The Hidden Immune Signal Accelerating Aging & the Beta-Glucan That Fixes It | Bob Rountree & Chris D’Adamo

Beta-glucans might be one of the most overlooked levers in immune resilience, and that has major implications for longevity. Talking with my long-time friends and colleagues Drs. Bob Rountree and Chris D’Adamo reminded me just how powerful this molecule truly is. The clinical reach here is stunning, from immune aging and cancer support to vaccine response, gut–brain effects, and overall resilience.

What struck me most is how beta-glucans help the innate immune system respond more effectively over time, whether in situations of overtraining, chronic infection, vaccination or other immune shifts. Clinicians really need this on their radar. I think you’re going to find this conversation eye-opening.  ~DrKF

Beta-glucans are emerging as one of the most versatile tools for immune resilience and healthy aging. In this episode, Dr. Kara Fitzgerald talks with Bob Rountree, MD, and Chris D’Adamo, PhD, in partnership with BetterWay Health, about beta-glucans and how they can modulate innate immunity, impact immunosenescence, and improve outcomes across a wide range of clinical presentations.

You’ll learn how beta-glucans enhance vaccine responsiveness, support cancer treatment tolerance, strengthen gut–brain and HPA axis signaling, and improve resilience in patients facing chronic infections, toxicant exposure, or overtraining. The discussion also explores why purity and molecular structure dramatically affect clinical results, including trial data using BWHLabs‘ highly purified and bioavailable BWH-85™ formulation, and what clinicians should look for when choosing a beta-glucan product.

For practitioners building evidence-based protocols in immune health, longevity, and whole-body resilience, this episode delivers clear takeaways you can apply immediately in practice.

In this episode of New Frontiers, learn about:

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Hi, everybody. Welcome to New Frontiers in Functional Medicine, where we are interviewing the best minds in functional medicine, and of course, today is no exception. I’m incredibly excited about today’s conversation because I’m joined by two leaders who’ve made a huge impact in functional medicine from different but deeply complimentary angles.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: First, my good friend, Dr. Bob Rountree. Many of you know Bob as one of the original faculty at IFM. He’s been practicing integrated family medicine in Boulder, Colorado for over 40 years and he’s contributed to many of the foundational texts in our field. Bob’s depth of knowledge from clinical nutrition to botanical medicine, and his gift for connecting complex systems always bring something new to the table.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Alongside him is Dr. Chris D’Adamo. He is a research scientist and epidemiologist whose work has helped shape the evidence base for functional and lifestyle medicine. Chris has led dozens of clinical trials, published over 100 peer reviewed papers, and has advised some of the most important organizations and companies in our space. His focus on nutrition, environmental exposures, and lifestyle interventions gives him a very unique lens into the mechanisms that support long-term health.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Together, Chris and Bob bring the clinical and the scientific, the practical and the academic, and I can’t wait to dig in today’s conversation on beta-glucan with both of them. Bob, Chris, thank you loads for joining me today. It’s always awesome to get to pick your brains and together, buckle up folks, it’s going to be a ride.

Bob Rountree, MD: Buckle up.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: We’re talking about all things beta-glucans today with the twist of the longevity angle. So you’re going to be giving us a good overview of beta-glucans, but then we’re going to lean into how they fit maybe in the hallmarks of aging. I mean, there’s just so much data. It’s going to be an exciting conversation. Bob, you have been talking to us about beta-glucans forever.

Bob Rountree, MD: Decades, really.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Decades. It’s why I know about beta-glucans, because you taught me before I became faculty at IFM, of course, and then with you as a faculty in the immune module. You’ve been talking about them forever. And then the science just keeps coming along and growing and evolving and becoming more and more impactful. As you said off air, these are a workhorse nutrient for you and we’re just going to learn about why. So Chris, start us off with what they are, what they are structurally, how this structure influences their activity, with an eye towards cellular resistance.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: Sure. So beta-glucans are found in all kinds of natural products, foods and other plants, yeast. These are things like mushrooms, which I think a lot of people think of when they think of beta-glucans, shiitake mushrooms, maybe most notably. They’re in seaweed, oats, yeast. So these are in the cell wall of a lot of these different foods and food components. Many of those foods and food components have been used medicinally, without really understanding why they were so effective at immune modulation, but we think that these are some of the primary drivers of why these foods and food components are so helpful.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: The structure, just in brief, there’s a couple of main structural forms based on the linkages that are in these polysaccharides. The first would be the 1,3 linkages. These are the ones that have the strongest immunomodulating properties. Then you’ve got your 1,6 linkages, which are sort of complementary players in immune function. Then you’ve got your 1,4 linkages, and their soluble fibers are used more for heart health and triglycerides. We’ll talk about some of the data today. But the 1,3 and 1,6 are found in yeast and mushrooms, and the 1,4 are found more in your grains and so on. So that’s very high level. And you use those different linkages, those different forms, for different purposes, as I was alluding to.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Awesome.

Bob Rountree, MD: One thing I might add is that beta-glucans are basically glucose molecules, it’s just the way the glucose molecules are linked together. Beta-glucans are glucose polymers and what’s unique about them is that those linkages that Chris is talking about create a three-dimensional structure that’s a triple helix. That’s the part that’s mind boggling to me is that the pattern recognition receptors on our immune cells are tuned in to a specific size and shape of this triple helical molecule. And they’ve done crystallography and studies like that to confirm it so it’s not speculation. So there’s something that’s really fundamental about this structure.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: It’s cool. It’s like an evolutionary thing. We evolved with this kind of information tweaking and–

Bob Rountree, MD: I guess you could call it a universal signal.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: All right, well I want you to talk about that in a second, but I do want to say that we’ll grab an image and put it on the show notes so you can get what Bob is wowed about.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: It’s totally worthwhile looking at. Bob and I, we’ve passed these GIF images back and forth. I mean, just this three dimensional structure, the way they fit like a key, it’s just amazing how the binding of these receptors occurs. It’s totally worthwhile looking at and I think viewers will be amazed.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: We’re going to talk about toll-like receptors because probably everybody listening knows what a toll-like receptor is, again, thanks to you Dr. Rountree. But before we do, I just want to say, because people’s ears perked up when you described them structurally as glucose molecules. Obviously this is not going to raise your A1C or your blood sugar and that’s because they’re linked together. They’re not going to be liberated into free circulating glucose.

Bob Rountree, MD: They’re particles, that’s how we think about it. They’re particulate. At least that’s one form, is particulate.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: So they dock on toll-like receptors, they dock on immune receptors, and this is involved in balancing immunity. And again, with an eye towards our longevity conversation today, slowing immune aging. What’s going on when they’re interacting with these receptors, Bob? This is for you. And then, Chris, you can add.

Bob Rountree, MD: Chris looked eager to say something.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: I know he did. Do you want to? Go.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: Okay, I’ll take a first stab at it, and Bob has much more clinical knowledge on this than I do. I mean, basically, I think what’s cool about this is that there’s a couple main receptor sites. There’s complement receptor 3, or CR3, that was initially called the glucan receptor. So it goes to show you the specificity that’s on these different immune cells for these receptors. And no other natural products, to my knowledge, actually bind to that receptor. There’s another one called Dectin-1, which is also unique for natural products. And then you mentioned the toll-like receptors and a lot of natural products will bind to those. But those first two are unique for beta-glucan and just unlock all kinds of immunomodulating pathways at the release of certain cytokines that then stimulate natural killer cell production and so on, macrophage activity. So that’s kind of the magic of those unique receptor sites.

Bob Rountree, MD: So there’s hundreds, if not thousands, of receptors called pattern recognition receptors, PRRs. Toll-like receptors, I think, were one of the first discovered classes, and that actually comes from the German word toll, which means amazing. And I think they thought they were amazing because they found them in Drosophila melanogaster– fruit flies. So these are very— Well, the technical term is conserved receptors that are found even in the most primitive life forms. So it started with the toll-like receptors, the TLRs, and then it started expanding, as Chris said. Initially, they thought “Oh, well, there’s a receptor called the human beta-glucan receptor.” I’ve even seen papers that said the HBGR.

Bob Rountree, MD: And then they started narrowing it down and saying, well, actually, that receptor doesn’t just bind to beta-glucans, it responds to endogenous molecules. There’s a lot of other things that can activate it, but beta-glucans are really specific in terms of things that you can get exposed to that can activate the receptor. And a really critical concept here is that activation of the receptor doesn’t mean the cell responds by going all out. Activation of the receptor is only the first step in waking up the immune cell, the macrophage, or other immune cells that might be affected. So a lot of people get that idea, “Oh, you’re turning on a receptor that indicates presence of a stranger and that’s a bad thing because now you’re upregulating NF-kappa B and you’re making all these inflammatory cytokines. Isn’t that a bad thing?”

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: It’s going to be contraindicated in like autoimmune disease, etc.

Bob Rountree, MD: Exactly!

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: I mean, you’re reading my mind. So why? So answer that.

Bob Rountree, MD: So what it is a wake up call, the way I’ve heard it, is that according to Polly Matzinger, the famous immunologist who came up with the danger model about how the immune system responds to the environment. She says most of our immune cells are dormant. So you’ve got tissue macrophages that are basically hanging out, they’re swimming around, they’re looking for things that are unusual. But their guns are in the holster, right? The guns are in the holster. When they come in contact with a molecule like beta-glucan, they take the gun out of the holster. It’s a wake-up call, but they don’t start shooting the gun, if that makes sense, using that analogy. It’s like something’s up, I better pay attention. So if you look at the steps involved in macrophage activation, there are multiple steps. You’ve got to have that exposure to this molecular structure, whatever it is, beta-glucan or Candida albicans, mannose, things like that. There’s that first step and then you’ve got to have inflammatory cytokines, you’ve got to have damage-associated molecular patterns, or DAMPs. All of those things have to interact to get a full blown inflammatory response.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: But we need our immune system paying attention, sort of sampling the environment all the time. We need the immune system competent to be able to pay attention and then successfully, sort of stratify what needs to happen and this becomes a problem. I want to circle back to the immune aging thing, Chris. As we age, one of the first things to go is immune competency. Thoughts on that?

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: Yeah, definitely. The hallmarks of aging that I think you may have mentioned a little bit earlier, one of them is senescence, you know, senescent cells, these zombie-like cells that are not really alive, not really dead, but just spitting out inflammatory cytokines and other issues. And immunosenescence seems to be the most deleterious potentially, of senescence cells more generally. There have been some really interesting papers, one in Nature, that actually said that this is kind of driving a lot of the phenotypes and age-associated disease. So anything we can do to prevent immunosenescence and maintain the robustness of our immune system is going to help.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: I mean, if you think about it, cancer is essentially immune system dysregulation, not able to fight off the cancer cells, and it’s the number two killer, I believe. And then you have all of the increased susceptibility to infectious diseases with age and so on. So both directly and indirectly, the poorly functioning immune system is going to lead to problems with age. I know Bob’s got a lot of thoughts on this too. I can talk about a study we’re doing and we’ve wrapped up about that, but Bob, I’d love to get your thoughts too on the topic.

Bob Rountree, MD: The way I think about immunosenescence is it’s like the old guy sitting on the park bench taking a nap. Except that a lot of these immunosenescent cells are part of a secretory phenotype, the SASP phenotype, that makes inflammatory chemicals. So it’s not just that that old guy is sitting on the park bench taking a nap. He’s sitting and throwing poison darts. So if the cells were just zombies that were not doing anything, if they’re minding their own business, it would be fine. But if they’re zombies that are going to go out and infect other people with— and hate to use this analogy, cordyceps, right? They’ve got cordyceps in their brain, like in the science-fiction show, and they want to go out and infect other people. They want to go out and wreak havoc.

Bob Rountree, MD: So the SASP phenotype of immunosenescent cells, that seems to be a big part of why the immune system starts to crash when people get into their mid 70s, you know, get into their 80s. And there are two consequences of that: One is inflammaging, this low-level sterile inflammatory process. And the other one is a lack of response to things like vaccines, which is well described. In nursing homes, you give people a flu shot and then you measure antibodies and nothing happens and the reason that’s significant is because of the studies that Chris will tell you about now about yeast beta-glucan, and vaccines in the elderly. That’s why this isn’t just a theory, this is something that’s got direct application that’s been proven in clinical studies.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: I want to hear about the vaccines. I want to hear about cancer. Again, I just want to make sure I understand beta-glucan’s influence in steering away from cancer, steering away from autoimmunity, improving response to vaccines. And also, what’s the mechanism that’s supporting an inhibition of senescent cell burden. So that’s a bunch of questions I’m throwing at you, Chris.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: Sure. Maybe I’ll start with the cancer, and then pass it back to Bob. I know, Bob, you’ve been really deep into the vaccine studies. One of the reasons that I think beta-glucan is the most underappreciated tool in our immune-modulating toolbox is just the wealth of clinical studies and cancer is among the top of the list. There’s dozens of clinical trials that have been done in human beings for cancers, ranging from lung cancers, breast cancer, gastric cancers, and even neuroblastoma and they’ve shown a variety of things. They’ve shown improved cell counts in a number of these studies, but they’ve also shown improved quality of life and better response to treatment. It’s usually as an adjuvant to treatment.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: And I think this is due, again, to the sort of broad-based, immunomodulating properties that they have, because it’s sort of interesting to see a single molecule that has effects on all these different cancer types, including tumors and leukemias and so on. That’s very well established in the literature. Bob, do you want to talk about the vaccine studies and I’ll talk about maybe some of the respiratory infection studies after that?

Bob Rountree, MD: Yeah, but just to key off on what you’re saying about the cancers that in Asia, this has been a standard part of oncology forever. It’s used in hospitals. There’s injectable forms of mushrooms, injectable forms of Coriolis versicolor, of maitake, shiitake. So, they’ve known this for a long time. This isn’t some brand new discovery and I think it just started out empirically. “Oh, we can use these things with people undergoing chemotherapy and it helps their immune system be more resilient.” So it started with an observation before there was an understanding of the mechanism. Because I’m hearing you say, how does it do that? Exactly what are the steps involved in creating that kind of resilience or better response and I don’t think they knew anything about that for years.

Bob Rountree, MD: They had some general idea. There was an observation that natural killer cell functional activity would get more robust after using a wide range of these molecules. But I think part of the issue was not knowing which specific molecular structure was involved and that’s where all this is changing and getting refined to say, well, the beta-glucan, the beta-glucan 1,3 and 1,6 molecule, seems to be a core thing. It’s not the only molecule in things like maitake, but it seems to be really key. Really key. So that’s my next step on the cancer thing. And the vaccines, it’s pretty simple. Again, they’ve known for a long time that if you do placebo-controlled studies in people in nursing homes and one half gets the beta-glucan, we’re just talking one capsule a day for, I don’t know, one, two, three weeks before, then they get a flu vaccine and measure their antibodies, and antibody response goes way up. And that’s been published more than once. So it’s a pretty well known phenomenon. Then you have to work back and go, well, how did that happen and what do we know about other kinds of molecules that can do that?

Bob Rountree, MD: We know that muramyl peptides that are found in lactobacilli can do a similar kind of thing. We’ve known that lactobacilli are immune modulators that can upregulate T regulatory cells. So we’ve got some of that mechanistic understanding going on and I think it’s getting more and more refined to ask the question, “Well, how does beta-(1,3)(1,6)-D-glucan from yeast work?”

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: That’s very interesting, it’s very cool. And what you’re both saying sort of lends to why. Of course, it’s likely associated with favorable outcomes when you use it in autoimmunity, for example. So we’re not worried about a willy-nilly turning up the volume, but a really sophisticated sort of orchestra direction.

Bob Rountree, MD: That’s a theoretical concern that anything that’s generally going to turn up the volume of the immune response is going to somehow lead to autoimmunity. But autoimmunity is not a deficient immune response that is overcome by turning up the volume. Autoimmunity is a dysregulated immune response. It’s a dysregulated response to tolerance, right? So we’re enhancing the regulation. We’re not upregulating, if that distinction makes sense.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Yes, absolutely. I mean, I think just again, sorting out the us from them, what’s okay, you know, just get involved in the whole generation of tolerance. It’s like an early step in the immune system maturation and it sounds like these guys have a really key role to play, a really foundational step.

Bob Rountree, MD: Foundational.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: I do want to mention to everybody, you said one cap. Bob, on the show notes, folks, we will have the beta-glucan immune resilience protocol so you can just tuck right into the evidence and how to use them and lots and lots of citations, labs, what to look for, indications and so on. Okay, let’s talk now a little bit about, just again, looking at a study that you guys are involved in on immune optimization. You’re in collaboration with TruDiagnostic now, Chris, doing some interesting investigation. What’s going on over there?

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: Yeah, we’re super excited about this. Kara, I know you’ve done some studies of some of your clinical protocols and you’ve shown reduced biological age using TruDiagnostic, which is just a really reputable lab that continues to build out what they’re doing and publish more stuff. So we wrapped up a clinical trial using the BWHLabs product, which is the practitioner-exclusive product at 500 milligrams a day, which is a single capsule, and we looked at folks who were not aging very well. Our inclusion criteria were those that had a Dunedin Pace of Aging that was around the average or worse. So in other words, they were aging more each year biologically than they were chronologically and we gave them the product for a number of months.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: This is now finished and we don’t have the results in hand right now, they’re being analyzed right now by TruDiagnostic, but by the time A4M comes around in December we’re going to present on this and our colleague, Jill Carnahan, is going to present on this. So we invite everybody to come and see what the results are. We’re pretty optimistic, given just the wealth of evidence for this. We’re not just looking at the biological age and the immune age and the pace of aging, but a number of different immune-modulating pathways and so on, that you get from this wealth of data from TruDiagnostic. And we intend to publish the results too. I wish we had the results in hand right now, we’re going to have them soon.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: That’s very exciting. Yeah, I can’t wait to hear. I can’t wait to get the details. We’ll shoot them out into the world, too. It’s interesting that it’s such a modest dose. How long was the study?

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: The study was three months, so three months of supplementation. So yeah, we’re excited to see what happens in these folks. And I think the generalizability is pretty high because it wasn’t like it was a population with cancer, or a population with hypertriglyceridemia, or some these other types of things, high cholesterol. This is just folks that aren’t aging very well biologically for any variety of reasons. Yeah, we’re going to see. We’re going to find out and write them up and see what we found.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: That’ll be fun.

Bob Rountree, MD: It’s an interesting point about the dose, you know, which is that having prescribed medicinal fungi to people for decades, it’s always been a challenge to figure out how much to give them. “I’m going to give you a shiitake extract. How much is enough?” Right? It’s all over the map and I think that the important point that’s emerging from this literature is that when you’ve got the right molecule, you don’t need a huge amount because you you’re tapping in just the right place. You’re getting just the right response and so one capsule a day can have this ripple effect like the butterfly flapping its wings in Texas and setting off a tornado in Brazil. Or is it the other way around? Something like that. The whole idea of the butterfly effect is you have a little bit of a change in initial conditions that has a ripple effect that impacts the whole system. So if you know where to tweak and you know where to push, you get this huge response.

Bob Rountree, MD: I love the precision of this molecule and it’s not to say that I still don’t eat shiitake mushrooms. I love eating them and I think there’s other benefits that you might get from reishi or cordyceps, so it’s not that I’ve stopped using them, but for this specific indication of immune resilience, it’s really hard to beat this particular molecule.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Yes. And I mean, we might as well just add again, as I mentioned in the intro, this is a workhorse molecule. This is right up there with vitamin D and fish oil for you.

Bob Rountree, MD: And NAC. We combine it with NAC.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: It’s just a foundational intervention for everybody.

Bob Rountree, MD: Yeah. When people say, well, who should take this, my response is who shouldn’t take it, right? Because we are basically living in a time when our immune systems are under assault. And I’m not just making that up. I mean, that’s Michael Snyder’s work at at Stanford, where they put all kinds of recorders on people, all kinds of wearables, and track people for a year or two just to see what they’re exposed to. And they were astounded. This is published studies, you know, and they’re showing that the exposome is full of all kinds of potentially harmful exposures. So we’re under assault, and so who in this day and age, who wouldn’t need that kind of support?

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: Yeah. And there’s a wide variety of reasons for that, of course, and those of us in functional medicine get that. But living in this toxic soup that we’re in, I mean, there’s all this great data on beta-glucan for cancers and respiratory infections, and we’re going to see some aging stuff, but the ability to help the body get rid of PFOAs, mold, some of these types of things, that’s pretty fascinating too. When you think of just all this stuff that we’re around that’s throwing our immune system for a loop, I agree. I don’t care where you’re living these days, it’s hard to avoid a lot of this stuff.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: How does it do it? How does it help in detox activation? How does it help us face and clear these?

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: So for the PFOA study, this is a recent study published earlier this year. It’s likely due to the soluble fibers, is one of the ways that it’s helping the body get rid of some of these toxins.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Interesting. It’d be interesting to see.

Bob Rountree, MD: And also, there’s this low level of inflammation that ties into inflammaging. If your immune system is more efficient, it’s not responding erratically to all these random exposures you’re getting all the time. You have a much more controlled and regulated response, so you’re not wasting energy.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: So it may be actually both physically helping clear the body of the toxic burden, but also favorably, kind of, inhibiting the mechanism of action of said toxin.

Bob Rountree, MD: Yeah, I hesitate to use the word inappropriate, but you know, if your immune system is seeing these toxicants all day, every day, then there can be an inappropriate immune response. It’s not a good thing.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Yeah, one hundred percent. Somebody who I always mention at the immune module when I talk about fatty acids is Bernard Hennig’s work. He showed that omega-3s directly inhibit the PCB-driven eicosanoid upregulation. You can see fish oil get right in there and really help augment and shut down the damage caused by PCBs. We know minerals can do that with toxic metals, you know, kind of interrupt the mechanism and it sounds to me like this molecule probably has the capacity, as well. And what’s cool, because it’s a fiber product, it’s actually clearing as well.

Bob Rountree, MD: And we start with just an observation, again, that people in these cancer studies that take beta-glucan, they have an improved quality of life. Chris mentioned that and you have to say, what’s that about? It’s one thing to say, well, their natural killer cell activity went up. Okay, fine. We have an idea of what’s going on there. But why is it they feel better? Why do they have more energy? What’s the mechanism involved? So I was glad to hear Chris bringing that up.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Yes.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: You know, that’s really interesting too, because there’s some evidence that the beta-glucans would essentially stimulate the HPA axis and reduce cortisol even. There was a systematic review published earlier this year too that showed the impact of beta-glucan on mood. So there’s been since evidence with fatigue and other mood states that beta-glucan supplementation, in human beings, has been shown to improve. And again, that’s direct and indirect effects likely. Some of that is going to be just less cortisol, but also just better immune function and one less threat to homeostasis that’s going to help us feel and function better.

Bob Rountree, MD: Wow.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: I have so many questions for you guys. We know that inflammation will definitely disrupt the central nervous system, the generation of our feel good neurotransmitters, et cetera. I mean, inflammation can shut them down. We know that with serotonin and moving it to the kynurenine pathway, and making quinolinate, and all of that. So if it’s turning the volume down on inflammation, I would imagine that could have a piece–

Bob Rountree, MD: And you’ve got cytokine sickness as part of all that.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Yeah, and if you’re able to just turn that down a little, you’re going to feel a heck of a lot better for sure. That’s so interesting. I want to talk about the HPA and the stress piece, Chris, with you. Before we do, I just want to ask you guys whether you might be able to term, given the breadth, given how pleiotropic beta-glucans are, given that we basically evolved with that information, we’ve built receptors that will allow for them to talk. They’re so fundamental across—

Bob Rountree, MD: They’re in jellyfish. They’re in, you know, like…

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Yeah. Yeah. That’s so interesting. Yeah, they’re highly conserved. Yeah. Would you describe them as adaptogenic? If we’re able to look carefully at what’s going to happen in you, Bob, with taking taking beta-glucan and in me and you, Chris, might we see them behaving more in keeping with what we need? Is there is there evidence in the literature that could suggest that potential?

Bob Rountree, MD: In the sense of being a tonic, I would say yes. We think of adaptogens as really things that can either rev you up or tone you down a little bit. I wouldn’t say that you take beta-glucans acutely. If you’ve got an infection, it’s not about taking them and saying, “hey, this is going to decrease this acute inflammatory response.” That’s not what they do. It’s much more…

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: It’s not ibuprofen.

Bob Rountree, MD: It’s not ibuprofen. It’s something that’s happened over time. So if you think of an adaptogen as something that’s going to immediately quell that excessive response, that’s not what happens here. And part of the reason I say that is because I wrote this book, Smart Medicine for a Healthier Child, decades ago, and we were very careful in there to say, “Oh, if you have a kid with a upper respiratory infection, the last thing you want to do is give them an immune regulator like astragalus, et cetera.” I don’t know how true that is. It’s not that I think they’re contraindicated. I think you just don’t take a beta-glucan and think, “Oh, now I’m going to get over my flu.” So from that perspective, it’s not that kind of adaptogen. It’s a long-term phenomenon. Do agree with that, Chris, or how do you feel about it?

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: Yeah, I would say so. I mean, yeah, that’s how I’ve typically seen them used. I think one of the questions that clinically comes up too is how long does it take for the effects? I think it’s something that builds up over time. I’m not sure there’s a lot of papers on this, but I’ve typically heard about a week or two. So for instance, we’re traveling internationally and I’ve amped up my use to get into kind of this acute phase now, for all the flights and airports and all that kind of deal. I’m leaving on Saturday, so about two weeks before that I really started to amp it up. As opposed to like, okay, I’ve got this now. I really want to quell the inflammation, or feel better, or whatever it is. So I think it’s more something that you build up. So I guess it depends, again, what you really consider adaptogenic.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: I guess I was thinking maybe my senescent cell burden is higher, you know, and maybe that’s my focus. So if I’m using beta-glucan to influence that, versus Bob where, maybe he’s got allergies going on, or he’s got a higher toxic burden, or something. I guess it’s going to be adaptogenic in that regard, I’m thinking. And maybe I’m creating my own definition for adaptogen perhaps. But go with it. Does that make sense?

Bob Rountree, MD: Yeah.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: It does to me.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: What did you ramp your dosage up to, Chris, out of curiosity, as you get ready for international travel?

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: Yeah, so I’m taking a gram a day now. Actually probably even a gram and a half a couple of days before. There’s been quite high doses used in the literature, but that’s typically what I do. A lot of it depends on the product and I know we’re going to talk about some of the head-to-head studies on different commercially available products, which there’s a lot of evidence for a beta-glucan. I wish there was for a lot of the supplements and natural products that we utilize. The BWHLabs is the one that I take. You can take a hundred milligrams throughout most of the year and then if we get into kind of cold and flu season, or you’re traveling, or around someone who’s sick, I think that’s when you can kind of bump it up prophylactically to a gram.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Okay, cool. And that’s the high end. I mean, I know you definitely experiment a lot with product and you’re not nervous to go high so that’s kind of cool. That would be–

Bob Rountree, MD: Yeah, experiment.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Well listen, we’re circling back to the HPA and I want to talk about it’s role in stress, but we can finish the quality conversation because there is a pretty massive discrepancy, it looks like, in beta-glucan quality.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: Big time. Again, this is an area where there are a ton of head-to-head studies. There’s a researcher named Vetvicka who was at University of Louisville for many years. He’s essentially Dr. Beta-Gucan. I think he has like a 100 beta-glucan publications alone and he did all of these head-to-head studies where he compared commercially available products on their activity on phagocytosis, IL-2, you know, a number of other immune function parameters. And study after study, consistently across them, the BWHLabs product is the one that had the most activity. Probably my favorite one, and if we can put a link to it perhaps, but it’s got silver bullet in the title. And actually at one eighth of the dose of the other products– they tested around 15 commercially available products– you had the same amount of phagocytosis at one eighth of the dose of the BWHLabs product compared to a lot of the other products, which some of them are actually pretty decent products.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: That’s why I think when we talk about how much to take and so on, a lot of it depends on just how good the product is. I know BWHLabs is at 85% beta-glucan content, which a lot of the others don’t have. So that literature is really impressive. I’m sure you both agree, I wish we had that for all of the products so that we could clinically say, well, this is the one that does this, this does that, this one maybe not as much. But for beta-glucan, we have that in spades.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Yeah, and we’ll link to the paper.

Bob Rountree, MD: Years ago I remember having a discussion about label claims regarding bioflavonoids. And I still haven’t been able to wrap around this concept that a company can say we have 500 milligrams of bioflavonoids in our product, but it may be diluted 50%. Have you heard that before? I got that from doing sourcing and consulting for supplement companies that 500 milligrams of bioflavonoids on a label doesn’t mean 500 milligrams of pure bioflavonoids. It means 500 milligrams of a bioflavonoid mix, right? They could be diluted and you don’t know what else is in there. So I think with the yeast beta-glucan in particular, it’s just a matter of purity, right? There’s low purity grades that are used in animal feed and that’s fine. Right? Animals don’t need that super high concentration.

Bob Rountree, MD: And then if a company is going to sell a beta-glucan product, it’s up to them to decide how pure do we want it? How much do we want to pay? And unfortunately in the nutraceutical industry, a lot of the dosing is based on what they think people will pay. Right? “Well, people won’t pay X number dollars for something.” You know, “If it’s more than $40, they’re not going to buy it.” Well, what if you have to take eight capsules a day? “It’s only $40 for a bottle of 30.” Yeah, but you go through that bottle in a couple of days.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Or you don’t actually take a therapeutic dose and you just 100% waste money, which is the more likely thing to happen because the label is going to be misleading and you’re not going to get it.

Bob Rountree, MD: You’ve taken a sub-therapeutic dose. That happens a lot. You’re able to take one or two a day and you think that’s enough. And again, Dr. Vetvicka’s studies say this is how much you need if you want to get this clinical effect.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: And BWHLabs outperformed, it looks like, by quite a mountain. We’ll link to it. Yeah.

Bob Rountree, MD: On hundred percent of the time. And how many studies over 15 years of doing it over and over and over again. And this guy wasn’t working for BWHLabs.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: He just happens to be into beta-glucans. He’s just like a beta-glucan guy. Yeah.

Bob Rountree, MD: This guy’s an immunologist and he’s saying, well let me just agnostically put all these supplements to the test and see which one works, and the beta-glucan from BWHLabs is the one that came out on top over and over and over again.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: That’s so interesting. That’s so cool.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: You’re right, Bob. Over a decade. So it’s not like it was one really great batch. This is over like many studies over many years.

Bob Rountree, MD: Kind of amazing that way. And we don’t have that for other supplements.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: And you told me off air that you didn’t know what they were talking about for the longest time, what that mystery beta-glucan was.

Bob Rountree, MD: I’ve used the other products that performed somewhat well and I always saw this other product out there and I go, “Who makes that? I don’t know who sells that. I don’t know where to get that.” And that was even when I was consulting for more than one supplement company saying, “You’ve got to use beta-glucan but I don’t know where to get this other stuff, so the best we can do is this other line.” And then I found out about BWHLabs and said, “Oh, that’s the product I’ve been hearing about for 15 years.”

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: The mystery product. It’s listed here for some reason as what? Glucan300.

Bob Rountree, MD: Yeah, Glucan300. So that’s the raw material.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Okay, that’s the raw source material.

Bob Rountree, MD: That’s the raw material, which is 85% pure, which really is as pure as you can get. There is an injectable form and you can imagine how much that costs.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Is that used in the U.S. at all?

Bob Rountree, MD: It’s been used in studies but it’s not commercially available.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: You know, it’s a really interesting story how– and I’ll give you the CliffsNotes version– of how this even came here to the U.S. Essentially, it was democratized by a guy named AJ Lenigan, who Bob and I have come to know, who I believe is a pharmacist by training, and went to Asia to understand– Because there’s a drug called Lentinan, which is a shiitake mushroom extract, and he essentially brought back, and over the years continued to purify it and get better and better standard in this yeast-derived beta-glucan. Which is essentially why it’s within range now for anybody to use, as opposed to these really expensive injectable medications or imprecise other types of beta-glucan formulas. It’s kind cool how that came to be.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Yeah, that is cool. I’m glad we’ve teased it out and I’m really honored that we’re helping in the launch and bringing the awareness to other clinicians. It’s very satisfying to bring such incredible science and identify the product that is behind a lot of this science. It’s satisfying to do that. It’s also a real disappointment that there’s so much garbage out there as far as labels and confusion.

Bob Rountree, MD: Yeah. I want to be clear that I don’t think the other products are garbage, I just think they’re weaker. That’s how I put it. I mean, Consumer Labs always puts out a report that says, hey, this product had nothing in it. This is sawdust. There may be some of that kind of fraudulence going on but I think it’s more a matter of a company decides what grade they’re going to sell and it’s usually based on a price point. Right? So they’re just going to go, oh yeah, we can sell a cheaper product at $25 a bottle. And you know, my dad, when he was alive, would say, I can get this vitamin C from Costco, or something like that. “I get a bottle of a thousand for five dollars.”

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Yeah, yeah, he sounds like my dad. That’s my dad. Yeah, for sure.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: Yeah. Value shop for different things, maybe your sponges but not things you’re going to consume, especially if you have a health objective, because you usually get what you pay for.

Bob Rountree, MD: Yeah.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Right. Okay Chris, we touched on the ability of the beta-guclans to modulate HPA. Anything else that you want to add to that? I just wanted to circle back and give you an opportunity to talk about that.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: Sure, I mean, it’s pretty interesting. Again, there’s animal models that show that it helps reduce cortisol and that might be what’s happening. But I think that’s even downstream from the far upstream, which will come as no surprise to either of you that it’s likely in the gut. So the beta-glucans have prebiotic properties and it’s been shown to increase various lactobacillus and bifidobacterium species, and then increasing short-chain fatty acid production and all these types of things. So taking into account the gut brain access, that may be the farthest upstream— Unless Bob or you have any other thoughts on what might be further upstream from that— But knowing what happens when you support gut health with mood and mood states that we’ve seen in a number of clinical trials over the year. I mean, that’s one of the farthest upstream, in my view, at least.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: That’s really interesting.

Bob Rountree, MD: I can’t but wonder what it does to the overall ecology of the microbiome in the gut. I don’t know if there have been a lot of studies that looked at before and after and did shotgun metagenomics, but I’d be very curious about that.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Yes.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: Yeah.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Yes, what do we know, Chris? Or what are you aware of?

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: Well, it could be a next one. I think we’ve just seen increases of certain species that they’ve targeted, to look at, again, the lactobacillus and bifidobacterium and those genera. But it would be pretty cool. That could be another study that we embark upon next and see what’s happening from that perspective.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: And there’s some evidence around improving gut barrier integrity and increasing butyrate or other short-chain fatty acid production. Is that evidence out there for these guys?

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: Yes, that evidence is out there. I mean, again, when you’re doing that, you’re going to have all kinds of downstream benefits from that. So, yeah.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Benefit, yeah. And well, you’re clearly favorably modulating the microbiome if you have those endpoints.

Bob Rountree, MD: You know, it’s interesting. A lot of that data comes from studying Saccharomyces boulardii, which is a really specific substrain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. So the yeast beta-glucan we’re talking about today specifically comes from Saccharomyces cerevisiae. So that got me down the rabbit hole of saying, what’s the difference in baker’s yeast and brewer’s yeast and Saccharomyces boulardii that’s used as a probiotic? They’re all the same genus and species, right? But they’re slightly different strains and they have slightly different biologic properties. But I think all of them do tend to have those beneficial effects on the integrity of the gut barrier, secretory IgA production, all of those things. So I think they share that in common.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: It’s just really interesting and, gosh, more to come. And to your point, Bob, it would be fun if BetterWay Health partnered with one of the shotgun genomics companies out there and did a bit of a drill down, kind of like you’re doing now with TruDiagnostic. You’re going to have more data than you’ll be able to sift through after you get all those back, but it’ll be fun. It will be really interesting to look at.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: That’s a great idea, Kara. I mean, I would love to see that study done.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Yeah, because it is this really potent bioactive fiber that speaks to the microbiome clearly. It’s this prebiotic compound that we already know from the limited investigations that it’s doing a lot of very cool stuff. Anything on using this intervention in chronic fatigue, in burnout? I think I know the answer here. Prescribing it in people and athletes who are at the end of their season or have been overtraining. Actually, as I say that out loud, it seems to me that athletes should be on this season-wide, not when they hit the wall at the end of the season. Thoughts on that, Bob?

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: Bob, want to take it first?

Bob Rountree, MD: Well, we know that infections are number two, after injury, for taking athletes off the field. That’s a big deal, if say you’re training for the Olympics and then you fly to Rio or some other country and you get sick the day before your event. That’s a big deal. So for professional athletes, there’s a lot of interest in what things can be done to keep their immune system intact. And we know from study after study that overtraining basically depletes your immune system, right? And in a similar way to what happens with aging, right? There’s a drop in immune resilience. So professional athletes in particular are really susceptible to immunological insults, especially infection.

Bob Rountree, MD: And so, yeah, there’s a lot of research that’s been done on how you can get around that. There’s a whole concept of immunonutrition and coming up with overall supportive formulas, simple things like vitamin C, flavonoids. There’s a lot of work that’s been done on glutamine. And, if I may, I would cite some studies done on pleuran, which is from oyster mushroom, that specifically shown an improvement in immune function in athletes and professional athletes that were pushing hard, where you can measure things like natural killer cell activity, phagocytosis. And beta-glucan from oyster mushroom has been shown to help with that. So I think it’s reasonable to extrapolate from that and say, well, yeast beta-glucan is pretty much in that same category, according to Dr. Vetvicka. I don’t know if there’s specifically been published studies on athletes in that context. Chris, you might know if that’s the case.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: Yeah. To your point, there have been studies that looked at overtraining. Actually a lot of the studies that we have in natural products for immune health, including vitamin C and others, are among those that are overtraining because it is such a problem for the immune system. That’s actually how I got into it myself, was deadlifting and doing competitive martial arts and so on and I was getting colds all the time. It was ridiculous. So I was looking for ways that I could support my immune system. This was a long time ago. So there’s pretty good data for that. There’s even some data for athletic performance; grip strength, VO2 max, and those types of parameters. Again, there’s only a few studies there. I think things like creatine and so on are what you really want to think about for athletic performance. But yeah, I think it’s that for under the duress of intense exercise, there is some data that shows that beta-glucan can help support immune function.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: It makes total sense. Has secretary IgA or serum-based IgA been looked at at all? Just out of curiosity, because that’s kind of a nice marker to just look at in athletes, you know, pre- and post-event. It’s been measured quite a bit. You can always see kind of a tanked IgA in athletes postseason.

Bob Rountree, MD: Yeah, it has been shown with the parent substance, which is the Saccharomyces boulardii. Right? As far as whether that effect is created by all the other stuff that’s in there, you know, Saccharomyces boulardii is a pretty complex organism. So is it all the things that are in the fungal wall or is it specifically the beta-glucan? I think it’s a reasonable thing to say the beta-glucan is a big part of it.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Just given what you’ve articulated, what both of you articulated today, yeah, it seems logical to infer that it’s likely playing a role in supporting IgA. So it sounds like it’s a nutrient that you prescribe to almost everyone. You’re taking it, Chris.

Bob Rountree, MD: I’m taking it, yeah.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: You’re taking it. Yeah, it’s interesting, I’m taking mushrooms now, but I have to say, I’m just really excited about the specific molecule and how it’s been isolated and all the science behind it. You combine it in practice and I want you to talk to me about that a little bit, Bob, when you might tweak the dosing outside of 500. We’ve already touched on that, but nutrients that you’re going to combine it with. We talked in general about some of the workhorse nutrients, but what do you do?

Bob Rountree, MD: First of all, I start with the alphabet, you know, A, B, C, D, zinc and quercetin, right? Do a little jump there. I think for general immune support it’s hard to beat that alphabet approach. And then specifically NAC, quercetin, zinc, all those things are foundational along with using beta-glucan. And then if a person really needs more support, let’s say someone who’s just gone through a course of chemotherapy and their immune system has been trashed. You know, it always amazes me, the oncologists don’t pay any attention to that. Right? They just go: “oh, yeah, your lymphocytes are going to be in the gutter for the next year.” That’s just part of the deal. Well, what should I do? Well, let me know if you get sick and we’ll put you in the hospital and give you IV antibiotics. There’s no attempt to do anything because there’s a belief that if there’s not a double-blind, placebo-controlled study for somebody in your exact situation, for somebody that’s got the exact dose of chemotherapy that you got, then I’m not going to do it. Right? We’re going to be waiting a long time for that.

Bob Rountree, MD: So these are people that I think could use a higher level of support. You know, or the person who just says, I get everything that drives through my neighborhood. I pick it up. Or a school teacher saying: “God, these kids, it’s a cesspool in my classroom in the second grade and I get anything and everything.” So people that have higher needs are people that have suppressed immunity for whatever reason.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Yes. Right. Anything to add to that, Chris?

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: I think there’s other things for me that would add. I mean, I’m pretty big on a good probiotic or fermented foods to sort of add to that mix. I’ve gotten into the nasal Xylitol Clear and that type of stuff again when traveling. There’s some sort of polyherbal things, like Biocidin and so on, that I do too, but I think Bob hit the foundational things.

Bob Rountree, MD: I just read a paper the other day about human nasal mucosal transplants for people that have chronic sinusitis and I thought, well that’s brave. Here, lean back, right?

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Wow. A nasal microbiota transplant. So they do like a lavage on a healthy–

Bob Rountree, MD: Exactly lavage. We used to joke about fecal transplants and now they’re kind of standard.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Yeah, for sure. Isn’t that interesting? Well geez Louise, I mean if you’re colonizing some some ugly critters up there I mean, I don’t know, I might go for it.

Bob Rountree, MD: If you’ve got good snot I might want to borrow some, right? Give me some of your snot.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: So just taking us home on beta-glucan, any new science you’ve got your eye towards? Again, just thinking more broadly around the hallmarks of aging? You know, we used to do this with the matrix, or we still do this with the matrix. You think about your interventions through the IFM’s matrix and where the levers that they touch within that and how. I mean, what you’ve articulated today with me, looking at it through the longevity lens, it would appear that probably we could do this dance, we could do this exercise with the hallmarks. Maybe in addition to– We talked about senescent cell burden, we talked about gut health/dysbiosis, inflammaging. We touched on cellular repair. We touched indirectly on mitochondrial function. You talked about improved grip strength, maybe there’s other mechanisms. VO2 max you mentioned, extraordinary. So it seems like beta-glucan, while it could be influential more broadly, and you were clear Chris that it’s not going to be as impactful in one area as the other. So I don’t want to overstate, but it’s kinda cool how wildly pleiotropic this is.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: Yeah, no doubt about it. I think you had a good idea for another study to see what’s happening in the gut looking broadly at other species and so on. And the TruDiagnostic stuff is epigenetics, so what’s happening with the methylation we’re going to know that pretty soon. I’m super excited. I’m as excited for the results of that as of any study I’ve done in some time.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Yes. It’s very exciting. You’re going to have a sea of data and a lot of immune data. But yeah, go ahead.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: Yeah, so those are some things I’m excited. I don’t know, Bob, what’s…

Bob Rountree, MD: Well, one thing I’m excited about with this notion of immune training is that we haven’t really gone into that much, but, you know, most Europeans are familiar with the BCG (Bacillus-Calmette-Guérin), I think it is, you know, is something that has been given to prevent TB. And it has this non-specific, innate-activation effect. So it’s a fairly standard part of a protocol to prevent TB that’s been around for decades. And I don’t think it was fully understood exactly what it did until the last few years. Now a lot of studies are saying that yeast beta-glucan can accomplish very similar effects.

Bob Rountree, MD: So the notion is that we have this old concept of innate versus acquired immunity. The innate immune system has got a programmed response; it’s DNA driven, it’s designed to detect specific molecular structures and respond to those, but it’s always the same. There’s Candida albicans, here’s the response, that’s what you get. And then the acquired immune system is the one that has memory, that gets upregulated after exposure to an antigen, a vaccine, and then the next time the response is much quicker. So that distinction’s been around for a long time.

Bob Rountree, MD: What’s new now is realizing that you can actually program innate immune cells and it’s done epigenetically. There’s methylation pathways involved. You’re turning on and off certain genes so that the next time the innate immune system sees a particular molecule, it responds more quickly. Theoretically what that means is the longer you take yeast beta-glucan, the more effective your response is going to be. So it gets back to this being an adaptogen that you use over a long period of time. You know, we’ve had that debate about echinacea for a long time. How long do you take it? Oh, you should go off. You should cycle it. I don’t know. I’ve taken these beta-glucan on and off for years. Right? I don’t necessarily see the need to cycle that basic dose.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: You say on and off. Do you think about breaks being needed or you just, yeah.

Bob Rountree, MD: Well, I forget about it. I take so many supplements I forget what I’m taking and then I’ll be going through everything on the table and I say, oh, where’s the beta-glucan?

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: I’ve seen Bob’s pillbox. It’s pretty similar to mine.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: I have a pill bag. I don’t even know if I could get away with a box these days. I’m with you guys.

Bob Rountree, MD: Yeah. So this immune training, I think, has got huge potential and there are more and more studies coming out that are looking at the mechanism, understanding it. And so if you talk to a traditional immunologist who goes, “Well, what’s the evidence that taking something like this is really going to make a long-term difference?” I would point them to that immune training literature because it’s pretty darn impressive.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: Yes, that’s extremely interesting to me. Something that I’ve taught on at IFM for a long time was how the mechanism of allergy drops is similar. It’s like it’s immune training and it’s via reprogramming, epigenetically. It’s extraordinary and that’s a long-term shift. Well, listen you guys. Anything else? Anything else we need to bring in? Anything we missed?

Bob Rountree, MD: I think we did a pretty thorough coverage of what’s out there.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald: We did. It was awesome. It was really great to have you on. Again, folks, we’ll link to the papers in the show notes, we’ll link to the Use Guide [Immunity Protocol] that I mentioned before, and then we’ll link to an image of these amazing, wonderment compounds. All right, both, thanks for joining me today.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD: Thank you.

Bob Rountree, MD: Thank you.

Bob Rountree, MD, is a leader in integrative and functional medicine with over 40 years of clinical experience. Medical Director of Boulder Wellcare, he is a long-time IFM core faculty member and the 2015 recipient of the Linus Pauling Functional Medicine Award. Dr. Rountree has authored numerous books and textbook chapters, serves as Clinical Editor for Integrative and Complementary Therapies, and is a respected lecturer and consultant in the nutraceutical field. He brings a deep passion for personalized medicine, botanical therapies, and the intersection of immune health and healthy aging.

Chris D’Adamo, PhD, is a research scientist and epidemiologist specializing in how nutrition, lifestyle, and environmental exposures shape health across the lifespan. An Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, he previously served as Director of Research for its Center for Integrative Medicine, the first academic integrative medicine center in the U.S. Dr. D’Adamo has led numerous clinical trials and observational studies, authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications, and contributed chapters to major medical texts. He is a sought-after lecturer and scientific advisor in the nutrition and natural products fields, where he brings a strong commitment to evidence-based integrative medicine and the translation of research into practical clinical insights.

Bob Rountree, MD

Chris D’Adamo, PhD

Beta Glucan 500 by BWHLabs

Article: 3D Structural Insights into β-Glucans and Their Binding Proteins (Includes image)

Polly Matzinger, PhD and the Danger Model

Dunedin Pace of Aging Clock

Jill Carnahan

Bernard Hennig

CR3 (CD1 ib, CD18): a phagocyte and NK cell membrane receptor with multiple ligand specificities and functions

Soluble b-Glucan Polysaccharide Binding to the Lectin Site of Neutrophil or Natural Killer Cell Complement Receptor Type 3 (CD11b/CD18) Generates a Primed State of the Receptor Capable of Mediating Cytotoxicity of iC3b-Opsonized Target Cells

Therapeutic intervention with complement and β-glucan in cancer

Smart Medicine for a Healthier Child by Janet Zand, Robert Rountree, and Rachel Walton

Comparison of immunological effects of commercially available β-glucans

AJ Lenigan

Impact of Diet and Lifestyle on Vaccine Efficacy in Adults Aged 55 and Older: A Review

Beta-Glucans and  Cancer

Trained Immunity: A new player in cancer Immunotherapy

Beta-Glucans and Trained Immunity

β‐1,3/1,6‐Glucans and Immunity: State of the Art and Future Directions

Continuous Exposure to Non-Soluble β-Glucans Induces Trained Immunity in M-CSF-Differentiated Macrophages

Recognition of yeast b-glucan particles triggers immunometabolic signaling required for trained immunity

Trained immunity enhances host resistance to infection in aged mice

Beta-Glucans and HPA Axis

Anti-Stress Action Of Several Orally-Given Β-Glucans

β-1,3-glucan Attenuated Chronic Unpredictable Mild Stress-induced Cognitive Impairment in Rodents via Normalizing Corticosterone Levels

Beta-Glucans, Athletic Performance, and Overtraining

Pleuran (β-glucan from Pleurotus ostreatus) supplementation, cellular immune response and respiratory tract infections in athletes

Plasma Metabolomics Reveals β-Glucan Improves Muscle Strength and Exercise Capacity in Athletes

Effect of BETA 1, 3/1, 6 GLUCAN on Upper Respiratory Tract Infection Symptoms and Mood State in Marathon Athletes

Beta-Glucans and Fatigue

Effects of β-glucans on fatigue: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Why Functional Medicine Is the Future of Longevity with Dr. Rountree

Bio Age Self Assessment Quiz

Younger You book

Better Broths and Healing Tonics book