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Podcast 363: Introducing HCP Formulas

Martin asks all the important questions about Fibrenza, Abzorb and LipiCept. Listen to this interview to get all the answers!

Don’t forget to check out our FREE Chronic Pain Manifesto!

MARTIN: Hello everybody! This is Martin Pytela for Life Enthusiast Podcast! Today with me I have Michael Kramarczyk, he is the designer and product guru at HCP Formulas. Michael, what is your official title?

MICHAEL: A man with a lot of hats!

MARTIN: Okay! Michael Kramarczyk, the man with many hats! We are proud to carry his products, currently, they are Fibrenza, Abzorb, and LipiCept. Michael, would you be so kind and tell the viewers about your product? How are your products different?

MICHAEL: We are different because we don’t regurgitate. We take the very latest cutting-edge science, the very best sources of ingredients, the purest sources of ingredients that we could possibly get our hands-on, and make genuinely different products with those ingredients. Products that are purpose-built to accomplish a very specific thing. We are never going to be an A-to-Z type of company, that is really not our goal.

MARTIN: Okay, so you started with a purpose, right?

MICHAEL: Very much so. Yes.

MARTIN: If I remember it right, Fibrenza was your first product, right?

MICHAEL: Yes, Fibrenza was our flagship.

MARTIN: And it is different because unlike the common proteolytic or common systemic, you guys cover the whole gamut.

MICHAEL: Absolutely. There are some formulas that have been out there for 45+ years at this point, and there was a lot of progress made about 15-20 years ago, people were coming out with different products, finding new enzymes that were capable of doing more things with less volume, and delivery systems started changing a bit, things like that. A lot of the companies that would come out with a new product, it was basically a regurgitation of their previous product, of the last big thing. In speaking with a lot of different practitioners over the years, and consumers too, we learned something very quickly. There were a lot of people that were kind of frustrated with Systemic Enzymes, which is what Fibrenza is. 

There were a lot of things that were frustrating. With some products, you would have to take handfuls at a time, delivery systems were so unreliable that some people were passing certain tablets or capsules, there were incredibly high doses, you had to take them three times a day, it had to be away from food, some people would see amazing benefits, but some people wouldn’t. So there was a lack of reliability. Price points were starting to exceed $150+ for a 30 day supply. There were a lot of things that frustrated a lot of people. And so taking it upon ourselves to try and improve upon that was really our primary task with Fibrenza and making it our flagship product.

MARTIN: Okay. So if you take it a little more technical, I noticed that there are some plant-based and there are animal-based enzymes in there. Let’s talk about the pH issues and all of that.

MICHAEL: The pH is actually a great point, that is a big factor. As I touched on a moment ago, the lack of reliability and seeing a benefit was a big frustration, both from practitioners as well as consumers. They are spending up to $150 or more in some cases, they want to see results! And some of them did see results, but some of them didn’t. There are many  factors for that. As you mentioned, we have animal-based enzymes and plant-based enzymes in our product, which is very, very intentional. The reason being is we are all different. There were two different spectrums out there prior to Fibrenza, your plant-based enzyme products, and your animal-based enzyme products. We use both. Others use ingredients like trypsin, chymotrypsin, pancreatin as their primary active enzymes in their formula in animal-based products. On the other side, you have people that are putting out plant-based products and those would oftentimes include serrapeptase, which is an awesome enzyme, as their primary active ingredient. And in both instances, some people respond really, really well, some people don’t.

Why is that? It is because we are all different. We all have different metabolisms. We have different pH ranges. We have different blood types. All of those things are going to have a huge impact on how well a person is going to assimilate and utilize an animal-derived enzyme over a plant one and vice versa. And that is really where Fibrenza shines. Fibrenza is the only systemic enzyme that is taking the most potent enzymes from both sources and combines them. You will not find another systemic enzyme out there that has trypsin, chymotrypsin, pancreatin, serrapeptase, and nattokinase in one bottle. Ours is the only formula that has superoxide dismutase in it. Ours is also the only formula that has seaprose in it, and seaprose is a tremendous enzyme. It is very potent. In fact, many people will compare serrapeptase to seaprose, but if you do the research, or if you look into the research that has been done before, seaprose edges out serrapeptase every time. But we have both because we are fond of both. 

Serrapeptase is a great enzyme, seaprose kind of tops it. Having those most potent enzymes from both sources means there is something for every metabolism, every blood type, every pH range to respond to, and it takes that “hit or miss”  out of the equation. As far as seeing a benefit, it makes it far more reliable to the customer, and also gives us the ability to be the only guaranteed systemic enzyme on the market. That is a real big deal. Like I said, people are making these large investments in these products, lots of companies guarantee freshness, and lots of them guarantee potency. That is really nice, we do too, but we also guarantee benefits. If a person tries our product and they don’t see the benefits, we do not want them paying for it, period.

MARTIN: So why would a person want to pick Fibrenza?

MICHAEL: There are numerous reasons. Very low dosing, way higher compliance, higher reliability of seeing success with the product.

MARTIN: Let’s talk specifically. What health issues make someone the candidate for taking Fibrenza?

MICHAEL: Okay. So our biggest success stories are going to be with chronic pain, inflammation, arthritis, scar tissue, fibromyalgia certainly helped put us on the map, a lot of women use it for uterine fibroids, fibrocystic breasts. There are a whole host of different cardiovascular benefits that come with it. Blood cleansing, artery cleansing, vascular inflammation, blood pressure modulation… There are a lot of different ways to use Fibrenza.

MARTIN: It is interesting, you just named all of the chronic inflammatory problems that most people don’t associate with lifestyle, but are usually caused by lifestyle. Some people might think: “Oh my gosh, I have inflammatory problems, and it could be in the circulatory system, or the muscular, skeletal, digestive, wherever these problems may be.” Will they all respond to the enzyme treatment?

MICHAEL: Absolutely! Every single one of those instances, every single one of them. It is really easy to do. Systemic enzymes had a bad rep for years, you had to take handfuls of them at a time, three times a day. With Fibrenza, it is two capsules two times a day on an empty stomach, and that will cover most of your mild to moderate conditions, with really severe chronic cases you go to three capsules twice a day. So it means fewer capsules per dose, fewer doses per day, our delivery system is absolutely phenomenal. It also means a much shorter time to wellness, you don’t have to be on it for a month or two months or three months to start seeing the slightest hint of benefit. Most people with inflammatory conditions will start seeing a difference in 5-10 days.

MARTIN: Okay. Let’s say I had a small operation or whatever, I have an open wound, I was in a car accident or I have a bullet wound, or I have been cut open by doctors. Now what?

MICHAEL: Now definitely get on enzymes! If for no other reason, just to get rid of that inflammation and put those tissues back into a state where they are much more apt to heal on their own. Certainly from a pain standpoint, you are not going to have pain without inflammation, so if you get rid of one, you are going to get rid of the other. Curbing that inflammation would certainly help make your discomfort that you are experiencing much more bearable. Those are the more obvious reasons. But it also works with the healing process and scar tissue formation. With the way that systemic enzymes work, it comes down to proteins, and scar tissue is certainly a protein-based matter. When a wound occurs, you are immediately going to have little strands of fibrous tissue that start to build and build and build, begin that healing, stop the bleeding or contribute towards stopping the bleeding. 

All the repair mechanisms are going to form that scar tissue to heal that wound and eventually build up to form that scar that you see. Now, you want to take those enzymes to keep that from becoming excess scar tissue, to help prevent the formation of adhesions, which is internal scar tissue underneath the skin. You want to keep that stuff from coming. The systemic enzymes are certainly going to help in a huge way to prevent that from happening.

MARTIN: All right! Talk to me about a person who would like to lose weight. I know one lady who was taking this fibrinolytic enzyme for fibroids, and she called and said: “Fibroids are gone, and all my stretch marks are gone too!”

MICHAEL: Well again, it would certainly stem from the scar tissue, fibroids are a huge success story of ours. We hear that one a lot. A lot of emotional stories come with that one, it is pretty awesome. Stretch marks certainly would qualify. Anywhere where there is an excess protein, that is the best way to put it, scar tissue qualifies for that, fibroids qualify for that. Yes, the causes are certainly different, but the material that makes up a fibroid is not all that different from materials that make up scar tissue, and both of them are protein-based. When you look at a digestive enzyme formula, you will notice there are enzymes for fats, starches, carbs, sugars, and all that stuff. When you look at a systemic enzyme, you will find the vast majority of those enzymes are proteolytic, or protein eating in nature. It is not because of their capabilities by themselves, because enzymes really don’t know anything, it is your body that gives the enzymes their ‘brains’ and sends them where they need to go. 

Every protein-based cell in the human body is tagged by the body ias either an endogenous protein, meaning it is supposed to be there, or an exogenous protein, meaning it is not supposed to be there. And your body will only disperse the enzymes to go after and break down those proteins that have been specifically tagged as exogenous, the ones that don’t belong. You mentioned having an open wound before. You can take all the enzymes in the world, and they will eat up all the excess scar tissue on the outside, they will eat up all those adhesions on the inside, but they will never eat up so much that it reopens that wound because your body has specifically said: “These cells are necessary to keep this wound healed.” So it is your body that makes the enzymes smart.

MARTIN: Right. So the scar is seen as ‘not me,’ whereas the normal tissue is seen as ‘me.’ I’ve heard people telling me: “I don’t want to take enzymes every day, because I don’t want my body to get lazy and stop making them.” What can you tell us about that?

MICHAEL: Your body is not going to stop producing enzymes, that is not how it works. Enzymes go back to our birth. We are born with this huge supply of enzymes already inherent within us. And through our childhood, our body is not shy about producing these enzymes, and taking these enzymes that we get from food, and using them by the truckload. That is why when we are 5, 10, and 15 years old, we are running around, we trip and fall and hurt ourselves, we get right back up and keep doing whatever it was that hurt us in the first place. But you might notice when we are 40, 50, or 60 years old, it just isn’t quite that same way. And the whole difference is enzymes.

And that is because of a lot of changes that take place in our life. Some really big changes certainly happen in our late twenties. Our aging process kicks into high gear at that point, but also, our body takes inventory. Our body says: “Hey, if we keep using these enzymes at the rate that we did through our youth, we are not going to have any by the time we get to 40, 50, or 60.” So instead of using them by the truckload, it starts to use them by the spoonful. And that is why when we get older, pain is more debilitating, recovery times take longer, scars are more visible, it is all because of enzymes. 

Supplementing with a systemic enzyme puts that huge supply back in play again, and our body will quickly adapt to that and it will say: “Wow, look at all these enzymes that we’ve got right now, and there is more where that came from” So our body starts to feel more free to use them again in a similar manner as it did when we were younger. That is why they work so well for pain, inflammation, arthritis, scar tissue, and so on. And as far as production goes, as we age, our production does diminish, but it will not go away because we still have 8,300 different chemical reactions within the body that rely solely on enzymes! Enzymes are catalysts, none of those chemical reactions will take place without them, so we are still going to be producing enzymes.

MARTIN: Okay. I guess that is probably why most professional athletes end their careers in their late twenties or early thirties because they just simply run out of the ability to keep recovering. So people should really be taking Fibrenza all the time because that is the prescription for maintaining the function, recovery, prevention of decline, scar tissue, hardening of things…

MICHAEL: … immune system modulator, blood pressure modulator, blood cleanser, artery cleanser, keeping vascular inflammation in check, there is a lot of things that happen, especially in the micro-circulatory areas of your body, those fine, hairlike capillaries all throughout the body, cold hands and feet, numbness and tingling in your extremities, that is a real thing that hundreds of thousands of people go through, and all that comes down to circulation! Enzymes really help maintain those things, it isn’t just for a chronic condition. 

You don’t need to have an illness to be in need of systemic enzymes. I have no chronic conditions at all, but I still take Fibrenza every single day. I take it at a very low dose. Honestly, I have an abundance of access to it, so whatever lands on my hand, one or two capsules twice a day. But if something happens and I get injured, maybe during mountain biking, unfortunately, I am not that good at it, I will up my dose to three or maybe even four capsules twice a day, just for a few days, take that edge off, and get me right again. Or even for more simple things like waking up with a kink in my neck or a sore back, I will up my dose for a few days. Same thing with a sore throat, runny nose.

Maintaining with a low dose keeps the enzyme levels in your body, so when you do put that higher dose in, your body is ready to send those enzymes exactly where they need to go. When somebody starts with enzymes for the very first time, there is what is called an activation period. Different products have different length of activation periods, that has to do with the potency of the blend itself, and the delivery systems as well. For some products, it might be a month or two of an activation period before you can expect to start seeing that benefit. With Fibrenza, especially with your inflammatory conditions, it is like 5 or 10 days.

MARTIN: Would it be advisable to take a higher dose at first?

MICHAEL: It certainly wouldn’t hurt. Depending on what you are taking it for, it could actually have the potential of speeding things up a bit. But there are two sides to that. There are some people that have certain sensitivities, so it may not be the right call for them to start taking four capsules twice a day out of the gate. For those people, it may be more appropriate to start out more gradually, starting out with one capsule twice a day on empty stomach for 3-5 days, and then up to two capsules twice a day for 3-5 days, and so on, that might be more appropriate for some than others, but again, it is very individual.

MARTIN: Okay. So that was Fibrenza! Let’s talk about the second product in your line, the product that we call Abzorb. It sort of looks a little bit like a digestive enzyme, and a little bit like a probiotic, but you are calling it a systemic formula.

MICHAEL: Yes, it does have digestive enzymes in it, but it is not a digestive enzyme product. It does have probiotics in it, but it is not singularly a probiotic product. Abzorb is all about gut health. It is a very simple premise. You have people out there that do their day-to-day, they eat their meat and potatoes, they go to McDonald’s, and things like that, and that works for them, and that is great. Then you have the people that may have done that before, but now they are making a huge investment in their health, they are doing the right things, they are exercising, they are eating the right foods, taking the right supplements, they never stop to put their gut into a place where they are really able to benefit from all those things that they are doing. It is a large investment! Farmer’s markets are not the cheapest places to shop. They are the cleanest places to shop, they are delicious and fresh, but they are not the cheapest. It is an investment that these people are making. But as your body is utilizing that better stuff, that is really where Abzorb comes in. It has digestive enzymes in it, but we are actually using the same capsule that we use for Fibrenza to protect those enzymes, so they stay intact as they travel through the lower levels of your stomach, all the way into the small intestine, where they are released and do a whole lot more than just digest food.

Years of a poor or less than desirable diet and years of a less than desirable lifestyle are going to wreak havoc on your gut. They are going to put a bunch of sludge and bile and garbage on those intestinal walls. Those walls are lined with little tiny fingers called villi, and those villi dictate your absorption of pretty much everything. If they start getting covered in this sludge, caked over and lay down flat, that is going to hurt their ability to pull those nutrients out of food, get the vitamins out of your supplements, get minerals, proteins, all of these things. Those digestive enzymes are going to release right there in those first 12 inches of your small intestine, which is called the duodenum, which is where you have the highest chance of absorbing just about everything you put in your body. 

So those enzymes are going to release right there and start breaking down all that gunk and bile and junk that is covering those intestinal walls, get the villi standing back up like they should be, amping up your body’s ability to absorb these nutrients, these vitamins, these minerals, out of everything you are putting in. Those enzymes are followed up by ozonated magnesium oxide. We are not using a huge amount, because when you start talking about ozonated magnesium oxide, a lot of people will think: “Okay, am I going to need to have a bathroom within five feet of me at all times?” That is not the case with this, it is very gentle, we are not using a huge amount to create that flushing action.

We are trying to bring two things to the table – a little bit of magnesium to help hydrate the intestinal tract, and a little bit of that oxygen, because oxygen is not only a great cleanser, but it is also a great alkalizer. Way too many people are out of whack as far as that acidic-alkaline relationship in the gut. So contributing towards alkalizing, and contributing towards hydrating is the purpose of the magnesium oxide. And then after that, it is followed up with a bunch of probiotics, plus a prebiotic to help put that good bacteria in place. The feedback that we get on that product is absolutely all over the map, people call us with what they are feeling with Abzorb, they are not changing anything about what they are doing, they just add Abzorb.

There are two separate stages of benefits with it. The first one is like 3-5 days after you start taking it. During that time, it is correcting things, it is kind of ‘righting the ship’ if you will. There is a real genuine, tangible sense of wellness that comes with that. But then you fast forward just 2-3 weeks after that, and during that time you have now gotten a whole lot more out of all your food, out of all your supplements, and all those things you’ve been doing for years and years, you are getting a whole lot more out of them, and the way your body reacts is just staggering. I had people telling me they sleep better, their sleep is more restful, deeper, they feel they got more out of their sleep, more endurance to make it further into the day without feeling worn out and fatigued… I had one guy call me and tell me his vision was improving. I had a woman I spoke with just two weeks ago, she said her hair has never been better.

MARTIN: Okay, so I guess what I hear you telling me is Abzorb will pay for itself in gold because as soon as you start taking it, everything that will follow it is going to be utilized better. Would you just stay on it? Would it be like a forever supplement?

MICHAEL: I think it can be, absolutely! Certainly, it is not going to hurt to keep taking it. There are a few different ways to look at it. I have some practitioners that I work with, they will say: “Congratulations, you are taking this for life.” I have some practitioners that will say: “Hey, listen, this large bottle is a two and a half months supply, I just want you to take this one bottle.” And then I have some practitioners that say: “I want you to take this large bottle now, and then in 6-8 months I will give you another one.” So they are doing an off and on maintenance with it, but yes, you can absolutely benefit from taking it daily if you are the type that is already living a healthy lifestyle and you are not polluting yourself with a bunch of things. You can certainly get off of it and then get back on it a few months later, you can do a quarterly or semi-annual maintenance, I have plenty of practitioners that do it that way. But if you are really busy, you are totally swamped, you are traveling constantly, and you are eating the wrong foods, you are supersizing every third meal in McDonald’s, you might want to change your diet first, and you might want to get on other things too. But you can absolutely take Abzorb during that transition.

MARTIN: Awesome. So the third product that is in the HCP Formulas line is called LipiCept, and it is actually quite different from the others. It has a specific purpose! The first two we discussed seem to have a general health effect on the body, but LipiCept seems to be created with one thought in mind.

MICHAEL: That is exactly right. LipiCept was designed to help manage and reduce cholesterol-related issues.

MARTIN: So I guess this would be the perfect alternative to taking a statin drug for the rest of your life.

MICHAEL: I absolutely cannot say that. We can’t make claims like that, but I do have a lot of practitioners that are recommending this first. I think that it actually comes from the end-user preference in many cases. What can I try before I go down that road? LipiCept definitely does fit the bill on that.

MARTIN: Does LepiCept lower your Co-Q10 levels?

MICHAEL: Not at all.

MARTIN: What are some other downsides of taking LipiCept?

MICHAEL: Zero. None. No joint pain, no side effects, no contraindications, no interactions with anything. It is a very, very clean product, a very, very safe product. It doesn’t interact with anything, even if you are on a statin, you can take this right alongside it. The product is very much focused on making the liver more efficient in the way that it accepts the cholesterol that we add, the way that it processes and synthesizes that cholesterol, and the way it redistributes cholesterol back into the body by more efficiently sending the good cholesterol back in and the bad cholesterol out. Certain other things out there work on suppressing certain functions that the liver has. Cholesterol begins and ends in the liver, plain and simple. There are many things out there that are specifically focused on one of the most efficient processes in the human body, which is the liver’s ability to produce exactly the amount of cholesterol that the body needs. It is one of the most efficient processes in the human body.

MARTIN: So how effective is it? When somebody shows up and says: “I’ve been told I have total cholesterol 300, my LDLs are high…” What do you hear from the field?

MICHAEL: We work with a lot of people, primarily with practitioners and different retailers around the country. We don’t work with a whole lot of consumers directly, we don’t have these tight relationships with a lot of them like you do. Certainly, if a consumer calls us up with a question about ingredients or dosing or things like that, of course, we are going to do everything we can to help them. But we don’t have that tight bond with a lot of different consumers. And the reason why I mentioned that is that with this product specifically, we are seeing something that I’ve never seen before. We have consumers that are proactively calling us up and saying: “Hey, I have my before and after blood work from the lab, you need to see this. Where can I send it so that you can look at this?” And the feedback we are getting is just unbelievable. The worst results so far that we’ve had sent to us, the very worst, was a 19% drop in total cholesterol in 90 days. The best one was a 40% drop in 60 days. By the way, it wasn’t just total cholesterol, that was specifically LDL, the bad cholesterol. So that is important to point out. It is lowering the bad cholesterol, it is lowering total cholesterol, we are seeing reductions in triglycerides, we are seeing an increase in HDL, that is the good cholesterol, that is the number you want to see go up.

MARTIN: All right! So let’s say it this way: if you are told that your cholesterol is too high, you can try and adjust your diet, and you can also try and add LipiCept to it, give it 60 days, have yourself re-tested, and see what your doctor says.

MICHAEL: Absolutely. We do recommend a 90-day course on the product. That being said, just like our other two products, it is a completely guaranteed product. As you mentioned earlier, Fibrenza and Abzorb have a subjective benefit, it is entirely up to the consumer. With LipiCept, our guarantee is very, very simple. Check your numbers before, check your numbers after, and if you don’t see a difference, we don’t want you paying for it. LipiCept has been out since June of 2016, we still have not had a single bottle returned. It is incredibly reliable. And it is not based around red yeast rice, it is not based around niacin. Niacin certainly has its fair share of baggage to it. Do they work? I am not going to say they don’t work. There is tons of research to say otherwise, of course, they work to an extent for most people. But they do bring a lot of baggage with them. This product has no baggage, no side effects, no interactions, no contraindications with anything. And again, we recommend a 90-day course on it, but we are seeing benefits after 30 days. We will stand behind the product completely, regardless if it is 30 days if you come back and say: “Hey, it didn’t do anything for me,” we got your back.

MARTIN: Awesome! Thank you very much, Michael. This has been a pleasure and a delight to hear about HCP Formulas, your products, and what you have to say. This is Martin Pytela for Life Enthusiast, we are restoring vitality to you and to the planet. You can catch us at www.life-enthusiast.com, you can call me directly at (866) 543 3388. Thank you for listening! See you next time!