 This strain is a keystone strain involved in that gut health, and if we could bring this to the world, people could benefit in ways that they haven't from anything else that's out there. And in fact, that is what we started to see. Can you briefly explain what's so great about Acrimancia? Sure. Well, first of all, thanks for having me back, and I'm glad I'm not boring you, and you're inviting me back again here. Acrimancia is a new emerging strain that, even though you've kind of been on the forefront of knowing about it for most of the rest of the world just starting to hear about this strain. And it is really, really unique because its job is to make sure that the gut lining is being regulated. It's the only strain that we know of whose primary function is making sure that that gut lining is being regulated. And the reason that's so important is because we know that if your gut lining is off, the lining is too thin or too thick, that that's related to a whole bunch of other health conditions that go beyond just GI issues. So it's not just about constipation and diarrhea and gas and bloating, it's also about how your immune response functions, how your inflammatory response functions, how your body metabolizes foods. And so the gut lining is such an important part and a crucial part of our health, and Acrimancia is the guy doing that job in your body. Yeah, it's amazing. I've been writing about it for years, and people have known about it for quite a long time, but the problem was you can't grow the dumb stuff. And that was, as I've said before, the holy grail of Acrimancia. Everybody knew how important it was. It's a keystone species that literally is the first line of fortification of your gut wall. And as I've written about in Hippocrates' new, you know, 2,500 years ago, all disease begins in the gut. It's been paraphrased, and I think it's actually a good paraphrase, death begins in the gut. And it's the breakdown of the gut wall that actually precipitates inflammation, neuro inflammation. You name it. It's the breakdown of the gut wall that starts this process. And that's why, you know, Acrimancia is so important. So how come nobody made this stuff? You are so smart. Well, I think maybe we have a lot of perseverance more than necessarily just the smart. So the tricky part about Acrimancia is that it is in the gut lining, and it is functioning right there at that mucin layer in order to make sure that your gut lining is strong, which means that it's kind of residing in a weird part of the gut that's different from the probiotics that are on the shelves today. There's two big things about that environment that are really different. One is, as I said, it's right there at the gut lining. And so it's not kind of, it's lodged there. It's not kind of free floating. And the second thing is there's no oxygen where Acrimancia is. And so, as you know, we have lots of oxygen in the year around us. And so if you want to grow it, you have to keep all the oxygen out of your manufacturing. And so what you have to do in order to be able to grow this strain is to try to mimic what it looks like in the gut where this strain is growing. And so it requires you to figure out how do I grow it in an environment that feels like where it's used to living, and how do I create an end-to-end manufacturing system that enables it to grow without any oxygen. And so we really spent almost a decade trying to figure this out. It was not an overnight success by any means. I think, though, at the end of the day, what we are always driven by is the core belief that the gut is the source of all of your health and that this strain is a keystone strain involved in that gut health. And if we could bring this to the world, people could benefit in ways that they haven't from anything else that's out there. And in fact, that is what we started to see. People have better GI, better metabolism, better blood sugar spikes, less food cravings. So all of these benefits are coming from being able to take acromance and now directly. That was obviously your first product. And you had another product that we'll talk about in a minute because I want to compare it. But you have a brand new product, which is pretty exciting because, as you know, it's not just acromance. And I want to talk about your new product Metabolic Daily. It's not to be confused with Gundry MD Metabolic Advanced. But for those of you who may be wondering, they are two different products that work in totally different ways. And I actually take them both. So I want to support my Metabolic Health in multiple ways. So what is Metabolic Daily all about? So Metabolic Daily really stems from, you had a product before acromancia, which is called Pendulum Glucose Control, which has acromancia in it. But Pendulum Glucose Control is a formulation of five different strains and the prebiotic that feeds those strains. And it was designed for people with type 2 diabetes and has been clinically shown to lower both blood glucose spikes and A1C in people with type 2 diabetes in a placebo-controlled double-blinded randomized trial. Now, that product has to remain cold. It is clinically proven for people with type 2 diabetes who are all the way at one end of metabolic syndrome. And it is expensive because it's a very high dose of each of these strains. We got a lot of feedback about glucose control in terms of its efficacy, but then also in terms of, gee, do I really need such a high dose? And does it have to be refrigerated? And, well, what if I don't have type 2 diabetes? What if I'm just newly diagnosed or pre-diabetes? Is this product really for me? And so we answered that question with Metabolic Daily. And so Metabolic Daily is simply all of that goodness that's in glucose control, but at a lower dose. So it's not a clinical dose and it's intended for anybody who wants to improve the way that your body metabolizes sugars and carbs. And so it's at a much lower price point. Glucose control is at $165 a month. Metabolic Daily is at $49 a month. And so, and it really is intended to, our mission in the company is that we want to be able to help as many people improve their health as possible. And what we learned from that first product is that there is a price point at which you actually aren't helping as many people as possible. And so creating something that people could really use and that they could afford became the inspiration for Metabolic Daily. And it has acromance in it, as well as other strains that are designed to help people metabolize sugars and carbs more efficiently. You know, I have a number of diabetics who I've recommended glucose control to. And we've seen, like we've talked before, very good results with it. But you're right. One of their big complaints was that you have to refrigerate it. And as anyone knows, when they put something in the refrigerator, particularly a supplement, for probably very good reasons, it's something that often sits there. And you go, oops, I forgot to take that because it's not with all my other supplements. And people travel now that COVID is on the wane. And what do I do with my glucose control? Do I have to pack it in a styrofoam container? And will it make through the airport? Blah, blah, blah. You're right. It's kind of a pain in the neck. And the price was pricey. But we definitely saw really good results. And we've talked about that before. And that's why I keep having you on the program because the num stuff works. This is a milder version and certainly more affordable. And you don't have to put it in the refrigerator. So, all right. So, Ackermann C is great. Why do we need all these interesting other bugs, the butyrate producing bugs? Let's go down that step by step and tell people, okay, why do we need these guys? What are they doing? Absolutely. So, when you consume fibers and sugars and carbs and all of these things, they are metabolized in your gut microbiome, which is not just one strain, but actually a bunch of different strains. It's a huge ecosystem. It's like a garden where there are lots of different plants and flora and fauna that all kind of work together and live together and they function together. And we've co-evolved with these strains over time to help us metabolize the foods that we eat. And one of the things that we've noticed is that as we age, we start to become depleted in some of these strains. And as we go through periods of stress, we start to become depleted in some of these strains. As we get diseases like type 2 diabetes, we start to become depleted in these strains. And for women, when we go through menopause, we start to become depleted in some of these strains. So, what does it mean when you get depleted in these strains? Well, it means that you're losing the function of those strains. And one of the big functions of those strains is to help you manage how your body metabolizes sugars and carbs. And so all we've done is to try to understand what are the strains that you start to lose over time that are super important for this metabolism? And as you might imagine, it's not simple. It's not just sugars go in, there's a one step reaction, and then you're off to the races. There's a lot of steps that have to happen in between the consumption of your food and then all the benefits that your body produces, such as GLP one, insulin, and all of these things that are important for how your body regulates sugars. And so all these strains that are in here function together synergistically as the one step, two step, three step in helping you metabolize these foods. And we actually know that if you take one of these out, that you actually don't get that full metabolism. And so you really need all of them together in order to get all of the benefits of metabolism needed. Now, for some people, you really are only missing maybe one step or two steps. And that's why we offer just the single strains. So you're welcome to experiment yourself on, do I really just need acromancia? Or does this whole formulation really need to be administered in order to get benefit? But that's why there's all these other strains in there. In my new book that I'm finishing up right now, I think it's really important, what you just said, that most of us were unaware that there are 100 trillion different organisms in our gut. These guys actually not only talk to each other, but there one guy is producing a postbiotic that the next guy on the assembly line actually needs to accomplish their part of the work. And there are actually four or five different bacteria that are dependent on the product of another bacteria or even the presence of another bacteria to do their job. And so when I was in medical school, the thought was, well, you swallow some sugar and your pancreas and your gallbladder squirts out some digestive enzymes and then it's absorbed and then what comes out your rare end is leftover crap, it ain't that simple. You're right, I call it a tropical rainforest with all these species that are codependent. And you're right, some people may only need a keystone species like acromancia. But I think the more we're beginning to understand how complex this ecosystem is, then that most of us, because of the overuse of antibiotics that we take that are fed to our animals, the glyphosate, which is an antibiotic, unfortunately, round up folks, all of this is just piled on and decimating our tropical rainforest. And good for you for understanding that it may take a lot more than just one guy to write the ship. Absolutely. And I think it is, you know, much like your rainforest analogy, when you when you start to become depleted in one thing, oftentimes there's sort of a cascading effect. And so you learn about this, of course, in our environmental studies where, and even with, you know, animals and species where losing one species has this whole, you know, downstream effect of the other ones getting affected. And then conversely, you have an overabundance of a certain type of animal and that causes all kinds of problems. So we're constantly trying to balance this. And our body is constantly balancing this too. And so you're right that it's often ends up being multiple things that kind of gone awry. Now, you mentioned almost in passing GLP-1 and that has gotten in the news recently because there are a class of drugs, most of which are injectable. There's a couple of oral agents that work on GLP-1. And miracle weight loss occurs. And we won't name those drugs, but anyone with a quick search will identify those. And it's now the drug of Hollywood for weight loss. Now, one strain in metabolic daily, Bifobacterium Infantus, does not directly produce butyrate or GLP-1. So what's that doing in there? Well, GLP-1 is a drug that's been used for people with diabetes for decades. And as you said, the initial GLP-1s were all injectables. You literally had to inject in your stomach multiple times a day. So naturally, Hollywooders were not really going to be excited about that particular method. But more recently, there's the oral doses. And the reason GLP-1 is really important is because it is a molecule that is kind of upstream of insulin and glucose. And so it sort of tells your body, hey, we've just had a bunch of sugar, we better respond to that and then get the sugar out of the bloodstream. Moreover, it appears to have a relationship with neuronal signaling. It's been shown that GLP-1 administration can reduce food cravings and, in particular, sugar cravings. And so for somebody who is trying to manage how your body metabolizes sugar to then have that added benefit of reduced sugar cravings is a real one-two punch on the system in a good way. And the result of that, of course, is weight loss, which many of us are always looking for the holy grail on. And so I think that GLP-1 is a very interesting molecule because of its ability to stimulate insulin and glucose response and its ability to give a sense of satiety to the body. And our formulation, we initially believed that it was an upstream target of GLP-1. So we know that when your body metabolizes fiber into butyrate, that butyrate stimulates GLP-1 secretion. And so that was always the mechanism of action that we believed to be true. And in fact, our chief medical officer was the chief medical officer of a company that put out the first GLP-1s. And we now have evidence showing that our formulation can increase GLP-1. And then in particular, your favorite strain, acromancia, is able to stimulate GLP-1. And sure enough, you know, this is the reports we get from customers. It's not just that they're having improved GI, but half of our customers on acromancia report that within 90 days, they have lowered sugar cravings. And so this is really a boost. And it's the same thing with metabolic daily. This is really a boost for you if you're trying to, you know, get good nutrition, you're trying to jumpstart your microbiome. Having those reduced sugar cravings is a big plus. But that's why GLP-1 is so exciting. It's a really interesting molecule. I think the important thing to remember is that when we are talking about metabolism of our food, this really is a team sport. And so it's easy to always know who's the guy who's shooting the goal. But the guy who does the assist is just as important. And without the assist, you don't get the goals. And so these strains, like the phytobacterium and phantase are really upstream. They're the ones that are passing the ball down the field in order to get the goal of GLP-1 and butyrate production. And so those are all of the strains that are in here in this formulation are designed to get you from one end to the other end, without needing anything else in there. And so that's why you have strains in there that don't do the last step, but they do the earlier first and secondary steps. Okay, let's switch gears for a second. And you've mentioned this. I think, hopefully, a lot of people know that there are bacteria that do just fine in oxygen, their aerobic bacteria, and there are bacteria like acrimoncia that absolutely hates oxygen, literally dies in oxygen. And they're actually really, really important. And many people like myself believe that our colon was invented as a safe home for these bacteria to be protected from oxygen, and that they invented our colon not the other way around. But that's another story. So when we think about, let's say yogurt, that's primarily aerobic bacteria. And yet you, you think, and I certainly agree with you that these anaerobic bacteria may be really the key in the future of probiotics. Can you elaborate on that a bit? Sure, I think it really stems from thinking about the digestive tract. So when we eat food, it goes into our stomach. And then it goes into our intestines, which is sort of this, we all have this image of the intestines is sort of long tubular thing. And right on the other side of the stomach, that part of the intestine has oxygen is still present there. And so a lot of these strains that are in yogurts, like lactobacillus and bifidobacterium strains, they are, that's kind of where they live. And they play their role right there. As you get deeper and deeper down this track and into the distal colon, you now start to enter what we refer to as the gut microbiome. And so when you read about the microbiome and gut microbiome and studies that are being done, that's the area of the body that's being studied. And that area to your point is very different. There is no oxygen there. And that area is where there are trillions of bacteria that are performing key functions for our body, not only in metabolism, but also in our immune response, our inflammatory response, that cannot have a single molecule of oxygen there. And that is the treasure trove that we've never explored before in science and medicine. And that is where the next step is. It's really understanding what's residing there. How do they work together? How are they helping us with our body? Because we've really tapped out on lactobacillus and bifidobacterium strains. There are a lot of them out there, even kind of new strains that pop up are really performing the same functions. If you really want to tap into the gut microbiome, you got to go to the distal colon and you got to start looking at these strict anaerobes. And that's what all next generation probiotics are really going to be derived from is microbiome science. So these guys hate oxygen. So how in the world do you make a preparation of oxygen-hating bacteria and then get them into a capsule and swallow them and get them past this gauntlet, if you will, without them dying, I guess is the best way to put it. It's a great point. And maybe you might start with the question of how did they get there in the first place if you're kind of born without them and at some point you get them and they can't survive in oxygen. And the answer to that is that these bacteria are very clever and have figured out different ways in which they can live and survive and then revive. And so we're really taking advantage of kind of some of the things that are naturally happening. So these strains, we isolate them and we grow them in an environment that keeps all the oxygen out. And one of the key ways you can keep a molecule like oxygen out is to replace it with another molecule like nitrogen. And so literally we have tanks and tanks of nitrogen in our manufacturing plant. Maybe at some point you'll get to come visit and see this. It's just tanks and tanks of nitrogen tanks that are pumping nitrogen into the system in order to keep all the oxygen out. Now, after we grow these cells, it's almost like a brewery where if you've ever been to a brewery or winery, you'll know there are these big metal vats and we're growing our bacteria and those and again keeping the oxygen out. After we grow them, we harvest them, which means we separate the cells from all of that media and we take those cells and that's where all the action is and we want to keep them alive and we actually freeze dry them. So we get them into a powdered state and when they're in that powdered state, this is the kinds of things that you might find on foods or in dirt and things like that. They're actually a lot more stable. So once they're in a powder format, they can survive being exposed to oxygen. You can actually just put the powder out on your coffee table and they would survive just fine. And so that's the state that we get them in to get them into the capsule so that we can actually deliver them to people. And then once you ingest that capsule and it makes it through, we actually have special capsules that are lined in order to get through your stomach acid and into the distal colon. And then once that capsule starts to dissolve and these freeze dried strains are now exposed to water that is there. They revive. They come alive again and now they're back in an oxygen free environment and they can start to do their jobs. So that's that's it. We're basically just trying to mimic what's happening in nature. You're cryopreserving these guys, huh? It's the cryopreservation. The rest of us are all trying to get to ultimately. I spent some of my childhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and we did believe in a lot of ice fishing where we would drill holes in the lake ice and pull up fish and the fish we would throw on the ice and they would freeze. And then we would bring them home and as they thought out, they literally were frozen. They started flopping around. You're just recreating my childhood. So yeah, you can take these bacteria and freeze them and you're right. They will wake up and function. Who knew? Who knew? It really is. Nature's figured it out. We're just trying to catch up and follow along here. Have you done any human studies of your new product yet? And if so, what'd you find? Yeah. So again, it's simply a lower dose of the strains that we've done a lot of clinical studies and people with type two diabetes. And one of the interesting things that we observed, and actually I think you've shared this with me as well, is that people that don't necessarily have type two diabetes, but maybe have pre-diabetes or their blood sugars are spiking out of control on certain foods, which they can see on a continuous glucose monitor, we're reaping benefit. And so what we found is with people who are taking metabolic daily, they are also seeing on their continuous glucose monitors, these blood glucose spikes go down. And they are also showing that they have lowering of A1C and blood glucose spikes. But again, this is not at the full dose for type two diabetes, but really for people who are still maybe measuring those things, but not to the same degree. But I think more importantly, this product is not just intended for people who are facing pre-diabetes and type two diabetes, but really anyone who's trying to metabolize their sugars better. And so one of the most important things that we hear from people is an improved ability to digest foods. And the second most important thing is these reduced sugar cravings. And so I think when you pair those two things together, you're able to eat. Sometimes when people move to a high fiber diet, it causes actually a lot of GI distress, even though that's actually a healthier diet for you. And so this can help you metabolize those fibers better and have kind of an overall better GI experience, while also reducing sugar cravings. We just had somebody tell us that he was able to resist all the cookies at the Christmas party in December, which was something he had never experienced before. Well yeah, you know, one of I guess side effects of these GLP-1 drugs is a lot of people often report that they they feel nauseated even at the sight of food. And to me that's not a great, that's a side effect that I don't really want to be nauseated at the sight of food. But you do, you're right, you want to suppress those overwhelming, you know, sugar cravings. And it's interesting that those cravings actually come from what I call gang members in our gut who are absolute sugar-requiring organisms sending text messages to your brain saying, yeah, come on, come on, give me. In fact, I just put a reference in the chapter I'm writing right now that unfortunately for a great number of us eating a western diet, we now know that most of the bugs in our colon are actually incapable of making butyrate or incapable of using fiber. And they are sugar-dependent, just like we are. So it's like, oh my gosh, we got to have bugs, like you mentioned, you got to have the whole chain of events to get this in a proper alignment. I can't wait to read this chapter that you're talking about here. But I think that this relationship between the gut and the brain is a very interesting one that, you know, we're just on the forefront of starting to understand now. And you can imagine kind of this concept that if your gut bugs are helping you metabolize sugars better, that they can send signals to your brain saying, hey, we don't need any more sugars. And that's different from feeling nauseated, but it's more just that feedback loop is actually, you know, you're giving it back. And another place that's super interesting for us is thinking about the fact that your gut microbiome and acromance in particular can produce GABA. GABA has been around for a long time and used for reducing stress and anxiety and is a neurotransmitter. But it turns out that your gut is capable of producing GABA too. And we were very interested in this component, especially with acromance. So acromance actually has the genes to suggest that it can produce GABA. We recently just did this experiment where remember I told you we grow the strains, we take the cells, and then we throw the media away. We just, that just gets tossed out because we don't need that part. What we did was we went and we said, let's take a look at that media. And we found, Dr. Gundry, there are massive amounts of GABA sitting in that media. So as we're growing acromance, it's producing GABA even just in the media alone and is able to do that also in your gut microbiome. And so that's one of the other outcomes of really having the right gut bugs is it can really help with stress and anxiety. And so I think the gut brain connection is a really interesting new frontier. Yeah, you're absolutely right. For years we didn't even know that there were neurons down in the gut that were sending messages to the brain. We thought the brain was telling those neurons what to do. And we were wrong about that and then everybody was excited that, well, it's the neurons down there that are producing serotonin or producing GABA. And then we come to find out that, oops, we are wrong. It's actually the microbes that are making this. This whole microbiome gut neuron brain connection gets more and more intricate and intriguing. The guys who are really doing the hard work, we just didn't know that they were actually doing all this work. And your point is well taken. The postbiotics, and so GABA is a postbiotic of acrimoncia and other bugs, these postbiotics that are in these media are probably at least as important and may be more important than what we think these bugs are doing. And that's actually part of the new book. So anyhow. So this is exciting. So we need acrimoncia to make us feel good and I agree with that. We know that the gut microbiome is in control of much of our hunger. In fact, I ascribe to the gut-centric theory of hunger that hunger comes from our bacteria telling us they're hungry, not because your stomach is growling. What's pendulum up to next? Every time I talk to you, there's something new. So then again, that's why I keep having you on. Well, I think we want to really delve more into trying to understand for different people what part of the ecosystem is missing and how can we give people kind of the minimum viable product because none of us wants to be taking extra things that we don't need. And that's another reason why Metabolic Daily came to the forefront for us because maybe you don't need so much of these strains and you're going to be able to benefit from even just a regular dose as opposed to a clinical dose. And that's also why we've started to release just acrimansia and just butyricum as these single strains so that you don't have to take more than you need. And I think really where we'd like to see the whole probiotics industry head and you and I've talked about this too is to get a lot more ingredients centric. So my hope is that as we move down this path together that people don't talk about probiotics as this kind of big all-encompassing family of things but really start to understand acrimansia, clostridium butyricum, bifidobacterium infantis, anaerobutyricum heli, like so people will start to know what are these strains and what are they doing for me. And we can start to be much more sophisticated like we are with vitamins. We know vitamin C is something you take when you're not feeling well and you don't go take you know some other vitamin when when you feel like you're coming down with a cold. And so with probiotics I think we're going to start to get to that that realm as well. And so for us we're really interested in understanding for different people what are the bugs that you need, what are the outcomes that you're experiencing and you know what are the formulations that are that are perfect for different people. And then of course as you know R&D is sort of our bread and butter and so we do have a pipeline of new strains that we're continuing to work on and I will just give you a little teaser here so that you yes at some point down the line we'll come back to you when we're ready to to share this with the world but fecal bacterium pretz nutzi is a very important key stone strain that nobody has been able to manufacture and we are diligently working on this one to try to figure out if we can also bring this one to the world. Oh great yeah another important bug you're right nobody's been able to harness it and if anybody can I suspect you guys are doing it. This next one is sure to surprise you. Sadly almost all granola sold in this country even several of the organic varieties are laced with Roundup.