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The following discussion is for educational

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purposes only and is not intended to

0:35

diagnose or treat any disease. Please

0:37

do not apply any of this information without

0:40

first speaking with your doctor. Now,

0:42

let's head to the show. Hey,

0:44

everyone. Let's discuss acromancia mucinophilia,

0:47

a new probiotic, and go

0:50

over the claims, sort

0:52

of juxtapose some of the claims

0:55

about this probiotic against the

0:57

evidence and attempt to

0:59

come away with a practical,

1:01

reasonable, and scientifically informed

1:03

perspective on acromancia. And

1:06

just to share sort of my

1:08

perspective going into reviewing the research here, I

1:11

tend to be constitutionally

1:14

suspicious. And the

1:16

reason for this is early in

1:18

my career, I may have had, you could

1:20

say, rose-colored glasses on,

1:22

where I assumed everything in natural health

1:24

was good and effective and could do

1:27

no harm. And

1:29

over the years, and upon

1:32

fact-checking many products, claims,

1:34

tests, et cetera, I've

1:36

more often than not become disappointed,

1:39

which is why the perspective I take with

1:42

you is one that's more guarded, certainly

1:44

open-minded and wanting to explore

1:46

any therapeutic that could alleviate

1:48

suffering and optimize health. But

1:51

also seeing how many people can

1:54

waste money or chase

1:56

a frivolous diagnosis and suffer sort of

1:59

the psychological that is connected to

2:01

that, I try

2:03

to be scrupulous with fact checking

2:05

the things that we discuss and

2:07

delivering to you a reasonable and

2:10

evidence-informed perspective when

2:12

we have due evidence. As I've said many

2:15

a time, there are some areas in healthcare

2:17

where there's not much research and clinicians are kind

2:19

of in the trenches, doing the best that they

2:22

can and trying to take

2:24

anecdotes and use those to inform

2:26

how to practice. Nevertheless,

2:30

let's review Acromancia and

2:32

give you what I feel to be the most reasonable

2:34

perspective on this new and

2:36

potentially novel probiotic. A

2:39

few definitions, what is Acromancia? It's

2:42

a commensal bacteria, so it's normal

2:44

to the human gut, present

2:46

in actually 90% of the

2:49

human gut naturally, discovered

2:52

in 2004 by Muriel

2:55

Darian and colleagues at the University

2:57

of Netherlands. And

3:00

one of the things here that might be interesting is

3:03

that it lives in the mucus lining

3:05

of the gut and

3:07

can therefore interact with the immune

3:10

cells and perhaps has more

3:12

benefit. But this is where we

3:14

want to be a little bit careful not

3:17

to take something

3:19

interesting mechanistically and draw assumptions

3:22

from that. Now, while

3:24

we're on sort of the topic of mechanism,

3:28

because it can live in the gut lining, Acromancia

3:31

tends to use mucus

3:34

to then produce short chain fatty acids.

3:37

Now again, this sounds really good because

3:40

if you know anything about short chain

3:42

fatty acids, these are fuel for the

3:44

enterocytes or for the intestinal cells. However,

3:48

there are some conditions, as an example,

3:50

some subsets of IBS that have too

3:52

much short chain fatty acids. Some

3:55

populations that are overweight may have too much

3:57

short chain fatty acid. So, Just

4:00

want to be careful again to contextualize

4:02

that mechanism doesn't automatically translate to something

4:05

that's clinically helpful but

4:07

again because of where acromancia

4:09

resides it can

4:12

or may support the gut barrier and

4:14

make the gut barrier thicker and also

4:18

it has metabolic

4:20

implications in that acromancia stimulates

4:23

GLP1 glucagon

4:25

like heptide 1 and

4:27

as you can imagine with glucagon

4:31

being a fasting hormone, it's

4:34

associated with promotion of satiety and lowering

4:37

of blood sugar So

4:40

there's sort of the background context

4:43

now let's look at some of the claims in

4:45

terms of what might it do to help you

4:47

and fact check

4:49

those against the data Because

4:52

probiotics as we've been discussing on the

4:54

show for quite a while now are

4:56

a pretty remarkable tool There is

4:59

a lot of research categorically on probiotics

5:02

Demonstrating benefit across a wide array of conditions.

5:04

So this is where I think the fact-checking

5:07

is going to be quite helpful Okay,

5:10

so coming to the acromancia claims

5:13

the first one and the one that might be

5:15

the most novel is that

5:17

Acromancia is the only Strain

5:20

that lives in and regulates

5:22

the gut lining. This

5:25

sounds fantastic It's

5:27

actually incorrect and pretty

5:29

quickly we can pull up for example a 2022 study that found

5:35

25 species that live in

5:38

the lining of the gut and there's even

5:40

a term for this already the mucosa associated

5:43

microbiome So

5:46

that's one claim that I think is pretty

5:48

easy to set the record straight

5:50

on it does live in the lining of

5:52

the gut It's definitely not

5:55

the only species that lives in the

5:57

lining of the gut The

6:02

second claim is that acromancia

6:04

is a major part of

6:07

the gut microbiome. I

6:09

feel this claim to be misleading

6:11

and let me give you the data

6:14

that informs my perspective on this.

6:17

The total gut microbiome contains

6:19

1 to 5% acromancia. Comparatively,

6:24

it contains 2 to

6:26

14% of bifurobacteria. Additionally,

6:31

if we zoom in on the small

6:34

intestine, which for reasons we've

6:36

elaborated on at Nauseam in the past,

6:38

is probably the most important area of

6:40

the gut since you absorb 90 to

6:42

95% of

6:45

calories there. This is where

6:47

you have the most opportunity and the most leaky

6:49

gut that can occur, the most

6:51

immune activation, the most gut receptors.

6:54

It's really the most important area of the gut,

6:57

not to say the other areas are not important,

7:00

but again, nutrient absorption, immune

7:02

regulation are predominantly occurring

7:04

here. So

7:07

acromancia here represents

7:09

less than 0.5% of the microbiome. And

7:14

then comparatively, lactobacillus represents 6%

7:18

of the small intestine microbiome. To

7:22

say it's a major regulator, maybe,

7:25

but I think it's a bit of a stretch. If

7:28

someone were to hear that claim, they

7:30

might think, oh, well, if it's a

7:33

major regulator, it's got to be better

7:35

than the other probiotics

7:37

that I'm currently taking that

7:39

might contain lactobacillus and bifurobacterium.

7:42

When we represent it as such, I

7:44

think it's more correct to say

7:46

it's a part. I wouldn't

7:48

say it's a major part. Thanks

7:52

for listening to the podcast. If you wouldn't mind, please

7:54

leave the show a quick review. And

7:58

then another claim here is that... Acromancia

8:01

levels being low is

8:03

associated with poor health. And

8:06

again, this is misleading. It's really only giving

8:08

you part of the data set here. Yes,

8:12

lower levels of Acromancia have

8:14

been associated with obesity,

8:17

type 2 diabetes, and inflammatory bowel

8:19

disease. But

8:21

conversely, higher levels have been associated

8:24

with irritable bowel syndrome, with

8:26

Parkinson's, and with multiple sclerosis.

8:30

So this harkens back to a

8:32

concept I had written about in

8:34

Healthy Good, Healthy You years ago, which

8:37

is we should be careful not to

8:40

micromanage an ecosystem and

8:42

not say, well, some healthy

8:45

populations and cohorts have higher

8:47

Acromancia. Now we're just going

8:49

to target Acromancia

8:51

and try to increase it or decrease it.

8:53

And I think that misses the bigger picture

8:56

of the ecosystem that is the gut. And

8:59

I'll reinforce that concept here more

9:01

in just a moment. But let's

9:03

now go to Acromancia

9:05

and its impact on metabolism

9:09

and its impact on gut health,

9:11

or the claims that Acromancia is

9:14

pro-metabolic, if you will, and promotes

9:16

gut health. I

9:18

feel these claims to be partially true,

9:22

although there are a couple

9:24

caveats. The data are really

9:26

early, and in some cases I feel that

9:28

the data are ahead of what the science

9:30

is showing. And

9:34

looking at one trial, so one

9:36

randomized control trial, that

9:39

administered Acromancia plus a

9:41

few other species like

9:43

Clostridium butericum, we're going to

9:45

compare that to a

9:48

meta-analysis of 15 clinical

9:51

trials that administered

9:53

Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium

9:55

blend type probiotics.

9:58

So this is not an apple-to-apple comparison,

10:01

it's a meta-analysis versus one clinical

10:03

trial. Nevertheless,

10:06

you see equivalent results comparing

10:09

the probiotics regarding hemoglobin

10:11

A1c impact, that's the average

10:13

of your blood sugar over roughly

10:15

two months. You

10:18

see superior results with

10:20

the lactobacillus and bifidobacterium

10:22

blend type of probiotic

10:25

for both fasting glucose

10:27

and for insulin resistance. So

10:31

that's blood sugar. Moving on

10:34

to lipids, weight loss,

10:36

and leaky gut. Here we

10:38

can compare one randomized

10:41

control trial administering Acriman-CL

10:43

alone, comparing this

10:45

to lactobacillus

10:47

and again bifidobacterium probiotic

10:50

research wherein we have

10:53

two meta-analyses summarizing 51

10:55

clinical trials. You

10:57

see equivalency for impacts on

11:00

LDL cholesterol. You see

11:02

better results with the Acrimancia

11:05

for triglycerides and for weight

11:07

loss and you

11:09

see better results with the lactobacillus

11:11

and bifidobacterium blend probiotics for

11:14

leaky gut in the sense

11:16

that there's more data showing

11:19

that the lactobifidobland probiotics can

11:21

improve LPS, a direct marker

11:23

of leaky gut, can

11:26

improve zonulin via blood

11:28

testing, and lactose-manital ratio

11:31

testing. So taken

11:34

collectively, interesting

11:36

to see some of these impacts

11:38

from Acrimancia and hopefully

11:40

further data will reinforce that there's

11:42

this sort of pro metabolic effect

11:45

at least pertaining to triglycerides

11:48

and to weight loss. That

11:50

being said, I should acknowledge that

11:52

there's something known as a positive

11:55

publication bias. For

11:57

new therapeutics, papers...

12:00

tend to get granted

12:02

access for publication when

12:04

they're showing a positive finding, because

12:07

it's more interesting. So

12:09

when a therapeutic is new, there tends

12:11

to be one or

12:14

a couple positive studies that first

12:16

appear in the research journals, and

12:19

then with more time, you see

12:21

a better sampling where

12:23

you'll have some of the null finding

12:25

or some negative studies. And

12:28

this is why this comparison is so salient, because

12:30

we're looking at one in both

12:32

comparison tables here, one

12:35

randomized control trial compared

12:37

to 20 to 50 randomized

12:40

control trials. A real

12:42

world analogy for this would

12:44

be if you had

12:46

a friend who went to a restaurant,

12:48

and this person really loved the restaurant,

12:51

well, that's one person's perspective. You

12:53

may or may not agree with your friend's perspective, but

12:56

if you asked 50 people

12:58

what they thought of the restaurant, you would

13:00

get a more accurate representation of what the

13:02

experience at the restaurant was likely to be,

13:04

because you have a larger sample. So

13:07

again, interesting, and I would not say by

13:09

any stretch, this means we're

13:11

disqualifying Acromancia as something

13:13

to potentially try. But I

13:16

would be bridled with the claims

13:19

that represent this as super novel

13:21

on the gut, and

13:23

this really important, almost

13:26

oesenic-like probiotic due to

13:28

the impact on GLP-1 and therefore on

13:30

metabolism. Interesting, but

13:32

I think we're still a little bit early sort of

13:35

in this conversation. So

13:37

specific recommendations to follow in a moment, but I wanted

13:39

to make sure to point out to you that

13:42

we have other probiotic

13:45

research, really

13:47

meta-analyses on either

13:49

lactobacillus and bifurbiturium blend probiotics

13:51

or saccharomyces blardi or soil-based

13:53

probiotics. So meta-analyses showing

13:56

improvements in leaky gut, IBS,

13:58

IBD, constipation, SIBO,

14:01

and depression. So

14:04

again, it's not to take anything away from

14:06

acromancia, but my concern is that

14:08

you may be hit with claims

14:10

about acromancia that represent it

14:13

as being better than

14:15

the current probiotics that we have, and

14:17

I just don't see the case for that.

14:20

Now again, it's not to say you couldn't trial

14:22

the acromancia, but I want you to have a

14:24

balanced perspective on what the research is showing. Additionally,

14:28

there are ways that you can naturally

14:31

increase acromancia that do

14:34

not require you to take acromancia

14:36

as a supplement, and this comes

14:38

back to the ecosystem

14:41

analogy, meaning as

14:43

a general observation, things

14:45

that improve post-health tend

14:48

to improve the richness and

14:51

diversity and balance of the

14:53

microbiota. So if

14:55

we intervene upstream and

14:57

do things that are health-promoting, sleep,

14:59

exercise, stress management, fermented

15:02

food consumption, healthy diet

15:05

regarding polyphenols, fiber, proteins, fats,

15:09

then we tend to see these downstream

15:11

impacts of a healthy microbiota, and

15:13

we can even add to that probiotic

15:16

supplementation. So let

15:18

me loop in a few things here. Firstly,

15:21

two studies have shown that eating

15:23

a diet rich in

15:25

prebiotics, so these are the things

15:27

that feed bacteria, prebiotics

15:29

and FODMAPs actually

15:31

increase acromancia levels. So

15:34

on the one hand, this is great. If

15:36

you eat, essentially, more fruits and

15:38

vegetables, then you can

15:40

feed your gut bacteria and see

15:42

improvements in acromancia levels. However,

15:46

as we've discussed many times on the show in

15:48

the past, especially if

15:50

someone has gut symptoms, a

15:53

diet high in fruits and

15:56

vegetables, and most specifically, prebiotics and

15:58

FODMAPs, might be a good thing. flare

16:01

their symptoms and be

16:03

deleterious for their microbiota. And

16:06

this is where a wonderful 2022

16:08

meta-analysis in the journal Gut from

16:10

Chris Black and colleagues at the

16:13

University of Leeds is

16:15

very relevant. And to quote the

16:18

low FODMAP diet, so this

16:20

case for restricting things that

16:22

feed bacteria, the low FODMAP

16:25

diet, ranked first for abdominal

16:27

pain severity, abdominal bloating, or

16:29

distension severity and for

16:31

bowel habits. So coming

16:33

back to the analogy of not

16:35

wanting to micromanage the ecosystem, let's

16:38

say you did a stool test. Your

16:40

healthcare provider said, your low anachromancia

16:43

eats more fruits and vegetables,

16:46

and you were already eating at baseline

16:48

a decent amount of fruits and vegetables,

16:50

so you weren't way under the norm

16:52

of the standard American diet. And

16:55

you also had gas, bloating,

16:58

you suspected leaky gut for whatever

17:00

reason, abdominal pain, loose

17:02

bowels, constipation. You

17:05

then start eating more fruits,

17:07

vegetables, prebiotics, and FODMAPs, and your

17:09

symptoms get worse. So this

17:11

would be a good example of where treating

17:14

a specific lab

17:16

marker can actually lead you to undertaking

17:18

intervention that might be the opposite of

17:20

what's helpful for you. So

17:23

that point aside, there are other

17:25

dietary strategies that have also been

17:27

shown to improve levels of acromancia.

17:30

When a low calorie diet is combined with

17:33

exercise, and in

17:35

the appropriate context, this can

17:37

be health promoting if someone needs to lose some weight.

17:39

Now if someone's underweight, that wouldn't be a good idea.

17:43

Other research has shown the same for a ketogenic

17:45

diet, or for intermittent

17:47

fasting, or for the

17:50

consumption of polyphenols. Now

17:52

this comes from animal data, so we should be a

17:54

little bit bridled, but with

17:56

the consumption of cranberry extract,

17:59

or conquered grape, they

18:02

were able to demonstrate again an animal model

18:04

data improvements

18:06

in acromancy due to

18:08

the polyphenol content. And

18:11

then lastly, a 2022

18:15

randomized control trial

18:17

found that a lactobacillus and

18:20

bifidobacterium blend probiotic increased

18:22

acromancy levels. So

18:25

we have a number of strategies here that not

18:27

everyone needs to do. Not everyone should be ketogenic,

18:30

not everyone should be fasting. But

18:32

the point that I'm trying to make is

18:34

there are multiple things that you can do

18:37

to improve acromancy. Some

18:39

of which may make you feel good and some

18:41

of which may flare you. So we want to

18:43

be careful not to just blindly try to increase

18:45

levels of one bacteria in the gut absent

18:48

to your experience. And

18:50

another way of thinking about this is acromancy,

18:53

like many bacteria in the gut

18:56

might be a proxy

18:59

for host health. We

19:02

take people who don't exercise and

19:04

we serially assess their

19:06

microbiome over time. When they

19:09

start exercising, their microbiome shifts and

19:11

becomes more diverse and healthier. And

19:13

they stop exercising and it becomes

19:16

less diverse. We see the same

19:18

thing with disruptions of sleep. So I

19:20

just want to be careful with tying that concept so that you don't

19:23

treat the lab markers at the exclusion

19:25

of listening to your body and using

19:27

that biofeedback as the best way to

19:29

determine what therapies work best for you.

19:31

And this happens all the time where

19:34

people go low-carb and they don't feel well but

19:36

they keep doing it or people go high-fiber and

19:39

they don't feel well and they keep doing it

19:41

because they're treating a lab value and not listening

19:43

to their body. Hi,

19:45

I'm Erin from the Dr. Ruscio team. Here's

19:48

a question we see often in the clinic and

19:50

from people writing in on social media and the

19:52

podcast. I've tried everything.

19:54

I've changed my diet. I tried

19:57

elemental diet. I've tried fasting, probiotics,

20:00

enzymes, and even antimicrobial herbs, and I still

20:02

don't feel well. Is there anything left for

20:05

me to try? In

20:07

this case, if you've tried all these things, and

20:09

if you're still not feeling well, the immune system

20:11

in your gut could be the missing link. Something

20:14

you could try is Intestinal Support Formula,

20:16

or ISF. It

20:19

binds to and deactivates gut irritants like

20:21

toxins and microbes, reducing the

20:23

immune and inflammatory response. This

20:26

leads to a healthier intestinal lining,

20:28

improved nutrient absorption, and a better

20:30

feeling you. Learn

20:32

more about Intestinal Support Formula in

20:35

our shop at drruscho.com. Okay,

20:39

so then a few conclusions regarding

20:42

Acromancia Eukaryotephilia. It's

20:44

new, and I think it's interesting. I

20:47

do have some concerns that it's being misrepresented

20:51

as a novel gut

20:53

regulator, and the only thing that

20:55

lives in the lining of the gut, that

20:58

it's a major player in the GI tract,

21:00

and that it's always low in disease

21:03

states. I think these are either

21:05

untrue or misleading. Again,

21:08

reviewing the data, Acromancia

21:11

Inferior for Blood Sugar, it

21:13

might be better for weight loss and for

21:15

lipids, although we

21:17

should be cautious because it's

21:20

one randomized control trial comparing

21:22

to meta-analyses of several. It

21:26

also appears to be helpful for leaky gut, at

21:29

least for LPS, but again, based

21:31

upon one study. There's

21:34

no research yet in

21:37

gastrointestinal conditions like reflux,

21:39

bloating, IBS, IBD. With

21:43

all that said, I do think Acromancia is

21:45

worth a trial. I

21:47

would advise trialing triple therapy

21:49

probiotic first, or really any

21:52

probiotic first, in

21:55

the three categories that we often discuss. We've

21:58

discussed many a study. on the blends

22:01

of lactobacillus and bifidobacterium.

22:04

That would be a great place to start. That

22:06

would be a better place to start in my view,

22:08

given all of the research onto that type of probiotic

22:11

before acromancia. Second

22:14

to that, if you've used this

22:16

type of probiotic, I would

22:18

trial a combination of the

22:20

lacto and bifidobland plus

22:22

a soil-based probiotic plus

22:25

a saccharomyces probiotic. Why

22:28

is that? This is our posit, but

22:31

there are many randomized control

22:33

trials for each type of

22:35

these three probiotics. By

22:38

using them together, again, our

22:40

hypothesis is the triple therapy

22:42

or the three formulas together

22:45

is just combining where we have

22:47

a lot of research and using

22:49

those three at once synergistically. If

22:51

you've done that, then I think

22:54

acromancia would be advisable. Now,

22:56

you could try acromancia whenever you want. There's no

22:58

reason that you couldn't, but just looking at where

23:01

do we have the best data of healthy

23:03

outcomes, it would be with the

23:05

three types of probiotics that we've discussed so many times

23:08

in the past. From there,

23:10

then a trial on acromancia, I

23:13

think, makes sense because good job

23:15

with the company publishing

23:17

some papers and doing the science.

23:20

I want to commend that, but

23:22

I also want to bridle and be careful that

23:24

you don't take some of these remarks out of

23:26

context and think that this is

23:28

the new and therefore the best probiotic. I

23:30

think that would be a mistake. If

23:32

you do try acromancia, remember that

23:34

most of the studies are showing benefit

23:36

within one to three months. So

23:40

that would be your time period to

23:42

assess, is this probiotic helping yes or

23:45

no? There's one or

23:47

two exceptions to this wherein longer

23:49

than three months may be

23:52

necessary for constipation specifically and

23:54

for cognitive impairment. But

23:56

as a simple, practical method

23:58

of assessing, Usually,

24:01

if it's the right fit from

24:03

a diet perspective, from a

24:05

probiotic perspective, for many interventions, you'll

24:07

have a sense that it's working within the first

24:10

month. But again, I think if

24:12

you want to be more rigorous, up

24:14

to three months is probably a reasonable

24:16

interval to then reevaluate, do I feel

24:18

any better? And that's a really

24:21

important thing to bear in mind is that

24:23

there should be some indication that this is

24:25

helping you. Okay,

24:27

so with that, I hope this has been

24:29

helpful. And I'll be curious to

24:31

hear your thoughts, your comments in the comment section.

24:34

And otherwise, I hope this helps you make

24:37

a decision on whether or when you want

24:39

to trial Acrimanapia. Thank you for listening to Dr. Ruscio Radio today. Check us

24:41

out on iTunes and leave a review. Thank

24:44

you. Thank you. Thank

24:47

you. Thank you. Thank

24:49

you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank

24:51

you. Thank you. Thank

24:54

you. Thank you. Thank you.