The Crazy Little Mushroom Extract You’ve Never Heard Of (CRUSHES Workouts, Amplifies Deep Sleep & Bulletproofs Your Immune System?) With Dr. Scott Sherr

Reading time: 7 minutes
What I Discuss with Dr. Scott Sherr:
- Dr. Sherr’s work with a brilliant physician, Dr. Ted Achacoso, on next-gen therapeutic compounds, primarily those derived from Cordyceps mushroom…06:48
- How he’s using AI and advanced biochemistry alongside Dr. Ted Achacoso to develop next-gen health formulas, train future-ready practitioners, and explore the balance between human connection and technological augmentation…11:04
- How cordycepin found in Cordyceps mushrooms is the key ingredient in his sleep formula Tro Zzz, that helps deepen sleep, calm inflammation, and enhance immune defenses…19:12
- How the lab-synthesized cordycepin used in Tro Mune and Tro Zzz may go far beyond sleep and immune support, showing early promise in cancer research, energy production, and enhancing the body’s natural performance pathways…33:38
- How cordycepin in Tro Mune and Tro Zzz is generally well tolerated, but should be used with caution in autoimmune conditions, ideally cycled rather than taken daily, and combined with other foundational health practices…42:15
- Why dissolving cordycepin-based troches in the upper gum is far more effective than swallowing them, and how this delivery method also allows for easy dose control, making it ideal even for sensitive users like children…47:43
- The new sleep formula Tro+ Somna that balances GABA receptor stimulation and GABA replenishment to safely improve sleep without depletion or tolerance, plus the ongoing work to train future practitioners in advanced health optimization methods…53:11
In today’s episode, I sit down with returning guest Dr. Scott Sherr, a board-certified internal medicine physician known for his work in hyperbaric medicine, innovative nootropics, and his role as Chief Operating Officer of Troscriptions, where he developed the infamous precision-dosed “smurf mouth” methylene blue troches (use code BEN to save 10%). In this conversation, we dive into the science and potential of one of the most intriguing compounds in advanced wellness: cordycepin.
Cordycepin—the active compound in cordyceps mushrooms—has become a hot topic for its potent health benefits. Dr. Sherr explains why standard mushroom extracts don’t compare to lab-synthesized cordycepin, which offers superior potency and bioavailability. We explore its potential to improve sleep, modulate the immune system, reduce inflammation, and possibly even impact cancer and infectious disease prevention.
You'll also discover how Dr. Sherr and Dr. Ted Achacoso are using artificial intelligence to develop next-gen supplement formulas, push the boundaries of nootropic science, and train future-ready practitioners. You’ll hear how cordycepin stacks with caffeine, creatine, and other compounds, and why some users—especially those with autoimmune conditions—should approach it cautiously.
Beyond the science, we reflect on the importance of balancing peak performance with staying grounded, touching on wilderness education, the risks of over-augmentation, and the necessity of cycling advanced compounds for sustained benefits. This conversation is packed with actionable insights for biohackers, health practitioners, and anyone curious about the intersection of technology, ancient wisdom, and human potential.
Dr. Scott Sherr is a Board-Certified Internal Medicine Physician Certified to Practice Health Optimization Medicine (HOMe), a specialist in Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT), and COO of Troscriptions. His clinical telepractice includes HOMe as its foundation alongside an integrative approach to HBOT that includes cutting-edge and dynamic HBOT protocols, comprehensive testing (using the HOMe framework), targeted supplementation, personal practices, synergistic technologies (new, ancient, psychedelic), and more.
For more information, you can check out the resources below:
Please Scroll Down for the Sponsors, Resources, and Transcript
Episode Sponsors:
Just Thrive: For a limited time, you can save 20% off a 90-day bottle of Just Thrive Probiotic and Just Calm at justthrivehealth.com/ben with promo code BEN. That’s like getting a month for FREE—take control today with Just Thrive!
LVLUP Health: I trust and recommend LVLUP Health for your peptide needs as they third-party test every single batch of their peptides to ensure you’re getting exactly what you pay for and the results you’re after! Head over to lvluphealth.com/BGL and use code BEN15 for a special discount on their game-changing range of products.
Calroy: Head on over to calroy.com/ben and save over $50 when you purchase the Vascanox (a breakthrough product providing nitric oxide support for up to 24 hours with a single dose) and Arterosil (a premier supplement to support the endothelial glycocalyx—the fragile inner lining of the entire vascular system) bundle at calroy.com/ben. Plus, you'll receive a free canister of 2-in-1 Nitric Oxide Test Strips with a 3-pack bundle purchase.
Sunlighten: Discover the ultimate efficiency in wellness with the Sunlighten Solo System, a compact, portable far infrared sauna designed to detoxify, reduce stress, improve sleep, and enhance heart health—all while fitting seamlessly into your daily routine. Save $600 or more today and start biohacking your mind, body, and spirit at get.sunlighten.com/ben!
BIOptimizers Mushroom Breakthrough: Mushroom Breakthrough combines four powerful mushrooms with collagen to enhance brain function, promote healthier skin, hair, and nails, and strengthen your immune system. Go to bioptimizers.com/ben now and enter promo code BEN10 to get 10% off any order.
Resources from this episode:
- Dr. Scott Sherr:
- Dr. Ted Achacoso
- Boomer Anderson
- Podcasts:
- The Little-Known Sleep-Enhancing Molecule Most People Don’t Understand: Truth About GABA & Sleep Hacking With Dr. Scott Sherr.
- An Interview With “The Smartest Physician On The Planet”: Crazy Biohacking Stacks For Cognitive Function, Microdosing CBD, The Rolls Royce Of Jet Lag Hacking & Much More.
- John Lieurance Reveals The Crazy Story of His Leg Amputation, Dives Into The Latest Methylene Blue Protocols & Tells You Why You Should Be Breathing Carbon Dioxide (& More!)
- Educating The Next Generation With Ceremonies, Rites Of Passage, Nature Immersion, Wilderness Survival & More With Tim Corcoran & Jeannine Tidwell.
- Articles:
- Other Resources:
- Twin Eagles Wilderness School
- Mitozen Lumetol Blue Bars (Use code BEN10 for 10% off)
Ben Greenfield [00:00:00]: My name is Ben Greenfield and on this episode of the Boundless Life podcast.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:00:04]: The thing about the mushroom, right, as I was mentioning earlier, is that in a mushroom you have 0.03% Cordycepin. So you would have to eat like a huge amount of mushroom to get anywhere near the amount of Cordycepin that we're putting in these products. In fact, it's the most Cordycepin in any other product out there on the market right now. If you find cordyceben out there, it's typically gonna be in sort of mushroom blends, like standardized to a certain amount, but, but we went directly the synthesis pathway. So once Dr. Ted did the initial research, we figured out the power of this thing to work in so many different ways, as we've been alluding to here. We decided to synthesize it with a lab and make it at a higher potency that's ever been made ever before. If you were gonna eat the mushroom, you'd have to have like 80 grams of or 150 grams of mushroom itself to get the amount of Cordycepin that we're putting in in these particular products.
Ben Greenfield [00:00:54]: Welcome to the Boundless Life with me.
Ben Greenfield [00:00:57]: Your host, Ben Greenfield.
Ben Greenfield [00:00:58]: I'm a personal trainer, exercise physiolo and nutritionist and I'm passionate about helping you discover unparalleled levels of health, fitness, longevity and beyond. My friend Dr. Scott Sherr, he's a board certified internal medicine physician and he's been on the podcast before. We actually did this big podcast all about this is a mouthful. Gamma Amino Butyric Acid, this inhibitory neurotransmitter that Scott kind of figured out how to unlock higher levels of with these special called troches that you dissolve in your mouth. He's also responsible for a lot of people walking around with the so called smurf mouth because he has helped to formulate some pretty potent methylene blue troches and he's a real expert on hyperbaric oxygen too. I mean we covered a lot of that in our last podcast, Scott, and for those of you listening, I did.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:01:59]: Yeah.
Ben Greenfield [00:01:59]: Well, I'll link to those if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/sherr. S H E R R which is Scott's last name. BenGreenfieldLife.com/sherr. But Scott recently reached out to me and I've come across all sorts of crazy molecules and compounds and mushroom extracts and what have you. And he was talking to me about this ingredient called Cordycepin and it was so interesting. A lot of you are familiar with Cordyceps. So interesting that I want to have him back on to just talk about that, but also some of the newer innovations that he's been working on behind the scenes anyways, because he's always got some cool new trick up his sleeve. Whenever I see you at a conference, Scott, you've got some new little square I'm supposed to put in my mouth to unlock superpowers of some level or other.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:02:51]: I work with some fantastic people, as you know, Ben. And so Dr. Ted, who you've had on the podcast as well, Dr. Ted Achacoso. And so we're always, you know, I'm usually patient one, patient zero is, is Boomer Anderson, who's the CEO of the company. So we're always trying different molecules and different combinations. And yeah, it was actually Dr. Ted that found this really cool compound in the Cordyceps mushroom that we've been able to leverage, you know, pretty dramatically overall in a couple of different of our formulas.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:03:19]: You were talking about sleep. We spoke about sleep last time when you and I had a chat. And so it has some relevance there. It also has relevance from an immune system perspective, anti inflammatory perspective and more. So it's a fun one. And we're always looking at more tools and tricks and things up our sleeve, as are you. So that's why we're such, we're definitely, we're aligned in mission in that capacity.
Ben Greenfield [00:03:44]: Yeah, I want to talk more about the course happen thing, but you work with Dr. Ted Achacoso, who's been on the podcast before. Some people say he certifiably has a really high iq. Is there something to that?
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:03:55]: Yeah, I mean, supposedly. I mean, that's not supposedly. He was tested many years ago. He has an IQ between 180 and 280, 10, which I guess after you're 16 standard deviations above the mean, you don't get an actual numeral number, you get a range. Um, what Ted likes to say is that when he's at 2:20, he doesn't like anybody and can't relate to anybody. When he's 180, he can actually kind of relate to people. So, you know, that's the range. And he kind of knows where he is every day, depending on what is what his relationship to other people feels like that particular day.
Ben Greenfield [00:04:26]: What do you mean? Does it, does it like fluctuate based on what, you know, chemicals he's consuming or does it just fluctuate naturally?
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:04:33]: I would say probably both, knowing him, but I think it's just the way the system or the way the test works that like after a certain amount you don't get an actual number supposedly. So, yeah, I mean, when I, you know, when you meet somebody like Dr. Ted, like you, you expect somebody that can't really relate to other people. Right. Because if you have that high of an iq, you don't seem to know what other people are talking about most of the time. But what he's been able to develop over many years is more of almost as high as an EQ as well, an emotional quotient at the same time. So a very rare person to be able to kind of go across both realms. And he's obviously very skilled in lots of different tools, techniques, practices, ancient, new, cutting edge everything.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:05:14]: And so he's able to synthesize a lot of information from all different types of areas. And now with leveraging of AI, it's been kind of ridiculous. So that's been fun to watch. But also to be the recipient of having to figure out how to make things actually work has been interesting for us as a company.
Ben Greenfield [00:05:31]: Yeah. From a chemical standpoint, obviously there's a whole world of nootropics and smart drugs, from the Navy SEAL provisional modafinil approach to the biohacker plant medicine or other compound approach. But I think when it comes to verbal fluency or word recall or memory, that a lot of those things can upregulate your ability to tap into those skills at a higher level. I still think though, you need input, right? Because I think somebody who's uninformed, if you were to give them, let's say, I don't know, a microdose of LSD or something like that, they might not actually spew as much knowledge at such a rapid feed you through the fire hose pace. As somebody who actually has a great deal of input going in, right, you.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:06:16]: Have to have a huge amount of input coming in to be as voracious as somebody like he is or like you are, for example, to be able to bring out the things that they do. So this is where AI has become a little bit more interesting, right. Because now you can consume a huge amount of information and then synthesize it across multiple different specialties. And so that's what, you know, we as a company, we're, we're actually working really hard on overall with our nonprofit side, actually, which is creating more of the practitioner of the future as well. So giving the practitioner the tools that they need to be able to work alongside AI, I mean, that's really what's going to happen. Right. And so, and then we formulate the same way. Right? That's Dr.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:06:50]: Ted on, you know, using various types of AI models to, to create different formulas and various. And do all your experimenting without actually having to make the compounds or combine compounds together is very, very cool. And so that's one of the reasons, one of the reasons. And how we actually came up with the idea of actually just sticking with Cordycepin, for example, or how you combine Cordycepin with methylene blue, or how you can combine it with caffeine and all these other kinds of aspects we can talk about. But then you can sort of test these in the real world and say, does this really work or not? And that's what's really cool about what we do. We're kind of integrating a lot of different types of tools, tech. But the knowledge base, you know, obviously he has a huge knowledge base, Dr. Ted.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:07:32]: And then, but we also leverage all the new, these other knowledge bases that are available now as well. And then it's, it's, you know, the world is our oyster, man. It's been fun.
Ben Greenfield [00:07:41]: And how close are we. Let's say that you do have an AI model trained, let's say, let's say for a guy like you, just wants to have a deep knowledge of all things related to the biochemistry of, you know, brain or body enhancing compounds. How close do you think we are to you just being able to like wear a special pair of glasses or a watch or something like that that will cue into verbal questions that like I'm asking you right now, you know, you're on a podcast and the answers are just getting flashed right there on the insides of your glasses and making you sound super smart even though you're just augmented with AI. You think we're close to something like that?
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:08:16]: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I don't think it's very far away at all. I mean, at this point these things are almost real time as far as answering or asking questions or listening to information even verbally now. So I think we're super close to people having, you know, classic sci fi AI thing on your, on your glasses while you're listening to a podcast. Maybe that's what you're doing now, Ben. I don't know, but I'm, I'm definitely doing it. I'm just kidding. I'm not.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:08:38]: But, but it would, I think it's, I think it's going to happen. It means we're getting more of these agent in systems.
Ben Greenfield [00:08:43]: Right?
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:08:43]: So people like these people are using AI in a way to help them do automated tasks instead. And so that's really cool. And so we're looking at various ways to do that for practitioners, right? So, as you know, Ben, we have a nonprofit organization called Health Optimization Medicine and Practice, and we're training practitioners on how to optimize health. And we have a seven module certification for practitioners. And it's based on Dr. Ted's initial framework that he brought over from his classic from his clinic, excuse me, in Manila, that he was working on for many years. And the idea is that you learn this foundational approach using metabolomics, epigenetics, gut, immune system focus on optimizing health rather than treating disease. But the key for all of this is that you still have to interpret data, right? And you still have to be able to crunch a lot of numbers from various types of sources, whether it be gut testing or metabolomic testing or whatever.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:09:31]: And so using AI programs that we design to be able to crunch that data in a very, very sort of, in a way that's very much the perspective that we think about, which is not just here's a number, here's a result. It's no, like, how do you network wide everything together, right? How you throw a network together and then, then balance everything to when you were 21 and 30 years of age. So all of the nutrients and gut and hormone levels that we look at in the whole framework are focused on optimizing somebody to be 21 to 30 years of age, not just normal for your age, which is not what most people want to be unless they're 21 to 30. So you don't want hormones of a 65 year old, typically you don't want to have the B vitamin levels of somebody that's 45 years old, if you're 20 years old or something like that. So just to give example, so we're kind of putting all this together and it's kind of a newer framework that we're really excited about. And hopefully by the time this podcast comes out, we'll have more to, more to share. But it's, it's, it's, it's. The idea here is that we are no longer just human.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:10:29]: We already know this with our smartphones, but now with AI, it's like, it's an entirely different level of being able to really augment what we do. And as a practitioner, that's really great, great news because, you know, most of us are relegated to having to see one person at a time, right? But if you can do it In a way that you can scale yourself without. But then you can also go to the beach and hang out while you're models and other things are talking to your. Everybody's talking to your AI while you're hanging out someplace else with your kids. Like that's pretty cool. So that's what we're working on.
Ben Greenfield [00:10:56]: Yeah. I still think it might create a little bit of friction when you take the glasses off or you remove the, the augmentation and I don't know, you go into your family and you almost might have to learn how to interact with people in two different environments. One where you're augmented and one where you're like, you know, the native you.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:11:14]: I think you're, I think you're like right on. And in general, like this is what we think about when we think about sort of ancient practices like, like meditation or Buddhism or something like that. Right. Well, the idea is that we all have these roles that we play and some of them are much stronger than others. Right. And some, sometimes we get attached to them and like, and people are going to definitely get attached to this like augmented human Ben. Like that, you know, that has AI. Right.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:11:35]: Or augmented Scott. But like having to like, to dislike or de. Attach or like unattach from those roles is going to be hard. It's going to be hard and it's already hard for people because these are addicting technologies. So I agree with you. I think there's going to be a lot of challenges along the way. But I think in the end if it all works out like in sort of like sunshine and rainbows, it should be like your AIs are doing all your work while you're hanging out with your family and actually, you know, not plugged in for once. Right.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:11:59]: I think that's the hard thing for a lot of us is like to have that time when we're not on our phones, when we're not, you know, in our, in that sort of environment where things are just getting thrown at us at 100 miles an hour.
Ben Greenfield [00:12:09]: Yeah. And it feels more natural to be native. I mean I'm doubling down on that with my sons who have been in wilderness school since they were six are still every single day doing a command, a wilderness awareness program with Native American lineage borrowed sit spots outside. Each day they're going on a 10 day vision quest here. In a couple of months out in the Sonoran Desert, they are doing mentors and training for other kids, fathers and sons who are going to wilderness survival school up here in Idaho. And like because of all that, they're probably not as good at prompting AI as some of their peers might be. But I like that this is just like a silly way to think about things. I know, but, like, if there was a solar flare or some mass electrical outage, that at least my sons are going to be able to survive without the augmentation.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:13:05]: Yeah. I think it's a beautiful way to think about it. And you've been able to create that pretty significantly in your own space. I think, like everybody that's a parent here, it's hard to have. And as I have four kids, as you know, Ben, I think. And, like, it's also very hard to integrate, you know, the work that we're doing and all this advanced tech and cutting edge science and things like that, and then come back and try to, you know, make sure everybody's grounded at the house at least. Right. And I think that ground is the hard place to find, but it's possible, I think.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:13:31]: And. But it's. It's not something that just comes. You really have to actively work on it in all the various ways that you do and that, you know. That I do and with my kids, too. So.
Ben Greenfield [00:13:39]: Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about nature's technology. Tell me about this Cordyceps and stuff.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:13:43]: Yeah, I mean, the Cordyceps, the mushroom's been around a long, long time. Right. And it's been around for thousands of years as a sort of delicacy in the world of Chinese medicine, in the sense of it was very rare initially to find this Cordyceps mushroom used to grow just on, like, the backs of caterpillars or in very, very rare places, and, like, high in the Himalayas overall. But now it's. It's actually been industrialized. You can get more of it.
Ben Greenfield [00:14:06]: I'm going to interrupt you super early on just in case people tune out. Like, I realize that many of you have heard of Cordyceps. We're not really going to be talking.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:14:13]: Right, right.
Ben Greenfield [00:14:14]: Cordyceps per se. It's just. It's just the starting off point because I know Cordyceps already is kind of, like, saturated in the market.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:14:19]: Totally. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, the idea to get the story really is that the Cordyceps is really cool because it, it takes over the nervous systems of insects, makes them into zombies. So if you've watched The Last of Us on HBO, that show is about a Cordyceps mushroom that's gone mutated and now it's affecting humans and there's a zombie apocalypse and everybody's dying and, you know, all those kinds of things. But it doesn't affect humans.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:14:43]: It just affects arthropods like ants. And so it takes over their, their nervous systems and they, and makes these ants go to certain areas in the, in the forest to where they're going to make the most mushrooms, basically. So it's been of interest for thousands of years because, like, how does this mushroom take over the nervous system in an insect? Basically dysregulate their entire immune system, their neural pathways, in a way that allows them to make more mushroom. Right. So there's a lot of compounds in the mushroom. There's polysaccharides, there's, there's vitamins, there's minerals, actually. But the, the main, the most active component of the mushroom itself is something called Cordycepin. And this is only by weight, about 0.03% of the mushroom.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:15:20]: So it's not a huge amount of the mushroom, but a lot of the power, most of the power of the mushroom itself is because of this compound called, called Cordycepin.
Ben Greenfield [00:15:30]: A fitting analogy would be like psilocybin and mushroom extract, like psilocin is the very psychoactive component of that mushroom that if you concentrate, has a lot of the psychoactivity. With Cordyceps, it'd be Cordycepin.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:15:45]: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So Cordyceps, just like psilocin, it's a very small amount of the mushroom itself, but the potency of it is very significant as far as what it does in the mushroom overall. Right. It has these other, the mushroom has other ingredients, it has other things in there. It has you know, even things like, you know, so polysaccharides and vitamins and things like that. But, but in essence, what Cordycepin is, is in our body is an Adenosine analog. And Adenosine is.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:16:12]: Got a lot of different roles in the body. People have heard of probably Adenosine triphosphate, right? So Adenosine triphosphate is, is, is how we make energy. And then we also have Adenosine in the brain that works as a neurotransmitter. It also works in the heart. It increases nitric oxide production. So it, so basically what Cordycepin does is have a massive effect on the Adenosine system in the body. And as a result of that, it has all these various pathways that it can regulate or downregulate depending on the system that we're talking about. Everything from decreasing inflammation by going and decreasing the NF kappa B system itself.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:16:48]: So NF kappa B is a system in our body that gets upregulated when we have inflammation, it can get really messed up. If you have chronic inflammation, you get pro inflammatory cytokines that just hang around for a while, like TNF alpha interleukins, things like that. On the other end of it, it can increase things like AMPK activation as well, which boosts things like mitochondrial biogenesis and fatty acid oxidation. And then so you have the capacity to actually make more energy from fat specifically and actually preserve glycogen when you have Cordycepin around. So I mean, we can talk about some of the various, you know, questions you have, but like, in essence, it's Adenosine analog that has, you know, fantastic effects on like multiple different pathways related to how Adenosine works in the body.
Ben Greenfield [00:17:32]: Well, you guys just have it in one of your products at Troscriptions, right?
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:17:36]: So we have it in two different products actually. So we have it in, we have it in TroZZZ. TroZZZ is eight different ingredients. And some of those ingredients are related to the GABA system, which we talked about in your last podcast. But the, the Cordycepin itself, the way it works here is that Cordycepin, as I mentioned, works on the Adenosine system. Right. And so Adenosine is a neurotransmitter in our brain that helps us feel sleepy. It gives us sleep pressure.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:18:02]: So this is why when you exercise more, actually you have more sleep pressure because you're making more free Adenosine. So obviously if you're making more energy throughout the day, you're going to make so making more ATP, you're going to be making more Adenosine.
Ben Greenfield [00:18:15]: ATP is Adenosine triphosphate. When you split those phosphate bonds, you're left with free floating Adenosine.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:18:21]: Right.
Ben Greenfield [00:18:21]: And so you're saying is that Adenosine could then bind to Adenosine receptors and increase sleep drive. So maybe the person who frequently works out, who doesn't one day and has trouble falling asleep, that might be the case because they have less Adenosine and they could theoretically use something that produces more Adenosine to help with that.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:18:40]: Yeah, that's true. Exactly. Yeah. And so, and this is, it's very common actually, I think the more Adenosine you produce, the more of a sleep drive you're going to have. But if you're used to a certain amount of sleep drive and you don't do it as much that day, you may not have be able to sleep as well that night. And so what Cordycepin can do is it comes in and acts just like Adenosine as a neurotransmitter. And so Adenosine makes you feel sleepy, it gives you sleep pressure. The best experience of this is obviously in children, right? Like if you see your kids and they're young and they need a nap and they don't get a nap, they get really, really angry, right? This is sleep pressure, this is Adenosine that's built up throughout the day or the hours if you're obviously a baby in that case, or young.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:19:16]: And so what, what we can see here with Cordycepin is it act just like it. And so the most important corollary to this is what, what blocks Adenosine receptors in the brain is caffeine, right? So caffeine makes you feel more wakeful by blocking the Adenosine receptors directly. And so people that drink caffeine, that's why they drink it. And so if you, wait, if you, if you don't allow the Adenosine to bind, you're going to feel more wakeful overall. So there's actually a cool stack you can do with Cordycepin where you can actually give somebody caffeine first and then have them take some Cordycepin and then instead of going to the brain where it's gonna cause you to make, make you actually feel more sleepy, potentially it can go to the rest of the system to help you make more energy, you know, with the AMP activation, increase nitric oxide production and actually significantly improve, like, immune system modulation at the same time.
Ben Greenfield [00:20:08]: Are you talking about caffeine receptors outside the central nervous system or just caffeine receptors still in the central nervous system but outside the brain?
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:20:15]: Yeah. So caffeine receptors in the brain. So caffeine receptors in the brain are going to, are, are going to block the Adenosine neurotransmitters, blocking those.
Ben Greenfield [00:20:24]: What I'm saying is if caffeine is going elsewhere. Yeah, like a lot of people aren't aware of this, which is why I'm asking, like, caffeine can act in other places besides your brain.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:20:32]: Sure, sure. It works on, it works on all your organs. It works on the vagal nerve, other places too as well. But, but in essence, what we.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:20:40]: The primary aspect of Adenosine working in the brain, Cordycepin, will modulate in a positive way. So it'll help there, but at the same time, it's also gonna help systemically as well. So in the sense that you take Cordycepin, it's gonna improve your immune system function. It has some roles of decreasing inflammation, immune system modulation, as I mentioned, it actually activates various things. And so I think the main thing that we've seen, at least clinically overall, Ben, is that if you block, if you have caffeine on board and you take Cordycepin, you don't feel sleepy. Some people that take Cordycepin especially at higher doses will feel a little bit sleepier if they take it because it's gonna increase your sleep pressure because it's gonna work just like Adenosine for example.
Ben Greenfield [00:21:21]: It makes me sleepy by the way. Even the immune one makes me sleepy.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:21:24]: Yeah, and that's the thing. So then in our TroMUNE, which is a higher strength of the Cordycepin. So there's 40 milligrams of Cordycepin in the TroZZZ. In the, in the TroMUNE we have two different strengths of 75mg and 150mg. Typically we have people taking those in the evenings because it's going to increase your deep sleep. If actually if you track it with your aura ring, whatever kind of tracker you have, you will notice when you're taking the Cordycepin that or the TroMUNE that your deep sleep will increase overall. What you may see in corresponding is a slight decrease in REM sleep over time, but it's very, very small compared to your increase in deep sleep overall. And so we have a lot of people actually that will take the TroMUNE on its own as something just purely to increase deep sleep.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:22:08]: And obviously when you're getting better deep sleep, your immune system is going to work better overall. You're going to have more anti inflammatory support. You're going to also notice that your immune system is going to work better overall if you're getting better sleep. So it's a combination of things. If you're working on deep sleep on its own, it's obviously going to help in a lot of different ways. But there's the corollary effects of TroMUNE or Cordycepin on the immune system itself, including improving, you know, B cell activation and natural killer cell activation. Like optimizing macrophage function, which are, you know, macrophages are, you know, things that go to like areas where there's inflammation but actually downregulating some of that as well. And improving lymphatic detoxification too.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:22:50]: Of the brain.
Ben Greenfield [00:22:51]: Yeah, I mean I pulled out my phone cause I'm ignoring you. I'm looking at my deep sleep scores because I took it on Thursday and I took it on Sunday. Thursday I had 31% deep sleep. Let's see, Friday 24, Saturday 17, Sunday 37. See I was in the 30s on the two nights I took it. You're right, I didn't even realize that.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:23:14]: Yeah, it's, you know, with deep sleep is where we do a lot of our consolidating of our memories.
Ben Greenfield [00:23:19]: Right.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:23:20]: This is where we can do, do our deepest detox as well. Most people don't realize that like at stage three and stage four, your deep sleep, where you get most of your immune system reorganization in the brain too. So our lymphatic system is really, really highly active during deep sleep especially. And the other cool thing about Cordycepin, which I didn't mention yet, is that it's also an anti infective at the same time because it actually inhibits RNA synthesis in viruses and tumor cells as well. And it does this. So there's a potential indication in cancer. Well, and the reason why that is is because one of our, one of our base pairs is Adenine.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:24:02]: Right. And so adenine is also very, it's, it's based off of Adenosine. So what happens in rapidly dividing cells is that you have the Cordycepin that can come in there and block halting viral RNA replication and also potentially tumor RNA replication too. And so you know, triggering like a stop in that, that replication. So it's fantastic as an anti infective, especially for viruses overall. So we have a people that use it when they travel, of course, like when they're going to a place like on an airplane if somebody's sick in the house. I mean I took it for a year straight and I didn't have like, I didn't get sick once in my house, which is pretty unusual when I have four kids here that are, you know, in school and coming home sick on a reasonable clip. I give it to them as well.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:24:46]: And they do great. But so it's got this inflammation downregulation, it's got this capacity to also help you with the actual infection itself. And that's actually where I've been using it most in like a lot of my patients is as an anti infective and with the deep sleep piece as well I think.
Ben Greenfield [00:25:06]: And I know you gotta be careful because you're a practicing physician, but I think it was you or on your guys website that I saw some stuff about Cordycepin and cancer.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:25:16]: Yeah. So it's not on our website. We might actually have a, maybe have a blog on it, the Troscriptions blog. But the reason why Is that exactly what I just mentioned here is that that there is the capacity to block RNA replication in rapidly dividing cells and triggering apoptosis, triggering the death of the cells that are rapidly dividing overall. So as a result of that, you know, you're getting the, you're getting to the, this idea where you can stop the growth of a rapidly dividing cell, which oftentimes is going to be maybe a cancer cell. Right. So that's one thing that we're seeing. And so, and then, you know, it's funny because when we first started looking at Cordycepin as a compound, we were looking at it for sleep specifically.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:25:55]: And then when we were doing some of the research and then all of a sudden these studies came out in cancer, at least in animal models, and the price of the ingredient went up pretty dramatically after that, as you can imagine, to get it. But that doesn't stop us, of course. But it's not being used that way clinically yet. Although there are a couple compounds that are like it, that are being looked at as drugs overall in cancer. So the technical term for Cordycepin is called 3 DeoxyAdenosine. And so basically we have Adenosine we just talked about earlier that Cordycepin looks and acts like Adenosine, but it's a little bit different. It has something called 3 DeoxyAdenosine. And the nice thing about that as well is it's more longer acting.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:26:35]: So Adenosine in our body is very, very rapidly acting. Within about, you know, a couple seconds to a minute, the half life of Adenosine is gone. Right. You're, it's over. Where with three DeoxyAdenosine lasts for like four to six hours, which is much longer in the body as well. And so that's why it can help you, you know, for short periods of time, but then also helps with this immune modulation, which can, you know, benefit you more long term. But from a cancer perspective, it's super interesting. And more research is happening here all the time, especially in breast, liver, lung and prostate.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:27:05]: Those are the ones that there's some research coming out.
Ben Greenfield [00:27:07]: Okay, got it. So the Adenosine piece, I mean, a lot of people use creatine for performance to replace some of the phosphate groups that creatine phosphate, it's replenishing from exercise. So if Adenosine is present in the Cordycepin, theoretically. Well, I'm not theoretical. I'm actually curious about the research, if there is any like, when it comes to performance, strength, speed, power even. And this would be more theoretical, I'm guessing, stacking it with something like creatine phosphate. So you're replenishing Adenosine triphosphate more rapidly. Anything that you're aware of in that respect.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:27:41]: So the Cordyceps mushroom has been studied specifically and shown to increase VO2 max, increase ATP production and actually enhance lactic acid clearance. Right. And so the question is, what in the mushroom is doing that? And very likely most of that is happening because of the Cordycepin itself. Are some polysaccharides in the mushroom that also increase ATP production because the Adenosine. Right, yes, exactly. And so the Cordycepin again works just like Adenosine. So you can actually make something called Cordycepin triphosphate. So if you don't have Adenosine to go in there, like it'll actually make Cordycepin triphosphate, which gives you energy directly.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:28:16]: So it's called CTP actually overall. And so there is some evidence, at least clinically, that we've seen it, not in studies yet. By stacking it with things like creatine, for example, can be very, very helpful because then you have again, the same way you have the recycling of the phosphate groups. Right. And so we are doing that and seeing significant benefit. Now the key, as you kind of alluded to earlier too, is that you feel sleepy when you take it. Right? So the idea is that you have to block some of those Adenosine receptors in the brain or work out very quickly after taking it. And if you take it and work out very quickly afterwards, most of that is going to go to energy production, making Cordycep and triphosphate specifically and then modulating all the other Adenosine receptors.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:28:57]: Right. So you have multiple different types of Adenosine receptors in the body overall, not just one or two. I think there's like four or five overall, specifically. Some are anti inflammatory, some increase vasodilation, nitric oxide production, BDNF increases, things like that as well.
Ben Greenfield [00:29:13]: I'm assuming you don't mean workout quickly after you take it. Like you must work out at a very fast pace. You mean like work out shortly after you take it?
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:29:21]: It shortly after, yeah. So your, your time frame after taking it needs to be small. You could do a fast workout, but make sure it's a good workout. Don't rush.
Ben Greenfield [00:29:30]: Yeah. Okay, so with the, with the cord, sorry, not cord, immune, the, the TroMUNE that has the Cordycepin in it, is there anything else in there that you stack it with?
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:29:41]: So that's only Cordycepin specifically, so it's, it's pure Cordycepin at different strengths. We have something called, you know, TroMUNE, which is 75 milligrams. And then you have of Tro+MUNE, which is for practitioners only. That's 150 milligrams of Cordycepin per troche. But the thing about the mushroom, right, as I was mentioning earlier, is that in a mushroom you have 0.03% Cordycepin. So you would have to eat like a huge amount of mushroom to get anywhere near the amount of Cordycepin that we're putting in these products. In fact, it's the most Cordycepin in any other product out there on the market right now. You know, if you find, if you find cortisamine out there, it's typically going to be in sort of mushroom blends, like standardized to a certain amount.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:30:23]: But we went directly the synthesis pathway. So once Dr. Ted did the initial research, we figured out the power of this thing to work in so many different ways, as we've been alluding to here. We decided to synthesize it with a lab and make it at a higher potency that's ever been made ever before. And so if you were going to eat the mushroom, you'd have to have like 80 grams of or 150 grams of mushroom itself to get the amount of Cordycepin that we're putting in these compounds or these particular products. But we also talk about stacking it a lot. Ben. Right.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:30:54]: So the idea is like, if you're optimizing your immune system, decreasing inflammation, your immune system activating, right? So you're doing all these great things to help the system. Like, what else can you do to also do those kinds of things? Right? So like some of the other products that we use at the company, things like, like our Troz, for example, to help with sleep, a combination that I use a lot in patients is a combination of TroZZZ with TroMUNE, because you have the troz that has eight different ingredients in it that are supporting sleep. And then you have the troimune, which is going to obviously be increasing deep sleep too. So you're basically stacking additional Cordycepin on the TroZZZ with additional from TroMUNE.
Ben Greenfield [00:31:30]: With the synthesis of it. You guys are able. There's no difference in what you get from a bunch of interns in the back room stomping on Cordyceps and collecting it and wooden buckets versus synthesizing it.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:31:44]: No. So I mean, obviously it's going to be cleaner than stomping on buckets and trying to find some Cordycepin in there somewhere. But it's the same molecule. It's the same exact molecule that you'd found in the actual mushroom itself. But we've just done it at scale, right? And doing it at scale was the key for us because we want to make sure we had enough instead of having to go through a huge amount of mushroom initially, we looked at extracting it from the mushroom, but it's just. It's a laborious process, kind of like stamping, like. Like you were just describing kind of thing. And so you really want to find a way to not have to do it that way if you want to have this much in a product.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:32:21]: Overall, I mean, there's lots of, you know, lots of various conditions where Cordycepin has been studied. And we talked about cancer, which is very exciting overall. Talked about deep sleep, which is something you've measured as well, Ben, and seen, and I see very regularly, for example, just realized that this morning. Yeah, it's pretty cool, right? And there's also some. Some additional things to mention. And so there's also been studied in. In wound healing specifically and increasing wound healing.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:32:49]: And we think this is related to, again, Adenosine receptors in wounds and increasing fibroblast production and making these wounds heal better. There's also some studies, even, at least in animals, in neurodegenerative diseases, which is not. Not terribly surprising overall because, you know, when you're increasing the immune system activation in a positive way, you're decreasing inflammation. There's also some evidence that that cortison increases your NRF2 pathways, which are pathways that are upregulated. Upregulated when you make more antioxidants as well. And so really, it's like the way I think about it is that. And I've been working a lot with patients that have chronic, complex medical issues and chronic inflammation, and they're just doing fantastically well with it. They take it at night and they increase their deep sleep and they really.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:33:36]: Obviously it may not be the only thing they're taking. It's definitely not going to be right. But it's something that really have found to be a game changer for so many people overall.
Ben Greenfield [00:33:43]: Is there any downside here like elevation of liver enzymes or anything you've come across as far as people who might not want to take it?
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:33:50]: Yeah, there really isn't any. So the Cordycepin specifically. So what it's doing is immune system modulating it up in helping it enhance the immune system activation. So if you have an autoimmune condition, where if your immune system is, you know, is already overactive, there's a theoretical that it could make the system be more overactive in some ways and you wouldn't want to take it. Right. So if you have an autoimmune condition, you want to be careful when you start taking it. So if you have like lupus or Sjogren's disease or something else like that, where you have your immune system fighting yourself, then you have to be careful taking it overall. So, I mean, the studies on Cordycepin and its safety are very, very good overall, the way.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:34:34]: I mean, I think that the other piece of it that we mentioned, like, not as significant of a side effect, but it can make you feel sleepy. So you want to make sure you're taking it at night. Typically, unless you're taking a low dose and you're kind of being active relatively quickly after using it to keep that Adenosine going in the right direction, there's really very few downsides to it overall. I feel like it's one of the things where we talk about mushrooms a lot now. I know Ben and their capacity with so many different aspects. And I think Cordycepin as the active here is just very, very powerful. Really the way I think about it is as something to increase deep sleep, to decrease inflammation, to enhance immune system function, and then for the exercise performance aspect to things as well. So.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:35:15]: So those are kind of the four ways that I'm typically thinking about it. And it's a mainstay for almost all of my patients now overall, and from my own personal stack as well because of that. For those capacities.
Ben Greenfield [00:35:26]: Yeah. It's my understanding that a lot of the immune supporting benefits of mushrooms come from some of the beta glucans that you find in more of the whole mushroom body. So I'm assuming if someone was using Cordycepin that's synthetically created in a lab to have really high concentrated versions that you would still encourage, like regular consumption of things like, you know, some of the biggies like shiitake, maitake, chaga, reishi, either like powdered teas or whole mushroom or something like that, to get some of the other parts of the mushroom they might not be getting from Cordycepin.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:35:56]: Oh, 100. Yeah. I feel like there's so much power in looking at things from a holistic perspective. Right. It's not just one thing that's going to help you. And I don't I know Cordycepin feels like this sort of like amazing compound and it is. Right. But it's not the only thing out there.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:36:12]: And the other thing that I've noticed over time is that especially if you're not using it for like a significant sort of anti cancer reason or like significant autoimmune thing that you're watching, you're watching, you're getting watched closely by a practitioner. It is best to actually, it seems best to actually, what's it called, go on and off the cortisone.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:36:33]: So to, to cycle. Yeah, that's the word I was looking for is I found that if you're what it seems like the body like everything, like sometimes what I found is that it's better to actually cycle it on and off and that's how the body remains to have like the significant effect that it does. Because I think what can happen if you're taking it too regularly at too high of a dose, and this is from personal experience, is that it doesn't seem to work as well when you do have more of a subjective exposure of some sort. So I found it's better to take it for a period of time, take it for two or three weeks at the most and then take it and go off for a little while or use it more targeted like when you're traveling or when other people that are sick around you and you don't want to get sick. It can really be helpful there overall. So it's best to cycle overall then rather than staying on it every day, that kind of thing.
Ben Greenfield [00:37:16]: Yeah, that's a pretty good tip though. Back when you talked about exercise and Adenosine and sleep drive because there's at least two days of the week where they're easier workout days for me. And I do notice I'm less exhausted when I get into bed. So even just using on a, a couple of nights like that seems like it could come in pretty handy.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:37:34]: Yeah, it definitely can. And we have a couple people that have actually reported exactly that overall when they don't have as much exercise going on and the travel one is big overall. And just because when people are moving around and they're on airplanes and like there's lots of fun things flying around those airports and airplanes with you. Like I've seen a significant improvement in my patients. So like my usual stack for, for patients that are traveling, they travel with methylene blue and they travel with TroMUNE. Those are the two. And then for most of my patients that have mitochondrial challenges, that's when I'm starting off is typically the methylene blue, low doses, 4, 8, 16 milligrams, and then the TroMUNE at night. And then I usually titrate their dose over time so it doesn't start off at the 75 milligram dose, which is.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:38:21]: Which is the TroMUNE. Start off at a quarter the troche, and then kind of see how they feel and kind of go from there. But they're my mainstays at this point and how I work with people. And I've just seen transformative things in my own patient population. The goal always, Ben, and I know this is the goal for you too, is that we have a lot of fancy things around us all the time. We have fancy tools, technologies. Cordycepin is part of that. Right.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:38:43]: But we have to work on our basics as well. We have to work on our foundational lifestyle, our diet, our supplementation that is focused on what we need, not just what we like to take. And so Cordycepin is one of the things that I can add on in patients very quickly to help them feel better, give them additional immune support. But I'm really trying to fix their gut, optimize their hormones, work on their stress, their sleep, and so that they don't need these things as much over the long term. That's the goal. Right.
Ben Greenfield [00:39:10]: So explain this to me. I've talked with Dr. John Lieurance before. For example, he has a product that probably competes with yours a little bit. Great guy. I think you know him too. And he told me that you could just swallow them, like the bars or the troches. I think he calls his Bars.
Ben Greenfield [00:39:28]: Yours are called troches. I don't know if there's a difference. You could probably tell me. But can you get the benefits and they just come on more slowly if you swallow it, or do you really have to dissolve it? I think the last podcast you told me upper area between the lid and the gums is the best place to do it, based on the thickness of that membrane. Like, what's the difference between swallowing and letting it dissolve?
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:39:50]: So the upper cheek and gum between that area, your mucosa, is about eight layers of thickness. And so compared to, like, your lower lip, where you're like you're underneath your tongue, that's one. So you have more mucosa up here in the upper cheek and gum. And so it ha what that allows. If you have a trochee, like we do, you can put it up there, you can park it there, and most of that ingredient is going to get into the bloodstream through your vascular system inside your cheek. Your cheeks are highly vascular overall, and as a result of that, you get into the system faster. Now, it depends on the product, it depends on the compound. In essence, Cordycepin, for example, Cordycepin is not as bioavailable as something like methylene blue, which we'll talk about.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:40:33]: So Cordycepin is better dissolved in the mouth because more of that is gonna get into the system. That bioavailability means how much of that compound is getting into the body after you put it into your mouth or you swallow it. And so Cordycepin has a higher bioavailability in the mouth as dissolved in a buccal trochee compared to swallowing it and going through digestion. And so that's in contrast to something like methylene blue, where methylene blue is just about a hundred percent bioavailable, no matter whether you take it in the mouth and park it there or if you swallow it. Okay. The difference, though, is going to be how fast it works. And in some people, what they'll find is that if they dissolve methylene blue in their mouth, they're going to feel better faster. And this could be people with, you know, brain fog, concentration problems, you know, fatigue, you know, the executive function kinds of things.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:41:26]: Well, they'll find that if they dissolve in the mouth, they do better than if they swallow it. But that's really just because of how fast overall, Ben. But what I would also say is that, you know, John's products are much higher doses than ours. Like, he has, you know, he has things that are 75, 100 milligrams, 150 milligrams. I think it's 150 milligrams per one of his bars compared to one of our troches, which is 16. So dissolving something of of ours in the mouth compared to his is like, it's like you'll be blue if for days if you do something like his, that high dose in the mouth. So you would never want to do that overall.
Ben Greenfield [00:41:58]: All right, well, some. Somebody out there is wondering, including me, so what if you put it up your butt?
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:42:02]: Yeah. So you don't want to put ours up your butt because there's also, in our troches, there's a little bit of peppermint in the formula, and that's not going to feel good from a delivery perspective. Up the butt is a fantastic way to get medications and supplements in because it's a highly vascular location, just like your cheek, for example. Right. And so we created the products at Troscriptions, as you know, Ben, in buccal form, because, again, it's faster to get at the system. Most ingredients are going to be more bioavailable in the mouth compared to swallowing them. So, for example, we talked about Cordycepin here, but our sleep formula is the same thing. You can swallow it for sure, but it's gonna be faster.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:42:43]: And it's also, the ingredients are gonna be more potent if you dissolve them in the mouth. And we've known this, you know, as you know, we compounding pharmacies have used troches for years and years. And the other thing that's nice about them, too, is that they're titrable. You can start with a quarter or a half or a full. So whether you're dissolving in the mouth or swallowing it, you can actually, in either case, you know, figure out your exact dose rather than having to take, like, the whole thing the first time. Although for some people like you, Ben, I know the whole thing is kind of, you know, your MO.
Ben Greenfield [00:43:10]: So, yeah, I've done that a few times, sometimes with interesting results. The personal. What do they say now? That my lived experience is that dissolving it in the mouth seems like I get way better results.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:43:24]: And that's what it comes down to, right? Because, I mean, and so many people out there have pill fatigue as well, and they're taking so many pills, they just don't want to take any anymore. So we designed this in a way that you can just dissolve it in the mouth.
Ben Greenfield [00:43:36]: It's like dry powdering without the coughing.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:43:37]: Yeah, yeah, Please don't do that, people. I don't think that's a good idea in general, but unless you're very skilled at these kinds of things. But what I love about the troches is that, you know, I can break them up so easily. And so I can even give, like, the TroMUNE to my kids, for example, which I do all the time. When they start feeling that something's not, you know, going very well, they don't feel very good. I mean. I mean, like, if you're going to work with kids and give it to kids, I recommend working with a provider. Of course, we only sell to adults as far as how things go, but we know that it's a very safe molecule.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:44:07]: But even my kids will dissolve in the mouth and they don't mind. It's not like it's a big deal overall. It's easier to swallow, especially if you're young. So I think that troches are not easy to make overall and they're not easy to scale and make it into a company as we have. But we know the power of the them overall. Right. So titratable, rapid acting and more bioavailable. Except for that one, which is the methylene blue, which is an important one because of all things that are going to be shocking to the mouth, methylene blue is going to be your most shocking.
Ben Greenfield [00:44:37]: Mostly, yeah, it's a little noticeable. Okay, so the for me, man, like you've, you've always got some kind of crazy thing like you taught me about Cordycep and the last time we chatted. What else is Dr. Ted working on in his secret Batman labs over there?
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:44:52]: Ah, so we are working on many different things. We have a newer version of our sleep troche that's available TroZZZ are out for practitioners now only called Tro+SOMNA. And this one specifically, again just available to practitioners. So if you're not a practitioner, you can email our team and we can help you find one. But the cool thing about this is that it's combining three different ingredients that are working on the GABA system. And I think we talked about this last time overall, Ben, but we have this cool patent pendant strategy, patent pending strategy called obla pairing or obligate pairing. Which means when we're looking at the GABA receptor, what Dr. Ted and our company has done is figure out that there's a better way to support the GABA receptor.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:45:38]: Most people take things that will enhance GABA in various ways, but they can deplete GABA over time. So the idea is that the receptor, you have a binding location where GABA binds and you have locations where other molecules will bind. Things like kava or CBD and CBG, which are in some of our other formulas, they bind to other sites on the GABA receptor and increase the affinity for GABA to bind. The problem though is if you're not giving something that can actually replete GABA itself over time, you're going to, you're actually going to deplete gaba. So, so what we did in these formulas is find something that actually binds to where GABA would bind on the receptor, mimicking gaba or actually like GABA itself or GABA itself or so something like nicotinel GABA, which is vitamin B3 attached to the GABA is actually giving the body GABA itself. But in essence you have something that's binding to where GABA would bind and Something that's binding to a separate site on the receptor that's enhancing GABA to bind it there as well. And that combination is called an obligate pair.
Ben Greenfield [00:46:38]: Yeah, you're almost like combining stimulation and disinhibition.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:46:42]: Yeah, yeah, that's a good idea. Like, so the idea of stimulation and then also just creating a substrate, like you have stimulation that's making a substrate bind to a receptor. But the problem is that you can deplete that substrate. And many people are actually depleted in that substrate already, in this case being gaba. If your GABA deficiency is very common, if you have sleep issues, anxiety, depression, these are all oftentimes related to GABA deficiency. And so if you're giving something that's trying to stimulate the GABA system, but you don't have enough GABA around, you're going to get into trouble over time. Your receptors are going to try to reorganize themselves and downregulate themselves. And you get issues with tolerance, withdrawal, dependence.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:47:19]: This is alcohol, for example. This is benzodiazepines. This is sleep medications. They work. But they also have significant downside over time because they're depleting GABA pretty dramatically and then causing all of this. And so in the, in the Tro+SOMNA formulation, we have three different things that are working on the GABA receptor. We have agarin, which is in the sleep troche as trozi as well. Agarin's from another mushroom, the psychedelic mushroom, the Amanita mushroom, as you probably remember.
Ben Greenfield [00:47:46]: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:47:46]: But it's a double the dose in Tro+SOMNA. And then we have, we have DHHB, Dihydro Honokiol beta, which is the most active form of magnolia bark or Honokiol.
Ben Greenfield [00:47:57]: The old Chinese traditional medicine, insomnia cure.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:48:00]: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And so the most active form of that is honokiol or honokiol, sorry, the active form is dihydro honokiol beta, DHHB. And then we have the third ingredient there is apigenin, which you've probably heard of before as well. It's in chamomile and other tea and some green leafy other vegetables. But apigenin is an antioxidant, so it's a mitochondrial support, but it also works on the GABA system as well. So. So that's the newest one that just came out recently, just in May of 2025 when this is being recorded.
Ben Greenfield [00:48:29]: Actually just last week sent me some and I tried one and I probably made the mistake of using it when I was traveling. So I had the whole thing happen where I woke up in the hotel room and had no clue where I was because I was so just dead asleep. So it knocks me on my ass. Yeah. So, I mean, the downside, if there was a fire in the hotel, I'd be screwed. But yeah, I mean, that stuff works, that's for sure.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:48:56]: Well, the idea with that whole formulation was to actually make something strong enough to knock almost anybody out, but in a very safe way, in a very comprehensive way. And that's how we do things at the company. Right. The idea is like, we're not trying to pay Peter to pay Paul, whatever the analogy is. So we're working on that. That's a very, I think, very effective formula. Especially people have really bad sleep issues that really don't want to be on. On pharmaceuticals or want to have something that's more natural if you're already.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:49:24]: If your sleep issues aren't that bad overall and you just need a little bit of help, TroZZZ is fantastic for that. It really does help for most people. So we've been working on that. I'm trying to think what else we're working on. I think that the other main thing that we're really working on, and I alluded to this in the beginning of our podcast, is the idea of creating and helping practitioners of the future. Trying to help people really become well versed in understanding how they can leverage things like AI in their own clinical practices. And our whole nonprofit, the Health Optimization Medicine and Practice Company, is focused on creating practitioners of the future. So we're teaching people how to optimize health.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:50:01]: We're using things like metabolomics, you know, hormone analysis, gut health, and in shifting all those networks to when you were 21 to 30 years of age, focused on not the organ based system, but the holobiont system, the system of how we are these whole organisms that are made up of humans and human cells and viruses and fungus and bacteria and how we can optimize all those. So our main driver, always, Ben, as you know, is to try to work on foundational health principles overall. Because if we're doing that, then everything else gets better. I mean, we have a company, we have Troscriptions that's available to help people right now while they're on the longer path to optimizing their health. But. But in essence, the longer path requires support too. Right. And that's what Health Optimization, Medicine and practice is all about.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:50:51]: So that that company's been growing really fast. We have more and more practitioners that are getting trained in our framework. And we do it in a way where we have cohort style, where we have like our metabolomics module, which is our primary module, our foundational one. Three times a year we have small groups of students that go in with us. We meet every week for a lesson. We talk about the lesson of the week. We have case presentations, we have journal clubs, and then we're going to, starting to do with some of the other modules as well. So that's, that's our big push this year.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:51:22]: It's been going on for a while under the surface, but we're really trying to get out there and, and make it happen this year.
Ben Greenfield [00:51:27]: Yeah. If I'm not a doctor, am I allowed to take it or do you need to be a, like a board certified physician?
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:51:34]: No, you don't. You don't have to be a board certified physician. You can, any kind of practitioner working with clients.
Ben Greenfield [00:51:39]: Personally like to geek out on that stuff sometimes myself.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:51:42]: Yeah, I know, I know, I know. And now you see clients as well the way you do things, Ben. But the way we do it is different than functional medicine. Functional medicine is focused on root causes of illness and that's important. It's obviously better than conventional medicine, which is focused on band aids and really great at acute care, really bad at prevention and long term care overall. So health optimization medicine and the framework is looking at, for the root causes of health, how can we optimize and keep you healthy? And so we actually have a big drive here as well, like within the new, this sort of new framework now that's involved with the administration. It's, well, what if you had a new system entirely that wasn't run by the American Medical Association, the American Cardiac Association, the American Heart Association, excuse me. Like these are organizations that are focused on really just treating diseases overall.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:52:32]: So what we're really trying to advocate for is let's create a whole new system where we can find organizations like ours that are focused on optimizing the health of the patients and clients that the doctors and practitioners that are using, that are getting trained in that system. So this is the Metabolic Health framework as well. And there's metabolic health companies or organizations out there that are doing something similar. But what if we had a whole new system that wasn't being relegated or being regulated by systems that are just focused on disease? So these are big missions, but these are ones that we're really involved with now and really hoping for seeing some change this year.
Ben Greenfield [00:53:08]: Yeah, well, I'd love to support man. I'll link to all that. I'll link to that in the show notes. For those of you who want to try these crazy trochees, proceed at your own risk with that sleep one. Geez yeah.
Dr. Scott Sherr [00:53:19]: Tro+SOMNA is specifically only for people with really significant sleep issues, but Tro+MUNE and TroMUNE are very, very well tolerated and easy to and easy to integrate into a program.
Ben Greenfield [00:53:29]: All right, BenGreenfieldLife.com/sherr. Dr. Scott's last name you guys. BenGreenfieldLife.com/sherr. S H E R R. Check out these troches. Leave your questions, your comments and your feedback in the show notes. You can also leave a review and anything else you want to say pipe in over there. I read them all. So Dr. Scott, thanks for coming back on for a two peat and I'll link to our other show and the show with Dr. Ted.
Ben Greenfield [00:53:53]: Again, at BenGreenfieldLife.com/sSherrr S H E R R.
Ben Greenfield [00:53:59]: To discover even more tips, tricks, hacks and content to become the most complete, boundless.
Ben Greenfield [00:54:04]: Version of you, visit BenGreenfieldLife.com.
Ben Greenfield [00:54:15]: In compliance with the FTC guidelines, please assume the following about links and posts on this site. Most of the links going to products are often affiliate links, of which I receive a small commission from sales of certain items. But the price is the same for you, and sometimes I even get to share a unique and somewhat significant discount with you. In some cases, I might also be an investor in a company I mentioned. I'm the founder, for example, of Kion LLC, the makers of Kion branded supplements and products, which I talk about quite a bit. Regardless of the relationship, if I post or talk about an affiliate link to a product, it is indeed something I personally use, support and with full authenticity and transparency recommend. In good conscience, I personally vet each and every product that I talk about. My first priority is providing valuable information and resources to you that help you positively optimize your mind, body and spirit.
Ben Greenfield [00:55:08]: And I'll only ever link to products or resources, affiliate or otherwise, that fit within this purpose. So there's your fancy legal disclaimer.
Upcoming Events:
- The Ark Retreat — Spokane, WA
Join me at The Ark Retreat, an exclusive, cutting-edge wellness experience at my fully biohacked home in Spokane. You'll get hands-on access to the latest biohacking tech, organic farm-to-table meals, personalized health insights, and the chance to connect with a like-minded community—all in a perfected environment designed to optimize air, light, water, and energy. Don't miss this opportunity to transform your health and build lasting connections. Click here to snag one of 300 spots now.
- Keep up on my LIVE appearances by following bengreenfieldlife.com/calendar!
Do you have questions, thoughts, or feedback for Dr. Scott Sherr or me? Leave your comments below, and one of us will reply!