Dr. Colleen Cutcliffe On How To Naturally Boost GLP-1, Stop Cravings, Fix Bloating, & The Truth About Gut Health

We've got a scientist and a gut microbiome expert on the show today.

“Please welcome Dr. Colleen Cutcliffe. She has 25 years of experience advancing”

biology and human health. She's a badass. Wow! On this episode, I learned so much about the gut. I was blown away. She breaks it down in a really clear, credible way and it's a way that really makes sense. We also talk about some really interesting topics like what stimulates the body's natural GLP-1 hormone and we even talk about improving the metabolism and reducing food cravings. I found this episode fascinating. I know you will too. With that, let's welcome Dr. Colleen

Cutcliffe to the show. We prep all these things and a lot of the feedback from the team is like, people are just terrified. They don't know what to do. There's so many illnesses. There's so many

new cancers. There's so many things happening as it relates to gut and people. You know this. There's

a lot of information out there and people don't know where to turn. They don't know what to do. They don't know what's real. What's not. So I guess to start, how did you get involved in this space to begin with and how did you get interested in the gut? So I totally agree. It is a really

“noisy space. Everyone knows oh gut health is really important for me. But now what do I do? What's”

actionable from this and what is going to help me personally and what's going to help, you know, that person may not be the same thing. And so for me, I actually didn't really know anything about supplements or probiotics and things like that. I did all of my research. I have a PhD in biochemistry from Johns Hopkins. I did a pretty traditional postdoc at Northwestern. Then I worked as a scientist

in a pharma company. We were developing drugs for Parkinson's disease. Then I worked in a DNA sequencing

company doing biology. And so I've had a really hardcore basic science background. And when I learned about the microbiome, I was like, wow, this is an entirely new part of our body that we didn't really understand before. So I came at it from purely a science and almost pharmaceutical kind of an angle and then realized there's a lot of natural things that are happening here in natural ways that we can fix our bodies. And so we ended up putting our products out as probiotics as opposed to drugs.

But I came to it purely from like a science and clinical and data standpoint. Someone who doesn't have your credentials or your experience, we hear a lot of times like gut information is emerging. Like we're learning more about the gut as and from a medical perspective, we're learning how many things like how new is this study around the gut and the things that we're learning from someone with your background? Well, in the grand scheme of science and our knowledge

about the body, it's pretty new. So we only started really understanding the gut in like the early 2000s. So this is like a 25-year-old science. Things like probiotics and yogurt have been on the shelves for a long, long time. But those aren't really grounded in what we're calling, you know, gut science or microbiome science. They're really things that people could culture. There's a lot of things that we've done historically in our culture like, you know, ferment foods and things like that

without really being grounded in science. And so the science of gut microbiome is like 25 years old.

“Why is everyone so bloated? Oh my gosh, great question. I think that there are a few”

different reasons one might be bloated. Some of it can be hormonally driven. But a lot of what happens when we eat certain foods is that it creates gas in our stomach that isn't really able to get metabolized and escape the body. And so it's just sort of sitting there and all of a sudden you've got like an expanded, extended belly. And so one of the things that can really help with bloating is to give your body back certain probiotics or certain microbes that are missing. Because there's

this whole set, you think about like your microbiome, like this big manufacturing floor. And you have all these different departments that each have a different job. And there is a department that is responsible for metabolizing all of these gases and helping to get them out of the body. And so if you're low or missing those, you don't have a way to get those gases out. That's one of the big opportunities for reducing bloating. So does it just sit in your body as gas or does it form

something else? It's like sitting in your body as gas and it doesn't have a way to like exit. Kind of gross. What are the signs that you see as a scientist when someone has something wrong with their gut. And I would love for you to get granular. Like is it a certain rash? Is it something with their nails? What are the signs where you're like, oh my god, there's something wrong with the gut. Traditionally, you know there's something wrong with your gut if you've got GI issues.

So you have diarrhea or constipation. Some people kind of battle both of them at different times bloating. But now we know there's other things that could be an indicator that there's something wrong with your gut. So it's not just diarrhea and constipation and bloating. It's also if you're metabolism is slowing down. If you have food cravings like, oh my god, I want to eat so much chocolate or this whole bag of potato chips. And I know it's not good for me. So if your metabolism is

being linked to the gut microbiome allergies, asthma. And even now people are looking at Parkinson's

disease and autism as places where we should think of as brain issues, but they're tied to the gut. Think the reason that people find this so overwhelming is like, you just listen to ton of symptoms that, you know, like it'd be rare to find somebody that has none of those. Sometimes right, especially this day and age. And I think this is where the overwhelm comes in. It's like, okay, I've got this. I've got the gut issues. I've got all these symptoms. What do I do? Who do I turn to? How

do I fix it? And people are just being crippled with information online and everywhere else. So I guess, like, with all that, where do you even begin to start? Yeah, well, I think the thing to realize about the gut is that the reason is tied to all these different things is because we traditionally think of as our body as having 11 different systems.

“And the gut is tied to all 11 of those. And that's why it's tied to our immunology,”

our inflammatory response, our metabolism. And so it's at the core of all that. And so I think about, I don't know if you guys remember when at some point in fitness and exercise, people realize, like, oh my gosh, if you had a strong core, you could like run a marathon, you could swim forever, you could lift weights, but if you really need a strong core, if you didn't have a strong core, all those exercises are actually harder for you. Well, the gut microbiome, literally, the core

of your body is the same thing. So if it's deficient, you have all these kind of problems across the board. And so when you think about, okay, how do I tackle this problem? One of the biggest challenges people have is that traditional medicine and doctors and all that training that people get in medical school doesn't really cover this. Like, the microbiome is new enough. There's no

chapter called microbiome and how to handle gut health. And so I always recommend for people. If you

want to get someone who is a professional healthcare practitioner who can really help you, you got to start looking towards if you have an internal medicine doc that really understands integrative and functional medicine, get yourself a registered dietitian, get yourself a nutritionist,

“chiropractors actually know a lot about this stuff too. And so you have to step outside the traditional”

realms and start looking for doctors that really have this new knowledge about thinking about the body in a more whole way and not thinking about just drugs as the answer to everything that's wrong with us. That's really interesting that you say that because Michael and I were getting cranial sacral work done and she told us both that our atlas was out. And we both were like, oh, you mean like chiropractors, we need to go see a chiropractors. She said, no, there's a doctor who adjust only the

atlas and his theory is that with a chiropractor, you keep coming back and back and back and when you actually fix the alignment, then your atlas is even and you don't need to keep coming back. So what he does is he takes you in, he x-rays you. For me, I was to my right side. I had 20 pounds extra weight in my right foot and he did a couple of adjustments. Well, not like you weren't actually physically heavier on your right side, but you were putting your 20 pounds more pressure. Yeah,

yeah, so he does a couple of little touches to your neck and move some certain things around. It doesn't hurt and then you take another x-ray and you're perfectly aligned and you weigh yourself

“and it's even and I could not believe how much better I felt and that is something that I think is”

it's not something that a doctor would prescribe you, but it made such a difference. By the way, Dr. Gates is his name in Austin and it's called atlas, but the point is is like, you're right, we do need to look for other things outside just drugs. We also have our friend, Dr. Dale

Dropford's functional medicine doctor and when he's always starts with the gut. That's like

the place where you, if you're inflamed, if you have symptoms, you have headaches, like he always begins there, you do a gut test, you know, things and then he works with you to get the gut in order before he can treat you for the rest of the things. Yeah, and I think that's pretty common approach for these people who are thinking about, you know, your body and all the different parts suit, but I was going to ask you, you know, when you got that, when you after you finished with the

atlas physician and you got fixed, did you, did you feel benefits in, kind of unexpected ways, like better energy, better sustained energy, like what, what did you get? Immediately, I felt like the fog was washed off the wind, like if I, there was a bunch of fog on the wind shield, my brisket felt washed off. I had immediate more energy. I felt, my posture immediately changed, could breathe deeper. I noticed, for me, like, I had pressure almost in my right leg from all that

weight, and it was relieved immediately. And he said that what happens is you almost get that dopamine from being an alignment. You know, it's how long I've been, I could, he said it could have happened at birth. So to be put back in the right alignment, and it's not chiropractic, there's no cracking, was crazy. And, and a normal doctor wouldn't tell you to go get your atlas fixed. So I thought that was interesting. Yeah, definitely. And I think similar things happen, people get their

microbiome or their gut fixed too, where they're like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize that I was

sentence like, all the stuff has lifted, and you're feeling better overall. And I think one of the reasons why these doctors start with the gut is because there are so many reasons why our gut are depleted. So if you've ever been on an antibiotic, your gut gut depleted. If you have ever changed your diet, you've gone from being, you know, an omnivore to vegetarian or anything like that, that changes your gut. If you, as we age, our microbiome becomes depleted. When we go through

periods of intense stress, our microbiome becomes depleted. When our circadian rhythmisters, so every time, thing about last time you traveled and day became night and night became day,

you, your microbiome became depleted. I've never heard that before, an interest. And hormonal shifts,

like when women go through menopause, our microbiome becomes depleted. And so there's all these things that are just some of them are under your control. Most of them are not. That cause you become depleted. And so by the time, you're 25, probably you've experienced all of those things, and you are now

“missing things that you used to have when you were 15. And so I think that's why”

usually people start with the gut as a source of some of these problems. How do we get superior microbiome? What are the steps? Well, I think the first thing is to try to understand, you know, really, I think bring awareness to, what are the things about my body that have changed? Because you want to be able to track whether those things are improving as you're improving the microbiome. And so if it's your, oh, I don't poop as regularly as I used to, that's one of the most common

things fatigue. You know, energy is a big one. You know, metabolism and food cravings is another really big one. So if people can bring awareness to, okay, what are the things that I remember everyone can remember a time where you could eat or drink whatever you wanted to and it did not matter at all. And so if you think back to that time, how did that feel versus how do you feel now? And then you can start tackling it because if you don't know if you're getting better or worse,

you don't really know if the things you're doing are helping or not. So I always say, like,

start with what you think could be better. And then as you start to make improvements to your gut, you'll know if those are working and whether you're getting better or not. And one of the keys to a healthy gut microbiome is diversity. And so the more diverse your foods are, so things like, you think about the produce section of your grocery stores. You want to be eating like all those fruits and veggies. Those are really high in fibers and polyphenols. The spice section,

you want lots of different spices are really great for your microbiome. Tees. So all of these things that can help increase the diversity of your microbiome are all things that are helpful. Because when we talk about, okay, as you go through these different things in life, the problem is your microbiome is becoming depleted. And so you're trying to give all that stuff back. That makes sense. On that note, with everything you've learned, what are the worst things we

can do for our, you mentioned stress. Yeah, I'm assuming certain foods or, what are the things

“that you've discovered to be the worst for our microbiome? I think the worst thing for microbiome”

is if you are have a singular diet, like you really don't have diversity in your food. And so, you know, if you only eat bread and cheese, that's not great. You really want to have diverse fibers and diverse polyphenols in your diet. And so that's, that's the thing we have the most control over that is probably the biggest problem for us. And the other thing is that if you have to go on an antibiotic because you've got a bacterial infection, like I'm not an anti-anti-bioticer,

but if you're going and asking your doctor for an antibiotic and they haven't said you have a bacterial infection, like you should not do that. Our parents come from the generation like you get a sniffle or a cold and you're on a z-pack. Oh yeah, my parents, I mean, I am studying microbiome for a living and my parents will literally call me and be like, well, your mom was sick. And so, luckily we got a z-pack. I'm like, I don't know how to explain this in the other time. That's not

a luckily. It's, in this like, that generation, they love those z-packs. They do. Yeah, it's like a quick fix. It's unbelievable. So what, okay, on that note, for people that are listening, that love the z-pack, what is that z-pack doing if you maybe don't need it? Maybe it's going to send this clip to his parents. Well, yeah, because I'm sending it to mine too. Yeah, no, I think, you know,

sure, maybe you feel symptom relief a little faster, but what are you ultimately doing if you could

just heal naturally on your own? Let it rip on the z-pack. Well, antibiotics in general, I guess. Well, I can, I will tell you that one of the reasons I started this company is very personal to me and it's about antibiotics and my daughter. So my first daughter was born almost two months prematurely. She was four and a half pounds. Well, she spent the first month of her life in intensive care. She was hooked up to all these machines and monitors and receiving multiple doses of antibiotics.

“Not because she had an infection, but because that's what they do with premies because they're like,”

well, if they get an infection, this is going to be a disaster. So we give them antibiotics prophylatically. So my kid got, this is before I knew anything about the microbiome. And we left the hospital with, but we thought was a healthy kid. And as she started to get older, we realized she had food sensitivities at the rest of us didn't have. So she would be the kid in basket and Robins asking how much dairy was in the Sherbert. And she just none of us had any of these other issues.

month old if they're on a lot of antibiotics later on in life. They're more prone to obesity and diabetes. And the Mayo Clinic actually repeated that study. And if you're under two years old and you're on a lot of antibiotics later on in life, you're more prone to obesity, diabetes, ADHD, allergies, asthma, celiac disease. And what you've done is effectively taking a nuclear bomb to the microbiome

“at the very first most precious time of life when you need to be seeding and growing your microbiome.”

And some people get over it, but a fair number of people don't. And they're never able to replenish

what they lost in those first days. And that was my kid. And so I was like, holy shit, we could make products that could help millions of people, including my own daughter, like we got to go figure out what's going on here. That is the long-term repercussions of lots of antibiotics use is that you are depleting your body and your microbiome in a way that it may never be able to get it back without the right kind of gut treatment and supplementation. I mean, the beautiful thing

by the microbiome is once you're focused on it, you can actually change it. It's not like your genes where you kind of get what you're getting like, oh man, I had that mutation now, what? With the microbiome, you can actually always change it and improve it. And so there's never a moment

where you're like, well, I can't do anything about this. So whatever you've done in your past,

whatever has happened to you, today is a moment where you can change your microbiome and have a bright future. Well, I want to know that was like for you as a mother to have to, to you thought you're doing the right thing with putting her, I mean, she had to be at the hospital, but then you find out she's on antibiotics. What was that like when you read that paper? Did you immediately want to turn that pain that you had into purpose or you did you beat

yourself up about it? Did you, what did you do? You know, I mean, I, I did not beat myself up.

“It's not that you should. You didn't know. Yeah, I mean, for me, it was a”

a light bulb went off immediately. I was like, this isn't like, it's kind of what I mean. And the beginning of, you know, having issues with metabolizing food is that you have food sensitivities. So for me, it felt like, oh my gosh, this is it. This is what's happening. And so why did she have weird food sensitivities? The rest of us didn't have like that was kind of confusing to me. And so for me, it was a light bulb enough. This was the problem. And I have like a background where I could

try to solve it. So you seem very solution oriented. Yeah, I mean, I don't think anybody was trying to harm her certainly not just their protocol. Yeah, certainly not the parents and not the physicians. The, the premise is they're so fragile that if they get an infection, they're kind of doomed. So what's the answer? Is the answer to not put them on an antibiotic or is it to do last? What do you think if you could go back and do it all over what's the answer? Oh, I would refuse it.

In fact, my co-founder, after we started the company and he knows our whole story, they had a baby prematurely at UCSF at, you know, a great hospital world renowned. And they had to, they turned down antibiotics. And they had to sign all these papers, talk with the doctors, all the stuff to like turn down that so-called treatment. I wouldn't, I would say no. I remember being postpartum and just remember thinking this is not easy. If you are like me,

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visit forhurst.com. I definitely would say if you are not using mouth tape, you are missing out on so many benefits. It's absolutely changed my life. I cannot say enough good things about it. So what I've noticed is that it's made my jawline stronger because it supports your tongue posture all night. It's encouraged nasal breathing, which gives you a better sleep and more energy

in the morning. And most importantly, it's trained me sort of where to put my tongue. I would never

dare sleep without mouth tape. So subscription, I would recommend because we sell out all the time.

“We literally cannot keep this mouth tape in stock. If you want to chisel your jawline while you”

sleep and get a better sleep, go to shopsganyconfidential.com/shopsganyconfidential.com. We have three children. And as we've gone on, you've learned a lot more. And it's true with the first one, we had no idea, we were scared. Everything we were told, we followed right to a tea, we're doing what we're doing. Parents really, especially new parents, need to understand that they can advocate for themselves. And yes, the doctors and the nurses, they're well-intentioned,

but they can be scary and they put a pressure on you that like almost like you have to in your force too. And you don't have to. You can opt out. You can sign the papers. I mean, even

this last, the third kid we had. I said basically, like, you got to get these tests. I don't know

where to keep you open. That's fine, but I'm leaving at this time. It's if the tests are done, great, and if they're not. See, and they got the test done in time because they want to, they wanted to clear me. But the point is, is the only thing that would have happened if I wouldn't have advocated, we were just stayed there another night out of the comfort of our own home. Yeah. And don't want the nurses and doctors listening this to think that I don't think they're

doing a good job. But the point is, is we had a pediatrician. We knew we were going to see him. We knew the doctor was going to be there. We didn't need to just follow the strict scheduling protocol that they wanted to do. And in the past, we would have been terrified. I think, like, we're going to be arrested if we breathe, leave early or we're going to something's going to happen.

“And so the point is is that I do think that you have to use your personal intuition and do what's”

right for you and your family. 100% and I did the same thing when I had my second daughter. I was like,

she's healthy. I'm getting fucked out of here. The foster government with the move. I'm not doing a test. Yeah, taking blood. We're not doing anything. Yes. Question the protocol. Question the protocols. And I will just say to, I mean, my husband's a physician. So like, I don't know, slam doctors. But it's, but you, but everyone should be aware that when these protocols exist and these things that you're being told, it's actually not just, you know, it's, it's not the latest and greatest medicine.

It's traditional medicine that's had decades to be able to get into the system of the protocol. It is insurance companies trying to make sure that they're getting theirs. It is lawyers and legal risk that's all being evaluated. All of that is part of the decision make that goes into like, what a step one to and you are, you know, I don't know where you fall in there. But all those things may not be things that you care about. And so I think that's important to know that you're not

defying your doctor or your nurse. You're defying an old school protocol that maybe isn't right

“for you. And I think that's perfectly fine. And to defend the doctors and nurses, they are also”

stuck in that structure of that hospital protocol with those insurance companies and those lawyers. And they're only, and they have to kind of, it's just like anything else. They have to work with them what the company sets forth. And there's a lot of, I firmly believe that you don't get into medicine in the first place unless you want to help people. I think like the, of course you want to make a living. But I think the majority of people that get into healing, they don't even make that much.

Yeah, but, but you know what I mean? Like I feel like the intention is because you want to be helpful, especially now, because you just have to be aware of these systems and how big these systems have gotten into your point, the gut 20 years of studying, like how it outdated some of these systems are. Absolutely. And we talk about like why would a regular doctor not send you a prescribed you things that are outside of certain systems? It's because what they're taught in school are about

drugs and diagnostic tests. And they're taught those things because those are the things that are approved by the FDA here in the United States. And so the FDA, for example, will not approve

approve things by the way, you're insurance company will not cover it. So insurance companies

come in and say I only cover things that are approved by the FDA. And the FDA says, well, only approved things that have gone through pharmaceutical companies and diagnostic companies. And so there's this closed circle here in the US, which is the regulatory environment, the coverage environment and the hospitals. And if you're anything outside of that, you're not going to get covered and you're not going to make your way into protocols. So that includes things as

fundamental as going to the gym. Gym memberships are not typically covered. This is anything else. I mean, a lot of people are going to get their chiropractor covered. Massages any kind of supplement vitamins or organic foods. Like all these things that we know are really good for us, you will not get them covered under those, you know, big coverage systems because that's the closed loop system we work in. Why when you refuse something and I'll use myself as an example,

“I refused the blood test for my baby when he was born. Is there the same energy all around?”

Are they trained to like make you feel uncomfortable that you say no? I think they are trained to follow a protocol that has had a lot of committees come together to write those protocols and to and to generate them. I mean, they're a lot of data is underlying those protocols. So they're not bad and they're they're not malintentioned, but they are they're to follow that protocol and they're there to advocate for those protocols. So anytime you're asking for how do I deviate from that,

there's going to be pushback on, well, this is the protocol that we've all been taught and given. And so we don't really want you to deviate from it. It's the same energy like all around. It's so interesting. I also think that like for a large part, most of society is a bunch of like rule followers and you know, line follower trained that in school, you know, you get in line, you do what you're told, you know, this is the way it works. And so I think in general many

people are very uncomfortable with people that kind of buck this system or pushback or do things in their own way. And I think it's something that's ingrained in a lot of people where they if they see somebody saying, I'm not going to do what everyone else does. I'm doing in my way. It's almost like it's it's it's almost like you're disrespecting not only the system, but like the societal structure. Yeah. And they get uncomfortable with it. I see it all

the time even like doing what I do in media and social. If you don't quote, quote, follow the unspoken rules and media, you're allowed to talk to these people. You're not allowed to talk to these people who are allowed to do this, that and you don't and you also don't care if that you don't, people get people get strange about it. They like they like things to be organized.

“Yeah. I mean, I think generally speaking, we stay with the herd because that's what helps us”

survive, you know, in in the old days. But I, but I think in this case when it comes to the medical profession, there's an additional factor, which is liability. So like if you said, oh, I don't want to get this blood test done and they're like, that's cool. The later you could be like, well, but no one ever informed me like, why should I have gotten them done? They just said that's fine. And I'm not a doctor. And so I think we live in a world where people are suing people all the

time and hospitals and doctors are some of the most sued people. And so I think that's another reason why we get pushback. Talk to us about the Amazon supplements. What is going on with these fakers? Well, I think one of the kind of myths out there is that if something is on Amazon, it's legit. So many people think like, oh, well, I didn't see on Amazon, so it's probably not legit. Oh, I found it on Amazon. So it's written that is a complete myth because Amazon is a marketplace

that allows anybody to put anything on their and sell it. And so that is the most

egregious when it comes to supplements. And so I had never really thought very deeply about it.

Until we experience this ourselves at our company. So we put a product out. We called it

“acrimansia. It's a next generation strain. It's probably the most important strain in your”

gut that no one's ever heard of. And we have done not just us, but around the world people have done research on this strain. There's over 3000 peer-reviewed publication. It plays a really important role in your gut lining. And it's actually one of only two strains that can directly stimulate your body's natural GLP1 hormone. We can get to that in a second. So one of places we sell our products on is Amazon. And it literally is a clean bottle that just says acrimansia

on it. It's really clear. Like it's just this ingredient that you're buying. We started to see all these copycats about six to 12 months later putting acrimansia on Amazon. And I was like, how are these people? It's actually a really hard strain to manufacture. We built a manufacturing plant because no one could actually do it. I was like, how are they doing? This is crazy. That

is saying earlier, I just got off the phone with one of our collaborators at Cornell. He basically

bought a bunch of these acrimansia's off Amazon. He DNA sequenced them. And he called me up and was like, Colleen, the only product that actually has acrimansia in it is pendulums. And so we call the other one's fake or mancia. But this is just a really important buyer beware that just because it's on Amazon does not mean it's legitimate. And you still unfortunately have to do the homework

So if someone's buying pendulums, do you recommend? And they're doing on Amazon. They go to your pendulum Amazon page and buy from there. They don't just search obviously the product and impendulum agreement. You got to get it from your storefront. They can buy it off Amazon. There are some copycats that are literally using our same label. But if you're careful when you go to Amazon and you can see where the vendor is, you'll be able to see like okay, the vendor's

pendulum or some random company in China. They need to look for the pendulum as the seller. Yeah, as the seller or you can buy directly from our website, which definitely you're getting from us. Someone did this to me a bunch of people did this to me with mouth tape. I saw mouth tape on Amazon. This is obviously different because it's not a supplement. But there is different toxins in the adhesive. So all of a sudden I started seeing my mouth tape copied because it's

in a shape of pink lips. And I saw it everywhere copied and you have to be careful of what

adhesive you're writing. What I always tell people as it relates to supplements like one, all the

things you're saying go to the company. But this is not the area where you want to look for deep discounts. Exactly. I reckon in the same way as you don't go to a tattoo artist. So who's

“the cheapest guy in here? I think if it's going in your body, you have to be really thoughtful”

and you don't want the cheapest version of that because likely it's not real or it's low quality or it's completely fake. I totally agree. I mean you're putting something in your body. It's not the time to get cheap and it's not the time to try to look for the, I mean there's so many flybine items in the supplements industry. They'll pop up. It's like a game of whack-a-mole and then they'll go away and then they'll pop back up again with a slightly different name and part of the

issue with Amazon is that I don't know if you experience this but you tell Amazon like these are not real and they're like, okay, we've had the same experience. Yeah. We wanted to have you on the show because initially because we heard that pendulum provides the perfect natural alternative to GLP1's.

First of all, let's unpack that. Yes, let's do unpack that because I want to be real clear,

it's not like the drugs and so this is the so maybe we'll start with like what is GLP1 and like what is it supposed to be doing? I think we all know GLP1, oh it's an injection or now a pill that helps you lose weight but underlying that is actually what's happening in your body. So what is supposed to be happening in your body is you eat a meal. It goes into this big manufacturing factory of your microbiome and one of those departments in there says, okay, we just ate a meal.

We need to stimulate our GLP1 hormone. It's actually a hormone and so it stimulates your natural GLP1 hormone and so now you get GLP1 in your bloodstream and that GLP1 does two really

“important things. One, it tells your body we just had sugar, almost every meal you have”

has sugar. So like let's metabolize that sugar so it stimulates your insulin pathway and helps

you metabolize that sugar and the second thing is it tells your brain we just ate so we don't

need to eat anymore. We're full and so that happens and then that hormone gets metabolized like every other hormone or body gets metabolizing and goes away and then you'll get hungry again and then it comes back up and so that you're supposed to be on a natural cycle of your GLP1 hormone. Now as pharmaceutical companies do they realize, wow this hormone is really great because it helps you metabolize your sugars and tells your your body your full, can we make a drug that

looks like it and so all the GLP1s out there that people familiar with, ozempics, some agglutide, these are chemicals that are made to mimic your body's natural GLP1 hormone and because they're chemicals they don't go through this cycle you're basically injecting this GLP1 hormone and it doesn't get metabolized it just stays at really high levels at all times and the reason why that may be problematic is like if I was talking to you through like one of those mega phones you

definitely hear me better but after time if I'm talking to you through that mega phone you're going to go deaf and the body actually literally works the same way your body can become deaf to these things so one of the things that happens for people on insulin is they have to have higher and higher doses as time goes on because their body is not reacting to that insulin and e-mortz turning deaf to it and so one of the things that is likely to happen that we're all

gonna find out is that when you're having these high levels of GLP1 at all the time for long periods of time your body's gonna stop responding to it the way that you really want it to so even these people that are saying oh I'm just doing a micro dose over time that dose is gonna have to increase for them to get the effect it is it is and and and and and that's because you're really you're kind of keeping it this high level so even a micro dose is still like this instead of like the

“cycle you're supposed to be on so I think GLP1's are an awesome invention I think all of those”

drugs are really helping people in an important and massive ways that that that we need but my suggestion to anybody who's thinking if if that works for you that probably means that your body's natural GLP1 system was out of whack for all the reasons we talked about about your gut health and your gut diversity being gone so if you're missing those strains you're not getting

body make its own natural GLP1 hormone here's what my fear is with these GLP1s I agree with you I

think it's an incredible technology I think many people have benefited huge lifestyle changes to the positive effect by incorporating them what my concern is is that the direction we're moving into is that instead of trying to get your GLP1 production back on the right track naturally we are no longer even going to try we're just going to jump to a drug because humans are lazy and we want the easiest path and we want the least amount of work and the problem the way that

plays out long term I think could become problematic for individuals and for society and what I tell people that may be that come to me privately that maybe don't are not necessarily like I don't want to see real canvas but but a typical candidate maybe you're not obese or you don't have these

issues you're just trying to lose a little weight I would say like let's first try to get the natural

“process firing again and do what you need to do there first before you jump but I think again”

a lot of people are just going to take the easier path which is get on the drug disregard that but again like what this looks like in 20 30 years I think we're we're going to find out so tell us about what the natural alternative what is it do exactly it is it's basically stimulating your body's natural GLP1 it's the same thing because your body but your body is able to do it in a natural way the way it's designed to do it and so then what happens is the repercussions of your

GLP1 being back to what it's supposed to be having your natural GLP1 stimulated is that you will not have these weird random food cravings when like you're not fit to have like some people will actually many many people will say you know if I get a chocolate bar once I open that chocolate bar I'm eating that whole thing like I'm not going to eat a piece wrap it up and put it away and even though

“halfway through you're probably full or whatever a couple squares in your full your your body is”

continuing to make you think that you're still hungry so you have all these unwanted food cravings your metabolism is slowing down your eating sugars but your body isn't actually metabolizing it your eating carbs but your body isn't actually metabolizing well so when you get your real natural GLP1 hormone back in sync all of those things will start to go away you'll have less food cravings less food noise your metabolism will be back in sync and to the point about like well

gee that sounds like a lot of work to try to get my natural GLP1 back it probably involves dietary changes supplementation why don't you just go on the drug instead I would offer for people that if that's the way that you can jump start getting on to into a healthy frame of mind I'm all for it but then just consider if you're not wanting to be on that for the rest of your life to then try to add in these things after you've gotten you know into a good place and

we have a lot of practitioners that do that they'll start someone on a drug and then they'll be like great now we want to reduce your dose or now we want to do an on-off regimen and so what do you do in the off you got to get your natural GLP1 working I want to tell you about the charity that I am so passionate about and it is called I stand with my pack they are committed to getting dogs fostered and adopted I have been a fan of the specific charity for about five years when my daughter

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Why do some doctors into the perfect person else this say that once you start with these drugs not only talk about some say that you'll need to be on this for life and how do you if you don't want to be on these medications for life and you want to get on a natural path again like how are you able to do that and get off in a healthy way so that you don't have to be on these medications for forever. I mean I think any practitioner who says once you start GLP

“ones you have to be on the first year of life like should be despart like that's insanity that”

is a complete lie that's not true. I mean we know that even if you have actually type two diabetes there are so many studies that are showing that if you can improve I mean nutrition is one of the biggest things nutrition and exercise you can reverse your own diabetes even without drugs. I mean there are companies that are premised on this there's coming called verta health they can reduce diabetes and A1C and all that stuff as good as drugs and their whole regimen doesn't

involve a single drug and so I think that is maybe more psychological so yeah once you're on the

drug it's an easy fix maybe you never want to go off of it again but you certainly can't.

No frame it is like oh you'll likely need to be on this for like and again I don't want to say that for every doctor but there's definitely some people that come to mind that say once you get on these things it's likely you're going to be on it for forever and I I think that is concerning.

“Yeah I would say so. How many of your natural alternative do you take a day? Is it one? Is it 10?”

How many pills? Oh our supplements I should say. I just take the one pendulum supplement which is. But is it just one? Yeah the product that I take is called pendulum glucose control. Okay. As it's named suggests it's to help you with glucose control so it's a formulation of five different strains they work together as a team in order to help you stimulate your body's natural GLP1 they work together as a team to help you with your gut lining and so I take those are two

pills a day so I take two in the morning and kick my day off with and you like it in the morning. I do it in the morning because that's when I have I have like a morning routine usually involves coffee.

I never miss my coffee so I never miss my supplements. By the time I get to the end of the day like it's

hard for me to routine so I always tell me but like whenever you've got your routine just slot it in there and you also take your other probiotic I'm in a flood the name say the name. Is it acromansia? Acromansia. Yeah that's the strange name. So you're casting a spell. Yeah sounds like you sneeze. Yes very potters something. Halley Berry is an equity owner. That's cool. How did she get involved? Yeah Halley Berry a lot of people don't realize she

actually has diabetes. Right. And so she and you might imagine she gets pitched all kinds of products all the time to try to help her. She tells and this is kind of what she has said is that she learned about pendulum from the Cleveland Clinic and we have physicians there that have been using our products almost in stay one and so they she had somebody from the Cleveland Clinic call her up and say like hey if you heard about this company pendulum I think you should try it out

lowered her A1C like in a meaningful way and in a sustainable way and so she's like what is this company?

And so I got a invite that said Halley Berry would like to talk to you and I was like okay that's hilarious. Sure but it wasn't fact Halley Berry wanted to talk to us and she was she's like the nicest person we get on this Zoom call and she says I love your product I really want to figure out how I can help you what what can I do. I was like the dream call for anybody who's trying to build a business and so it's a good call it's a good call and then she and I on a personal level have

really bonded and we have you know kids the same age and some of our personalities are kind of similar to each other and so she became an investor in the company she is our she has it she took on a title which is chief communications officer which isn't just like a gimme title a bullshit title she really felt like the way she could help our brand is by helping us communicate better

what it does and why it's different from all the other supplements out there and one of the first

things she did was she made us change the bottle so if you look at old school pendulum bottles they're like these very almost mediciney looking yeah she's like this is terrible this feels like old school stuff if we have innovation on the inside we have to be communicating that in all the different ways that people experience the product including the packaging and so yeah and so I'll tell you this like we went through a whole exercise of like building a whole new packaging and

bottle and the bottle design became up with was actually inspired by a peachy dish so it was like

“almost like a disc shape if you remember back to like seventh grade biology a peachy dish”

and you would open up like this and all your pills would be inside like oh my gosh this is so cool we built a bunch of them we had we started selling them and she did all these you know post about them and what we found is that was only us like it was like me and her and some other women in the company who've been opening it all the guys are like I can't this thing is so tiny I opened it up and everything spills everywhere it's it was kind of a little bit of a disaster so

this is like kind of a crazy moment because I had to go back and tell Halle Berry like this thing that we designed together it's not working and you know she's not from this startup environment she is from film you don't put a movie on your like oh people don't like it we got to go back and redo it it's it's out there it's done and so I didn't know how she was gonna take this phone call of like it's not working we have to pull it what did Catwoman say Catwoman said okay well if that's

what our customers are saying we got to listen to the people we got to listen to the people so we to pivot she did a pivot we took the whole thing so you can't that's like a historic thing if you

“happen to have one you should hold on to because no more of those are being made and then we moved to”

the current bottle you see which is beautiful which I think we're all very happy with you where is your daughter now on that note not to just pick on your daughter but for anyone that's maybe exhibited early gut issues or had a similar story or maybe they've done something where they've you know messed up their gut microbiome you I think a large theme of this episode is being able to change that yeah my daughter was definitely an early user of the product and I can say like she can eat anything

now and I remember there was one day she came home and she was like mom we're the pills and because we had like everyone of my family's taking them and I said oh I haven't reordered we don't have any right now and she was like but we're gonna go offer ice cream this weekend and I was like well we shouldn't have had talk about how this isn't really an ice cream enabler but effectively she can eat anything and how old is she now she's 19 and how long did it take her

from your perspective till that started to resolve itself until the gut got strong it was like less than 90 days oh wow she was pretty I mean she was in at that point she was still in elementary school calling now he's gonna take all my supplements I know you're gonna go home he's gonna start so let's just say if someone jumps into the pendulum protocol and they want to do this 90 day like is that what you guys recommend and how do you recommend most evil dive in and start incorporating

I definitely recommend um the the first step is what do you feel like you're trying to fix and like

“literally I say write it down like write down what you feel like these are all the things that I think”

could be improved in in my life and don't nothing is out of scope here everything is you write it down you know I get my wife to stop yelling at me yeah write it all down write it down fix your micobriam fix your microbiome and then she will be as irritated with you the reason I say 90 days is because if you were to become a if you were to change your diet so let's say your vegetarian and you became a carnivore within eight weeks your microbiome will look totally different so you know

it takes about that amount of time to really introduce something new until you get some people feel a difference in a matter of days and some people take six months but on average I give you like give it 90 days and the kind of things that can also bolster this are if you can start to increase the amount of fiber that's in your diet that can be through foods or supplementation that's the food for these strains and so if you can feed them fibers and polyphenols and take the pills

just take one pendulum a day is that it it's the one strain for day I would I always recommend

“for people to take pendulum metabolic daily so I know we talked a lot about acrimansia that's”

one of the strains it's in metabolic daily but metabolic daily has all the strains like I said there it's an ecosystem so eating the metabolic daily by pendulum that's the best place to start when you're just getting going with your company that's the best place to get started it's the best price performance I mean that's really your daily okay before you go we have a huge female audience what is the menopause microbiome link yes this is actually really really fresh information

I'll also caveat by saying we're very early in research like we as a global community but

one of the things that happens during menopause one of the biggest things that happens during

menopause is your estrogen levels kind of go through this massive decline the microbiome for women also has certain strains that you could literally overlay exactly that estrogen decline and they go down at the same rate maybe I'll take one step back which is to say that if you're a woman and you're between puberty and menopause and you sent me your microbiome I could tell you are you a man or woman we actually women's microbiomes like different from men's until menopause

controversial statement these girls call ours like little hearts without getting into any of them and I'll explain why because it's really is about hormones and about what you identify as but once you get through menopause our microbiomes look like men's you can't tell any more is this from a man or woman oh that's so interesting yeah and what it boils down to is this thing so as our estrogen levels are declining so are these very specific strains in our microbiome

are also declining and when you dig a little bit deeper those strains actually can increase your body's free estrogen so your body naturally is a system that when you're between puberty menopause there you know your whole body is regulated in you get increases certain hormones and then there's like a thing that decreases your hormones so there's everything is really cyclical and it comes to hormones and so estrogen has a system for increasing your estrogen and it has all these systems for

then decreasing your estrogen and the microbiome is it plays a role in that decreasing of your free estrogen and so what happens is that we lose those strains that can put free estrogen back into our body

“and so the idea is the hypothesis is if you could give those strains that are like especially I think”

during parent menopause when these cliffs can feel really dramatic if you can give people back those strains that help kind of stabilize that free estrogen level that you could maybe help to manage these symptoms that we go through when we go through menopause but with that also in mind is it potential to delay the onset that no no that's right that that is actually the whole goal is that the whole goal is to actually try to target women before we're like in the frozen menopause

but as you're starting to feel all those symptoms like people women start to feel those symptoms some like within their 30s and you don't necessarily recognize it but the whole idea here is to make it less dramatic and terrible and by the way there are also systems that do the same thing with testosterone Colleen you're fascinating you're welcome to come back on the show any time that was a great conversation tell us where we can find the brand yes I I would love for everybody to check us out

at pendulumlife.com there's a lot of information there's a lot of stuff we talked about here today there's a lot of information there if you're a healthcare practitioner we have a special section just for you that has all the papers and protocols written by your peers please come learn

“ask us questions I think if you're just looking to boost your gut and metabolic health”

and you're looking for which product is right for me metabolic daily is the one to go after if you have diabetes take pendulum glucose control and again if you can boost your nutrition with fibers and polyphenols that's all gonna feed these guys and and be great for your gut

you can go to pendulumlife.com/skini they gave you a code skinny you get 20% off your first purchase

Michael keep your paws off my product go buy it use the code Michael thank you so much thanks for having me guys thank you for doing this