Life Cykel with Julian Mitchell

Today I'm speaking with Julian Mitchell from Life Cykel on the Longevity Optimization Podcast. In this episode, we delve into the fascinating world of functional mushrooms, particularly focusing on Lion's Mane, Reishi, and Cordyceps. Julian shares insights into the origins of Life Cykel and the extensive research supporting the benefits of these mushrooms for cognitive health, sleep optimization, and gut health. The conversation emphasizes the importance of biohacking and how mushrooms can enhance overall well-being and longevity.

Julian Mitchell is a passionate advocate for the health benefits of functional mushrooms and the co-founder of Life Cykel, a company dedicated to harnessing the power of these natural wonders. With a background in health and wellness, Julian has dedicated his career to exploring the intersection of traditional medicine and modern science. He highlights the significance of gut health and its profound impact on overall well-being, discussing the roles of mushrooms like Turkey Tail and Shiitake in promoting health. The conversation also covers the importance of gut testing, the historical use of mushrooms in traditional medicine, and advancements in extraction methods that improve bioavailability. Julian emphasizes sustainable cultivation practices and rigorous quality control measures to ensure product integrity, concluding with a focus on the benefits of specific mushrooms and the importance of choosing high-quality products for optimal health.

Follow Lifecykel on Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/lifecykel/

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction to Functional Mushrooms and Life Cykel

01:30 The Journey of Starting a Mushroom Company

04:08 Research and Benefits of Lion's Mane Mushroom

09:02 Lion's Mane and Its Impact on Sleep and Memory

10:40 Exploring Other Mushrooms: Reishi and Cordyceps

19:35 The Role of Turkey Tail and Gut Health

28:04 The Importance of Gut Health

29:19 Understanding Gut Testing and Probiotics

30:21 Root Causes of Health Issues

31:44 Exploring Turkey Tail Mushroom

33:07 Historical Use of Mushrooms in Medicine

35:26 Advancements in Mushroom Extraction

39:03 Sustainable Mushroom Cultivation

42:00 Quality Control in Mushroom Products

51:34 Benefits of Shiitake Mushroom

55:29 Bioavailability of Mushroom Products

59:22 Choosing Quality Mushroom Products

Transcript

[00:00:00.270] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Welcome to the Longevity Optimization podcast, where we discuss longevity, optimal health, nutrition, peak performance, cognitive excellence, and so much more. Julian, it is a pleasure to have you here today with me.

[00:00:13.790] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Kayla, I'm excited to chat with you. I listen to your podcast and learn a lot, so I'm happy to hopefully share some mushroom knowledge and biohacking tips today as well.

[00:00:22.790] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I love that. So today we're talking about Functional mushrooms, your company, life cycle. Correct, pronounce CYKEL, right? Yeah.

[00:00:30.590] - JULIAN MITCHELL

We made it hard for people to find us on Google the way we spelled it, C-Y-K-E-L. I know. But that was inspired by Northern Europe. That's how it's spelled in Scandinavia. That was C-K-E-L. And just because when we grow and extract everything, I'm starting to finish as vertically integrated, but also we just found that they're doing a lot of amazing things in Scandinavia when it comes to maternity leave, parental leave, when it comes to water quality. That was where the inspiration came from.

[00:00:57.450] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I love that. I think that they're one of the happiest countries countries. Is that right?

[00:01:00.900] - JULIAN MITCHELL

I think so, except for when it's winter, because it's dark there for a long time as well. But they're very resilient because of that. But in the summertime, it's a beautiful place.

[00:01:09.280] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I know. It's on my list of places to visit at some point soon. So I've been aware of your product for a long time. I mean, I don't even know how many years, but many. So I'm so excited to dive into, I've never done an episode before on mushrooms, the benefits. But before we get into all of that, just tell me a little bit about the roots of the company. What inspired you to start this company?

[00:01:30.650] - JULIAN MITCHELL

My background was elite sport in physical therapy. It's not in America, but physiotherapy. I worked in the Premier League in England. I was always fascinated working with the best athletes in the world and human performance. That was what always drove me as a kid and as a young adult. I worked in the Premier League for the Wolves. We played Manchester United and Chelsea and these things. I'm spending a bit of time learning from some mentors in Formula One at Red Bull and McLaren and then at Liverpool in Chelsea. That was the environment I grew up in, I guess, early Korea. From there, I was like, it was amazing, but I wasn't able to scale impact. You would work on one athlete at a time on his ankle, his knee, his back, and whatever else. You worked in a multidisciplinary environment, so you saw a lot of amazing psychologists and just all the inputs that are required. I guess from there, I had a quarter-life crisis. I'm like, I don't want to do that anymore, even though it was my dream job at the time. And so came back to Australia from England And from there started with a friend looking at what is the future of health and wellness 10 years ago?

[00:02:36.000] - JULIAN MITCHELL

At that time, the fake beet, the plant-based burger companies and things were popping off and CPD was popping off. And I was like, what else is going to happen Also, how do we have a positive impact? Because it wasn't really aligned with the plant-based burgers at that time and just all the ingredients and thought this is not the future. So how do we help create the future that we want to see in some small way? And the mushrooms, based on the literature at the time, was very compelling and at the time just felt that that market was going to grow and that also the current providers in the market weren't overly inspiring, if I'm honest. A lot of product comes from Asian countries and just wasn't that pure, and other products also weren't that pure either. We can talk about that in terms of starch levels and things in a third-party lab testing and things. We just thought, Okay, let's grow and extract our own products because in Australia, people love Australian growing and made. Now we have the US facility, so we grow and make proudly in the US as well. We just thought we wanted to do everything from start to finish.

[00:03:41.810] - JULIAN MITCHELL

We were on a mushroom journey. Literally, we started growing mushrooms in my girlfriend's kitchen at the time, nine years ago at her mom's place and in the vineyard in the salad downstairs. Many disasters of growing mushrooms. Then over time, we now have 20 full-time scientists, and we're a biotechnology company.

[00:04:03.310] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I love that. What was the initial research that got you most excited?

[00:04:08.070] - JULIAN MITCHELL

It was really around lions mane. Lion's mane, nerve growth factor, BTNF, ability to learn more in terms of memory consolidation. So rem sleep, early on, and also just around higher functioning because there was always an interest in performance. When it came to all the brands and companies that would pitch us, when I worked at the football club, the soccer club in England, it's just like, Hey, just make us something that works. We don't have a budget limitation. We work with athletes that are on £100,000 a week. They're premium machines that we want to give the best service to, whether it's device or supplement. A lot of the things were synthetic and just not natural, over-caffenated. To be able to find that sweet spot, because a lot of new tropics also, they can take you up and then drop you as well, and the short term, long long term benefits. And so finding things that were harmonious with the body. When it comes to Lion's Mane, we're doing some research right now, nine years later with University of Queensland Brain Institute on exactly that, BD&F, which we can just, for the people listening, brain derived neurotrophic factor.

[00:05:18.260] - JULIAN MITCHELL

20 years ago, we found out that this is essential for the brain health. I'm sure you know BD&F very well. We found out that it's almost like, think protein for the muscle. That's what BDF is for the brain. It's essential. Bdf levels are essential for memory, for functioning, for recall, for learning tasks, for decision making. The brain produces itself, but we cannot exogenously that something cannot get BDF into the brain. We haven't been able to find a peptide or anything that can actually deliver across the blood-brain barrier into the brain to improve BDF levels.

[00:05:57.260] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah, that's so important. How does The Lion's Mane do that? What's the mechanism?

[00:06:01.950] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Yeah, the mechanism, there's a couple of different pathways, but essentially it helps the brain to produce BDF. The Lion's Mane itself, it's called Heresium A, and this is a very new research that we're doing with the University of Queensland Brain Institute. I was there last week just getting our follow-up study results, which we're doing on our lion's mane extract just to go to this next level, I think because mushrooms in general have been very popular for the last few years and the research is out there, but we're not pushing deeply into the next layer of research, which I think is the next wave of mushrooms to really build that credibility. So heresium A, the lion's mane, the species name is hérésium eryneces or hérésium corolloides. There's two different strains. It's been a lot of research on the eryronesis, but also heresium A, this also helps support nerve growth factor in BD&F by crossing the blood-brain barrier, this compound, and helping the brain to produce BD&F. This is why it's so harmonious. Going back to that journey around taking things exogenously, taking caffeine and all these things that support the body, we're actually not... And taking protein exogenously in the form of protein powders, which can then support muscle development, actually with the brain, we're not able to do that exogenously in terms of ingest BD&F and have it produce BD&F for the brain.

[00:07:25.320] - JULIAN MITCHELL

A bit like the NAD scenario where you want the precursors more than you want actually NAD within the body or exogenously. That was the very starting point, and that's where the research is now. That's something we're very excited about. Lion's Mane is one of our most popular products because it's so instantaneous. What the UQ research has shown us with the Brain Institute there is that within 24 hours this is taking place. It's very immediate. You're getting neuronal outgrowth and neurite growth. Under microscope, you can see within 24 hours, if you imagine a tree with no branches or less branches, take lion's man, within 24 hours, that neuron has a number of outgrowth, a number of branches and trees. And so it's much healthier, which is, of course, to do with communications, neural networks, which supports the memory and the learning.

[00:08:14.780] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Would it be beneficial to take it? We can talk about the full protocol and dosing, but would it be beneficial to take it before exercise, since we know the exercise can also boost the BD&F?

[00:08:26.880] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Yeah. I mean, biostacking or stacking is, I think, essential in a busy life. So how do we get more bang for our buck as well within terms of time? So high-intensity exercise attached to lion's mane. We haven't done any studies on that per se, but it makes sense to be doing that as well as fasting as well. Fasting, high-intensity exercise attached to some lion's mane would be a triple win.

[00:08:50.460] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I love that. In the research that you're doing now, you see the new growth. Is that something that's sustained? Is the new neuronal growth sustained? Or of Of course, we want to continue taking it. But what is that looking like?

[00:09:02.600] - JULIAN MITCHELL

That's a good question. That will require more longer term studies to check back in six months, 12 months, 18 months later. But you definitely are getting memory consolidation from short term to long term in terms of the subjectivity of it, which is also attached to the rem sleep. The rem sleep, I guess if we are talking about that bio-stacking, the sleep is the other critical element to have. What we found with the rem sleep is that this is the dreaming phase and the lion's mane, because very early on, actually, Dave Asprey was the one that alerted us to this because he was taking lion's mane at night and measuring it with his aura ring at the time and said, My rem sleep is through the roof. Oh, yeah. Okay, that's really interesting because we'd never heard too much of that, little driplets of that, but it wasn't something that we'd been hearing. And so the Lion's Mane, when taken in the evening, supports rem sleep. Dreaming can be too much dreaming. Do you dream much?

[00:09:56.370] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Not a time that I remember. But I do get They call it rem sleep, so that's good. Yeah.

[00:10:02.060] - JULIAN MITCHELL

That can support the rem sleep, which we found with our athletes, is very good for reparation of concussions, microtraumas. We've got some professional surfers, some professional UFC fighters, some professional NFL players. They really like taking up for that newer inflammation. So if we're repairing the brain. If they've had a heavy knock at training or a sparring session, that's where it really supports that.

[00:10:28.880] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I love that. In terms of performance benefits, immediate, I think I've heard it can boost them. Mental clarity and focus. Is that a benefit of lion's mane or maybe another mushroom? Exactly.

[00:10:39.760] - JULIAN MITCHELL

That was something we were getting a lot of subjective feedback on. There were Testimonials, reviews were very strong around the focus, the clarity, the removal of brain fog, which, of course, is important post-pregnancy for women, for young students, for young professionals, for people as we're getting older, we're getting mild cognitive impairment. What was really interesting about the UQ stuff is that they did a recent study where actually BD&F levels are dropping off, a bit like NAD. It's dropping off as we get older. It's a key metric of brain health and ability to learn as we get older. Those BD&F levels are that metric that's essential, and that's something that the lines made with the athletes is supporting, which then carries over to memory, learning, focus, mental clarity, mental sharpness. They're those subjective things that we're hearing, but it's like, Where's that coming from? It's important, I think, for us to have that BD&F as a metric and as a marker of how is our extract performing on a physiological level.

[00:11:41.250] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I love that. Is there a ramp up phase? Do you take it right away, you feel the benefits, or you take it over a course of a few days, and then you'll feel more of the benefit?

[00:11:51.330] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Yeah. With the Lion's Man, we recommend a 4, 3, or a 5, 2. Four days on, three days off, five days on, two days off, to not become desensitized to it as well because it's a bit like caffeine. If you're taking it every day, it is a performance enhancer. You can lose that performance benefit because of those receptors becoming a little bit blunt to it. That's what we recommend, 4, 3, Five, two lines main, but those benefits are quite immediate. The very first time I took the lines, I'm like, Wow, I was so sensitive at that time. I was like, I don't think we can sell this because I was fasting at the time. I was just like, wow, I could feel it very immediate, and the clarity was amazing. But over time, that can diminish a small amount, but you can reset these receptors by having a flushing period. Four weeks on, one week off, four days on, three days off, five days on, two days off. Any of those are fine. But to be honest, from my personal feeling, I think that's what we should be doing for most supplements.

[00:12:50.610] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah. I'm always reevaluating what I'm taking and why and cycling. Same thing with, like you said, peptides. That's something that you definitely want to cycle as well. That's so interesting. So lion's mane is obviously probably one of the most popular, well known, I suppose, in the mushroom families. But you guys use quite a few other types of mushrooms, right? Can we talk a little bit about those?

[00:13:13.480] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Yeah, lion's mane, just because it's so immediate and it's sexy. Lion is very sexy animal in the sense of the alpha positioning and the hunter and the protector and all of those things. The next sexiest one, but also in terms of immediate benefits, would be reishi, which works at the other spectrum really of sleep. Now, it's an adaptogen, so you can take it in the morning. I think for women and females, the reviews that we get, that's probably their favorite one because it's really grounding and centering and in a busy life managing cortisol levels are essential, especially for female hormonal health. You can speak to that. But Reishi for that, I think, is why we get so many female reviews. But on top of that, for both sexes, sleep is essential. It gives you a deeper, longer sleep. It just helps you get back to sleep. We've even had a lot of mothers and fathers report with newborns, it's like to get back to sleep, they have the ratio on their bear side table because it's not like a melatonin where you get this hangover It's not like other sleep supplements that it's just a bit too strong.

[00:14:20.150] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Again, it's about being harmonious with the body. I think that's where biohacking in general is heading. If you push too much outside of optimum, because the body is always trying to stay within optimum ranges, whether it's PH, whether it's temperature, whether it's all these things. If you push too extreme, there's probably a little bit of a payback that takes place. But if you're just nudging those zones with the reisha mushroom and sleep, you wake up feeling great. It's not addictive. You can take it ongoing. That's definitely number two in terms of managing cortisol levels, sleep, stress.

[00:14:54.490] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Is the reisha also able to pass the blood-brain barrier?

[00:14:58.550] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Is that how it's working? It's more acting It's called the hypothelmic pituitary axis. It is going and helping there in terms of cortisol levels with managing that, so the HPA axis. It is acting on the nervous system, but not directly on the cerebrium and the brain as much as the lion's mane. So you weren't more a whole body, I think, in terms of the subjective feeling of what you get.

[00:15:25.810] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I love that. Going back to the lion's mane, actually, because I just remembered, I think that's where I first heard of your company was because of Dave's blog post about the deep sleep. What was he saying? Where was he at with his deep in rem sleep? And then what was he getting with your product, do you recall?

[00:15:42.160] - JULIAN MITCHELL

This was some years ago, pre-COVID, but really, I can't remember the exact numbers. I can't remember what he sent over, but it was profound. It was profound. The first way without even measuring it that you know that is from you recall your your dreams, recalling your dreams in the morning, which dips into the esoteric a little bit, but at the same time, there's a lot of science out there around that, and we're interested in doing a lot more research around that. But that's one of the subjective ways I guess we knew early on that we had a potent product was people were calling their dreams. For myself, I don't take the lansman in the evening because I dream too much then. I take it in the morning. I wake up and I'm like, Well, I was just in a movie.

[00:16:25.960] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Wow. Yeah.

[00:16:28.720] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Dave was one of the first, and he's one of the first at a number of things. He's very early into things, collagen and the likes of many others. It was great to get that feedback from him. Then that's when he reached out and said, Hey, let's get on the podcast and tell me more about this.

[00:16:43.130] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I love that. Okay, so Lion's Mane, and then we'll talk about all the protocols, but it seems like you can take the Lion's Mane in the morning for focus and cognition, or you can take it at night. Can you do both?

[00:16:54.050] - JULIAN MITCHELL

You can do both. Yeah. It's a smaller dose at 2: 00 in the morning is a standard dose, and then 1: 00 in In the evening, I recommend, and we recommend if you're a high-performing athlete and you have a very rigorous schedule, then we have other protocols for that. I have a higher dose. You want to share a few? Sure. For some of the UST fighters, if they're in fight camp or NFL players in season, it's more like three to four mil of lion's mane. I remember when we went on Dave's podcast, he took nine droppers of cordyceps. He's like, Okay, I'm ready to run a marathon. I'm ready to make love. I'm ready to be active with my body. My body feels active because it was sitting, obviously, he wanted to move. He's like, This is probably my upper limit. It was interesting learning that from Dave, that to test things, he'll push things to a higher dose and titrate back from that and he's a bigger guy as well, so that makes sense. With the fighters, bigger guys as well, we're not talking about sitting at a desk and thinking about blog posts and things.

[00:17:57.420] - JULIAN MITCHELL

We're talking about getting in an octagon with someone and needing to make split decisions before you get punched in the face. Yeah, of course. Or an NFL player as well. That rapid decision making, we just recommend a high alliance main dose, which for the everyday person can be great also. If they've really got something on, like you were giving talks in Switzerland and things of that nature.

[00:18:19.040] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I wonder if there's any protective benefits for the brain. For example, if you do hyperbaric oxygen therapy prior to a boxing match, it can have some beneficial protective mechanisms? Is that something you guys are looking at off?

[00:18:33.230] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Haven't looked at it. That's a great question. We know that these compounds are essential, the BD&F, the NGF, and we know that neuroinflammation aspect of the lion's Again, so a lot of the guys were taking it protectively after. They noticed that would help decrease the feeling of that fogginess if they had a head knock, which is an element of it. But we can get overwhelmed with There's so much research and so many exciting elements to push. We're just titrating that, I guess. But this is the whole last time of research to be done on mushrooms.

[00:19:09.640] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah, I love that. I love that. Well, you have to keep me up to date because that would be exciting in addition to all the other exciting benefits. We talked about Lion's Mane. We have that for cognition, focus, the boost of BD&F, and potentially sleep, it seems like. Then the Reishi is good for cortisol management, reducing your stress and helping also with sleep. What else? What's next?

[00:19:35.460] - JULIAN MITCHELL

I mean, I'll just go in terms of the crowd favorites because we want instantaneous wins to build trust because sometimes in the supplement space, we can go, I'm taking this. I don't know if it's doing something. I guess that's part of supplement 3. 0 or 4. 0 is more testing, but it's also subjectively being more intuitive with like, Does this work for me? Because turkey Hoshitaki are wonderful mushrooms, have amazing benefits. We can talk about those two, but they're less sexy because it's a longer lead time into feeling those benefits. The next one really is the corticep's mushroom, which is probably the opposite end to the to the reishi because it's a morning mushroom. It's an activation mushroom. It acts on increasing ATP levels in the mitochondria. It's amazing. It's VO₂ max and expanding that, expanding the ability for oxygen to get across the blood barrier and into the lungs and that transfusion to take place. The cordyceps for long-term energy rather than that pick up with the caffeine and that crash and that adrenal fatigue. Another thing for your audience and something that the female community really can, I think, are more sensitive to is caffeine.

[00:20:50.690] - JULIAN MITCHELL

I just know that from personal experience with friends and loved ones in terms of caffeine and that hype and that drop off, I think females are more sensitive, and so I think that's where quarter steps is really a much smoother ride. You're getting that 4-6 hour energy. Traditionally, it was used a lot in endurance sport. Cyclists, runners, swimmers, and then now it's carrying over into, Hey, it's a very nice afternoon product to have a smooth ride, not to affect adrenals, not to affect sleep, not to keep you awake at night. Energy levels in the athletes as well, if they're training twice a day, they've got an afternoon session, they use corticeps. That's the next sexiest, sexier mushroom that I think is very relevant in a caffeine-fueled society.

[00:21:42.760] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah, absolutely. How is it helping to improve VO2 max.

[00:21:46.960] - JULIAN MITCHELL

It's really the ability to allow oxygen to pass over into the blood easier. It makes that membrane and that adenosine triaphosphate allows those levels just to, one, replicate It's better in the mitochondria, but then the oxygen to be more permeable.

[00:22:05.230] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I love that. I mean, mitochondrial dysfunction is such a big problem right now. I think that this is something that should be on everybody's mind. The mitochondria is just impactful on every single thing. That's really exciting that you can get those benefits as well.

[00:22:20.500] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Yeah. Yeah. Mitocondrial health, mitochondrial dysfunction, metabolic health. Very key things that we need to be talking more about and understanding. It was talking a bit about the education system of the medical system. I think these are key curriculum concepts for us to understand, which I think is why probably Levels, such a great brand, is doing so well, because the instantaneous feedback on metabolic health through the simple thing of blood sugar levels.

[00:22:50.050] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah. My friend is one of the cofounders, Dr. Casey. She's crushing it right now. She's just on Rogan. Her and her brother, they're a great duo because he He was originally lobbying for Coca-Cola, and then now he completely turned the other way. She was a stamp for a trained physician surgeon, and she's really gone against the system. Here in America, we have so many issues with our food system and these additives and preservatives. I'll be excited to talk about your process, too. But yeah, that's great. But people love instantaneous feedback. Everyone always asks me, what supplements are you taking? That's great, but there's unfortunately not a supplement that's going to outperform high-quality sleep, exercise, getting sun, moving your body, drinking high-quality water. I love all of this as an addition on top of the pillars of health. But we live in a society where people just want to take the easy route, unfortunately, and want something that they can take and make all these massive changes. I love the combo of doing all the things, really. It's really that's what it takes to achieve optimal health.

[00:24:00.610] - JULIAN MITCHELL

That's what we saw when I was in the Premier League. We had every gadget under the sun, we had everything. When you're at extreme levels and want an extreme results, you want to get a ham string or a groin injury back in two weeks instead of six, which it typically takes, then you need to go to those lengths for sure. But for the everyday person who is leaning into longevity and health, which is the majority of people, because we can get caught in our bubbles of the 10% population and geek out, which we can do all day, which is amazing and fun. But for us as a company as well, it was like, Okay, well, how do we find that sweet spot so we can have mass impact? It is that element of those mushrooms like lion's mane, quadriceps, reishi, they build trust very quickly, the people go, Wow, that works. I noticed we can tell it. Then from there, Okay, what does Toki Tau do? What does Shitaki do? What does Chaga do? It's how we've mapped out how to go about it with the consumer and build trust. Once you of their trust, then a friendship or relationship, then you can do so much more and you can go on a longer journey.

[00:25:06.610] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah, absolutely. I wonder if there would be a combination or a stacking with the Cordyceps and red light therapy to even pick up the mitochondrial benefits more.

[00:25:17.660] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Yeah, that's very exciting because you think of Methylane Blue with red light therapy. It's like, Well, why not add Cordyceps as well? Because we know it's having effect on ADP and ATP.

[00:25:29.460] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll have to try it soon.

[00:25:31.690] - JULIAN MITCHELL

You let us know. Then I'll let you. You let us know. Please document.

[00:25:34.250] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Hi, guys. I'm going to interrupt this episode for a brief announcement. As you may or may not know, I started a community for females by females, and it's a female longevity optimization community. This is a place that you can connect with like-minded women. We are all here to support each other, and there's a variety of different benefits to being a member. You get a monthly Ask Me Anything, so submit your questions, and I'll answer them directly. We also have an entire library of courses on all of the important components of longevity, such as labs, nutrition, exercise, sleep optimization, longevity optimization protocols that I'm doing, along with real-time updates to my personal protocols. There are so many benefits of being a member of the community. We'll also be doing in-person live events here in California and virtual events for anyone that can't attend. But if you're interested in joining the community, I would absolutely love to see you there, and I will include a link in the show notes. Okay, great. So we talked about Cordyceps. What is the next one?

[00:26:37.320] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Turkey tail, the gut-brain axis when it comes to mood, when it comes to anxiety, when it comes to just overall feeling things of happiness that's so important. Our serotonin, our immune system is largely produced in our gut. And so how we feel and how our immune response. Of course, cortisol levels, when high, turn off your immune response very quickly, and then we start to get a little bit sick. When it comes to IVS, when it comes to other issues within the gut, we know that Turcatel has two compounds, PSK and PSP. C, long-form polysaccharide peptide and polysaccharide chresitin. These two compounds are very good at upregulating the immune system, the natural killer cells are very good at increasing and harmonizing good gut bacteria. That carries over into more serotonin and a stronger immune response.

[00:27:35.230] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I love that. That's definitely something everybody needs. I always do this obscene amount of testing every quarter, but I always tell people, I mean, after probably a genetics test, just one time in your life, get a gut test because the gut is so impactful on everything that we do, specifically, mood. I often think about a standard American diet, for example. And then we know when we have the understanding of how important the gut is, and then we have the understanding that mental health issues are the number one disability worldwide right now. I mean, I just encourage people to think about what you're putting into your gut because if you can't treat your body like a trash can and put this horrible food inside of it, and then expect your brain to operate in a good way. So I love that that really helps with the mood because this is so important these days and it really can help with gut-brain access. That's so exciting.

[00:28:35.060] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Yeah. That was one of the problems. It's probably been most largely studied is the Tukutel mushroom, the Trimini's versicula, for a number of other things as well. I think Paul Stanler has done research around breast cancer, and that was a very early on piece. But the amazing thing about the mushrooms is that each one, all of them for immunity are amazing, first and foremost, but then they have their own little superpowers like Marvel characters. Mind, brain, corticeps, lung health and energy, ratio to sleep, and the cortisol levels, and the turkey tail, that gut element. We say happy gut, happy life. That's in very simple terms what the turkey tail can do for you. But of course, not a silver bullet, and there's the other elements to it. You mentioned around gut testing. What would you recommend there?

[00:29:19.660] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

So I do a test called the GI-Fx. It's by a company called Genova. I'm not sure if it's available in all countries, but definitely here in the US. But it's just one of the most comprehensive tests that you can look at essentially all the different bacterias in your gut, and then you can see what is in dysbiosis, right? Because a lot of people also want to just... Probiotics are so popular, which is great, but I like everything when it comes to targeted and bioindividuality, it's like what levels are low that you need to boost up with targeted probiotics? What levels are too high of bad bacteria? You need to bring those down. The gut is so complicated. Human beings are so complicated. We know So not very much about how this entire system works. I mean, we're learning a lot more, but overall, I mean, we're still really figuring a lot of things out because it's so, so complex. But if you improve your gut health, that can have a big impact on your hormones. It can have a big impact on your mood, your skin. I mean, a variety of different things.

[00:30:21.420] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Yeah, that's the biggest one, really, isn't it? It's the skin. It's just a lot of the time a reflection of gut health. Yeah.

[00:30:30.750] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

It's such an interesting market of all the products just to put on the skin. I think that they can be supportive, but anyone that comes to me and is like, Oh, I have acne. What should I do? I might get a gut test. Fix your gut, and then your acne is probably going to go away. There's a few things it could be. But everything is a... If you have a symptom or an issue, it's a symptom of something going on inside. I love... What excites me most about this industry is figuring things out. What is the root cause of this? What is the root cause of autoimmune? Or what is the root cause of high blood pressure, migraines, whatever the ailment may be? It's like, let's look deeper. I'm excited. I hope that our system catches up to that because the type of medicine we do in our clinic, we call it, obviously, bioindividual, but it's precision medicine, too. It's like, let's figure out why you're having this issue so that we can then give you the right supplements and the right therapies and the right protocol to optimize your health.

[00:31:30.980] - JULIAN MITCHELL

So very exciting. We can't be giving it a blanket approach.

[00:31:34.730] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

It just doesn't work because everyone is so different. So anyways. Okay, so we have turkey tail. Anything else that everyone should know about turkey tail?

[00:31:44.320] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Just those two, really. Immune system, gut health, mood, feelings of overwhelmed, feelings of anxiety, feelings of those elements that come with everyday life. In a modern life, turkey tail is supportive. But if there are any digestive, bloating issues, it's quite immediate for that. That's great. Where that cohort of customer swear by it and would choose that over Lion's Mane because it has such an immediate effect for them. But if you're not having any of those bloating gut, issues, then it's the mood element.

[00:32:18.850] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I love that. Why is it called turkey tail?

[00:32:22.110] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Have you seen many mushrooms?

[00:32:23.820] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I've definitely seen lion's mane, so I get that one.

[00:32:26.630] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Yeah, some of them look as they pronounced, and the lion's mane is one of those in the turkey tail, which we don't have turkeys in Australia, so it wasn't as obvious for us. But that's a turkey's tail, but it does look in terms of the fan shape and the color. That one. Yeah. It's probably one of the most common that grows wild across North America, across Australia.

[00:32:49.520] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Real quick, to go back to the origin or roots of mushrooms. Obviously, they've been around for an extremely long time. I'm just not educated on this topic very well or deeply, but were people using them for these medicinal reasons in the past?

[00:33:07.210] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Yeah. At that point, mostly it's a traditional Chinese medicine. When I was in China, in Beijing, and Shanghai, and other cities, you would go to the temples, and there's artwork. They're in the old temples, and they would have in traditional Chinese medicine, reishi's known as the mushroom of immortality, the queen of mushrooms. It's funny, but it's called the queen of mushrooms and the mushroom of immortality. It does resonate more with the female cohort because I think it connects more to their energy. On an energetic level, there's those elements. I think traditional Chinese medicine is great at connecting both of those elements of the rational mind and the practical and then that It's a collective feeling. So, yeah, traditional Chinese medicine was really leading that space. The Rashi mushroom, you can find painted everywhere. You can go to the pharmacies in China, and they will just have mushrooms, raw mushrooms in all their form, herbs in all their form. Of course, Western ways and new ways of pharmacies exist more so now, and it's harder to find those pharmacies in China. But that was when we went there eight years ago, doing some research and connecting with researchers and farmers and things there.

[00:34:18.530] - JULIAN MITCHELL

That was where it really connected us to that history of mushrooms. But across the world, across Chaga in Scandinavia, Chaga in Siberia and Russia. A lot of great research for Chaga comes out of Russia, and it's so much a part of their everyday, even now. Other mushrooms. I mean, the psychedelic mushrooms grow on every continent in the world in that. Listening to Joe Rogan or Alan Watts and things and the Stone Ape Theory, there's all these different theories about mushrooms and human consciousness and mushrooms and immunity. That It was very interesting, and I think it's gone just going on that next level of journey as we evolve with technology, as we evolve with AI and these elements. It's, okay, well, how do we evolve with something that's been with us all this time, and how do we make sure it fits into our lifestyle now. That's partly why we believe a lot in liquid extracts over the powder form. As technology evolves, what is the main thing that we're wanting when we take consumer supplement is bioavailability, is absorption. This is the ultimate currency of anything we're putting in our body. We've done studies with our lion's mane liquid extract, first lion's mane powder in the market with the University of Queensland last year, and it showed that our lion's mane liquid extract was seven times more effective within the first 24 hours in terms of improving BD&F, in terms of its neural outgrowth.

[00:35:53.300] - JULIAN MITCHELL

That's, I think, a part of the duty of biotech supplement companies going forward is bioavailability. Those roots of mushrooms and how they were taken in those days, they didn't have the facilities and the technology and the ability to test things. We know that they work, but then how do we get another 5, 10, 15 20% bioavailability out of those products is where we love hanging out.

[00:36:22.000] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah, I love that. Were they originally eating the mushrooms more or getting it from the root?

[00:36:29.880] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Anecdotally, and in what we've read and what we've come across, it was a lot in tease, hot water. So it was hot water extraction because Reishi mushroom, you cannot eat. Turkey tail mushroom, you cannot eat. They're not enjoyable to eat. Cordyceps, here and there. I mean, Corseps is also known as Tobet and Viagra, so it's great for libido. That's actually something that came to us from one of Dave's team members, actually, who conceived, and she's like, I swear it's the corticep. I just started taking corticeps, and I conceived and I've been trying for some time. These are subjective elements. But when you get them ongoing, which is what happened with the lions, we're like, Okay, we need to study this. That's where we're heading now. Lion's Mane has been the first cub off the rank, but then Rashi research Quartisept research is important to us. But in teas is how you would consume those. Of course, you can cook Lion's Mane. It's known as lobster of the woods. It has a lobster taste to it. For the vegetarian plant-based community, that was always very popular. That's why mushrooms really feel a void to some extent.

[00:37:35.950] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Other than that, Cordyceps, no, you wouldn't really cook. It's nice in a tea, but the hot water and the ethanol extraction for us is the optimum because you're getting the polysaccharides, the beta-glucans, you're getting all of the compounds. It's a dual extract, and in some cases you can do a triple extract. But just doing a single extract, which is just the hot water, which is all they would have had access to a long time ago as, I guess, version one as well of taking mushrooms. But even then, you still get the benefits. A water extract of chaga. Again, chaga is this rocky, strong piece of bark or a chunk that's sitting on the side of a tree. Have you ever seen shaga mushroom? I can't think of a visual of my- If you walk past it in Alaska or where it grows in very cold climates on birch trees, you wouldn't even know it's a mushroom. Oh, wow. So it's very discreet. It just blends into the tree. It's getting nutrients from the tree, from the birch tree. We know the birch tree is very medicinal. It's been used in native medicines for having in teas for different compounds.

[00:38:40.780] - JULIAN MITCHELL

And so the shaga mushroom is, I guess, harvesting some of those nutrients and robotically working with that tree and sharing nutrients. But that in hot water tea can be quite delicious. But again, practicality-wise, you got to extract these in hot water for 4-8 hours to get the benefits. And so Yeah, finding that convenience element with extracts helps.

[00:39:03.670] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Definitely. I mean, yeah, that's quite a bit of work. Can you walk us through the process? Because I don't know too much about this extraction process. You guys grow your own mushrooms? Yeah.

[00:39:14.040] - JULIAN MITCHELL

We the Shaga mushroom. So the tiger mushroom, we haven't been able to learn how to grow, but also I think there's a beauty in also wild harvesting the chaga mushroom. Sustainably, of course, is important. But that's one that grows on the birch trees. So you can plant a birch forest and you can wait 10 years, and that's one way to grow Shaga mushroom. We know that the longer the Shaga sits on the tree, the better the compounds as well. It's like aged wine and aged elements that adds a more medicinal element to it. Shaga, we don't grow. The lion's man, we grow the Cordyceps, the reji, the turkey tail, the shittaki, a mix of open air, outdoor log growing and indoor growing in our facility just outside of Green Bay.

[00:39:58.710] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

And as a mushroom, does it come from a seed or how do you start growing them?

[00:40:03.600] - JULIAN MITCHELL

The sustainable aspect is amazing because you can just take a culture from a mushroom. If you see the turkey tail mushroom in nature. So all of our strains come originally from nature, where we get the first culture, and then we cut just a small microscopic element that we can put on a culture plate. We protect that, make sure it's not contaminated, take it to the lab. From that one spore, that one When we cut out, we can grow infinite amount of mushrooms over time. We then transfer it from the culture dish. We allow it to grow out on the petri dish. This white mass, the mycelium, so you've probably heard of the word mycelium and fruiting body. The The green body is the orange and the mycelium is the tree, if you like. Both have medicinal elements. We grow the mycelium out on the petri dish, and then we put it into jars, and then we put it into a liquid culture. Then from that one petri dish, we can expand that out 100 times. Then we just take another element and then we expand it again. There is an element of senescence, which means that culture will get weaker after a time of replication, and so you have to start that It's a process again.

[00:41:16.150] - JULIAN MITCHELL

But in terms of sustainability, that was really what started the company as well. It was like, what's sustainable as well and practical? If we talk about regenerative agriculture and sustainability and how we make sure we keep this life cycle annoying. For future generations, mushrooms tick so many boxes. No pesticides can be growing in small environments. They're not invasive on large elements of not monoculture crops where you've got to tear down ecosystems. It can Harmoniously, our turkey tail and our shiitaki grow on logs in the forests.

[00:41:48.720] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Nice.

[00:41:49.580] - JULIAN MITCHELL

It's very harmonious. From that petri dish to the jars to the fruiting bodies, either on the logs or on the sawdust bags, and then harvest it to harvest the fruiting body of the mushroom. Then we'll grow the mycelium as well. The key with the mycelium is that you remove the grain and the starch. People say, Oh, you don't want mycelium in your product. You don't want starch and grain in your product. What I mean by that is like blended rice, blended grain. Now, very sadly, within the mushroom space, there's a lot of that in products on shelves today where people are blending up the mycelium with the grains still attached. We've done third-party lab testing on a lot of products and the numbers. This has armrest, so it's good. But if you see the numbers, you'd probably fall off your chair. They're quite disappointing in terms of how much grain can be in mushroom products. When we started and we looked at the CPD space nine years ago, and we've seen that journey go, why has it not gone to its full potential? I think element of that is because there were so many inferior products coming into the market that, again, people lost trust.

[00:43:01.200] - JULIAN MITCHELL

People lost trust in CPD. People lost trust in a good brand. There's many good brands out there, but there's more terrible brands out there jumping on it. That's why we're investing a lot in research. That's why we love to do everything from start to finish so we can have a transparent product, so we can have a transparent supply chain, so we can oversee that with our team of scientists. We've got nanotechnology, biotechnology, food science, chemistry, QAs, all of those things within our internal team to make sure that we're growing and extracting the best product. And across that process of growing the mycelium, of growing the fruiting body, there's best times to harvest for maximum output of compounds. Yeah. And so, yeah, that's the nerdy side of the business That's not the social media side, but the side that we love and really has separated us a lot. What I mean by that is working with NFL teams, having teams like the 49ers as a customer of ours. Their whole organization buys product from us. A lot of USA fighters, NBA players, so many athletes are taking our product. For me, being a physio on the other side, that's a nice reassurance to know that, hey, they're choosing the product because they feel the benefits.

[00:44:13.190] - JULIAN MITCHELL

That growing process is critical to that. The science team are doing an amazing job of that.

[00:44:19.550] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I love that. And I agree. I think everyone listening to this show, I only ever talk about or have people on. I think that they have a very high-quality product. So I think having A to Z of the growing process is so important so that you have a really good understanding of what's going on and where it's coming from. I'm just curious, but how do mushrooms grow in the wild? They just pop up out of the tree or does a part fall onto another tree? How does it work?

[00:44:45.580] - JULIAN MITCHELL

It's very interesting. Because the fungai kingdom is so large, so many mushrooms grow in so many different ways. And it's just so adaptive and intelligent. I think the first thing to award mushrooms with is their intelligence levels and their ability to adapt to their environment. So in some cases, the general consensus and understanding for a lot of mushrooms is high humidity helps a lot. Post-rain, they sit dormant for a long time. So the mycelium is beneath us at all times. Alive, aware, it's known as the Internet of the underground. It connects all living things. There's that beautiful spiritual element to it and story to it. It's always there. But when the environment is right, and also by right, I mean threatened. It sees an opportunity, but it sees a threat, and so it must reproduce. When you see a fruiting body, the mushroom above ground, the mushroom on the log, we're getting ready for reproduction because the fruiting body releases its spores. It releases millions of spores, seeds, which then allow the species to continue. That fruiting body happens at the right time based on understanding that that tree can no longer serve it, and so therefore it needs to reproduce and move on.

[00:46:07.490] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Or after lightning, a lot of the time after lightning, mushrooms will pop up. After rain, it will pop up as well. There are times where the mushrooms will reproduce. When you see them in nature, it's gone on a long journey of being underground, being in the form of mycelium, just this white thread-like fiber. If you know what you're looking for when it comes to mycelium and you're in the forest, you'll see it everywhere.

[00:46:30.030] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Well.

[00:46:30.720] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Also, going back to agriculture, chatting to a lot of farmers, I grew up in the country in the farming environment. And so far older farmers will say, as a kid, I was picking mushrooms in the field all the time. So mushrooms and fungai are a sign of a very healthy ecosystem. When mushrooms are not present, the soil is not great. Soil is not diverse. The soil has been sprayed, it's been tilled, it's been monocultured. That's another element to it is that mushrooms, when you see mushrooms, you should smile because it's nature is happy, nature is healthy. I love that.

[00:47:08.690] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

The mushrooms are not meeting with another mushroom, right? It's just creating spores?

[00:47:12.710] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Exactly. There's no mating I mean, the quarter-sets mushroom gets a bad rap. The Last of Us didn't help that with Netflix because the quarter-sets mushroom was taking over people. I didn't ever actually watch it, but just comments that I saw and things that, I'm not taking quarter-sets mushroom because they can take over bugs and things like that. I'm not sure if you've ever seen that on discovery shows and things of that nature as well. But the cortisets mushroom will… The insects, not people, the insect will ingest the spores A lot of the time unknowingly, from our understanding, because the spores are so microscopic. Then the cortisets mushroom will myceliate within the insect and then fruit from the insect's body. It's quite… Nature has a beautiful, brutal side to reality. If you think of Africa and you think of animals in the wild, but the mushroom, to survive, uses the host's body for essentially energy and to then grow the fruiting body. That's one way. We don't grow our Cordyceps that way. We grow our on the sawdust. Again, the thing about mushrooms being so adaptable and ingestible. Adaptable is that they can grow on so many things.

[00:48:30.120] - JULIAN MITCHELL

We've done a number of research trials with mushrooms growing on waste for waste management. It's another area we have some interest in. You can grow mushrooms on a lot of things in terms of they can feed off of a lot of different elements. Humans, I guess, We know what we need, proteins, fats, carbohydrates to some extent. Mushrooms can consume so many different medias.

[00:48:54.350] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Wow. So interesting. Also interesting. Plants have the ability to regenerate and It's actually like you're just taking a piece of it off and then creating spores, and it keeps regenerating itself. It's very interesting, unlike humans and most animals. But I find that quite fascinating.

[00:49:11.920] - JULIAN MITCHELL

I mean, the whole human history and history of existence, fungai, I think it was here before us and will be here long after us because of its ability to be adaptable and just adapt to environments and ingest different foods and mediaes. Again, it lives underground per cubic meter. Across the world, you'll find mycelium wherever there's healthy soil.

[00:49:39.270] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

How far underground?

[00:49:41.270] - JULIAN MITCHELL

That's a good question. I mean, a lot in the top soil because that's where it's coming out. That's where it's fruiting. Deeper levels, that's a great question.

[00:49:50.570] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

All right. Okay. Well, going back to how that we've established how the mushrooms grow.

[00:49:56.950] - JULIAN MITCHELL

You can lost in the mushroom world, can't you? In terms of the stories and actually how it's harmonious with life.

[00:50:03.980] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I mean, yeah, I like to know a lot about a topic and how they're growing. It's so important. Before we move on to the rest of the mushrooms, when it comes to lab testing and things of that nature, what is your company doing and what are you looking for?

[00:50:17.040] - JULIAN MITCHELL

I mean, it's all the essentials, isn't it? Batch testing. We're an informed sport, so that's why our athletes are able to take our mushrooms and be trusting that process because they don't want to have anything in it that's not compliant. With a number of supplements has been the case for professional athletes where there's been trace elements from another batch at another manufacturer that's got into that product because they didn't wash or clean or change over like they should have. Then that athlete has been banned for six months, 12 months. So informal Sports is a very important one for us. These guys are a third party. They test every batch of our products. They test it randomly. They'll pick it off shelves, and then they will go batch test it themselves. Heavy metals, pesticides. We do amino acid profiles. We We're very thorough. We have our lab reports on our website, so it's all transparent. You can go to our website, you can see our lab reports, you can see our UQ studies around our university work. Again, at the front-end, we're on social media and we market things and we tell stories about what we do because we're passionate about that.

[00:51:19.110] - JULIAN MITCHELL

It's important to connect people to the brand. At the back end, yes, we have 20 scientists working ferociously to innovate, and I think that's the key. We want to be an innovative company.

[00:51:29.930] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah, so important. Okay, what other mushrooms do we need to reveal?

[00:51:34.940] - JULIAN MITCHELL

What have we left out? The Chaga and the Shittaki mushroom. So both aspects have a beauty element to them. Shittaki mushroom, traditionally cardiovascular health, traditionally immune system. But again, subjectively, what we found was hair, skin, and nails. Even as a male, you have to shave more often when you're taking Shittaki mushroom. It grows much faster, it goes much thicker. For females, it's the thickness of hair. Nails, subjectively, again, you won't notice it overnight, but over a 7-20 day period, your nails will grow much thicker and much stronger and much faster. Then the skin as well, we call it the shittaki shine because a lot of people talk about collagen. We know collagen is amazing and essential for us. The other one is elastin, the elasticity, the firmness of our skin. So sun damage, UV damage can trigger elastase. Elastase breaks down the elasticity of your skin as well as aging. The elastase is more active. The shiitaki mushroom helps support inhibiting elastase and the activity of elastase. We want collagen to do all the amazing things for it, and we actually want shiitaki to help inhibit the elastase and slow down that process. It is a beauty mushroom.

[00:52:47.830] - JULIAN MITCHELL

It has, again, those immune benefits. It's delicious. People know it mostly in Asian dishes, but you're not getting the concentration that you want to have those physiological benefits, which I think is another key element of supplementation. It's Because a lot of people always ask us, do an all-in-one. We probably will do an all-in-one. It's a nice entry level, but there's a certain dose that you need to hit for it to enter the cells, to get the bioavailability, to get the effect. And Absolutely. That's where shiitaki mushroom is. Yeah, hair, skin, and nails, immunity. It's a delicious mushroom, but cardiovascular health as well. It has sterols in it. So sterols are very good for heart health. It's got lentanin. Lentanin is very good for the health of hair and the health of blood vessels as well.

[00:53:35.210] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I love that. Are you taking all of these every day and then breaks? But is it okay to combine all of them?

[00:53:42.100] - JULIAN MITCHELL

You can definitely combine them all. It depends on the journey you want to go on, some people take one to build that trust with the fun guy kingdom and the mushroom world. That's where we say, Hey, try a lion's man. It's Rashi because it's quite instantaneous. The shiitaki mushroom, of course, is a big winner for beauty, males and females. But in terms of our best selling, it's the Biohacker set because it's A to Z. Because tapping into convenience, what we're talking about on this podcast can be very overwhelming. I'm trying to keep it condensed and simple for people just to lean into mushrooms and build that trust. But the Biohacker set for us covers everything A to Z within the fun guy world with all five mushrooms. That's been our most popular. But in terms of when you're taking them, we've got a protocol within the set, AM, PM. The shiitaki mushroom is best just to keep in your bathroom. Then you're adding it to your brushing, your flossing, your beauty routine. You're adding it to your water than your tea in the evening, putting it straight under your mouth. The Cordyceps and the Lion's Mane, keep next to your coffee machine.

[00:54:53.260] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Because selling to some biohackers, it's great wisdom. It's like the best supplements to take are the The ones that you take. I'm probably guilty of that. I've got so many things that I've been given and tried and I'm interested in testing and I haven't given it the proper go to know in some cases or I've fallen off because maybe I just didn't have that intuitive feeling that it was working enough. Condensing that down, that supplement coming that down is a great thing as well. Just keeping it simple with the set allows people to go, Okay, those two now, those two now, those two now. My mushrooms are done. I know what I'm doing.

[00:55:29.770] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

What makes the product? I know we talked briefly about it, but the powder versus the tincture. Why is the tincture so much more bioavailable?

[00:55:37.180] - JULIAN MITCHELL

We know as naturopaths and herbalists, bioavailability always is in liquid form superior. It's gone through one less process in terms of spray drying. There's one less mechanized process that's taking place, but it also just adapts better to the bioavailability of getting into the bud stream. You can take it straight under your tongue as well. This is the optimal way to have it, where our sublingals have so much vascularization, there's so many blood vessels there that it's getting straight in. Because when we think about that, how are we absorbing this? Anything that's going into the gut, it's just a minefield down there. It's not that specific. There's enzymes and acids in there that is just trying to break things down. That's their job. Break it down, quick break it down, and where's it going? When I've done IV drips in the past with vitamin C and you urinate, We can see there's obviously vitamin C within that urination process. That's good for bioavailability, but it's still overdoing the system because you're flushing it with so much in that moment. Finding that sweet spot with microdosing daily, but in a liquid form is to be optimal. Again, with the Q study showing that against the powders, against the lion's mane powder, that it wasn't absorbing as well.

[00:56:58.380] - JULIAN MITCHELL

It wasn't as potent That, again, reaffirmed for us. Very early on, nine years ago, when we started, we had mushroom powders in them and we were selling mushroom powders. These were not the ones that we were growing or extracting. We were buying from the marketplace. And We just didn't get the reviews. Just plain and simple, we weren't getting the customer admiration. We weren't getting reviews. Hey, my brain fog has gone with this lion's mane. I love it. I want to try the other two mushrooms. It was like, Oh, I love adding it to my coffee or tea, it's part of my routine. But coming from that performance background, we're here to make a difference. We're here to have a physiological response. That just led us on that path as a young company, and you're trying to find product it fit, meaning what do your customers love? The liquid extract is just far and away, we're out selling the powders, and so we dropped the powders off because of that. The next range that we have coming out early next year will be another innovation beyond what we have today, which I'm very excited for. We've been working on for a couple of years, and it's all around bioavailability.

[00:58:07.780] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I love that. Is there anything else that everyone should know about mushrooms, life cycle?

[00:58:14.010] - JULIAN MITCHELL

I think just give mushrooms a go. I think from our company point of view, it's about the testing is amazing, biohacker's amazing essential element. Then there's the intuitive element, really sharpening your intuition and your connection to your body. That was a learning with the athletes as well. The athletes that we work with really, this is their breadwinners, their bodies, their ability to perform. They're really connected to that and they know what works. And I think that's a great learning for actually everyone to connect to that. And I think if you do that, then you will find the right products for you and the right mushrooms for you. In a modern world where all these stresses take place, I don't think biohacking is really an option anymore. If you want to optimize your health for whatever it may be, your profession, your family, being a grandparent and being able to pick up your grandkids, biohacking is essential. I think mushrooms play a key role and a fundamental role, as well as grounding, as well as sunlight, as well as amazing sleep. If you haven't tried mushrooms yet, give them a go would be the thing that I would suggest.

[00:59:21.500] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

I love that, and I agree. I think if you're going to try them, it should be your product and your brand because you always want to get the highest quality, and that's incredibly It's really important. Then you don't waste your time.

[00:59:32.920] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Yeah. And you just want to, I guess, and it's similar to what you mentioned in the past, is you want to know who's behind things. I do. We've noted out on mushrooms for a long time, so we would love you to check out our social pages and our websites and ask us any questions. We can talk about mushrooms for days, but we'll condense it down to anyone that's interested in learning more.

[00:59:54.930] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Yeah, this is intro to mushrooms. What is your guys' website?

[00:59:59.130] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Where can everyone find Yeah, lifecycle. Com. Again, we made it hard for people to find us. Life, L-I-F-E-C-Y-K-E-L. Social media, Lifecycle is the handle. We grow and extract in the US. We ship from the US. Even though there's an Australian accent here, we're probably more a US company now. We love America for many reasons. I think it's a great place, and it's going through its own next phase of health, which is exciting I think you're leading a lot of spaces as well when it comes to biohacking, so well done.

[01:00:34.410] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

Thank you so much for being here.

[01:00:36.020] - JULIAN MITCHELL

Thanks for having us.

[01:00:37.020] - KAYLA BARNES-LENTZ

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