Speaker 1: Joining me now is the CEO and the founder of
Speaker 1: a company called Intrinsic Medicine. And when you hear what
Speaker 1: they do, I bet you your first question is going
Speaker 1: to be the same as mine, which is what Alex Martinez.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show. Hey Mandy, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So what does Intrinsic Medicine? What are you guys investigating?
Speaker 3: Basically, we believe that nature has already provided the solutions
Speaker 3: to some of our most pressing problems today. And really
Speaker 3: what we're trying to do is bring that back and
Speaker 3: make it accessible with the body of scientific evidence. It
Speaker 3: needs to be put into practice and put into real
Speaker 3: use to help people improve their lives.
Speaker 1: Now, you guys focus on gut health, and this is
Speaker 1: something I've talked about quite a bit, and back in
Speaker 1: four hundred BCE, Hippocrates believe that all gut, believe or
Speaker 1: all health began on the gut. But you're specifically looking
Speaker 1: at one thing in order to sort of heal the gun,
Speaker 1: and that is human milk. Am I right here? What
Speaker 1: what do you what is going on there?
Speaker 2: Correct?
Speaker 3: And and let me riff off of you there, Because
Speaker 3: Havocrates knew what he was talking about, right and he said,
Speaker 3: you know, all diseases start in the gut. And he
Speaker 3: also said, let food be thy medicine. Yea as well.
Speaker 3: So that gets us along the line of inquiry where wait,
Speaker 3: what was okay? So food's medicine. Well, what's the first
Speaker 3: human food? Oh, it's it's milk, milk from our mothers.
Speaker 2: And what if we explore that?
Speaker 3: And and we we look at it as not just food,
Speaker 3: but we find components that are non caloric and lo
Speaker 3: and behold we did, and there's there's fat in human milk,
Speaker 3: there's there's lactose right freely available energy. But then there's
Speaker 3: these compounds called human milk, oligo, sacrize, sugars, but they're
Speaker 3: they're not digestible by a human being for clark energy,
Speaker 3: So what are they doing? And and and that that
Speaker 3: really is the line of inquiry that kind of led
Speaker 3: to the programs that we're advancing for different purposes.
Speaker 1: So I could hear a lot of people in my
Speaker 1: listening audience going ah, and honestly, there's sort of this
Speaker 1: vision of you guys with this group of lactation within producing, but.
Speaker 2: That's not what this is at all.
Speaker 1: So tell me about the actual substance that you guys
Speaker 1: are using.
Speaker 2: Ye, that's that's hilarious.
Speaker 3: And look, let's what's hilarious is when we look back,
Speaker 3: every civilization but ours has used actual human milk, this
Speaker 3: scenario that you are describing for adult medicinal purposes. So
Speaker 3: let's not forget that that history, let alone the body
Speaker 3: builds who buy gray market donor milk.
Speaker 1: God, that's so weird, right, I don't know why.
Speaker 2: That's just weird to me.
Speaker 1: But but I'm sorry I didn't many interrupt, let's continue,
Speaker 1: go ahead, No, but.
Speaker 3: But right, but it still gives us a vector that
Speaker 3: there's something to this, right, And so like the line
Speaker 3: that I want to put down is that milk is
Speaker 3: for babies donor milk banks, that is for babies that
Speaker 3: need it.
Speaker 2: You know, when when my when my.
Speaker 3: I know, among all people, how important is the breastfeed
Speaker 3: and when my my wife had issues with it, like
Speaker 3: we use donor milk and that was a blessing. And
Speaker 3: so that's a resource that is for babies and should
Speaker 3: never be diverted. So our compounds are produced with precision fermentation,
Speaker 3: so they are nature identical. They do not take any
Speaker 3: milk away from any baby They do not come from
Speaker 3: any abreast there is there. They they are fermented. You know,
Speaker 3: imagine you know, a brewpub, except instead of alcohol, you're
Speaker 3: producing something that actually is foundational to human health.
Speaker 1: Now, you guys are actually you have several sort of
Speaker 1: pipeline things going on right now, and you're doing your
Speaker 1: research in Australia. I'd like to kind of dip a
Speaker 1: toe into why Australia makes it easier for you to
Speaker 1: investigate some of these things, because in the case of this,
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that your product, in even the limited sort
Speaker 1: of research that you or the beginning of the pipeline
Speaker 1: that you're in, probably doesn't have a lot of negative.
Speaker 2: Side effects exactly.
Speaker 3: And that's where there's a bit of a of a
Speaker 3: paradox here in the United States because these compounds are
Speaker 3: generally recognized as safe to be included in infant formula
Speaker 3: right already, right to make it closer to human milk
Speaker 3: and to provide the comprehensive spectrum of benefits to babies.
Speaker 3: But the FDA considers these new drugs right, that's like
Speaker 3: a big, long, expensive pathway. Australia has a much more
Speaker 3: pragmatic one where they literally look at the same body
Speaker 3: of evidence that we're looking at that supported inclusion in
Speaker 3: infant formula, and they're like, yeah, this thing is super safe, right,
Speaker 3: and it's likely to help these people, So they go
Speaker 3: through a local institutional ethics approval process. So I mean,
Speaker 3: these are this common sense, this fancy way of saying.
Speaker 3: It's like looking at this in a very pragmatic aspect
Speaker 3: and saying this is much more likely to help people
Speaker 3: than to harm them, and it would be minimal at best.
Speaker 3: Let's try it out and move it forward and get
Speaker 3: an answer.
Speaker 1: You have a study that seems to be the longest,
Speaker 1: farthest along in the pipeline on Parkinson's disease. How are
Speaker 1: you looking at different illnesses and positing that they could
Speaker 1: be helped that specific illness. What made you say Parkinson's
Speaker 1: may we may be able to do something here.
Speaker 2: This is a great question.
Speaker 3: Let's go back to the Hippocrates, you know quote right,
Speaker 3: all diseases beginning the gut. And so we need to
Speaker 3: start reframing our thinking that what we call individual diseases
Speaker 3: are really kind of manifestations of a common biological dysregulation,
Speaker 3: and it's dys biosis in the gut. And immune disregulation, right,
Speaker 3: and there's different permutations and thus there are different manifestations
Speaker 3: of what that looks like and how that impacts each
Speaker 3: one of us as an individual, right, that's our individualized
Speaker 3: dis ease. And so what we what we look for
Speaker 3: is we look for like hardcore statistical correlations data and
Speaker 3: one of the things in Parkinson's, So we already know
Speaker 3: these compounds in adults.
Speaker 2: Can they work amazing for IBS?
Speaker 3: I'm an IBS patient myself, Like when I started syndrome, yeah,
Speaker 3: rdable bowel syndrome. My philosophy was like, hey, you know what,
Speaker 3: we would have awesome drugs if every CEO was required
Speaker 3: to be like patient here, right, yeah, exactly, right, like
Speaker 3: right right, we would have no side effects and everything
Speaker 3: would be amazing. Right. So I lived it, and I've
Speaker 3: been I've been taking this for five years and I've
Speaker 3: I've constructively cured my IBS.
Speaker 2: And that's like what gets me.
Speaker 3: Up in the morning is saying, I can't be the
Speaker 3: only one benefiting from this, and you know, and and
Speaker 3: there's a clinical study that actually supports all of that.
Speaker 2: But what we realized is because of the.
Speaker 3: Safety of these compounds, that's that's that opportunity to get
Speaker 3: to people in in diseases that typically no one thought
Speaker 3: you could prevent, like parkinson Like how do you prevent Parkinson's?
Speaker 3: And they have what's called prodromal symptoms. So these are
Speaker 3: the ones that like happened like years sometimes decades before
Speaker 3: the nerds degenerative, like the cognitive stuff happened, right, And
Speaker 3: constipation is the biggest one if you have a prior
Speaker 3: history and this was like there was a study it
Speaker 3: was a couple of years ago, I think it was
Speaker 3: in the British Medical Journal, and they looked like twenty
Speaker 3: four thousand patients and if you had a prior history
Speaker 3: of like chronic constipation or irritual bowel syndrome right consumption dominant,
Speaker 3: your odds of getting Parkinson's were like four point one
Speaker 3: one higher.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's significant, Yeah, like four hundred and that's a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, so let me ask you this, how.
Speaker 2: Far away are we?
Speaker 1: And somebody asked on our text line on the Common
Speaker 1: Spirit health text line we have here, Mandy, is this
Speaker 1: the same as colostrum cow's milk now being sold for
Speaker 1: health benefits like cowboy colostrum? Is this a similar thing
Speaker 1: obviously you're talking human peptides or human that's the wrong word.
Speaker 3: But yeah, this is a different component and and and
Speaker 3: I know, like so colostrum has is proteins. Think about
Speaker 3: like those are proteins and those are like soluble antibodies.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, So how far away from we.
Speaker 1: Are we from having a product or a drug that
Speaker 1: people can actually use that that you know, if it
Speaker 1: does prove to be successful.
Speaker 2: What are we looking at in years? Yeah?
Speaker 3: So this is where I'm going to do something a
Speaker 3: little bit different because I actually my patience is up.
Speaker 3: I'm doing the formal drug development process, yes, but we're
Speaker 3: starting a separate entity that actually can make these available
Speaker 3: today as.
Speaker 1: A nutritional supplement.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, well yeah, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1: I mean, I hate to say it, but our we
Speaker 1: can have a whole conversation Alex on our FDA and
Speaker 1: the way stuff is approved in this country. I think
Speaker 1: that's kind of cool. I'd love to have you back
Speaker 1: on because we're out of time now. When you when
Speaker 1: you've got that out, I got a lot of people saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm ready, where can I find this? So let's touch
Speaker 1: back when you have that going and when it comes
Speaker 1: to supplement that people can buy.
Speaker 2: Alex.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that'll be working on that like today. So
Speaker 3: so this is this is a wonderful conversation. Thank you
Speaker 3: for having me.
Speaker 2: It's fascinating.
Speaker 1: I mean, I long believe that food is medicine and
Speaker 1: that you know, if you feed your body right, you're
Speaker 1: gonna feel a million times better.
Speaker 2: So this tracks with that.
Speaker 3: Diverse fiber everyone get it. Just eat it, like, get
Speaker 3: get your you know, go out and nature, be around children, like, oh, to.
Speaker 1: Get your diseases, to get your germ hits.
Speaker 3: Is that what we're doing, To get your germ hits,
Speaker 3: but also to get your biffidobacterium right because right families
Speaker 3: and people, their microbiomes converge, and so you have a
Speaker 3: more youthful microbiome if you are around younger people.
Speaker 2: Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then you and then you feed it with
Speaker 3: healthy fibers and you can you can nurture it. And again,
Speaker 3: just go out look socially and you'll see it in action.
Speaker 2: You'll see it in principle.
Speaker 1: Intrinsicmedicine dot com is their website. Alex Martinez, thanks for
Speaker 1: your time today.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it.