 Oh, all you smart listeners are gonna love this podcast. By the way, it's all of you. Anybody who watches this is really smart. So I know you're all gonna enjoy this. We talked to Zach Abbott, the founder of Zbiotics, and talk all about bacteria science, how it affects performance, digestion, moods, and then it gets really crazy. We talk about the world of genetically modified bacteria, which I'm telling you right now, the future of this is revolutionary. Anyway, here's the giveaway. I know that's why you're here right now. You want free stuff, that's fine. Here you go. MAPS PowerLift is today's giveaway program. It's a powerlifting specific workout program. So if you wanna get your bench press, your deadlift, and your squat up, this is the program to follow. Here is how you win. Leave a comment, the first 24 hours that we drop this episode. Subscribe to this channel, turn on notifications. Gotta do all those things. If we pick your comment, and we will notify you, and then you'll win MAPS PowerLift for free. Also, we got a sale going on this month. MAPS Anywhere, 50% off, and the Fit Mom Bundle, which includes MAPS Anywhere, MAPS Enabolic, MAPS Hit, and the Intuitive Nutrition Guide, is also 50% off. So you wanna sign up for any of those and use a discount code, here's what you gotta do. Go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and use the code November 50 for that discount. All right, here comes the show. Zach, I'd like to start out just by just, let's just talk about what the microbiome is. I wanna get into the science of the microbiome and how these bacteria affect our behaviors and performance and digestion and all that stuff. But before we do, let's kind of explain what it is, first off. Yeah, so the microbiome basically, I mean, there's kind of a lot of, there's a little bit of argument still in kind of the microbiology community about what the microbiome actually is. But generally speaking, I mean, for all intents and purposes, it's just all the microbes that are living in your gut, as well as kind of all the DNA and proteins and functions that are related to those microbes. So there's sort of this like metabolic network or like net of interactions of all those microbiome, all those microbes are kind of enacting. And so all of that kind of sphere of influence around those microbes is also considered the microbiome. So all the like small molecules they produce and all the things that they eat and all of that is all kind of part of the microbiome as well. So you brought up, there's like, there's some debate, what's the debate? Where is the divide at with this? Some people say that like microbiota is the proper name for like the bacteria or like the small microbes in the gut and then the microbiome is like, is the DNA only and like the genes that are present. And so, you know, there's always like, you know, it's all linguistics, but like generally speaking. And there are nerds fighting over who's smarter about. Exactly, it's literally that, well actually, I think that. So yeah, it's, but really, I mean, when people say the microbiome, the common meaning is really just like everything that's happening in the gut, like due to the microbes themselves. Now, and this is relatively new science. I mean, I've been in fitness long enough to remember when nobody talked about this at all. I mean, for decades, we were prescribing antibiotics, just willy nilly, not really considering its potential impact on our internal or external microbiome. And now it's like, I almost don't go a day without reading an article about how the microbiome has been tied to, I mean, recently I read something about how it was tied to depression, anxiety, happiness. Like how in the hell would this all work? How, why does it have such a strong influence on us? Totally, well, I mean, like first, I think it helps to kind of give like an explanation of the scale we're talking about, right? So we have roughly in our gut, a roughly the same number of bacterial cells as you do human cells in your whole body, right? So it's like one to one. And so that's a lot, but obviously microbial cells are smaller, but what's interesting is that the all of the cells in our body have the same set of DNA, right? So we have the same genes and they're expressed differently in different parts of our body, but like it's the same genes, right? But all those microbes in your gut have different genes and different DNA. So they actually have, I forgot the number now I should know this, but it's something like 30,000 more genes than human genes are in your gut. So that's 30,000 more biological functions, like the variety of biological functions happening in the gut, as opposed to the rest of our body, right? So you can imagine that also, there's never been a time that humans have lived without those microbes in their gut. So our evolution has absolutely been evolved, has been influenced by all those microbes, right? And so like we think about, like you're talking about mood, you talk about like neuro-transmitters or those small molecules, right? That your brain uses for like, for really translating emotions and thoughts. What's crazy is that like the exact same, like biosynthetic pathway, the exact same genes that we use to make some of those neuro-transmitters are found in bacteria. And they actually think that we actually stole them from bacteria. So like some of the way we think is actually from bacteria. That's how central they are to how we function. And so all this stuff that's happening in our gut is really like, I mean, who's like, are we human or are we bacteria? Are we actually bacteria or are we just a human shell, you know, housing bacteria? We're just walking us around. Now, is it fair to say from what I know about evolution, bacteria was here before humans? Oh, yeah. So it's safe to say, not only do we co-evolve, but they were here first. So it's almost like bacteria have human cells, not the other way around. I mean, dude, that's a great way to put it. I mean, bacteria were around for three billion years and humans have been around for like 150 million or something along those lines. And so, it's obviously a whole level of magnitude longer. And so all the animals that evolved before humans were also evolving with bacteria. And so, right, bacteria have like, deeply influenced our biology and they continue to be a really central and integral part of how we operate. Like, I'll give you a really cool example. It's a really common one in the field of microbiology. It's one of these kind of like, like really clear stories of how important microbiome is. So they did this experiment in mice. They take two mice that are genetically identical. So in every way, they're absolutely identical, identical twins, right? And the only difference is that one of those mice has a normal microbiome. And then the other mice, the other mouse does not. It's called a germ-free mouse. And it's very hard to create a germ-free mouse, but they do them. And then they have these mice have no bacteria in their gut. And first and foremost, those two genetically identical mice are completely different. The mouse with no microbiome is dumber. It can't solve mazes as fast. It's like, it doesn't, it has a weaker immune system. It like, doesn't absorb its nutrients from its food as efficiently, all these things, right? And so some of those of you expect some of you wouldn't. What's crazy is that if you then take an obese mouse and transfer its microbiome into that germ-free mouse, that germ-free mouse will become obese. And so that's not just because it's absorbing nutrients more efficiently from its food. It actually starts eating more. So I sort of like really let that sink in. If you think about like how amazing that is that, like just by putting bacteria in your gut, now the mouse is making different decisions. It's deciding to eat more, right? So when you think about like it's 11 o'clock at night and you know rationally that you don't need any more food, but you're like, you go into the kitchen and get a snack anyway, who's making that decision? Are you making that decision? Or is the microbes in your gut, are they telling you to do that? You know what's funny is we literally recorded a podcast earlier and we were talking about toxoplasmosis and how when mice get infected with it, it makes them attracted to cat urine or less afraid of cats. And it makes sense because the parasite is encouraging the host to get eaten so it can continue its own life cycle. Just keep replicating itself. Yeah, that's actually cool. The way it does that is it actually like reduces the anxiety of the mouse. And so then the mouse like- It's euphoric almost. Yeah, it's like, oh, I'm not, I'm not, I don't worry about that cat, it's cool. Right, right. And so the microbes in our body do that a lot. They affect our mood a lot. I was just gonna say, so in order to encourage their own survival, I mean they could have evolved to influence our behaviors. To make us eat a particular way or behave a particular way so that they can encourage their own proliferation. Absolutely, and it's a two-way street. In the same way they influence us, we influence them. Like I say, these biosynthetic pathways for neurotransmitters, that goes both ways. When we express cortisol and stress hormones, bacteria can respond to those hormones in our blood and then they'll turn on their own stress responses. So bacteria have a stress response. So in the lab, they'll change the whole way they express all their genes based on if they're being exposed to some kind of heat stress or acid stress or something like that, like they go into defense mode or they can swim away or things like that. And so they'll actually turn on those stress responses in response to our stress hormones, which is pretty crazy. Because the host is stressed, therefore we need to be ready because we're being stressed. Like something might be happening, right, like yeah. And so, you know, because we turn on our own stress response, for instance, if we eat a poison, right, like we'll turn on our stress response. And then the bacteria probably also wanna know about that poison, you know. Wow, so just how complex is this area of science? Because like I said, I feel like every day I'm learning something new. Sounds pretty complicated. Don't they say the universe, then the gut? Isn't it like that? Like seriously, aren't those like the two like most complex things? Totally, it's, you know, and it is extremely complex. And so there's sort of a fine line to walk here, right? There's all this excitement about like the fact we've really discovered this like whole other organ system of our body really, or like come to appreciate, I should say, this whole other organ system of our body in the last like 20 years. That's a great way to put it. It's a whole other organ system. That's a very, very good way to put it. Yeah, and like it is extremely complex, right? More complex than any other organ in our body, right? Like a liver has like say one set of genes, but the microbiome not only has all these, you know, tens of thousands of more genes, it's also ever-changing, right? Like it's not fixed. So your microbiome today is gonna be very different than your microbiome in a month or in a year, potentially. And so, and a lot of behavioral changes in antibiotics, that's a big one, but there's a lot of small things. You just stress alone can really affect your microbiome or lack of sleep has been shown to affect the microbiome and cause shifts and obviously diet and exercise, all these things affect the microbiome and change it all the time. So that is phenomenally important, not just for your metabolism, but also if you think about mood changes, like a lot of those things are mediated by the microbes that you're now kind of supporting or pushing away with those behaviors. Is it the diversity of it that is what causes, for example, you know, I have psoriasis. So me and like four other people I know have psoriasis all will get it either expressed differently or from different things, right? So like there's certain things like sugar is mine, triggers, it flares up a crazy. My friend, not at all eats bananas or something. Is that why? Is it the diversity that is it? And in the way why it's being expressed so uniquely in each individual? It's definitely, the description, what you're describing is definitely at least in part mediated by the microbiome. And like basically you're putting food in and then it's transforming that into other molecules that either activate your immune system or go into your bloodstream and create some sort of kind of hormonal response or something and that'll be different based on the constitution of your microbiome versus your friends and what kind of, what is being expressed out from the inputs you put in. And so since you have a sort of a different machine than they do, then that's gonna be what creates those differences. In terms of the diversity, diversity is like the one thing. So your question as well, like, you know, sorry, sorry. When we think about like the complexity of the microbiome, right? That like there's, you know, how much do we really know? All we really know is that it impacts a lot but we don't really understand how or why to yet in regards to what people say. And like the one thing we do know is that diversity is super important. And diversity, we express in two ways. First, we talk about the richness of the microbiome and then the evenness. And so the richness of the microbiome is basically like how many different kinds of bugs do you have in your gut? And then the evenness is like, how evenly are they expressed, right? So you, if you and I both have a hundred different bacteria in our gut, that's, you know, obviously a way under estimation, but, and then we have the same richness, but if 95 of yours are the same and then, you know, the other 5% are made up of the rest, then that's a very uneven microbiome. Whereas if I have like a perfectly even spread of 1% of all hundred different bacteria, then I have a perfectly even, perfectly rich. And what is that signaling or what is that telling us? So we know that like having a lot of richness and diversity is really important. And we think that that's because it increases the number of biological functions we can do at any given time. So if we have a stress response, we have the bacteria in there ready to go to respond to that or create the beneficial thing or if we're eating different kinds of food in our diet that we can extract the nutrients from that effectively and not have like an outgrowth or bloom of like one kind of bacteria because the other ones are kind of keeping it in check. Yeah, that's a lot of it, right? It's balancing each other out. Like if there's too much of one, then you'll get some positives, but then you probably won't get any of the positives of having other bacteria that can do other things for you. Exactly, like the analogy I've used in past is like sort of like a flea market, right? That like if you have like stalls that sell like clothing and then furniture and tools and toys, right? Like if you have all these things, then when any customer comes in, you can serve them effectively, right? But if you have all of your stalls that are selling only furniture, then if customers are coming in looking for clothes, you won't be able to serve them well. And so the microbiome is kind of like that. You want stalls of all different varieties. So you want a lot of different kinds of microbes. And the best way to do that right now, since we don't have a better solution, so bacteria eat fiber. And so that's, you know, mostly comes from plants. And so you basically want to eat a lot of different kinds of fiber. So if we often think of fiber as like a thing, but fiber is actually just kind of a category of, you know, infinite number of different kinds of molecules that bacteria can eat. And so you want to eat lots of different kinds of fruits and vegetables. And that's the most effective way to really harbor like a rich and even microbiome. So the old adage of like trying to eat for color and all that, like has some validity in the sense, yeah. Absolutely. Interesting. What do we know about the microbiome and performance? Like do we see like a fingerprint or a trend of a type of microbiome in like high performing endurance athletes or strength athletes versus let's say the average person? Yeah, totally. It's super fascinating. And I still can't get my head around the cause and effect like relationship here. But we definitely, there have been interesting studies that have been published really recently. Like as we were able to collect more data on different people's microbiomes more easily. So they'll like look at endurance athletes or high performance athletes and compare them to the rest of us slobs. And basically show that like that people who have like high endurance athletes have certain functions that in much higher levels than people who then the non endurance athletes like the ability to produce certain short chain fatty acids which are anti-inflammatory, propionic acid was like one that was identified in a recent paper. And so it has the same inflammatory activity and then they also have microbes that are more capable of breaking down lactic acid than an average person does. And so like they sort of this enhanced ability to basically deal with all of the stress you put on your body when you exercise, right? Like exercise is really good for you but obviously it is a stressor and it creates a lot of reactive oxygen species and inflammatory molecules. And so the people who are training this every day of their lives have microbes that can help them deal with that better, which I don't understand why that is, but they do. Yeah. And so, and you said cause and effect that I'm glad you said that because either the adaptations that you induce through exercise or also causing the bacteria to adapt in a particular way or genetically they're predisposed to have these bacteria which then helps them perform at higher levels. And we don't know which one. Chicken or the egg. It could be both, right? That you could be somebody who works out a lot and then like, you know, you kind of hit a plateau, right? And then like if somehow you get seated into your gut a really valuable kind of species that then is able to outgrow then you can maybe burst through that plateau. So what you're saying is if you want better performance you should have sex with a high performance athlete and get their microbiome. I mean, that's what I got out of it. Eat the same food as that maybe. Oh my God, that's the other way you could do it. Yeah, it's up to you. There's a PG version of that. Yeah, right. Well, you know, it depends on if you meet LeBron James you gotta decide what you're gonna do with like LeBron James, right? Yeah, I'll have lunch with him. Yeah, individual decisions. I'll go ahead and have lunch with him, that's what I'll do. So okay, so this is very fascinating. So now what about the difference between men and women? I know men and women, we have different hormone profiles, our bodies tend to utilize nutrients, very similarly, but in some cases a little bit different. Do we see trends in microbiomes in men versus women? You know, that's a good question. Honestly, I haven't personally looked into that. I would be surprised if we didn't, just based on, you know, different hormonal balances and different behavior types, you know, generally, you know, all those things, right? Like it's both genetics and it's also society, right? Like the way we behave is different. And so, you know, if you control for all those things, though, are there other fundamental differences, I would expect that there still would be, as I say, just because the biologies are different, but I don't, I'm not familiar with any like specific research on that. What about the speaking of women? What about the, because we think of the microbiome as it being in our gut, but we also have a distinct bacterial, I guess, I don't know, profile in our mouth, on our eyelids, in our armpits, you know, in our groin. And in women, they have a vaginal microbiome. And what do we know about that? How important is that? Because I do know that in some, in any cases women will take antibiotics and they increase their chances of getting things like yeast infections and stuff like that, because obviously it disrupts their vaginal microbiome. Actually, that's like, you know, God, you brought that up, right? Often we talk with the microbiome, it's usually just like shorthand for the gut microbiome because it's the one that's the most, it's the biggest sight of, but you're right, that you have microbiomes everywhere. And so, yeah, your mouth, your skin, and the vaginal microbiome is a really interesting microbiome in that it's a lot simpler than some of the other microbiomes that we have in our bodies. And so it's largely bacterial, whereas like the rest of your body has like other microbes in it as well. And it's largely like a single kind of set of type of bacteria like lactobacillus, which produce acid and so they keep a balanced pH in the vagina. And that's really important for overall vaginal health, exactly in preventing yeast infections. So like, yeast is a fungus essentially. And so bacteria usually are in there protecting you. And so it's actually a really, in terms of where I think microbiome research should be in terms of having the best effect on human health and like the lowest hanging fruit, it's really there because it's a simpler microbiome. Oh, easy to study. Right, yeah. And it's easier to access, right? It's less complex community. So it means that like there are, right? When you change something. Less variables. Right, exactly, exactly. If you change something in the gut, like you're gonna change like a thousand other things too, right? And so the simpler the community, the more direct your changes will have a positive effect. And so it's a huge opportunity for you to do it. Right, because it is dual samples, right? Right. But then it's like an old example. Yeah, right, right. It's like the losers. It's from the past. Yeah, from the past. You're not getting a real time. How do they study the microbiome in the gut then? Because if you study stool, well, those are the guys that lost. So how do they go directly in the gut and study it while it's in the gut? There's been, this is another area of another place where scientists like to argue a lot. But yeah, it's exactly, you know, the vast majority of the cases when we're studying the gut microbiome, it's using stool because it's the easiest to access and least invasive. But there have been studies where they compare basically how accurate is that as a sampling of the gut? And so they will go in with a scope one way or the other and basically take samples and then compare those like direct samples to what they see in the stool. And they see that there are some really important differences. So one example, this is my favorite one, is for a long time, you know, you mentioned antibiotics earlier, right? And that like we know for a fact, right? That antibiotics massively disrupt the microbiome. And so for a long time, there was sort of this hypothesis that, and I think it's a very flawed hypothesis, I'll get into why, that then we should take probiotics after we take antibiotics, right? Because you should put good bacteria back, right? But they actually showed that, trying to think of the order of operation for the story. Like they showed that basically that, I'll tell the punchline first, that probiotics inhibited, it did not help and possibly even inhibited the recovery of your microbiome after antibiotics. And the reason for that is probably that the bacteria that are in probiotics are pretty narrow set of bacteria, right? And you have this extremely rich and diverse microbiome that also doesn't really, isn't really constituted in very high quantities with the bacteria that are in probiotics. So it's typically lactobacillus and bifidobacteria which are not part of a healthy microbiome. Yeah, there's like four of them and that's it. Yeah, pretty much, right? So it's like cutting your hand but then you're putting a bandaid on your toe. Yeah, right. Or like cutting your hand and then like putting like a, you know, a ball and socket on it, like it's kind of like a hand. And so like it basically, and so what it was doing is it basically, those bacteria are getting in there and basically getting in the way of your good bacteria going back. And so a much stronger hypothesis for how we could recover our microbiome after antibiotics is by taking prebiotics or like fibers, like I was talking about earlier. Oh, just feed them. Right, so they can, you know, so rather than going and trying to plant a different grass in your lawn after, you know, you have a disaster, just go and put fertilizer and let the seeds grow back up. So, okay, so it'd be like this, like, because antibiotics are essentially like a nuke. Like you drop a nuke on a city and you kill most of the people. And then what you're saying is, okay, now that nuke went off, most of the people are dead. Let's drop some food so that the rest of the survivors now can repopulate versus throwing in brand new, you know, soldiers or aliens that never lived there in the first place, which are now gonna keep killing off all your native. Get in the way. Get in the way. And there's this interesting thing too about sort of like this like, we have this imprint or memory for a microbiome, which I, as far as I know, we as a scientific community do not understand how that happens. But basically what's weird is that while your microbiome is ever changing, there's generally a set structure that gets set pretty early in life and you don't deviate, your body often naturally goes back to that, to some level of that state. And they don't really understand why or how that is and it's probably some kind of relationship you established early on in development. But yeah, I mean, basically like, you know, your microbiome will probably snap back into shape at some point. It just takes longer and longer depending on what kind of stuff you're putting in there. And so if you're putting good food in there, not just the microbes that survived, but the whole network will come back. And so if you put in something alien in there, it's just gonna get in the way of that happening, basically. Now, is it true that generationally our diversity of microbiome is starting to lessen and they're blaming this on antibiotics and C-sections and stuff like that. Is that true? It is in the sense that, I think that the reasons are speculative, but it is true that we, I mean, we know that really the effect is, it's hard to know, right? We have very limited knowledge of what our microbiome looked like before modern genetics. I mean, yeah, our best bet is just modern hunter-gatherers, I guess. What, how else would we study it? Exactly, and they're just living a different lifestyle, right? And so, and we know that any lifestyle is gonna necessitate a different microbiome. Like theirs is no better than ours. It's just something that's responded to their own lifestyle and their behavior. And then we also found like these crazy, like petrified stool samples from like cavemen and stuff. And they've done some microbiome sequencing of them and made some estimates, which is insane. But it's hard to know, but what we do know is that our microbiome responds to what we give it, right? And so, you're right, that we know that antibiotics stress or disrupt our microbiome. We know that we're eating, so 75% of the food in the grocery store is from like, I don't remember exactly the number, but it's basically like something like 12 plants and five animals or something, right? Like, so like, we eat a much less diverse diet than maybe others ate in the past, way in the past. And so, we're just, you know, not just eating random leaves off trees, really for better probably, but I mean, that is gonna affect your microbiome and your microbiome is gonna optimize to what you put into it. And so, C-section is actually a really important one. You get about a third of your microbiome as a baby from the vaginal burden. And so, like you take that out of the equation and not to say that C-sections are bad or anything, but it's like, that is a downstream consequence of doing that. And so, you gotta find other ways, right, to get your microbiome and you get it from breastfeeding and just from putting your mouth on things as a baby basically. But, you know, that's a challenge that needs to be solved. Right, so, go ahead, Jess. Oh yeah, no, I gotta ask, like when you first fell in love with Petra dishes. Yeah, totally, I mean, I used to, it's funny, I look back at my mom's to me, I have like a picture around Halloween, like I kinda forgot I did this, but I was like seven or eight, I like, you know, I forgot for like three years, I just looked like it's a mad scientist for Halloween, like I think I always had this like attraction to science. I'm glad you asked it, because actually what I wanted to ask is along those lines, we jumped right into throwing fastballs at you right away. I love it. We were freezing you right away. We didn't even give the audience your background and how you even started to obviously fall in love with this topic, like what led you here? Yeah, it's kinda, I think is a pretty circuitous path and I'm amazed I ended up here when I look back on it because it was definitely not where I had my sights at when I started, but I did always love science as a kid and although I didn't ever, I didn't know what it was to be a scientist, like I didn't know that was like a job. Like I just like knew like, you know, I liked like Thomas Edison and like inventors and like solving problems with science sounded cool to me, but I didn't really know what you would do with that. And so, you know, when I went to college, I had no idea what I needed to do and I ended up taking a lot of science classes that I liked them. And then, but I also really liked like classical history. And so I was like, I studied like that a lot too. And so I was kind of all over the map basically. And then after I finished college, I had no idea what I was gonna do with my life. And so I was sort of like, I was working at a bar and so I just kind of kept doing that. And then I was working in construction for a little while. And then, you know, but I still had the itch for science. And so then I, you know, one day I just woke up and I was like, you know, I should just try this. So I went on Craigslist and looked for, like I literally just typed in like science jobs. And like, I had no idea what I wanted. Science jobs. Yeah, yeah. It was actually Craigslist. Yeah, on Craigslist. This was like 2000 and like six. You know, you're rolling up to some dude's house, you know what I'm saying? It's like a garage. He's like, we're gonna make something. Come on back here, Zach. Yeah, one ad for a meth lab. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally, yeah, exactly. So a lot of like, you know, RVs and little dozen ads and stuff. Luckily I didn't get one of those jobs. But yeah, I just like got a job at like this chemistry lab testing soil and water samples for, you know, contaminants in the environment. And it was super interesting work. And it really like, I'd say the importance of that job is just kind of opened my eyes again. Like, oh yeah, man, like you can do science as a career. And I hadn't really realized that or appreciated that. But the chemistry wasn't really my passion. And so I ended up getting a job at an HIV lab at UC Davis. And I knew that at that point I was really kind of honing in on microbes and I was really focused on disease at that time. Cause that to me was like the problem to be solved, right? If you have a disease, you want to fix that. And so I was really passionate and interested in that. And so I decided to go back to school and get a PhD in microbiology. And through kind of like a set of circumstances that is probably a long and pretty uninteresting story. I like basically found my, I was really focused on HIV and that's a virus. I was really interested in viral microbiology. But then I kind of like fell into this like bacterial microbiology lab and was doing research in bacteria. I was like, I love this. And like that for me was like, you know, totally a game changer at that point. I was like, I can't believe how cool these things are and all the stuff that they do for us and how amazing they are. And so basically, you know, that was really when everything, you know, when I started to see kind of the light of like where I was headed. I was still sort of focused on disease in the beginning, but I started to appreciate more and more that like every day in lab when I was researching this bacteria, I was making edits to its, you know, DNA and like it would just do something new and like I could make it glow green or I could like, you know, make it like break down the sugar or whatever. And, and it was like, this is incredible. And so then it was just like, for me, like this is logical next step. But if I'm trying to solve problems for people, it's like, how do we take that? And then like, you know, engineer microbes do something beneficial. So anyway, that was sort of like the, and then after my PhD, I was designing clinical trials for drug companies for a while because I was interested to see kind of how it was to take a product to market via drug. And then, you know, and then I started basically my company, Zbiotics, after that. How'd you like that process of going through the, the clinical trials? I want to hear a little bit about that. Totally. That was a really cool experience. I did that for a year in Miami after my PhD. And it was cool because we got, basically the position I was in, I was just, we'd have clients come in and it was like everything from like, you know, to scientists in a lab or a doctor who noticed a side effect on a drug he was already using all the way up to like, you know, the big five pharma companies like, you know, designing clinical trials for like a whole pipeline of drugs and stuff. And so I got to see the whole gambit of things. And it was basically like, they come to us and they be like, okay, here's a drug, here's what we think it does. Like, how will we test that? Like, how do we design the study to show that it works? And like, what are our key end points and how we design that study? And there's a lot that goes into it. It was really involved. And so I learned a lot about the business of deciding on a product. And also like, how the science and the effect size of the drug really impacts how it's taken to market. And that, honestly, like when I looked at that, that two scientists in a lab and saw all they were trying to do was because the process is so involved, which I think is a good thing, but it just means that all they're trying to do is basically scrap together enough data so that one of those big pharma companies would acquire their drug and take it to market themselves. And pay it. Right. Yeah, because the cost of inception to passing through trials and then getting approved is like. How many millions? Oh, I think it's a billion or hundreds of millions. Yeah, hundreds of millions. I mean, it depends on the complexity of the drug and the clinical trial, but yeah, I mean, you know, an average price tag is definitely in the tens or hundreds of millions. Yeah, one of my favorite stories is Viagra. That was a blood pressure drug. Blood pressure drug. And then the side effect was, well, you know, kind of lower my blood pressure, but I got boners. That's what we're using for. We can sell that. Yeah, totally. Okay, I gotta ask you this question because you talked about viruses and bacteria. I've read this and there's always this debate. I know bacteria are living. Are viruses alive? Oh man, the age old argument. It depends on how you define alive. I think it's ridiculous to not call them alive. I mean, they are totally right. They're executing biological functions. They have DNA or RNA, you know, and they basically, you know, the argument that they're not alive is that they have to exist in another cell. Like in one of our cells, they have to like borrow our machinery, but I mean, that's like, then by that argument, you would call any parasite. That's a good point. Not alive. And it's like, and so it's just, it's just a more needy parasite, but yeah, I think it's alive. Okay, all right, good. That's good. That makes a lot of sense. All right, so here's the million dollar question, right? So we're learning now that the microbiome and bacteria have tremendous impact on behaviors and, you know, functions of our body and it helps us produce neurotransmitters. I know serotonin is a big one and, you know, dopamine and it helps us with our hormones. In essence, it's just other organ, like you said, in our body. So the, and you talked about modifying bacteria to get them to do certain things. It feels to me like that is a potential panacea of solutions for a lot of our problems. If they have this much of an influence over us, is this like a big area of science where we could take bacteria, modify them to help us do certain things like reduce anxiety, depression, improve our body's ability to absorb nutrients or help us with our insulin levels? Like is this like a big area of science? Totally. I mean, it's becoming one, right? Like along with our ability to appreciate the impact of the microbiome in the last 20, 30 years that coincides with our ability and is very much related to our ability to basically like read, write and edit DNA, right? And so, and DNA is really just like the blueprints for the factory, right? If you think of the, if you think of a bacteria or any living thing as a factory that's just performing a bunch of functions in a coordinated and organized way, DNA just tells you like what function is gonna do at what times and when. And so that's a huge opportunity, right? Like if you think about the microbiome then it's just sort of a collection of functions that's happening in your body, right? And they're having some impact on you, right? Then we could take a probiotic, a bacteria that you already eat and is already getting involved in your body and then program it to execute some useful function for you, right? And like that to me is like a really obvious extension of what we're doing, right? Like we're already eating bacteria to get those functions anyway, whether we know it or not. And so why not sort of leverage that? And so people are starting to do this now. And you know us, we're one obviously of several and many people are thinking about drug applications and different things we can do with this. But you know, it's, there's a lot of considerations in terms of like how complicated do you go, right? Like everybody wants to go to the bleeding edge, right? Like what is the most complicated thing that I could solve, right? But there's a lot of low hanging fruit. There's a lot of simple things that we can execute like very simple biological functions that are important. Yeah, I think we'd probably start there. I mean, was that kind of the idea with Zbiotics was to go and do the, you know, the hangover thing. It's like low hanging fruit. Totally. Relatable. Yeah, instead of getting super complex and trying to solve all the world's problems like, hey, here's a simple thing we can do that can really dramatically help people. Yeah, explain that again. So it's, I mean, I know that we obviously sell the product and we used it. And I know it's the world's first and only genetically modified bacteria, I guess for, you know, just for commercial use or for sale, right? And explain how it was modified and what it does exactly and why it works the way it does, because it really is one of the strangest products I've ever used in my entire life. It's so weird that I've had to use it at least 10 times before I was, before I could believe it because I get a terrible reaction to alcohol every single time. And I don't when I use the product. So explain it a little bit. How did it work and what does it do? Dude, I mean, honestly, first and foremost, the same. It took me many times to truly believe that what I built actually did something. Like, I really had to convince myself because I was skeptical. But, you know, to both of your guys' points, exactly that. So something people can understand and that we could execute really simply. And so like it's a simple biochemical reaction that we are just executing more reliably in your gut where it matters. So the product works by basically like, I'll start by saying like, when you drink, you know, normally the alcohol is absorbed into your bloodstream and, you know, has the effects that it has on your body and then your liver breaks that alcohol down in two stages from alcohol to acetaldehyde and then from acetaldehyde to acetate. And that intermediary acetaldehyde is highly toxic, much more toxic than alcohol, but that endpoint acetate is innocuous, essentially vinegar. And so the good news is that your liver is very good at doing that full process from alcohol to acetaldehyde to acetate. And so what's kind of one of these things is rarely appreciated because, you know, that's the major source of alcohol metabolism is that a small amount of the alcohol you drink is actually broken down directly in your gut in large part by your microbiome. And so some of that alcohol is converted from alcohol into acetaldehyde in the gut, but then it does not subsequently converted from acetaldehyde to acetate very efficiently. So you actually get an accumulation of acetaldehyde in the gut and then that leaks out into the bloodstream, kind of wreaks havoc out the body and then your liver takes care of it eventually. And that until you feel after shit like that. Right, exactly. And after it's already kind of created all the problems that it's created, right? And so that was essentially like, it's just a really simple idea, right? Was like, look, there's all these things we can do with genetic engineering, but let's just start by doing one enzyme, doing one chemical reaction that we know is useful in the gut, right? So just turn that same function from the liver, acetaldehyde to acetate, and just move that into the gut with the bacteria. So we just programmed into this probiotic bacteria, the ability to express an enzyme, very similar to the one your liver already uses, to convert acetaldehyde that's formed in the gut into acetate directly in the gut before it's absorbed into the bloodstream. So that's it, it's a very simple idea. Okay, and what bacteria is this that was used? So the bacteria we started with was a bacteria called bacillus subtilis, and it's a really common environmental microbe you likely already eat it every day of your life. It's on fresh fruits and vegetables everywhere. It's also intentionally been used in fermented foods for a long time in kombucha, and then there's like a Japanese fermented soybean called natto, and so b-cellus is kind of the star of the show in those. Okay, and then now, how do you do the modification? Is this like CRISPR technology? Like what is it? Yeah, so we actually use a really simple technology again, as well, we actually just leveraged actually a really complex technology that bacteria invented three billion years ago. And so it's really simple for us to do because they do all the hard work. We literally, we don't have to use CRISPR or any of those things, that's really us. CRISPR is scientists leveraging a bacterial function, like sort of hijacking it to create edits in like a human cell, or you carry yourself some kind. But what we do is actually just use the same process that bacteria already do naturally to edit their own DNA. And so basically when a bacteria is like swimming around in the environment, if it comes across DNA just floating in the environment, which it does all the time when cells license stuff, it'll just pull in, occasionally, it'll pull in some of that DNA, and then it will basically see if there's any homology or like any similarities between that piece of DNA and its own genome. And if there is, it'll swap in that new piece of DNA. And it's called homologous recombination. And it does this because bacteria play a numbers game. They basically say like, odds are if there's some similarity between that piece of DNA and my DNA, then it probably came from somebody like me. And maybe that guy has some kind of benefit that I don't have yet, like an antibiotic resistance cassette or something like that. So it'll grab it and try it out. And if it doesn't work, it'll die, but it's got like a billion brothers and sisters. And so they don't care. Wow. How long did it take you to find that specific strain that produced the function you wanted? So that's where kind of modern genetic engineering comes in is that we don't have to like let the bacteria swim around and just find random pieces of DNA. We can just take the bacteria we knew. I already knew I want to be subtlest because it's like basically the safest bacteria on the planet. And it has a really fascinating ability to form an endospore, which makes it super resilient. And so they've pulled out be subtlest spores or bacillus spores from like old glacier ice flows that are a hundred thousand years old and they're still alive, that they just like hunkered down in there and they can survive your stomach acid unharmed which is really important for a product you want to make, right? It can shell stable room temperature essentially forever. So I liked it for that reason. So I picked the bacteria for that. And then I just, and due to genetics, I know it's whole, the sequence of its whole genome. And so I picked a spot on the genome where I knew that I wanted to put in my gene of interest. And then I designed a piece of DNA that basically had the gene that encodes for the acetaldehyde, the enzyme that breaks down acetaldehyde, right? And then I put homology on either side of that. And then so basically I just mix them together in a tube and then I let the bacteria do the work. And then we just select for the ones that have the transformation of it. Wow, now are you able to test acetaldehyde levels as well? Or is it just people use it and they feel better? So we can, in the lab, so the first, when we built it, we basically wanted to see first and foremost of the park was like safe and we hadn't altered it in some way that would make it unsafe. And so there was no antibiotic resistance or pathogenicity of any kind. And so we did a bunch of work to verify that but we knew they were making a simple genetic change. We knew exactly where we were making it, right? That's the whole advantage of putting in like homologous regions is that it goes in exactly where the homology is. So we have a lot of like really, really precise control there. So that was the first thing we did. And then, yeah, we wanted to test to see that it actually worked. And so we were able to basically test in a test tube that if we put bacteria in a tube with acetaldehyde and then measure that acetaldehyde that, you know, in a given time later, the acetaldehyde was gone or it had been reduced. And so we could calculate how many bacteria we needed to remove how much acetaldehyde. Well, and then so first, that was the first test and then we tested to see, you know, basically in gut simulated environments where we put a bunch of acid and bile salts and things that you have in your gut. And we showed that the bacteria still were able to function just as effectively there. It gets harder to test it in people because basically it's hard to sample your gut environment, right? You know, it's pretty invasive, like to go in and get a colonic sample and I'll use your imagination on how we do that, but we didn't really want to get into that. And so yeah, so basically we decided like, look, it honestly didn't matter at the end of the day, whether or not, like how much acetaldehyde we were breaking down if people didn't feel better, right? So the endpoint that really mattered was like, do people feel better whether we're breaking down acetaldehyde or not? And obviously we're, you know, we know we're breaking down acetaldehyde, but does it matter to people? Does that actually have a positive impact? And so we did some critical studies in both directions, but ultimately, you know, before we launched the product and you know, we surveyed hundreds of people on how they felt the next day. And then we also did some sort of internal kind of placebo-controlled testing to convince ourselves of the product and what we saw was that people were, you know, I think it was like 96% of people said that they felt better the next day after taking the product and then in our placebo-controlled testing we saw really strong and encouraging results that that was due to biological activity. You know, what's interesting about this from a business standpoint is you can patent something like this, right? And we did. And you did patent it. In other words, nobody else can do it. So it's almost like, you know, if this science is your field and you're finding ways to solve problems, holy cow, that could be a potentially very lucrative, you know, part of this industry. Now, if you guys have that patent, then what else are all these other guys using? Yeah. Because there's lots of these on the market. And I had tried them. This is why I was skeptical when we first got together. I was like, I've seen this shit before and none of it, none of it really fucking works. Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, we have our first patent granted and we have another second patent filed for, you know, expanding. So basically the patents are around the specific function of the bacteria, right? Like we patented a probiotic bacteria that's been genetically engineered to break down acetaldehyde to kind of, you know, prevent the next effects of drinking. And so that, so anybody who engineers any bacteria to do that, it would be in violation of our patent. And then we also have parts of the patent that patent the genetic strategy and sort of the, you know, the new degree of genetics that gets, you know, the special sauce of our strain. But to your point, like what else is out there? Like basically when I looked at this market when I was first starting to decide how I was gonna apply the technology and I thought this was a cool place to start, everything that's out there right now is just sort of like different mixes of kind of semi random plant extracts and vitamins, right? And so the idea is just the idea that like you're somehow sick or something and that like if we give you vitamin C and vitamin B and then they tell these stories about, you know how that's like antioxidant or whatever. And they have like logical kind of rationale for why that might work. But I always said that like, if it was just vitamins or like a plant that like made you feel better the next day then we wouldn't be discovering that in, you know, 2020, right? We would know about that for like the 6,000 years of human history that people would be drinking alcohol. They would have noticed, right? That like if they eat this plant, I don't feel bad when I say. And so those things obviously don't work. And they're all the same and they're all just different mixes of the same ingredients and they're not, they don't have any like, you know, legitimate sort of. It reminds me then kind of like the, you know, the monovey and the all the, the just basically a bunch of berries. Yeah, the side juice. And then they all claim these crazy things. And so they're attaching all their science just to basically the benefits behind antioxidants. You can go get a handful of blueberries at the grocery store. And it's like, and which are beneficial but are not like magical cures for everything. Right, right. And that's what's really uniquely different about Z-Biotics comparative, everything else on the market. Nobody else is doing any GMO stuff, nobody else. Nobody's doing anything with genetic engineering at all. And like, you know, we really saw a problem, right? And then we like use science to build a specific solution to that problem. And so we go off the ass like, oh, what about your competitors? I don't say to be like flippant or anything, but like, I don't really consider that to be the same thing at all, right? That they're like kind of playing in a different sort of space of, of like hydration and things like that. And like that's fine, you know, and that, you know, like say, I mean like, like antioxidants aren't bad for you. Like they're, you know, it, but. Right, I'm sure somebody had monovey and said it made them feel a lot better. Right, yeah. There's a whole different category, right? We're really talking about, you know, the world's first and currently still only genetically engineered probiotic of any kind. And, and we are the first and we have a patent on our product, but we are not going to be the last. We know that our company's working on this and we're actively helping them, right? We want to elevate this category because we see a lot of potential for this technology and all the things it can do for human health, just beyond, you know, this is a proof of concept for people to like understand and grab on to and feel the effects of, but there's so many things we can do. So let's talk about that because you, you're trying to elevate this and we want to grow this, but yet there seems to be this, you know, stigma around GMO, that it's bad. We were kind of talking about it off air, share that, like why, why do we think of it as bad? Personally, I even think of it, like I heard GMO and I think, oh yeah, stay away from that food. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'll do my best to get myself boxed, but I totally will, I'm sure. But, you know, like we, genetic engineering and GMO is sort of like a few different things, different issues kind of got conflated together, right? We had like, you know, bad business practices or genetic engineering, enabling sort of bad business behavior or bad behavior, you know, that. And honestly, I truly believe that it was not motivated by bad behavior. That's my own personal take. I think that it just became bad. Like the idea around engineering a plant, right? To be more resistant to a pesticide was to enable farmers to get more yield per acre out of their crops, right? Which is a good thing. We have to feed a growing, you know, population of humanity. And so we need to get them better yield, but it then sort of morphed into, I think something that has become pretty negative. And I think that customers were rightly concerned about that. But then that got conflated with like safety issues, right? And like the safety of glyphosate as an example versus the safety of the genetic engineering itself, right? And so those are two very different things. And so I think first and foremost, that's the problem was the initial problem. And then now the bigger problem that's piled onto it is that a ton of brands have seen this as an opportunity to fan the flames of fear in order to sell their product at a higher price point, right? So they can now put on their label, we're non-GMO, right? And like, you know, we're organic. And there is no such thing that a GMO like, you know, I see it all the time, like you see a GMO like wheat flour or non-GMO wheat flour, excuse me. And it's like, there is no GMO wheat, it doesn't exist. So all wheat that you see on the shelf is non-GMO. But, and yet we see a big non-GMO stickers, like on the wheat flour that say non-GMO. It's like, and then they sell it for more, right? And so they're, and all it does is send to the, you know, to the consumer walking to the grocery store, you see this non-GMO butterfly everywhere, and they're like, oh, it must be really bad, you know, because everybody's saying it's so bad and that we don't have it, you know? And it's like, this is not like, and it's not, right? Genetic engineering is a technology, right? And it can be used to make good things or bad things. Like all GMOs are not good. I'm definitely not advocating for that either. It's really just that like, it's a tool. Like if you look at like metallurgy as an example, right, it's a tool and you can make a gun with metallurgy or you can make a spoon with metallurgy, right? And those are two very different things with different safety profiles. And so you wouldn't vilify metallurgy because it can make guns. You vilify the gun if that was your bench or whatever. And so, and I think the same with genetic engineering, right, that like building responsible products that can benefit people. I mean, this technology really gives us an amazing advantage to like fight, you know, climate change, like, you know, emerging diseases. Like the vaccine was made with genetic, you know, COVID vaccine was made with genetic engineering, right? And problems of feeding and growing humanity, these are all like existential crises facing, humanity is facing and using genetic engineering as a way we can solve those problems. And so it's really important to, I think, not vilify the technology, but make sure that, I think it's right for the public to be concerned about how it's used and make sure that it's responsibly used. Yeah, it's funny when you read about the potential negatives of GMOs, really what you find is the ones that have it, any kind of credibility really point to the glyphosates or the pesticides that are sprayed on them and not to the GMO plants themselves. And it's funny because years ago, there was this huge report that came out with protein powders and how they had like crazy amounts of heavy metals in some of them. Yeah, right. And they were the organic ones. Yeah, yeah, right. Because what people don't realize is organic also uses pesticides, but they're not the synthetic ones but oftentimes can cause this buildup of toxic heavy metals. So people were buying products thinking they were healthier. Right, and they were worse. And they were actually buying things that were toxic. This is one of my other soap boxes is around the whole organic movement and organic farming is like applying 17th century technology to 21st century problems, right? And the idea that we could go back in time and fix everything is crazy. We're feeding however many like 10x more people than we were feeding when that farming technique was arose and I understand that the concern is that moving forward is creating its own problems but to your point exactly, there was this amazing studies that were kind of published in the 70s and 90s by this guy, Bruce Ames. And he showed that basically he had this really cool test for kind of the mutagenicity of using bacteria, the mutagenicity of any product. And so his famous one is he put like a cigarette butt in the middle of like a plate of bacteria and showed that they were mutated like crazy and developed antibiotic resistance really fast. And so it was like, we all know that, you know cigarettes are super mutagenic. And so he was able to show all these different things. So he tested organic versus conventionally grown fruit and vegetables and he showed that organically grown fruits and vegetables often have more carcinogens or mutagens in them than conventionally grown counterparts because plants produce their own natural pesticides when they're attacked by pests. That's where we get a lot of them is we just kind of edit ones that hard exist. And so, and you can't wash those off, they're internal to the plant. In fact, and you don't have to, there's no regulations around that because why would you, right? Because it's natural, but like natural is definitely not safe. Like nature is our biggest enemy. All poisons come from plants, right? And they're super toxic. And so this idea that organic is somehow safer for you and to be clear, his conclusion was that like the differences while organic was often higher were negligible compared to the benefits of eating fruits and vegetables. And so his basic thing was like, doesn't matter if they're organic or conventionally grown, eat fruits and vegetables. That's what matters. That's higher on the, for us at least when we talk about the priorities of nutrition. So what are the benefits of organic, if any at all? So there is some evidence. And I wanna say that there's like no benefit whatsoever. Like there's some evidence to show that certain fruits and vegetables in the, if they're grown in a way that like doesn't pull them off the vine too quickly or things like that, that they acquire more micronutrients than they're conventionally grown counterparts sometimes. Like so hydroponic, but that again, that hydroponic, I don't know but I think that could classify as organic, I'm not sure. But that would be a delta between, you know growing it in soil versus hydroponically and things like that. Okay, they're all markets. And what you find in the health market, we see this all the time, is they'll say, I mean, I mean, low fat, low fat forever. Yeah, only gluten-free steaks. Yeah, exactly. I mean, red vines, I remember going to the movies and getting red vines and it said, you know, a non-fat food because they're advertising it if somehow it's like healthy and natural is one of those things. Totally. Organic gummy bears, right? Yeah, right, right, yeah. It's exactly, that seems driving me crazy. It's like it reinforces this really false perception that like nature is good and you know, and I can say like organic gummy bears are healthy, organic is healthy or whatever it's like. Not necessarily. It's still a bunch of sugar. Not necessarily at all. Yeah, I feel like because of the impact that the bacteria have on us that we're potentially on the cusp of just a revolution in biology by being able to manipulate bacteria to do what we want. I read an article that they were able to modify bacteria to produce opiates. Yeah. They were able to make bacteria that could make opiates. So it's like now you can make drugs through bacteria or maybe eat this bacteria and then produce your own drugs. I mean, yeah, I mean, you could, right? And I think that there are interesting revifications of just generally using bacteria and fermentation as a way to manufacture stuff rather than growing a whole plant, right? To manufacture that thing. And opiates is one interesting application but like a cool one is well, so we used to, as an example, get human insulin from livers and pancreas of cows and pigs. Right. And they literally would drive train cars, refrigerator train cars into warehouses and then like load them up with livers and pancreases of like literally hundreds of millions of these animals every year to give people enough human insulin. Obviously it's not a sustainable practice at all. And so you grow up the whole cow just to get that thing, right, or the whole pig. And so then we figured out a way to engineer bacteria to make human insulin for us. And so now in fermentor, the size of your refrigerator, we could accomplish what we were used to be accomplishing with a million pigs. Oh, wow, I don't know. And like it's so that, and that happened in the, it was the first evidence of really successful bacterial genetic engineering that happened in the 80s. And that now all humans- That was a revolution. Yeah. And now- I didn't even know that. I didn't even know. They did something similar. I don't know if they did this with growth hormone, but I do know that originally growth hormone was from cadavers. And people would run into issues because they would get the growth hormone from a cadaver and potentially get, it was like a disease that they could potentially get from this cadaver growth hormone. And now I don't know if it's synthetic or if it's made through bacteria, but it's different now. Yeah, that's fascinating. We were actually raising animals just for the insulin. So basically raising this big old animal, all the feed that goes into it, killing them all off, the shipping that's all involved, all for this little bit of something inside of them. That's wild to me. And that's a dramatic example, but it's true for everything, right? Even if you look at like, you know, you extrapolate that, right? Like look at corn as an example, right? We grow up the whole plant and we just take the ear off, right? And then we just throw away the rest, right? And it's like, or like, you know, like casein and milk, right? You know, like, you know, casein is a great protein. We put in protein powders and stuff, right? We grow up this whole cow. We have to feed it to keep it alive and keep all these functions going just to milk it every day and get the milk out of it, right? And then sometimes even just throw away parts of the milk and just get the protein. It's like we can engineer our bacteria to make that casein way more efficiently than growing up a whole cow. That's like farting and burping methane in the environment, right? Like, I mean, there's all these things we can do with microbes and genetic engineering to replace like really like horrible practices that humanity has put on this planet in terms of agriculture, right? Like agriculture we think of as like this natural thing, but it's actually the most unnatural thing we've done to the planet is covered in farmland and like make chickens and cows the most successful animals on the planet. Like, I mean, that's crazy, right? So, you know, using genetic engineering, we can actually move beyond that really blunt axe we're using to try and like feed humanity. Was there recently a discovery that there was a direct connection between the gut microbiome and the brain that they had just discovered like this? What was it that they found? Yeah, yeah. The gut brain axis is like this been a really hot topic lately. And it's awesome because we've sort of figured out like, you know, there's like a gut skin axis and like, you know, more and more it shouldn't be surprising in hindsight, right? That like these things are so interconnected, right? Like that your brain, right? You think your brain is sort of like a central control unit for your body and like has like all these nerves going out sort of these like, you know, these cables going to the rest of your body you get getting inputs and putting outputs. It's not surprising that there's a very thick cable or a series of cables running from your brain to the food source, right? The thing that's keeping you alive or the source of, yeah. So like you have this enteric nervous system that's like in your gut is huge, right? And it's like, there's all these very like important nerves that go to have direct connections to your brain and the bacteria that are living in your gut are literally plugged in directly into that nervous system, right? So they're communicating directly with your brain and vice versa. Like we're talking about earlier like stress hormones and the byproducts of microbial metabolism, they're like, they're pulling this, they're giving direct information. We're having a direct chemical conversation with bacteria and it's weird to think about but it is a direct conversation that like we're having with them, which is pretty crazy. Yeah, they connected, well, loosely some particular bacteria to Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis, which I think is fascinating. So it makes me excited because as we learn more about this we can literally start potentially curing so many different issues by creating bacteria that'll do what we want. And there's like, I hate to like overstate because you don't want to over promise and I think that ends up getting science in a lot of trouble is like, you over promise something and then it says up not being that thing and everybody gets upset about it. But like there have been a lot of these a lot of psychological disorders and like psychological developmental disorders that have been, we don't know what the link is or what the causal direction is but that like we see differences for instance very significant differences in the microbiomes of people with autism which is people who don't have autism. And so like it's a question of right like what direction is that flowing but the very clear thing you can take away from that is that there's a very important communication system that has broken down there. Okay, so let's talk again about Z-biotics. It's probably one of the companies we work with where the repurchase rate has got to be one of the highest and usually what'll happen is a customer will get will try it and then they just, they keep getting it. So how has the success been of the company and what are some of the, have you run into any struggles or challenges with trying to grow the company? Yeah, man, I mean, you know, as first company I ever started I'm a scientist by nature so obviously I did not make all the perfect decisions. Like, yeah, so yeah, we're, you know, classic startup where I was no doubt about it. But I mean, yeah, we've been growing a lot lately and as we kind of started to figure those things out and so yeah, repurchase rate is high. It's great to have a great product. You know, the product when we came in the problem is right like there's a lot of skepticism in the category and so we have to really overcome that and really explain to people why the product is different and how it works and but if we're able to do that and particularly if, you know, the value prop is correct for people we, you know, we see that people are really sticky with this product and they really love it. And so typically we see that like for some people it's the first time they try it and for others like you or me, you know, this can sometimes take two or three tries to really believe that the way I feel better and we get all kinds of weird responses. People will say like, like classic, this like conversation I had like a hundred people is like, I'll say like, oh, you know, you know, after they've tried the product they'll be like, you know, how do you feel today? And they'll be like, oh, I feel great. And I'll be like, oh, you know, and they'll say, but like, I don't think it was because of Zbiotics. And I'm like, okay, you know, why did you not drink very much? Like no, I had like seven drinks and usually I don't have three or four. I usually feel like pretty crappy the next day. And I'm like, okay. So then in the back, yeah, but you know what, I had like a glass of water before bed and I'm like, so you think that like a single glass of water is like the solution to this problem that nobody's ever thought of before. So people like really have struggled to sort of attribute the benefit to the product. And so we sometimes take it a little bit more convincing, but basically once people are hooked in, we see that they're like just customers for life, basically. Did you hear the story that I told the guy who DM me who said it didn't work? Did I tell you hear that story? No, no. Oh, so I had a guy like, hey, the Zbiotic thing doesn't really work. I said, really? And then I wanted to hear, when did you take it, what time, and how many drinks it does? And we're going through his night and then towards the end I get to hear that he's doing lines of Coke. Oh yeah, right. And I'm like, bro, there's nowhere in here to see biotics, so you think it's the product that didn't work because it has nothing to do with the lines of Coke that you were doing. Exactly, and I think it's really, and that brings me to a point is like, also what we found to be a really important part of our success is like managing expectations appropriately, right? Like this is science, not science fiction. This is not a magical cure, all right? Like definitely not going to help you with Coke or any other drugs, and it's only going to help with alcohol, the acid halohide, right? Like that's the chemical breakdown product of alcohol that our product is specifically engineered to deal with, right? And the more alcohol you drink, the more you're going to be dealing with the effects of alcohol itself, right? When you feel miserable the next day, some of that is due to kind of like the inflammation and misery that acid halohide is causing, but some of it is causing to all these endocrine imbalances that alcohol creates in your brain. It causes poor sleep, it causes all kinds of like imbalances in your metabolism and all this stuff. So the more alcohol you drink, the more those symptoms will become magnified. And so yes, you won't be dealing with the acid halohide symptoms, but you will still now be dealing with like much more severe alcohol-related symptoms, so. That's how I think we try our best to explain it that way is that like it doesn't cure the fact that you only slept two hours, you know what I'm saying? Like you still only slept, that which you will always feel like shit when you're doing the entire run. And even if you're laying in bed for eight hours, if you're drunk, you're not sleeping well. And so like, you know, an eight hours of drunk sleep is like two hours of good sleep. And then yeah, exactly. If you're closing the bar down at four in the morning and then going, you know, waking up at 8 a.m. and you're like, oh, I feel like crap. I was like, yeah, well, you got like no sleep. Yeah, yeah. Did you watch the video of us doing an on-air test? We did a drinking game. This is not what a fitness podcast should do. I'm telling you that right now. Shot after shot after shot after shot. Take another shot, you forgot to jump in water. Oh! Bro, that was the most drunk I've been in, at least over a decade. Do not do what we did. I don't think we anticipated getting that destroyed. That was way overboard. But here's the trippy part. And this is 100% true. I don't feel nauseous. I don't have a headache. I don't feel dehydrated at all. I feel totally fine. It's absolutely brilliant. It's so brilliant that I actually worry that it's going to increase people's, how much people drink. What's their, what's their tag? Have you seen their tagline? It's a drink like there is a tomorrow. Yeah, yeah. You know, like if people say, drink if there's no tomorrow. It's a drink like there is a tomorrow. That was incredible. Yeah. But talk about the how you, so off air we were talking before and unfortunately you can't share some of the stuff that you guys were doing. Cause I imagine is and tell me if I'm wrong that there's gotta be a lot of rules around how you test this. You can't just go get a bunch of people and say, okay, we're going to get you hella fucked up and drink 12 shots like we did. So I'm sure you can't legally do that. So how do you work your way around that? And you guys still do it for your own so you know, but then you can't publish it and talk about it. It's exactly right. For several reasons, right? Like not only, well, first and foremost, I should say we, we don't, we can't and don't do that because we don't want to encourage people to binge drink, right? Like the goal of the product. And I think one of the reasons why our product really resonates with a lot of mind pump listeners is that it's not about like going out and getting as drunk as you want. It's about like the fact that you're going to go out and socialize like responsibly, but then you have like a morning workout or you have a routine and the more healthy routine that you don't want to disrupt. That's really important, especially right during the holidays, you're going to be doing going to a lot of late dinners and like having drinks and holiday parties, right? But you don't want to fall off the wagon on like all the really healthy habits you've built all year. Like January shouldn't be like a recovery month from like, from just falling off the wagon, right? And so like that is first and foremost what the product is meant to be for. It's like to enable basically responsible, balanced, social and like active lifestyles opposed to like now this is to get out of jail free car for you to go to like Vegas and get as fucked up as you want, right? So I think so first and foremost, that's one of the reasons why we don't do it. But you know, to your point, I mean like if you really want to know how well the product is working, right? Like it's important to make sure that that we have enough acid out of the hide in the system that we can actually see a benefit. And so obviously like doing a test with like two or three drinks is be really hard to tell the difference between, you know like on a clinical level. So we had to design a test that kind of like, you know met the kind of toe that line right that got people, you know, drunk enough that where we can see a difference but that wasn't so drunk that like it was dangerous or risky or Benji. And so we did do those tests internally. And we probably pushed the board a little bit more because we really wanted to get a nice signal-to-noise ratio there. And we saw like just really incredible results. But unfortunately because we got people pretty drunk, like there are ethics board approvals that say that you can't publish a study like that. NERDS getting in the way again. Yeah, exactly. So understandable, like it's, you know, there are rules for reason, you know in terms of, you know, what it could enable for the public to believe about like, you know because a product does not make alcohol any safer or more healthy, right? Alcohol is still damaging, right? So I understand why they want us to be careful. But, you know, we had to validate internally, right? I'm not gonna go out there and start this company. Like I can do a lot of things with my science. Like I get sweet vitamins in a bottle, like everybody else, right? Like I can be a lot easier than the science. Well, we had the same idea. Yeah. Yeah, we tested it to the limit. Totally, just for sure. Well, I actually noticed it even, so because, and I don't know how much you know this or I've shared with you but I actually like never drink. I tend to lean toward, I'd rather smoke marijuana if I'm gonna go do something, if I'm gonna party or socialize like that. And I never drink. And the reason why, because two drinks and I just guts fucked up, sleeps fucked up, just, and it doesn't mean I never did it. It's like once a year I would because it was like, it just wasn't worth what I had to deal with the next day. Where now I've just made it a habit even if I'm just gonna have one or two drinks which now I can do on a more regular basis. I still don't drink a lot. But now like when, you know, Katrina and I go to dinner where I would never have a glass of wine with her. I'll have a glass of wine on a Thursday night because I know I can take that and have one or two glasses and actually not feel the same thing. Are there genetic variances between people in terms of how negatively acid aldehyde affects them? Because I'm like Adam, like it would take me a couple drinks and I would feel terrible. Yeah, totally. It's both, right? I mean, there's definitely genetics involved and we, hangovers actually are really interesting and complicated as it turns out as I dug in. Really interesting and complicated sort of like, you know, symphony of things is kind of happening in your body. And so there's some level of genetics although we don't fully understand it but there's definitely a role in the microbiome, right? So, you know, and you notice this, right? If you go out drinking on two separate occasions and they seem like the very similar nights, you know, you might feel really miserable one morning and then the next morning you might wake up and not feel so bad. And a lot of that has to do with the constitution of microbiome and how you're processing that alcohol and that acid aldehyde, right? So there's a lot of good studies to show and we do know, right, that like, and that's the whole premise of C-biotics, right? Is the acid aldehyde that forms in your gut is what's really a huge problem. And different microbiomes produce different amounts of acid aldehyde. So that is a big difference in between people. And as I said earlier, like your microbiome, while it changes a lot, there's also parts of it that stay really consistent. So if you're a kind of person who develops a predisposition for sensitivity to acid aldehyde, it's probably because you have a microbiome that's producing more than somebody else who doesn't, who's doing less alcohol metabolism than the gut. Okay, so Sal asked you, you know, the hundred million dollar question where I have one of my own. Okay. Okay, so hard alcohol before beer, are you in the clear? Or beer before alcohol? Beer before liquor, you've never been sick of it. Beer before liquor, never been sick of it. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, no, so definitely not. Really, the thing is you just say don't rip shots at the end of the night. Basically like, you know, when you're drinking, it's alcohol per unit time is all that matters. And so it's a lot easier when you're drunk and don't have any inhibitions. And it's, you know, 145 and you to take like three shots than it is at 145 to pound three beers. Like that's a lot harder. So basically that's a behavioral thing. It's not really like any, any chemical. There's no science there. No. If anything actually the carbon, you know, alcohol is much less diluted in a beer. But if you were to, if you were to like, let's say like shock on this. The equivalent amount, you probably feel worse even. You would because the reaction of the carbonation, you know, basically puts pressure on your stomach lining when you absorb the alcohol faster. And so the more the faster you absorb alcohol and the more it spikes your blood alcohol content, the more likely you are to be hungover. Are there differences though, like in say, cause for me like rum, I just have a really bad reaction or wine specifically. He gets naked right away. I mean, that's one. I mean, that could be a good or bad reaction. But no, I have way worse hangover. His bad one is just the three of us. If I drink one of those two things. And so is there any sort of differentiating factors there? There's a few things like that could be a play there. And so some of them are, you know, no less real, but like our psychological A, you associate that. And B, that's just you may have developed over time in the context in which you were drinking that alcohol, right? So like you're much more likely, for instance, to take like tequila shots or drink it in a sugary margarita than you are to like, you know, take shots of like a nice whiskey or something like that. So like those sort of things like are what create, sometimes can create a hangover. And then that being said, there are some chemical things that could be a play too. So like red wine is an example. Actually, so mostly acetaldehyde you're exposed to is because of your body turning alcohol into acetaldehyde. But the alcohol does have some acetaldehyde in it. Like, I mean, alcoholic beverages, I mean, have small amounts. So they're called congeners. They're like byproducts of the fermentation process that made the alcohol, right? The microbes that actually made the alcohol in the first place. And so usually the amount of acetaldehyde and something or the congener content and stuff is pretty low, but red wine is a good example of some red wines have really high levels of acetaldehyde and it's part of the flavor. It gives like a sort of sweet flavor to it. And there are other congeners as well. And so it's possible that, you know, you're just experiencing the direct effect of those molecules in the liquid as opposed to the conversion that was happening in your gut. And so red and dark rum is another really great example. So as a rule of thumb, it's not always true, but as a rule of thumb, typically darker liquors have more congeners in them than clear or light liquors. And so a darker liquor is more likely to have that be one aspect of what's playing into the way you feel. Interesting. Yeah. That's why I stick to vodka. Yeah, there you go. Whiskey. Well, this has been a lot of fun, Zach. We really enjoy working with you guys and the science behind what you guys do is just, it's mind blowing. I mean, you know how we found you, right? Yeah, right. There was an article that I read and the author wrote about it and talked about it. And I'm like, this is fascinating. I read the article and you guys got a bunch of people ordering, you know, bottles. It was crazy. And you guys contacted us, but very remarkable. And I'm really excited to see where this goes in the future because it feels like this is just the beginning. If you can genetically modify bacteria to do what you guys are doing, I can only imagine what other potential products could come in the future. Yeah, I know we can't talk about those, but what is the timing you think when the next one's coming? Yeah, and I can tease a little bit. I can talk in broad strokes, but yeah, I mean, we're looking to launch our second product, you know, hopefully next year and we're hoping to start talking about that soon. And that product is related to kind of like, so totally different areas. That one's for cocaine. Right, right, right. It's a product too, yeah. Totally, the whole goal right here is to show that we can do anything, right? And so like, you know, our future products are not gonna be related to alcohol. Like our second product is related to like, your gut and your microbiome and gut one is a lot of things you talk about today. So I'm super excited about that product. And I think that that's a product that'll benefit a lot of people. And then we have a product kind of that we're developing right now related to recovery, exercise recovery. So better, faster exercise recovery and inflammation related to that. And then we have products related to like sleep and mood that we're kind of like our little further field and then better nutrient acquisition from our food. These are all things that we're working on right now. And I think products that, like say our next product's probably coming in the next year. And then I think like products three, four and five, hopefully are coming in the next like two to three years. So okay, how did you, I mean, why there? Why not the vagina or the eyeballs or the hair? Like why, why, why these areas? Why, why did you start in all these? Because like, I mean, we really wanna start in places where people could really understand the benefits and not to say that there's not understandable benefits on the skin or the vagina, but people are used to taking probiotics like orally. And so I thought that that was a good place to kind of like in the gut microbiome is a really important microbiome. And so I thought, and there's a lot of kind of things, activities happening in a lot of things we get lucky to. I would also imagine that you're probably looking to identify, besides what you said, you're looking to identify more simple functions to start like an enzyme that breaks down. Exactly. Acid aldehyde, right? Like that's versus, okay, there's this complex chain of things that we need to make happen and that's gonna be a much more challenging process. That is exactly right. That like the whole premise of Z-biotics was the idea that like we could start small and do simple things and build from there, right? Like a higher likelihood of success and benefit for people if we solved with like really simple reactions. And a lot of those happen in the gut to your point. But like, yeah, we do see like we have ideation on products for other microbiomes and not just on your body, right? Human health is, it's right, your skin microbiome, the vaginal microbiome, your oral microbiome, these are all super important ones. But then, right, like the microbiome in your shower and the microbiome on your kitchen counter, those are super important microbiomes for your health as well. And we can affect those as well with products. So those are kind of, and microbiome of your pet is also like really important. So there are a lot of different things we can be doing with these products. Right, dude. Last question. Okay. The Z and Z-biotics, is that Zacbiotics? Yeah, unfortunately, I was supposed, like I needed a placeholder name, yes. I hate it, like it makes me look like an egomaniac. You know what, hey, this is the science guy, first company guy, second, because it's your first company, your building, that's totally, I think every one of us has named our first business after ourselves. I mean, we almost, that was a long time ago. We almost named this Adam Pump, but I don't know. We got to change that. AMJ lawnmowering service, that was my first business. Yes, it was, absolutely, you had to throw it in there. I know, I needed a placeholder for like a pitch competition. And so I was like, Z-biotics. And I was like, I'll fix it later. And then like, it just kind of stuck. And then we did like all these naming exercises and people just like liked that it was sort of like, the Z was like science-y. Yeah, that's great. Mysterious, yeah, that's awesome. Well, cool, this would be great conversation, man. Thanks for coming in. I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks a lot, man. This was really, really fun. Awesome. Hey look, if you liked that whole episode, click right here for shorter clips where we talk about specific topics. You'll love it. And don't forget to subscribe if you enjoyed our content and you want more.