Your gut health plays a big role in not only your health but your sleep! Our microbiome contributes to digestion, gut lining, metabolism, and ultimately sending signals to the brain for things like blood sugar levels and cravings. These then causing a roller coaster effect on your mood, performance, and sleep quality. Some factors such as food intake, stress, aging, and drugs like antibiotics can change the microbiome dynamic in your body, and sometimes causing it to disappear. Various strains of the microbiome are pivotal in metabolism that its absence can increase risks of pre-diabetes, diabetes, obesity, and other health problems. However, more drug intake to solve these problems can cause further damage to the microbiome. Therefore, Colleen Cutcliffe, Ph, D, created Pendulum Therapeutics, a medicine that has the efficacy of a drug but maintains safety like probiotics. The clinical trials have shown this to be effective in monitoring glucose levels for various types of people, which in turn, also improves their sleep quality. Use Code: MOLLIE10 – for 10% off the first bottle of a subscription order.
Use Code: MOLLIE10 – for 10% off the first bottle of a subscription order.
BIO:
Colleen Cutcliffe, Ph.D., is co-founder and CEO of Pendulum Therapeutics, a biotech startup in San Francisco. The company’s mission is to fill the chasm that exists between unregulated supplements and prescription drugs. In this middle ground, Colleen envisions a future in which medicines are derived not from chemistry but one of nature’s greatest gifts: the human body’s microbiome.
The safety and effectiveness of the company's first microbiome-bolstering probiotic, Pendulum Glucose Control, is welcome news for more than 120 million Americans living with diabetes and prediabetes, struggling to control their blood sugar.
Colleen’s pursuit is personal. Her daughter was born nearly eight weeks premature, spending the first month of life hooked up to machines. Doctors loaded her up with antibiotics, which is the standard, often lifesaving, a protocol for preemies. But the antibiotics wreak havoc on babies’ microbiomes and could result in chronic conditions as adults [source]. Now 12 years old, Colleen's daughter already suffers from gut issues and food sensitivities that no one else in the family has.
There has to be a better way – therapies that spare the microbiome while treating chronic conditions – and Colleen is determined to forge a new path. Prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firms are keen to help her: Sequoia Capital, True Ventures, and Khosla Ventures have invested $57 million since 2014.
Colleen received a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Johns Hopkins University and a B.S. in biochemistry from Wellesley College. She completed her postdoctoral research at Northwestern Medicine’s Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. Colleen lives in Menlo Park, Calif., with her husband, two daughters, and two rambunctious dogs.
LINKS:
https://www.instagram.com/pendulumlifeco/
https://twitter.com/Pendulum_Co
https://www.facebook.com/PendulumLife/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/pendulumco/
https://www.pendulumlife.com
Use Code: MOLLIE10 – for 10% off the first bottle of a subscription order.
SHOW NOTES:
💊Colleen’s Background and Her Daughter’s Story Behind the Creation of Pendulum: A medicine that has the Efficacy of a Drug, but with the Safety of Probiotics to Control Blood Sugar Level.
💊The Effects of Antibiotics on Metabolism and Food Sensitivity.
💊Microbiome Mechanism of Action in Metabolism Problem and Sending Blood Sugar Signals.
💊A Decade of Research at Pendulum Therapeutics: A Product that Targets Microbiome Alteration.
💊The Process in Clinical Trials and Timeline of the Microbiome to Show the Effects.
💊The 2-way Street Relationship of Bad Blood Sugar Level and Bad Sleep.
💊What Includes in the Products of Pendulum Therapeutics: A Consultation Program with a Nutritionist to Pair Your Diet Preference with Pendulum Products.
💊A Blinded Self-Experimentation Journey by Colleen in Testing Her Own Product.
💊Gut and Brain Connection: How it Affects Cravings, Moods, and Daily Performance.
💊The Difference Between In-Store Probiotics and Pendulum is Knowing the Strains' Function, Not Just the Numbers.
💊Colleen’s Sleep Routine, Gratitude, and Turn Over Moment.
💊Akkermansia: The Latest Keystone of Microbiome Strain Discovery that You Could be Lacking
💊How to Get Microbiome Testing and More Information on Pendulum Therapeutics.
QUOTES:
“Because it doesn't matter if you're delivering a ton of stuff to your body. That's not really doing anything for you. It matters if you're delivering the thing that's actually performing a function for you.“
Use Code: MOLLIE10 – for 10% off the first bottle of a subscription order.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
microbiome, people, sleep, strains, pendulum, day, colleen, life, pills, important, eat, product, probiotic, microbes, blood sugar, gut, tests, diabetes, bit, glucose
Mollie McGlocklin 00:04
Welcome to the sleep as a skill podcast. My name is Mollie McGlocklin. And I own a company that optimizes sleep through technology accountability and behavioral change. Each week I'll be interviewing world class experts ranging from doctors, innovators and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Let's jump into your dose of practical sleep training. Welcome to the sleep as a skill podcast. My guest today is Colleen Cutcliffe, PhD and co founder and CEO of pendulum therapeutics, a biotech startup in San Francisco. So I just want to say that I have a special place in my heart for Colleen, we had the opportunity to actually have a call before the podcast in the lead up for it. And I was just really blown away with her knowledge, her care for this product and the what the implications can be for not only certainly sleep, but health in general. And I had the opportunity of testing out they sent over one of the bottles of pendulum and it was very cool the arrived in a box and it had this big old box and it had dry ice around it to keep it cool because it's we you'll learn more about the supplement. But basically, it is getting some pretty intriguing attention around its ability to help control blood sugar. And you guys have probably know if you've been listening to any of these podcasts previously, or just you know, in the world of sleep optimization, the importance of our blood sugar regulation on controlling our sleep results, and really particularly minimizing wake ups helping to fall asleep that quality of sleep. So one of the things that we're going to look at today is understanding more about what we can do to help control this from a supplement perspective. But also why this one in particular is getting so much intrigue. And also just as a funny aside, when I spoke with Colleen before our on that prep call. She was mentioning how she'd been on two other podcasts before this one. And she just was sharing about the experience. And so I started having more and more questions about these other podcasts. And it turns out she had been on Dave Asprey and Kevin Rose beforehand, and now has found her way on over to sleep as a skill. So we are very happy to be on that lineup with such esteemed other podcasts. So very excited to have her here to share her wisdom with the sleep as a skill community. They are also hooking us up with a discount code, which I actually don't have on me right now I got to find out what it is. But I want to say it is sleep is a skill 10 I think I will double check that and I will put the correct one in the show notes if that is not it. And if you have any trouble with that, don't hesitate to reach out. Also what we've been sharing too is that on the sleep is a skill comm website. If you go on there, we have a little sleep bot there. So if you do have any questions or comments as you're listening to this podcast, don't at all hesitate to go right on there and put in anything that you're wondering about or what have you. We're really aiming to make this as interactive as possible. So looking to help as many people as we can to make a difference with their sleep. So having said all that I want to read to you Colleen, his background is pretty cool. And it also shares a bit of her personal like why she has this passion on this topic. And she'll get into it, of course on the podcast, but just hear a couple sentences about it. So you have the whole world of it going into this conversation. So Colleen Cutcliffe PhD is co founder and CEO of pendulum therapeutics biotech startup in San Francisco. The company's mission is to fill the chasm that exists between unregulated supplements and prescription drugs. In this middle ground, Colleen envisions a future in which medicines are derived not from chemistry, but from one of nature's greatest gifts, the human body's microbiome. The safety and effectiveness of the company's first microbiome, bolstering probiotic pendulum glucose control is welcome news for more than 120 million Americans living with diabetes and pre diabetes struggling to control their blood sugar. And just as a quick extract to that now, I'm just sharing Aside from this, that many people outside of that bucket whether it's diabetes or prediabetes are intrigued by what could be possible with this particular supplement for their balancing of their own blood sugar despite not necessarily fitting in that group. So just wanted to call that out when I utilize it. I was wearing levels CGM and getting my readouts and I do not fit in either those categories but I had some of the most uneventful blood sugar that I've certainly seen. And I will also say that I was doing keto at the time, too, which does make it pretty stable kind of readings, but I do just want to throw that in there because it's important. Now Colleen is pursuit his personal her daughter was born nearly eight weeks premature spending the first month of her life hooked up to machines. Doctors loaded her up with antibiotics, which is a standard, often life saving protocol for preemies. But the antibiotics wreak havoc on baby's microbiomes and could result in chronic conditions as adults. Now 13 years old, Collins's daughter already suffers from gut issues and food sensitivities that no one else in the family has. There has to be a better way of therapies that spare the microbiome while treating chronic conditions. And Colleen is determined to forge a new path. Prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firms are keen to help her calling and received a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from john hopkins university and a BS in biochemistry from Wellesley College. She completed her postdoctoral research at Northwestern medicine's Laurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. howleen lives in California with her husband, two daughters and two rambunctious dogs. Now, having said all that, I know that was a long intro, but wanted to give a proper background on this guest. And I am really excited for us to jump right in. And again, if anything comes up for you, as you're listening, don't hesitate to reach out and create that dialogue so that we can help make a difference with your sleep. Now, before we get into the podcast, I do want to take a quick minute to give a shout out to our sponsor better help or as I like to call it a therapist in your pocket. It's the exact app that I use when I was going through my really challenging period of insomnia while traveling overseas. And the ability to maintain a consistent therapist in real life was just really not an option for me since we were jumping around from country to country. So the ability to with using my phone have video calls weekly with my therapist that was paired with a for me, actually, I connected with a great therapist right off the bat. But I do know other people who have been able to kind of shop around with some of the therapists on that app until they find a great fit for them. And in between those calls. One of the things that I found was really helpful is that you can also send voice notes, text messages, images in between that you no longer weekly video call, so that you do have this really very real ongoing connection and support that I certainly at least in my experience hadn't felt with real life therapists that I've used in the past. And also the pricing structure is much more competitive than a lot of the real life therapists that you can come into contact with. So I found it to be a lot of benefits. I recommend it to a lot of people that are just kind of going through struggles in their life or just simply want to be able to uplevel and get bringing that level of reflection and awareness into their life, about what's both working and not worth getting. And you can certainly cancel at any time and for our sleepy community. The better help company has hooked us up with 10% off if you go to better help calm forward slash sleep is a skill again, better help calm forward slash sleep is a skill. And welcome to the sleep as a skill podcast. My guest today is Colleen Cutcliffe and she is the creator of pendulum. And I am so excited to dive in deeper with Colleen because we've already had the opportunity to speak separately on a number of topics. And she is just a wealth of information. So I'm very, very excited to dive in deeper with Colleen. So Colleen, thank you so much for taking the time to be here.
08:57
Thank you so much for having me.
Mollie McGlocklin 08:59
Awesome. I'm unclear that I'm just going to have to restrain myself from asking too many questions. So what I'll do is just jump right into here, have you share a bit more about your story as to how you came to this place of creating this company, or your role in this what this has looked like and then a little bit about understanding how this plays a part in this conversation around sleep optimization.
09:24
Yeah, I think what really intrigued me about this, the idea of this company was it all started with understanding there was this thing called the microbiome, and that there are all these bacteria and viruses and fungi that live inside of us and on us. And we've co evolved with them. And they play an really important role in our health as well as disease. And I think kind of fundamentally we all sort of know that, you know, yogurt, we should be eating yogurt, we should be worrying about these bugs in our gut. But it wasn't actually a real science until about 10 years ago, and DNA sequencing technologies were starting to become much more affordable. At that time, and allowed people to really use that technology to survey the microbiome. And so I have a scientific background, I was working in DNA sequencing technologies. And I realized that if you could use this technology in a certain way, you could identify entirely new interventions that target the microbiome. And probably more profoundly, you could create products that had the efficacy of a drug, but the safety of a probiotic. And to me, that was just really appealing to be able to use all of this data to identify things that I would want to take, I want my mother to take, I would want my child to take. And so that was sort of the really big vision that the microbiome offers us as an opportunity. And as I started learning more about the microbiome, I realized that there was something actually very personal for me around my daughter. So my first daughter was born almost eight weeks prematurely. And when you have a baby That's born that early, you kind of get to see them for a little bit. And then they get taken away from you to intensive care. And she lived in intensive care for the first month of her life, before we were able to bring her home. And during this time there, she was hooked up to all these machines and monitors, but also receiving multiple doses of antibiotics, not because she had an infection. But because she was so fragile, they wanted to make sure she didn't get an infection. And when I was researching the microbiome, this study happened to come out where they were looking at 12,000 children. And they found that kids who were systematically on antibiotics when they were very young, were systematically more prone to all of these chronic illnesses like obesity and diabetes. And that it was because these antibiotics had completely killed their microbiome. And at that time, my daughter, we got out of the ICN, and she was in elementary school. But I had observed that there were things about her that were different from the rest of our family, namely, around food sensitivities that the rest of us don't have. And her metabolism is just different. And so I realized that this early start to life for her whole microbiome was decimated, was really setting her up for this lifelong depletion of really important parts of her microbiome. And so for me, just the fact that we had the technical expertise to develop a new line of products, and I had this personal story made me realize we could create products that would not only help millions of people, but could help my own child. And so it was sort of a no brainer to at least try. And so we started pendulum therapeutics that was almost a decade ago, and really excited to be able to bring our first product to market after almost a decade of research, which is really showing that you can reduce blood sugar spikes, simply through microbiome alterations.
Mollie McGlocklin 12:37
Wow, that's it. Well, that's an incredible story. I didn't realize the backstory and then your own kind of personal connection to this topic. So that's really incredible. And it helps to kind of humanize this topic and your connection with it and makes all the sense in the world, the passion that you have behind this. And then the sort of the result has been that it's it says on your website, the only probiotic clinically proven to lower blood glucose spikes, and reduce the Awan sea levels and people with type two diabetes. So if you can help break this down a little bit more of how does this really work? No, it's very complicated, but just for a little bit of a takeaway to go a little bit deeper on this so that people can understand that. And of course, we'll help people make the connection around sleep a bit more. And why are we talking about this as it relates to sleep?
13:26
Yeah, there, it's funny all the different systems in our body and how ultimately, we try to box things and think about them as separate things. But they're really all ultimately tied with each other. And when one thing is broken in the house, all kinds of other things that are also broken in the house. And so I'm excited to talk about how you know, they're all potentially linked up and what data we have to support that. But basically, one of the fundamental things that we don't think about very much is when we eat food, it all goes to our gut and is first metabolized really there. And so there are these bacteria that live inside your gut. And they help you with metabolism of your food. And it turns out that people with metabolic syndrome or metabolic issues, and when we study them, we see that they are low or entirely missing certain things that healthy people have a ton of in their microbiome. And when we look even deeper than that, and we say, Well, what what is the difference in these things that these two different groups have? What we found was that people with diabetes and pre diabetes were low or entirely missing two really key functions in their microbiome. The first function is the metabolism of fiber. So we all know a high fiber diet is really good for us are supposed to eat lots of fruits and vegetables. But it turns out that your microbiome is what is solely responsible for metabolizing those fibers. And when your microbiome metabolizes those fibers into this thing called butyrate. That is what helps your body have insulin and glucose control tells your body there's sugar coming to the system. This is how we should be responding. And so people who don't have those microbes, the fiber they're eating is literally going right through them and then their body doesn't have all the signals to tell tell them, hey, the sugars just come in this is how we should properly respond. And so the first set of microbes really are functioning to deliver this metabolism of fiber into butyrate. And then the second thing we found that people were missing were things that are involved in your gut lining. And so people may have heard about this thing called leaky gut. And the idea is that your microbiome creates all these small molecules, and that if you don't have the right gut lining, you can have these holes essentially, in your gut. And then only small molecules can make their way across those holes and into your bloodstream. And that results in things like inflammation, and hampered immune responses and things like that. And so we also realize that, well, if you have this inappropriate gut lining, then you're also gonna have these problems. So the product really does two things. The first is metabolized fibrin to butyrate, to help you with insulin and glucose response. And the second is to make sure that you have the right regulation of your gut lining. And when we put those two things together, and this is really a combination of a bunch of different bacterial strains, and the prebiotics that feed those trains, when we put all those things together, we found that we were able to clinically show that you could lower a one C and blood glucose spikes just by taking the pill alone. And we did try to sort of tease the pill apart and say, Well, what if you only did one of the things? What if you only did the fiber metabolism and you didn't do the gut lining. And it turns out, you actually need both of these things to get the full effect. And so that's really the product is a pill that delivers these different strains and prebiotic to your microbiome to give you back these functions that are missing.
Mollie McGlocklin 16:30
Wow, very, very cool. And I like your attempt at looking Okay, can we parse this out a little bit? And yet, then, you know, kind of critically, taking a look at that and seeing Okay, true to form, we need to have the whole picture to make that impact. So that's awesome that you kind of help explain that for us. I did want to quickly say that I have been having the opportunity to get to check this out myself. It's been fantastic. Because I actually have one I wanted to ask you about the delivery because you said you know, it comes in a pill. And I loved the process of receiving this, you know, it's it was chills when I received it, I put it in the refrigerator. You know, I'm new to this. I've been doing this for a little under a month. And I've already gotten to see some favorable results on my I'm using continuous glucose monitor levels at the moment. And with that, it's just been the most uneventful thing on my monitor. There's like, no swings, no curve, you know, nothing. Granted, I'm tech experimenting with keto right now. So all all these things seem to be working in this regard. And it's it's much less eventful than when I had done it previously different times when I've tested with the continuous glucose monitor. And I like to think that pendulum has a bit of a role in this. So aside from that little tangent, I just wanted to check in with you, if you could share a bit more about the way that this looks. So someone you know might be struggling with their blood sugar, or just having instability there. We have a idea that it might even be impacting their sleep. So they want to help get this under control. So they test this they start taking pendulums What does it look like? Why, like, how often are we taking it? Why does it come chilled? What is the the whole background kind of of that?
18:18
Yeah, so the experience is that you'll receive a box which it comes chilled, and the strains are live. And so they do need to be kept refrigerated, and you take the pills daily, so two pills a day. And that's really what we did in our clinical trial, we've definitely had customers who have altered the regimen based on their bodies. Of course, when you do a clinical trial, you have to give everybody the same protocol. But we're all individuals. And so people will alter things. Some people can get away with one pill a day, some people take one in the morning, one in the evening. And it's really about what is the pill doing for you, and what is the right cadence for you. And so we definitely have customers that kind of go off script from the what happened in the clinical trial. And really, customers come to us if they have diabetes or pre diabetes, because they know that they need to get their blood glucose levels under control. And they're measuring those numbers, their physician is measuring those numbers. And they're looking for a way to augment this from a natural standpoint, and there are no drugs out there that target the microbiome. So this is really on top of what their drugs might be doing for them. We have another category of customers who come to us because they fundamentally understand how important it is to not experience these really big sugar spikes throughout the day. So all of us when we eat foods that have sugars in them, we experience a sugar spike and then subsequently a sugar crash. And so if you're going through the day with these, you know kind of unchecked sugar spikes, you're on a rollercoaster ride of sugar, high sugar, low sugar, high sugar lows, and for many of us that shows up as the 1pm slump. I always say like, well, I'm much smarter if you meet with me at 9am that if you meet with via one VM because we all had that kind of after lunch slump. For some people it shows up as brain fog. Some days you might just feel not quite as sharp as usual. And maybe it's an intellectual brain fog, maybe when you're doing sports or you're, you know, doing a workout and you realize I'm just not as strong as I as I normally AM. And for many people, it also shows up a sleep issues. And so at the core of it is you want to get your body off this crazy roller coaster ride, and there are certain foods that can cause a healthy person to spike out of range. So I love that you're wearing that continuous glucose monitor, because there is no other way to know when you're spiking out of range than to really be tracking it and measuring it. And your fasting glucose level doesn't tell you how you respond to all these different foods. And so what you can start to figure out is, hey, when I eat rice, or when I eat my pasta, before I eat my salad, it turns out that I have these spikes out of range. And what we're really trying to help people do is to get out of that world where they're spiking out of range. And so we actually have quite a few Healthy People who are wearing these monitors, and seeing these benefits, and taking the product for that reason. And many people who are experiencing some of these soft benefits that are a little bit harder to measure, like increased energy, better sleep, although there are ways to measure all these things. These are things that you you know, you know, when you have more energy, you know, when you're getting better sleep, you feel it in the morning. And so it's been really awesome to hear people talking about those things, even though we didn't study them in our clinical trial. But to really show that the way your body metabolizes food, and the way your body metabolizes sugar is tied to so many things that you experienced throughout your day.
Mollie McGlocklin 21:28
Absolutely. And you'd mentioned too, that people can take this in conjunction with the current medications that they might be on right now. There's no sort of concerns or issues there.
21:38
Yes, in the study that we did, participants were most of them were on Metformin. And then we had other people who were on second line diabetes therapies, and we have customers who have shared with us the different therapies that they're on. And so and we haven't had any adverse events that would cause us to have concern. But this is one of the beauties of the microbiome. These are strains that naturally exists in us. And for many of us, we had them at some point, but we've lost them along the way, for a variety of reasons. And so there's a very safe component to this because it is actually part of your body that you're just giving back.
Mollie McGlocklin 22:11
And then what is the timeline? Or the timeframe look like for customers taking this? Would they expect that this is something that is kind of from a repair perspective, and then you take it for a certain period of time? And then you don't need to take anymore? Or is it something that really will to continue to get the benefits? You need to continue to take it or is it a multi faceted topic?
22:34
Yes. Like everything complicated? It's complicated.
22:37
Yes.
22:37
So I'll start by saying, okay, yes, it's complicated. And it varies from person to person. But here's what we do know, we do know that our clinical trial, we asked people to take this for 12 weeks. And that's because that's how long it takes to turn over your red blood cells. And so you can see one sea change. So we know that in 12 weeks, you can see this clinical efficacy that we saw in the trial. We also know that if you want to totally change your microbiome, so today, you decide like I'm going to go, I'm going to become I'm going to go on the keto diet, and I'm going to do that every day, it takes about two months before your microbiome does a full transition and shift to that new microbiome based on your diet. That being said, we also know that when you introduce new microbes, you're introducing them into this already existing ecosystem. It's like you have a garden, you're planting something new in there. And so it matters what else is in that garden. And it matters, what you're feeding that garden. And so it matters what your starting microbiome is when you introduce these new microbes, and it matters what you eat if you're feeding these microbes or these plants, as opposed to something else. And so all of those things can lead people to have efficacy or experience results at different times. And we've had people who've experienced improvements as little as a few days. And some people have had to go as long as five months to start to see things. And so it really varies from person to person, we're really trying to understand that. And then in terms of how long do you have to take them, that also seems to be very personal. But when we did our clinical trial, after people took the pills for 12 weeks, we had them go into a washout period for four weeks. So they didn't take any of the pills for four weeks. And then we looked at their microbiomes. And for most people when you're not taking the pills, the trains go away. But for a handful of people that 15% of our the patients that were in that trial, they still had the strains, even though they hadn't taken a single pill for four weeks. And so there's something interesting about those people that allowed them to actually colonize these strings, and it's probably a combination of some dietary changes, some lifestyle changes, or maybe just something about their starting microbiome and we're really trying to figure that part out still.
Mollie McGlocklin 24:41
Wow. I'm wondering so you know, when you think about kind of the some of the pillars for blood sugar, you know, control or stability, then one of them being certainly sleep affecting the conversation, but also stress being part of that conversation as well. I have a client Who's, you know, in her late 60s and you know, eats pretty well informed, and we have her on a continuous glucose monitor. And yet we see all kinds of roller coaster action. And, you know, certainly part of the theory being that a lot of that has to do with her poor sleep and chronic stress for a person like that with this also benefit, even if you know a lot of the food choices she's making, you know, of course, there's always changes you can make, but you wouldn't expect to see as much of that variability. Would something like that be beneficial for the repair of that conversation, even if it's not just like, based in food choices?
25:38
Yes, I mean, absolutely. your microbiome is it can be impacted by your food, for sure. You know, there are things that change your microbiome that are under your control, like food and exercise, but there are a bunch of things that change your microbiome that are outside of your control. So things like stress, which we don't have a lot of control over how much stress we're how many things are thrown at us, I would say the last year definitely a challenge most of us and our ability to cope with stress, aging, for women, menopause travel, when your circadian rhythm changes, it actually changes your microbiome also. And so all of these different things, it's not just that they change your microbiome, they change it in a very specific way, they cause depletions in your microbiome. So people have less diversity in their microbiome, as they go through these different processes. And so one of the important things to note is that if you are losing these microbes, you can lose them for variety of reasons, and giving them back is what's going to cause you to have some some benefit from them. And so, if you are aging, which all of us are, if you're experiencing stress, these things can lead you to have depleted microbiome. And so this might be a way to help with those things. And, and the blood sugar thing is interesting, especially with regards to sleep, because we know that if you get poor sleep, it can negatively impact your blood glucose. But also, the bad blood glucose can lead you to have bad sleep. And so there's this catch 22 that you find yourself in. So anything you can do to get out of that negative cycle and break it is really important. And the microbiome is just another tool in your arsenal to fight against that sleep.
Mollie McGlocklin 27:16
That's very exciting. And well said, I wonder if you could parse out just even a little bit more about because as you mentioned, there's just so many things that can impact microbiome health. And you know, if there's anything else that we're missing in this conversation that we should be aware of, just to share a bit about that, if that is possible. And then in addition to that curious if for people if you make certain suggestions, when they when people are taking pendulum, do you make certain suggestions around particular diets? Or is it kind of an an overarching topic of kind of a well rounded, well balanced diet?
27:53
Well, I think nutrition is a big part of the microbiome. And so actually, when you buy pendulum pills, you also get consultations with nutritionist. And we've actually been trying to expand out our offerings and our programming around nutrition, because these two things are so closely tied with each other. And in fact, we've been developing specific meal plans if you are just trying to increase your fiber, if you're a vegetarian, if you're doing intermittent fasting and trying to create a family of different meal plans that can help you try to optimize for your microbiome as you're taking these particular strains. And so I think it's super important. And what we find from our customers is that when they pair certain types of nutrition with these microbiome products, they see even larger experiences, even larger improvements than when they just do one alone and your decision to go on to the keto diet, while also giving your body these different microbes and then sort of saying, you know, I'm living an uneventful life with my blood sugar spikes. I think that's awesome. We all want to be in an uneventful life with our sugar spike,
Mollie McGlocklin 28:54
right. And stability. It's It's great. Yeah, absolutely.
28:58
Yeah, exactly. And so pairing those two things together is more powerful than just doing one thing or another.
Mollie McGlocklin 29:04
So well said Awesome. Well, I didn't I didn't realize that's, that's amazing about some of the different offerings that you guys are giving for people to be able to have some of that connection and the kind of the human connection as to how to navigate this because it can just be so confusing for so many people. I'll have clients that come in and say, Well, I'm on Metformin. So I guess that's, you know, just in having a lack of direction or clarity for some of these other things that they can do. And how about for the folks that are like, you know, okay, well, I'm not pre diabetic, I'm not diabetic. So, you know, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna die and exercise and better sleep schedule. Is that going to yield the same results as medical probiotic like this? Or is there an argument to incorporate, you know, something like pendulum into that kind of new regimen?
29:55
Well, certainly everybody should be trying to have good diet and exercise. And sleep and lifestyle. So I can't say
Mollie McGlocklin 30:03
words. That's always the goal for on, you know, New Year's or something. But
30:08
exactly, exactly dry January, and we're going to work out every day. You know, that's always the goal. And we're always just trying to be better than we were yesterday. But I think that what you are missing when you do that is a direct targeted approach to improve your microbiome. And so like, I don't have diabetes, or prediabetes, but I found that when I took the pills, and I work continuous glucose monitor, I actually ran an experiment where I told the team give me placebo and give me pills. But don't tell me which one is which. So I could actually run this experiment. And it's one of the one of the luxuries of getting to running a company like this is you could ask for those things. And what I found was that compared to placebo when I was on these pills, that for me, I do have certain times in which I hit these really big sugar spikes and lows. And across the board, all of them were just reduced when I was on the pills. And, you know, I think for us, women, as we go through, you know, different times in our cycle, we know that that's changing our microbiome. Yeah, I am definitely aging, you know, definitely deal with stress, used to travel when, when this is all happening, and hopefully, we will again, and go into different time zones. And all of those things have led to me not having those strains anymore. And so even though I don't have diabetes, or pre diabetes, I could see that the product was doing things for me that were beneficial. And what that showed up as for me was actually a more sustained energy throughout the day. So rather than going through these highs and lows every time I ate, and I could track it almost exactly what the CGM held, the continuous glucose monitor helped me to see was that those crashes that I was feeling when I was more tired, were directly tied to the crashes of sugar that my body was going through. And so even if you don't have diabetes, or pre diabetes, if you are experiencing these issues, or if you believe that your blood sugar levels are really at the heart of some of the things that you're experiencing, there's an opportunity here to directly change your microbiome, while you're also exercising and changing your diet and trying to improve your lifestyle.
Mollie McGlocklin 32:10
That's really well said, and it makes me think, too, because you made the great point of women going through menopause, or certainly women of menstruating age at different points when they have the imbalance in their hormones. And for when we are menstruating age, the when we're going through kind of luteal and experiencing change in our glucose states there. So you would certainly recommend that that could be a component or support for beginning to balance those hormones? Absolutely. I
32:39
think that, you know, again, we like to think we know so much more about all of these things than we do. And I think we still don't understand all the hormones involved in the menstrual cycle. And so anything you can do, I feel like anything you can do to help battle some of those things that we experience, especially when we're menstruating are really helpful tools to have. And the stability of the microbiome is also really interesting because it plays a role in actually our cravings. And so this is something that I found really interesting, your gut and your brain are actually tied to each other through this thing called a Vegas nerve. And your gut creates neurotransmitters that go to your brain, like dopamine and GABA and have an impact. And so one of the things that that many people experience when they're menstruating are different food cravings. And one of the coolest things that we've had our customers report to us is seven out of 10. People have said they have reduced sugar cravings from being on pendulum glucose control. And when you think about it, if your body's metabolizing sugar properly, it's sending different signals to your brain that are not causing your brain to say like I need more sugar. And so especially when it comes to hormones, and the impact they play on our cravings and our desires for different kinds of foods, you have now a way to counteract that with your microbiome, which is creating the neurotransmitters that you really want to be sending to your brain. Wow,
Mollie McGlocklin 34:02
very cool. And you touch on a topic that is super popular in this kind of biohacking sleep optimization worlds of the Vegas nerve. So want to just to see if you had any theories. I know it's hard to test for. But so many people come saying how can I raise my HRV I want to bring my HRV heart rate variability, you know, so pesky. There's so many, you know, variables, obviously. And do you feel like there's a strong theory or is that at all sound that that if this could help support the vagal tone that there could be an increase in HRV? Is it just you know, we don't have to Is it too hard to say?
34:44
Well, I don't want to be the the hammer that sees everything as a nail. But I do think there's some interesting. I mean, there's studies coming on every day about the microbiome. We're really just at the beginnings of understanding and learning what it actually does and what role it plays and things but I can say that there are special cific pathways that have been published about recently that indicate that you might be able to target cardiovascular behavior through the microbiome. And so I think that this is all yet to be uncovered. But there's a lot of opportunity we, we haven't known anything about the microbiome, there are no drugs, not a single drug has ever been created to target the microbiome. And so we're just beginning to uncover what's really kind of another organ in our body that we didn't really know about before. And so I just think there's a wealth of opportunity. And, and again, with the microbiome, in particular, it because you can use kind of the bugs as drugs themselves, you can create these natural products that are really just giving and restoring back the things that we've lost, that are helping us with all these functions that we used to, you know, be able to do.
Mollie McGlocklin 35:46
Well, I can feel you're kind of Pioneer energy that's happening, because it to your point, this is kind of this new territory, so very exciting that you're on the forefront. And you so people are listening, again, to bring it back to this topic of sleep. You know, sleep is a skill podcast, let many people are listening are either having difficulty with their sleep, or want to really optimize and takes it to the next level. So they're hearing all this and they say, okay, fine, I get it about the probiotics or prebiotics. So why don't I just buy some from Amazon or go to whatever Whole Foods and you know, I'll get even the ones that are in the refrigerator section, that must be even better? Why can't we just do that?
36:28
Well, first of all, people should experiment with different things and figure out what's working for them. And so I don't want to say like those will never work for you. Certainly, certainly, there's a book for people. But I would say the question to ask is not the data that's being reported as when you go to the store and you look at the shelves and shelves of probiotics? Yeah, we're being pummeled with is this thing called Cfu colony forming units. And we get these numbers like this one has 9 billion over this one has 10 billion, we're being told information that, frankly, is irrelevant, it does not actually matter how many strains are in there. What really matters, the question you should really be asking is, what are those strains doing? What is their function, because it doesn't matter. If you're delivering a ton of stuff to your body, that's not really doing anything for you, it matters if you're delivering the thing that's actually performing a function for you. And when you start to ask that question, then you start to understand, okay, what am I looking for, and then you can start to understand, you know, will pendulum glucose control be the thing that might help you. So our product helps you to metabolize your foods better, and it helps you with your gut lining, it helps you with the regulation of your gut lining. And we have, of course, the clinical evidence to show that that's what it's doing. And so I think that's another question is, are they just sort of saying this might help with that, or that are hard claims that they're making based on clinical trials that they can show. And I think this is, this is one of the hardest things as a consumer to really understand I, I suggest talking to your doctor, or your dietician, or your nutritionist, whoever is there to help you figure out how to make sense of all the mess that's out there, and all the different marketing angles that are coming at you. But the key questions are, what does this thing actually do? What are its functions, and what is the data to support that it's actually doing that. And so when you're talking about trying to improve your sleep, many people have disrupted sleep, because they actually have gi disorders, they wake up with belly pains, people may notice that when they eat certain foods in the evening that can cause them to have worse sleep. And it's about how your body is metabolizing or not metabolizing that food well. And so one of the important things here is that if it really is about how your body's metabolizing sugars, and if it really is about your gut lining, this is a product that has clinical evidence to show that it's going to improve those things. And but like anything else, you got to try it and see if it's working for you.
Mollie McGlocklin 38:40
So well said and you know, I like your call out, you know, to speak to your doctor speak to a nutritionist, what have you. And I think there begins to be so much more of an element for us to do a little bit of research ourselves in addition to that, because so few people are queued into this topic and the way that companies like you and I know with levels of neutral sense of looking at beginning to bring in more and more information for glucose levels and regulation for people that are outside of that pre diabetic or diabetic grouping. Because often if you try to go online and try to get information on that topic, it's very challenging to learn more and more about specific glucose levels for quote unquote, healthy individuals, even though there might be some real kind of, you know, disturbances on that regularity. So I think your the work that you're doing is so important, because we just need more and more people that are running trials like this and helping to get us something that's outside of that, you know, kind of traditional approach. So having said all that, a couple of things that we want to also bring in because it's clear that you have so much information on this topic. You've been in this for, you know, over a decade and then certainly has have begun to see some of the results of this. Are there particular cases that you can think of just that have been particularly impactful to witness for people taking something like this on? Certainly, I'm sure on their glucose. But if you've seen things for people with their sleep as a result as well,
40:17
yeah, I think we should probably read do a survey to see what people are experiencing with sleep, because we've definitely have anecdotal reports of people saying, I'm sleeping better and, and, you know, it is sort of this this cycle where what people are saying is, I'm sleeping better. And then therefore, I'm making better decisions the next day, because I'm not starting the day exhausted and feeling spent before my days even begun. And having that strength of good sleep, that helps you power you through your day also helps power you through all of the traps that we experienced, that we have to avoid, and so that we can make good decisions. And so I think it's been really wonderful to hear all of the additional benefits people have experienced, that we didn't even know when we set out to go build this product. And I think especially these, this reduction in the sugar cravings has really helped because I mean, I at least know for me personally, I definitely crave sweets at the end of the day, at the end of the evening. And but I know that if I eat something too late at night, that's, you know, a piece of chocolate cake, it disrupts my sleep. So anything you can do to reduce those cravings, or to move that timeframe up, is really helpful. And that's one of the things that the mysteries of the microbiome is how it changes your behavior that enables you to have better sleep
Mollie McGlocklin 41:30
that is so well said, Yeah, and I share that often with people that part of my quest for balancing my blood sugar has really been from a mental health perspective of you know, helping to improve anxiety, you know, kind of response. And so much of that plays in certainly on a personal level for my results with my sleep. But certainly clients that we work with, and start to see that that's part of that happy results is that the moods, the stability of your moods, just really dramatically change, I think back to so many stressors that I had for so many years in my life. And it was, you know, kind of knowingly self created because of, you know, just some of my choices around health and wellness. And then to have something that can support this quest, especially if these are some of these deeply ingrained, these are years and years of habits and we got to really clean up a number of things. This is exciting to know of some this kind of new area that can help support people that's outside of kind of prescription. So having said all that, one of the feedbacks, or some of the feedback that we've gotten, recently that we've started to add in is adding is getting some personal questions around your sleep habits, because so the people that are coming on certainly are very well versed in what's going to help support sleep. So when I get a sense from someone like you that what are you doing for your sleep, and I'm sure this evolves and changes and you know, we're still it's 2021? We're kind of, you know, on the hopefully the tail end of question mark of a, of a pandemic. And, you know, so there's, I'm sure this will evolve. But right now, what is your nightly sleep routine as it stands today,
43:09
I think there's some important things that have helped me with my sleep. And obviously, taking pendulum glucose control and managing those blood sugar spikes of the day, helps me to get better sleep at night. But I would say also, fundamentally, I think gratitude is a really important part of something that we lose sometimes along the way. And if you are you get the opportunity to spend your day working on something you're really passionate about, and you care about. And I feel very fortunate to get to, to build this kind of a product and to be helping people with health along the way. It allows you at the end of the evening, to really think about your day and all the things you accomplished and all the things that you were doing that were not really for yourself, but really for trying to build a better world around you. And I think when you can take a moment to have gratitude for those things. And it can be something as large as, wow, I'm trying to build this vision of products that are going to help millions of people. But it can be things as small as you know, I put a bandaid on my kids cut when they when they came to me or I took the dog for an extra five minute walk when you know it was that got them really excited and happy. It's all these little things that we do throughout the day that if we take the time to really be thankful for the opportunity to do those things and to show gratitude not only to the people around us, but also to ourselves for the things that we're doing. That's really important. I think that's really important for good sleep because too often we go to bed with those anxieties that we're carrying, we go to bed thinking I wasn't good enough. Today we go to bed thinking about all the mistakes we made, the things we ate, we shouldn't have the things we said to people we shouldn't have. And I think that really causes a pretty bad night's sleep. And so deliberately thinking about gratitude and deliberately thinking about all the good choices that you made through the day because you make a ton of them, I think is really important for getting a good night's sleep. And then of course, making sure you have the microbiome that's going to help you create all of those great signals to your brain.
Mollie McGlocklin 45:00
That is so well said, That's awesome. And I love that you brought in the gratitude. So, so rarely do I hear people say that and something has made a big difference in my life is a daily gratitude practice. So I've been doing it but I, you know, number it's announced a streak so I can't break in. So it's like, I've been doing it to friends and family to see, you know, a little email list. And so now I'm on 2000, like 200. And, I don't know, something like 37 days or something. And it is really made such a difference in my nightly routine. So I love that you, you know, acknowledge that as something that can make a difference there. So very, very cool. And then my next question for you is what is on your either literal nightstand or proverbial nightstand around, you know, whether it's gadgets, supplements, on Beyonds items, apps, you know, all the things, oh, man, I
45:49
have all the things I had to get a larger bedside table so I could have all my things, you know, it's books, its candles, its sense. It's, you know, the spray for your pillow. It's even, you know, my phone, we're all sometimes need to listen to some music to help meditate at the end of the day. And maybe one of the things that I have unexpectedly found has been really calming, is I have a Bible next to my bed. And I'm not like a super religious person. I'm not reading this Bible every night. But I did grow up with religion in my life. And I do think that knowing that there are just things out there that are bigger than ourselves, it's kind of a relief, it's a relief, that it's not all on us. And so I think having that spiritual side and having that reminder, when I go to bed, when I wake up what's on my bedside table of the Bible, there's actually been really calming.
Mollie McGlocklin 46:40
I love that you're the first person to say that. And I find that actually very moving. I think that's a fantastic there's something. Yeah, that's, I like how you put it bigger than us. So that's a really important one. Very cool. And then what would you say has been one of your biggest kind of sleep, aha moments or biggest change to your sleep game,
47:01
I think the not eating sugars right before bed. That sounds so simple, but it's hard because you, especially when you get to the end of your day, or you feel like I deserve, I deserve to have a treat, you know, I deserve to have this glass of wine with this piece of pie. And I think that you do deserve that, it's just a matter of when that happens. I think for me just shifting those to earlier, rather than at the end of the day, it's sort of a life lesson, like, instead of purposely always trying to push your cravings off, if you just give yourself if you just give in and the moment that you're feeling it a little bit, it allows you to actually be more stable throughout time. And so by allowing myself to have those grades, and then they have that, that little bit of sweet when I wanted, it actually means that a I don't have as many sweets as I would if I forced myself to wait to the end of the day, and then be it has really improved my sleep.
Mollie McGlocklin 47:53
I love that one. And that one is such a hard for many people, it can be a challenging behavioral change to make. But once you make it and it becomes a bit of a habit, for the most part, you know, certain there's times when we you know, just get feisty, and want to have something but for the most part, what I've found from so many clients is then it becomes something where you actually feel so much better when you wake up the next day. And often you have those, you know, if you're tracking, you have the stats to support it. So the same way I can often tell on clients stats, if they drinking is like the clearest thing. But you know, if they've eaten things that are that they ate late, I can often tell that very easily as well. So to have it be so cause and effect, I think can also help people to really get the, you know, there's there's some real gravity to those choices that we make. And yet to your point, if we're just informed, the more we know, then we can kind of shuffle those in our day and kind of take control of the results and how we feel so very well. salutely
48:55
Absolutely. And I don't want to make it sound simple. I mean, I I mean, I think that I still struggle with the the drink at the end of the day.
Mollie McGlocklin 49:05
Like you have to, like you know, Coach yourself or something. Well, do you really want to feel like this tomorrow?
49:12
Right? That reminder?
Mollie McGlocklin 49:14
Yes, exactly. I think that's a that's a huge one. And then I wanted to check because I feel like there this is such a big topic. And it's so challenging to put this all into like, you know, a 40 minute period of time or what have you. But is there anything you would say that we're missing, or that we didn't address in this area of what kind of pendulum or the microbiome and its relationship to sleep that we didn't touch on during this conversation?
49:40
While you asked great questions. I feel like we hit on all the fun stuff here. I might say there's one thing that's really emerging for us and also as a field that I'd love to share out, which is, yeah, there's a very specific strain called akkermansia Musa filla. And this is a new strain that has just been identified, you know, over the last Well, I say But over the last decade, it's not one of these things I've been around for, you know, 50 years plus. And what it's emerging as is is a really Keystone strain to our microbiome because it plays an important role in the mucin lining of our gut. And it regulates that mucin lining. And it regulates in a way that it reduces it when there's too much mucin that can also create when there's not enough. And this is really when we talk about leaky gut, and the gut lining, this appears to be a pivotal strain that you could potentially be low in. And now there are tests that you can take on your microbiome to see what are your akkermansia levels. And this was one of the strains that we identified early on as being really important. And I've just been really excited to see all of the continued literature coming out showing its importance. And it appears to be it's actually in pendulum glucose control, we've been thinking about selling it actually as a strain by itself, because it appears to play a role not just in obesity and diabetes, but also in your whole bowel syndrome, which is related to leaky gut, but also in brain fog, and also in energy levels, even in fibromyalgia. And so some of these other things. Remember, I said people have been experiencing these other benefits that we didn't expect, I actually think it might be just because of this one strain that we have in our formulation. And so if people want to go look it up akkermansia. Because akk akkermansia. It's a really fascinating new strain, that, you know, you can only get independent Google glucose control. But a lot of new studies are coming out showing that it's important for things beyond even just sugar metabolism.
Mollie McGlocklin 51:36
What Wow, I'm so glad you shared that. And then you mentioned that there are tests that you can take, are there specific steps that you can recommend for people to do that? And are there any at home that qualify? Or is it all through your doctor,
51:49
I know you can do some of these at home tests, there are a variety of different microbiome testing, you know, consumer centric microbiome testing products out there. And I think most of them at this point actually do measure akkermansia, because people are realizing this is such an important trait. And we have customers who've come to us to say, I just took this microbiome test, I'm low in akkermansia. I know that if I'm low, there's these fundamental issues. And so I that's why I want to buy the product. And so I think most of the tests out there do measure it because it's emerging as a super important strain.
Mollie McGlocklin 52:23
Wow, I know, this keeps evolving and probably will shift for other particular tests that you recommend but particular brands to go with? Or how do you kind of advise people on that?
52:35
I think that they're most of these in terms of measuring the levels of these specific strains, they use similar underlying technologies. And so it's sort of hard to tell. But one devotee is a company that kind of spun out from these professors at Cornell and on Sinai. And they use pretty deep sequencing to look at their the microbiome data. And then the other one that a lot of our customers have taken is the biome test. And that also will give you a direct report and read out of akkermansia. So those two are the ones that I think we've had the most customers taking, and then being able to use that to track
Mollie McGlocklin 53:10
how cool okay, that's such an important point. So I'm so glad you shared that with us. I mean, maybe at some point, we can have a part two or something because I know you have so much information. So for people that are listening to this, and you've sure no doubt pique their interest. So what are the steps that they can take to learn more about you and the company and what you guys are up to? It's it sounds clear to me that there's such excitement buzzing, and I'd imagine new findings regularly. So what are some of the best steps for that?
53:41
Well, we'd love for everyone to come visit us at pendulum life calm. And we have a bunch of really in depth write ups that we've put together and our digest and our blog section. And so we invite people to, you know, go read those. And you'll learn all about not just the latest microbiome, but the latest in nutrition and the latest in thinking about blood sugar and its relevance. And just to be curious and learn about the microbiome and what role it can play and to learn about our strains. And we invite people to ask us any questions that they have. This is a totally new science and you know, we are happy to share anything that we've learned along the way. Customer service is super important to us. The nutrition team is there these are not bots, these are actual people registered dieticians. So we invite you to sign up for those boot camps and different consultation opportunities that we give to people and and just be on this journey with us we're here to help people improve their microbiomes and and get to their healthier selves and so excited to have anybody come to pendulum life calm and engage with us.
Mollie McGlocklin 54:40
So awesome. Well thank you so much for your time and your wisdom and your passion. It's you know, really an exciting area and to have more and more options for people and really pretty one of a kind options is you no big deal. So I appreciate you taking the time and looking forward to learning more and I'm going to continue to Take my pendulum and watch my uneventful blood sugar results on the CGM. And be thankful for you for that.
55:08
I love it. Well thank you so much for having me and for having this podcast and really giving another way for people to learn information. So great. So thanks for having me. Oh, well,
Mollie McGlocklin 55:17
thank you so much. You've been listening to the sleep is a skill podcast, the number one podcast for people who want to take their sleep skills to the next level. Every Monday I send out something that I call Molly's Monday obsessions containing everything that I'm obsessing over in the world of sleep, head on over to sleep as a skill calm to sign up.