The vast majority of probiotics are temperature and humidity sensitive. These are spore formers and not traditional lactobacilli/bifidobacteria. Spore formers are just as they sound: spores and are pretty hardy and resistant to heat, cold etc.
They recommend against refrigeration. I asked them if keeping in a 55 degree wine fridge was OK, and I got an ambiguous email back saying that was fine and “may just take more time for the bugs to wake up”. Given these are spore formers, I’m not sure it matters at all - the customer service rep probably didn’t know. But I don’t know either… I just keep them in my wine fridge where I will remember to take them.
My guess is the liquid mix is because (i) they found it worked better by better spreading across the gut and/or (ii) marketing as its very differentiated look than traditional probiotics (which could never be mixed into a liquid suspension).
I’ve been extremely happy with my regimen lately; I woke up at 8 and felt fresh and went for a nice hour walk outside. Adding the Myrkl seems to make a significant difference.
You can mix the electrolytes with less water; last night I mixed it with little 6 oz bottles from the hotel. Myrkl is a total game changer. I had generally good sleep all 3 nights and woke up each day with no ill effects. My wearable data wasn’t pristine, but isn’t bad, considering I had likely 7-12 glasses of wine each night. This is pretty representative. As you can see, resting HR was slightly elevated (usually high 40s low 50s) and recovery index isn’t pristine, but overall, I think this looks reasonably good after a big night of drinking. Both sleep and recovery scores were 77.
That is surprisingly good data after that many glasses. I’m lucky to hit resting 56 if I don’t drink. Any im crushing it every day alternating resistance and cardio. Nicely done.
I find it difficult to run a controlled test on sleep with alcohol.
We had a somewhat boozy night last night (after a weeks baseline of a half bottle of Kabi daily). Sleep was poor but I suspect thats also significantly influenced by a later night than normal, a larger - saltier dinner than normal, and being in an unusual hotel bed.
Here’s an example of a non-drinking day. The biggest difference is the recovery index, how quickly your heart rate drops to normal. I’ll pull some data before using these supplements, it’s shockingly different. Resting HR is like 20 points higher and all the metrics are disturbed.
This is a great thread. Over a couple of weeks of experimenting, I found that DHM (1000mg), 1 Zbiotics, and a Pepcid taken 2 hours before drinking works best for me. Any less time, I still turn red.
In any case, has anyone tried the Ando gummies? This started popping up on my feed. They seem to have a lot of the same ingredients discussed above.
Judging from my wearable data, the recovery index seems to be the hardest metric to improve, even with prophylactic measures. Atypically, last night mine was normal, as were my sleep and readiness scores, despite drinking an amount that would typically have a negative effect. I didn’t do my normal protocol since I skipped hydration and electrolytes. I only took ZBiotics and two WineFix pills before drinking, and two more afterward. I’ve ordered Myrkl and will add that as well. Going forward, I’ll be trying ZBiotics, Myrkl, Waterboy electrolytes, and WineFix before drinking, then WineFix again after. Kind of odd for a guy who rarely takes medications, vitamins, or supplements.
Last night’s binge overwhelmed my pre-alcohol prophylactic regimen, though there were other factors at play. Four of my mountain bike buddies and I went out to celebrate one member of the group’s retirement. About an hour beforehand, I took ZBiotics and 2 WineFix (2 more at bedtime) and drank a liter of water with Waterboy electrolytes.
Over a generous dinner, the five of us shared four bottles of wine, actually two magnums. I also had an espresso martini and dessert, far more sugar than I usually touch. After dinner we Ubered to a bar where we sampled bourbon and ended the night with Chartreuse.
Before anyone judges, it has probably been a decade since I have drunk like that. I rarely drink anything other than wine, almost never mix spirits, and do not usually consume that volume. I drank water steadily throughout the evening, and was never remotely a sloppy mess. This was over about a five-hour period.
My wearables were unimpressed. Sleep was poor, sleep efficiency fell under sixty percent, and my resting heart rate climbed to 51 from a normal 42 to 43, roughly a twenty percent increase. Surprisingly my recovery index was good, and that’s usually the most affected in my case. The data made it clear that for me, even the best prophylactic stack has its limits.
I think that’s more or less my usual wine dinner consumption (although all wine, no mixing liquor with wine typically). The Myrkl seems to have made a huge difference. I do think there’s a tipping point where you are just going to be hosed either way, but I try to stay above the line. The only thing that devastates my wearable data is if I have a lot of caffeinated drinks along with alcohol, no coming back from that for sleep really.
By the way, I’ve spoken with Daniel and I think on the new label for the wine fix it’s going to be recommended to take two pills prior to drinking and three before bed, as opposed to taking some in the morning like the current recommendation is.
Yeah, my suspicion is the espresso martini and additional sugar (plus Chartreuse which is fairly sweet) threw things off more than anything. Out of more curiosity, you mentioned all your wearable data, but how did you feel in the morning? I think your wearable data could have been messed up by the espresso martini alone. Having not taken Zbiotics yet, I’m just guessing.
Could be more the caffeine than sugar. Caffeine regulation has huge effects on sleep and wakefullness. I was really busy last Friday during that weekend of drinking and never ended up consuming any caffeine during the day and did find myself much more tired at night, and fell asleep basically immediately upon getting back to my room but woke up in the middle of the night at like 4 AM or something and couldn’t really get back to sleep.
