Episode 225 of the PricePlow Podcast features Doug Grant, founder and chief formulator of Optimal Health Systems, discussing digestive enzyme science, NBA blood work, microplastics testing with PlasticTest and ChemZyme, and why OHS chose TruShield™ Certified for their product line.
Doug Grant is the founder and chief formulator of Optimal Health Systems (OHS), a whole-food supplement company he built from the ground up starting in 1990. By 1993, he'd become the first full-time nutritionist hired by an NBA franchise, starting with the Phoenix Suns and later serving the San Antonio Spurs and Miami Heat through seven championship seasons in a decade.
In this episode, Doug covers three major areas:
- The enzyme cascade science behind his flagship digestive product
- The blood-work-first philosophy he's built from more than two decades with professional athletes
- OHS's developing work on microplastics (including a probiotic-derived enzyme and a blood-based plastic test that their independent chemist fully intended to disprove).
We also get into DSHEA, in-house manufacturing, and why TruShield™ Certified is the natural fit for a brand that was already doing third-party testing before anyone required it. TruShield's origin story is told in our conversation with Lori Bestervelt, Ph.D., and Thane Campbell on Episode #193.
Here, we get into why a company like Optimal Health Systems, who works with professional athletes, formulates the way they do, and why they need a service like TruShield Certified to ensure drug-free compliance.
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https://blog.priceplow.com/podcast/doug-grant-optimal-health-systems-225
Video: Doug Grant of Optimal Health Systems Explains Microplastics and More
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:10:04 — 65.8MB)
Detailed Show Notes with Doug Grant of Optimal Health Systems
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0:00 - Doug Grant and the Road to the NBA
Doug launched Optimal Health Systems in 1990 as a one-on-one training center: early mornings, late nights, and a deep dive into blood work that went beyond disease diagnosis toward actual cellular performance. That data focus paid off when the Phoenix Suns hired him in 1993 as the first full-time nutritionist in the NBA. He went on to serve the San Antonio Spurs and Miami Heat across seven championship seasons in a decade, applying the same philosophy to elite athletes that he'd refined with everyday clients. The core insight that shaped his entire approach: it's not about what you eat, it's about what you can actually deliver to the cell -- and that means digestion.
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8:45 - The Enzyme Cascade Behind Digest-A-Meal
The first product Doug ever made is still OHS's best seller: Digest-A-Meal, a blend of plant enzymes, probiotics, and chelated minerals. The science behind it starts with a concept most people get only halfway: enzymes are substrate-specific. Protease breaks protein into peptides, but without peptidase to finish the job, you're left with partial digestion products that can drive inflammatory responses, uric acid buildup, and autoimmune reactions. The same cascade logic applies to carbohydrates: amylase breaks them to disaccharides, then invertase, maltase, or lactase finish the job to reach usable glucose. Doug's formula accounts for every step, which is what separates it from products that throw in a single enzyme and call it digestion support.
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16:00 - How Processed Foods Are Breaking Us Down
Doug points directly at processed foods as the root cause of today's enzymatic deficiency. Processing destroys the raw enzymes naturally present in food. Take pasteurized milk: pasteurization eliminates the enzymes needed for proper digestion, leaving protein fragments that may trigger autoimmune responses in the body. Doug draws a direct correlation between countries with the highest processed-milk consumption and rising diabetes rates, contrasting that with raw-milk-consuming countries that don't show the same trend.
The same logic extends to every processed food. In his view, most of the resulting health problems trace back to one broken first step: incomplete digestion.
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19:45 - Foundation, Customization, and Intervention
Doug organizes supplementation into three stages he teaches to doctors and patients alike. Stage one is foundation: before any vitamin or mineral, prioritize digesting your food. Raw foods and plant enzymes belong here. Stage two is customization: vitamins, minerals, and fatty acids tailored to what your body actually needs, based on data (ideally blood work) rather than marketing claims. Stage three is intervention, reserved for temporary periods when something specific is off, such as elevated liver enzymes, a hormonal imbalance, or adrenal stress. Intervention addresses the problem and then steps back. Doug uses OHS products to illustrate each stage but frames the hierarchy itself as universal, regardless of which brand you choose.
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27:00 - Blood Work Lessons from the NBA
TruShield™ Certified brings WADA-level banned substance testing to supplements. Led by Lori Bestervelt (who created NSF 173 & Certified for Sport), it tests for 400+ banned substances using the same lab sports organizations trust when athletes test positive.
The first lesson Doug took from the NBA was immediate: organ health mattered far more than anyone was tracking. His early example is Danny Ainge, who arrived in Phoenix at the tail end of his career with liver markers suggesting chronic alcohol damage -- despite never drinking. A Tylenol habit of 18 to 20 pills daily had been quietly damaging his liver for years.
Doug pulled the NSAIDs, added proteolytic enzymes for inflammation support, and brought in a liver and kidney formula built around milk thistle. Ainge's stats and playing time improved dramatically that next season as the Suns reached the 1993 NBA Finals. The takeaway: blood work reveals what symptom-chasing misses, and organ health is the foundation everything else rests on.
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33:45 - Why OHS Chose TruShield™ Certified
Doug's investment in third-party testing goes back to the early 90s, when Olympic athletes he worked with tested positive despite being clean. Even then, contaminant false positives were a real problem. OHS was already working with labs like Eurofins for independent testing before any formal certification program existed for supplements. When NSF launched its Certified for Sport program in the early 2000s, Doug didn't join because OHS was already operating well beyond what it required.
When TruShield™ Certified launched under Lori Bestervelt, whom he'd known from her NSF days, Doug recognized a program that matched OHS's existing quality standards and went further, covering a broader banned substance panel using WADA-level methodologies.
A big difference for TruShield Certified is that they test the finished products of every lot for banned substances, and do it with the world class SMRTL facility, which is ultimately what matters most.
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42:15 - DSHEA, In-House Manufacturing, and the Three Criteria
In 1994, Doug was part of the group that toured the country advocating for DSHEA (the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act), traveling alongside Dr. Robert Atkins and other industry advocates to mobilize health food stores and consumers. That law gave Americans the right to buy supplements without a prescription, and Doug believes protecting it requires the industry to hold itself to a higher standard.
Lori Bestervelt, Ph.D., creator of the NSF 173 standard, and Thane Campbell from SMRTL introduce TruShield Certified, testing supplements for over 400 banned substances using WADA-level methodologies on Episode #193 of the PricePlow Podcast.
His three criteria for choosing a supplement company: know your formulator, make sure the company is privately owned, and require third-party testing. OHS manufactures everything in-house at its GMP-certified facility in Pima, Arizona. In an industry where more than 90% of supplements are white-labeled from outside manufacturers, that in-house model means OHS controls what goes into every product.
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47:00 - Tracking Microplastics Through the Blood
OHS didn't set out to study microplastics. The discovery came through blood trends. Patients eating whole-food diets and exercising consistently were still showing declining markers without an obvious explanation. When the data pointed toward plastic accumulation (specifically phthalate compounds, what Doug calls "forever molecules"), OHS began looking for an intervention.
Research from the University of New Mexico supported the concern, and internal data showed correlations between plastic load and hormonal disruption, including suppressed testosterone and elevated estrogen. Doug's practical reduction framework: stop heating and freezing food in plastic containers, maintain consistent sauna sessions, and measure your baseline. You can't improve what you don't track.
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52:45 - ChemZyme, PlasticTest, and the Tupperware Case Study
OHS developed ChemZyme around Phthalazyme, a thermostable esterase derived from Sulfobacillus acidophilus, combined with turmeric root, peptidase, Dipeptidyl Peptidase IV, and lactase. To measure results, Doug found Alan Morrison, a chemist who invented a blood-based plastic test -- but Morrison started the project set on disproving ChemZyme's effectiveness, with no financial stake in the outcome. His observational study (PDF) found statistically meaningful reductions in plastic particle counts for those who took ChemZyme.
The standout case: an IT worker on a raw-food diet who tested at 490 particles (reference range: below 5). His culprit was multi-decade-old Tupperware his family had been heating and freezing. After removing it and adding ChemZyme, his count dropped to approximately 3.
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1:03:00 - Data as the Foundation
Doug closes with the same philosophy he's carried through 35 years: data fixes everything. He illustrates it with a client story: Russell Brunson (founder of ClickFunnels) came in with elevated liver enzymes and no clear cause. The culprit was 2 grams of kava kava per serving in a sleep supplement he'd started taking. Four weeks off it, enzymes were back to normal.
Whether it's organ markers, plastic levels, or hormone ratios, the process is identical: know your numbers, make targeted changes, and verify. That's also why TruShield™ Certified made sense as a partner for this episode. OHS has been running its own testing for decades. TruShield doesn't create the quality system. It validates one that was already in place.
Where to Follow and Learn More
Connect with Doug Grant
Optimal Health Systems
- Optimal Health Systems Website
- Instagram: @ohs4life
- LinkedIn: Optimal Health Systems
- Optimal Health Systems on PricePlow
TruShield™ Certified
- TruShield™ Certified Website
- TruShield™ Certified: WADA-Experienced Lab Launches Comprehensive Banned Substance Testing Program
- Episode #193: Banned Substances in Supplements? Not with TruShield™ Certified: Lori Bestervelt & Thane Campbell
- 2026 WADA Prohibited List Now in Effect: Why Olympic Athletes Need More Than "Checked Box" Certification
- TruShield™ Certified Ingredients: How ReDaxin and AstaReal Set the Drug-Tested Standard
OHS Research:
Products Discussed
- Digest-A-Meal - OHS flagship digestive enzyme, probiotic, and chelated mineral formula
- ChemZyme - OHS formula featuring Phthalazyme (thermostable esterase from Sulfobacillus acidophilus) plus turmeric root, peptidase, DPP-IV, and lactase for microplastic support
- PlasticTest - OHS finger-prick blood test kit for measuring plastic particle counts
- OHS TruShield™ Certified Products - Full certified lineup at OHS
- TruShield™ Certified Products Directory - All OHS products at TruShieldCertified.com
Thanks to our co-sponsors: TruShield™ Certified. Check out our full episode with Lori Bestervelt, Ph.D. and Thane Campbell at Episode #193. And thanks as always to PerfectShaker for keeping the show going. See the full backstory with Darren Thompson on Episode #209 and shop at priceplow.com/perfect-shaker.
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