Ep 582: Bloat, Puffiness & Poor Sleep: The Hidden Histamine Link with Steven Wright

In this episode of the Health Fix Podcast, Dr. Jannine Krause sits down with gut health expert and owner of Healthy Gut Company, Steven Wright to unpack the complex world of histamines, DAO (diamine oxidase), and how these often-overlooked factors affect your energy, digestion, and overall well-being.

They dive into the link between histamine intolerance and the nervous system, explore how stress and hormones can heighten histamine sensitivity, and discuss gut health supplement protocols including Steven’s DAO product HistaHarmony as well as how he and Dr. Krause are using his advanced digestive enzyme line, Holozymes, to help clients reduce inflammation.

You’ll also hear insights on how to counter GLP-1 medications side effects and what you can do to enhance your gut health and energy levels long-term.

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Resources From The Show:

• Steven Wright’s Healthy Gut Company
• HistaHarmony – DAO
• Holozymes
• Be Serene Relief Cream

Our Partners

Podcast Transcript

Chapters

00:00 Understanding Histamines and Their Impact
03:54 The Role of DAO in Histamine Management
07:59 Sleep, Histamines, and the Nervous System Connection
11:58 The Importance of the Nervous System in Health
17:30 Exploring Holozymes and Their Benefits
29:22 Future Innovations in Gut Health Products
39:09 Navigating GLP-1s and Their Effects on Digestion

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Jannine Krause (00:01.262)
Stephen Wright. Welcome back to the Health Fix Podcast.

Steven Wright (00:02.459)
Thanks for having me, Dr. Janine, I’m excited.

Jannine Krause (00:07.158)
Man, you know, we’ve always had great conversations. I love your products. We rep them hard up at my clinic in Wisconsin and of course my online version of things in in Tacoma because they work. And lately you came up with something and we were talking about it before we hit record, the whole concept of histamines and how people are waking up to that. So when you were going through all of your gut stuff and even now, have you noticed, you know, histamines are a theme for you too in the process?

Steven Wright (00:35.025)
I have actually, but I was like histamine resistant. I was like, this is not, I don’t have that issue. I don’t have mast cell, I don’t have a histamine intolerance. Like this doesn’t, you know, I was super resistant to it and yet I had these funny things, right? Where like, I knew that at times I would have these sneezing fits and I’m not talking about like some sneezes. I’m talking about like 10 to 15 minutes.

of sneezing where I am physically exhausted. I am done for a couple hours. It’ll ruin a date faster than anything, let me tell ya. My wife does not love it when it happens. And there’s a couple things that trigger it. And one of those triggers is, for instance, we had this memorable date night. They were gonna go to do while we were out in Maui and we were gonna go to this Japanese restaurant and I had been on vacation, so I had been drinking more than normal.

And then that night I had a bunch of fish, which normally I can tolerate just fine. But then I also had like a Japanese beer. And I just had one draft beer. And on the way home, you know, she’s getting all like, ooh, we’re on our way back. That was a lovely day. And then I just started sneezing and the whole walk home for like 20 minutes, I’m sneezing, date night’s over, you know. And this was not the first time that something like this has happened.

But it was like a final straw of just disappointment around this sneezing where I had learned, I don’t do beer and I don’t think it’s because of the wheat. I think it’s because of the yeast. And I had known that, but I never thought through the next step of why does that matter? And so, yeah, waking up to the fact that I have ADHD and then looking at the connection between ADHD and histamine.

Intolerance being higher and I was like wow, there’s like a like I don’t identify as having histamine issues on the regular like I don’t have Issues with tomatoes or avocados or leftovers or wine or anything like that vinegar Nothing like that. But if I get stressed if I consume a little alcohol if I am NOT taking my supplements Those things will

Steven Wright (02:58.961)
lower my capacity to clear histamine and then I will start having pretty hardcore reactions to things. And so it was, I don’t know why it took me so long. It basically, a dear friend of mine, she’s passed on now, Dr. Beth O’Hara. You know, I coached her as a business coach for four years and I was helping her write her copy and come up with her programs and stuff. And so she would be like, you know, I think maybe you should think about histamine. And I’m like, I don’t have.

Histamine but it was her that really got to me that like histamine is a scale and your ability to clear histamine changes based on your environment the time of the season of the year like what’s happening in the environment the season of your life your your your amount of stress your hormones and More people than you think have histamine related issues. And so that was like my wake-up call and it’s Frankly, it’s been a nice revelation to have some supplements to use for it

And now I don’t suffer those sneezing fits if I’m gonna cheat a little.

Jannine Krause (04:05.482)
my gosh, you know, it’s funny how you mentioned this, like for me too, I kind of was like, no, it’s just my gut. You know, it’s just doing that. The bloating is one thing, the itching and rashes, that’s a whole nother thing. That’s completely not related.

And then I started going into like perimenopause stuff and moving through there and my gosh, the histamines just flare so much. And like you mentioned, hormones are such a factor. So I’m guessing that you might be getting some really good letters from folks coming in about you’ve saved my world when it comes to histamines. So let’s talk a little bit about your histamine product and the letters you get or the messages you got, because you were telling me about one paragraph long thing from a practitioner.

Steven Wright (04:45.937)
Yeah, so histamine intolerance has been around for a while, decades. People have known about it. And people have known about something called diamine oxidase, which is the enzyme that is made in your gut and it clears histamine that’s extracellular, so outside of cells. The other way that you clear histamine is inside your cells, and that’s by an enzyme called HNMT. But DAO, or diamine oxidase, is the one that

We have supplements for, it’s the one that’s more easily supplemented with, like there is no known supplement for HNMT. And I had known about it for years, but I had just, even when I was in clinic, I couldn’t get any reliable results. And so I would ask everybody, like, what’s your brand? And then I would say, how many pills do you take and what results do you get from that many pills? And the survey, whenever the survey is just all over the board,

I tend to stay away from advocating, teaching about these products, but I also mark it down as product development. Like that’s where there’s really something to be done for the community, for the world, is to figure out why is everybody trying this thing, but no one is seeing consistent results. And so I had heard about DAO, but I wasn’t recommending it. I wasn’t talking about it because I didn’t have anybody to recommend it to, but I was always on the hunt.

And I just told you before the show, I’m about to head off to the biggest ingredient show of the year in Vegas next week. And three years ago, I finally, I ask everybody, like I have a list of things that I’m always asking, hey, do you have this? Have you heard of this? And I would always ask, hey, do you have a DIO enzyme? And I finally met someone who’s like, yeah, we’re Spanish company. We’ve been working on this. We’re trying to get people to use it here in the US. And I’m like, this is…

This is coming from the heavens, this is amazing. And so we ended up partnering with that Spanish team of scientists who ended up having all these patents around extracting the DAO and putting it in an enteric-coded encapsulation that no one had done yet. And the first thing I always do is send it out to everybody on my team, because most of my team has some sort of chronic health thing that they’re battling, and they’re willing participants to try whatever Steven’s into, which is awesome, and I’m grateful for that.

Steven Wright (07:09.047)
And so they, many of them have histamine issues and they were all using other people’s brands. And then I was like, look, just trial this one seven days, same dose you’re already on, let me know what happens. And universal feedback was like, holy cow, this is actually working. And so that’s when I knew we had to bring the product to market. And it’s been a interesting journey because if you know about histamine, you know about the DIO enzyme, but you’ve probably tried these other products and been

kind of let down or confused because sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. And so what had happened just a few, about a month ago is I was on a show of a histamine. She was, she’s very into histamine and provider and she’s like, yeah, I don’t, I don’t use DAOs either because they just don’t work. And I’m like, I got one that works. I’m telling you. And she’s like, yeah, I’ll, mean, I’ll, I’ll try it because you’re nice, but you know, don’t, don’t get your hopes up. And, and then she sent me a, like a paragraph long response.

couple days after she tried it she’s like this is amazing you know I have to go through all these hurdles of freezing my food and my diet is just not what I wanted to be and yesterday I was eating tomatoes and I wasn’t having reactions now I’m taking it before bed and I’m my sleep scores are are going through the roof and I was like this is that’s the kind of stuff that kind of keeps me going

Jannine Krause (08:28.618)
my gosh, absolutely, absolutely. And you you mentioned a couple things like the sleep scores and the histamines. And I think a lot of people right now, we’re recording this in the fall and we’ve just come off of tomato season, which a lot of people don’t realize how much the high histamine foods like the peppers and the tomatoes and even the potatoes and all that can affect them.

But one of the things you mentioned was that really for me is a big thing. I like looking at the nervous system and its relationship to the gut. And I think a lot of people will look at their sleep scores and they’ll be like, I can’t get out of the 60s. I can’t get out of 70s and my mom’s getting like 90s and she sleeps six hours and I’m in bed like 12. And I’m sure you’ve probably heard people say stuff like that.

Let’s talk a little bit about that. Have you tracked your sleep scores to see if things changed at all?

Steven Wright (09:18.449)
Oh yeah, I’ve been using sleep trackers for close to 12 or 13 years. Many companies went out of business. I was first gen or a ring. I’ve moved on. Now I use the ultra human, but I also have an eight sleep with Traxit. so, and I just did a sleep study as well. Those at home sleep studies are crazy now. There’s so much easier to do and so much cheaper, but that’s a side note. So yes, I do track my sleep. Sleep has been a challenge for my entire life since I was a boy. And

Sleep is one of those things, it’s kind of like weight gain. It’s so multifactorial and people can get so dogmatic with their advice. Like I’m an expert in weight loss or I’m an expert in sleep and I find that they’re very, they get very excited and enthusiastic about what worked for them. But when you have these conditions where they’re like so multifactorial, it’s like there’s not one blueprint.

for everybody and I know because I have done it. I’ve done the glasses, the blackouts, I have the earplugs for my entire life. I have a mattress that cools me down that was so expensive. The amount of gear I’ve bought for sleep, I’m such a high maintenance sleeper and I’m one of those people that I will often be at a 70 or 72. And that’s just my, if I hit the 80s,

sometimes I actually feel worse because I think my body actually is like starting to repair itself. And so I have to go through, I’ve had to go through a series of checks and balances about what are the potential root causes. And this is actually how I approach all conditions, all issues. And that’s where I guess I’m saying that there’s so many multifactorials because for me it ends up being.

my nervous system, but there is a little histamine component to it. And so like for folks who routinely wake up like between like one and three in the morning, there is a cycle. I can’t remember exactly how the cycle works. I think it’s cortisol interacting and histamine ends up spiking. And so if you are low DAO, which can happen genetically,

Steven Wright (11:38.769)
there’s those of us like 14-ish percent of the population that literally you do not have the snips required to make a normal amount of DAO. And you could be doing everything your whole life, Like try all the diets, do all the exercise, do all the supplements, chasing your tail and lo and behold, your genetics were just keeping you behind the eight ball the whole time. And as you inflame the gut, you lower your production of DAO because DAO is made by the…

the brush border. And so any inflammation in the small intestine is going to lower that. So that includes when you consume alcohol, that includes any sort of gut infection or food choices, inflammation there. And so there’s all these components where you’re like, I’m doing everything right for this sleep thing. And you may not even know it, but like if you’re estrogen, let’s say you’re in perimenopause, let’s say you’re, cause you, it’s not like you get to get a memo from your, from your ovaries like, Hey, estrogen is going to drop on Thursday. And you’re like, okay, cool. I’ll plan for that.

Jannine Krause (12:34.894)
Yeah

Steven Wright (12:38.193)
You don’t get that memo. so, yeah. And one of the side effects of estrogen dropping is histamine going up. And so if you’re not prepared for that, which who can be because we don’t get the memo, you could be doing everything right, just tasting your tail. And it could be DAO. It could be histamine from an estrogen drop that you had not accounted for. And so I find it to be one of those products where it’s like, number one, it doesn’t harm.

Jannine Krause (12:42.424)
I wish.

Steven Wright (13:06.929)
There’s no harm in taking it. A placenta makes, I think, around a thousand X the normal level of DAO. So like in a safety environment, the body can handle a large amount of DAO. But it might help. And so it’s a cool less than $50 test to figure out in one month, is this an issue for me? And it could be. And so like what we have is I have, I have their blister packs to keep them

from oxygen and pH. And so I have one in my backpack, I have one in the car, I have another one in my luggage. And because I don’t know when I’m gonna be that idiot who orders another drink at the bar and then I wake up the next day and I’m struggling, or I don’t know when I’m gonna wake up in the middle of night and be like, I should probably take a few of those. And so I just kind of keep myself protected and I hope other people try that because I do think it’s one of those things where

It’s almost impossible.

to like, I mean, we could go through a histamine questionnaire. I guess it’s not impossible. You could get your genetics tested. You could go through a histamine questionnaire. If you answer yes to even a few of these, like do you get flushing, redness? Do you have seasonal allergies? Do you have food sensitivities? Do you get tachycardia? Do you get car sick? Do you get motion sickness? All car sick, motion sickness. Most people don’t realize that is high histamine. Dramamine is a anti-histamine.

Ginger is a mast cell stabilizer. That’s why they say eat some ginger, take a ginger capsule. So anyways, if you have those things and you have sleep issues, I would highly encourage you to test maybe one to two little tablets of DAO, the histoharmony product, before bed and just watch your scores and watch your wakeups and see if they improve.

Jannine Krause (14:39.907)
Yeah.

Jannine Krause (15:03.116)
You know what, makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense to look at that. And I like how you’re talking about the individuality here because I think it can seem very much like this is the answer or this is the only answer. And the fact that you mentioned like, let’s buy it, let’s do an experiment, let’s take some notes, let’s see what happens. How many notebooks do you think you own of data on yourself? I’m just curious just because I’ll share how many I have.

Steven Wright (15:26.929)
I don’t know, there’s probably 15 filled up behind me.

Jannine Krause (15:31.97)
You’re looking.

Jannine Krause (15:36.116)
I probably have about similar amount, like literally. It’s just data and I try to encourage folks. We don’t know. And I think we have this mindset of if I’m gonna spend the money on something, it better freaking work. But at the end of the day, it’s like, or what’s the alternative? Genetic testing for a thousand bucks, genetic testing that’s really good, for a thousand bucks or 50 bucks and you know, yay or nay. I don’t know. I mean, it all kinda.

breaks down at the end of the day. that you mentioned the DAO and the dramamine component, I’m like, dang, I don’t get seasick. I just started sailing. I don’t get seasick, but when I get done sailing, I will constantly feel like I’m doing this. And when I get on land, I feel worse than when I’m on the boat. I’m like, maybe some DAO. Hmm, okay. Hiss to Harmony, guys. DAO. Steven’s DAO.

Steven Wright (16:22.129)
Yeah, and what you I think what you just demonstrated there is the key which is curiosity You know, like if you could have curiosity about your health you can do I think what you just described which is Be more courageous and testing products and and be be ruthless around Did they do anything, you know, I think I think the trap is to to buy the hope and the hype

Jannine Krause (16:30.018)
Mm-hmm.

Steven Wright (16:51.075)
and assume that that’s the only thing that’s going to work for you, when the answer is no, there’s 100 other options if this doesn’t work. And in fact, if it doesn’t work for you, the way in which it doesn’t work is extraordinarily helpful for your next experiment.

Jannine Krause (17:12.716)
Yes. Such wise info because yeah, that’s kind of how I’ve learned a lot of things, things that didn’t work and then figured out like, all right, it did this though or.

it did nothing so okay you can cross that off right so it’s it’s one of those great ways to be thinking about it now speaking of it now my ankle’s itching seriously should have taken some of it before of this um but it is a thing and you know and one of the things of course i focus a lot on women going through perimenopause and amenopause and and so many symptoms could very well be histamine but you had mentioned one thing that i wanted to get back to is the nervous system and the histamine nervous system connection you know is a biggie but

Steven Wright (17:24.176)
Right.

Steven Wright (17:30.769)
You

Jannine Krause (17:53.642)
also the nervous system gut as a whole. And yes, the histamines are part of it. So now folks are listening and like, my God, how many things are part of the gut? Nervous system gut. What have you been seeing lately with folks? You know, cause it does seem like the collective, a lot of folks are really worried lately. There’s a lot of fear. There’s a lot of that going on. And I’m always trying to be like, okay, let’s see how we can see the bigger picture and soothe ourselves. And I do like your B-serene topical.

a lot, I like to put it behind my ears. So I want to hear what you’re hearing from folks on the street, what’s your staff hearing about nervous system, gut connection, all that jazz.

Steven Wright (18:30.673)
I think people are waking up and the conversation used to be you’re stressed and you’re stressed, which it’s creating your rashes, your IBS, your whatever. And that conversation was, I had that given to me, not only from some regular providers, but actually like people you and I respect and know who I’ve consulted with.

At one point he goes, you know, have you ever read Pema Shodran? Have you ever meditated? Because, you know, maybe you’re having some stress and I wanted to strangle him. I was like, are you kidding me? It’s not stress. What are you talking about, dude? So I feel like what’s really cool is we’ve using that S word and we’ve started to talk about the nervous system.

And I think that opens everybody’s minds up to say, yeah, I do have a nervous system. And if I don’t take care of it, it is absolutely intertwined into everything I do. My gut, my gut functionality, histamine, allergies, hormones, weight gain, all the things. And so I think that’s been the really, the best shift is this language shift around your nervous system and caring for it and protecting it and how

interwoven it is into many of the outcomes we want in health. And so I think that just that idea that like emitting you to have a nervous system and it is affected by the world at large and what you consume mentally, emotionally, it is affected by your environment, like literally where you sleep, how you sleep, the

the that’s in the air, what’s not in the air, the mold, whatever it is. And the reason why people like myself have been saying for 15 years to chew your food slowly and to say a prayer or say gratitudes before a meal is to shift the state of your nervous system from sympathetic to parasympathetic. And the reason why that matters is because rest and digest is parasympathetic. That’s where you get all the

Steven Wright (20:48.411)
blood flow to your digestive organs. That’s where you get the right hormone mixture to feel full and to make the right amount of enzymes and stomach acid. Like there’s a concoction of things that happen that is outside of the food you choose. And so I think what’s wonderful is I’m trying to get rid of this conversation around food is medicine because it’s not food is important, but it’s just food. We have to digest that food. We have to assimilate that food and that food enters a contextual relationship with your body that

is very much dependent on your nervous system. And so what you believe and what you feel matter. If you are afraid of that food, or you’re afraid of that reaction of that food, you increase the likelihood of the reaction of that food by minimum 30%, which would be the nocebo effect, or the placebo effect, however you wanna square it. And so I think that’s really powerful to think about. For instance, if you buy a supplement,

and you’re afraid of a reaction or you’re distrust, distrustful. You’re like this dang industry and this working on my health thing sucks and nothing ever works for me. There’s a 30 % less chance it’s going to work for you just because of that mental framework that you’re using. And so I think the nervous system is this wonderful new word that we can all use and adopt to start to talk about topics that we’ve been talking about for decades. But

maybe we can use a new openness in all of our worlds to do it with a little bit more care and also make it kind of cool or like in vogue to take care of yourself, essentially. It’s like we’re basically saying we should take care of ourselves better and we should be aware of what is happening unconsciously and consciously. And if we do that,

I see measurable shifts in people’s health, measurable shifts immediately. And there are people out there who can tolerate almost no food, like five foods. They can barely tolerate curcumin or fish oil or DIO. They are very sick. They’re very challenged. And honestly, the fastest way for them to make progress is to wake up every day and literally hug themselves multiple times a day, tell themselves it is okay.

Steven Wright (23:13.755)
Go outside, put their feet in the grass, ground a little, maybe do some other exercises. There’s like so many schools of thought on different exercises you could do. Just choose any of them, one of them, do it a few times a day. And it sounds so simple, but it’s actually very hard to do because you have to change your life, you have to change your patterns. And many of us are addicted to the old way of feeling.

like the mental frameworks of the dopamine rush you get from being afraid of everything. There’s payoffs to that way of being. And so I think the beautiful thing about the nervous system is it gives us a new way to talk about these things. And we are getting online feedback every day from a number of sources about how much better they’re feeling, how much more food they can tolerate.

how better their stools are, their energy levels are, if, yes, we make supplements that help with it, but also just doing the basics of like, it’s okay. Like it is, like yes, the world is crazier than any of us have ever seen in any of our lifetimes. And frankly, you and I, don’t know about you, but I don’t really have any power to do anything about it. I don’t, I literally don’t. The best thing I do is talk to you about this and have some.

Jannine Krause (24:35.886)
Nope.

Steven Wright (24:37.521)
know, live therapy in front of everybody about it, you know? That’s really all I got. I can’t affect it. And so I can get worked up by the dopamine, the fact that have ADHD and I have low dopamine, I’m attracted to things that will make me have dopamine so that I feel better. And one of those things is fear and challenge and outrage and all these things. And so one of the biggest things I’ve done is put an app on my phone called Be Present. It’s absurdly priced for like $100 a year to basically lock me out of

my phone. But it’s very helpful for my nervous system.

Jannine Krause (25:15.32)
Yeah, well, there’s so much involved in that. And yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people are feeling, you know, I mean, we can’t control any of this, but what we can control is our vibe. That’s why I tell everybody you can control your vibe. If we’re all working on feeling good, that’s gonna be way more powerful than all the negative in the world. But at the end of the day,

And I’ve been there with my gut, with other autoimmune things when I’ve been really sick. And it’s really hard when you are in the throes of that to really be like, all I need to do is meditate. That kind of stuff’s coming up. You’re like, don’t know. No, I need a solution and I need it now. And I’m sure you probably get a lot of folks, just like you explained, you were in that a little bit when you had someone talk to you about that. So it’s kind of looking at like, all right.

The nervous system has such an impact. We know we have to baby step it in, but at the same time we have things that can help us. And one of the most amazing things that you brought out, I don’t know, maybe it like three years ago, it’s obviously your business so you know more than me, but the B-serene. mean, I’ve had multiple patients use the cream and we started putting on different acupuncture points, definitely behind the ears, but we started to do some of the like.

This is the window to the sky points. There’s chest points. So those of guys who are watching, I’m like poking different spots on my body, window, sky points on your neck. And then there’s spirit gate points on your chest. And Stephen probably knows and has heard about all these points too. But we started doing that. He says, no. No, I haven’t. Oh, well, I started doing this and I started pairing it with red light on the points with Kinian’s red light, because it’s like tiny. It’s like this big and I can stick it on things. So I don’t know.

Steven Wright (26:46.948)
Okay.

Jannine Krause (26:59.51)
I just wanted to throw that out because it’s one of the ways in which I’ve been looking at tapping in to the nervous system using something you have and also being able to stack a couple things like we’re going back in that department. Have you used red light at all with the gut? For folks I bet you have, have you used it yourself?

Steven Wright (27:17.899)
yes, but I want to, I want to come back to that. I want to leverage what you just said there. so I think what you said is super important, right? Cause I just went on this rant about how easy it is to help your nervous system. Just hug yourself and go ground. And there’s probably someone listening right now. It’s like, you dude, F you. If I could choke you out, I would. and that’s great. That’s cool. I appreciate that. I was there. but what you just said is really important, which is getting leverage.

Jannine Krause (27:22.222)
Yeah.

Jannine Krause (27:44.046)
You

Steven Wright (27:46.799)
in situations where it doesn’t feel like you have any leverage. And I think that’s where properly dosed supplements can really help. There’s actually a concept, I don’t know if it comes from psychiatry or psychiatry or psychology, but it’s this zone of tolerance. Essentially, it’s like we have a window, high and low, of which we are, let’s say, capable of being an adult. And you desire to have a very big window, plus or minus. Let’s say zero is neutral.

And plus is a lot of happiness and negative is maybe the opposite of that, disappointment, anger, all those emotions. You want a large window so that you can function throughout your life and experience things and be an adult. But as we get sicker and sicker, our windows get smaller and smaller. And as our nervous system gets, maybe something happened as a child, maybe it happened just recently, but if you get something physically or trauma-based, can…

it can shrink that window down and kind of lock you into a very narrow zone of tolerance. And so what’s really frustrating is if you’re outside of that zone of tolerance, it can be almost impossible to achieve anything. Mentally, you’re not clearly thinking. You’re not sure if you’re thinking clearly. You might be manic. You might be depressed. You’re not really sure because you’re not in that zone. And so having tools that can pull you back in the zone or increase the zone

that are not thinking mental energy based, I think is extraordinarily helpful to have in the house. And that’s where B-serene IR is one of those tools in my opinion that I don’t think you need to use it on a regular basis. In fact, I don’t necessarily say you should unless you’re in one of those chronic conditions or whatever. But it is extraordinarily powerful and fast acting if you’re outside your zone of tolerance.

and you need to get some leverage on yourself. I had never thought about coupling it with light therapy, but that’s an awesome, awesome innovation on it.

Jannine Krause (29:50.616)
Yeah.

I actually like to stack things every so often and see, know, it’s back to my experimenting and my plethora of notes on random randomness. But it’s fun, you know, and definitely B-serene was one of the things that I just happened to, you know, come across when you sent it over to me to test it out. And I was like, you know, this really works along with, you know, some of the other essential oils and different things for folks, too. Now, one of the things that I was going to run by you as as a way that I’ve been playing with Holosimes lately is

because of the different enzymes in there I’ve started to use them more as systemic enzymes than digestive enzymes and I know that you’ve mentioned using them that way in previous talks but I’ve been kind of playing with it quite a bit in folks that have puffiness, swelling, bloat that things just aren’t getting, just nothing’s happening and we put them on like a little bit of a water fast and throw in the holozymes.

Give us a little scoop on how you guys have been using holozymes outside of the box and what have you heard people doing. And of course, we probably should explain to folks what holozymes are and since you’re the master of it, I’m gonna let you explain so that folks can hear this and I’ll tie it back into how I think it relates to the nervous system here too, because sometimes we get some nasty bloating when we’re stressed.

Steven Wright (31:06.703)
Yeah, well would say holozymes are the world’s most advanced digestive enzyme, but I labeled it digestive enzyme so people could put it in a box. It’s also a systemic enzyme, and so I think that’s what we’re about to dive into here. look, enzymes have been around for, I don’t know, hundreds of years probably, but at least the last couple decades they’ve been very well used and people know about them. Unfortunately, they’re like part of this class of supplements where people try them.

and their prior versions of them were like inconsistent, not properly powered, and so the responses are like weak to nothing. And like people are like, did I just spend $50 again to get no effect? so they stopped using it. Providers stop telling people about them. They move on to things like they think are sexier like probiotics or something. But the reality was is we just didn’t have a properly built product, frankly.

Like, and so Holozyme is my solution to that. Cause I have the exact same problem. I used to take like multiple brands of enzymes at every meal and they still didn’t really get the result that I wanted. But they were just better than taking one brand. And I tried them in clinic. I would just rotate through every 30 clients. would put on, I would try a different one thinking I’d find a different result and it never worked. The results were always kind of the same, inconsistent at best.

And so Holozyme has been a passion project for me personally because I need them for a daily, on daily life. But also just because that kind of problem just, just grinds my gears. I’m just like, why can’t we figure this out? This makes so much sense. And so we leveraged a patent and then we worked with a Japan, US based manufacturer of enzymes to kind of keep souping it up. And so I think we’re on like version eight now.

with full FODMAP support, which is really cool. and so the fascinating thing is that the original version, version zero, was run through six different pilot studies and pilot meaning one of the study had three people, another, the biggest study had 30. there was some blinding, but not double blind. it was, it was like proof of concept style trials, but they did get really cool data.

Steven Wright (33:28.751)
And the interesting thing was the original patent, the scientist behind that felt strongly in the use of systemic enzymes. And so he made the protocol two per meal and two before bed because he felt so strongly. So the original trials on the original Holosom formula, which this new formula is significantly different, only in the up way. So I do believe the original trial still apply, but.

That was two with meals and two before bed. And it showed really cool stuff. Like we’re talking about drops in blood sugar spikes after meals at around 18 % in another trial. There was like a 17 % reduction in total cholesterol. They did three different, or no, two different studies on gout and uric acid and found a 47 % reduction in gout, like uric acid numbers and then gout pain.

And now I can’t say that this treats it. It’s not it’s not for that But what I think it speaks to is the power of the systemic use as well as the continual digestion of whatever food you are eating and so I personally myself had mildly high uric acid like always right below the cutoff like seven point eight seven point nine eight point eight point one I don’t think I ever got a score higher than that, but I started having big toe pain

like early in my 30s and I’d already been gluten free and paleo for five or six years. And it put me on this journey where I was losing my sports, I was losing my hobbies, it was so much pain that I was thinking about going on allopurinol, which is a way to block uric acid basically, but it has some nasty side effects. And in the middle of formulating holozyme, I was talking to the researcher and he mentioned all these studies and I was like,

thrown tart cherry juice at this. I’ve thrown like all kinds of crazy stuff at this. Who knows? So I use six per night and within 10 days the pain in my toe is gone. And I had tried a lot of things and I was like, holy cow, this is pretty cool. And so since then, if people are dealing with inflammation, let’s say they’re, they had like a sprain or a strain, like they’re a performance athlete or just a regular weekend Joe.

Steven Wright (35:58.257)
I always tell them to up dose systemically and normally they’ll report back that they’re feeling more mobility, maybe less pain. It can work in conjunction with other products like curcumin or whatever you’re using for inflammation, but it works on different pathways, specifically either around improving blood flow potentially to that injury site or

There’s some really interesting novel data around circulating immune complexes and breaking down extra kind of crud in your blood basically. And so I think like everybody should be doing it. I’m super biased, but we have had people who are waiting for back surgery. They are escalating on all the pain meds and everybody’s very aware now of the opioid.

addiction levels and like, so we’ve had people write in like, look, I love this for my gut, but like, I’m in so much pain right now. And I’m like, cool, try six before bed and see how that works. And if it doesn’t, if it helps a little, then take six more between meals. And so I think the highest we had is, we had one guy who was waiting for back surgery and he refused to continue escalating his pain dosages. And so he used 18 per day.

in between meals and was able to wait for his insurance to get him in for like four months and still be capable of work and family life and things like that, which is really cool. And I hope that maybe one day we’ll be able to study this further because there’s no money to be made from the pharma companies in systemic enzyme therapy, but the research out of Europe on this stuff is so cool.

Jannine Krause (37:52.632)
would agree with you. I would agree with you. I I’ve definitely dosed high on this. I actually have been using it kind of like prednisone. So I’ll taper up, I’ll ramp up and then ramp back down too with folks on it. And so I’m making folks take about 10 between meals and then 10 again at night at the peak. And we ramp up from six up to 10 and then back down. I think I heard you on someone else’s podcast talk that.

Steven Wright (38:02.437)
Okay.

Jannine Krause (38:13.794)
the dosing sounds like, all right, I’m gonna follow that. And then I decided to go a little higher, because why not? And I saw it worked too, you And I have a disc injury that I tend to kind of manage this way too, so I played, you know, everything’s always with myself first, and if it works with me, then of course I’m gonna share it with my people too. And I do think, yeah.

Kirk Human definitely has some play in there. Sometimes CBD can be really nice if it’s a full spectrum, no THC on my end, but the CBD for sure, but I like that. Now, one of the fun things that I love about you is that in your emails, you’re just so candid. And I saw your little emoji guy behind you, the little poop guy. So for those of you guys who are watching, you can see he’s got the little poop emoji stuff, looks like a stuffed animal character there.

Steven Wright (38:51.185)
You

Steven Wright (38:57.968)
Yeah.

Jannine Krause (39:03.04)
I just love reading your emails because they’re so funny and real. And a lot of like, yep, I’ve experienced that. Yep, I can relate to that. I’m guessing you’re still writing your emails for the most part at this point with your copy.

Steven Wright (39:17.347)
Yeah, yeah, have a, I mean, we have a team, a marketing team, so I have final say and I change everything to be even more in my voice, but yeah, I do have some, I have a lot of help these days on them.

Jannine Krause (39:32.194)
man, you’re lucky. So what’s next? What’s next with you guys? Because you’re going to this place, to Vegas, and you’re going to see all the people with all their products and all the different things. What do you got in your head? What are you thinking about? Where are you guys expanding to?

Steven Wright (39:36.205)
you

Steven Wright (39:46.577)
Well, I think, I mean, if I had millions in funding or millions in the bank, I would have a lot more skews at Healthy Gut. And that’s not necessarily the case right now. So we’re still very bootstrap family business. So I gotta be very careful with what is Steven’s fascination versus what’s best for the business, that kind of thing. So I would say there’s a few.

products that I hope will come out within 2026. One of them I hope will be for folks with heartburn and B-coastal membrane issues because I think low stomach acid is just growing every month because the amount of fear and the amount of nervous system dysregulation continues to make low stomach acid even worse. so being able to take a product like HCL Guard or some other stomach support formula that’s well done, I think is

Again, it’s just such a no-brainer curiosity for you to test that no matter what you’re dealing with that it could improve your health so dramatically if you fix that. But with perimenopause and menopause, estrogen is super, it’s like moisture, right? Like in one way, you could look at it like that. And mucosal membranes are, I think are getting more ravaged than ever. And I don’t know.

I don’t know if it’s just a confluence of things. It’s probably just a confluence of all of it. Awareness, the state of the world, all these things, plus menopause, perimenopause, types of things. And so I’m fascinated by DGL again. I’m fascinated by the old school stuff. But again, old school stuff that kind of works, but you have to take 3,000 milligrams for it to work. And a lot of the products out there are just chalky. They taste like.

They taste terrible. And they’re full of mannitol and sugar alcohols that just make people like myself super gassy. And so I’m working on that and I’m hunting ingredients at the show that are novel for mucosal healing. But I’m very interested in that because that I think is kind of one of those no brainers. Like if you’re having heartburn, acid reflux, or you’re just feeling drier.

Jannine Krause (41:42.86)
Ugh… Y-yeah…

Steven Wright (42:09.489)
There’s likely something going on mucosally. There’s a lot of people, even my wife included, who have a chronic cough and they don’t know that it’s acid reflux and it could be silent acid reflux. That’s the thing for my wife, for Shay. For a while I was like, look, this might be reflux. Even Western medical doctors will say this is most likely reflux. They’ll try to put you on a PPI for eight to 12 weeks because that’s typically what it is.

Jannine Krause (42:16.238)
Okay.

Jannine Krause (42:21.121)
Yeah.

Steven Wright (42:39.791)
But this idea that you have reflux but you don’t feel anything is like, that’s like gonna make your head explode if you’re not in this industry. And sure enough with her, we’ve tried a lot of different things but higher dose DGL is one of the only things that kind of keeps her cough gone. And so I’m hunting that, I’m actively trying to figure that out. And I’m also very…

Interested in fibers. I’ve been interested in fibers. I’ve been holding off I got I got into some spats with my email list a couple years ago because I had some opinions on them and some people were very They get very defensive of the things that work for them And they don’t like it when you challenge those things and I also don’t want to take something away from somebody or cause Confusion if it is working for them, so I kind of pulled back and I’ve been waiting but I think fiber is gonna become a

really big topic we’ll all be talking about for the next few years because it is in my opinion more important than probiotics it is the You can’t have a fire without like wood or whatever like you got it. Yeah burn something to make a fire and in this case, I feel like the wood or the fuel is the prebiotics or the fiber however, you want to talk about it and as we have

gotten more aware of nutrition and food, in general, I would say most people have cut down even further their amount of prebiotic and fiber, and they are causing nutritional dysbiosis themselves. And I think that is a significant problem that we have to fix if we’re gonna get people to a resilient way of living and being. And so they don’t have diseases of aging because

gut dysbiosis is linked to literally whatever you want to pick heart disease, know neuro degeneration of all types You name it You know that that’s a problem And so I am actively playing with different prebiotics and fibers trying to understand which ones are like bloat me Which ones taste like bunhole, you know, a lot of them taste terrible

Jannine Krause (44:58.962)
my God. A lot of the products that you mentioned right now, like the powders out there for gut lining repair tastes like crap. I mean, you can’t even fathom it. And yeah, like what you said, I would love to see something that lubes the tubes and gives the fiber.

Steven Wright (45:03.013)
Yeah.

Jannine Krause (45:15.798)
where it doesn’t make the tube sticky and then people dry out worse, you’ll hear that in the menopause space a lot where people are like, yeah, I can’t do fiber because it’s going to bulk me and then dry me out more and nothing’s going to move. And I’m like, if we can just get something that globs the tubes and puts the fiber in there, it would be magical. I know a lot of people listening right now would be like, please, Stephen, help us.

Steven Wright (45:32.785)
Yeah, well.

Well, I’m gonna need a test group. if you’re open to baggies of unlabeled powder being mailed to you to test, you can always reach out to us.

Jannine Krause (45:47.778)
We’re down. We’re down. Especially my folks at the Center for Human Restoration. They’ve been through a lot of different trials that we’ve got. We’ve been running over the time. And yeah, it’s definitely something that I’m curious about. And of course, I know we’re getting short on time here and I just wanted to go through one thing because it is a question that I get from folks because the fiber conversation, the enzymes conversation, know, the lubing the tubes kind of conversation comes into play when folks are taking GLP-1s. And since it seems like it is few and far between to find some folks that aren’t doing a

her zepatide or some aglutide these days, what have you seen be a protocol? I know we weren’t gonna ask about protocols but I said I’m gonna do it for just this last one and then we’ll go.

Steven Wright (46:27.953)
No, no, it’s good. Everybody loves a protocol, including myself. Yeah, I mean, think number one, just so everybody’s aware of where I’m at, I’m not anti-GLP-1s. I think they’re an awesome tool to have in your toolbox. I think the micro-dosing of GLP-1s at lower than studied dosages, so for instance, with semi-glutide, the dosages that were studied, I think the starter dose is three milligrams, and the low dose is seven, and the high dose is 14. So we’re talking less than the…

starter dosages is a micro dose. They do some really cool stuff for mast cell activation and histamine. I think there are some inflammation pathways and pain pathways. I just think it’s when you get to the active dosages that are being studied for fat loss or glucose control. That’s where essentially, I mean, I don’t think it’s a shocker to you and I, but like it’s a, sometimes it’s a little bit of a new idea for most people. It’s like,

the higher the dose, the higher the chance of the side effect because it’s higher effect, all effect. like the higher the dose, the more effect there is, including side effects. And so I would say number one, if you’re using them, you have to advocate for yourself. Your GP or whoever put you on this is unlikely to be advising you on how to best use these at this time.

they are likely to do what they’ve always done, which is escalate the dose if you’re not seeing whatever changes they’re hoping you’d see. And if you do that, you are more likely to have side effects. And so in my opinion, we should try to use these things at the lowest dose possible so we have the least amount of side effects and maybe it takes a little longer to lose the fat or whatever the goal is. And then also we should be just very cognizant of the systemic effects that they have.

And so in the case of most of these drugs, it’s delaying stomach emptying and really kind of just totally messing up the pathways of the gut. one thing that’s been working for people lately is a new analogy. Like the gut is a conveyor belt. Like think of it just like a conveyor belt, whether you’re picturing building a car or you’re picturing moving carrots down a production line or whatever you’re picturing, it’s a conveyor belt. And it starts with you.

Steven Wright (48:52.529)
putting food in your mouth and it ends in the toilet. And that conveyor belt needs to run on time. If it doesn’t run on time, if it runs too fast, then you get loose stools. If it runs too slow, you get constipation. And there’s a number of stops along the conveyor belt. One of the stops is the stomach, one of the stops is the small intestine, large intestine, all these different stops where things happen. People take parts out, they put parts in. It’s very much a conveyor belt. And so,

The beginning of that conveyor belt is your mouth, but the very first big step is your stomach, and the GLPs really impact that. And I think if you take the confluence of what they’re doing, I would suggest that they are going to lower total nutrient absorption from all food choices, whether you’re able to eat protein or not, whether you’re able to eat healthy or not.

Whatever food you choose, you will lose more of it to the toilet while you’re on these drugs. I don’t think we know yet what that percentage is. Is it 10 %? Is it 50 %? But my guess is it’s directly proportional to the dose. Why is that happening? Because your digestive process is no longer functioning correctly or as it was intended. And so I think taking things like HCl guard or other things to boost your stomach acid,

to make sure you are fully breaking down as much of that food as possible while it’s in the stomach, as well as encouraging proper stomach dumping and proper stomach functioning so it doesn’t, quote unquote, freeze up like it’s happened to some people. I think that’s really smart and almost a no-brainer. And if you have to couple it with DGL or some sort of mucosal defense product, I think you should. On top of that, think digestive enzymes are non-negotiable.

even more so than the HCL support because again, we do not know yet how under assimilating you are gonna be with the food you choose. But the other thing is I’ve played with them and it becomes harder and harder to eat protein. It becomes harder and harder to eat well because one of the other things it’s doing is blocking dopamine. It’s affecting it anyways. It’s not blocking it, it’s affecting it. And if you’re like me and you’re emotional eater,

Steven Wright (51:16.901)
What happens when we choose carbs? They’re easier to digest. Let’s just give us credit for that. It feels better to eat them both physically because it’s easier to digest, but also mentally because there’s more of a boost in neurochemicals. And so the diet slowly drifts on these drugs towards higher carb, lower protein, lower fat. And that coincides with

the muscle loss and some of the other unwanted side effects of these drugs. And so I think if you can just plan for this stuff, like I have to take an amino acid support product. I have to take my whole enzymes and I might need to take four or six of them to really properly break this food down because your gut is not gonna be doing its job. It’s kinda, I don’t know the best analogy, but it’s almost like you’re wrapping it in a weighted blanket and you’re making it fight.

to do its job and it can’t. You’re just handcuffing it every single day. And that’s fine. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do this. I’m just saying give your gut some support and give your whole body some support and awareness that you can’t just hop on and hop off these things and not expect there to be calcium loss, magnesium loss, iron loss, B vitamin loss, let alone macronutrients like protein.

Jannine Krause (52:42.478)
Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. It’s definitely something we gotta watch out for. But at the end of the day, they’re hot, people, women in particular, are desperate to lose weight. So it’s one of those things where we gotta think about what to do.

Steven Wright (52:52.751)
Yeah, I would say take whole enzymes, take a broad spectrum amino acid powder every single day, maybe twice a day, take a multivitamin when you’re on these things and try not to escalate the dose. Go to a new one, go to trisaparotide or reddish chute rides on its way out. So go to a GLP2 or GLP3. They’re much better because they don’t just restrict or they don’t just boost GLP1. They do other things. And I think multimodalities is safer.

Jannine Krause (53:23.598)
Absolutely. my goodness. I’m looking forward to hearing what happens after this next weekend and what kind of things you come up with and and the next stuff So we’ll make sure that when you when you figure out what you’re gonna formulate next we get to hear about it and bring you back on so we can chat about it Thank you as always for bringing up all kinds of good stuff for us to think about and chew on totally pun intended on this one Thanks for coming on again, Stephen. I appreciate it

Steven Wright (53:46.757)
Yeah, thank you, Janine.