Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry Podcast, the weekly podcast where Dr. G gives you the tools you need to boost your health and live your healthiest life.
Dr. Gundry (00:14):
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry Podcast. Got butyrate? Well, this stuff is actually that good. If you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you know I love this gut health boosting postbiotic called butyrate. In my upcoming book, Unlocking the Keto Code, I’ll reveal how butyrate is quite the rockstar for many reasons, including optimizing your mitochondrial function.
And my special guest today, John Eid, chief science officer and co-founder of Pendulum, is also a big butyrate fan. In fact, he’s built a career around it by researching genomic technology and the microbiome for over two decades. Today, he’s going to give us a 411 on all things butyrate. So stay tuned because we’ll also discuss why this special postbiotic is so essential for wellness and how to make sure your body produces enough of it so you live a long, healthy life. We’ll be right back.
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Welcome back to the Dr. Gundry Podcast. John, it’s nice to meet you. Thanks for joining us today.
John Eid (04:06):
Thanks for having me on. I’m very excited.
Dr. Gundry (04:09):
So I’m really excited to talk to you all about butyrate, which is one of my favorite postbiotics. So can you give us a brief overview of your research over the past two decades?
John Eid (04:23):
Certainly. And actually, let me first start maybe with framing it with a question. What makes progress in biology and medicine hard? I believe that it’s because the purely reductionist approach doesn’t work there. Biology’s one of those areas where if you split the system down, if you try and reduce it to a simpler part, the magic disappears. Or worse, the thing you’re looking at is not really the phenomena that’s relevant at the full complexity.
So a lot of the work that I’ve been involved in is on the technology side. How to create cutting-edge technology that allows you front row seats, that doesn’t disturb the show. And so I’ve oscillated between the technology aspect and the biological questions of interest. So my background is in applied physics. I got my undergrad at Cornell, PhD at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and postdoc at Harvard.
And my first job, I joined a startup, which then subsequently went public, that was revolutionizing the way DNA sequencing was being done. Where literally, we were watching the DNA polymerase, the little copying machine that’s in all of our cells, as it was putting each of the bases in. Exactly. And then it turns out that this was actually pretty critical for our next leap, which was to go into the microbiome. Because the complexity of the microbiome requires kind of this high resolution way of looking at things. And so this is where I met Colleen and Jim and we founded Pendulum. And for the last decade or so, we’ve been creating, characterizing and producing microbiome based health solutions.
Dr. Gundry (06:06):
I think you talk and a lot of us talk about the microbiome being considered being a garden. And we should think about pre- and pro- and postbiotics in this garden setting. Explain that for everybody listening and watching?
John Eid (06:29):
Definitely. I really like the garden analogy, because I think it flows nicely to explain all three of those parts. So in the garden analogy, the plants are the probiotics and then the soil and nutrients and sun and water would be the prebiotics that feed the plants. And then the all important postbiotics are the fruit and vegetables that those plants produce and that that then nourishes you and creates a vibrant ecosystem.
Dr. Gundry (07:02):
And correct me if I’m wrong, but for many, many, many years, really up until recently, we had no idea that this microbiome, number one, even existed. And number two, was actually producing, in your analogy, fruits and vegetables. So postbiotics are actually a rather recent discovery.
John Eid (07:28):
Yeah, absolutely. And actually, I mean, exactly to your point, I mean, it’s actually astonishing to me that we’ve gotten as far as we have without recognizing the importance of the microbiome. And I think now we’re going to kind of kick ourselves looking back and say like, “How is it possible that something that has this incredible chemistry capacity could have been overlooked for so long?”
Dr. Gundry (07:53):
So when did you first come to learn about pre- and postbiotics? I mean, did you stumble on this coming from a genomic background, or?
John Eid (08:04):
No, exactly. So I’m going to be honest to say, like the term postbiotic, I actually only heard about it recently. So I, myself, also am coming to speed on the latest terminology for it. But now we’ve been referring to it as metabolites. And it was, from our perspective, kind of the central launching point. So we started with the knowledge of, well, what metabolite do we want? What’s the thing that seems to differentiate between healthy and disease? And from there work backwards kind of.
So the garden analogy is, we need to produce more tomatoes. We need more tomato plants. What kind of varieties of tomato plants were we going to have? And then from there pairing it with the right prebiotics that are going to work well to nourish those particular strains.
Dr. Gundry (08:53):
So that brings us to, I guess, one of my favorite subjects butyrate. There’s lots of postbiotics and we could talk about all of them. There’s probably 10 more that have been discovered today while you and I are talking, but what intrigues you, what intrigued you about butyrate?
John Eid (09:21):
Well, what’s amazing about butyrate is, I mean, it’s the currency of the gut. It’s literally the fuel for the colonocytes, for the gut cells. But for us, what was specifically amazing is that it seemed correlated… low amounts of it seemed to be correlated with metabolic syndrome. So we were seeing that there was a reduced amount of butyrate and of the strains that produce it in those that suffered from diabetes. And so that’s what kind of triggered the entire research program that we started. So to create a formulation that could restore that, and then couple that formulation with a necessary prebiotic to enable that to grow and flourish when given.
Dr. Gundry (10:08):
So let’s back up for a second because I’ve written about butyrate being really essential fuel for the lining of the gut, the colonocytes. But most people kind of say, “Wait a minute, blood feeds these guys and they get all their nourishment from blood.” But what you’re saying is, “No, no, no. These guys are absolutely dependent on a short-chain fatty acid for their fuel,” right?
John Eid (10:45):
That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. And there are various studies showing that to have the health of your lining be there, that nourishment needs to be there at significant quantities. So it’s important to create the ecosystem that enables that supply to be high enough. Because I think, what ends up happening is that that ecosystem can be fragile depending on your diet and other assaults on it that can result in a much more kind of diminished version of that.
Dr. Gundry (11:20):
Yeah. So in your research, is there a way to actually measure how much butyrate production that we produce or an animal produces for it?
John Eid (11:29):
So yeah, just earlier this month, we published a study in BMC Microbiology where we measure butyrate both in the stool and in plasma. And we demonstrated that participants that received PGC had increased levels of butyrate, significant actually, to the order of 20 to 40% increased. And so we believe this is the first demonstration of a probiotic intervention that is able to increase the levels and see that, not just in stool but in plasma, directly.
Dr. Gundry (12:01):
And I might add that as much as, potentially 10%, of all our energy production in us, can come from butyrate. So it’s not a marginal player.
John Eid (12:18):
No, absolutely. You’re absolutely right.
Dr. Gundry (12:20):
Okay. So good question, how would someone know if they’re making butyrate or not?
John Eid (12:29):
That’s a great question. I would say that our focus was on the effect that that had, the reduced amount of butyrate, on your body’s ability to handle blood glucose spikes. So we were measuring its effect using traditional A1C measures, but also the more modern, continuous glucose monitors. So you can actually watch them with a specific meal and watch it for the same foods that you had a different level of spike before and after. But actually, I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on this because I know that you’ve seen a wider variety of effects in a clinical setting.
Dr. Gundry (13:14):
Yeah. I think most people, I don’t think, can feel the effect of butyrate. I don’t think they go, “Oh my gosh, I’m really low on butyrate today. I need to have some more fiber in my diet today.” I guess that’s what I was going to get at. Or you can’t fart and smell the butyrate, for example.
John Eid (13:41):
Right, right. No, no, exactly right. It’s not something that you would be able to tell kind of intrinsically. This is part of this complexity. You would need some downstream indicator. And I can imagine that butyrate will be shown to have other roles and so once people make that connection to some other measurable clinical quantity, then that will also be trackable.
Dr. Gundry (14:11):
Gotcha. So speaking of which, are there foods that we should be eating that can stimulate butyrate production?
John Eid (14:23):
Absolutely. And I mean, our initial focus on this was very much on the formulation itself. What would be good to couple with it? What prebiotic would work well there? And we tested a variety and landed on inulin, which is a fiber, but we also… We know that there’s a holistic view of health and how you would move it forward besides taking the particular formulation.
So our nutritionists, for example, tell people that they should attempt to get an overall increase in fiber intake, generally. That in and of itself has been shown to help on a number of fronts and to help increase the chances of these particular set of strains, the butyrate producing strains, to thrive in the garden.
Dr. Gundry (15:12):
So yeah, I’m a big fan of inulin and inulin-containing vegetables. In fact, I just had a big radicchio and other chicory vegetable salad last night. And the chicory family is just loaded with inulin. Jerusalem artichoke, some people call them sunchokes, are a great source. So it’s easier than a lot of people think to get inulin. And you can get it in powder form. It does have a slight, sweet taste and you can actually use it as a sweetener, so…
John Eid (15:49):
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Gundry (15:51):
Okay. Most people, I think, now know that the word butter actually comes from butyrate because there is a little butyric acid in butter. So everybody, I’m sure, wonders, should we be eating a stick of butter every day like some of my colleagues in health influencing say?
John Eid (16:14):
Well, that sounds… sure sounds delicious. Well, I would say, so for the effect that we were after, there are very specific cells and specific areas of the GI that you need to get the butyrate to. These are these L-cells, because that would then start the cascade of signaling to prepare your body for the oncoming glucose load.
And I’m going to steal an analogy that my co-founder, Colleen, came up with, which I really like. Which is, if you had a million dollars in a suitcase and you needed to get it to a specific place in order to get a project started, say like a clinic or something. And would you, A, deliver the suitcase directly where it needs to go? Or B, open the suitcase up somewhere along the road and call the person up and say, “Hey, it’s somewhere here. Go and collect it?”
This is similar to the situation with butyrate because, in essence, it is utilized everywhere in the GI. So if you needed to get to a specific location to do a very specific action, you need to find a way to deliver it there. And that’s the power of the strains. So the probiotic strains in essence are like a white glove delivery service. And so this gets around the problem that, for example, a butyrate supplement would also have.
Dr. Gundry (17:34):
Yeah. Yeah. I think people are probably unaware that you can buy butyrate as a supplement, but most of us working in this field have been very unimpressed with the delivery. How’s that?
John Eid (17:52):
Yeah. No, exactly, because that aspect of the problem is not trivial at all. So this comes back to that, when you were thinking about the complexity of biology. You can know that a particular molecule is really great, but unless it’s in the right place at the right time, an effect that could otherwise be very helpful, might dissipate entirely.
Dr. Gundry (18:14):
So how is it, do you think, or your research showing that butyrate is actually able to modulate metabolism, like maintain a healthy weight without really trying?
John Eid (18:29):
Right. Well, we believe that basically, this is the upstream part of something that has been very well-studied. So in the pharmaceutical industry, there’s already been great advances on the downstream part of how sugar metabolism is taken care of, which is with this GLP-1 pathway. And so we know that your body sends out that hormone to tell your pancreas, “Hey, send some insulin to take care of this.”
Interestingly, people hadn’t then gone to the next step above that. Where did the signaling from the gut come from? And so this is the part that we travel down, is what is happening in the gut that initiates the set of signaling that’s going to happen that will then result in glucose control? And so we recognize that short-chain fatty acids and specifically butyrate, were part of that initial signaling that then tells those L-cells, “Hey, release GLP-1 and tell the rest of the body to get ready.”
Dr. Gundry (19:39):
And again, you just can’t… I want to reiterate, you can’t just swallow butyrate and tell the body to get ready to handle glucose.
John Eid (19:49):
No, exactly. Because the connection has to be with these specific cells. And they are concentrated in some parts of the GI, like near the ileum. They’re all along the GI, but there are some areas of concentration. And it’s thought that you might have a network of strains that are interacting with and creating this kind of host signaling, bacterial signaling, back and forth. And so this is one of the ways to attempt to turn on that signaling or make sure to restore it back to the healthy state that it was in.
Dr. Gundry (20:26):
I always like to ask the question, what’s in it for the bacteria to do this signaling? In other words-
John Eid (20:38):
That’s a great question. I mean, I think the thought is, and I mean, certainly my impression of it is, the strains also get a really good part of the deal. They get to be in a nice environment with a lot of resources flooding their way. And so what’s happened over time is, as kind of established a system or a network that enables that to work in harmony. And I think this is the part I think that is maybe not as appreciated, how much us as an organism requires this other ecosystem to function in a healthy fashion.
I think for the longest time, [inaudible 00:21:25] since the moment of the invention of antibiotics, which was an amazing breakthrough for us, I think we’ve generally thought of the only good bacteria or dead bacteria, right? And it’s now the realization that that couldn’t be the furthest thing from the truth. In fact, it’s really these pathogenic bacteria and the bad apples that give all the rest of them a really bad name. But you actually generally live quite well and rely on the services provided by the strains. And they in turn, rely on you to provide them a home and nutrients and the right ecosystem.
Dr. Gundry (22:04):
And correct me if I’m wrong but the typical Western diet is not holding up our end in providing these guys what they need to help us?
John Eid (22:21):
Exactly right. Exactly right. So things that are processed and high in sugars and fats and very low in fiber, all of those things are contributing to changing that ecosystem. And in fact, I mean, it’s quite natural to imagine, just as you would see in the world around when ecosystem diversity falls off because of changes in the environment, right? Because you changed the nutrient landscape or you changed the way that it’s interacted with.
Dr. Gundry (22:53):
All right. Let’s go on to my favorite bug, Akkermansia.
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Muciniphila and congratulations for your whole team on your phenomenal work of capturing this probiotic strain, Akkermansia, in a stable pill form. And actually, I tell all my patients about your supplement and I’m already seeing some really cool things happening with several of them on their subsequent blood tests. So-
John Eid (29:13):
Awesome.
Dr. Gundry (29:14):
I also, I’ve been writing about this probiotic, my books, but tell the listeners, what’s so cool about this strain?
John Eid (29:26):
Yeah, of course. Well, so Akkermansia holds a very special place in the gut because it’s allowed to interact directly with your gut lining. In fact, it utilizes the mucin in your lining as its energy source. And to tie into your earlier question, well, why does the body allow that? And the reason is because the postbiotics that Akkermansia produces are then very helpful, both for you and for the beneficial set of strains that your body would like to flourish near the gut lining. So it can be thought of as a keystone species, sort of a linchpin for the health and function of your microbial garden.
Dr. Gundry (30:12):
And some people associate mucus with, oh, runny nose or phlegm. But in fact, mucus in the lining of the gut is probably the most important thing we’ve got. And I’m interested in it because it actually traps lectins. They are sugar-seeking molecules, and mucus is mucopolysaccharides, lots of sugars. And you know and I know that the thicker this lining of mucus, the better off we are.
John Eid (30:54):
That’s exactly right. Because then that prevents a whole host of issues, which are to do with a more permeable lining, which allows a lot of things to get across that shouldn’t, and then can result in a state of inflammation and other reaction in your body downstream.
Dr. Gundry (31:12):
Yeah. My interest is in leaky gut and we have an epidemic of leaky gut. But even Hippocrates, 2,500 years ago said, “All disease begins in the gut.” And he didn’t have our test to prove it, but he was obviously right. So-
John Eid (31:33):
Yeah. No, he nailed it for sure.
Dr. Gundry (31:37):
So Akkermansia has been known about for what, 12 years, maybe thereabouts?
John Eid (31:45):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Gundry (31:46):
And I’ve said to anyone who listen, it’s been the Holy Grail of probiotics. Why has it been so difficult to grow this guy, make a shelf-stable supplement until now? How’d you guys crack the code?
John Eid (32:05):
Right. I would summarize is, there are two major hurdles for scaling it up. One is the fact that it’s a strict anaerobe. So that means it’s the type of strain that any minute amounts of oxygen are toxic for it. In fact, we’d literally measure it down to parts per million.
Dr. Gundry (32:27):
Wow.
John Eid (32:27):
And so you have to get all of your process such that that is removed from [inaudible 00:32:34], from your production format. The other major issue with it is that it prefers to grow on media that is meat-based. It’s not maybe too surprising since normally would have mucin there. But we managed to create a vegetable-based media, which can enable production and especially with the regulatory landscape, be able to have a safe production method.
Dr. Gundry (33:04):
Because as I recall Colleen saying, the FDA because of mad cow disease and prions, won’t allow you to grow this bug on what it would like to eat.
John Eid (33:18):
Exactly right. Exactly right. So those kind of standardized media that normally would be available in any microbiology lab, because you can, for research purposes, no problem. You can grow it in whatever it’s happiest in. But from the start, we knew that if we needed to scale this up and have it be commercially viable, then we needed to change it to be able to be just as effectively growing in a vegetable medium.
Dr. Gundry (33:50):
So how does Akkermansia help your body or help produce butyrate? What’s the mechanism?
John Eid (33:59):
Yeah. So what we and others have observed is that it actually really helps from a cross-feeding perspective. So it’s kind of where postbiotics from one strain essence serve as the prebiotics from the other and vice versa, and they’re linked. So Akkermansia appears to be especially synergistic with butyrate producing strains. So it itself doesn’t produce butyrate, but it helps butyrate producing strains to flourish.
And in fact, we’ve seen in our own studies, in our preclinical study, that it actually helps a butyrate producing strain to engraft or stick around and thrive in the garden longer when it’s there versus when it’s not. We did the plus minus. And additionally, it also produces the short-chain fatty acid, propionate, which is connected to a number of beneficial health effects, similar to butyrate. In fact, there’s some thought that it’s the ratio of those two that’s actually quite important.
Dr. Gundry (34:58):
And so in this strain, I think a lot of people know that a lot of probiotics that we might swallow are actually not normal flora. They’re not denizens of our gut. And I tell people, “Well, they kind of go on vacation in your gut for a couple of weeks and then they pack up and leave,” just to use that analogy. But this Akkermansia is actually the human gut strain, right?
John Eid (35:30):
Yes, yes, exactly. And it’s the one that normally, you would have quite a high percentage of it. So if you were to do a microbiome profiling after, in stool, you would see that it should be in there on its own at a couple percent. Which is pretty amazing given that there’s hundreds to thousands of strains in your microbiome in total. But yeah, it’s this linchpin strain that is a kind of guardian at the lining.
Dr. Gundry (36:05):
To back up, why do most of us not have that much Akkermansia? What’s gone wrong? I mean, have we killed it with our antibiotics or have we killed it because it has nothing to eat? Or what’s the thought process?
John Eid (36:23):
Well, I think it’s probably a combination. I think it’s a matter of what you were mentioning earlier, the type of diet that we have. Because that synergistic effect that it has, or that it connects with on the butyrate producers, if you do things that reduce that community, so you don’t eat enough fiber, for example, then they’re not as much of those plants out there. So they don’t provide the type of things that the Akkermansia needs in order for it to thrive as well. So there’s kind of a complex community and I think we’re only starting to scratch the surface about all the different ways it could go wrong.
Dr. Gundry (37:01):
Gotcha. Now, one of your products is called Glucose Control and it has Akkermansia, but it also has other bacteria. And that was designed from the get go for type 2 diabetes, right?
John Eid (37:01):
That’s right. That’s right.
Dr. Gundry (37:23):
So how did you decide, “Well, we need more than just Akkermansia to get what we want, to have this product help people?”
John Eid (37:36):
Right. Well, regarding the additional ingredients, we basically wanted this formulation to be self-contained, entirely self-reliant, and not requiring a particular nutrient or other strain when it arrives, because different people taking it might have completely different microbiomes. So the way that we thought about it is, well, we need to have the substrate, that would be helpful. So that’s why the inulin is there.
Then we have a bifido that helps to break down that substrate into acetate. And then that can then be used by the butyrate producing strains that are in the formulation to produce butyrate. And we included a variety of butyrate producing strains to cover the gamut of potential interactions that might be there in different microbiomes.
And then of course there’s Akkermansia, which as we know, synergistically will interact with those therapeutic constraints and is the one that is sort of forming that bridge to the lining. So all together, we thought that that full combination enabled you to go from the fiber to the butyrate and to the effect of the signaling in the body that’s needed.
Dr. Gundry (38:56):
So you kind of eliminate the middle man and have everybody that you need all in a capsule? And-
John Eid (39:05):
Exactly right.
Dr. Gundry (39:05):
And you’ve proven this to work in a clinical trial in humans?
John Eid (39:11):
Yes.
Dr. Gundry (39:12):
Yeah. And published this data.
John Eid (39:14):
That’s right. That’s right. In BMJ, this was a couple of years ago now, and that was very exciting for us. So yeah, I mean, to us, that was one of the key moments is to demonstrate that in a randomized control trial, double-blind, to show that effect. Because as you know, there are a lot of things which in model systems can look good, but then they don’t translate. In fact, actually, one of my favorite quotes that I’m going to steal from our chief medical officer, Orville, he said, “You know, mice have been cured of diabetes a hundred times over.” And I think that that’s exactly the issue, is finding a model system that points in the right direction, but then demonstrating in people that you’re having the intended effect.
Dr. Gundry (40:01):
Yeah. I just recently had two patients who are actually very healthy individuals, but they… And they’re thin, but they were on elevated hemoglobin A1Cs, higher than I like, let’s put it that way, and have some degree of insulin resistance, have elevated insulin. And I talked them into trying Glucose Control and we gave it two months and both of their hemoglobin A1Cs dropped. I think one of them dropped 0.7, and one of them dropped 0.6. But interestingly enough, their insulin levels came down into the normal range. And we’ve been trying a lot of manipulation to get that to happen. So this is the only thing that they changed. And they were delighted, to say the least.
John Eid (41:01):
That’s very exciting to hear. And I have to say, we are very interested to hear this type of… to hear all of the feedback, especially of what particular parameters moved and over what timeframe. This is all part of the thing that we’re trying to build infrastructure for, to really understand the exact connection between people’s responses and different formulations and different effects.
Dr. Gundry (41:29):
Yeah. And I think I’ve posted on Instagram that I spend a lot of time in Italy, in the south of France, and I cheat when I’m over there and fully admit. And in general, I take one of my products from Gundry MD, Lectin Shield, which absorbs lectins. And I take a lot of it and I do very well. So this past fall, I took some of your shelf-stable Akkermansia, and I left my Lectin Shield behind on purpose. And I said, “Okay, we’re going to put this to the acid test.”
And I actually was shocked. I only had maybe a half a day where I had some bowel issues, but I went two weeks, absolutely no issues. Which, actually, it didn’t surprise me, but delightfully surprised me because I had no backup system. So that’s just… It’s an experience of one, but I can tell you what would’ve happened if I didn’t have that and didn’t have Lectin Shield, it would not have been pleasant for me or my wife, let’s put it that way way.
John Eid (42:54):
Right, right. No, that’s really great to hear. And I was surprised that you took the leap so fully. That’s very impressive.
Dr. Gundry (43:02):
I know. It was really dumb in a way. But I said, “Nah, it’s going to do it or it isn’t going to do it and I’m going to have no backup.” So…
John Eid (43:11):
Nice, nice.
Dr. Gundry (43:12):
And I’m also, I’m out trying to get most of my leaky gut patients, and I got a ton of them with autoimmune disease, to get on your Akkermansia product. I have that much initial faith in it and it’ll be very interesting. We’ve just started that trial. It’ll be very interesting in the coming months to see if we can hasten the repair of leaky gut. Because it can be a very slow process. I used to think that I could seal somebody’s leaky gut in a couple weeks. And I was naive, it can sometimes take up to a year to finally eliminate all the markers of leaky gut. But it’ll be very exciting to see if this guy is going to hasten that. Do you have any thoughts or your work in your clinical patients that this is going to have an effect on leaky gut?
John Eid (44:16):
Well, I would say that it’s really early days there. And it’s this kind of feedback that we’re really interested in making sure that we collate and bring back and think through what might be standardized ways for us to observe this so that we can really track exactly where different people are getting the benefit.
Dr. Gundry (44:37):
So you have a shelf-stable Akkermansia, and then you have Glucose Control. So is Glucose Control the Ferrari of the line and the high performance product? Or, I mean, should you just be a type 2 diabetic to get the benefit of Glucose Control? Or who should take what?
John Eid (45:07):
Well, right. So I would say, if you’ve got diabetes, definitely PGC, Pendulum Glucose Control, is the right product for you. Thinking of it as the Ferrari, I think, then I don’t know. Then that kind of maybe leaves Akkermansia, because I also like to think of that as a Ferrari too. I think it’s just maybe different for different things.
Dr. Gundry (45:31):
It’s the entry-level model.
John Eid (45:36):
Right. I mean, I think the main thing is that we’re just starting this journey of getting all the information in place. And PGC has basically this double-blind clinical trial behind it. And as we build up more of these studies going forward, and I think other formulations will also be able to make some more specific recommendations.
Dr. Gundry (46:04):
Gotcha. So what’s next on the horizon in microbiome advancement at Pendulum? I hear there’s a new product in the pipeline?
John Eid (46:16):
Yes. Yes. As a matter of fact, there is. We’ve been working for a couple of years now with Dr. Pasricha who heads up gastroenterology at Johns Hopkins. And he has a preclinical model where he’s tested some of our formulations on, and he’s been very excited by the results. And so in the next couple of months, we’re planning on releasing a gut product and it would involve formulations, but also kind of this feedback loop to data so that we better understand who different formulations are working for. So almost like kind of a personalized approach. Because you can imagine, somebody that suffers from bloating might not need quite the same set of strains as somebody that suffers from GI, from say maybe a pain aspect.
Dr. Gundry (47:08):
Right. And you think that you can actually, kind of custom formulate these products for those needs?
John Eid (47:19):
Well, we think that there can potentially be a couple of key areas. So maybe those that suffer from loose bowels versus those [inaudible 00:47:35]. And so then there may be just one specific type of formulation that works best in those scenarios.
Dr. Gundry (47:42):
Something we haven’t touched on, but is of interest to a lot of researchers, including myself and Dr. Daniel Amen is the influence of the gut microbiome on mental health. And I think with each passing year, we’re realizing that much of what we used to call mental health disease isn’t a disease, but it’s a disturbance of our microbiome. Is that anything in the future that Pendulum’s going to look into or who knows?
John Eid (48:23):
Yeah. I mean, that one has been… I mean the gut brain part is very exciting and I think that that has come along so fast in the last couple of years. It isn’t currently on our near-term horizon, but we’ve penciled in some early thoughts on it. So I wouldn’t put a crystal ball on exactly where that will be in a few years, except to say that, I’m sure that that area’s going to grow.
Dr. Gundry (48:54):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it makes so much sense. With what we’re learning about how these gut buddies really kind of control everything about us, it just makes sense.
John Eid (49:07):
Yeah. Exactly.
Dr. Gundry (49:10):
Most humans don’t like the thought that little one-cell organisms might have that much control over us, but we just have to get over it. I mean…
John Eid (49:22):
Absolutely. It’s this thing of like… Yeah, expanding your view, I like to think of it, of yourself as being more of a super organism, right? You’re more than just the cells that share exactly the DNA with you. You’re actually a full ecosystem, and that’s a good thing.
Dr. Gundry (49:43):
Yeah. No, absolutely. All right. Well, it’s been great having you on the program. You, I understand, have a special 20% offer for our audience, with the code GUNDRY, for your product. Can you tell me how it works?
John Eid (50:00):
Yeah. So anybody who uses the code GUNDRY, will get that 20% off. And then of course, everybody can feel free to visit our website, pendulumlife.com, where you can find out about our latest research and any of our products and services.
Dr. Gundry (50:17):
Yeah. It’s a fun website. I send all my patients to it. I actually pull it up in my office and shove it in their face. So they have no choice, but to hear about you and your fine company. I’m that impressed and-
John Eid (50:33):
Well, we’re very pleased to hear that and especially pleased to hear about the positive effects that our products are having. This is for us, obviously, our key mission.
Dr. Gundry (50:43):
All right. Well, thanks again for joining us and folks, pendulumlife.com. That’s where to go and use code GUNDRY at checkout for 20% off. All right. Thanks a lot.
John Eid (50:56):
Thank you.
Dr. Gundry (50:58):
Okay. It’s time for our audience question. [Bpar23 00:51:01] from Instagram asked, “How is olive oil any different from sesame oil? Can you explain what attributes of sesame oil block LPS’s that olive oil doesn’t have?” Well, it turns out that of course, olive oil is a whole lot different than sesame oil. They have total different fatty structures, but unfortunately, research has shown that LPS’s, those lipopolysaccharides, travel on chylomicrons, which is how almost all fats are transported across the gut wall. And LPS’s can hop, hitch a ride on chylomicrons to sneak across the gut barrier.
Now, olive oil is carried with chylomicrons across the gut wall as is sesame oil. The only one that isn’t carried across, interestingly enough, are medium-chain triglycerides, MCTs. They are not transported with chylomicrons and so believe it or not, LPS’s can’t hop on MCTs. But research, human research shows that taking sesame oil blocks the inflammatory effect of LPS’s. In fact, a very good human trial shows that with people with hypertension, taking two tablespoons of sesame oil a day actually lowers their blood pressure dramatically and stopping taking the sesame oil, makes their blood pressure go back up. A human trial. So it’s not so much that both could carry LPS’s across, but sesame oil signals a blockade by our immune system to not be interested in LPS’s when sesame oil is around. So that’s how it works.
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Heather Dubrow (53:44):
Hi everyone. It’s Heather Dubrow, telling you to check out Heather Dubrow’s World on PodcastOne. Every week, we discuss the hippest, hottest, newest trends in health, wellness, parenting, style, and so much more, including all things Housewives and Botched. Download new episodes of Heather Dubrow’s World on Thursdays and Fridays on PodcastOne, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music.
Dr. Gundry (54:12):
All right, review of the week is Hayes Reeve from Apple Podcasts. Hope I got that right. “Save my life exclamation point. I have suffered from multiple autoimmune issues for my whole life. When I was a child, they went undiagnosed and it was just assumed the pain I felt was from various injuries from sports. I did a primal diet nine years ago and really healed myself. I was amazed at the impact that food has on health. Unfortunately, being a vegetarian, the amount of time and effort needed to sustain wasn’t possible with two small children. I never forgot the healing power of food, though. Three children later and 50 pounds overweight, I was feeling sicker than ever. I knew something had to change and I found Dr. G.
Six weeks in, and I’m already down 18 pounds and feel amazing. My joints are no longer swollen, and I have so much energy. Dr. G makes starting and following the Plant Paradox as a vegetarian or anyone so accessible and quick. I can do it with no stress and I could not be more grateful. Listening to the podcast while food prepping and cooking is now my favorite way to spend my me time. Keep up the great work.”
Well, thank you very much. You know, I see this in my patients every day, and that’s why I still see patients six days a week, but it’s great to hear from someone who I’ve not met, I’m not taking care of you, to do this on your own. And quite frankly, we think we’ve seen that about 90% of people with autoimmune diseases who embark on the Plant Paradox program, their autoimmune disease goes into remission. And it’s wonderful to hear from you. So please, if you like what you see, write us a note, respond on wherever you get your podcast, on iTunes, and let us know. And hopefully, I’ll be reading your note and we’re doing this because I’m Dr. Gundry. And I’m always looking out for you. See you next week.
Thanks for joining me on this episode of the Dr. Gundry Podcast. Before you go, I just wanted to remind you that you can find the show on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you want to watch each episode of the Dr. Gundry Podcast, you could always find me on YouTube at youtube.com/DrGundry. Because I’m Dr. Gundry and I’m always looking out for you.
