Shawn: Hey BioTrust Nation, in this episode we get into artificial sweeteners. What are those?

Tim: Do they cause cancer? Do they cause weight gain? Do they mess with your gut?

Shawn: A lot of questions out there, and we’ll dive into it in this episode. Hang on gang, it gets crazy. Enjoy.

Intro: When it comes to health, fitness, and nutrition, you’re flooded with sensationalism, hype, and fads. Who can you turn to? Who can you trust? Welcome to BioTrust Radio, your premier health podcast and trusted resource for all topics related to fitness, nutrition, supplements, and living an optimal life. It’s time for another episode with Shawn and Tim. Thanks so much for joining us. Here’s to your health.

Shawn: Hey, welcome to BioTrust Radio. We are back. Tim Skwiat, and myself, Shawn Wells, the hosts of this really great show. We’re really proud of everything we’ve been doing here, and hopefully you’re loving the show. We’ve had a variety of episodes, and I think this one’s going to be kind of exciting. We’ve talked about keto, we’ve talked about coconut oil, we’ve talked about a lot of hot topics. We always talk about mindset. Everything tracks back the mindset, which I’m proud of. But in this one, Tim, we are going to talk about artificial sweeteners.

Tim: Artificial sweeteners.

Shawn: And this is a hot topic, is it not? Like I know, as a dietitian, I do the radio shows, I do speaking. I hear about this question a lot. Is it okay for me to have artificial sweeteners, especially on a diet? And there’s been a lot of studies that are, you know, positive maybe for them and negative for them, and there’s a lot of fear-mongering, of course, on social media. Like, artificial sweeteners will kill you. Like if you have one Splenda packet, you know, you’ll die.

So, I think it would be good for us to get into this, and hopefully our listeners appreciate it. And, you know, our listeners come from all over. We’re proud to say that we have BioTrust customers, we have our Facebook VIP people that come in from the Facebook group. We have people that are coming in from all over though. A lot of low-carb people on these various podcasts. I think we’re resonating well with these low-carb shows because I love keto and we’ve talked about keto, so that’s cool. So, we appreciate all of you for listening. But let’s get into artificial sweeteners, Tim.

Tim: I feel like the fact that we just said it like a dozen times already, my risk of cancer’s increased.

Shawn: Exactly.

Tim: I’m just kidding, just kidding.

Shawn: Yeah, there’s all this stuff like, you know, there’s chlorine molecules in the sucralose and there’s formaldehyde in the aspartame.

Tim: Aspartame’s like one step away from formaldehyde.

Shawn: Right. So, it’s like wow, this is scary. Like, we’re killing ourselves with like one packet and we’re gonna die. So, what is the deal with this stuff?

Tim: Yeah, I’m not a history buff by any means, but I think like setting the tone and having some context, like where did these things come from and why? And on the surface, it’s quite rational when you think about it. Basically, I think there was good intention, right?

Shawn: Yeah.

Tim: So, soda’s a really good example.

Shawn: Yeah.

Tim: Sugar-sweetened beverages, which would be like your normal sugar-laden Coke or whatever. They’re associated with a laundry list of negative health outcomes.

Shawn: Right.

Tim: You know, whether or not they cause it or not, directly it’s hard to say. So, naturally, replacing the sugar, that calorie-dense sugar that provides really no nutritive value, replacing it with a non-caloric sugar-free sweetener would seem to make a ton of sense. So that’s kind of where one reason why these sugar substitutes, these non‑caloric sugar substitutes, artificial sweeteners, came up right? And naturally, artificial sweeteners seem to go hand-in-hand with keto, which is low-carb/sugar by definition.

Shawn: And I’m dating myself back to like my early, early life. I remember even in the 70s when I was just like 4 or whatever, that my mom would drink Diet Tab.

Tim: Hmm, yep.

Shawn: And before aspartame, before sucralose, before stevia before all this was saccharin, and that was the first one that I remember. And of course, it didn’t taste good but, you know, people were talking about dieting and then, you know, in the 80s it led to aerobics and, you know, getting fit and then there was Atkins, which is low-carb and keto, and, you know, all this stuff. So, you know, I think that’s when dieting got hot. It was like maybe in the 70s. You know, it’s kind of gone on from there. And especially with the rise in popularity of keto, artificial sweeteners are in the spot light. And I think with that you can almost track with the fitness craze, which we certainly promote.

Tim: Right.

Shawn: But has also come sugar-free beverages. And then even a lot of the supplements: pre-workouts, RTDs, ready-to-drink products, keto supplements, energy drinks and all this stuff like Monster, and all these things have artificial sweeteners right?

Tim: Right.

Shawn: Because you want to make them low-calorie because it’s fitness-related. You know, you’re worried about your body composition. So, what’s the deal?

Tim: Yeah, I think that just kind of setting the tone there was really important, and like you said, from a weight management standpoint and even from a metabolic health standpoint, it seems like it would makes sense, like it would improve these parameters. When I talk about metabolic health, I’m talking about like blood sugar control and preventing things like diabetes or even, you know, a lot of times professional health organizations are recommending the use of these artificial sweeteners for populations that are diabetic, essentially, or pre-diabetic.

Shawn: Right.

Tim: So, I think there’s one really interesting quote that I found when I was looking through some of the research on diet sodas, specifically. And this comes from Susan Swithers, who’s a Professor of Psychological Sciences and Behavioral Neuroscientist at actually my alma mater, Purdue University.

Shawn: Nice.

Tim: She says, and I think this sums things up quite well. It says, “Although it seems like common sense that diet sodas would not be problematic, that doesn’t appear to be the case. Findings from a variety of studies showed that routine consumption of diet sodas, even one per day, can be connected to a higher likelihood of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and high blood pressure, in addition to contributing to weight gain.”

So, that’s an interesting quote to me to kind of like lead into things, but I think one of the goals to kind of set the tone appropriately, as well. So, one thing that maybe you get started off with is what are the main artificial sweeteners? It’s a question that we hear often. And, you know, where are they found? So, obviously diet sodas, but let’s talk about some of the other places. You talked about supplements, chewing gum, pretty much most things that say sugar-free.

Shawn: Right, well there’s sugar alcohols too, which are kind of a unique beast. And those are especially popular artificial sweeteners with keto.

Tim: Yeah, yeah.

Shawn: Anything with an “ol” at the end, basically, you can take a sugar—so, think of lactose, maltose, it would be sorbitose. I’m trying to think if there’s some other ones. But basically, those, when you convert them to a sugar alcohol, they get metabolized a little differently and they become sorbitol and erythritol instead of erythrose. They become maltose and lactitol. Right? So, whenever you see the “ol” that means sugar alcohols. And, of course, we know that it has a much lower glycemic effect. Now there’s variances in those across sugar alcohols. Erythritol might be different from lactitol, and, of course, this this is highly individual too.

Tim: Exactly.

Shawn: What I’ve found is if you have GI distress, then that means you’re not metabolizing that well, and that means that you’re having a lower glycemic impact. So, basically, if you want the benefit of sugar alcohols for basically having very little glycemic impact, you’re going to deal with the GI distress.

Tim: Right.

Shawn: Those that say, “I can have sugar alcohols and it doesn’t affect me a bit,” well, those are people that are metabolizing sugar alcohols well, which means that they’re getting the glycemic impact.

Tim: Yeah.

Shawn: So, it’s kind of a wonky deal, I guess. You have to be aware of those. Either you get one or the other, I think. You either get the GI distress or you get the glycemic impact. So that is one area, the sugar alcohols. But to go to these other things that are in these sugar free products, as you labeled them, there’s several. There’s acesulfame potassium which gets called “Ace K,” you know, is shortened. There’s sucralose, which also brand name is Splenda. There’s aspartame, which is brand name NutraSweet. And then there’s saccharine, which is Sweet’N Low.

So, you know, you think of the packets right? So, Sweet’N Low is the pink packet, which is, again, the saccharine. The blue packet is aspartame/NutraSweet. The yellow packet is Splenda/sucralose. And there is no packet for Ace K. That gets put into beverages and it kind of has like an acidic pop to it. That’s why it gets used. That potassium helps with like if you think like things like Mountain Dew or, you know, that have like a more acidic citric taste to them that you kind of want that unique fruity taste in your beverage, Ace K gets used in that scenario. The other ones just sweeten; Ace K kind of has a different effect to it, so that’s why it gets used in more like the soda scenario.

So, those are the sweeteners that we see out on the market. And, of course, we’ve heard, you know, saccharin, that came out like I said back in the 70s and, you know, cancer risk and aspartame, you know, you get headaches and it’s phenylalanine, which is related to neurotransmission.

Tim: Yeah.

Shawn: And, you know, there’s issues there. Maybe people get headaches and then again cancer risk gets thrown around. And then with sucralose there’s chlorine molecules and it could be dangerous, and again, cancer gets mentioned. Seems like cancer gets mentioned with all of them. But even more now lately we’re hearing about the gut microbiome.

Tim:  Right.

Shawn: And, of course, we all know the gut microbiome is playing a bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger role. We thought, initially, the gut was just meant for digestion. Then we heard that 70 to 80 to 90% of our immune system lives in our gut. And then we hear hold on, it’s the gut-brain axis.

Tim: Yeah.

Shawn: And hold on, a lot of our neurotransmitters are down in our gut—dopamine, serotonin, gaba—all this is happening down in our gut. Depression comes from the gut, disease happens in the gut. You know, maybe a lot of our primal function lives in the gut. It’s kind of like these ancient inhabitants, if you will, that predated humans, are living in our gut, and we’re playing host. We’re almost like the robot and they’re the brains, if you will.

Tim: Yeah.

Shawn: It’s a very fascinating thing. I think there’s way more science to come on the gut. But certainly the gut is super important when it comes to disease risk and your well-being just day-to-day. So, fascinating stuff that we’re now learning about the gut and maybe these artificial sweeteners are having an impact on them, similar to our concerns with antibiotics, similar to our concerns maybe with sugar itself.

Tim: Right.

Shawn: Any thoughts there?

Tim: Yeah, I love that all, Shawn. And like you talked about how we’re just the host for these bugs, so to speak. I’ve seen them referred to as “puppet masters”  in their ability to drive behaviors like eating and cravings, and things like that, specifically. But it’s nice that you already mentioned sugar alcohols and how they’re metabolized differently among different people, and how maybe they pass through the small intestine undigested and then travel on to the large intestine. And that’s why some people get these negative GI side effects because they’re pulling in water or they’re getting fermented by the gut bacteria or what have you.

Well, maybe the same thing is happening with artificial sweeteners because they’re not metabolized the same way that a normal sugar molecule would be. So, maybe they’re passing along to the gut and then those bacteria are having to deal with those artificial sweeteners. And certainly what we’ve seen in both animals, like rodents, and humans is that these artificial sweeteners can affect the makeup of the gut.

So the gut microbiome is basically this ecosystem of bacteria that makes up our gut right? And this is obviously this balance of bacteria that we have, this so-called good and bad bacteria has a profound impact on all these areas of health, like you’ve already alluded to. And so, reducing the quantity of good bacteria and/or increasing the quantity of bad bacteria or that ratio—which no one really knows what the ideal is—may have a profound impact on these different areas of health, right?

Shawn: Yeah. And there’s two terms. So, if you’re in a positive bacterial state, like where maybe this ratio is skewed towards what we would equate to positive. And it’s hard to say. I was going to throw around a term we’ve used before, “hormesis.” Maybe there’s situations where obviously bad bacteria can stimulate positive scenarios, right?

Tim: Uh-hm.

Shawn: But it’s a question of how much bad bacteria, how often, and we want to be in a situation where we’re typically skewed towards what we would call positive bacterial states, and that’s called “probiosis”, and when you’re skewed negatively towards bad bacteria, that’s called “dysbiosis”. Dys, like dysregulation and biosis of your gut. So, those are the two scenarios, probiosis/dysbiosis. We would rather lean towards probiosis.

But when we take things like antibiotics, we know that it affects one round of antibiotics data is shown can affect you for up to two years. Two years it can affect your gut. And, of course, there’s data where co-administration, meaning taking at the same time as you take your round of antibiotics, if you have to do that, I would definitely discourage you from taking them too often or too potent of antibiotics. But certainly, if you do take them, finish them.

There’s a lot of data on people starting them and not finishing them, and it sets them up for a really bad scenario of creating like superbugs in you. So, if you take your antibiotics, finish your round of antibiotics. But I would also encourage you to co‑administer with probiotics. It’s getting off on a little tangent, but this is how we can maintain a healthier gut. And, of course, I would recommend taking probiotics throughout the year and being on gut-friendly foods and beverages like kombucha and sauerkraut and, you know, a bunch more right?

Tim: Yeah. Kefir, like the yogurt that actually has live cultures and there’s various fermented vegetables out there right, like kimchi and things like that.

Shawn: Yeah. Even, you know, pickles and whatnot. So, like have your vinegar. But the question is how do these artificial sweeteners really affect our guts and how different is it person-to-person?

Tim: Right.

Shawn: So, there’s a new study on sucralose, which is also called Splenda. Remember the yellow packet. And I think this would hold true across the artificial sweeteners. This was the one that was looked at, but I think this would hold true. There also, by the way, called in food science “high‑intensity sweeteners.” They’re called that because they taste similar to sugar, but sugar whereas, you know, sugar might be 5, 10, 20, 40, 60 grams, it might be 5, 10, 40, 60 milligrams.

Tim:  Just a fraction.

Shawn: Just a fraction. So, they’re very high intensity, meaning you use a lot less but you get equivalent sweetening with a lot less. So, these sweeteners are potent. But the sucralose, in the study, they showed something interesting. And what I like about this study is they actually showed real levels. They looked at blood levels that simulated real, what would be equivalent doses to you consuming a beverage, a sucralose-containing beverage. Sometimes some of these studies are like a hundred times the level.

Tim: Right.

Shawn: And people are like well that doesn’t really apply. Maybe they got cancer or whatever. No one’s drinking a thousand diet cokes.

Tim: Exactly.

Shawn: But in this case it was a realistic level, and what they showed is that there was pro‑inflammatory cascades that were happening, meaning it was just triggering inflammation, and it was also triggering lipogenesis. Lipo means fat, genesis means creation of, so creating fat and setting us up for metabolic syndrome. So that metabolic syndrome means hypercholesterolemia, which means high cholesterol; means hypertension, which means high blood pressure; and hyperglycemic, which means high blood sugar.

Tim: And the abdominal obesity also, right?

Shawn: Right. So, all those things combined is this thing called metabolic syndrome, which puts us at five times the risk for Type 2 diabetes and puts us at two times the risk for coronary heart disease. And we also know that inflammation is correlated to almost every disease state. It’s massive. And I’ve talked before about glycation, blood sugar damage and inflammation are literally the genesis of all disease, which is why I recommend everyone look at CRP for blood levels. It is a systemic inflammation marker, CRP, C-Reactive Peptide.

Tim: And also called protein.

Shawn: Yeah, and then hemoglobin A1c, which is a longer term indicator of blood glucose. Blood glucose is a little bit too transient and it goes up and down. You want to look at something that’s a little bit longer term so you can tell what your blood sugar levels are on average. So, those are things that you want to look at.

But the interesting thing from this study is that, and in this tracks back that you’ll hear like people that are super fit say, “If it fits your macros” or “Calories in, calories out,” and “I stay ripped. I can have sugar.” I can do this. I can do that. And then some of these people that stay ripped they have their Splenda, you know, whatever. They have their Walden Farms and they have their keto desserts and they have, you know, all these different things and artificial this and that, and it’s cool. They stay ripped. They’re in great shape. They seem to have very low risk of disease. And why is this? It’s very interesting and they say there is no risk, you know, they’ll say, “I can have as much artificial sweeteners as I want.” Some people say, “I can have as much sugar as I want,” and they’re right.

The study found that people that are a healthy body weight had no inflammation reaction, had no lipogenesis reaction from the artificial sweeteners. But the people that had the excess adipose, the excess weight, had these reactions. Not only did they have them, they had them in a dose-dependent manner, meaning the more sucralose they were exposed to, the more lipogenesis and more inflammation they had. Also, the more body fat they had, the more intense the reaction. So, the more body fat you have and the more artificial sweeteners you have, the more your risk. The more lean you are, there isn’t as much risk.

Now effect on gut microbiome? I’m not sure. That’s a different discussion, and certainly, like we were talking about, is important. Maybe they’re changing their gut microbiome over time. There’s been studies with sucralose that have shown that a 50% change in the gut microbiome negatively reducing the positive bacteria by 50%, happened. So, certainly there’s an impact. But interesting effect there, I think.

Tim: Absolutely.

Shawn: That’s it’s kind of a watershed study, in my mind, of like why we see some differences person-to-person, don’t you think?

Tim: Absolutely. And I think that will be really interesting as that unfolds. I think, like you pointed out earlier, is this area of the gut microbiome is going to continue to expand.

Shawn: Yeah.

Tim: I don’t know that people in general have a full appreciation for this, but it is like the gut microbiome is as unique as a fingerprint. It’s varies from person-to-person. I mean, that there’s like three to four times more bacteria in our gut than we have cells in our body. It’s something unbelievable like that.

Shawn: Fascinating.

Tim: Yeah. And that varies from person to person, and it can change with diet – such as keto – environmental factors. And, you know, like we were talking about, artificial sweeteners have been shown in humans and in rats to have this gut dysbiosis-like effect. But now we’re asking does that happen to everyone? We don’t know. We don’t know that. But on average, it seems like it happens.

And in those studies we also see this impaired glucose tolerance and, you know, tendency towards metabolic dysfunction, like you were talking about. So, that ties in to what you talked about, measure HbA1c, this glycated hemoglobin, which you talked about. It’s kind of like a three-month snapshot of your average blood sugar. That’s important. It’s like literally, like you were saying, this is probably one of the two most important blood markers you can get. And so, tying that back to what I just said is that as glycemic regulation is impaired, that HbA1c is going to go up and put you at greater risk, potentially.

So, another thing that you mentioned that was interesting is that the weight gain, which often comes up, or weight management impact of artificial sweeteners is something that’s often talked about, and maybe that’s highly individualistic as well. It’s kind of hard because a lot of these studies look at associations as opposed to actual causations, like we’ve talked about before.

Tim: Yeah.

Shawn: And so, when you when you start to see associations between artificial sweeteners and weight gain or obesity, how do you tease out the chicken from the egg? Are overweight and obese people using artificial sweeteners more as a weight management strategy or are they normal weight and then they start using them and then become overweight. It’s hard to tease that out, but there are some theories, like you and I were talking about that these are artificial high‑intensity, non-caloric sweeteners. However, they give the brain this indication that we should be expecting some kind of calorie dense substance coming into our body. We should be expecting it, but we’re not getting that. So are we then seeking out more calories as a result, or is it tricking the brain to think that there should be more calories coming so we get more?

Shawn: I think so. Me, personally, you know, I’ve been doing low carb and keto for 20 years now and so I’ve been using a lot of these artificial sweeteners for the majority of my life and thinking that they were healthy. I have new learnings now, just like you are, listening. So, I think so. One thing that happens to me, I know when I have these artificial sweeteners, I think okay like, you know, I’ll get away with having something that has no calories, but I get this intense sweetness. Think of like Diet Mountain Dew or some kind of a sugar-free candy or whatever. I’ll eat it and I think that’ll satisfy me. But then all of a sudden I want more sweet and my cravings are more intense, and now I’m hungry.

Tim: Exactly.

Shawn: What’s happening here? I think what’s happening is what Tim’s talking about. The body is expecting sugar because it’s tasting sugar, and what the body thinks is going to be sugar. And the body doesn’t know, like what is this like new creation, this new chemical creation that we’ve created in the last 50 years. It’s not going to undo a million years of evolution, so what is it? Like what is this thing? So, you’re thinking there’s going to be sugar, so insulin is going to start elevating and you’re going to potentially be in maybe not a drastic hypoglycemic state. But again, we talked about sometimes small fluctuations can affect you, can affect your brain, can affect what you want to eat.

I know, for me, all of a sudden I’ll have some gum, I’ll have a diet soda and all of a sudden I’m ravenously hungry, and I just ate. And this could be like after I just ate a full meal and all of a sudden I’m not satiated, I’m not full anymore. I’m hungry.

Tim: Uh-hm.

Shawn: And this is an interesting phenomenon and I think something that, you know, we need to be aware of as people that are trying to manage our weight. And we need to make sure that we’re not really screwing up our diets by trying to help our diets.

Tim: Right, right. That’s a great point, Shawn. And I definitely have seen some research where it shows that those artificial sweeteners stimulate the appetite to a greater extent than actual foods that contain calories. So there may be something going on there, especially with some people.

The other thing is that I notice is that there may be subconscious, or even potentially conscious, compensation. And what I mean by that is that we might be well knowing that we’re having a zero calorie soda or something that so that we can have such and such a food instead. Like I mentioned to you before, I think one example that always comes to mind is when I go get that Big Mac and then a Diet Coke alongside it, or I feel the liberty to order that large serving of french fries because I’m going to go get a Diet Coke instead.

Shawn: At the movie theater, the large buttered popcorn and diet soda.

Tim: Right, exactly. So, maybe it leads to those types of decisions as well. So, there’s a couple things there. We’ve hit a lot and I think there’s still a lot more to be learned here. One thing that you mentioned early on and I think we need to come back to is the fear-mongering that’s out there. I think one of the points that we’re trying to drive home here is that there’s still a lot of questions. I would say that there’s probably not as much health benefit to artificial sweeteners as once was thought.

Shawn: Right.

Tim: And there may very well get some detriment, especially with regular consumption. And I think when you start to look at what are the types of vehicles these artificial sweeteners are coming in, they’re not consistent with what we typically talk about like whole foods and minimally processed foods. They’re typically coming in ultra‑refined packages. And if that’s the bulk of your diet then, yes, the artificial sweeteners may be a problem, but there’s probably other bigger issues to tackle there as well. For example, if you’re keto and you’re eating a bunch of artificial sweeteners, there’s a good chance you’re not eating much real food. But just to kind of go back and kind of put things into perspective and give people some pragmatic takeaways. What are your thoughts there, Shawn?

Shawn: Yeah, I would say, again, don’t panic. You know, don’t pull the alarm here. This is new research. We want to make you aware that there’s a lot of conclusions being made and a lot of different directions this is taking us. But I think it’s a good discussion to have. It’s something to be aware of. Hopefully what you take away is that each person is different. Think about what we talked about. And when you’re having these beverages or foods, think about how does it affect me. Do I get more hungry afterwards? Do I feel like a headache? How do I feel from doing these things? Am I feeling as healthy as I should? Am I having a hard time losing weight despite cutting my calories? You know, these are some things to look at and this is things to be aware of. This is data that we’re trying to provide you. But I think to your point of what we were talking about with fear-mongering, you know, again, if you have something and you want it and you plan it and you have one piece of candy and you have one diet soda here and there, or Crystal Light or, a keto dessert here and there, or you know, whatever it’s okay, it’s okay. I’m not saying freak out.

Tim: Right.

Shawn: But it’s just something to be aware of. And of course, you know, maybe you can try stevia. Maybe you can just try cutting the sweetness, in general, in your foods and try, like Shelley and I did, like a sugar detox diet. Even a whole foods based keto diet without artificial sweeteners.

Tim: Yeah.

Shawn: And it’s not just sugar. It’s like literally trying to reduce the sweetness that we’ve added to our diets that we become conditioned to. If you literally need something sweet after each meal, like your dessert that you’ve earned, you need to kind of rewire yourself and think differently. Maybe if there’s ways that you can start reducing at least the intensity of the sweetness or the amount of sweetness that you’re having, and just start rolling it back some and just getting back to whole food. Because the amount of sweet that we have in our diets is radically different from what we would have had thousands to hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Tim: Added sweetness, right? Whether it’s added sugar or added sweeteners.

Shawn: Right, right, exactly. Well, our diet I think would have been largely savory, you know, and now it’s there’s a lot of sweet in our diet.

Tim: Yeah.

Shawn: So that’s just something to be aware of, you know. Don’t freak out. We’re here to provide you with, hopefully, education and some mental peace. But yeah, we just want you to be aware of these things because there’s a lot of discussion around it, and certainly you’re surrounded by these beverages and foods. So it’s nice to be a little bit more aware of some of the data that’s coming out.

Tim: Absolutely. I think that’s a great way to finish things up for the day.

Shawn: Yeah, absolutely. So, we’re wrapping it up and we would love for you to follow us on iTunes, Stitcher, or BioTrustRadio.com. At BioTrustRadio.com, we have the full transcripts. iTunes and Stitcher, you can subscribe, so you get an update whenever it comes out and you’re told the second it drops. But also you can have it download to your phone so you can listen to it when you’re not around a cell signal or whatever. And you can rate us, which helps us a ton.

Tim: Yes.

Shawn: We would love positive ratings. That helps us get more people on the show and great interviews, great studies that we can bring up. So, we appreciate you supporting us. Other places to look, the BioTrust blog has some great information and also our Facebook VIP, which now you can go to at BioTrust.com/VIP and it takes you to our Facebook group which has over 5,000 people and it’s an amazing community. There’s a transformation contest going on there and, man, the community there has just grown and everyone’s helping each other and keeping each other focused on their goals, and there’s really cool stuff happening there.

We love you here at BioTrust Radio. We’re looking forward to bringing you more content and we hope that you have a happy and healthy day.

Tim: Take care guys.