Episode 291 — REBALANCE The MICROBIOME
Guest: Alex Zaharakis • Date: January 22, 2026
Episode Overview
The microbiome is the foundation of health—and rebalancing it can unlock profound improvements for children on the spectrum. This week, microbiome researcher and medical physicist Alex Zaharakis reveals how his data-driven model is helping families around the world restore gut balance and transform outcomes.
About Alex Zaharakis
Alex Zaharakis is a radiation oncology physicist and microbiome researcher whose work focuses on restoring gut health through data-driven insights. His 16S-based microbiome analysis platform helps families identify root imbalances and implement practical, personalized interventions that lead to measurable improvements. Learn more at autismisbiomedical.com.
You’ll Discover
Why The Gut Is The Most Overlooked Foundation Of Healing (5:00)
What The 16S Stool Test Reveals That Other Tests Miss (13:00)
Why Killing Pathogens Alone Backfires Over Time (20:30)
How Rebalancing Microbes Reduces Inflammation And Dysregulation (28:30)
What Real Progress Can Look Like At Any Age (36:30)
Referenced in This Episode
Autism Is Biomedical – autismisbiomedical.com
Researched Elements - Nutraceutical & Research Company
Autism Parenting Secrets Episode 271 – Autism Is Biomedicalwith Dr. Christian Bogner
Keith Bell - Gut Health Researcher
Full Transcript
Len Arcuri (00:02.926)
Hello and welcome to Autism Parenting Secrets. If you've been following the podcast for a while, you already know the critical role the gut plays to your child's overall well-being. But this week, we're going to take it to a deeper level into the science, the data, and the real world results of microbiome balancing. My guest, Alex Tsouherakis, is a radiation oncology physicist turned microbiome researcher.
who's developed a groundbreaking data-backed approach to restoring gut health. His system has already helped hundreds of families identify and correct microbial imbalances that drive inflammation, behavior issues, and dysregulation. You'll learn about what's really happening in the gut, how to interpret the data, and how personalized targeted interventions can unlock major shifts in your child's health and behavior. The secret this week is rebalance.
the microbiome. Welcome, Alex.
Alex Zaharakis (01:04.79)
so much for having me, Lynn. Appreciate it. Great to be here.
Len Arcuri (01:08.726)
Wonderful. Well, I'm excited as well as many of our listeners will be excited for this episode as well, because when Dr. Wagner was on a few months ago, we talked about your particular unique way that you serve families. So I'm just really delighted to give you a forum to be able to explain more of this opportunity. And I guess when you think about from a parent's perspective.
You've helped so many parents, hundreds, and you could probably even correct me with how many it is at this point. But for parents who are getting this data but still feel kind of overwhelmed about what to do next, how can you help them better understand this opportunity? Because we all know gut matters, but to go down this road can feel really challenging. So what would you share with a parent who's listening?
understands that the gut's important, they're lacking certainty on how to proceed.
Alex Zaharakis (02:10.369)
Yeah, no, it's definitely a challenging space with all of the testing that, you know, that's out there that you can do. you know, all of the different directions that you can go, the different conditions that kind of afflict, autism medically. And, you know, think one of the reasons why focusing on the gut is somewhere to start out with it's just because, that really lays the foundation and it connects to.
many if not all of the medical dysfunctions that appear in autism. So that could be at the immune level, it could be in terms of the vitamins and the minerals that you're able to absorb, what your gut actually produces for you metabolically, inflammatory wise in terms of...
You know, being able to kind of support with some of the short chain fatty acids, you know, things that happen in the brain, neurotransmitters. So it really is kind of the engine and it takes a beating from multiple places. It takes a beating from obviously what you eat, the environment, the toxicity that's stored in your body, how fast you detox and what your detoxing impacts the microbiome too.
So if you could make any level of improvement there, it can go a long way. It can even make other therapies that you're doing more effective, whether it's an antiviral or an antibiotic or an antifungal or even something like HBOT. I've seen it time and time again where people revisit things after doing some work on the microbiome and all of a sudden now they're seeing benefit.
from that where they weren't before. So it's challenging with all the tests and the things out there. my main theme is that I want people to kind of get the quickest amount of improvement that they can feasibly and affordably. And I try to present them with the information that's backing the suggestions and
Alex Zaharakis (04:33.697)
the analysis and the testing, if they are the interested parent and they want to go further and try to understand it. But sometimes, you know, parents are just dealing with so much and they just want to, you know, they just want to kind of tell me what to do kind of a thing. So the program and the suggestions that we kind of create for the parents, it's a combination of there's a lot of information there and you can really dig deep to try to understand it, but it's also laid out for you.
in here, these are the things that are going to be the most critical. then, you know, obviously every child and situation is, is, is unique. You know, they're, they're with more severe situations. There can be the need for more, you know, kind of a, what I would say hand holding in the sense that, there's more reactivity, feasibility in terms of how to implement some of these things, you know, on the daily day.
with the pickiness and the palette and stuff like that. you know, the service that we offer, which, you know, through the foundation, it's just autismisbiomedical.com. It's a free analysis as long as you have a 16S test. And, you know, although we can't have quite one-on-one consultations with everybody, do a lot of, you know, Zoom meetings and, you know, email exchange, and I'm oftentimes on the phone with parents.
if there are tricky situations or just to kind of get them on board because I know that when I first started down this path, you you're always kind of questioning, you know, is this for real or what's involved or it's always more comforting for someone to kind of talk to you and just kind of work, work it, work that for you in those initial steps. but yeah.
Len Arcuri (06:28.622)
All right. Well, I think you painted a broad stroke about the test and how it provides usable information. I think I'd love to go deeper in terms of what that road looks like for a parent if they were to explore this. But guess high level, the whole idea of focusing on the gut and whether it means diet changes or supplements.
Alex Zaharakis (06:33.965)
Huh.
Len Arcuri (06:53.91)
It sounds hard, right? Like, so I think a lot of parents are kind of reluctant to really going down this road because it often seems hard, inconvenient. Nobody agrees on anything really in terms of like all the ways you can help improve the gut. So at least from my vantage point, I know I wasn't too excited about focusing on the gut because it seemed like it was murky or it might not be that quick. But I think what you've learned, you and Dr. Christian Wagner is that
It's incredibly important to focus as much as you can on the gut because it is so important and it doesn't have to be really overwhelming in terms of choosing for your child what makes sense to do and what maybe doesn't make sense to do. And that's where I think your test has kind of made it very easy for a parent to get the detailed information they need in order to figure out what steps they can take.
And so with that as a backdrop, I think what you're offering is something that's a easy way for parents to get information with a modest investment in order to take some actions that really can have a huge impact if they're targeted and personalized.
Alex Zaharakis (09:40.514)
Hey, sorry, my connection just went out. I'm using my wifi on my phone now. This is like the worst timing.
Len Arcuri (09:47.758)
Well, it's funny because as soon as we started, noticed everything kind of got started to drag a little bit. so no, no worries. We can just kind of pick up where we left off. Having said that, if the connection is more challenged again, we could always just record this another time. There's no urgency, especially once you get a better connection. Would you rather do that?
Alex Zaharakis (10:00.228)
Sure.
Alex Zaharakis (10:07.278)
Yeah.
Alex Zaharakis (10:11.92)
I think it'll be good now. I'm on my phone. They've been doing some work in the neighborhood recently and I've had this happen once or twice this week. on my phone, it should be pretty stable. I'm using the hotspot. It looks like it's got pretty good bandwidth right now. I got a full bar.
Len Arcuri (10:32.086)
Yeah. And I forgot to mention, even with Riverside, if it looks like, like if I'm like not a steady, like even if it seemed like the connection's poor, since it's recording locally, it should be, it should be fine. but, just in case you drop off, if we, if you drop off again, then we'll just say, we'll record another time. but let's, let's dive in. Do you recall where, if we rewind a little bit where,
Alex Zaharakis (10:44.354)
Okay.
Alex Zaharakis (10:51.235)
Okay.
Alex Zaharakis (10:57.341)
Yeah, I think you were pitching to Dr. Brogner and still talking about the test. I think you had brought up Dr. Brogner and maybe starting to get a little bit more detailed about the test itself.
Len Arcuri (11:12.822)
Yeah, well, and I kept recording after you dropped off. So let's assume that all that remained and I basically left it where, for us to go into more, so I basically kind of talked about how the path that you've created, this option is a very simple way of getting information, having targeted actions. and so, so I kind of gave that.
Alex Zaharakis (11:34.553)
Mm-hmm.
Len Arcuri (11:41.71)
So what maybe now if you pick up just where, how apparent, like, cause you mentioned 16 S, but like you explain what is 16 S school sample, how long, how it works. So I'll just do a quick frame. And then if you can just run with that and then afterwards, by the way, I'm going to ask you more about how you got into this. And then this is you can provide more of your backstory, which is probably where I should have started. Uh, so, all right. So here we go.
Alex Zaharakis (11:44.578)
Ahem.
Alex Zaharakis (12:02.712)
Yeah, sure.
Alex Zaharakis (12:10.563)
Okay, yeah.
Len Arcuri (12:11.502)
So Alex, with that, can you tell a little bit more about what this road looks like for a parent who would want to dive in, do this test, what does it look like for them?
Alex Zaharakis (12:22.477)
So we have a software that I designed and there's something called a pipeline. so there's a lot of programming involved and nuances in terms of the databases and Amplicon sequences and things like that. But in a sense, this program is able to look at the sequence data for a 16S type test and
give some information that leads to suggestions. historically it's had a lot of success. So for the parent that's participating, if they do one of these 16S types tests, then we can leverage this information, this experience. And it leads way to specific suggestions based on the dysbiosis that we combine with symptoms. So there's a...
kind of a charting of maybe about 100 behaviors and symptoms that we've been able to kind of associate with certain dysfunctions that can be further supported. And usually it's things like histamine, oxalates, It can be inferences of the liver, the adrenals are being taxed more than usual. And that with the microbiome suggestions kind of makes an overall complete plan.
And then that plan is a six to 10 week program where the doses kind of titrate up and the number of things may titrate up over those six weeks. There is an importance that's kind of ascribed to each one of the compounds. you know, if there's maybe 10 or 12 things that are recommended and, you know, that's just not feasible, you can decide to go with the more significant issues and maybe it
goes down to six or three things. I recently just got off the phone with a parent where we gave the suggestions and they were saying, well, my daughter, she only drinks water, right? So there's no way that you can give any of this stuff. then there's a dialogue about some solutions. are things that they can try to kind of open up that palette. And sometimes we have to have those conversations where we say, okay, there's only three things. Give me three things.
Alex Zaharakis (14:46.175)
And we start with that and we can still get some improvement and then kind of take it from there. but, but that's basically the design of the program. Then we retest. typically people see improvement that first round and then they are eager to want to continue. We retest and we kind of rinse and repeat. I'd say my, my goal or my recommendation is for most people to do at least three, three of these rounds, if you will. And then the hope is that,
with a couple of things they can kind of keep a maintenance and keep stuff at bay, keep the improvement that they got there. And yeah, every situation is different. The dysbiosis is there are some similarities, but then there's also a lot of uniqueness. And yeah, that's kind of in a nutshell.
Len Arcuri (15:37.878)
Okay. Well, I think that was great and I probably should have prefaced at the beginning. So if we take a few steps back, okay, you're a parent, you have a child, you know that, you know, gut health is important. You know, there's a lot of different testing parents can do to kind of say, okay, well, what's going on in the body? What might be going on in the gut? You know, whether it's blood labs, urine labs or stool testing. And so what we're talking about is stool testing as being
Alex Zaharakis (15:41.379)
Ahem.
Len Arcuri (16:04.024)
the way that you can really kind of see what's going on, which when you refer to the 16S test, that's the stool test that you rely on to be able to analyze what's happening, to be able to ultimately make those recommendations. So can you talk a little bit about why a stool test versus other methods, as well as why this particular test is something that you really feel like is the appropriate one to use in terms of covering what's going on?
Alex Zaharakis (16:31.202)
Yeah.
Yeah, so, you know, with, with respect to, to, to, you know, my kind of journey with my son, you know, feeling kind of privileged cause we did a lot of things. We did a lot of things that I would say were kind of wrong, you know, and that's the, that's the way you learn. but you know, one of the things that became very apparent is, and, many of the tests out there are geared toward this is, that there's something negative, you know, there's, there's a bad guy on the scene.
And you know, here you kind of have to get rid of it. That's the reason why there are some symptoms and you have to kill this thing. And then that's going to bring you some level improvement. And in some sense, there's some truth to that, but it's really not painting the whole picture. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of, you know, similarities in nature to kind of how a society functions. And really what I've
kind of learned is that you you and this is borrowing from another gut guru Keith Bell from his gut group but he has this phrase where he says you you can't kill yourself to a good microbiome. There is some benefit that you get in damping some of the pathogenic microbes clearly and people can see that sometimes with antibiotics and stuff like that.
there's a completely different benefit that you get from restoring the beneficial ones. And then there's the component of if you've gotten rid of the bad ones, what keeps them from coming back? And the kind of history and experience has shown is that unless you have the beneficial ones to keep those bad ones from coming back, then you're just kind of chasing yourself with antibiotic after antibiotic or...
Alex Zaharakis (18:23.539)
killing method after killing method and you know leads you down this this path of being frustrated and finding nothing that really works. So for me it was that learning that process and the 16S test gave that opportunity to in terms of insight of the whole picture. So 16S test has been around for a fairly long time relative to some other technologies that are out there that are new or like
shotgun type sequencing and what the 16S test means is that it's looking at the 16S gene and the bacteria, the microbe there, which is conserved and you know if this gene gets mutated in some other way the bacteria is not able to function, it's ribosomal DNA, it's very critical to the host. So you can actually use it to categorize and that's what
has been used probably for the last 20 or so years, the databases for 16S type testing are relatively complete, meaning that how do you identify a microbe? You kind of have to catch it. You have to grow it, which is a challenging problem in itself. And then you have to sequence it. So imagine if you were kind of building a dictionary.
or a language, an encyclopedia for a language that you didn't know, some historical language. You're building it one word at a time, right? this word means this. It's the same thing in terms with sequencing and microbes. You know, have this plate of bacteria, you'd have to be able to isolate one of them and then grow it. So you need to know what it grows in, what medium, and then sequence it. And then once you have that, then you can then go out and
do a test on someone say, well, I found the sequence. It's this microbe. That process takes a long time to do. Um, and with 16 S the other advantages are, um, at least when I started to get into this is that it's relatively inexpensive. So the test is about a hundred, you know, $50 give or take. Um, it provides you with this raw data, which you can then kind of do some analytical stuff to figure out what's going on. Um,
Alex Zaharakis (20:43.619)
Even when you have a microbe that doesn't exist in your database, there's a little bit of carryover kind of redundancy. So you can say, well, you I know that this microbe is not in my database, but the similarities of it put it into the Bacteroides genus. So I know it's this particular thing. Some of the newer technologies, you can't do that because rather than, you know, looking at, you know, 250 base pairs or 1600 base pairs, which is the full.
length of that 16S gene, you're looking at hundreds of thousands. So there's so much uniqueness between microbes, there's no way to know what it is unless it's at your database. So because of that reason and a couple of other reasons, the simplest analogy to kind of compare 16S to some of the newer technologies is like the 16S would be kind of equivalent if
you were looking to buy a home, I showed you a photo of every room in the house. It might not be the clearest photo, but you could at least see every room. Whereas something like Shotgun, where it is now, it give you a higher resolution photo of the room, but it's not going to show you all of the rooms, potentially. And sometimes up to 20 % or 30 % of the microbiome is not able to be matched on Shotgun or through the denoising process gets thrown out.
it's a much more challenging problem with shotgun. get the DNA of humans, get the DNA of protozoa, fungi, viruses. It's all thrown into one, one big puzzle. And, there's a lot of complex math and things that goes involved into kind of decoding that. It's much better at definitively identifying a strain or species of
of bacteria fungi if you know if you exist in your database and if that's what you're looking for. But most of the literature is actually based on 16S. That's where we get most of our information, our suggestions, our history. And even with that additional precision that shotgun gives you, I don't know that it makes a clinical difference in terms of, if I knew it was this particular strain versus that strain, I don't really have a therapeutic that's going to act on one versus the other.
Alex Zaharakis (23:08.853)
So, you know, so far we've been able to do pretty good at resolutions at the genus and the species level. And I think in the future, the really the best will be combining both of them. And that's what we're looking to do. You know, take the information that we take the dictionary that we have in this language and then, you know, map it to this other language, which has some basis in history and then really get a full picture of the history there.
Len Arcuri (23:38.029)
Right.
Alex Zaharakis (23:38.084)
you know where one misses and the other one picks up and that's going to take some time to do but it's exciting as we get there.
Len Arcuri (23:48.502)
But the current state though, so I appreciate that. And especially with everything is evolving so quickly. But what you've been seeing though, with the parents you've been working with is that this particular test, right? Of the stool with 16S gives you really useful, detailed, comprehensive information about knowing where to focus. You have your own way of analyzing and ultimately again, doing the hard work to come up with what are the right moves.
Alex Zaharakis (23:50.211)
you
Len Arcuri (24:17.87)
for that unique person because it's so complicated in terms of what's going on in the microbiome. So I think if a parent's wondering what does this road look like, everything you just talked about is more behind the scenes about what tests, but from their standpoint, it's just a stool test. Very affordable, easy to submit, you've done the hard work of how do you take that and then ultimately come up with these recommendations. And once the parent has that for their child, those recommendations, can you talk a little bit about
the types of things that would be coming back in terms of what actions a parent can take.
Alex Zaharakis (24:53.123)
Yeah, I mean, there are some general suggestions that not for everybody, but I'd say often are kind of in there and critical. And there are certain compounds that we've identified that are very helpful for a lot of the kids. And the first, I think, delineation that you need to make is, that is the child or adult constipated in any way? Because that could be very severe. mean, there's some...
children that are constantly visit the ER for this situation, or it could be very mild constipation, or could be the complete opposite where they're going multiple times a day. The problem with constipation is that if you start to make some shifts in the biome, you can make the traffic jam potentially worse. And then there's a lot of reactivity that comes with constipation. There's a lot of symptoms that are exacerbated by it. So knowing that upfront,
And then we have a bunch of tools that we can work with, know, there may be ten different things that are helpful Sometimes you need one or two of them. Sometimes you need to cycle through all ten because they all work in different ways But that's really kind of the most important thing to me just making sure we don't run into that wall But you know outside of that There are certain free biotics that have found to be very helpful that they work Very broadly and they work
to rebuild some of the deficits and They're safe in the sense That they're not going to cause a lot of reactivities and strife and lead to non-ideal Situations one of them is a prebiotic called sun fiber The active compound it's Dan is partially hydrolyzed guargon PHEG and It's a prebiotic that very slowly acts to kind of bring up some of the butyrate producers in the gut
It helps with motility. It helps to bring water into the colon to make the stool easier to pass. just overall, it's a tasteless powder. if you start slow, you shouldn't have any issues. But it really kind of helps to bring some of the things that are a deficit back into the equation, which help you keep some of the bad things at bay. The next, I'd say,
Alex Zaharakis (27:20.356)
you know kind of go to prebiotic depending on whether or not it's needed but it's often needed is by immunogos, B-I-M-U-N-O and it's in several of the products that we have but this particular prebiotic it's a sugar that comes from dairy and it helps to feed bifidobacteria in a safe way and very effectively and bifidobacterium happens to be a genus that's I'd say
probably at least 75 % of the time significantly depleted in the cases that I see. And by restoring it, it seems to translate to a lot of clinical improvements. You one of the things that bifidobacterium is associated with is the pH in the colon. And that in itself can drive a lot of the environment for things to grow and fester, you know, pathogens and so on and so forth.
those are some of the two things that, you know, I think you can really do no harm with and, and they, they can go a long way. but you know, in terms of the suggestions, it could be something like olive leaf. could be something like cinnamon. could be something like fennel seed. could be something like, you know, wormwood. could be something like, cranberry or tart cherry. there are some compounds that are helpful in helping with the mucosa integrity.
and acetyl glucosamine and synkarnazine and stuff like that. So depending on what's going on there, and there might be some probiotics that are specifically designed to bring things up, bring things down, it'll be a combination of those things. I've tried to develop the program to keep the components that taste the worst, to keep the most feasibility in there. I mean, certainly there are gonna be some things that are
that have no taste at all and they should be pretty easy to get in there. Some things have a worse taste. But if there's something that's really strong, like I don't use any, I don't suggest for any thyme or oregano. Those things tend to have more of a destructive thing on the biome in general, but they're extremely strong in terms of their taste palette. And most children can't swallow caps or most of these kids until they get much older.
Alex Zaharakis (29:45.315)
So it has to be feasible. So it's kind of scrubbed the suggestions to make it so that these things are things that people can take.
Len Arcuri (29:54.414)
All right, great. No, that's pretty clear to me. And I think when you talk about the actions a parent can take and let's put it all under the banner of supplementation of some form, it sounds like prebiotics, as you mentioned, are really key, perhaps probiotics, other supplements. And it seems like everything that you mentioned is more of a natural type supplement. So we're talking about overall, right, more natural ways of helping to restore more balance on the gut, correct?
Alex Zaharakis (30:23.915)
Yeah. None of these things that are going to be recommended are prescriptive, I'd say, with the exception of... So there is one prebiotic that in the States, so it's called lactulose. In the States, it's actually a prescription and it's used for the indication of constipation, primarily. It's also used for things like non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. But in most other countries, lactulose is actually over the counter.
which you know has been something that i've i'm trying to actively you know lobby you know rfk in his team to to to kind of change because there's some other alternatives out there they're really bad over-the-counter that we have here that that do some damage but lactulose is a an unsung hero in the prebiotic world it's very helpful in bringing down proteobacteria and and helping to kind of
you know, reduce transit time and things like that. So there are ways that you can obtain it, you know, without having a prescription. It's actually probably ideal to get it from outside the US because in the United States, for some reason, they add a dye to it unless you get it in a compounding pharmacy. And then they add an additional sweetener. But with the exception of Latchalose, everything else is either a probiotic, prebiotic plant herb, some
very rarely there's a homeopathic suggestion in there but yeah these are all kind of feasible safe things you know things that come from the earth they might come from you know different parts of the world there's an herb called codenopsis also known as dan shang that comes from the asian area and it's really helpful for different types of SIBO
desulfibrio, hydrogen sulfide overgrowth. But these are things that people have used for a thousand years, or two thousand years in that area of the world. So there's a lot of medicinal properties. There's some things like mastic gum that are very helpful and that come from the Mediterranean area. So trying to exploit everything that has a medicinal property that's safe, that's a plant or an herb or something like that.
Len Arcuri (32:43.32)
Great, yep. And I think as you're talking, I'm thinking about for every child, let's say, or whoever you're doing this test for, there may be some things you may recommend that most everyone can benefit from, but largely though, especially since you've worked with hundreds of families, the specific guidance that's gonna come out of this test is very personalized for exactly what's going on with that child, right? So that's where...
The, the game plan for it's going to differ significantly from person to person, which is the benefit of this personalized approach. Because per the title of this episode, right. It's about rebalancing and that's going to look different from person to person, right? There's, there is no one size fits all just do these things. so, so if assuming that's the case, when we use the term rebalance, what are you referring to? Is it this.
Alex Zaharakis (33:33.571)
Yeah.
Ahem.
Len Arcuri (33:41.698)
balance of the good versus the bad and just getting more harmony or how would you define rebalancing?
Alex Zaharakis (33:48.835)
Yeah. So, you know, the, the, um, it became very apparent to me. It's kind of somewhat how I got into this too, is, that, you know, when, when doing the 16 S test, you have access to this raw data. You know, one of the simplest things is that you can do is you can kind of just map the abundance of the microbes, you know, in, the sample. So, I mean, it's akin to, you know, if you were to walk into the lunch room at your school and you find out that.
every you know maybe seventy five percent of people are wearing a red shirt that day and you'd be like for the normal person if that would happen like okay what's going on here there's some kind of joke right wire wire you know three-quarters the people wearing a specific red shirt something is you know there must be a reason or something's not right you know it's not typical it's not usual
So I think that that was kind of a shocker or kind of an aha moment for me, whereas I was doing some of these other tests and looking for the bad guy on the street, but not realizing that three quarters of this microbiome was being taken up by this one microbe that wasn't really on the offender list per se. And so if the goal is to get to some level of...
of balance and if the goal is to get some kind of level of normality then i think that starting there you know i might have a better shot so in terms of trying to you know figure out in because there's a lot of unknown things in the microbiome that's really one of the main feedbacks that you'll you'll get from microbiome researchers i i recently went to
you know there's one of these maha s meetings and one of these microbiome researches that is that we we just really know what a good microbiome is and and to me i i find that i mean that kind of statement i just find to be you know somewhat in the product of the you know the phd that's kind of looking for the solution to the problem whereas i think
Alex Zaharakis (36:05.719)
there's a much more elegant way to kind of solve that unknown. And it's basically by just looking at the distribution in the population. When you have 10,000 or so different microbes, you know, of possibilities in there, if you have a lot of samples that you can leverage against, one of the easiest ways to kind of get to that normality or stay out of trouble is to just do what the guy in the middle is doing. So, you know,
going back to that lunchroom type analogy, if it was your first day at school and you're kind of scared, you're in the sixth grade, you don't have any friends, what do you do when you walk into that lunchroom? Just do what the guy in the middle is doing, right? Less chance that if you do that, that you're not gonna get into trouble, so to speak. So that's the way that I approach many of the microbes that don't have a lot of...
literature behind them and we don't know what they are or what the function that they do. Right? If this is significantly overgrown with respect to the rest of the population, try to find compounds that bring it into balance. So the idea is just whatever species that you have, just try to bring it closer to what the median value in the population is. the hope is there is that being in the middle,
Might not be the best microbiome, but it's significantly better than being in the 90th percentile, or the fifth percentile for a microbe. And that's really has been the approach. Then combining that with what we do know, so we do have some expert practitioner experience that says, okay, well, these things are bad and these things are good. We can kind of pay a little bit more attention to them. There's a little bit more that goes involved into it.
But I would say generally that's kind of the concept of balancing is that, you know, don't look at three rooms in the house that you want to buy, you know, look at all of them, right? And then, cause that, you know, that's really what, if you have that checklist in front of you and that's what a lot of stool tests do, these are the things that you look at in buying a house and all of sudden you go to that open house and you find that there's a toilet in the middle of the kitchen.
Alex Zaharakis (38:25.719)
That checklist, that's not on my checklist typically. But if you saw a toilet in the middle of kitchen, you probably wouldn't be bought. It's weird, right? And that's where the 16S test can kind of figure that out and show you, well, this is kind of odd. Let's work on this. Yeah.
Len Arcuri (38:45.218)
Yeah, no, I appreciate that analogy. you know, simply put it, there's a state that's happening right now in your child's gut. And there may be some significant outliers, which if identified and, you know, with simple actions, if you can bring that more into balance. Yeah, I think that's very understandable to me that, you know, it may not be ideal. Like the average of the population may not be the ideal state, but at least a really great first step is to
do something about the significant outliers, which it doesn't take much to know that those outliers are going to cause some inflammation, stress, dysregulation, whatever the case may be, left unabated.
Alex Zaharakis (39:26.691)
Yeah, yeah exactly
Len Arcuri (39:31.054)
All right. Great. that's an odd analogy, but I think a very effective one. I appreciate that. And again, people can go to your website and learn more. But I wanted to have this episode because this is a very powerful way of understanding what's going into gut, leading to very practical things that a parent can do all in an affordable way. So, I think this is a dynamite, what you've developed in partnership with Dr. Bogner.
Alex Zaharakis (39:35.7)
Ha ha ha ha.
Len Arcuri (40:00.11)
Before I let you go though, I know another thing and I just love your curiosity and how you're trying to bring more and more solutions to parents. But I know even with respect to reducing inflammation through other means, I know you've developed a cold laser that does that too. Could you talk a little bit about what you've created and how that's benefiting families?
Alex Zaharakis (40:25.665)
Yeah, so the theme for me is always trying to find things that work that are feasible, practical, and affordable. I had taken my son, it was kind of on the bucket list, to a chiropractor to do some of this cold laser type therapy for parents that are not familiar with it. It falls under different names. Sometimes it's termed photobiomodulation. But the basic idea is that the light
from a laser source, which is a little bit more focused than something like a strict LED. There are certain colors that can impact blood flow, inflammation, the mitochondria, and have been shown to have an effect, particularly in autism, but even in other kind of dysfunctions and Parkinson's and things like that.
for some people, know, the anecdotal changes have been, you know, pretty remarkable. So I had seen some changes with my son and, you know, they were in the areas of motor coordination, you significant changes in a short period of time. And it led me down that path of trying to figure out, you know, how could we reproduce this? Because the thing that I couldn't understand was,
You know, these treatments and these devices were, you know, tens of thousands of dollars. And, you know, my background is in physics and, you know, I'm not averse to lasers. I've had some experience working with them in the past. I couldn't explain why this was so expensive. So we started to make some devices myself and use them and use them on some parents that were willing to participate. And we, you know, saw some
benefits similar benefits different benefits and really that has been the impetus for doing that so we we have a different models that we offer now and and you know different lasers that work pursuing different wavelengths that we're going to be adding on as well and really what you know the parents i think are going to be driving this this is just low-cost affordable options you know we offer for for our lasers of thirty-day
Alex Zaharakis (42:46.767)
money back guarantee so if you use it for 30 days and you don't like it just set it back. We're not we just want to have something that's going to provide a different layer of improvement this seems to be very different than the gut and it seems to be something that is feasible where a lot of parents you know if you have the child that can't take anything orally it's very difficult you might be able to pick up some bandwidth here so
you know certainly i think it's worth a try you know at some point it might not work for everybody but it seems to be a new promising area that i think is gonna expand you coming years
Len Arcuri (43:28.748)
Fantastic. Yeah, no, I'm including the show notes, all relevant links for people. They wanted to explore that. And you're right. I mean, you can't go to a chiropractor now without them having the cold laser and they charge a lot for you to benefit from that photobiomodulation, that targeted therapy. So the fact that you've made it available is something a parent can own affordably. And again, they wouldn't have to try to figure out what to do. I know you've devised programs specifically depending on
the particular conditions that are happening. again, if done correctly, very, very safe, only upside. And so again, I appreciate the curiosity you're bringing to making these options that are kind of cutting edge, but with a lot of science behind them, making them accessible to more and more families.
Alex Zaharakis (44:16.823)
Yeah, we gotta do this. I I wouldn't be doing this unless, you know, if this, it was as easy as going to the doctor and having this done for you, I think, you know, everybody would, you know, be in a much better place. But, you know, parents have had to find their own solutions. And so that's kind of why I'm doing this and, you know, always trying to learn. And if there's something else out there that's worth pursuing, I'll knock down that door. I have no problems.
trying to figure it out and bring it to other people.
Len Arcuri (44:49.39)
Great. Well, Alex, is there anything else that just, again, having worked with so many families, anything else that you would want to share with parents, whether they have a newly diagnosed child or they've been on this road for a while, anything else that you haven't shared yet that you think would be useful for a parent to take away?
Alex Zaharakis (45:07.521)
Yeah, just know that, you know, there's light at the end of the tunnel. There's, you know, there, there's certainly a lot of frustrating times and things and challenges. And, you know, I think trying to, to, be as open as possible with your, with your partner and, getting as much support as you possibly can is, really important. And just, you know, knowing that there may be some medical, you know, components going on that are explaining the, behaviors and the.
the cognitions or the apparent cognitions and the functions and that if you do just a little bit, it might have a big impact in quality of life. And it's not too late. We have people that are, I have to think the oldest person that I'm working with is 56 years old and she's been able to come out of a group home because of some of the work that we've been doing with her. So if you have the resources, this is relatively inexpensive.
you take a look and see if you can you know you make some improvements there but know that you know there's things that you can do there's other people in the same boat and um... you even just communicating with some other parents too sometime can really give you uh... that sense of community and and support too
Len Arcuri (46:26.318)
Well, I think that's some sage advice and that's a phenomenal case study that you mentioned. Again, there's so much that's possible if you're focusing your energies on meeting your child where they are. And this gives, I think, a very powerful way for parents to be able to discern that. So again, thank you for everything you're doing. We look forward to having you on again down the road. Thanks so much.
Alex Zaharakis (46:46.561)
Thanks Len, appreciate it.
