Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1682: Bacteria for Muscle Gain, Fat Loss & Health

Episode Date: November 11, 2021

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin speak with Zack Abbott, founder of ZBiotics, about the fascinating science of genetically modified bacteria and health. What is the microbiome? (3:27) Why is our mood affected by our gut? (4:58) How complex is this area of science? (11:04) What do we know about the microbiome and performance? (16:11) The interesting research surrounding the vaginal microbiome. (19:15) Do probiotics inhibit antibiotics? (21:16) How our microbiome responds to what we give it. (24:40) When did he first fall in love with science? (26:35) His experience taking a product to market. (30:25) Are viruses alive? (32:01) Is modified bacteria the future? (32:41) Breaking down the science of how Zbiotics works. (35:06) Protecting the ‘special sauce’ of their strain. (43:06) Busting the stigma surrounding Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). (46:33) Is nature our biggest enemy? (50:28) Using genetic engineering to feed humanity. (53:27) Balancing expectations of customers’ responses to their product. (58:50) There are rules for a reason. (1:02:30) The science of the hangover. (1:05:16) Hard alcohol before beer, are you in the clear? Or, beer before liquor you’ve never been sicker? (1:07:23) What does the timeline look for the next Zbiotics products? (1:10:56) Related Links/Products Mentioned November Promotion: MAPS Anywhere and the Fit Mom Bundle – Both 50% off! **Promo code “NOVEMBER50” at checkout** Visit ZBiotics for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Visit Chili Sleep for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Probiotic approach to prevent antibiotic resistance Babies Born by C-Section Have Different Gut Microbes Than Vaginally Delivered Infants ZBiotics Science Arsenic, Lead Found in Popular Protein Supplements 99.99% Of Pesticides We Eat Are Produced By Plants Themselves Scientists Genetically Modify E. Coli to Create Opioids Study traces brain-to-gut connections - Neuroscience News Drink Like There's Tomorrow – Mind Pump IG TV Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Alright, today's episode is a fun one. We got to talk about bacteria. Specifically, the bacteria that live inside and on our bodies,

we talked to Zach Abbott. He's the founder of Zeybottix and he knows his stuff. And the future of genetically modified bacteria science is quite remarkable. This is probably going to be a revolution in health. And we know him because we work with the company Z-Botics. They make the probiotic drink, it's genetically modified to help you feel better after drinking alcohol and the science is legit and it really works. So when this guy talks, we listen.

We know you're gonna love this episode. By the way, if you wanna try out Z-Biotics product, so essentially here's what it does, right? So it's genetically modified bacteria that produces a compound that breaks down acetaldehyde, which is a negative product, a byproduct of alcohol metabolism. So it helps the body break it down. The result is the next day you don't feel nearly as crappy. I have a terrible reaction to alcohol normally, very sensitive to it. Z-bottix has completely changed out for me. It's one of the highest repurchasing rates

that we've seen with any product we've ever advertised, because people love it, it really does work. And you can go try it out, get 10% off. So if you want to take a look, head over to zbiotics.com, that's zbiotis.com, forward slash mine pump. Use the code mine pump 10 for 10% off. Now this episode is also sponsored by Chilly Sleep.

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Really, really, really good product. And of course, we have a great deal for only Mind Pump listeners. So if you want to get a discount, this is what you got to do. You got to head over to chileysleep.com. That's CH-I-L-I-Sleep. sleep.com forward slash mind pump. And on that page, you get a special discount. Also, this month, we have a huge sale going on right now on one of our workout programs and one of our workout program bundles. So maps anywhere is 50% off. It's a workout program that requires no equipment, very effective. And then we have a bundle

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Zach, let's just talk about what the microbiome is. I want to get into the science of the microbiome and how these bacteria affect our behaviors and performance and digestion and a lot of 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 instance, the purpose is, 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 and all those microbiomes,

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 some debate. What's the debate?

Where is the divide at with this? Some people say that microbiota is the proper name for the bacteria, the small microbes in the gut and then the microbiome is the DNA only and the genes that are present. And so there's always like, it's all linguistics, but like generalists, nerds fighting over who's smarter about present. And so, you know, there's always like, you know, it's all linguistics, but like general speaking. Nero's fighting over who's smart about it.

Literally that's what I actually think. So, yeah, it's, but really, I mean, when people say that about in the common meaning is really just like, everything'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 Willie 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 would, how would the hell with this all work? 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 a explanation of the scale we're talking about, right?

So we have roughly in our gut, roughly the same number of bacterial cells as you do human cells in your whole body, right? So, we have roughly in our gut, 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 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 a sheet, 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 those microbes. And so you think about mood, you talk about neuro transmitters or those small molecules right there brain uses for really translating emotions and thoughts. What's crazy is that the exact same like biosynthetic pathogen, exact same genes that we use to make some of those neurotransmitters 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 our gut is really like, I mean, who's like, are we human or are we bacteria? Are we actually bacteria? Are we just human shells? You know, how is it bacteria? I'm just walking us around. Now, is it fair to say from what I know about evolution, bacteria was here before humans. So, 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, you know, bacteria are around for three billion years, and you know, humans have been around for like 150 million or something along those lines. And so, you know, 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, I've deeply influenced the archaeology and they continue to be a really central 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 really clear stories of how important a 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 twins. Right. And the only difference is that one of those mice

has a normal microbiome and then 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 has a weaker immune system. It doesn't absorb its nutrients from its food as efficiently, all these things, right? Some of those you expect some of you wouldn't. What's crazy is that if you didn't 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 just want to really let that sink in. If you think about how amazing that is, 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. Oh yeah. And how when mice get infected with it, it makes them attracted to cat urine or less afraid of cats. Right. And it makes sense because the parasite is encouraging the host to get eaten so it can continue with some life.

So it's not going to be cool. You know, the way it does that is it actually like reduces the anxiety of the mouse. And so then the mouse like you know, it's like it's like, oh, I'm not, I'm not worried about that. Cat is cool. Right. So the microbes in our body do that a lot. They affect our mood a lot.

I was just going to 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, right? Like in the same way they influence us, we influence them. It's like I see these bosyntatic pathways for neurotransmitters, right?

That goes both ways when we express like 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, right? And so they'll actually turn on those stress responses in response to our stress hormones, which is pretty great. Because the host is stressed. Right. Therefore, we need to be ready because

something might be happening, right? Like yeah. And so you know, because we turn on stress response, for instance, if we eat a poison, right? Like we'll turn on stress response. And then the bacteria probably also want to 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. Sounds pretty complicated. Don't they say the universe than the gut? Isn't it like that? It's like, it's seriously,

or it does like the two most complex things? Totally. 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 of the organ system of our body in the last like, 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. So I have more complex than any other organ in our body, right? Like a liver has like, 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 going to be very different than your microbiome in a month or in a year, potentially. And so, and a lot of behavioral change in antibiotics, that's a big one, but there's

a lot of small things you just stress alone, and 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. What is it the diversity of it? that is what causes, for example, 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 as 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 hormonal response or something and that will 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 going to be what creates those differences. In terms of the diversity, diversity is like the one thing, so to your question as well, like, you know, sorry, I'll speak to that. 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, regardless of what people say, and like the one thing we really know is that it impacts a lot, but we don't really understand how or why, to yet, regardless of what people say, and 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? How have you got? And then the evenness is like, how evenly are they expressed, right? So if you and I both have a hundred different bacteria and are gut, that's obviously a way under estimation. And then we have the same richness, but if 95 of yours are the same,

and then the other 5% are made up of the rest, then that's a very uneven microbiome where as if I have 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 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 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? Is balancing each other out? Like if there's too much of one then you'll get some positives, but then you probably won't getting the positives of having other

then you'll get some positives, but then you probably won't get any positives of having other bacteria that can do other things for you. Exactly, the analogy I've used in past is a flea market, right? That if you have stalls that sell clothing and then furniture and tools and toys, if you have all these things, when any customer comes in,

you can serve them effectively. 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 microbiomes 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 mostly comes from plants. And so you basically want to eat a lot of different kinds of fibers.

So if we often think of fibers like a thing, but fibers 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. Total sense, yeah. Absolutely.

Interesting. What do we know about the microbiome and performance? Like do we see a 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 get my head around the cause and effect like relationship here. But we definitely, there have been, interestingly studies have been published really recently, like as you 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 slabs. And basically show that like, that people who have high-enders athletes have certain functions that in much higher levels than non-endern athletes. The ability to produce certain short-chain fatty acids, which are anti-inflammatory, propionic acid was one that was identified in a recent paper. It has the same thing, 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 enhance the ability to basically deal with all of the stress you put in 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, I'm glad you said that because either the adaptations that you induce through exercise, they all show, they then got that. Yeah, causing the bacteria adapted a particular way or genetically they're purged exposed to have these bacteria which then helps

in perform at higher levels. We don't know which one is. Chicken or the egg. And I think it could be both, right? You could be somebody who works out a lot and then you kind of hit a plateau, right? And then like if somehow you get seated into your gutter 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 white blood. I mean, that's what I got out of this. Eat the same food as that maybe. Oh my God.

That's the other way I could be. Yeah, yeah. It's up to you. There's a PG version of that. Yeah, yeah, right. Well, you know, it depends on you. If you meet LeBron James, you gotta decide what you're gonna do

with LeBron James. Yeah, I'll have lunch with you. Yeah, thank you. Individual decisions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll go ahead and have lunch with you. Okay, so this is very fascinating. 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 and men versus women? You know, that's a good question. Honestly, I have a person who lived into that. I would be surprised if we didn't, just based on different hormonal balances and different behavior types generally, all the things, right? Like, it's both genetics and it's also society, right?

Like the way we behave is different. And so, if you control for all those things, are there other fundamental differences? I would expect that there still would be, as I say, just because the biology is our different, but I'm not familiar with any specific research on that. What about them as speaking of women? What about the, the, my,

because we think of the microbiome as 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 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. Yeah. And what do we know about that? How important is that?

I do know that in some, in 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 a, you know, glad you brought that up, right? Often we talk about 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 side 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 the rest of your body has other microbes in it as well. And it's a largely a single kind of set of type of bacteria, lactobacillus, which produce acid, and so they keep a balanced pH in the vagina.

And that's really important for overall vaginal health and exactly in preventing yeast infection. 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 really there because it's a simpler microbiome.

Oh, it's easier to study. Right, yeah. It's easier to access, right? It's less complex community, so it means that there are, right? Less variables. Right, exactly, exactly. If you change something in the gut, you're going to change 1,000 other things too, right? And so the simpler the community, the more direct your changes will will have a positive effect and so it's a huge opportunity to do

stool samples right right right it's like old yeah yeah yeah right yeah I get in a real time how do they study the microbiome in the gut then because if you study stool well that's those are the guys that lost yeah 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, 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 at least invasive. But there have been studies where they compare basically how accurate is that as a sampling

of the gut. So they will go in with a scope when we are the other. And basically take samples, and then compare those direct samples to what they see in the stool, and they see that there are some really important differences. So one example is my favorite one is,

for a long time, you mentioned antibiotics earlier, right? And that we know for fact that antibiotics massively disrupt the microbiome. And so for a long time, they were sort of this hypothesis that, and I think it's a very flawed hypothesis not getting to why, but that, then we should take probiotics after we take antibiotics, because you should put good bacteria back.

But they actually showed that, trying to get 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 trying to get 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? 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 pro-baxes. Typically, lactobacillus and bifidobacteria,

which are not part of a healthy microbiome. It's like so, and that's a, yeah, pretty much. So it's like cutting your hand within your putting a bandaid on your toe. Yeah, right, or like cutting your hand and then like putting like a ball and socket on it on it, and it's like, it's kind of like a hand. And so like, and so what it was doing is basically,

those bacteria getting in there and basically getting in the way if you're good bacteria going back. So a much stronger hypothesis for how we could recover our microbiome after antibiotics is by taking pre-biotic fibers, like I was talking about earlier. Oh, just feed them.

Feed, right? So rather than going and trying to plant a different grass in your lawn after you have a disaster, just go and put fertilizer and let the seeds grow back up. So, okay, so it'd be like this, 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 soldiers or aliens that never lived there in the first place, which are now going to keep killing off all your native. Getting the way. Getting 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 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, or your body often naturally goes back to some level of interest rate. 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 take longer and longer depending on what kind of stuff you're putting in there. So, if you're putting good food in there, not just the microbes that survive, but the whole network will come back. And so, if you put in something alien in there, it's just going to get in the way of that happening. That's interesting. Now, is it true that our generationally, our diversity of microbiome is starting to, to lessen, and they're blaming this on antibiotics and C-sections and, you know, stuff like that?

Is that true? It is, in the sense that I think, I think that the, the reasons are speculative, but it is true that we, I mean, we know that are really the effect is, you know, it's hard to know, right? Because we, we have very limited, you know, it's hard to know, right? Cause we have very limited knowledge of what our microbiome looked like before modern genetics. I mean, our best bet is just modern hunter gatherers, I guess, well, how else would we study it? Exactly, and there's the living a different lifestyle, right?

And so, and we know that any lifestyle is gonna necessitate a different microbiome. Like, there's is no better than ours. It's just, you know, something that's responded to their own lifestyle in the behavior. And then we also found like these crazy, like, petrified stool samples from like, you know, the cavemen and stuff.

And they've done some microbiome sequencing of them and they 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 distropped our microbiome, we know that. We're eating, so 75% of the food in the grocery stores from, I don't remember exactly the number, but it's basically like 12 plants and 5 animals or something.

We eat a much less diverse diet than maybe others ate in the past, way in the past. We're not just eating random leaves off trees, really for better probably, but 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 birth. And so, like, you take that out of the equation

and not to say that C-section is bad or anything, but it's like, that is a downstream consequence of doing that. And so, you gotta find other ways to get your microbiome and you get it from breastfeeding and just from putting your mouth on things as a baby basically. But that's a challenge that needs to be solved.

Right, so go ahead, just. Oh yeah, now I gotta ask, like when you first fell in love with petri dishes. Yeah, yeah. Totally, I mean, I used to, it's funny, I look back, my mom sent me like a picture around Halloween. Like I kind of forgot it's funny, I look back, my mom sent me a picture around Halloween, I kind of forgot to do this, but I was like seven or eight.

I have for like three years, I just look like as a mad scientist for Halloween. Always have this attraction to science. I'm glad you asked that, is actually what I wanted to ask is along those lines. We jumped right into throwing basketballs, that's right away. I love it.

We're facing 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 kind of, I think is pretty circuitous path and I'm amazed I ended up here when I looked 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 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 and it cooled me, but I didn't really know what you would do with that. And so, you know, when I went to college, I know I didn't want 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 classes that I liked them, but I also really liked classical history, and so I was like, I studied 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 kinda kept doing that,

and then I was working on construction for a little while, and then, I still had the itch for science, and so then one day I just woke up, and I was like, I should just try this. So I went on Craigslist, and looked for, like, literally typed in like science jobs. And I was like, I should just try this. I went on Craigslist and looked for like literally typed in like science jobs. And like I know I don't want to use jobs. Yeah, yeah.

It's actually a Craigslist. Yeah, yeah. Craigslist. It was just like 2000. Like you rolled up the subdue, Towsau. So you would say it was like a garage. You just got, we're gonna make something. Come on back here Zach.

Yeah, one ad for a meth life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. Yeah, Zach, it was a lot of like, you know, RVs and a little dozen ad 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 say that the importance of that job is just kind of open my eyes again, like, oh yeah, man, like you can do science as a career. And I hadn't really, really realize that or appreciate 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. Because 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 about that, so I decided to go back at school and get a PhD in microbiology. And through kind of like set of circumstances that is probably a long and pretty uninteresting story, I like basically found, 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 focused on disease in the beginning, but I started to appreciate more and more that every day in lab, when I was researching this bacteria,

I was making edits to its DNA, and it would just do something new. And I could make it glow green, or I could make it break down the sugar, or whatever. And it was like, this is incredible. And so then it was just like, for me, this is logical next step. But if I'm trying to solve problems for people, it's like, this is incredible. And so then it was just like, for me, like this is logical next step, right? 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's ebiotic stuff for that.

How'd you like that process of going through the Yeah, 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 in a drug he was already using all the way up to like, you know, the big five pharma companies like, you know, two scientists in a lab or a doctor who noticed a side effect in 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'd 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 endpoints 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 taking a market. And that honestly, when I looked at that, that two scientists in the 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 scratch 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? I think it's a billion or hundreds of millions a hundred and millions I mean depends on the complexity of the drug in the clinical trial But yeah, I mean you know an average price tag is definitely in the tens or hundreds of millions? 100 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 of Iagra,

that was a blood pressure drug. Blood pressure drug, and then the side effect was, well, you know, kinda lower my blood pressure, but I got boners. Yeah. That's what we're going to use it for. We can, we can, we can sell that. Yeah, totally.

Okay, I gotta ask you this question, because you talked about viruses and bacteria. There's, I've read this this and there's always this debate. I know bacteria are living or viruses alive. Oh, man, the age-old argument. Yeah. It depends on how you define a live. 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, that's then, by that argument, you would call any parasite, right? That's a good point, no.

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 for sure. 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, you know, neurotransmitters. I know serotonin is a big one and, you know, dopamine and it helps

us with our hormones. So in essence, it's just this is just other organ, like you said, in our body. So then, 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 yeah 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 can take bacteria Modify them to help us do certain things, like reducing 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.

And DNA is really just like the blueprints for the factory. If you think of a bacteria or any living thing as a factory that's just performing a bunch of functions in a coordinated organized way, DNA just tells you what function it's going to do at what times and when. 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 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? body and then program it to execute some useful function for you. That, to me, is a really obvious extension of what we're doing.

We're already eating bacteria to get those functions anyway, whether we know it or not. Why not leverage that? People are starting to do this now. We're one, obviously, but have several. Many people are thinking about drug applications and different things we can do with this. But there's a lot of considerations in terms of how complicated do you go?

Everybody wants to go to the bleeding edge. What is the most complicated thing that I could solve? There's a lot of low-hanging fruit. There's a lot of simple things that we can execute, 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 hangover thing, it's like low hanging fruit thing?

Totally, or later. Yeah, instead of getting super complex and trying to solve all the world's problems, like, hey, here's something. A simple thing we can do that can really dramatically help people. Yeah, explain that again. So 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

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 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, same.

It took me many times to truly believe that what I've built actually did something. I really had to convince myself because it was skeptical. But to both of your as-points, exactly that. So something people can understand and that we could execute really simply. And so 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, fall start by saying like when you drink, normally the alcohol is absorbed into your bloodstream and it has the effects that it has on your body and then your liver breaks that alcohol down and two stages from alcohol to acid, aldehyde and then from acid, aldehyde to acetate. And that intermediary acid, aldehyde is highly toxic, much more toxic than alcohol,

but that end point acetate is innocuous, it's essentially vinegar. And so the good news is that your liver's very good toxic, much more toxic than alcohol, but that end point 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 acetal dye 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 your gut, in large part by your microbiome. And so some of that alcohol is converted from alcohol into acid aldehyde in the gut, but then it does not subsequently convert it from acid aldehyde to acetate very efficiently. So you actually get an accumulation of acid aldehyde 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 so that until you feel after shit like that. Right, exactly. And that's where 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? It was like, like, 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, I'll ask that all the high 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 acid aldehyde that's formed in the gut, into acetate directly in the gut, so before it's absorbed into the bloodstream. So that's it. It's a very simple idea. Well, okay, and what bacteria is this that was used? So the bacteria we started with was a bacteria called Bicillis subtilus. 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 Bicillis 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? 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 it 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, it's sort of hijacking it to create edits in like a human cell or you care itself 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 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 number scheme.

They basically say like odds are, there's some similarity between that piece of DNA and my DNA that 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, you know, a billion brothers and sisters, and so they don't care. Oh, how long did it take you to find that specific strain that produced the function you wanted? So that's what kind of modern genic injury comes in, is that we don't have to let the bacteria swim around and just find random pieces of DNA. We can just take the bacteria.

I already knew I wanted 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 B-sutylist spores, or bacillus spores from like old glacier ice flows that are 100,000 years old and they're still alive. That they just hunker down in there

and they can survive your stomach acid on harm, 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 it back to here for that. And then I just, and due to genetics, I know 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, the basically had the gene that encodes for the acid aldehyde, the enzyme that breaks down acid aldehyde, right? And then it put homology on either side of that. And then, so the basically I just mixed them together in a tube, and then I let the bacteria do the work. And then we just like for the ones that had the transformation of it. Wow. Now, are you able to test acid aldehyde 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 product was like safe, and we had an 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 that we 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 I 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 acid out of the hide, then measure that acid out of the hide that you know, in a given time later, the acid out of the hide was gone or it had been reduced. And so we could calculate how many bacteria we needed to remove how much asset I'll hide. Well. And then, so first that was the first test,

and then we tested to see, you know, basically got 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 like it's hard to sample your gut environment,

right? It's pretty invasive, like to go in and get a colonic sample and I'll let you use your imagination how we do that, but we didn't really want to get into that. So yeah, so basically, we decided that, like, look, it honestly didn't matter at the end of the day, whether or not, how much ass out I were breaking down, if people didn't feel better, right?

So the important, the really matter was like, do people feel better whether we're breaking down ass out I'd or not? And obviously, we're, you know, we know we're breaking an ass out of the high, but doesn't 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 we survey hundreds of people on how they felt the next day,

and then we also did some sort of internal kind of placebo control testing to convince ourselves of the product. And what we saw was that people were, you know, almost, I think it was like 96% of people said that they felt better the next day after the product. And then in our placebo testing, we saw really strong and encouraging results that that was due to biological activity. Yeah, you know, it's interesting about that from a business standpoint,

is you can patent something like this, right? And we did. And you did patent. In other words, nobody else can do it. Right. So it's almost like, you know, if this is, if you're in the, if this science is your field and you're finding ways to solve problems,

holy cow, that could be a potentially very lucrative 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 tried them, this is why I was skeptical when we first got together,

I was like, I've seen this shit before, none of it really fucking works, you know? Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, we are our first patent granted, and we have another second patent file for 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 acid all the iodide to kind of prevent the next effects of drinking. So anybody who engineers any bacteria to do that will be in violation of our patent. And then we also have parts of the patent that patent the genetic strategy and sort of the need to do that, it would be an violation of our patent. And then we also have parts of the patent that patent the genetic strategy and the new

degree of genetics that, because the special sauce of our strain. But to your point, what else is out there? Basically, when I looked at this market when I was first starting to decide how I was going to apply the technology and I thought this was a cool place to start, everything is out there right now. It's just different mixes 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 issue that people would drink in alcohol, they would have noticed, right? Like if they eat this plant, I don't feel bad when I say,

and so those things obviously don't work. Yeah, and they're all the same, and they're all just different mixes as 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, the, the, the monovie and the, the, the, just basically a bunch of batteries. A battery. Yeah.

Yeah. The science, then they all claim these crazy things. Right. And so they're attaching all their science just to basically the benefits behind antioxidant and go get in a handful of blueberries. Exactly, 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 in the market. Nobody else is doing any GMO stuff, nobody else. No, nobody's doing anything with genetic engineering at all. And like, you know, we really saw a problem, right? And then we like used science to build a, a specific solution to that problem. And so people often ask,

oh, what about your competitors? I don't say it to be like flippant or anything, but 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 like hydration and things like that. And like, that's fine. And that, you know, like say, I mean,

like, look, antioxidants aren't bad for you. Like they're, you know, but- Right, I'm sure somebody had monomy instead of made them feel a lot better. This is 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 we are the first, and we have a pattern on our product,

but we are not going to be the last. We know there are companies 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 you can do for human health, just beyond, you know, this is a proof of concept for people to like understand and grab onto and feel the effects of, but there's so many things we can do. So let's talk about it because you're trying to elevate this and we wanna grow this, but

yet there seems to be this stigma around GMO that is bad. Right. We were kind of talking about it off-air, share that. Why? Or do we think of it as bad? Personally, I even think of it. I heard GMO and I think, oh, yeah, stay away from that food. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'll do my best that I can myself by the time I totally

will, I'm sure. But, you know, like, we, genetic engineering and GMO, 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 together. We had bad business practices or genetic engineering enabling sort of bad business behavior or bad behavior. 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 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 population of humanity, and so we need to get them better yield. But then, more of 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 safety issues, right, and 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 on to 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 cannot put on their label. we're non-GMO, right? And like, you know, we're organic. And there is no such thing, a GMO like, you know, I see all the time, like you say, 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 things non-GMO stickers like on the wheat flour, that's the same non-gimo. And then they sell it for more, right? And all it does is into the consumer walking to the grocery store, you see this non-gimo butterfly everywhere, and they're like, oh, it must be really bad. Because everybody's saying it's so bad, and we don't have it. And it's like, this is not, and it's not, 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? I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say,

I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, maybe genetic engineering, right? And problems of feeding and growing humanities are all like, existential crises facing humanity is facing and using genetic engineering

is 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 responsible use. Yeah, it's funny when you read about the potential negatives of GMOs, really what you find is the ones that have

any kind of credibility really point to the glyphosate or the pesticides that are sprayed on them and not to the GMO plant themselves. And it's funny because years ago, there was this huge report that came out with protein powders and how they had, like, out, like, crazy amounts of heavy metals in some of them. Yeah, right.

And they were the organic ones. 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 builds up of toxic heavy metals. So people were buying products, thinking they were healthier.

Right, and they were, 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 applying 17 century technology to 21st century problems. And the idea that we could go back in time and fix everything is crazy.

We're feeding, however many 10X more people than we're feeding when that farming technique was arose. And I understand that the concern is that moving forward is creating some problems, but at your point exactly, like 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, yeah, 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 antivacres, since it's really fast. And so it was like, we all know that 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.

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? Because it's natural, but natural is definitely not safe. Like nature is our biggest enemy. All poisons come from plants, right? 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 the organic or conventionally grown eat fruits and vegetables, that's what matters. Well, yeah, 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, 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, then they're commercially going counterparts sometimes. Hydroponic, but again, a hydroponic, I don't know, but I think that could classify as organic. I'm not sure. But that would be a delta between growing it in soil or so hydroponically and things like that. So, 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, low fat, low fat forever,

really gluten free steaks. Yeah, exactly, right, I mean, red vines, you go to the movies and get red vines. And it said, a non-fat food. Right, right. Advertising it is somehow like healthy. Totally. And natural is one of those, a non-fat food. Right, right. You know, because advertising it somehow is like healthy. Totally. And natural is one of those things.

Totally. Organic gummy bears, right? Yeah, right, right. You remember gummy bears? Yeah, it's exactly. That seems to drive me crazy. It's like it reinforces this really false perception that like nature is good and you know,

and like you say like organic gummy bears are healthy. Organic is healthy or whatever. It's like not necessarily. It's all about just sugar, man. Not necessarily at all. Yeah, I feel like because of the impact that the bacteria have on us that were 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. So 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 revocations 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, refrigerate train cars into warehouses and then like load them up with livers and pancreas 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? The whole pig. And so then we forgot a way to engineer our bacteria to make human insulin force. And so now in, for intro, the size of your refrigerator, we could accomplish what we used to be accomplishing with a million pigs.

Oh, wow, I don't know. And like, and that happened in the, it was a first evidence of really successful bacterial genetic engineering that happened in the, in the 80s. And that now all humans are revolution. Yeah, and I'll, I didn't even know that. 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, there 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. Yeah, that's fascinating.

We were actually raising animals just for the insulin. Yeah. Basically raising this big old animal, all the feed that goes into it, killing them all off. 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. Even if you look at like, you know, you shop like that,

like look at corn as an example, right? We grow up the whole plant and we just take the year off, right, and we just throw away the rest, right? And it's like, or like, you know, like casing and milk, right? We grow up the whole plant and we just take the year off, right? And we just throw away the rest, right? And it's like, or like, you know, like, casing in milk, right? You know, like, you know, casing is a great protein. We put in protein powers and stuff, right? We grow 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. And it's like, we can engineer our bacteria to make that casing 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 engineer a bacteria to make that case seen way more efficiently than growing up a whole cow. It's like farting and burping methane into 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 the humanity is put on this planet in

terms of agriculture, right? Like, agriculture, we think of is 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. I mean, that's crazy, right? So, you know, using engineering, we can actually move beyond that really blunt axe we're using to try and like feed humanity. Wasn't 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 really hot topic lately. And it's awesome because we've sort of figured out like 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? If 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 these cables going to the rest of your body 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 foods 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 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 with 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 we're having with them, which is pretty crazy.

Yeah, they connected, well, loosely, a 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 I'll do with the product. Totally. And there's, I hate to like overstate because you don't want to over promise,

and I think that ends up getting science a lot of trouble as you over promise something. And then it's 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 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 Zibiotics. 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 will happen is a customer will try it and then they just, they keep getting it. So how is the success been of the company? What are some of the been have you run into any struggles or challenges with trying to grill the company? Yeah, I mean, you know as first company ever started on a scientist by nature. So I did not make all the perfect decisions like it. Yeah, so yeah We're you know classic startup 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, 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. Typically, we see that, for some people, it's the first time they try it, and for others like you or me, this can sometimes take two or three tries to really believe that the way I feel better.

We get all kinds of weird responses. People say classic, this conversation, I had like 100 people is like, I'll say, oh, after they've tried the product, they'll be like, how do you feel today? They'll be like, oh conversation I had like 100 people is like, I'll say, oh, you know, after they've tried the product, I'll be like, you know, how do you feel today? I'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 the robotics. I'm like, okay, you know, you know, why do you not drink very much? Like, no, I had like seven drinks and usually on three or four, I usually feel like pretty crappy the next day. And I'll be like, okay, so then in the back, yeah,

but you know, I had like a glass of water before bed. And I'll be 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 it's not as 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, this Z-Buy Auto thing doesn't really work. I was really up on it and I wanted to hear,

well, when did you take it, at what time, and how many drinks was this, 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. Bro, there's nowhere in here to see my auto. Yeah, totally.

So you think it's the product that didn't work and it's nothing to do with the lines of Coke, dude. Exactly. And I think it's the product that didn't work. Yeah, I think it's really, that's a really important part of 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. Yeah. And it's only going to help with alcohol that the acid out of the hide, 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 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 alohydrate is causing, but some of it is causing to all these indichrined imbalances that alcohol creates in your brain. It causes poor sleep, it causes all kinds of 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 out of high symptoms, but you will still now be dealing with much more severe alcohol-related symptoms. So. That's how I think we try our best to explain it that way,

is that it doesn't cure the fact that you only slept two hours. You know what I'm saying? Like you still only said that which you will always feel like shit with your entire life. Exactly, 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 for in the morning and then going, you know, waking up at 8 a.m. and you're like, oh, I feel like crap, it's like, yeah, well, you got like no sleep. Yeah, did you watch the video of us doing all our tests? Yeah.

That was incredible. I keep talking about how you, so off air we were talking before and unfortunately you can't share some of the stuff that you guys were doing because I imagine is and tell me if I'm wrong, there's got to 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 gonna get you hell of fucked up, and drink 12 shots like we did. Yeah, so I'm sure you can't legally do that.

So how do you work your way around that? And do 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. And I mean, for several reasons, right? Not only, well, first and foremost, I should say, 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 gonna go out and socialize like responsibly, but then you have like a morning workout or you have a routine in the what healthy routine that you don't want

to disrupt, that's really important, especially during the holidays. You're gonna be doing a lot of late dinners and having drinks and holiday parties, right? But you don't wanna fall off the wagon on all the really healthy habits you built all year. Like January shouldn't be a recovery month from just falling off the wagon, right? And so that is, first and foremost,

what the park has meant to be for. It's like to enable basically responsible, balanced social and like active lifestyles. It's opposed to like, now this is get out of jail free car for you to go to like Vegas and get this 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's working, right, like it's important to make sure that we have enough asset out of the hive in the system that we can actually see a benefit. And so obviously, doing a test with two or three drinks is really hard to tell the difference between on a clinical level. So we had to design a test that kind of met the

kind of toe-that-line right. That got people drunk enough that way we could see a difference, but that wasn't so drunk that it was dangerous or risky or bingey. And so we did do those tests internally. And we probably pushed the border a little bit more, enough that where we can see a difference, but that wasn't so drunk that like it was dangerous or risky or bingey. 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 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. Nerves 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, cause the product does not make alcohol any safer

or more healthy, right? Alcohol is still damaging, right? But, so I understand why they want us to be careful, but, you know, we had a validate internally, right? I'm not gonna go out there and start this company, like I can do a lot of things with my size. I get sweet vitamins in the bottle like everybody else, like it'd be a lot easier than the size it is.

Well, we have the same idea. Yeah, we tested it to the limit. Yeah, they're just them for sure. Well, I actually noticed it even, so because, and I don't know how much you know this or have I've shared with you, but I actually like never drink. I tend to lean to wherever there's smoke marijuana,

if I'm gonna go do something, if I'm gonna party or socialize like that. And like never drink. I tend to lean to wherever there's 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 it two drinks, and I just gutz fucked up, sleep fucked up, just, and it doesn't mean I never did. 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 when 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 acidetylidide 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, hangover's actually a really interesting and complicated as it turns out, I've done that again. 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 they're very similar nights, you know, you might feel really miserable one morning and in 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 I'll call in that Asalohide, right?

So there's a lot of good studies to show we do know right that like and this the whole premise is you biotics right is The Asalohide that forms in your gut is what's really a huge problem and different microbiomes produce different amounts of Asalohide so That is a big difference 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 previous position for sensitivity to acid alohyd, it's probably because you have an microbiome that's producing more than somebody else who's doing less alchemism in the gut. Okay, so Sal asked you, you know, the $100 million question, whatever I have, one of the gut. Okay, so Sal asked you, you know, the $100 million question, whatever 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 never drink beer. Beer before liquor, never drink beer. Beer before liquor, never drink beer. Yeah, yeah, so definitely not. Really, the stage should 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. Then it is at 145 to pound three beers. Like it's a lot harder. So basically that's a behavioral thing. It's not really like any. Oh interesting. Any chemicals. No science there. No. That's interesting. If anything actually, the carbon, you know, alcohol is much less diluted in a beer.

But if you were to like, let's say like shotguns. You equivalent them out. You probably feel worse even. You would because we actually know the carbonation, you know, basically push pressure on your stomach lining and you absorb the alcohol faster. And so 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, because for me, like rum, I just have a really bad reaction or wine specifically, I guess. You get to get right away. I mean, that can be a good or bad reaction. Yeah, that's a bad one.

But no, I have way worse angles. This is just a three of us. Yeah. If I drink one of those two things. Yeah. And so is there any sort of differentiating factors there? There's a few things that could be at play there. And so some of them are no less real, but our psychological A, you associate that,

and B, that's what you may have developed over time in the context of when you were drinking that alcohol, right? So you're much more likely, for instance, to take tequila shots or drink it in a sugary margarita than you are to take shots of a nice whiskey or something like that. So those sort of things are what create, sometimes can create a hammer.

And then that being said, there are some chemical things that could be out of play too. So red wine is an example. Actually, so mostly acid that I had your exposed to is because of your body-turning alcohol into acid on hide. But the alcohol does have some acid aldehyde in it. I mean, alcoholic beverages, I mean, have small amounts, they're called congeners, they're like by parts 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 acid I had in something or the congenre content stuff is pretty low. But red wine is a good example. If summer wines have really high levels of acid, aldehyde, it's part of the flavor. It gives a sweet flavor to it. And there are other conjurers as well.

And so it's possible that 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 shoe. As a rule of thumb, typically darker lickers have, as a rule of thumb, typically darker lickers have more congeners in them than clear light lickers. And so a darker licker is more likely

to have that be one aspect of what's playing into the way you feel. Oh, interesting. Yeah, that's why it sticks a lot to it. 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. I'm like, this is fascinating. I read the article and you guys got a bunch of people

ordering bottles. It was crazy. And you guys contacted us, but very remarkable. 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 at least talk in broad strokes, but yeah, I mean, we're looking to launch our second product 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. That one's for cooking.

Right, right. Right. Yeah. And totally, the whole goal right here is to show that we can do anything. We can do anything, right? And so like, our future products are not going to be related to alcohol.

Like our second product is related to like, you're gut and, your microbiome, and got 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 probably a benefit of a lot of people. And then we have a product that we're developing now related to extra-sacrific recovery.

So better, faster, extra-sacrific recovery, and inflammation related to that. And then we have products related to sleep and mood that we're a little further afield. 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 I said, are next products probably coming in the next year, and then I think products three, four, and five hopefully are coming in the next two to three years. Okay. Why not the vagina, or the eyeballs, or the hair? Like why, why, why these areas? Why, why did you start in all these ways?

Because like, I mean, really when you're starting places where people could really understand the benefits and not to say that there's not understandable benefits on the skin of the vagina, it's like, but people are you staking 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, a lot of things we could learn. 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. Acetyldehyde, right? Like that's versus, okay, there's this complex chain of things that we need to make happen, and that's going to be a much more challenging process.

That is exactly right. 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 and they got 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 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 in 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. Brad, last question. Okay. The Z&Z biotics, is that Zach Biotics?

Yeah, unfortunately, I was supposed, like I needed a placeholder name. Yes. I hate it. Like I basically like, you go, maybe I can. You know what, hey, this is the science guy first company guy,

Zachary? Right. Because it's your first company, your building. I think every one of us is named our first business after ourself. I mean, we almost, that was a long time. We almost named this Adam Pumpen. We got a J and J lawnmowering service.

That was my first time. Yes, it was, absolutely. You had to throw it in there. I know, I need a placeholder for like a pitch competition and so I was like, oh, Z-Batics. 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 I'll fix it later and they're like it just kind of stuck and then we did like all these naming exercises and people just like like that It was sort of like the Z was like science Yeah, that's awesome. That's great. Well, it's a great conversation man. Thanks for coming in every show. Yeah, that's really fun Also, thank you for listening to mine pump if your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically improve your health and energy and Maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maps and Obolic, Maps Performance, and Maps Esthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming

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