff that’s coming out on a weekly basis is just astronomical, so we learn more every day. So the research of identifying exactly which microbes are responsible, we’re still working through all of that. But there have been about 10 strains identified for that. But here’s the cool part about it, because to your point, like people wanna say, where’s the easy button? Just give me the acidophilus or give me the, whatever the strain is gonna be. It’s actually simpler than that because what we know is that when we feed those microbes in our mouth, when we feed our oral microbiome with the right prebiotics, guess what? It shifts that oral microbiome to be able to convert. You wanna take a guess what one of the best prebiotics is for having a healthy oral microbiome? It is dietary nitrates. So dietary nitrates become the solution to that problem as well. The more that we are feeding ourselves with dietary nitrates, dark leafy greens, beets, things like that, or taking dietary nitrate supplements that Is not only providing the substrate or the raw material that’s needed to convert to nitric oxide, those prebiotic fibers are also feeding the microbes that are responsible for that conversion. What a beautiful thing our body does with that, right? Like the, the whole biome of humans is so fascinating and it can feel so complex, but there’s a beautiful simplicity about it too, where our body and our microbiome has evolved to, um, you know, have these things work in, in numerous ways. But I will say. You can be eating all of those nitrates or taking the nitrate supplements, but you also need to stop using things like antiseptic mouthwash, like fluoride toothpaste, like oral care products that have a lot of artificial colorants and sweeteners and things, because those negatively impact the oral microbiome. So it’s both pieces. It’s stop doing the things that are destroying the oral microbiome and then start taking those dietary nitrates through supplementation or food to allow those microbes to grow. That’s really the secret sauce. It’s pretty simple.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Yeah, it’s funny. As a few years ago we did this, eight part series on the oral microbiome called Gateway to Health. And, uh, one of the copywriters, you know, intelligent, well suited for the job. A person watch the whole thing. And one of the headlines that he had WR written was, is your mouthwash killing your erections?
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Mm-Hmm? Yeah.
Dr Pedram Shojai: I’m like, okay, that is not wrong, . Right. It’s not wrong, but there’s a huge gap in what needs to be there. And I thought it was actually, I don’t think we used it, but
Dr Nicole Beurkens: No, it’s smart
Dr Pedram Shojai: it is killing your erections. And so this is one of the places, you know, if, if you’ve been around the block, you’ll see it for cardiovascular health and sexual health.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Right. So we could talk about that because obviously that’s where people are, are very interested is, you know, if I’m eating arugula for sexual health, my ears just perked up. Right?
Dr Nicole Beurkens: yep.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: mid bumper
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Dr Pedram Shojai: Men, women, let’s, yeah, let’s talk about it.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: And that’s, you know, I think when people typically, when they, uh, are aware of nitric oxide, they’re thinking about it with blood pressure, heart disease, and erectile dysfunction, because those are the areas where we have the most clinical research. And also, to your point, those are very motivating. Areas for people to address, right? I would like to not have a heart attack. I would like to not have to be on blood pressure drugs, you know, forever. I would like to be able to engage in healthy sexual activity. So those are motivating areas and yeah, I mean it may seem like a disconnect, eating arugula, you know, and, and supporting good sexual health.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: But you know, if you follow the conversation we’ve had so far, it makes good sense, right? Nitric oxide is necessary for healthy blood flow. What is essential for proper sexual organ function? Proper blood flow. This is why erectile dysfunction in men, that and increasing blood pressure are two of the big Initial red flags that a man is on the path of really problematic health concerns. Those are two of the first indicators that we go, okay, there’s more going on here that we need to pay attention to because you get these blood flow issues that then have this cascading like domino effect on everything else in health. So often, you know, obviously this is a sensitive subject and many men are hesitant to talk about it, but beyond the sexual piece of it, being open about talking about this with your practitioner is key because having erection issues is one of the first signs of more chronic problems. So I think just, you know, for your listeners to know that and, and women as well, not only for the men. Life, but also we don’t have the conversation enough about female sexual dysfunction and the importance of blood flow in that. So nitric oxide, while it is used therapeutically in the treatment of erectile dysfunction, which is why eating a nitrate rich diet, making sure your oral microbiome is converting, making sure your nitric oxide levels are where they should be, is critical for, um, healthy erection and erectile function. It’s equally as important for women because we also have a sexual organ system that relies on healthy blood flow. If you are not getting good blood flow to your sexual organs as a woman, you are also going to have issues with sexual function. So nitric oxide, dietary nitrates, healthy oral microbiome are equally important for men and for women.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: We wanna be supporting healthy blood flow to those regions. What’s interesting too. Nitric oxide plays a role in hormone health for men and for women. And again, that just makes sense, right? Um, nitric oxide supports healthy blood flow, which means getting all of the precursors for hormone production, all of the nutrients, all of our detoxification systems, all of those things working properly.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Those are essential for proper hormone levels and proper hormone function. When blood flow is obstructed, when we don’t have healthy vasodilation, healthy blood flow, it impacts our hormones. That also plays a role in sexual dysfunction, right? So you have the mechanics of blood flow to the pelvic region to support erections, to support, , libido, to support, , lubrication, to support all of those physiological aspects. But you also need Healthy nitric oxide levels to support proper hormone levels to support sexual function. So all of these things come together, which is why your copywriter’s headline of, you know, is your mouthwash creating, you know, giving you problems with your erection. Yeah. Because, and, and that is all about the nitric oxide story.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Is there a link? I know a certain percentage of men in particular. I think it’s with Cialis, they’re just non-responders. Is it a nitric oxide functionality issue with this?
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Yeah, so here’s what’s interesting. So with, you know, Cialis, Viagra, um, I believe that the estimates shown in the research studies are that up to 50% of men who take those medications don’t achieve the desired outcome with those medications alone. Well, what’s happening with those medications is they’re leveraging that endothelial system. Um, that they’re acting on that endothelial system to try to support nitric oxide levels and healthy blood flow. But the problem is, if you have a breakdown in the endothelial system, you’re not going to get a good response with those medications, which is why there have also been studies done looking at increasing things like dietary nitrates in combination with those erectile dysfunction medications.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: And then you can get a significant increase in the percentage of men who will respond because now you are supporting nitric oxide levels, not just through endothelial function, but through that nitrate nitrate pathway. And so you’re allowing for healthy nitric oxide levels and blood flow so that, it’s a great point and many people don’t wanna Beyond the medication and do very well with supporting nitric oxide levels, through diet, through supplementation, through breath work, through exercise, through boosting their nitric oxide levels that way. So whether you do medication or not, dietary nitrates can help support improvement in your response to those kinds of medications. Or you may find that you can get the result that you’re looking for in terms of erectile function with just leveraging all those other pieces for nitric oxide production.
Dr Pedram Shojai: It seems like the more reasonable first stop on this bus, , than going to the end line. I, I know a lot of people have a lot of issues with that and marital issues that come from it. And so it is, it is a, it is a no joke type of, I. Of, house breaker problem. ,
Dr Nicole Beurkens: right.
Dr Pedram Shojai: I know you geek out on all the studies.
Dr Pedram Shojai: I love you for it. , there are so many areas, I mean, just leaky gut alone, right? If this can put a dent in intestinal permeability, then what it’s doing is it’s putting a dent in endotoxemia, which has now been kind of the smoking gun imple implemented, you know, sorry, it’s, it’s been the smoking gun in maybe 50% of chronic disease by some estimates, right?
Dr Pedram Shojai: So this is a very high level lever
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Mm-Hmm?
Dr Pedram Shojai: if it’s doing what we’re saying it’s doing. And so the implications are huge.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: That’s exactly right. You know, we talk a lot with, um, chronic disease now about LPS levels, which is really that toxin that seeps out into the bloodstream and wreaks havoc. And as you said is now we understand at the root of so much of what we experience in terms of chronic disease, or at least the, the starting domino for a lot of what we experience as chronic disease.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: So again, it goes back to needing to seal that gut needing to have a healthy mucosal layer needing to prevent that LPS and other toxins from leaking out into the system. What is, you know what, what’s so awesome to me, and I mean, you, you, you know, I take a very pragmatic approach to helping people. You know, I’ve worked with people with a lot of serious mental health and physical health issues for 25 years and I think, um, you know, I will say this, and you may disagree, but, but my stance after 25 years of practice is that a lot of times. Um, in the world of integrative health, functional medicine, medicine in general, we unnecessarily overcomplicate things for people and we put so much jargon out there and so many things and, and we just make people’s heads explode. And we give them these treatment plans that involve all of these, you know, very restrictive diets and extensive supplement protocols and medications, and you need to change everything about your lifestyle. And what does that do to people? Well, number one, it massively increases their stress, which is the total opposite of what’s gonna support healing. It also can cause people to shut down and be like, I don’t understand that. I can’t do all of that. There’s no way I can be successful with it. I’m just gonna stick with my pizza and tv, right?
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Because that feels like too much for me to deal with. So my stance as a clinician has always been, how do we simplify this for people? How do we help people feel competent and capable with understanding and taking the most foundational of steps that are gonna support so many things about their health and wellness? To me, this is the beauty of the nitric oxide story. When we can do some very simple things to support nitric oxide production, we are creating this incredible base and foundation upon which all the other aspects of health and wellness can be built. Even if all somebody felt they were able to do was take one action step to support nitric oxide levels in their body, that would have a tremendous impact on so many of these other things. And so I think to me, that’s an important take home message in a, in a world that can feel Increasingly complicated in, in a world of health and wellness information that can feel so overwhelming. And it’s like, what diet do I need to be on now? What? What do I need to be doing now? Let’s bring the stress down and let’s focus on the basics.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: And I’m not saying that some people don’t need to have more intricate, thorough protocols. However, even for those people, if we aren’t focusing on the basic foundations, none of those more complicated protocols are going to work. So I’ve always been a proponent of let’s find the levers to pull that can make the biggest, most widespread difference. Let’s do those things first and then let’s build in the other stuff on top of it. And to me, that’s the beauty of Nno because we have a very simple salivary test that we can use to look at those levels. People can then be empowered in their own home or in their practitioner’s office in 10 seconds with that test strip to know what their level is, to know if their oral microbiome is converting. And then either to take some of those diet and lifestyle steps or take a nitrate supplement. And even if they did nothing else, that alone would support what’s happening in their body, what is, what is helping with their overall health and wellness. So, um, I guess that was a little soapboxy there, but just I’m passionate about people feeling capable with taking basic steps.
Dr Pedram Shojai: I also think that, you know, I don’t disagree with anything you said. , I think as a signaling mechanism, it really sings like a canary, right? And so it is a high level communication within the system saying something’s right or something’s wrong. And so knowing your no levels yeah. Alone is a really powerful indicator of where your overall health is from the inside out.
Dr Pedram Shojai: , and that knowledge is power, right? And, and the good news about it is, you know, there’s some really expensive tests out there. Look, you know, we’re guilty of this in the functional medicine world. We love our tests. We like to geek out in front. Oh my goodness. And you know, and, and to your point, you know, doctors like to sound smart in front of other doctors, and there’s a lot of a lot of that, right?
Dr Pedram Shojai: And so people will out test each other and all this kind of crap. And it’s, it’s not terribly uncommon to have 10, $12,000 worth of tests just so you could dig up something. So something like this that has a lot of data, because it’s a roll up indicator. It tells us a lot about health and it’s cheap to do.
Dr Pedram Shojai: , Just makes a lot of sense to me. Right. And so, uh, do you have any of those strips actually handy? Like I would love to. Yeah. Can you for Okay. For audio, audio folks, uh, you don’t have to go to YouTube or on the website to see the video. She’s shown , the strip.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Little strip. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a simple saliva test. This, you know, when I first found out about this, I was so excited because how many things in medicine or nutrition can we measure in 15 seconds and have a result for like virtually nothing?
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Right? And so this is such a simple test. It’s got a little pad on the end of it, and you just stick that on your tongue for five seconds and get it wet, and then you fold it in half to activate it. And then when you open it up, after a few seconds, it will show you an indicator color on there. And when you get the test strips, there is a card that comes with it that shows the indicator levels most people’s initially will be white or very, very faint pink on that test strip. What that’s telling you is that your nitric oxide levels are really low or even depleted because when we have adequate nitric oxide levels, guess what color that strip turns? Nice, bright pink, magenta. And that’s what we want. So what’s cool is you can take this, you can figure out where your level is, and then you can take two capsules of, uh, you know, we have a dietary nitrate capsule. Or you can eat like a big arugula and beet salad. Either way, however you wanna get your nitrate. Wait 90 minutes. Why 90 minutes? Because that’s about how long it takes those microbes in your oral microbiome to convert for your body, to work that through and convert it, and then do another test strip again. And that test strip should pink up significantly. If you were very low or depleted the first time, and you take two of these capsules, or you eat a salad and you test again, it should be nice and pink. If it isn’t. This is really important information because what that tells you is your oral microbiome is not able to convert the nitrates that you just took in into nitrite. Well, now you know you are empowered now to go, oh, let me look at my oral care products. Am I taking a mouthwash that’s causing a problem?
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Have I been on antibiotics lately? Do I need to be eating more prebiotic? You know, foods in my diet? What do I need to do? To get my oral microbiome working properly so that this can, you know, up and show that I’m having adequate nitric oxide levels. So to me, the future of. Medicine and health and wellness needs to be focused on empowering each and every one of us in our day-to-day lives, to understand what’s going on and to be able to take action. And that’s what’s so exciting to me about the technology of these strips. They are inexpensive. They are easy to use. You can have them in your home. I want it is my mission. I want every physician’s office to have a canister of these test strips on the counter that every patient that comes in deserves to have this very simple 15 second test done. As you said, it’s a canary in the coal mine. right? It is an indicator if you have low or depleted, no levels, that is giving you a tremendous opportunity to intervene in some simple ways to get your health and wellness on the right track. So whether it’s in the doctor’s office or it’s at home, um, these are really empowering for people. And then, you know, also the solution that we have with the capsules. And Can I do a little teaser? ’cause this is kind of exciting. I, I, I’ve not really, I’ve not talked to anybody else’s audience about this yet, but I’ll, I’ll tease it because I love you and I love your people. We actually have something coming out very, very soon.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: It will be before the end of the year that will be specifically targeted at quickly, within hours, shifting that oral microbiome to a better, healthier state to be able to support the conversion to nitric oxide. And that’s the passion and the research that we bring to this around. An entire 360 solution to supporting people with their nitric oxide levels. So now you will be able to test, you will be able to treat with the nitrate capsules, which is just two a day. And then we’ll also have this rapid acting solution for the oral microbiome. So your people are the first to hear about that, and you can let them know when it’s, when it’s out. But, um, that, that’s how committed we are to giving people simple tools. Simple tools that they can start using
Dr Pedram Shojai: I, I love the spoiler alert. Um, I knew it was coming. I didn’t know we were allowed to talk about it. I know. It’s still, we’re half talking about it, so, uh, folks, it’s good. It’s good. I can’t wait to be able to share with you what it is. So, okay. The other side, now, the hero’s journey, um, I started fixing this thing.
Dr Pedram Shojai: What do I start feeling? How quickly do I start feeling it? When do I see the results? What do they look like? Right. The, you know, the, the other side of that equation.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Yeah, what a great question, because that’s always the motivation, right? If I’m gonna stick with something I need to know, you know, that I’m feeling better. What I will say for most people is that they start to notice some shifts within several days to certainly a couple of weeks. What most of us begin to notice, especially if we’re sort of middle age or older, is just an improvement in energy levels and just sense of wellbeing, and that makes perfect sense.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Again, when you go back to the root of what is nitric oxide doing, it’s supporting healthy blood flow. It’s supporting our neurotransmitter function, it’s supporting getting oxygen and nutrients to our brain throughout our body. That alone should help us to start to feel better. So I will say particularly like for men and women, but particularly the women who I talk to, and I can say this for myself, like notice just a. Boy, I just feel like I have the energy of my younger self and it’s not like a caffeinated, you know, kind of energy like we get from drinking our espresso or whatever. It’s just, huh. I just feel like more of my younger self. That’s often what people will say and it makes sense because we’re supporting our body to be able to function more like it did when we were in our twenties and our thirties. So sort of energy and sense of wellbeing. Um, would be a big one for people. Obviously, if people are struggling with certain symptoms, whether it’s gut related issues, blood pressure issues, those kinds of things, you see shifts over time. The, the research data that we have on blood pressure, and we have a, an amazingly well done gold standard double-blind placebo controlled trial related to blood pressure and endothelial function on our foundation capsules. And what that showed is over a 90 day period, a significant improvement in endothelial function, a significant improvement in the lowering of, um, blood pressure. So with those kinds of Specific health conditions and symptoms. You’re looking at a progressive improvement in those things. You know, over, I, I would say a couple of months to three month period, you should be seeing improvement in those kinds of markers and metrics, inflammation, all of those things.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Again, you’re not gonna see if, if you’re chronically inflamed, you’re not going to eat a beet salad or take these capsules and tomorrow wake up and not have chronic inflammation. But if you stick with it over time, you will see the shift in that, whether it’s through inflammatory blood markers or just your symptoms.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: You’ll notice over time, you know, two weeks in, four weeks in, six weeks in, eight weeks in, you’ll see a shift in that.
Dr Pedram Shojai: You know, and that’s also part of the problem, right, in the healthcare industry, is everyone’s trying to sell immediate results. Now, now, now. And, you know, you spent 40, 50, 60 years rowing your boat down this river. It takes a minute
Dr Nicole Beurkens: right.
Dr Pedram Shojai: two . Right.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Yeah,
Dr Pedram Shojai: Figure out, you know? Yeah. And, and that’s, you know, that’s not popular, but that’s true.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Right. Um.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Now, you know, let me, what I, what I should say too, um, in the context of this question is timing of the dosing can make a difference. So let, let’s return to the issue of sexual health, um, erectile dysfunction or sexual dysfunction in, in women. When do you want to be taking your nitrate supplement to support those issues? Well, sure take it in the morning to support your production of Eno throughout the day, but definitely be looking at taking it about 90 minutes before you plan to be sexually active. Because that allows for the conversion. It’s going to give you a boost to support blood flow heading into sexual activity if you have sleep problems, particularly sleep apnea. And this is a boy, we could do a whole conversation down the rabbit hole about sleep apnea and nitric oxide. Um, nitric oxide is, uh, both a driver of low nitric oxide levels, a driver of. Conditions like sleep apnea, as well as one of the things that results from sleep apnea. You’re having these episodes of not getting enough oxygen that is driving this whole cycle related to nitric oxide.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: So if you’re struggling with those issues, it’s going to make sense for you to give yourself a boost of nitric oxide. Take your supplement, you know, 90 minutes or so before you go to bed to help support healthy vasodilation. Healthy blood flow, healthy oxygenation, and perfusion throughout the night. So that’s also why, you know, athletes and people talk about taking their nitric oxide boosting supplements before they head to the gym, right?
Dr Nicole Beurkens: You wanna do that to give yourself that boost of blood flow, of oxygenation heading into a workout. So I think those are some areas where you can see pretty rapid shift in some of those kinds of issues by supporting your body with a good, healthy dose of nitrates prior to those kinds of situations.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Is there any risk of overdose? Too much nitrates? What happens? Um, you know, people love to get greedy.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: That’s right. Well, look, uh, I think the general consensus around everything should be, um, moderation, right? Too, too much and too little. Not, not good in, in the middle is where we wanna be. However, from a very practical standpoint, when we’re talking about something like nitrate capsules, and this is potassium nitrate, it is fermented beet root powder, and it is beet root powder. You can’t overdose when it comes to, you know, can you eat enough? Can you eat too much arugula? Can you eat too many beets? Well, you could say, well, I have oxalate issues, you know, whatever. Okay. But the reality is no, you’re not going to get an overdose effect. You’re also, you know, wanting to be wise about that right?
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Like, you shouldn’t be taking probably 20 capsules of anything in a day, just like you’re not gonna sit around 24 hours a day eating a bunch of beats and arugula. Um, obviously if you are on prescription medications, particularly if you are on blood thinners, if you tend to have, um, very problematic low blood pressure, these would be issues that you would of course want to talk with your healthcare practitioner about what makes sense in terms of dietary nitrates, nitrate supplementation, what’s gonna be best for you. Um, but yeah, the standard dosing that Um, we recommend is two capsules, um, a day, generally in the morning. ’cause most of the time people are eating like their salads and things later in the day, and that kind of gives you, you know, a good boost throughout the day. Um, but certainly there are many indications for taking another two capsule dose later in the day.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: You know, practitioners use their, um, discretion with that. People can see how they feel with it and can play around, um, with that very, very, very good safety profile.
Dr Pedram Shojai: there’s a couple quick rapid fire things. I wanna go. We’re at the end of our time here. , I just met someone for lunch down in Salt Lake City and ordered a salad as I, you know, try to do, um. There was not a dark leafy thing in the salad. Right. A lot of the, a lot of the supply chain of what we call lettuce nowadays is very kinda white iceberg type lettuce.
Dr Pedram Shojai: And so how much nitrate did Pedrum get at lunch? Right. And these are, these are issues that the right.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: And this is a huge thing, and I’m glad you raised it. This is where the test strip comes in really handy because you can actually see, you know, you can say, gosh, I’m, I’m eating, like I’m buying this kind of lettuce for my family, or I’m eating this, or whatever. Let me see how this is doing. It’ll show you that there actually have been research studies done looking at the nitrate content of different kinds of produce depending on where in the US it’s grown and it varies markedly, you know, um, romaine lettuce grown in Texas has a vastly different nitrate content than, uh, romaine lettuce grown in Chicago. Beets grown in New York versus beets grown in California. And we have data on that showing, um, that there can be wide variance. And, and that’s one of the challenges, right? People go, well, I’m eating. A nitrate rich diet. I’m eating a quote unquote healthy diet. But it goes back to where was it grown? What was the composition of the soil, what was in the water that was used? You know, how healthy was that soil? You know, the nitrates come from soil depending on the soil composition. And so I love that you brought that up because again, you know what a, what a confusing and frustrating thing that we can feel like we’re doing the right thing and making the right choices and still not be getting everything that we need.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: So that’s where the, the nitrate capsules can be, um, you know, a good insurance policy for that. But again, you know, it’s where the test strips come in handy to just be able to look and just make sure that what you and your family are consuming, you know, that should be nitrate rich foods actually are.
Dr Pedram Shojai: My last question, , is, you know, back to my history. Turns out I was an endo affection auto 30 years ago before we knew anything about this stuff. ’cause in my practices you do tip of the tongue touching roof, roof of the mouth, breathing in, nose out, nose, lower, diaphragmatic breathing. We now know that that triggers para.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Sympathetic nervous system does all sorts of wonderful things, um, for your mind body. , but now we’re also finding that nose breathing will push this pathway. Now the question is, is there something intrinsic about breathing through the nose or is it just that we’re not drying out the mouth by aerating it too much?
Dr Pedram Shojai: And I’ve heard some, you know, interesting conflicting stuff around this.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: It is actually both. So good nasal breathing supports both pathways on the nitrate pathway side of things. Yeah. Having good, moist, healthy saliva that is proper pH, having adequate saliva is critically important for supporting a healthy oral microbiome that is needed to convert your nitrates into nitrite, into nitric oxide. So good nasal breathing is critical for that pathway, but good nasal breathing is also really important for that endothelial pathway as well, because it provides better oxygenation, those moist pathways. It traps, you know, pathogens and things that come in through our Breathing are trapped in nasal cavity much more so than in our oral cavity. So it, it’s supporting good endothelial function through that e um, NOS pathway as well. So that’s why good nasal breathing is one of the most important things that you can do for your health and wellness for a variety of reasons. But nitric oxide is, is a key. One of those reasons.
Dr Pedram Shojai: I love this. You know, I’m not a, a lazy intervention guy. Um, been around the block always telling people to do hard work. Uh, this to me seems like a really simple, big lever, you know, to be able to. Pull on that makes a profound difference. So, uh, I know we will know when your oral product is available, but the testing strips and, uh, the, the supplementation for the gut, the pills are available now.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Um, we’ll make ’em available on this page and on the site, but just tell people where to find you. I love that you’re in this new role. I love, um, the fact that you get to, you know, get on these podiums and talk about the stuff that you’re passionate about, but just where, where else can people go to find out more about this and your products.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: Yeah. So berkeley life.com is the website to go to. You’ll find our products there, but more importantly than that, you’ll find a wealth of information, research, white papers, um, articles, things to support your understanding of nitric oxide and how to pull those levers for you. We’ve got a lot of, um, different articles and white papers on lots of different conditions, um, you know, and, and kinds of symptoms and issues that people may be dealing with. You know, Berkeley life is a. Um, supplement and, and test strip that is available through practitioners so you can, you know, talk to your practitioner about it. We’ve got, you know, over 2000 healthcare practitioners in our community that use our products, but you can also use our program called Berkeley Life Direct, which you’ll find on our website that just you as a patient or a consumer can order, um, there as well and find out, um, you know, all of the information about that.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: So berkeley life.com is the place to go. And, you know, Pedram, I really appreciate being able to connect with you and your community around this. I know people associate me with things that I have, um, been teaching about and doing for years, and I’m still passionate about those things, but this, um, gives me a new opportunity to do what I love, which is really to educate, um, and empower people around things that they can do.
Dr Nicole Beurkens: So, um, so this is a fun new adventure for me.
Dr Pedram Shojai: I love it. I love it. You wear it well, and I appreciate the fact that you’re sitting in that seat because you’re gonna help a lot of lives. Nicole, you’re a hero. Thank you.
Back Bumper
I hope you enjoyed the podcast. Uh, Nicole’s great. She’s been helping a lot of people. I know. Um, getting started in psychology, found. , that nutrition was going to move the needle. And studied. It went deep. Learned how to use nutrition to alter. Uh, mental health, , for children and for adults. , and this nitric oxide thing it’s real, it’s substantial.
It makes a difference. I invite you to try it. We have the test strips and the actual supplements inside my store. Just go to the urban monk.com. Go to the store. , you’ll find it there. Or if you’re, , on the website, on the podcast link, you will see it there. Check out what she’s doing. It’s important.
It’s important to know that if you can move this master signaling molecule and, uh, up that signal until your body. To do all the wonderful things we talked about in this podcast, you will make a difference. If you’re consistent, so eat a lot of vegetables, eat your Rugola test. Take supplements if you need it, but move the needle in.
You will feel the difference. I’ll see you in the next one.