Eric Rieger
0:00 Hello gut check project fans and KB MD health family. I hope you're having a great day. It is now time for episode number 58. And of course we got an awesome guest. It's Dr. Sabine Hasan, who is she a world renowned research gastroenterologist, she is based in California, and she is an expert in faecal microbial transplants, FMT trusted it fast. I couldn't do it. Anyhow FMT. So essentially you're taking healthy poop from a healthy person, and using that microbiome that's inside of there to be transplanted into somebody else who may not be doing so well and could have all kinds of disease etc. Regardless, she's at the forefront of finding real solutions that can be accepted by our bodies to make us better make us well even help you lose weight. That's right. Could poop because somebody else's poop Have you lose weight, and earmuffs in case you have any young kids in the car, but she wrote a book and it's called let's talk shit, although the AI is upside down like a exclamation point. So regardless, let's get to her interview. And well first got to pay the bills though of course brought to you by artron to artron to get your daily polyphenols that are Tron teal.com or just go to love my tummy calm get your daily polyphenols. That's right. Developed by my partner, Dr. Kenneth Brown, gastroenterologist, these polyphenols are terrific for you. Whether you having digestive issues, maybe you have symptoms that are similar to those of IBS. Or you're just an athlete and you want to be your best artron to love my tummy.com use code. gut check and save I believe 20% Next, of course, unrefined bakery they've been a longtime supporter, unrefined bakery.com excellent, incredible food, regardless of your specialty diet that's unrefined bakery.com if you are keto, paleo or vegan, they've got it in that is desserts breads, etc. pie crust yeah pie crust, do you think that you are gluten free or celiac disease and you can't have pie crust, unrefined bakery.com use code gut check and save 20% off of your entire first order delivered to all of the lower 48 states and last but not least go to KB Md health.com to get your very own KB MD health CBD and Brock elite which has severe veins or ultra until you can get the signature package from Dr. cans Brown. kb Md health.com. Now it is time for oh I'm sorry, KB Md health.com. Use code GCP to save 20% off of any order. Now it's time for episode number 58. Dr. Sabine Hasan
Ken Brown
3:03 Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome to Episode 58 of the gut check project. Ooh, today's a really, really cool one. We have Dr. Sabine Hasan, who will be our very first gastroenterologist as a guest. So I'm a gastroenterologist, but she's way smarter than I am and does all kinds of really cool stuff on read. What's that? Cool stuff? Yes. Cool stuff. Indeed. It's awesome. So I put together a quick little bio for you. I apologise that I don't have your probably standard bio. So I hope I get some of this stuff, right. This is Oh, and you'll notice there's an empty seat here where my co host, Dr. Eric riegert crna, who's usually here on time. Don't do that. It'll make it blurry. It'll make it blurry. It'll get us out of focus. He almost photo bombed us. Dr. Hayes in this is Eric reser. We've already been talking and we practically had a whole podcast before this podcast. You missed it. Sorry. Oh, that's
Eric Rieger
4:05 okay. Another topic that I'd like to talk about is promptness, and being on time, that's another thing that really well, apparently I wasn't very good at today.
Ken Brown
4:14 So I'm really surprised. You know, what is what's interesting, and I hope it's something that we can comment later is that Eric got a round of antibiotics. And ever since then, it's so weird. He's just always late for everything, and I'm blaming it on the microbiome
Unknown Speaker
4:26 100% I think we should test this microbiome. I'll send you a kit. That's the first thing I do.
Ken Brown
4:34 Alright, so Dr. Sabine Hasan is a Board Certified gastroenterologist and avid researcher. She has a thriving practice in Ventura, California, and she started her own clinical trial company 16 years ago called Ventura clinical trials, and has been principal investigator and sub investigator in over 150 clinical trials. Now you say that number but I'm in like, For, and it was exhausting. So 150 Holy cow. Alright, so during this period, she became an expert in the microbiome with an interest in cdiff. Clostridium difficile. So through this process, she became one of the world's leaders in faecal microbial transplant. And through her research and expert, and through research and experience, she realised the unmet need to dive deeper into the microbiome. And she founded progenitor biome. So she is the founder of her own company, progenitor biome. And most recently, she published a fun, easy to read book for the lay person called let's talk shit. And I got it, and I read it and I laughed a lot. And it's really good. Written in a great lay, lay person point of view. And I loved it. So Dr. Hayes, you want to talk some shit? Talk?
Unknown Speaker
5:57 Let's talk shit, for sure. Oh, at least finally a podcast that's like willing to go there? Like, oh, I don't think we should talk about it. Or we should say another word. And I'm like, Are you kidding me? I've seen half the books that are out there. The Art of not giving a f EU Oh, that's number one bestseller. But let's talk shit. We can't even say the word shit. Since when is the F word more acceptable than the shit? Come on?
Ken Brown
6:28 This is true. Unfortunately, I think I use the words quite frequently, both of them often. So I really do not discriminate.
Unknown Speaker
6:36 I named it that way. Because too often, you know, we sugarcoat microbiome, right? We made it pretty. But I think we're entering in a world of microbiome, we got to tell the public and the consumer what it's all about. And that's why I wanted it. First of all, I thought it was funny. I mean, this is like a tough topic, right? People come to us as gi doctors, bloated, gassy symptoms of you know, bowel changes, etc. And so we hope to, we have to explain to them and how do you explain a topic like the microbiome, without, you know, a little bit of humour to digest it a little bit better? My opinion, that's what I that's why I named it. So to give it full transparency. And then the other thing was to, essentially, you know, make people smile, because there's so many jokes you could say about it.
Ken Brown
7:30 I heard you on another podcast where you're exactly right. As gastroenterologist, we have no problem talking about it. But I have the same issue with patients. They're like it was so embarrassing. I don't want to discuss this. I'm like, we have to discuss this. And then that goes from that to Okay, well, as long as you're comfortable with it. Here's some pictures.
Eric Rieger
7:49 Not all the time, like no pictures, please. Okay, sometimes randomly the nurses they showed up with the bag.
Unknown Speaker
7:58 Field great. I mean, you know, you probably know Neil Stallman, right? Yeah. So Neil, when I was a fellow at University of Florida, and I was presenting my research on visceral hyperalgesia, which was super clean, would come to me and say, You better start getting your hands dirty, because we're going into the ship business. I said, No, please, they call me Gucci girl in the GI lab, because if it's dirty, if the colonoscopy was not clean, I was out of there. I'm like, sorry, we do the prep, come back next week. I'm not cleaning the patient, right. And then the mere mention of having to actually play with tools and putting it in there was just something I never ever thought that would even happen to me. And, um, you know, when a patient is about to die from C diff, and you tried everything from, you know, antibodies after antibiotics to, you know, clinical trials, and that was my, my path, right? I was doing clinical trials, and Neil was doing people transplants. And we met when I was doing a clinical trial on faecal material in a capsule because every time I would do a clinical trial for pharma, if the pharmaceutical product didn't work, I would do faecal transplant, because I would say, Well, you know, the patient trusted me to heal them. And whether they got placebo or the drug didn't work, it's my obligation to make sure they're fine. So I would do people transform them. And then I discovered all these things. And of course, I you know, I blame Neil in a way for stepping into this because I've stepped in fully and every day I play with it, I can tell you the first time I I was, you know, looking at collecting stools, I think I almost passed out. But then you develop you know, that survivor or that, you know, warrior mentality that you're like, I can do this, I can do this. I went into gi I'm tough and blameless goes I can do this. And that's what happened.
Ken Brown
9:59 So I'm really curious about your history. Can you just give us a little background about like your family and where you came from who you're married because I find it all really interesting. Your, your past is fantastic to where you are right now
Unknown Speaker
10:13 increasing the volume. So I'm I was born in Morocco. My parents, you know, my background is pretty much a mud like Spanish background German, you name it. It's all mixed in Italian, I was happy to see on 23andme I have some Italian blood and Greek. So I'm a mutt. And essentially, my parents immigrated to Montreal, I was raised in Montreal, went to medical school in Nova Scotia. My siblings all went to McGill and wanted the McGill route. And I went down housing because I didn't want to, you know, in my family, you had to live at home if you're going to college in Montreal, but if you go to college elsewhere, then that's the only exception to moving out of the house. So I said, Okay, I'm going to Dalhousie and Dalhousie was, was fun because it was you got into the rotations of, of medicine right off. You know, from day one, you were seeing patients. So that was kind of fun for me. And then I was gonna go back to Montreal, and I had a cold and I was interviewing for positions for internal medicine and gi for internal medicine, I don't even think I was going to be a GI at the time. And I got an interview a University of Miami Jackson Memorial Hospital, and they paid for my plane tickets, because they love Canadians back then. And they paid for my hotel. So I said, Oh, free trip to Miami. And then I show up in Miami, and I'm interviewing, I'm doing the interview. And they're telling, they're showing me like a room of 10 CAT scans, and you know, just like beautiful hot. I mean, you've been I don't know, if you've been to Miami Jackson Memorial, it's it's a city in itself. And back then, I mean, we had one CAT scan and the whole country of Canada, I mean, show up in my app, and you've got like 10 CAT scans in the room, and it's like, and then they sell you on Miami, and they're like, Oh, you could live in, you know, on the beach. And then you could go to the hospital, like, I'm there. I'm coming. So I showed up. And that was during the, the world of HIV. You know, that's when HIV was really, you know, really starting and all right, I remember here I am this, you know, kid that my parents kept like in a, you know, protected and clean environment. And then I'm the move, I'm moving to Miami, and I'm dealing with, you know, HIV, like 12 HIV patients a night and patients are like throwing blood all over the walls. And you remember the, I don't know, you're probably much younger than I am. But, you know, this was this was war, right? And so, me and Neil and my colleagues from Miami, we we trained under those circumstances of patients coming and crashing from HIV, kind of what we're seeing with COVID. Right?
Ken Brown
13:04 It does have some and yes, I did have that we had our aids Ward where you would have to rotate, and then you have to make sure because their CD forecasts are so low that you you know, so you didn't want to give them any microbes that could hurt them. We just didn't know back that
Unknown Speaker
13:20 you didn't know. And we were so scared, right? We were if we got pricked by a needle, we, you know, you'd hear the residents like chopping their fingers. You know, going into a room of a patient that was altered mental status and being dressed like an astronaut going into space. And I met my husband, by the way, in Jackson Memorial first day of internship. And we became best friends because we were on call together. And it wasn't like scrubs or er, although kind of, but it was kind of fun. We were together we like work hard and do call and then we'd go party after on South Beach. So we met under this circumstances, and I think some of my best friends and you know, I've been married to my husband almost 30 years. So I think that really that environment really, you know, bonded us forever The memories, my colleagues because it was really survival. And he used to joke because he used to say, you look like an astronaut going into space. Going to see these spaces are like I'm not coming because we had TB resistant TB and HIV. We had all sorts of infections in that hospital. So it was really Warzone. And at the same time, you're treating these patients that are swallowing bags of cocaine, and in condoms, right and you have to like wash the bag evacuated. So it was really it was intense. I mean, we were I was taking care of your HIV patients criminals. I mean, it was just it was a interesting times but it forms you and makes you you know, a top doctor that you can do survive, you know, helping people no matter who they are. Right. So I think that that was it was great for me. It was a great education. It was great. And then in Miami and residency, some guys said, because we were, my husband wanted to go into cardiology, and I said, Well, maybe I'll go into cardiology. And then some guy said to me, you know, we don't take an eye and I said, how's gi his gi a good feeling looks kind of fun. I mean, it's like surgery but without doing surgeries, and he said, we don't take women in gi so don't bother well. That's all it took.
Ken Brown
15:40 In there on challenge taking you ripped off your space suit room is roomful of AIDS people vomiting blood me like I'm gonna do gi
Eric Rieger
15:52 the lion You sound like you're talking shit. Let's talk shit.
Unknown Speaker
15:56 So basically, yeah, and back then gi and it was actually a miracle because back then gi was like the the flexible StG where you're like, touching your like, baby, you train with that. You were still you were probably kaleidoscope. I
Ken Brown
16:12 am actually a few years older than you. And so I went through everything you're saying I'm 100% dead. But I will say this, you've got way more guests than I did. I interviewed at Miami. And I went I looked at the volume and what was wrong because Miami had that they had more than a bigger HIV population, tonnes of age, lots of trauma, all that stuff. And I'm like, I like the warp. So I was training in Nebraska and I just got sick of the cold. And so I just moved south, I just drew a line from California, Arizona, across and it basically Texas is like Midwest but south. So I just but Miami I was I remember thinking, Oh my gosh, if I do residency here, you're just you're just not gonna sleep.
Unknown Speaker
16:53 And actually, I was sleeping because I came out. So I was a Canadian train. So we trained with like physical exams, right? you examine the patient, you actually say, oh, gallbladder problem just by doing, you know, Toby's face and percussion, etc. So, you know, it was much faster for me to take care of patients. So me and my husband used to have like, gone, you know, he would, he would come in the column. He's like, you're sleeping, I didn't sleep. And I'm like, Oh, you know, and then we would have this competition of who would discharge the patient and treat the patient the fastest. So there'd be a board. And it'd be like Hasan and Steinberg and HIV patients and I'd be like, I'm giving them this, this, this, that and that. Okay, they're fine out of the hospital one day, and then it'd be like zero. He's in 20, Steinberg and then
Ken Brown
17:42 eventually he just made everybody DNR and just flowing out.
Unknown Speaker
17:48 He was it was a you know, it was it. We do things for challenges, right. I mean, we do things. Why do you go into medicine? Otherwise, if it's not the treat, that's what bothered me with this whole COVID is like, was the idea of doing nothing. I the patient's having shortness of breath, oxygen, the SATs and you do nothing? I couldn't understand that mentality because you have to try.
Ken Brown
18:12 So I have a feeling that this we're just going to go all over the map here. So I'm going to get right off because there's something I was super impressed that you did, you gave a lecture on COVID and ivermectin way back. So now ivermectin, now, all these things were being said, are now coming to light and going, what the heck, why don't we? Yeah. How did you realise ivermectin fairly early.
Unknown Speaker
18:36 So it was I started the protocol with the hydroxychloroquine, which went completely political. And my idea was, well, makes sense, right? That's kind of like what we do with H. pylori, multiple drug combo. So I thought, well, hydroxychloroquine azithromycin would be killing the virus and then vitamin C, D and zinc would boost the microbiome, right? So in other words, you kill but you boost right? So you we we bring the balance. And so Dr. Berg when hydroxy glow. At the same time, Dr. Brody said you know what, I think ivermectin is a better solution, because he was investigating himself. And you know, Dr. Brody is the man we all follow for his leadership on faecal transplant, but also he was the one the brain behind H. pylori and triple therapy. So he was the one that said combination therapy, and he's big on combination therapy. I mean, he's used combination therapy for two patients in Parkinson's, he published on that. So, basically, for me, it was following his direction. And he said to me, you know, what we need to do ivermectin, doxycycline zinc. And I said, Yeah, but you got to add the vitamin C and vitamin D. Nothing should be done without vitamin C, and D because you're killing the virus. And in fact, the microbiome is going to tell the story, and it's going to be amazing, because I showed the data to Dr. Ayman quickly, and you know, Dr. COVID,
Ken Brown
20:02 right. The Godfather of probiotics,
Unknown Speaker
20:05 yes. And and by the way, he was like fantastic data. Fantastic. And he's on my paper that's coming out. So yeah. So I got I got Dr. bozkurt from Turkey. I got Dr. Brody, of course in the paper and even quickly, so and it's basically blank, blank, blank susceptible marker for COVID-19. And we know we're going to show in the microbiome why ivermectin is working. Oh, that's cool.
Ken Brown
20:39 So both Eric and I are big fans of the podcast. Brett Weinstein the Dark Horse podcast. Yes. And he had the critical care doctor from New York, pa Corey. Yeah, up here. And I was just floored because, you know, like all of us. We, we there's only so many hours in the day and we do quite a bit of research and I'm and ivermectin caught me off guard. I went, I was like I was, I was behind the curve on that one. I looked back and went. How did I miss that? How did I miss ivermectin? That's why I was so impressed that you were on it right away.
Unknown Speaker
21:09 Yeah. And by the way, when you see what is doing to the microbiome, it's going to be as clear as life because what happened is because I have a CR O, and I'm able to put these protocols through pipelines through the FDA. And by the way, I did it because I had enough of pharma. You know, I had enough of putting these products and then you saw with the Alzheimer study, this Alzheimer drug goes into market, and the benefits are like, you know, what's going on there. So I said, we need to have doctors lead the path for pharma. In other words, doctors come up with these solutions, and bring them to the FDA. And so I kind of started this with COVID was more of a lead to show it Look, I'm taking combination therapy, and I'm putting them through a pipeline, I wrote the protocol and I submitted to the FDA and the FDA approved it right off the bat. Then the FDA then had second thought, because they said, Well, you need to have a placebo, and I said a placebo and COVID in the middle of a pandemic. I'm like, that's like. And I said, we're in the middle of a pandemic. Rome is burning. Are you asking me to use a bucket that doesn't have water? On the fire?
Ken Brown
22:30 Okay, the house is on fire. I'm going to give you a bucket. Yeah. And you're gonna get a bucket. Now go put it out. Yeah. And then walk one of those bucket was gonna have water and one's gonna have nothing makes gasoline. More than anything, because we're talking about COVID here. I mean, it's like giving a placebo is like giving gasoline.
Eric Rieger
22:48 Okay, so some burning Sinan fire truck. And over here sim school bus?
Unknown Speaker
22:52 Yeah. So that's basically what happened. And then I started, when I submitted these protocols, I said, Okay, find the, the placebo is going to be a vitamin. So we did vitamin versus the other thing. But what we discovered is when we started looking at the microbiome and looking at we found COVID, in the stools, whole genome sequencing presented at an american college of gastro and then it got published, took six months to get published on gut pathogen, because they couldn't believe it. Right? They were, what is this real, we had to like submit, it was sent to the who I mean, it was just too ridiculous, you know, long term time to get that paper published. And so when we started looking at the microbiome, we discovered something in the microbiome. And we discovered something in the microbiome of those that were super sick, compared to those that were not so sick, compared to those who never got COVID to begin with. But yet we're exposed to patients with COVID. So we said, Wow, if this is a susceptible marker, so it was so basically became like a susceptibility marker, right. And so we determined that if we don't know the baseline of the microbiome in a patient, and we're giving them placebo, and that person has those microbes are super high. In other words, where's your immunity in your gut, right? And your immunity at baseline is super high, and I'm giving you a sugar pill? Well, of course, it doesn't matter because you already have like super strong microbiome to survive. COVID So is it fair to compare a placebo to a person, you know, that doesn't have a good microbiome? You know, you're comparing like an athlete running a marathon to a person on a wheelchair. Unless you know, the microbiome, you're really doing placebo controlled trials useless and COVID in mind,
Ken Brown
24:47 you're bringing up something that is, I mean, could be a complete game changer in how pharma would do and type of research in the future. Yes, because what we're saying what you're saying is, if You do not have. And we've discussed this kind of stuff on the on other podcasts. If you do not have a diverse microbiome, are you able to take full advantage of these medications that we believe are helping because the FDA determined that there's a safety profile on it, therefore, it goes to the second trial. And then just like you said, in phase three and four trials, you're 6% better than placebo. So because of that, it's now a $14 billion drug that got bought by a bigger company.
Unknown Speaker
25:26 Yes, absolutely. And we are entering into a world of research now, that is no longer research. In my opinion, medicine is no longer an art, it's a business. And that's scary to me, because that's not why I went into medicine. I'm sure that's not why you went into medicine. We're all individuals, we should all have an individual treatment. We have the technology now, especially with what we do with Regina biome, to understand with precision, these microbes of the individual, and the future is beautiful, because it's going to be a readjustment of microbes to attain that precision medicine. We need to get there, we can't be stopped, because roadblocks is what stops innovations and stops answers. And we got to keep asking questions and say, is this is this correct? Is this safe? Why are we doing this? Why are we not? The moment we stop asking questions, we stop science, we stop research, we stop finding answers. And then in my opinion, humanity is lost. I mean, you're talking about diversity. Look at the diversity of microbes. Over the last 100 years, we've gone from diverse microbiome to now an diverse look at 1980 the rate of autism was one in 2000. Now it's one in 20. In New Jersey, something is happening in the microbiome that we have to pay attention to and is it the herbs we're giving? Is it these vitamins that are over the counter and supposedly have the vitamins right? Or is it the probiotics? Is it the right probiotics, the wrong probiotics? So I think all that we need to fine tune a little bit more.
Ken Brown
27:06 fine tune is an understatement that
Unknown Speaker
27:09 sure, like people come to you and say, Doc, I want I'm on this probiotic. And you're looking at this bottle and you're shaking your head, right. Probably. Dr. Hasan,
Ken Brown
27:21 have you met Kiran Krishnan from microbiome labs? Yes, yeah. Very, very, very smart microbiologist. We had him on the podcast and we discussed this exact thing about the fact do you know if it's alive, do you know that you can get a a railcar, you know, like one of those big giant crates for like $2,000. From who knows where and then anyways, we went into the whole aspect of probiotics and how easy it is to make your own probiotic. Yes, put your label on it, but you have no idea if it's gonna do that, you know, you have no idea if there's data it's gonna survive. So absolutely on the same page. bacteria in the gut that's live is dangerous, in my opinion. Yeah. And that's in your book, your offices. It's funny, because in your book, you you had a brief segment about how people in the desert when they would get I don't know, dysentery, they would eat Kagame. And Kiran brought up that exact same thing. oil based, soil based people figured out early on that somebody got sick, they would eat the camel dung, and they would get better. Yes. And you brought it up there, which was fascinating.
Unknown Speaker
28:27 To the soldiers were stuck. I forget where but they they had Calera and that's how, you know, the Bedouins told them. Just eat the apples from the camel, which is really the poop from the camel, and they cure the colour all of a sudden.
Ken Brown
28:45 Isn't that crazy?
Unknown Speaker
28:46 I know. We're not going to go into that because I don't think people want to eat that. But I think we can understand the microbes that are play. Right. So that was my thing is we're heading up.
Ken Brown
28:58 I just saw Eric trying to order a camel off Amazon. No,
Eric Rieger
29:02 no, no, I've got a coupon for camel apples. Oh, that's what it is.
Unknown Speaker
29:05 I already trademarked sisters of Camelot. I was in Jordan with my sisters. And we were on camels. And of course, you know, they're pooping all over. And it came to me. I said, I need to analyse the stools. So of course, I took my eye because I did bring some kids with me. And I'm taking it. I took it home and looked at it. So I said, Okay, we're starting sisters of Camelot. But we're not going to start that because I'm my plan not to make people eat pizza because
Ken Brown
29:36 of you. You're the reason why when I'm coming back from a from a country and in customs, they're like, Did you bring any animals? Do you have any food? Do you have any camel dung on you? And I'm like, why would I have Canada? No.
Unknown Speaker
29:50 It was me. It was me. Actually one time my husband brought in an apple to an island and actually we got fine. I think they got the memo. They were like Dr. Hasan's come in, there's probably some microbes in there, stay away. $200 fine.
Ken Brown
30:07 Alright, so we got so many things I would love to talk about. But I do want to really hone in on progen ibiam for several different reasons. Number one, I am also trying to run a different company and you know, have all this stuff, you've got a lot of stuff going on, we got a lot of similarities and how your enthusiasm and your need to keep your curiosity forces you to start other companies to sort of meet the need that you're trying to find. So can you please tell everybody what progetto biome is?
Unknown Speaker
30:36 So progenitor biome is a genetic sequencing lab, what does that mean? It basically looks at the microbes, the genetics of the microbes, so the fingerprint of your microbiome, kind of like your DNA, but the DNA of all your microbes that co exist and cohabitate in your gut. It's so when I explain this, we have a choice. When we look at the microbiome to look superficially, it's kind of like scuba diving and being at the ocean, in the top of the ocean and seeing guppies or going super deep into the ocean and seeing the life and so we go super deep with every patients. So we can look superficially and do a lot of patients with that cartridge. So when we do genetic sequencing, you have to take that stool sample, which is the size of a fingernail, and then we have to tag it and do library preps are called and then we put them on these cartridges, and then essentially the cartridge we have a we have a choice, we can use the cartridge and do multiple development and see the surface. Or we can go deep, deep and use that same cartridge into the depth. So we go into the depth of the microbiome, to look at the microbes a species because that's what we want. We want species of microbes because we as doctors understand species, you know, to the rest of the for the forever the world of microbiome has been from acuities bacteroides. Right? But that's very superficial. So if you remember microbiology you go phylum class, order family, genus, species. I don't want to be at the phylum phylum is like looking at Planet Earth, right? I don't want to be at the class. That's like looking at London. I want to be almost at the family to say Mr. And Mrs. Jones, but I really want to see the species to see the kid of Mr. And Mrs. Jones, who has autism, the species tells the story, right? Because when you see mycoplasma for the first time, which is a cellular doesn't have a cell wall, and you see 40,000 sequences or 40,000 mycoplasma shapes into the microbiome. You say this kid has mycoplasma, and that's the cause of his problem. Maybe, right? Because then the next step would be, well, what is mycoplasma succeeding, and is mycoplasma. So creating something and therefore active in that patient, or it's just a dead organism? But even if it's a dead organism, why does that kid have so much relative abundance of that? So really, it's looking at the species and understanding the species yesterday, I was excited because I had a Crohn's patients. So remember, for Crohn's, I'm always looking for mycobacterium tuberculosis, right? Because that was Dr. Brody's idea. That map is the cause of Crohn's. Right? But when, but other scientists have come in and says said, well, you're sending your your sindhya and turistica is the cause of Crohn's. And then others have said, malice sees your firfer. And so you look at all that and you go Well, which one is it is a mouse, he's your first and your semi analytic as a map. So it's important to look at the species. And when you look at the species, you start going, Wow, this patient has a lot of eco lie a lot of Shigella, a lot of demopolis. There's definitely a dysbiosis there, right, because we know that these microbes have been the culprit of problems E. coli, chronic urinary tract infections, you know, Shigella, you know, all these bugs. So when you look at the species, and you see the species, and you can kind of make a correlation, it helps in the diagnosis and helps guide you with the patient. And so, to me, that's what it was basically. So that's why I started 42 clinical trials, we're actually up to 59. Now on every diseases, because it was that look, every time a patient comes in with Crohn's, we would say, Crohn's database going there, but what we discovered from the beginning with progetto biome when we looked at everyone, and that was something that made me think, you know, what's out there like you biome is not legit, because they're comparing individuals to others, but we're all different. How can we be compared? So what we so the first thing we discovered Regina biome is we're all different, which, you know, I know, you know, by common sense, right? We all have different fingerprints. How can we have the same microbiome? and Why would my microbiome that was in Jordan, B compared to someone that lives in Greece, right? Completely different microbiome. But why am I healthy with this microbiome? And this person is not healthy with down microbiome, right? That's the million dollar question. So we started noticing, well, if we are all different, how do we compare? How do we understand the microbiome, so the only thing that you can compare is really within the family. And then the other thing that you can compare is within the individual. So whenever you have a product that you want to give it, you have a patient with Crohn's, and you attain a cure. And that was my thing that I would speak about at conferences, attain a cure, understand the microbiome, right? Because if you attain a cure on the same patient, and you see the microbiome before and after the cure, you know that something changed in the microbiome, and what was it that changed that obtain the cure. And so that's basically my bath is, is looking at families. And then from there, once you have like a group of microbes that you've identified and said, Okay, well, that makes sense. This is the bugs, these are the bugs that are related with Alzheimer's, because I've improved the patient's memory. And now these bugs have disappeared. Now, let me look at other groups and see if those bugs are in those patients with Alzheimer's, and let's come up with an essay. That's a formula. So ideally, what I want is the dictionary of all the bugs with diseases.
Ken Brown
36:43 Let me back that up just a little bit. First of all, it's super fascinating. And there's a lot going on here. But as the as gastroenterologist, and I know that my colleagues get this, I get second opinions. And so they'll come in, and they'll just hand me this pile. And in evitable, II, there's some sort of stool analysis. And then somebody will circle things and then say, you need to take this supplement for this, this supplement for this this supplement. And I've always just flipped it over and said, I'm sorry, just because we can analyse it doesn't necessarily mean that we need to make recommendations on this or that we can manipulate it. You're saying, just to clarify is that progen A biome your company is doing a much deeper dive and making the association with diseases, yes, with the person that comes in so that you can at least develop a trend and start to predict how or what I need to do for it.
Unknown Speaker
37:43 And the other thing we did is basically we created an assay that we felt were the 25 actually 15 most important microbes for disease. And we validated that. So what does that mean? We took microbes that were cultured, we bought them, and we put them through the pipeline. And lo and behold, see this was seeded because we had the microbe. So that's validation process, right? The second thing we did is we verified the validation process. In other words, let me repeat that to sample Am I getting the same value? And then let's reproduce it right. So let's reproduce it at month one that's reproduce it by someone else, another technician takes on the same standard operating procedure of how we develop this asset. And basically, we produces the asset. So I was very vague at the beginning. And I hired a genetic sequencer, PhD physician, who is actually behind the bracket gene. And his genius, who developed the essay for me with me. And I said to him from the beginning, I said, Listen, I want to be able to give you a stool sample, and I want you to be able to reproduce the same thing. In other words, I give you my stool sample today, tomorrow, next year, it should be the same fingerprint, the same exact colours. Because if you I'm giving you a stool sample today, and in a month, I'm giving you another sample, but it's no longer the same colours, and the same fingerprint while you're comparing apples and oranges. And that was the whole problem with all these sequencing lab because I remember and again, you'll see them and I would call them because like you I was getting patients that would bring me Sue samples, and I would say what does that mean? I mean, like bacteroides in your gut, what does that mean? And I would call I would call Neon is like nothing, it's all bogus. And I know there's a whole holistic path out there that has looked into this, but you know, they have their vision but unfortunately, you know, we need to bring the holistic and we the idea that holistic healers have achieved and bring in into gi to understand it with the microbiome In my opinion, right. Bring everything that's out there and say, Okay, well, we all see this from this guy and this from this guy. Let's put it all together to say, yes, this is accurate information. This is valid, verified and reproducible data, because everything in science, you have to reproduce it right? If I do faecal transplant on a patient that's has alopecia areata, and my patient grows hair like Dr. Colleen Kelly. Then I've just reproduced Dr. Colleen Kelly's data. And I can say, Well, I did this ABCD like Dr. Kelly, and I got ABCD the same thing and my patient blue hair, right. So reproduction of validation, verification, and reproduction of data is very important in research. But, you know, the problem is just too many we live in a world where people want to just fast, fast development of products fast sell, you know, like sell a probiotic, sell this sell that. And we've stopped the research because it takes time to do research, but it doesn't have to take time to do research.
Ken Brown
41:06 Where you're gonna say something? Yeah,
Eric Rieger
41:07 I had a quick question is, so you've talked about the microbiome. And obviously, you've been able to look at different diseases and then figure out where they match up. And whether the same somebody it's kind of interesting to me, though, is that locally, that makeup of that microbiome, of course, is at the local level in the colon. But they've all looked at the second level and tried to map out that it also matches not just in the makeup of the microbiome, but what those post biotic metabolites would look like. So that the systemic responses are also the same to mimic what what the makeup is
Unknown Speaker
41:44 absolutely an excellent point. There's so the microbiome is different at every location in the coalmine, that what we're doing is really a beginning of seeing what it's looking like at a deep level. The next step that we're going to do, and we're going to be working with a company that developed a capsule that is guided that takes a sample of Seoul, from every different locations, where we can show with precision that the stomach microbiome looks like this, the small bowel microbiome looks like this, the seachem looks like this, the transverse colon. So that's going to be coming because that with that technology, hopefully we can deliver precision microbes to those areas to achieve cures in the future. And, you know, capsule endoscopy, I was the first one Well, one of the first doctors to start using it. And that was the first time that we saw that I saw myself a parasite floating in the small bowel. That was a revelation, right? When you look at the, the sequencing of the microbiome, and you see all these microbes, and I said that I found c diff in my gut, um, you start going, Wow, this there's a mystery there that needs to be figured out. Yeah. Because the microbiome is everything. You're you're born with a lot of good microbes, you die with very little good microbes, right? You live, and then the microbes consume your body and put you back into the earth. So from the earth to the earth. I mean, we're proving that with the microbiome. So even on a and I think for me, the biggest lesson about the microbiome is really that diversity is key to life, key to health. And I was just speaking on the microbiome at a farm polyface Farm that's really big on regenerative farming. And so they believe in diversity of farming, they believe in, you know, coconut, you can't just put like avocado trees, you got to put the avocados with the blueberry trees with the tomatoes with everything. And it's the diversity that creates the beauty of the soil and the amazing, you know, matrix of microbes underneath the ground that feeds us really.
Eric Rieger
43:55 So yeah, they they try to discourage monocropping now, because it will destroy the soil. They wanted, they want to switch it up. Yeah, right.
Unknown Speaker
44:04 Well, you see, Amazon jungle, they tried to do that they tried to utilise things from the Amazon jungle.
Ken Brown
44:11 So one more time in your book, you're you're not discussing the examples that you have in the book. But I was just thinking you had that great section on we should be doing green burials because what we're not doing is giving our microbiomes back we have micro biomes are trillions of microbiome we should give them back to the soil so that then other you know, it'll fertilise plants. We shouldn't be embalming ourselves. We shouldn't. We should be green burying and let that happen.
Unknown Speaker
44:42 We should, we should. So that's what we should be doing. I have someone at the door but I'm gonna ignore them. You can go get him. You can.
Eric Rieger
44:49 I am on bring him on.
Ken Brown
44:51 Let's listen, we have some reach. Maybe Dr. Brody saw this and said I'm gonna fly over there and see Right or Yeah, that would be great. Do you have one quick question about progetto biome and then I
Unknown Speaker
45:12 talked to Dr. Brody like every day two to three times a day times on love the man will have to
Ken Brown
45:19 genius I've never personally met him obviously read tonnes of his tonnes of his work even quickly I've met a tonne of times and you know he's just so nice and so approachable and everything. Quick question for you not for Dr. Hasan but to Sabine is it Sunday now you're sitting clean, it's fine. So being the how I built this aspect. So as a as somebody that built presented by him, how did you think about organising like that stuff? That's that was really intimidating to me. How do you how do you build a business?
Unknown Speaker
45:51 You know, I built it basically, I just my attitude with everything in life is I just jump in, and I just expect, you know, to find something. So I basically jumped into it. I saw, you know, it was it was during the Woolsey fire, the whole backyard burned. And I was in communications with Dr. Feingold, who was the father of bacteria in anaerobic bacteria in the gut, he actually wrote the book anaerobic infections. And I was in communications with him because earlier on, I had done a faecal transplant on a patient who had Alzheimer's and he remembered his daughter's Date of Birth six months later. So to me, that was one of those, you know, and Dr. Brody likes to call it Martians. It's one of those Martians that comes in your front door and you say, wow, there's life on Mars. And so I called Dr. Feingold. And so what am I seeing? When I change the mind? Which microbe Am I seeing when I changed the microbiome in a patient with Alzheimer, and he remembers his daughter's date of birth. And Dr. Feingold said, You're seeing this bacteria that I cultured for so many years, nobody wanted to take on the study and to support it. So I'm giving you the protocol. Get yourself a next generation sequencer machine gets yourself alive, a scientist, and he showed me the path, right? He was 97 years old. And he showed me the path he gave me the paper. And then he put I put it in my Sage because I said, Well, I'm not going to start a genetic lab that's like, you know, at least a couple million. And so what happened is he passed away during the Woolsey fire, my whole backyard burns. And the family calls me and they go, Dr. Hayes, and we want to give you like all the books of our dad, and he signed all his books. So I had like, I have about 1000 books in my I picked up I took a pickup truck, and I picked up the books. My husband thought I was crazy. It's like, our house is burning. And I said, Don't worry about the house. I don't care. This is more important that this is like a seat. This is his work. I wanted to take it on. And I felt like and I felt like it was like tag you're it right. And about a month later, I started communicating with Dr. Brody because Neil had introduced us at ACG and said, oh, by the way, Sabine also cured Crohn's disease with faecal transplant. And he said, what he took my card, and then called me in December, and I said, By the way, I got the paperwork from, I got everything. And I found a couple of patents with you and Dr. feigl. You guys were communicating together those wonderful man, wonderful scientists, brilliant mind. And I said, Well, we got to continue this. And then he said, by the way, I'm working with Dr. Adams, who's publishing a data on autistic children post faecal transplant. So I said, he said, Be ready. You're gonna have the flood. This is Dr. Brody. I'm autism, I don't even know anything about autism. No way. And then next thing, you know, I start my lab. And I told my husband, I said, we're not rebuilding the backyard. I don't care about the house. I'm building a genetic sequencing lab. So he goes Sure, honey, and my if you know, my husband, my husband's a great guys, cardiologist. You know, hi, doctor. Amazing. And he's like, yeah, sure money, do whatever you want. You want to analyse shit, go for it.
Unknown Speaker
49:15 I said, Okay, I'm buying a machine. So, and it was kind of at that point in my life where, you know, my, you know, you your kids are growing up and you've done the raising and they're blooming on their own and you're, you know, at that point where you say, Okay, well, what is my life mean? I'm no longer a mom. Okay, great. I'm a GI doctor, I do research for pharma. But now farmers getting into the shed business, and we don't even understand it. So I saw this light and I just said, I think this is my path. And then lo and behold, everything was just opened up. I mean, my first case of faecal transplant was a patient with metastatic melanoma. That I submitted the protocol to the FDA, the FDA thought I was crazy for wanting to put stools in a woman's body Hold on who was dying, but her haemoglobin was seven. She wasn't eating anything. She was dying. I had to fight with them to let me do it. And I saw her starting to crave chicken nuggets after the faecal transplant, the same cravings that her grandson had. So that was an open an eye opener for me. She ended up living a lot more months than she was supposed to, to to begin where she should have died within the month. But I think the faecal transplant really helped her and I think we're seeing that with, you know, MD Anderson's work with faecal transplants, and chemo, etc. So I think that was the path. I didn't really think of money because people always ask me, Well, how do you support it? How do you venture and I said, Well, let me create a nonprofit. So I created a nonprofit. And then next thing, you know, I wrote the book was shali. And, and everything, like even Shelley came to me in my office, it was just like divine intervention.
Ken Brown
50:56 Shelley? Who is Shelly, I don't know her.
Unknown Speaker
50:58 So Shelly is an author, she writes, you know, she writes books. And she, her husband, was a friend of mine. And we started talking, he's a pilot. And he said, you know, and I said, I need to write this book. And he goes, one is why don't you have Shelly, I'll pay you. And she puts it in the book. And she wrote, I helped Dr. Hayes and get her shit together. Because this is what happened. I gave her all my stack of papers. I said, this is chapter one. Let's start chapter one. And then she started. So as she was building, and we were building dog book. And then Dr. Brody, of course, every time we had a chapter, we're like, what do you think is that said, it's like, I like the quotes I like, you know, because he's very much into, you know, quotes and old quotes from, you know, people in the past. So we started, you know, writing. And then at the same time, I started building these protocols. And I had a team of writers that I basically, I had my, my, my main writer that I said, you know, let's start writing these protocols. And little by little, it was built, and I and Andrea showed me from day one, a patient with Crohn's disease. And he showed me the microbiome, and I changed the microbiome, I played with it with certain products like you that I believed could change the gut. And I was able to reach a cure in this kid, and I was able to see the cure in the microbiome. So before and after. And so when I saw that, I said, I have something. And then I saw see this in 17, the first 17 patients, I saw c diff, and all of them. So I said, you know, maybe we're wrong about C. diff May, and I and I actually challenged the industry, the infectious disease doctors, because I said, maybe we all have C diff, and maybe it's what we give our gut that kills off all the microbes, the diversity, that causes c diff to start succeeding, it's toxin, right? And so, you know, infectious diseases are very pragmatic. They're like, well, if you didn't call to it, then it's not there. And I can't say, Well, how do you culture a dead bacteria? How do you take a tree that's dead and expect to plant it? It doesn't work. I mean, you almost have to culture it anaerobically, right. And so I said, well, but the next generation sequencing shows the whole genetic sequence of the microbe, right? And then when we did RNA pipeline, which is the you know, so we have a bunch of pipelines when we look at microbes, right? So we actually can do a DNA pipeline that looks at our bacteria, or we can do an RNA pipeline, which looks at the bacteria reproducing. So if you see a microbe is reproducing, and you see it high in the messenger RNA pipeline, then you know that this microbe is active.
Ken Brown
53:48 That that's that's a game changer. That's awesome. Yes. Nobody showed it. Nobody. Nobody's ever said that before. Because I remember mark, you know who Mark Pimentel is and cedars? Yes, I know, Mark. So I remember Mark was describing Well, when we're doing these stool studies, where basically it's like going into a neighbourhood and looking at the trash, and then making these assumptions about what's going on inside. That that's just trash is what you're looking at. Oh, the mRNA that's huge. That's big fish.
Unknown Speaker
54:18 Yes. And then the metabolomes is the next step, right? Are those microbes to creating something like the sofa Vibrio in the gut, right, then we know that sofab embryo was linked with autism from Dr. Feingold. So he thought that the sofa Vibrio or Clostridium perfringens could play a role with autism. Well, when you see the sofa Vibrio in a family in one kid that has autism, and the rest of the family doesn't have autism, and don't have it, but the kid has 40% relative abundance of the sofa of embryo you don't even need to do metabolomic studies on that because you know, that there's that The problem most likely, and then that good faecal transplant would be a solution. Oh, that's, that's so cool.
Ken Brown
55:06 I talk to my patients that, especially people with certain food cravings are battling their weight and stuff. And I'm like, well, it could be that you're not really it's not really you and controlled your microbiome, would you discuss briefly your two daughters? In your experience?
Unknown Speaker
55:20 Yeah. So. So I took antibiotics, my young, my old, my oldest also, and, you know, I have a hard time I used to eat like, in Miami, I used to eat the whole tuna subway, and you know, would not gain a pound naito cucumber, and I get a pile. And my little one eats 5000 10,000 calories. Sometimes she'll eat like a one o'clock in the morning, the whole pizza, and then an apple pie doesn't gain weight. She's a toothpick, right. And so we looked at the family microbiome, and actually, there was a group of microbes that is potentially the obesity marker. There's also a group of markers that are potentially the cholesterol. And so this is a new world, right that we're entering. So even with Alzheimer's, we're seeing similarities in the microbiome. So we need to understand, but more important, I think, then understanding the microbes isn't is understanding the environment of the microbes. Because you saw studies when they do so we know that when we do faecal transplants, we are achieving improvement in patients, right. But you saw the studies where they remove the faecal material and they just had the liquid then they implanted it and they still got improvement, right? So something in the substance, something in the environment, the substances, I think, make a big, big difference. It's all gonna make sense to you. When you read the paper with ivermectin.
Ken Brown
56:44 I'm so excited. I just I'm literally like thrilled.
Unknown Speaker
56:49 Vitamin C and vitamin D, because I'm going to be writing Linus Pauling was right.
Ken Brown
56:54 That's coming. I agree. With everything you said. I have a couple quick comments. Number one, your doorbell rang. And he did tell you that emotion would show up on your front doorstep that could have been, and Oh, well. And then I got a I have a I have a quick story for you. Yes, that we were interviewing a fellow. He was from Yale. And this is gonna be about eight to 10 years ago. So before faecal microbial transplant FMT was being discussed. We're out to dinner with them. I've took them to a nice steak restaurant here in here in my city. And I was asking him about his research. And he goes, Well, what we're showing is and he's talking, and the waitress was there, and she was like, This is interesting. And she was listening. And she was a little bit obese. And he goes, Well, we're taking stool from skinny mice and giving it to fat mice. And those fat mice are losing weight. And then vice versa. Right, like, no, that's so cool. Because like the first time I'd ever heard of it, he was doing the original research on this. And then the funniest thing happened. She was once again I said she was a little overweight. She looks over at this busboy who's all about six for 120 pounds. She was Bill, you are the sexiest person in this restaurant, right? Cuz he went on to say that if you live with somebody, you end up sharing the microbiome. Yeah, and she yells to this poor guy was probably like, 17. She's like, you want to move in? You want to move in? A little premature, but I don't know. Maybe she wasn't. So
Unknown Speaker
58:25 hey, you know what I do every day as a routine. I take my little one my 17 and I rub my face to her. I'm like, I want some of that microbiome on my skin. That's the best lotion right there. I mean, I don't need to put lotion on my face.
Ken Brown
58:38 Your I'm scared that I'll ruin my kid's Mojo by giving them my kids,
Unknown Speaker
58:46 my little one who actually is a hyper metabolizer. That's what I call her. I asked her to donate stools from me. I said, you know, your skills could be worth a lot of money, because that could cure for obesity. And I said $1,000 for one sample Scarlet. She's like, Nope, not giving it I'm not going to grab it. She's like, I'm not going to be a rat lab. Mom, she gave me one sample. That's it. That was all.
Ken Brown
59:10 That's it. And this is this is not hyperbole. In your book you discuss about how the marathon runner they took his store he gave it to mice, and the mice immediately with no extra training could run 13% more
Eric Rieger
59:21 than they could before. Before we publish this episode we need we need to get shit studying calm. have it ready to go?
Ken Brown
59:31 Well, I will give you credit. A lot of the things that come across you do trademark it's like you'll just like call your trademark attorney and they're just trademarking everything.
Unknown Speaker
59:41 Yeah. Because so yes, it's it's kind of funny because I, you know, in medicine and you know, you come up with an idea. A businessman takes an AI takes your idea and make something out of it. And then you're like, wait a minute, that was my idea how many doctors have I seen over the course of my career that have come up with cures, and a businessman came, took that cure and made it a business and the doctor now, you know, Dr. Feingold, his book is the beginning of so many pharmaceutical companies, because that was without his book. Without that foundation, none of these pharmaceutical companies, you know, existed. And, you know, the fact that he had to struggle to get money for his research and keep putting all his money into his work. It was just not okay. And so when I started this, and I started the company, I said to myself, first of all, I'm trademarking everything. And I learned from the best Dr. Brody, because he said, patent everything, trademark everything, because they will always say, somebody will take your idea and try to make something out of it. So the man is genius on multiple level. Yeah.
Ken Brown
1:00:57 And the fact that you actually are doing what people don't realise is that you're going down this microbial path, a speaker microbial path. And to get these studies done, you have to file these nd eyes, these new drug sounds like that. Yes, I end that's it. Yeah, I end in Yeah. And that's, it's super expensive. And they make it they make it difficult, or maybe they do on purpose or not, I don't know. I mean, obviously, as as an investigator, where we have to deal with that a little bit with our supplement, we kind of skirt the FDA, but we still have to walk such a careful line, you want to talk science, but if you start talking too much science, then you have to file that ind and
Unknown Speaker
1:01:40 and I think, you know, it's not hard to file it's not hard to do it. I think this is where doctors need to join forces because really, um, you know, we lose when we don't work together when we were in residency and internship we were collaborating together to fix you know, what happened with COVID was really sad to me because the collaboration disappeared. All of a sudden, the media is telling you how to take care of your patients, and the politicians and the whole time it was like, wait a minute, the moment the politician can tell me what the Latina does in COVID, or Rosa Yuria or fasula, bacterium, press neiti let alone they should probably spell fasula bacterium proxy, never mind what it's doing. The moment a politician can tell me that, then I will respect what they're saying or immediate person. But the reality is we're entering a world of microbes, I think we should let the people that are in the microbiome world, lead that path and lead the treatment. At the end of the day, achieve success listen to the people that achieve success. You know, those doctors on the front line that realise different methods to to meet, forget ivermectin, let's talk about others, right. kosha seen, you know, cheap solutions be that cyanide, you know, eliquis all these I think those were hints right? When when I have a patient that's oxygen saturation 73%. And I'm freaking out because the patient doesn't want to go to the hospital, but I know he's gonna die on my shift. And I don't want him to die. I'm going to do everything in my power. So I'm going to give him everything I know. And then I'm going to call, you know, my buddies. You know, Brian Tyson say, Brian, what did you do with this? And then he would say, you know what, I've this. And then Peter McCollum. What did you do on this? And so I think this is where the collaboration of physician comes into play. Because we are the ones on the front line, taking care of patients. And at the end of the day, who do you trust with your life? The doctors that guided you this way? Right. I trusted with my life. Tom perrotti. Let me Yeah,
Ken Brown
1:03:50 I just want to ask a quick question on this, because I saw that you have done presentations you have submitted for different trials. You've done this, have you? A lot of the doctors that have had the guts to do this have had backlash. Did you receive any backlash from social media, from the media from anything?
Unknown Speaker
1:04:07 So I'm because I'm working with the FDA oversight. And right now we're doing actually clinical trials with the Department of Defence sponsoring it, which is another product altogether? I've not had the backlash as much, I'm sure I've had backlash when I tried to advertise to get patients. You know, definitely my there were criticisms and you know, and I always try to stay under the radar as much as possible talking about treatment. I'm more the microbiome girl and I don't think anybody really knows about the microbiome and if they want to go one on one with me and start trashing me, bring it on the ship is going to be caught starting. And I call the book and in January because let's talk shit because I said Look, I couldn't be full shade or I could know my shit. But I think I know my shift
Ken Brown
1:05:02 to that is awesome.
Unknown Speaker
1:05:04 So we'll see. I mean, it's a it's a path. It's a, it's a discovery path. It's, it's, it needs to be done. And I think I say to people, if you stop the innovation, you're going to be the patient coming for an innovation that's not going to be happening. You know, right now we get how many patients do get probably as much as me that wants faecal transplant for Alzheimer's, for Parkinson's, for autism, etc. You can't offer it. We're not there yet.
Ken Brown
1:05:31 So let me ask you this. So you've got your lab set up to do a really good job. We were doing it heavily. A guest standing for this podcast, Dr. Stuart Ackerman, him and I did a few of these super intelligent doctor, my colleague who trained in New York, we were lucky enough to steal him and bring him over about five years ago, he jumped all in on the on the faecal transplant, and he signed up, he did everything. And then like overnight, he said, Well, this was like, in between the FDA saying it's a drug and this and then he was able to get the frozen capsules. And then it was like overnight, it became cost prohibitory because something happened with the lab. And we just quit doing it because we couldn't get it approved insurance wouldn't pay it suddenly, it was super expensive. Right?
Unknown Speaker
1:06:17 So that's the peer pressure and the lobbying power, right? of lobbyists that basically, and I'm gonna say it out there because I think it needs to be told, you know, there is a lobbying movement that is basically stopping these, these drugs, these, these cheap solutions. And I think we need to stop that we need to fight as physicians for that because the moment we stop, you know, trying to do what was right for the patient, faecal transplant being one of them. I think all of us that were doing faecal transplant join forces in the microbiome meeting, the Malibu microbiome meeting that you probably saw, because of the fact that we saw that our ability to help patients were being cut. We were doing, we were helping patients we were doing using a bank that was good. And that ability was cut. I think, you know, the onus is to go from that product that was sold of open biome to go to Finch, right, which is now a pharmaceutical product, then, you know, that's fine, as long as you know, the data shows that it's working, etc. But I think you know, stopping the right to try and doctors from doing faecal transplant or scaring them, you know, I still do faecal transplant, you know, who's gonna stop me? I mean, the the FDA, you know, has said you can do faecal transplant for C diff, provided you do all these things. And even if you want to do it for autism, you have to submit an ind, well, I just have to write the ind, I have to follow the protocol and follow the guidelines. Nobody's gonna stop you if you're doing things the right way.
Ken Brown
1:08:03 So you don't have to wait for them to approve the ind. Just
Unknown Speaker
1:08:07 wait for them to approve the ID. But for C diff, you can do faecal transplant. You just have to follow you don't need an ind for faecal transplant procedure.
Ken Brown
1:08:16 Yeah. So I got a few questions. So when a few of our listeners heard that we were going to have you on they submitted some questions, not easy questions. Okay. So one of them is unfortunately, somebody had urdal bow like symptoms or probably see, though, went to a doctor in her country in Europe and received a faecal microbial transplant. And she didn't feel very good. Two weeks afterwards went back. He said, Well, we just need to do it again. And it's from the same super donor, he has this what he called Super donor. And she got it the second time and she spiked a fever started feeling really sick. And then the third time, he said, Well, we just need to just you just need more of it. That's what's happening. You're not taking it. And unfortunately, it did something that you have mentioned, even in your book, you mentioned it, it appears that it turned on something, and she has developed some autoimmune issues, alopecia sjogrens, things like that. And so the question that she had on this is, we know that there are some adverse reactions, you've discussed that there have been a few deaths, and I think that they they've figured out why. But in this case, what are your thoughts on the proper pre transplant, immune testing? That should be done on either the donor or the recipient? And that's tough to answer.
Unknown Speaker
1:09:38 Yes. So as I stepped in understanding the microbiome, I'm noticing that obviously, if you've got a donor that has a lot of prepatellar, you already have a lot of prepatellar. So the process of faecal transplant is more complex than just putting microbes, right. It's understanding what was it the baseline, what was the culprit of the problem? What was the microbes that were altered? And then, you know, what? Cause what problems did it cause in the colon? In other words, is there an overgrown growth of something on the colonic wall? That is difficult that the microbes don't implant for example, right. So there's three step process, right. So donor selection, first of all microbiome analysis, I think, as we get into the world of faecal transplant in the future, it's going to be microbiome analysis, right? What does your microbiome look like at baseline? What microbes are affected? Who is your donor? Is your donor, a family member, or a bank? And how do you do the procedure so that you can maximise implantation? And then how do you sustain implantation, right? So there's four different steps and all those steps are very important than very complex in their own rights. The first one, I think, the baseline understanding the microbiome, you have to compare with everything that you've seen that I have seen in the database, for example, so we're not there yet, right? To have a fingerprint of what Alzheimer's looks like Parkinson alopecia areata, to say to a patient, look, you're taking stool donors have a patient that has a risk of having Alzheimer's in the future, or Parkinson's because we saw some microbes in the stools that are potentially Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, right? You need to tell the risks versus benefits of the patients, right? So am I swapping see that if for potential of having Alzheimer's? Am I swapping Siebel for potential of having alopecia areata? Those are the real risk? When you think about it? Am I swapping c diff for rheumatoid arthritis, you know, ALS, MS, etc. So, obviously, that's, that's part number one is that discussion with the patient because right now we do not know, we when we take tools from a donor. And so even though I would love to take my little kids stools in me, and start losing weight much faster, or eat, you know, garbage so that I don't gain weight. Unfortunately, I have to be conscientious that I could inherit something that is not matched with me and could give me something else. So until we know what we're doing, I think in the microbiome space, and what those microbes are doing, I think it's a dangerous way. Of course, if the patient is dying, and he has a grandchild and his choices, you know what I'm going to use a grandchild or I choose to use a donor from a people bank. But I know the risk because I'm dying, I have Alzheimer's, I've als optic, I have Parkinson's, I have a debilitating chronic problem, that I'm or I have autism as a child, then those, those kids, those parents, those people that have those debilitating conditions, I think would take the risks without knowing right. But at the same time, we have to be careful in how we do it. Because it is so risky. The other day, I was talking to the FDA, because we were trying to improve faecal transplant for autism on 30 kids, we got to prove one kid that we're doing already. Of course, one kid doesn't tell you much. If the kid doesn't respond, probably it's because he's too old. You know, this is a kid that's 19 years old. The microbiome has already said he's got the neurological problems from it. So you know, am I gonna achieve success? Maybe, maybe not. If I choose success, great. But we want to do 30 kids, right? And the FDA said to me, Well should do placebo trial, are you going to plan to do a placebo controlled trial, and I said, I'm not gonna put a kid through a colonoscopy and give him placebo. I'm sorry, I draw the line there. And that's why I think the research that's coming out on COVID is really going to be a game changer to start saying, we need to relook at this placebo controlled trial. We need to start saying let's do precision medicine. And let's see what's happening with the microbiome before and after. So, you know, the beauty that we have in our in our lab is right now we're working on developing a validated assay. verified reproducible. We're seeing the data we're publishing it you know, the the the DD W is accepting my poster ACG is accepting my poster, you know, you're validating my work, you know, so the data is being validated by my peers, because they're seeing the data. I think we need to use that technology that was created of this asset and we need to get insurance companies to approve it, so that every doctor around the country can start understanding the microbiome, but also develop the The same protocol that Dr. Brody used the same protocol. Neal stohlman, US calling Kelly, Paul fears that Alex throats, you know, these giants that have been doing faecal transplant and have achieved 92 to 99 success in C diff, we need to use those doors protocols. I think the problem is that too often people are in a rush, they want to have the solution right away. They're not willing to wait for the proper research to be done. And then they go to people that promise them an answer, and they charge a lot of money. And then what happens is they ended up worse than they started off with, and that's not okay. In my opinion, you know, because safety is number one, you know, all disease begins in the gut. Hippocrates said that, and I think you've heard me say that, but also do no harm came from him, right? We have to be careful, we have to be cautious with what people transplant with the microbiome world. And if there's a better solution, which is a you know, a microbe, that's, that's only that's in the earth, you know, then maybe that's a better solution. You know, if what we need to go back to basics,
Ken Brown
1:16:10 I absolutely cannot tell you how much I love hearing the way you're describing this, first of all, the way you described why you did it is your why you go we have to be able to help we have to first do no harm. And the way that you're describing it is almost like well, if somebody finds a better way, I'll adapt to that. That's no big deal. I'm not putting this is not to start a business. This is not to know you do have a business, you do have this incredible stuff going on. But the way you're describing it as you're willing to keep an open mind. You have it on your own research, which is yes, that's fantastic.
Unknown Speaker
1:16:42 Yes. And listen, if I see that I'm I think though they have to respect me, and I've worked with them for years, they've been in my office, they've audited me for clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies. And I think the FDA respects me because I'm the kind of person who is very transparent. I, if I'm right, I'm right. If I'm wrong, I'll admit that I'm wrong, because that's what science is all about. Right? It's, you know, what we were doing and wouldn't be called science, Albert Einstein
Eric Rieger
1:17:09 said that being wrong is just an opportunity to learn. I mean, it really is it being wrong doesn't mean that it's over. It just simply means, oh, this isn't the correct way, let's go a different way.
Unknown Speaker
1:17:19 You learn more from being wrong than from being right, you learn more from the mistakes. And I think even the mistakes need to be published, because that's where you learn, well, I shouldn't
Ken Brown
1:17:30 be doing that. And you're doing that right now at this stage of your career sends a message to your children, which is so important. That's what I always try and talk to my kids about, and he talks to his kids, that it's okay to fail. If you're not failing, you're not trying enough.
Unknown Speaker
1:17:46 I failed so many times, and I you know, and you learn from the failing and you make mistakes in life, right, then you fall down to the rock bottom, and then you climb up again. And that's life. So, alright, I
Ken Brown
1:17:59 need you to give some hope to a big group of people that there's a Facebook group, a closed Facebook group, where it's the colonic inertia group. And one of the core members of that group emailed me and said, Please tell me that she may have some data on FMT and colonic inertia, do you? Have you had any experience with that?
Unknown Speaker
1:18:19 So Dr. berty, is working on an amazing protocol. He has seen some improvement with his patients, patients are going to him, you know, in Australia, they can do faecal transplant over there, and there is hope coming into the future. So colonic inertia might be a microbiome dysbiosis as well. So let's,
Ken Brown
1:18:42 let's hope. Awesome, awesome. Yeah. We already covered that. We already covered that. Oh, one thing about the adverse reactions, do you feel like in the future, you will have a protocol when someone has adverse reaction? reactions from people from the from faecal transplants, specifically, this one person that seems to get worse after each one? Is there a way to
Unknown Speaker
1:19:09 take something I think the first step is understanding what's in the microbiome, right? So understanding and we say we're research, we're willing to go into the research with them. So we do give people consents, and we give them still kids, but we may not find anything. And the problem is, once you you break something, how hard is it to me put it back together, right? So you know, once you damage something, can you bring it back to the same shape? And that's the hard part, you're working with trillions of bugs that have been damaged? And once you've damaged them, can you put them all back together? And is that the right method for that coin? So it's complex?
Ken Brown
1:19:54 Good answer. Do you have any other questions?
Eric Rieger
1:19:58 I think you've pretty much addressed everything. thing that I could possibly want to say about the microbiome, but I mean, honestly, I think it's it's a brilliant mechanism. I'm more intrigued by what is driving you to find these answers because it just resonates so much with what I think I've learned by working with Ken and what we've been able to find as we keep trying to find correct purpose and like you said, sometimes incorrect purpose in what we try, and it's great, honestly. So honestly, thank you. Thanks for really putting some some meat behind what it means to analyse poop.
Ken Brown
1:20:34 Well, let's let's let's talk about putting some meat behind this. So I'm part of a really big group now. Yeah. And Jim Weber and company and hairy sorrows. And everybody that's doing research out there in my group, Jai Lyons. rupt 700. Let's back, Dr. Hasan here and help her just have Yes, dump trucks full of poop to show all over the country.
Unknown Speaker
1:21:01 In fact, it's funny because I had a GI doctor from Santa Monica. And he came to look at my lab and he was kind of, you know, wondering what it was all about. And then he saw my lab and then he called this buddy and he goes into four she gave me a kit to analyse my food. I want to see from all over the world. I want to see China's people that live in China versus people that live in America, Chinese, you know, Japanese, and you know, I want to do 23andme of the of the gut, and that's really my goal. says, Yeah, doctors,
Eric Rieger
1:21:32 yeah, you're you're individualising medicine by knowing exactly what it is that this patient needs. And I mean, that's just we don't do that. When we say, Here's so and so x, y&z milligrammes of whatever. And it's really just an anaesthesia for instance, it's all done by either ideal body weight or actual body weight, there's a lot more to what somebody is going to go through than just their body weight. So no, I think it's fantastic. Yeah, this is
Unknown Speaker
1:21:58 how he says if he wants to be to do anything, just give her a challenge, and a challenge. And for me, it was not really that hard, because, you know, I said to myself, well, eventually I'm going to be that patient. What if I have Parkinson's that was gonna help me and so I've got to figure it out now while I'm like young ish, and and and figure it out for my future right? Or what if my grandchild becomes autistic you know, I mean, everything we do in life every action leads to a reaction and I like to think that if I do good then goodness comes back to me and I've been fortunate you know, in my life and and and and that I have to give back this is my way to give back. So I I'm very happy to have all you guys the biome squad needs more doctors. So we need all you guys picture biography. We'll
Ken Brown
1:22:52 put you on the website. I'm all about man violence mobile. I'm gonna go ahead and recruit within my group. I'm sure we got some we got doctors now and all owners of many, many different states. Wow, Dr. Hasan, this was an amazing podcast, my honour to be the stupidest person on this zoom call. That is I love doing that you are clearly brilliant. And my I want to call up the University of Florida. They're the Jacksons Jacksonville, Jackson Memorial, Jackson Memorial. And thank that, that person that said that they don't take away because they did a huge, huge service to the future of medicine. I literally am hearing this and I'm just going we're gonna analyse people's stools before we put them on a high blood pressure medicine. Because we may believe that maybe that interacts with it. The the most rudimentary thing that happened to me was I have really bad allergies. And they're just I just nothing was helping him Claritin D standard release and all this stuff. Well, I were doing a little thing where I was gonna do my colonoscopy wide awake. And we had cameras there, we put it on YouTube. And when my partner got to my SEACOM, there was a totally intact tablet that I had taken like, like long time before. And it was I'm like, well, that's why my allergies is so bad. This thing isn't even disintegrating because it's, it's a long, it's a whatever. Yeah, extended release. Now I have better results because I bite it. So I'm like, you
Unknown Speaker
1:24:21 know, I know it's the same thing, all these drugs. And then it's also what are these drugs doing? Like? I think one of the things Neil and Colleen Kelly, Nils Coleman and Colleen Kelly, want to do, and they had the brilliance to start the Malibu microbiome meeting, to bring all these doctors to educate themselves on the microbiome because as we learn things, we need to teach the doctors to bring them on. My thing was never a consumer product or it was a research to bring the doctors because exactly, if I teach you what I learned in the lab, then you treat your patients you know that's that's really my goal and my role. But one of the things they wanted was to bring pharma to our, to our world, to precise to do precision medicine to make sure that these new drugs don't affect the microbiome worse. And then to follow the microbiome of, of patients to make sure that, you know, the patient is fine, but then long term because we saw from antibiotics, you give antibiotics to patients, they're fine for their they treated their pneumonia, but then later on, it starts the chain reaction of diversity is lost now. And with loss of diversity, you know, microbes and viruses penetrate and definitely we're going to be showing that so long once the papers are out. I'm going to be calling you and saying
Ken Brown
1:25:46 let's do the podcast because you're gonna love it. Sure. Absolutely. Love it. Wow, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. listening to everything you do. I'm gonna quit complaining how busy I am. I'm just gonna just suck at it. Because you're you are an absolute machine. And I love your energy. I love your honesty. And I love your why that is fantastic.
Unknown Speaker
1:26:09 I think we have to ask why. And I have a chip on my shoulder. You know, it's never good. It's always like questioning. So when people challenge me, I just like, keep going. So I'll show you watch me.
Eric Rieger
1:26:20 Those are my two favourite words. Without Sabine Hasan, thank you so much for joining us on episode 58 of the gut check project. Sorry, I was late, but completely why the day lose of information. And I just looked over at Ken's phone. We've been going for over an hour and it feels like well, it feels like we've been talking 15 minutes. This has been incredible.
Ken Brown
1:26:42 Yeah. And there's I unfortunately, I feel like I can go another two hours. I've got a lot more notes. But I realise that everybody's time is valuable. And we still have to do your second podcast once you publish the paper. Yes, yes. Those questions then. Oh, much.
Eric Rieger
1:26:54 Thank you so much. We'll have a ways to connect with Dr. Hasan in the show notes and anything else? No, that's great. Absolutely. Fantastic. Thanks, Dr. Hayes. Oh, you bet.
Ken Brown
1:27:03 Oh, one last thing. I mean, seriously? Oh, yes. Get the book. Let's talk shit. It's funny. It's good. And a lot of the stuff that she talks sciency here, she brings it to a lay level in the book. I thought it was great. Awesome.
Eric Rieger
1:27:17 Thank you. So 58 we'll see y'all next time. Bye, guys.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai