52. Dr. Greg Kelly: Stop Wasting Money on Supplements! Here's What Actually Works…

With shelves full of flashy promises, it's time to cut through the noise. In this episode, Dr. Shah and Dr. Greg Kelly explore what science actually says about supplements—and what your body truly needs to perform at its best. You'll learn how nootropics, adaptogens, and probiotics influence brain health, stress resilience, and longevity. Backed by clinical research, Dr. Kelly unpacks the key mechanisms behind compounds that support cognitive performance, neuroplasticity, and the gut-brain connection—revealing how your microbiome plays a central role in mood, immunity, and energy regulation. Whether you're aiming for sharper focus, better digestion, or long-term health, this episode delivers a practical roadmap to optimize your supplement strategy—minus the hype. Dr. Greg Kelly is a licensed naturopathic physician and leading authority in nootropics and human optimization. He's the Director of Product Development at Neurohacker Collective and author of Shape Shift. We Also Discuss: The overwhelming number of supplements on the market How to optimize brain health and performance with the right compounds Enhancing resilience with supplements The link between nootropics and gut health How symbiotics support gut health Learn more about Dr. Shah: Website: https://www.drshah.com/ Clinic: https://www.next-health.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darshanshahmd/ Learn more about Dr. Greg Kelly Instagram: Qualia Life Sciences https://www.instagram.com/qualialife/reel/C1IoSMyu5Yb/ LinkedIn: Gregory Kelly - Qualia Life Sciences https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregory-kelly-98b96b138​ Book: Shape Shift Intelligence Solution https://www.amazon.com/Shape-Shift-Intelligence-Solution-ebook/dp/B0711S1JSC Sources: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acm.2007.7117?journalCode=acm https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408398.2021.2021137 https://www.drashwame.ie/ashwagandha-journal/ashwagandha-lions-mane/ https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2023.1164676/full https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/16/22/3955 Thank You To Our Sponsors: Deliverance: Give your liver the care it deserves! Deliverance is a powerful plant-based formula designed to support and restore liver health. Get 10% off your first order with code DRSHAH at loveyourliver.com Timeline: Upgrade your energy from within! Timeline helps power up your cells, supporting muscle strength, mental clarity, and overall vitality. Stay active, sharp, and strong at any age! Claim 10% off your first order now at timeline.com/DrShah

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Welcome to Extend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah, a podcast dedicated to cutting-edge science, research, tools, and protocols designed to help you extend your health span. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21, and trained and board-certified at the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board-certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results when it comes to your health span. We're living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system, no longer focused on disease management, but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as I interview world-renowned experts, offering you a step-by-step guide to proactively avoid disease, and most importantly, extend your health span.

• 0:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Supplements are literally everywhere, from brain-boosting nootropic supplements to gut-supporting probiotics. We have tons of options in the market, and we seem to be flooded with new supplements every single day. But do you often wonder, do these supplements actually work? Or are you just paying for expensive urine? There's a lot of hype and misinformation in the supplement industry. It's a very unregulated business, unfortunately. Some products are truly backed by science, while others are just clever marketing and have very little science behind them. The key is to know how to evaluate the supplements and what actually works. In my opinion, there are many effective supplements out there that actually enhance brain function, improve resilience, and treat gut health issues.

• 1:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  The key is to know which ones actually work. In this episode of the Extend Podcast, I'm joined by an expert in supplements, Greg Kelly. He's a naturopath, but he switched his career to formulating supplements after he saw a big gap in the market. We're going to get all of his insights to help us navigate the complex and sometimes very confusing world of supplements in how to make informed choices about the supplement choices that we make. We're going to break down the science that really works, explore how certain compounds can enhance cognitive function, improve resilience, and support your overall long-term health.

• 2:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Also going to discuss the power of a class of supplements called nootropics and another class called adaptogens. We're also going to really hone in on gut health and what supplements actually work for your gut to keep it healthy. Greg Kelly is the Director of Product Development at the Neurohacker Collective. This is a group of people that came together just on their own to help find nootropics that truly work and evaluate them using real science. Dr. Kelly has published numerous articles and contributed to textbooks, like Textbook of Natural Medicine. He's also the author of the book Shapeshift. So I'm excited for you to hear this episode focus on supplements. So let's get started and cut through all the noise and learn what truly matters when you're choosing your supplement protocol.

• 2:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you so much for joining me today and extend to talk all about supplements.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me here in your office to do this podcast live, person to person.

• 3:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you. Let's first talk about the number of supplements out there. And so when I see people, I always refer to like this bell shaped curve, right? You have in the middle of the bell shaped curve, you have most people, which I would say to the right of the bell shaped, this average are people that are willing to take supplements that are tried and true, but also a few others that don't cause any harm, but might have some specific benefit. And then to the left of that is the people that just want just what's tried and true. They'll take maybe four or five supplements that are just key supplements that they know everyone should be on. But then you have the people on the outsides, right? You have the people that are maybe one standard deviation away from that that are like, let me know, you know, I'll take 10 to 12 supplements, but I want

• 3:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  to know that they work. I want good quality. Then you have, of course, the people on the way outside that are like, tell me everything that Brian Johnson takes and everything that Huberman recommends and Atiya recommends, I put into my supplement protocol. And so, you know, I find most people are probably in the middle and willing to take a little bit more than just the tried and true stuff, right? And so I want to first focus on what do you believe is the core supplement choices or ingredients that people should take just for day to day maintenance, the tried and true supplements. And then I want to start talking more about what are the ones that you believe are kind of additive. To that that you that you take or you think most people should look into taking. So what are your core supplements stacked?

• 4:26Speaker 01

  So I I think the the the way I so I read a lot of research papers.

• 4:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  You know, like if we're if Kali is doing a new product, say, we're gonna do joint. I'll start and I'll make a list of, okay, these are like the 90 things I know of that may, you know, are used, you know, in one way or another that, you know, and then the way I would approach it. You know, so let's say like turmeric, right? Super common, you know, then I'll find every at least human study on that. Read them all, kind of grade them, for lack of a better word, right? And at the end of that process, you know, turmeric, there's been an extensive amount of research as an example for joints. And, you know, that particular document is probably 95 pages that I've done. And then I'll, you know, all right, what like one to five, what would I rate it?

• 5:18Speaker 01

  One is like in our marketing, people would have heard this. That's Greg's LOL, like, I can't believe anyone would would bother taking this and spending money. Five is like, okay, this is a legit, you know, star thing for at least this application. I would expect it to help most people.

• 5:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so you put together a 95 page document just on like one?

• 5:36Speaker 01

  Just on turmeric. Like some other ingredients, maybe it's eight pages because there's not as much research. Turmeric, I mean, there's probably 12 branded ones that they've all funded some studies. It's, you know, turmeric, I would say, good for that, but overrated.

• 5:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  And the amount you need is high, right? So it's, you know, you know, capsule creep's up.

• 5:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  You know, so all those things get into consideration. But at the end of the day, for like, you know, joint health, turmeric, I would, it would have a rating, one to five. It's four.

• 6:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's four.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  But some of the the the types would maybe be a four and a half, others would be a three, right? Like, they don't, they're not all the same.

• 6:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  So that's the way I would approach it. And at the end of like a like a joint project, well, I've greeted like the Kali team, you know, in this case, maybe 80 different ingredients, there'll be a whole bunch of twos and threes, you know, and it's, that doesn't mean they might not be useful, but they better be inexpensive because they're they're a niche role in a formula. You know, there'll be a, you know, maybe a handful of four and fives. And what invariably is the case, whether it's nootropics, you know, joint, gut health, there's a group of things you can say are like overrated, like the.

• 6:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  The LOLs.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, the, you know, the, the buzz they've got on whether it's social media influencers, long history in the supplement industry, you know, they, they're thought to do better than research shows they do. There's another group that's properly rated that, you know, like whatever the public and doctors, et cetera, think about them, they're pretty on the money. And then, you know, often a subset that are either underrated or relatively unknown. So because they're underrated and then, you know, the, the next step for me, if I'm making a product, you know, let's get pricing on things and then like value. Do these things, you know, maybe something in my hierarchy is a three and a half, you know, so not nothing,

• 7:32Speaker 01

  not a rock star. If, you know, if the contribution it makes to the product is such that it's going to take up, say, 20% of the ingredient costs, but it's going to be like 3% of the benefits, probably not worth it, right? So all those things for me factor in when I'm going through the formulation process, but the first thing is picking out the things that really work. Right? And so, you know, we happened to mention it before we were filming, I think, but maybe it came up in the Navy magnesium. So magnesium's a thing. Many people don't have quite as much in their diet as they need. Stress is an example. You would know there's, it's called

• 8:13Speaker 01

  the stress magnesium vicious cycle, but when we're under stress, our cells dump more magnesium as a coping mechanism, but as they get depleted, they respond poorly to stress. So it becomes this, you know, vicious cycle. And there's lots of things like that with magnesium. And the other thing, I wasn't as aware of this until fairly recently, but we would have historically probably got 20% or so, 15 to 20% of our intake of magnesium in water. But now because much of our world does things to purify their water because of other reasons, we're also losing all the minerals, including magnesium. So I, you know, my sense is magnesium, you know, one, it really works.

• 8:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So it's a four or five?

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. For the things, you know, like.

• 8:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that.

• 9:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Things that it's meant to work for.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  As well known, it's still probably underrated, how important it is.

• 9:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I would agree. I would agree.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  So that you know, that's how I just tend to think of things like creatine is an example for lots of things. Um, you know, it's, you know, mostly, you know, muscle like sprint type weightlifting like because it accumulates in muscle tissues. We probably evolutionarily got a lot more than most of us get in our diet. So our tanks aren't saturated and you know, more recently it's, you know, becoming more and more recognized as an important nootropic, something for the brain. So that's like, you know, that just works, right? It's, you know, a great thing. That's again, as widely used, probably underappreciated for how beneficial. And so that's, that's my lens for how I approach things like what does the research say?

• 9:49Speaker 01

  How would I parse it? And then at the end of the day, my goal, uh, when we release a quality product is that, you know, that particular formulation or recipe actually does what it's supposed to do. Cause the most expensive supplements are the ones that you're paying money for and aren't doing that.

• 10:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  And so because of that, our last step is always we do like an openly lab it pilot study and often on a couple of different recipes to see if one stands above the rest.

• 10:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love it.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  And if that's the case, then all right, like, you know, we'll launch a product. It's why we don't have a lot of products because we put a lot into the development and the research before you would ever see one of our finished products.

• 10:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. You, you're very mindful about the products you put out because I could tell it's not like you have this massive catalog and it was developed over a couple of years. It's very few products developed over a long time as I've been tracking the company. So I really do appreciate that. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to have you on this show because I know there's a lot of time, energy and care put into the products that are out there. So on that note, you know, you've mentioned with magnesium as an example, you're looking at the efficacy of the ingredients for what they say that it's used for. And you have that one to five rating system, but you're also tying cost into that. And so that's really important too, because like you're saying, if something costs a lot and gives you very little benefit, probably not worth taking, right?

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's it like so, I mean, I'm sure you would have patients like this because I did when I was in practice in the Greenwich, Connecticut area. I had some people from Manhattan in a general sense, money was not

• 11:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  an object. They I remember I had this one client that I think say every three months they would come back in and they were spending two grand easily on supplements from our clinic. I'd always try like, okay, well, can we strip away? What's less important? And it would be this incredibly hard negotiation to get anything removed. They just they wanted and relied on on

• 11:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Everything, right?

• 11:53Speaker 01

  Right. But that they weren't norm. The norm was what you had talked about in the bell curve, like that most reasonable patients I had from that part of the country. Maybe three to five separate bottles. So what are the best three to five?

• 12:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  Was my job to figure out and often, you know, that some of my patients were people that were healthy and just wanted to stay healthy. So that would, you know, be a separate

• 12:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  kind of thing. Others, it was for a very specific reason. And so, you know, I think, you know, my tolerance is more than the three to five, but it's not, you know, some of the people I, you know, know, like, oh, let me just take these two handfuls of supplements. I'm not that person either.

• 12:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's like a meal of supplements every meal.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Have a handful every, every, every meal.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  So I I would tend to think like, okay, like my job as someone that's making products for people that will buy quality products is I want to make sure, one, we create products that for that use, do what we would say they do, right? That really work. And then to make those decisions about, you know, like what's delivering real value for our customers? Because I know they won't have that ability. And so that I just view that as part of my role, like, you know, you and I do, you know, for patients when we work with them.

• 13:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  How many different ingredients have you looked at in this way? Um, you know, you said you wrote a 90 page report on Kirkman. How many different ingredients have you done these reports for?

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Um, hundreds.

• 13:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, my gosh, you're you're a massive expert. So this is fantastic to have you here.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  For, yeah, for each project. Like when we launched Qualia Sinbiotic.

• 13:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  You know, that would have been, you know, probably seventy-ish ingredients, you know, different probiotics, different prebiotics, you know, a bunch of botanicals, miscellaneous things like your butyrate. And then, you know, that's a scoopable powder, so it had to taste good. So certain things like love the ingredient, just can't work in that form factor.

• 13:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  But, you know, it's surprising how much ends up in my rating at three-ish, which is not like not nothing, but just not a rock star.

• 13:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  So it often, you know, by the end of a project, the list of things I feel really that I would want to take and build a product around has narrowed quite a bit.

• 14:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  And then each, whether it's nootropics, a joint formula, will have developed that same approach to everything.

• 14:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So I like it.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  You know, we have, I would say in many respects, maybe, you know, the, the most exhaustive, you know, reviews that I'm aware of for ingredients. We just don't, we don't publish those or put them customer facing because there's a lot of things that would be non-compliant for a bit.

• 14:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  All right. No, makes sense. Makes sense.

• 14:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  At my practice at Nex Health, I'm often amazed by how many of my patients have liver health issues. It turns out that thirty-eight percent of Americans have fatty liver disease and most people have no idea. You wouldn't really know until you do something like a liver scan using ultrasound shear wave technology, which we offer to all of our patients at Nex Health to get a good idea of how much damage has been done from metabolic disease and alcohol consumption. This is where a new product called Deliverance comes in. Invented by Siggy Clavion, it uses natural plant extracts that you drink as a liquid shot, which have been shown in studies to prevent and reverse fatty liver disease. I personally have a history of metabolic disease, which I work really hard to keep at bay.

• 15:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I use Deliverance myself three times a day to proactively make sure that my liver stays healthy. It's super easy to use and actually tastes good, too. You can save ten percent on your first order when you use the code DRSHAH, that's D R S H A H, at the website loveyourliver.com.

• 15:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  On the category of the healthy patient that wants to stay healthy, they only want to take maybe five bottles. What are those five core things that that person should take?

• 15:59Speaker 01

  So for me, I always start first and foremost with the gut and the brain. I think if we have those things working well, many other things fall into place. So nootropics, you know, for the brain, I think are, you know, that's the general category. And for people not familiar, nootropics originated as a term from a Romanian chemist and pharmacist that was trying to create a GABA-like compound to help with sleep. What he created was Paracetam, the original Racetam, which doesn't at all help with sleep. But when he gave it to animals, they behaved smarter, right? So he spent a lot of time researching that, eventually coined the word nootropic. And Romanian is a Latin language, but he was using really a French word

• 16:44Speaker 01

  and translated it kind of as mind bending. But we now maybe think neuroplasticity, something to do with plasticity. And yeah, so nootropics really like, again, almost any of the cognitive areas people care about. But when I think of the big three things nootropic users usually want, it's more energy, more motivation, and better focus. So everything else after that is like, you know, like memory. Sure, we want that. We like, you know, better mood. Yeah, we want that too. But a good nootropic product needs to do all those things. And then ideally for me, I take all the Qualia products too. And I want to take them. So I want, you know, like things in there that I want to take long term as well.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  So for the brain, I think Qualia Mind is by far the best nootropic out there. And that would be a core for me. And a use that if I was still in practice with patients, that I would use it for that I don't think people appreciate is Nature Pass, where maybe infamous for long initial visits, taking a big history and then asking people to change massively.

• 17:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  Like change their diets, change their exercise. Do all these supplements, meditate, whatever. And when we're asking the brain to do more, it needs more resources, simply put. Like, long story short, or like an angelogy. If someone in this room was really good at playing the piano, their brain would really efficiently play the piano. They would, they would take very little ATP, brain energy to do that, right? It would have been burned in to the circuits. I've never played piano. My brain to play the piano very poorly would require a lot of energy.

• 18:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Right, and, and why that's important, anytime we're asking the brain to do something new, which is what we're often very much asking of our patients. Their brain needs more resources than you and mine, because our brains already know how to do those.

• 18:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  So that's why I said, always start with the brain.

• 18:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Because when we're, you know, the main, a main thing that gets people healthier is changing habits.

• 18:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  And change requires more energy, more resources. So I would always start with the brain now.

• 18:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  Given what I know.

• 18:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I always say that habits form by brain, by your neurons in your brain making stronger connections. And the reason your brain forms habits is to conserve energy.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 19:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So what you're saying is that the flip side is also true, that when your brain is being asked to do something new, which for many of us, we do a lot of new things every day, it actually needs more energy. And so the nootropus can help provide the neurons with the energy they need to make new habits or do new things.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, so that's, that's like creatine, I think.

• 19:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  People's, like, the reason I think creatine is good for the brain is because it's an ATP buffer, right? The phosphagen system, so, you know, wouldn't be my go-to for that, but a big part of like paracetam. If you had asked that researcher back in their early seventies, like, well, how does it work? One of his originally published papers was, oh, it seems to like allow the brain to make more ATP.

• 19:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  So, you know, a lot of nootropics would have that woven in somewhere in their mechanism. Now, some of the other things will be they'll support blood flow, because you need to get the, you know, the blood sugar and the, you know, the ketones or whatever, like to where they need. To be to be well used and then, you know, some have to do with balancing neurotransmitters and things like that. So that's, you know, when I think of, okay, let's make a blend of things or a recipe or a full formula like Qualia Mind, you know, the goal is like supporting all these different things. Let's support, you know, dopamine, acetylcholine, those are, dopamine, simply put, motivation, you know, acetylcholine, without that, there's no neuroplasticity. So it's, you know, very important for changing the brain's landscape, right? For, I remember

• 20:36Speaker 01

  seeing someone say something like, without acetylcholine, 10,000 hours would be wasted.

• 20:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I like that, yeah.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  So, yeah, so then all of those things need to be supported to have a really comprehensive approach to supporting the brain. And, you know, I'm 62 for listeners, right? You might have figured that out, given my Navy timing. But, um, you know, like, I'm cognizant of, you know, like, brain aging, you know, I want someone that takes the Qualia products to have a healthier brain six months or a year from now than they do today.

• 21:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  And there's things like Lutein and Zayaxanthin that are commonly thought of as vision, which they are, they're, they're rock stars. They're five stars for vision.

• 21:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, for vision.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  But they're also five stars for memory and some other long-term brain areas.

• 21:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I did not know that. So, the product, the Qualia Mind product, is a blend of ingredients that you consider four or five stars put together

• 21:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  to really promote a healthy brain. And so I think, you know, there's a misconception around nootropics, where they're really for the person who's trying to achieve a short-term focus for something. Like, maybe you have a test coming up, and you need it for that, you have a speech coming up, that you need to be on stage. And I think a lot of people have a bottle of nootropics at home, and they only use it for those days where they need to perform. Versus the, what I take it for instead, what I take nootropics for is to maintain long-term brain health, specifically as we age. Like you said, I'm 52, and, you know, these things concern me. I want to maintain long-term memory. I want to maintain long-term focus. And so I think of it more as a brain health supplement versus

• 22:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  For a specific time to perform a specific function, is that correct?

• 22:19Speaker 01

  That's how I think about it, right? And it's how, it's, you know, how I approach quiet mind. And it's, you know, one of the reasons like, so I think of it, yes, but and yes, and. So like the, the first, like, oh, I just want the nootropic for a day like today. So I drove up from San Diego here to your studio. That's, I'm not on the road very much. I live by the beach in San Diego County. Today I'm asking my brain to do more than normal, right? So, yeah, like one use case-

• 22:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So you're driving through LA traffic. That takes a lot of brain power.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Thank God for my like, you know, Apple app that's telling me how to get here. But, you know, so that would be a use case, right? Like I'm asking more for my brain. I want it to have more resources. I want it to be more focused. And so for me, it's not like a yes, but like I don't need it any other time. It's a like, I'm and, right? I want, I want that and I'm greedy. I want the long-term memory and I want to be doing things on a daily basis to support my brain being as, you know, efficient and effective, you know, 10, 20 years from now as it is today. And we don't get there by all of a sudden having a problem and then addressing it. We get there by preventing.

• 23:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, absolutely.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  And that often takes more nutrition than many of us are getting, even if we're eating good diets.

• 23:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right. Yeah, exactly. I mean, and that's, you know, I just did another podcast where we talked about nutrition specifically related to brain health. And we're just not getting enough nutrients in our diet nowadays to really give our brain, which is under a lot of stress, more stress than humans have ever been built to handle evolutionarily. It just does not have the energy, the nutrients it needs to perform to the level it needs to. And so having these supplements helps to kind of bridge that gap.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's how I think about it. And, um, you know, I, you know, you and I have both started taking supplements long before we started working with patients. So, you know, I'm, you know, personally confident that supplements do do a lot. Now, I wouldn't say, you know, like live whatever way you want and only take supplements and you'll get where you're going. That's, you know- Maybe a few people that would work for, but I know I perform better when I am attentive to my body's supplement needs.

• 24:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely, yeah. And I think, I think you hit on a key point there is that if you are eating fast food, ultra-processed food every single day for every meal, and then you're sleeping four hours after drinking five drinks a night, the supplements probably aren't going to save you or make a huge difference. But, you know, once you've kind of cleaned up your lifestyle for the most part, the supplements are very well additive to kind of bridge that gap.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and what I would say, so my, you know, five and a half years active duty, a good chunk of that was in shipyards overhaul or out at sea after the ship came out.

• 25:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  And, you know, especially out at sea, my first ship, I was in engineering, there was only two of us that could stand that particular engineering watch. It was called Engineering Officer of the Watch.

• 25:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  E O W. But we were kind of the supervisor for the entire, you know, propulsion plants. And since there was two of us, if the boilers were lit off, because this was a steam-driven ship back in the day, then one of us had to be always on watch. And there was two of us, so that meant six hours on, six hours off. You still had to do your job in the, the time you weren't actually on watch, which was probably another six hours. And then of the other six hours, you know, like if you wanted to exercise, so sleep was always a scarce commodity. I, I was for sure crazy sleep deprived, coming out of the Navy, body clock disruption, like six on, six off, of course, right?

• 25:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely, circadian rhythm is off completely.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, the food was not the best, right? It was, you know, a calorie dense, not a, not a nutrient dense food. You know, exercise was hard when you were out at sea. Stress could be, you know, like high. I mean, I was at one point in the North Arabian Sea and, you know, we knew we had someone else's missiles locked on us and like lots of things, right? That all just stuck. And so I think one of the reasons I came out of that in really good shape is because I took all these muscle heads up. And it turns out carnitine's really important. For ATP and some of the other things were important for the liver and inadvertently I was doing things to to like maybe mitigate some of that stress.

• 26:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  So, you know, it wouldn't wipe it out all, but you know, so supplements, even if we're, you know, far from a pristine lifestyle, maybe the thing that's keeping us holding it all together. And an analogy I used in my book, it goes back to the late 60s, a game we got one Christmas was, I think it was called Last Straw, but sometimes it's referred to as the camel game for people that want to look it up. But it was like, picture a plastic camel with two buckets hanging over on either side, right?

• 27:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I remember this game.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you would spin a wheel and maybe you would get blue and so you'd have to put a blue straw in your basket. The other team would spin, maybe they'd get green, they got to put it green. And at some point, one of the teams puts the last straw in the back collapses, right? And the reason I bring that up is I think all of us carry around baskets full of straws, right? You know, maybe EMF, maybe toxins, you know, like, think of stress at large, any, anything that might be.

• 27:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Detrimental to your mitochondrial health and cellular health.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then all of us have a certain amount of ability to carry that burden.

• 27:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Sure.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Just call that resilience. And we never can be sure how close we are to that last straw.

• 28:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's true.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  We aren't. And what happens seemingly with patients is they'll be aware after, okay, this thing happened and then my health collapsed, right? The back fell out. You know, maybe that's someone died or changing or exposure to, you know, you name it. And, you know, my, the way I think about it is, you know, there was probably, if we had done a better job making you more resilient, so you could carry more straws and finding some of the straws that we could lift out of the basket, that may not have been the last straw for you. In all likelihood, it probably wouldn't have been. And where I think supplements play a role is they can add into that resilience.

• 28:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Some more resilience to you. That's a, that's a great analogy and it makes perfect sense when you say it that way. Always look at like an analogous situation, which is not the same as being in the Navy on active duty, but travel, travel can be very tough to maintain any sort of routine, attend to your health, you know, you're eating plain food sometimes. And I agree, I'm very cognizant of making sure I take my supplements with me when I'm traveling. And it's extremely, I, I notice the difference when I don't have my supplements when I travel, sometimes I forget them and I have them, it's a completely different situation. The travel goes so much better, my circadian rhythm is so much better when I have my supplements with me.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, I think that's often where they shine, right? Where, where, you know, like in my normal life, you know, reading research papers, writing reviews, you know, doing other things in my role at Quoia, I'm used to what that day is like. It's when new demands come that that's a new straw, right? That we need the extra support. So anyways, I think, I guess the, the main point was like, even if we're not doing the pristine things diet, lifestyle, environment, you know, then we may not feel the supplements as much, but they're, they're still under the hood doing probably a lot of good.

• 29:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 30:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So I'm 52 right now, but I'm still pushing all of my limits. I'm running long distances. I travel across many time zones to support my work and I just want to live my life to the fullest. Staying active as I age isn't just about willpower, it's about supporting my mitochondria, the powerhouses of my cells with the energy that they need to recharge my muscles and recharge my brain. Mitopure is a supplement that I take. It's backed by solid research showing that it can boost cellular energy, increase muscle strength and support overall healthy aging. Personally, I take Mitopure every single day. This helped me continue my active lifestyle, whether it's a high intensity workout or keeping

• 30:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  up with my kids. So if you are looking to support your body and want to feel younger from the inside out, my friends at Timeline are offering you a 10% discount on your first order. Go to timeline.com slash Dr. Shaw to get started. That's timeline.com forward slash D R S H A H. Your future self will thank you.

• 31:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so with the nootropic supplements, you've mentioned paracetam, you mentioned creatine. What are the other key ingredients that really make a difference there?

• 31:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we have creatine in another product, a cellular health product. And creatine in capsules is just a lot of capsules, right?

• 31:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You have to take it as a powder, right?

• 31:26Speaker 01

  So it's just not well-suited to qualliumine, but things that I'm, you know, so lutein and xanthin in my, you know, overrated, properly rated, underrated, crazy underrated for how good it is for the brain and as a long-term nootropic. It's not something you would feel in five days, but something that's for sure going to be making your brain a lot healthier over time. I'm a huge fan of saffron. Another thing that I think, it gets a lot of acknowledgement for maybe mood things, but again, really good for areas around focus, memory. So, you know, again, I would, that's in qualliumine, but would be one of my, oh, like it's escape people, how cool this herb and spices for the brain, yeah, and as a nootropic.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  I think it's always important to put some choline, like acetylcholine, like the building blocks, for that because when, there's no RDA or daily value for choline, but when the Institute of Medicine has made their recommendation and Hanes or other big food things have looked at, turns out most of us are, you know, 100, 110 milligrams every day, less than what we should be getting. And some of that is because egg yolks rock for choline and they were vilified for a long time. You know, so I don't think you need to go crazy with the amount of choline in it, but the nootropic choline's like citocholine and alpha GPC, I think are an important base

• 32:52Speaker 01

  to cover it and make sure at least people's needs are being met, right? Because again, like without acetylcholine, like all that-

• 32:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  10,000 hours wasted.

• 33:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You don't learn anything.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Because your neurons can't connect, the neuroplasticity doesn't occur.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then, you know, B vitamins, but it doesn't have to be mega dose, but all the B vitamins play collectively and individually important roles in the brain. You know, ATP just as a start, right? Like, you know, I think except for folic acid, every other B vitamin has a direct role in making energy. Magnesium, again, super important. And then there's a lot of herbs that I really like that, you know, like, again, Ginkgo been around a long time. I would say properly rated, right? Like, most people think, oh, Ginkgo is good for the brain, and I would agree, like, it shows up routinely in studies. I always like to have an adaptogen in there because my analogy, like, stress is always a big way I frame things.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  But stress is like kryptonite for the brain. So our brain just struggles to perform well when it's stressed. So I I've been a big fan of rhodiola since

• 34:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  like the late 90s. So I I think of it as probably the best neuroadaptogen or nervous system. When some of the, I remember reading studies on it in the late articles. At one point, Thorne sponsored a journal called Alternative Medicine Review.

• 34:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  And I wrote probably 30 plus articles for it over the years. And I was one of the, maybe the first review article on PubMed on rhodiola I did for that journal in maybe 2003. So there's only a couple of human studies. But at the time, it really struck me, oh, this is much less an adrenal adaptogen and much more an autonomic nervous system adaptogen. So it's, you know, to me, it's one of the best nootropic adaptogens. So big fan of rhodiola.

• 34:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  as well. You know, lion's mane for the neuroplasticity. So there's just a lot of good ingredients that ended up as, end up as solid fours and fives.

• 34:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I get it.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  when, you know, all the research is done. And, you know, I, I want to take many of these things, but more importantly, I want the whole formula to perform, as I hope. And so we recently, so Qualia Mind has been out since 2018.

• 35:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That was the first product, right?

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was our first product. And just, I think, beginning of September this year, we did, well, we've internally said Qualia Mind 2.0. And so what the goal was, okay, old Qualia Mind was seven capsules, let's Get it down to six. Still a lot of capsules, but you know, we're talking, you know, a lot of nutrition for the Can we get it to be work, work better? And again, my big three are like quickly within five days. Motivation, energy, focus. People have to feel that, right? They have to get that buy-in to get the long-term things, at least nootropic users.

• 35:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  And so I wanted it to, you know, do better for those things. I wanted to, you know, put the underappreciated, you know, the routines and, you know, saffrons and things like that in that weren't in the original formula. So the, the new mind, the one here on the counter is, you know, went through that process. We tested a bunch of different recipes head to head against old quality of mind and this one won. So, you know, I was excited to start taking it.

• 36:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. And when you see you tested it head to head, are you doing actual neurocognitive studies? How are you testing it?

• 36:22Speaker 01

  We for, um, for this, like, so what we'll sometimes do is tapping, which is for, you know, fatigue, reaction times. But what we often do would be more subjective studies, you know, so we'll ask directly about, you know, there's validated questionnaires that are used for things like cognition and focus and memory. So we'll look at those and then see how people perform and, and there, there's always a big placebo response. And in this case, what we're looking for is one that clearly separate from the rest to feel like, you know, and, you know, we have a long history with original quality. So we really wanted to,

• 37:05Speaker 01

  we wouldn't have launched if we didn't feel like this one performed

• 37:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  Better.

• 37:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  So I, I think the story that I told marketing was like, you know, better results, fewer capsules, you know, something along those lines. Cause it, it seemed ambitious

• 37:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  To do everything that we set out to do. And at the end it, it worked. But, you know, the nice thing about Kalia is had it not, I wouldn't have been pressured to just push something out.

• 37:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  So I would have been, been like, okay. Okay, like back to the drawing board. Let's see if we can make it better.

• 37:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Do something different, right? Got it. And then, you know, going shifting from brain health to gut health. Let's talk about gut health, you know, the microbiome, the trillions of bacteria and fungi that live synergistically with us in our body. They need prebiotics, probiotics, even postbiotics. And, you know, those come in different forms. And I know that you've put together a product that kind of helps on all of those aspects.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. So if if I could only spend the rest of my career studying one thing, it would be the gut, the gut microbiome. I think it's, we're just gonna learn so much more there. And, you know, most people have heard of the gut-brain axis and, you know, so it ties in with the brain. And the gut-brain axis, in terms of how we show up, it's more mood and stress. That is what scientists typically focus on when they're talking about the brain end of the gut-brain axis, which, you know, is what I looked at when we created it was it's quasi-symbiotic is the product. But yeah, and, you know, one of the things at the end of the day is I'm often want to communicate to our marketing people. And like, sometimes they're kids, right?

• 38:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  About a product. And so for the quasi-symbiotic, the way I think about the gut microbiome, it's an ecosystem, right? Very complicated ecosystem with, you know, like maybe 5,000 different species that I have that you have are not going to be the same.

• 39:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Sure.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  Making 100,000 metabolites with two thirds or more of our immune system located in the gut.

• 39:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Incredibly complex.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Making many of the same neurotransmitters our brain makes, our enteric nervous system, our second brain is there, right? So you could never figure it all out.

• 39:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Isn't 90% of the serotonin in our body made in the gut?

• 39:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, and like 50% of the dopamine.

• 39:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  50% of dopamine as well is made in the gut?

• 39:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, a fair amount of the melatonin.

• 39:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And is this serotonin and dopamine cross the blood-brain barrier is?

• 39:31Speaker 01

  It's most, so this would be more believed by scientists than established fact. But it's more believed like these are ancient communication molecules that our our brains just repurposed.

• 39:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  Those communications. So

• 39:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it.

• 39:48Speaker 01

  They use them to communicate themselves, that they being the gut microorganisms and with our, you know, nerve cells and other things lining it. And so they're mostly used locally.

• 40:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Interesting.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Like L-dopamine would be a big molecule to get into the brain.

• 40:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right, right. So it's not that these molecules are going from the gut to the brain to affect the brain. It's just communicating in the gut. And then that translates into, you know, you talk about the gut-brain axis, right? There's nerve signals going from the gut to the brain that are also communicating as well.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Correct. So the vagal nerve would be the main pathway, which is our parasympathetic nervous system. And about 90% of the traffic is going from the gut to the brain and only 10% going the other way.

• 40:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  So there's a huge flow of information to the brain because, you know, digesting food and making sure like, oh, we ate this thing and now there's this bad bacteria. Like, all that has to be communicated to the brain so it can take the right. I think Lisa Feldman Barrett would say like, you know, manage our body budgets effectively, right? Yeah, so, and one of the things, Kalia, we think of ourselves as a complex system science. So like, there's reduction of science, you know, like, there's these mechanisms. You kind of work up from like, a mechanism and then assume if you've figured all that stuff out, the whole system's going to behave the way you want it to. Complexity science would say, no, like, sometimes there's emergent behaviors, these other things

• 41:19Speaker 01

  that occur on the level of the hole that weren't anticipated based on the mechanisms, right? Things adapt and learn, right? And, you know, so because the gut's so complicated, you could spend, I'm sure, many lifetimes and never, you'd just be kidding yourself to think you got it all figured out.

• 41:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  And you don't have to. Like, thinking in terms of an ecosystem, and one of my favorite YouTube videos from years ago was when they introduced wolves back, I think it was to Yellowstone.

• 41:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  National Park, and then did, you know, like, a time lapse thing. And over the course of a couple of years, the flows of rivers changed because the wolves chased off the deer that were overfeeding, you know, grass and other things grew back. And then the land was more solid, so the rivers, anyways, like, wolves in that ecosystem would be thought of as a keystone species.

• 42:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  And all ecosystems have one or more keystone species, usually more. Elephants would be an example in, like, you know, part of the African landscape.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  And so we used to think lactobacillus, bifidobacteria, like these, you know, well-established probiotics were the only important things in our gut microbiome because they're the only things that can survive typically in stools when exposed to oxygen. So it's that like, I lost my keys, you know, and, you know, the only place the light's shining and it's here, so I'm only going to look here where the keys are over here, right? So with, you know, the advances in the Human Genome Project that led to being able to sequence the gut microbiome, now we know like, oh, like, those aren't particularly even

• 43:04Speaker 01

  important after infancy as organisms, where Akamazia, as an example, I'm sure many listeners will have heard of Akamazia, would be the keystone species in the mucin lining in our gut. And so the nice thing in ecosystems, if you can do a good job either reintroducing or making sure the keystone species are doing well, like they're getting enough food, they reshape the whole environment, right? So, you know, we would, you know, know of things like prebiotics and, you know, FOS, inulin, you know, those are really great foods for bifidobacteria particularly, which is,

• 43:48Speaker 01

  you know, that's still important, right? We have, you know, many species of that that inhabit, but, you know, very, they're not as important as a fecal bacteria, M. prudensii or Akamazia. So, you know, my goal when I was creating it is, okay, how do we provide it so that these more important keystone species thrive?

• 44:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  In Greg's gut, because if they do, then they'll handle figuring out a whole bunch of precious stuff.

• 44:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I see. So that's such a great example of the wolves in Yellowstone and how it changed the entire environment. And so what you're saying is there are certain species of bacteria that can positively affect the environment of our gut that we need to be really focused on? And bifidobacteria and lactobacillus are probably Not them. Those are other species that are important.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That need to be there, but there's other ones that affect everything and Akkermansia is one.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What are some of the others?

• 44:44Speaker 01

  Well, um, fecal bacteria and Proustii, I may not be pronouncing it scientifically correct, but that F. Proustii would be another one. I think of as one of the most important keystone species. Um, Roseburia would be another. Like, they're all ones that aren't probiotics, other than, you know, Akkermansia newly has become available, but these, you'll see even in research, they're referred to as keystone species, sometimes as um, next generation.

• 45:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  Um, organisms, um, meaning that eventually it's anticipated they'd be the next wave, like probiotics 2.0.

• 45:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 45:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That was a fantastic talk with Greg Kelly. Here are my top five takeaways from this talk. Number one, I think it's pretty obvious. We know now that not all supplements are created equal. The supplement industry is truly the Wild West, is unregulated and is filled with hype and marketing. However, there is some good science out there. Often when you go to the website of a supplement company, you want to look for a section about the scientific basis for their supplements and really see if there's any research supporting their claims. Number two, there's a class of supplements called nootropics that are built to enhance cognitive performance. So there are certain compounds like adaptogens, stimulants and precursors to neurotransmitters that can actually support brain function, focus and mental clarity.

• 46:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Number three, probiotics can help you balance your gut microbiome and that influences everything from digestion to overall well-being through an effect on your immune system and a direct gut-brain connection. Number four, another class of supplements called adaptogens help build your resilience to stress. There's some natural plant-based compounds like ashwagandha and rhodiola that can help regulate the body's stress response, supporting your HRV and helping you truly regulate the amount of stress that you feel on a day-to-day basis. Number five, there are anti-inflammatory supplements as well that can lower inflammation, which is another root cause of aging and disease. Chronic inflammation is linked to various health issues

• 46:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  and targeted supplementation can help mitigate the impact of inflammation. Curcumin is a good example of a supplement that is used to target inflammation, especially in patients with high HSCRP or homocysteine levels.

• 47:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Please remember to subscribe if you liked this episode and give us a good review and share a link with your friends. It really helps to support all of our efforts. I also want to remind you that the information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult with your healthcare provider or physician before making any decisions or taking any action based on what you hear today, especially if you have any underlying health conditions or on any medications. Your doctor knows your personal health situation the best, and it's always important to seek their guidance.