The Longevity Formula

The Microbiome: Our Internal Pharmacy with Martha Carlin

• Dr. Brandon Crawford • Season 2 • Episode 38

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Dr. Brandon Crawford and microbiome researcher Martha Carlin explore the intricate connections between gut health, the environment, and overall wellness. They discuss how the food we consume influences our microbiome, the impact of glyphosate on nutrient absorption, and the role of the microbiome in brain health. Martha shares her personal journey into microbiome research, highlighting the importance of critical thinking in healthcare. The conversation also touches on the significance of viruses, the vagus nerve, and the influence of light on microbiome health.

In this conversation, Dr. Brandon Crawford and Martha Carlin explore the intricate relationship between light exposure, gut health, and innovative probiotic solutions. They discuss how light influences the microbiome and metabolic health, the importance of locally sourced foods, and the development of unique probiotic products aimed at restoring gut function and overall well-being. Practical steps for maintaining gut health and the significance of a positive mindset toward food are also emphasized.


What You’ll Learn

  • Gut health is shaped by the environment, locally sourced foods, and the balance of good and bad microbes in our microbiome.
  • The microbiome plays a vital role in immune function, neurotransmitter production, and overall health.
  • Food acts as information, influencing our genes, health, and adaptation to environmental and seasonal changes.
  • Factors like glyphosate, light exposure, and vagus nerve stimulation can significantly impact gut and microbiome health.
  • Viruses within our microbiome can be beneficial and contribute to a healthy ecosystem.
  • Critical thinking is essential for understanding the complex connections between health, disease, and environmental factors.

Resources
Martha’s Quest Blog: https://www.marthasquest.com

Book: The Psychobiotic Revolution by Scott C. Anderson with John Cryan and Ted Dinan – A great primer on the microbiome’s role in mental health

Products


Learn More
For more information, resources, and podcast episodes, visit https://tinyurl.com/3ppwdfpm

Voice Over: Welcome to the longevity formula with Dr. Brandon Crawford. Let's explore the new era of wellness. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Everyone. Welcome to the longevity formula, the podcast where we explore a new era of wellness through the pillars of faith, light, movement, mindset, nutrition, and science. I'm your host, Dr. Brandon Crawford.

And today we're exploring a question that's reshaping how We think about health. What if health of your gut, and even your brain, started in the soil beneath your feet? Most of us don't realize the invisible connections between the environment we live in, the toxins we're exposed to, and the microbes in our gut.

These connections influence everything from brain fog to chronic disease. But what's the solution? How do we take control of something so complex? If you're new to the idea of gut health, here's a quick breakdown. The gut is home to trillions of microorganisms, bacteria, fungi, and viruses, and probably some things we don't even know about, right?

That work together to keep your body functioning properly. They play a critical role in digestion, immune function, brain health, and even mood. When this delicate balance is disrupted by diet, toxins, or stress, it can lead to inflammation, brain fog, and chronic illness. Our guest today, Martha Carlin, is one of the leading voices in microbiome research.

But her path to this field is far from traditional. And that's what makes her story so compelling. After her husband's Parkinson's diagnosis, Martha taught herself microbiology, genetics, and other sciences to uncover how gut health is tied to chronic disease. Since then, she's become a trailblazer in the field founding two companies.

The bio collective, a research company that's been awarded a 1. 2 million NIH, NIH grant and biotic quest, a probiotic brand that's changing how we approach gut health. And I'm telling you, this line is amazing when you start to look at it and break it down. And we're going to get into that. Her work has been featured on global platforms like TEDx and at the White House's microbiome initiative launch.

And she's been published in multiple scientific journals. She's here to share how her research is helping us understand the invisible connections between soil health, gut bacteria, and overall wellness. Today, we're going to talk about what's really going on with the food we eat, the environment we live in, and how it's all affecting our health.

And more importantly, What we can do to fix it. So whether you're looking to clear brain fog, improve your overall health, or just live longer and better, this episode is packed with actionable insights, which I'm so excited about. So Martha, thank you so much for coming on. 

Martha Carlin: Thank you so much for having me, Brandon.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Absolutely. So before we dive in, I want to know a little bit more about you because your story is very, very interesting. So you are not actually, I would say, formally trained, right, as a clinician or researcher per se. In the health field anyway, your background is more in bookkeeping. I think you said you were a CPA, an auditor, etc.

Can you kind of elaborate how that sets you up to be what you are today? 

Martha Carlin: Sure. So my undergraduate degree was in accounting. That's a system that has to balance. And I came out of school and went to work for Arthur Anderson trained as an auditor in audit training. They teach you never take anything at face value.

You have to examine the evidence for yourself. So very much about critical thinking and they trained us in a process called. Transaction flow review, which is how you look at a business to identify business risk. And so you draw these big flow charts of everything that's flowing through the business and who touches it and what happens and you're interviewing people to see, does it really work?

Is it really working that way? It's supposed to work. And if it's not, there's where you have a risk point. And so, yeah. You know, I was just trained very much to think like that. And so when John was diagnosed with Parkinson's and they kind of just give you a pill and say, you know, this is your downward trajectory, you know, I, I just looked at that and I was like, okay, I'm going to examine the evidence for myself.

And I started digging into it and thinking, okay, how can I, how can I do my process map? And of course, You start with what's flowing through the system. Well, that's food. So I started there. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: That's amazing. So ultimately, you're a critical thinker, right? Am I accurate to say that? So that's amazing and welcoming, right?

Because I do feel that in healthcare today, I believe we're lacking a lot of the critical thinking skill sets. And I would argue, not just in the lay people population, but really very much so in the healthcare population. And I'm not saying anything negative about any type of healthcare provider or what have you.

I think that there has just been a system that has been built. You go through school, you go through their system, you get trained in their systems, you graduate, and then you get placed in their systems, right? And And I only say that because I have friends that have come out of that system. And they've described it to me, right?

And some of them are, you know, they left very cush, high paying jobs in the hospital. And now, you know, they're out doing their own thing in private practice. And they'll tell you it's not because I'm making more money. It's not because this is easier. They say it's because it's right. It's because this is what's right for me.

patients. Right. So I, I obviously want to thank you first of all, for doing that. And not only that, but I mean, you're impacting so many people through the research and through the products that you're developing. So I think everyone here just wants to collectively thank you for everything. So when your husband was diagnosed, And I believe you said it was roughly about 23 years ago.

You started to examine the evidence and you first went through this concept of food. What were some of your initial findings or like things that went through your head of like, Hey, something is wrong here. 

Martha Carlin: So, well, I, you know, I threw everything out of the cabinet and was like, okay, we're eating way too much stuff in a box.

I'll say. Which, you know, now processed food, but it didn't really have that lingo back then and started going back to cooking, which, you know, my mother had taught me and I started looking at looking for organic food and in 2002, there really wasn't a lot of organic food. So I was like, okay, I need to understand what is this food?

What's, you know, what's being used on the food? How's it being grown? And so I. I started digging into kind of the whole ag system, and that's when I, I mean, it had been out there, but I guess I really hadn't paid that much attention to genetically modified food. So, then I started looking at, okay, well, how are they modifying the genes in the food and started to examine that process?

And I kept thinking, well, like, food is information, genes are information, like, couldn't that transfer to us? And, You know, at that time, there's no evidence, or it wasn't widely known. Later, there was a woman named Barbara McClintock, I think she might have won a Nobel Prize, and she's the one who identified what are called jumping genes, where, you know, genes do transfer.

So I started looking at that, and I started looking at the, the chemicals that are used as herbicides and pesticides, and many of them were Neurotoxins that were used in, used by the military in the war and I'm like, okay, I mean, just logic would tell you it's not very smart to spray neurotoxins on your food, so I started to look for, you know, how do I get away from this?

And it was extremely difficult. Then so glyphosate kind of became the one that I was looking at because the use of glyphosate was growing pretty rapidly at that time. And my husband had been drinking a soy protein shake every day for the two years leading up to when he was diagnosed. And so I'm like, soy is one of the GMO things.

It's got a lot of glyphosate on it. So I started to look more at And later on, like in 2014, there was a researcher by the name of Andre Liu, L E U, 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: and 

Martha Carlin: he published a study a statistical analysis of the rise of about 20 different diseases, overlaid with the growth in GMO corn, soy, and glyphosate.

And I mean, You don't have to have a statistics degree to look at the charts in there and see the connection. And, of course, they'll say, well, correlation is not causation. But when you have 20 different diseases, and they're all mapping to that, I think common sense would tell you that it's it's a problem.

And, you know, then. And it turns out it was also patented in 2011 as an antibiotic. So, you know, the microbes, of course, in the soil, in our body, it's killing a lot of the good microbes and, and leaving the bad guys behind. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah, absolutely. So just to, to kind of make a concise statement, you're saying that the foods that we eat influence the microbiome that is inside of us.

Right. Okay. And I just want to make that statement because there are some people out there that would say that's not true. Right. I mean, And some of these people are really intelligent. I mean, I think I love your statement of, hey, let's think of it from a common sense standpoint, right? It of course makes sense that what you put into your body is going to influence the microbiome, all of these things living inside of us.

And then our overall health, just like I'm not going to go put You know, soda in my truck and expect it to run properly. It needs a certain type of fuel. So does our body. But I love how you're bringing into the discussion how the food, how the soil is cultivated, and then how that influences, I would say, even the genetic makeup of the food we're putting inside of us.

Right. Because. What you're talking about is when we spray these chemicals on the crops, those chemicals are binding with the cellular makeup of, of the food, of the, the product being grown. And then the problem there, from my understanding is that once we consume it, that protein structure has been chemically altered and my immune system no longer recognizes it as food.

Right, because that whole process of oral tolerance is going on when you're in the womb, right, and your mom is eating food and that developing baby's immune system is sampling it, going, hey, this is food, mom ate it. But then when I started eating it, maybe 20 years later, and it's been chemically laden with something.

My immune system is now saying, I don't know what that is. And that can trigger an immune attack, which can lead to autoimmunity, et cetera. Is, is that the story that you're kind of describing there? 

Martha Carlin: Well, you know, actually, I've never thought of it that way. I do have I, I have a presentation that I do on something called molecular mimicry and how that is affecting the immune system.

And. You know, 3 of the crops that have some of those triggers are corn, wheat, soy, actually, and spinach. So, 4 crops that can trigger those autoimmune things. So, that, that's an, that's another interesting aspect of it. I think the other component that I've learned a lot about from Dr. Don Huber, who was a professor at Purdue for many years, and is really one of the global experts on glyphosate is glyphosate was originally patented as a pipe cleaner because it chelates metals.

Well, you know, we need trace metals, minerals in our body. They run all the enzymes in our body and glyphosate is a very powerful key layer. And so if you're eating a plant or if, you know, if the grass is exposed to it and the, or the minerals in the soil get more bound over time, you know, you're getting less nutrient dense food.

You're getting minerals that it's very hard to break the bond with the glyphosate because it's a very strong bond. And so you can't access the nutrients you need to run the enzymes in your body. So that's another piece of it on top of, you know, maybe not, not recognizing, you know, the, the peptide sequence from them.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah, that's brilliant. And that's, that's something that my my late mentor, Dr. John D'Onofrio used to always talk about is. how glyphosate will strip minerals out of the body and he would always couple that discussion with the effects of stress, right? Because if you are living in this chronic stress state for whatever reason, you're going to deplete your body just naturally, just going to deplete the body faster of minerals and B vitamins and things like this.

And then couple that with this pipe cleaner, you're pulling it out even faster. And now your biological processes don't have those nutrients to convert enzymes or to do whatever they're needing to do. And it can lead to all kinds of health issues. I think you're connecting so many dots here. Love this is fantastic.

Let's back up just a little bit because I think we have a few people that Maybe you want to understand a little bit more about the microbiome itself. So can you kind of give us an idea, right? So the, the microbiome it's at the center of. So many things when it comes to health could you just kind of walk us through what the gut biome actually is?

What it influences how is it connected to brain health, immune function, that kind of thing? 

Martha Carlin: Sure. So the microbiome, I think you said at the beginning is the trillions of bacteria, fungi and viruses that live in and on our body. It functions as our internal pharmacy to maintain our health, so it's making vitamins, hormones, neurotransmitters.

About 70 percent of our immune system is in the gut, doing that intelligence as things are passing through the pipe. So it's really essential for that. And then the production of those neurotransmitters that are made in the gut, like serotonin. These are also traveling via the vagus nerve up to the brain.

That's sort of a two way signal back and forth. The gut is often called the second brain. I'm more inclined over these past years of looking at it to think it actually might be the first brain. And the thing, the communication, the sophistication of what's going on between the microbiome and the brain is just incredible.

A book I, I like to suggest for people if they want to get a, a bit of a primer on it is the psychobiotic revolution by John Kryan and Ted Dinan. They're two scientists from University College, College Cork in Ireland and have been some of the big pioneers in researching first depression, but a lot of other connections to the microbiome and, and mental health and, you know, that's a, that's a great primer for that. And there was another researcher at the, I think he's at Iowa State now, but he was in Texas and his name is Mark light. And he actually was the father of what's called microbial endocrine ology. So, you know, the endocrine system is what's making those hormones.

Well, microbes make hormones. And in fact, if you start to look into the fermentation science literature, really, microbes can make just about anything and break just about anything down. And they have been the workhorses of the pharmaceuticals industry for, you know, a very long time because they, they make all these molecules that are actually used as medicines.

Antibiotics is an example. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: That's absolutely. Yeah, I think we could probably spend a whole hour on, you know, just that discussion of neurotransmitter production, vagus nerve and the gut brain connection. What are your, before I go into my next question, but what, what are your thoughts and did you explore any vagus nerve stimulation or rehab with your husband and did you, or have you even researched this and see it make a change in the microbiome?

Martha Carlin: So, I, you know, I have a friend and a wife of another gentleman who has Parkinson's who had an early career in electrical stimulation technology. And she was very, very focused on using vagal nerve stimulation. I did, we had a there's a product called a Pulsetto that you can put around your neck that does vagal nerve stimulation.

And we. And I will say we we tried some of that. That was not my area of expertise. And I was so focused on some other things. I can't say that I executed that very well. But there's also been, several key papers in the last couple years showing that the antimicrobial peptide alpha synuclein that's associated with Parkinson's in an animal model, they can basically seed the alpha synuclein and watch it travel up the, up the chain.

Vegas nerve to the brain. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: we have the Pulsado in the office. It's not my, it's not my favorite stimulus. We don't use it a lot, we have certain use cases for it. My, just to put it out there, my absolute favorite what I'll say vagal system. I don't, I don't, I wouldn't refer to it as just vagus nerve.

Vagal system stimulus is through the Simba concha in the ear. We use a pulsed radial frequency device in order to do that. I've seen, I've personally seen phenomenal outcomes with it. There's a lot of research out there. It influences inflammatory systems, neurochemistry, brain activation. You get these beautiful activation patterns in the brain.

There's a study showing it reduces autoimmunity, reduces subjective pain scores, all kinds of things. It is. It's probably one of my favorite stimulus, modalities that we do in the office just because of the results we see. I would agree with the Pulsetto. When you go through the neck, you know, you're really targeting the efferent branch, which is just the motor branch.

I love the Symbiconcia because it's a purely sensory stimulus. It's a pure patch area for the vagus nerve through the auricular branch of the vagus nerve, which means it has to go into the brain and be integrated before you get that motor response down. So I very, very much, you know, in enjoy and employ the use of that type of stimulus, but I haven't done, you know, research specific to microbiome on that.

So one, one thing I want to ask you, it's this concept of, you know, viruses. I, I've had multiple conversations with people, not in recent days maybe a decade ago. There was this whole, you know, explosion of probiotics, probiotics, probiotics. And we're going to talk about. You're aligned in why they're so differentiated from others and whatnot.

But what about the concept of like, hey, we need viruses too. Is there like a pro virus? Is there Do we need to be considering like what viri are healthy for us? Like is that a concept that people are talking about right now? 

Martha Carlin: So there are There are researchers who look at that. And in fact, we sent our Parkinson's samples from our biobank that we built to the University College Cork in Ireland to Colin Hill, who's kind of 1 of the leading virus experts.

I would say he's done a lot of work because there are viruses called bacteriophages. And they are specific to killing different bacteria and they're a problem in the dairy industry in yogurt cultures. So, there's been a lot of research over the years and work on trying to eliminate bacteriophages because they can.

You know, ruin a large batch of yogurt. But what they actually found in, in looking at our Parkinson's samples was there was huge diversity. And, you know, I think there's also like a debate between some folks now about, you know, virus, no virus, or what is a virus. So everything is information. It's, And it's all made out of this, we're all made out of the same letter sequences, whether it's, you know, whether it's the DNA of a plant or human or a bacteria or, you know, a virus, it's a piece of information.

So, we, and the human genome is 8 percent endogenous retrovirus. So, that is little sequences of information that have been incorporated into our genome over time. And a lot of those are to help with recognition of certain pathogens or something. And one of them actually is the gene, I think it's called syncytin, that controls the placental barrier and the blood brain barrier.

So Do we, do we need these pieces of information? Yes. I think you know, in one of the early data sets I got from actually a different company, but it was looking at plant viruses in my microbiome and I had a lot of clover viruses, which is kind of interesting because I grew up as a kid playing in the fields of clover.

Everywhere. And it's like, are those viruses, you know, is that there from all those years ago? And then there's a researcher in at the University of Louisville, who's looked at, so people who smoke don't get Parkinson's at the same rate as people who do, you know, 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: lovely nicotine. 

Martha Carlin: Yeah. Well, he also found that the tobacco mosaic virus against this aggregation of these curly proteins.

So I think there's a lot that's not known there, but you know, our, we're constantly interacting with the environment and those little pieces of information, you can argue about what you want to call them. But those little pieces of information are, important to our body to recognize the environment we're in and to make changes if we need to.

So, you know, I think there's a tendency, whether it's with bacteria or a virus or a fungi, you know, to go like, all germs are bad and that's just not true because in terms of function in our body. The the microbiome itself has anywhere from 100 to 300 times more genes than the human genome. So, so much of our function is coming from that, and it is highly malleable and interactive with the environment and the food that we're eating and the chemicals we're exposed to and everything we're taking in.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Right. We are highly outnumbered, right there, that, you know, it's the, the whole concept of, you know, and I'm not saying don't wash your hands, but you still wash your hands and do, you know, trying to be so clean and all this kind of stuff is like, you're not going to get away from bacteria. You're not going to get away from viruses.

You're not going to like, we, I'll restate it. We are not designed to get away from those things. We are designed to live in balance and harmony with these things. Very interesting. So you, you, you mentioned smoking with Parkinson's and I've obviously I've worked with various types of movement disorders and I've read a lot of research on nicotine and how it can influence dopaminergic systems, cholinergic systems, et cetera.

That's oftentimes a strategy where I'll use whether it be a nicotine patch or now we have nicotine tabs or something like that. Okay. Great. Something interesting, and this is a kind of off topic, but not really, I think it might fold in nicely and you might have some answers here. Jerry Levine, she'll do live blood analysis for us in the office.

We'll also do all types of lab samples that I run and whatnot. But I found it really interesting that when we examine, the blood of someone that's been a heavy nicotine user, they do tend to have fewer infections and parasites. And this is a small sample size, okay? This is, I'm not, this is not like my published data.

This is not anything like that. Do you see any kind of correlation? Because I like nicotine for several reasons. Not, I'm not a proponent of smoking or anything like that. I'm talking about clean nicotine use. Is there any kind of correlation here? 

Martha Carlin: Well, so what I know of it is actually from Dr. Brian artists.

I don't know if you know who he is, but he started looking at the nicotine patch related to the spike protein. So, 

If you look at. You know, Parkinson's in the potential for 1 of the drivers to be toxin load. The, I think it's the ace 2 receptor is where those toxins bind. And my understanding from Brian is that nicotine binds.

It's tighter than the other toxins. So what will happen is if you bind with nicotine, you will dump the other toxins and eliminate them. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: So 

Martha Carlin: that, that may be the mechanism and he's, he's done quite a bit of of research Research on it and you know, can probably explain it a lot better than I can, but, you know, those you know, the neurotoxins from World War II that go on our food, they're also targeting those acetylcholine receptors.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Mm. Okay. Yes. Which can be very, very deleterious to overall cognitive function, but then also neuromuscular control. Oh man, that's a whole topic that needs to just be uncovered for sure. Okay. So let's talk about if you don't mind the influence of light and how our light environment is affecting our brain.

Can or cannot impact our microbiome. Do you have any initial thoughts on that? 

Martha Carlin: Well, I have kind of an interesting story from the early stages. So when I learned of the microbiome after all these years of studying food and stuff, I The 1st paper was published in Parkinson's that showed you could divide the 2 types by the gut bacteria.

So I quit my job and started funding some research and went on to found this company called the bio collective with Dr. Jack Gilbert, who was 1 of the leading microbiome researchers at the time and we built out a bank of stool samples. Across the population, but of course, we had a also a Parkinson's focus and we were doing the genetic sequencing and analyzing the data and looking for stuff.

And in the. Parkinson's microbiome, there was a difference. It in or where there was a gene involved with photosynthesis that was involved in, it was called phytoin desaturase. And it's, it's involved in the synthesis of carotenes, I think, or carotenoids. And you know, I was asking, well, okay, this is a.

This is a gene involved with photosynthesis, like what's going on here. And, you know, initially I was told, well, there's no light in the gut. And I'm like, I don't think that's like light penetrates the skin, you know bacteria can make light, you know, there's bioluminescent bacteria in the ocean, that's one of their quorum sensing things that they do when they, you know, get enough together, they either produce light or they can produce sound or electricity.

Microbes are, you know, pretty crazy. And so that actually sent me down a rabbit hole of reading deeply on, photosynthesis, and of course, in the human body, I mean, a red blood cell. So the chlorophyll molecule in a plant, which is, has magnesium in the center and the heme molecule in the human body, which has iron in the center.

They're very similar molecules. It's just the, the difference in the middle. And you know, I started looking at books on photosynthesis and photobiomodulation and all these different things and was looking, and I still don't have a good answer. Maybe you can answer. But looking at this funnel of, Blue light, which is excitation, and then you need the red light in photo system to to quench it to produce the energy.

And in this wasn't a microbiome test, but in John's 1 of his blood work tests, he had a build up of 1 of the intermediates in that team synthesis pathway. And I was, you know, I've been trying to connect all those dots between the light. The chemicals that I know that break photosynthesis, the microbiome, you know, it's all connected somehow, but I haven't quite figured it out yet.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Gotcha. Well, it's it's because it's confusing and it's difficult to study and you talked about the differences, you know, you have magnesium versus iron, and now we're talking about magneto chemistry and the flux of electrons as a result of those differences in atoms. But, but it's, it's very, very interesting how now in the literature, there is a very clear connection between light exposure and alterations in the microbiome.

And then going further, you know, certain types of light exposure driving obesity, driving inflammation, driving, you know, all of these type two diabetes. So there's been a very, very clear connection between light and gut health. Like, I think it's rather irrefutable at this point. And I love that you say you brought up the fact that bacteria produce light.

They do. And this, this bioluminescence, concept is huge because they can actually produce more light than our own cells. And so what's going on is in our gut, we have this gut lining composed of the enterocytes. And, and this is my perspective, just kind of how I'm putting together the dots. Standing on the shoulders of other people, of course.

And those enterocytes are rich in the cosa hx NOIC acid, which is DHA, among other things, DHA acts like a transducer where the light's coming in and it's actually transducing that light into a DC electric current, therefore allowing tissue to regenerate, et cetera. And so that's been a large focus for us working with patients is making sure to get light environments right and then using.

Right. I would say leveraging certain wavelengths of light, like red, near infrared, et cetera. And then I can even get more granular on that where there's literature that shows. 808 nanometer wavelength light increased I forget what specific species, but increased good bacteria, reduced bad bacteria in the gut.

I'm finding that 975, some of the new lasers that I've developed, I'm loving 975 nanometers. I am seeing that have a huge impact in gut function. I want more research to be done on, you know, certain wavelengths out there, but we definitely know that there's a clear connection in light and how it influences the microbiome, how it influences metabolic health, et cetera.

Some would say that this is a big reason why it's important to eat locally sourced foods. Right. Because. That's going to help support your mitochondrial health better, therefore influencing the microbiome, etc. What are your thoughts on locally sourced food and how, you know, there's an impact there?

Martha Carlin: Well, I talk about that a lot as well. I think I actually have a blog post this month about eating locally because Kind of back to that information food is information and it's information about your environment. So, it's information about what the season is where the light is, you know, where the light is, it's all being stored in those plants.

Or, you know, in the animals through the grass that they're eating it. And so if you're eating strawberries, 365 days a year from wherever they're available at the time, the information you're getting is confusing to your body. It, you know, all of that is. And the light that is captured in the food is sending a light signal.

All of that relates to the clocks in our body and, you know, how we kind of know where we are in, in space and time. I mean, absolutely goofy, but

local as much as you possibly can. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: It just makes sense. You know, I'm, I'm not currently in. Let's say I don't know Europe somewhere, right? So I'm not going to eat food sourced from there I'm in Texas. And so I'm going to eat what is around me. I'm going to you know, it just makes it It's not esoteric really when you think about it.

We're designed to eat what's around us That's just, again, going back to the general principles of creation. How are we designed? We're designed to be outside. We're designed not to be in front of a screen. We're designed to move. We're designed to hydrate. We're designed to, all of these things, right?

So when you think about it, it's like, yeah, of course, I'm designed to eat what's growing and living around me. Not to be able to reach halfway across the globe and pick from there. That's not what my genetic code and all these cells are really understanding, right, or designed to do. So, very interesting, you know, concepts there and something that is really not esoteric.

You know, when you, when you commented on, you know, your location, space and time, it's exactly what it is. 

Martha Carlin: And it's, I mean, it's common sense again, back to common sense. So I, we've kind of lost a lot of our common sense things that we, you know, used to be common, 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: right? Exactly. Okay. So I want to shift and talk about these amazing products that you've developed by auto quest they're beautiful of the, the branding, the mark, the, you know, the, the logo, the, all the things about it it looks really cool.

Can you give us some information about this product line? 

Martha Carlin: So it actually started you know, we weren't thinking we were going to be in the probiotics business other than I, I went to a Parkinson's meeting back in 2016 and at the time, my husband, John was under a. Some stress, and he was not doing as well.

He was walking with a cane and having trouble walking through a crowd. And we went to this meeting and I heard these researchers talking about the. Sugar out a study that showed that the sugar alcohol mannitol. Could stop the aggregation of the proteins that are a hallmark in Parkinson's and could actually pull them out of the brain of the mouse and clear them.

And I was like, wow, that's really interesting. So I came back and I bought this little mannitol chemistry book and started reading about it. And I was like, this is an amazing molecule. I mean, it's a. Powerful free radical scavenger. It's used for thermal energy storage. It's on the World Health Organization list of essential medicines.

It's used in brain trauma. It's used for drug delivery to the brain. So, I got, it's, it's the circuit prime for the heart lung machine with boron. I mean, there's like all this crazy stuff, but there's a chapter in there. Bacteria make mannitol and just a handful of them. And so I started looking at that and I had a friend who was a fermentation chemist and I had also brought on board microbiologist Dr.

Raul Kano to be my chief scientific officer. And you know, I was like, can we make a fermentation chemist? Formula, basically, of probiotics that would work like a team to put back the function in your gut of making mannitol. And so we came up with this formula and we tried it on John and within 30 days he was no longer walking with a cane.

He was and we were measuring his microbiome and we could see it getting closer and closer back to the healthy human microbiome project. And, you know, everything was kind of amazing and then his neurology appointment, they have a UPDR score where they score how advanced your Parkinson's is and his had been a 35 and after a year of taking that probiotic, it improved.

You want it to be lower and it dropped to a 20. And it was stable there for 4 years until he had coven. So, in that process, you know, coven hit lots of things happened. We wrapped up our grant that we had with NIH that was focused on another line. And we decided we didn't want to collect stool samples anymore with coven.

And we said, okay, let's. You know, let's focus on the probiotics. We know we've got this way that we can actually put teams of microbes together that will do what we want them to do. And so Raul and I sat down in a room 1 week and, you know, mapped out about 25 different problems that we thought we could solve through microbes in the gut.

And laid out those formulas, and then we had a computational model that we could run them through and see if they actually do what we thought they would do. And then we could tweak them. And we've brought 5 of those to market so far. You know, bring in we have another 1 called perfect piece that.

We hope to bring to market in 2025, but so that, that 1st. Product that makes the mannitol, it does that by converting glucose and fructose. So, in the process of looking at how it was changing the microbiome, we actually saw that it had an impact on blood sugar. And we ended up doing a clinical trial in diabetes and showing that we could move all the key biomarkers in diabetes.

It took 6 months to move the HbA1c, but all the other markers moved in the first 90 days. But we also decided to measure serum lipopolysaccharide or endotoxin, and endotoxin is elevated in diabetes. It's used in animal models of Parkinson's M. S. depression, like a number of different diseases use L.

P. S. endotoxin to induce the symptoms. And so, you know, I wanted to measure that because I think it has broad. Application across a lot of different chronic diseases, and that was actually one of the metrics 100 percent of the people who took the product had a reduction in, endotoxin in their serum.

And then we're about to publish our microbiome paper. And what we showed in the microbiome is kind of how that's working is We're restoring the gut to an anaerobic environment. And by that, like, you don't want oxygen in your gut. You want the oxygen to be an anaerobic environment. And the anaerobic bacteria are those good bacteria that produce short chain fatty acids like butyrate and acetate that are feeding, feeding those cells lining the gut.

And then, Keeping the endotoxin from being able to get across and by changing that whole environment also lowering the amount of endotoxin producing bacteria. So that's kind of our, our biggest seller. And the 1, we have the most clinical evidence behind. Then we made 1 called ideal immunity. And that one is specifically targeting foodborne pathogens like Salmonella, E.

coli, Listeria. So a lot of those are your LPS producers too, but you know, it's a great product if you are traveling overseas or if you eat out a lot, or, you know, if you get food poisoning can help you on your recovery there. We have one called antibiotic antidote and we. We actually came up with that concept after seeing a study that was showing that antibiotics could be detrimental after after I mean, sorry, probiotics could be detrimental after antibiotics.

And so we looked at the probiotic that they had studied. And, you know, role with his 35 years of expertise was like, well, that's going to make the whole environment way too acidic. You'll never be able to kind of repopulate a broader population. And so kind of went back to the drawing board made this formula.

That was more balanced. And you know, we've, we've had some great results coming back from customers who've been on IV antibiotics for, extended period of time and feel like it has restored their gut. But we're, we are looking at, we're looking for people who have or rings to do a small study because a customer came back to us who took it and noted that essentially when they were taking the antibiotic antidote, their heart rate variability improved significantly.

So their recovery ability. And so we want to do a little mini study of about 30 people who have aura ring, so if you, anybody has an aura ring and they can get in touch with me. And then we made one for sleep. It's called simple slumber. And that one, so again, those microbes can make, they make all kinds of things.

They make in this formula is designed to make tryptophan and bacterial melatonin and. Lasts for about seven hours. So you should wake up and not be groggy like you would be with a, you know, some other type of sleep aid. And it's, it's, it's also helping to restore tryptophan metabolism, which is damaged by glyphosate.

So those aromatic amino acids, tryptophan, tyrosine and phenylalanine are targeted by, by glyphosate. So that's another. mechanism of that. And then we have one called the heart centered, which increases the production of CoQ10 and nitric oxide. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: That's awesome. I mean, it definitely a very unique innovative product line for sure.

So I guess first question, cause you know, we, we have a lot of parents, caregivers, et cetera, that are watching. Can kids take these? 

Martha Carlin: So, you know, all of the research on probiotics is that probiotics are generally regarded as safe for children. You know, you want to always be careful if you have a child that's immunocompromised.

And I typically tell people to start slow. So, like, open a capsule and maybe put half of the capsule on some food. And just Keep an eye to see, because one of the things you get when you, you can get when you start to take probiotics is a die off of the bad bacteria. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: And so that's 

Martha Carlin: the thing to really watch for.

If somebody's like, Oh, my stomach doesn't feel good after I did that. It's probably from you're altering it to a better terrain. But in that process, some stuff is dying and you might feel icky. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah, that's really good advice, actually, because we've seen that a lot clinically, for sure. So in your opinion, do you think everyone should just kind of stay on a certain product?

Do you think we should rotate them? What do you think the best use is? 

Martha Carlin: Well, you know, that's a question I get a lot. That's because there are a lot of people who are saying you should rotate. But I'm going to tell you, most of the probiotics on the market are made by just three suppliers. So even in rotating, you're not getting a lot of variety.

So we, we do have some unique strains that are only ours. And, you know, if in terms of rotating, I would rotate for variety and you're not going to get that just going to the. shelf, but for our product, like for the sugar ship product, the best results are taking it long term. The other thing I will say is we have a strain of lactobacillus plantarum that is ours, that is in all of our formulas that breaks down glyphosate to phosphate, hydrogen, and water.

Microbes are either killed by glyphosate, the good bacteria are either killed by glyphosate or they don't break it all the way down and they can break it down into something that's worse than glyphosate. So, from that perspective, it really depends on what your diet is and how much you're exposing yourself to glyphosate.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Right. So the SugarShift product is your your main product there, right? Or not main, but that's kind of the most common one with the farthest reaching benefits. Is that what I'm understanding? 

Martha Carlin: Yes, because it's, you know, it's a great overall metabolic health. Product and, you know, increases energy improves, you know, B, B vitamins, those microbes make B vitamins.

You'll get the OQ10, you get the bacterial melatonin. It has a very and it increases the butyrate and acetate. And of course, in our clinical results got the reduction in endotoxin. So that has broad application. Across the population, just to general metabolic health. And I think, you know, the last time I was looking at something, they say somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of people have some level of metabolic dysfunction.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah, exactly. Probably higher, just to be honest, but So, just to clarify, so the antibiotic, antibiotic antidote, so you're saying this is to be used after a round of antibiotics with around because some people ask me, like, do I take my probiotics with the antibiotic? And I typically tell them, no, wait until you're done, but what's your suggestion there?

Martha Carlin: I mean, I typically tell people, no, wait until you're done or, you know, you can start on the last day if you want, but you know, antibiotics kill microbes. So you're bringing in microbes that are going to be. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: I guess that's another question I just naturally have is, okay, so let's say someone, they finished the round of antibiotics, they're better or whatever, but we want to repopulate their gut.

So I'm going to put them on the antibiotic antidote. Is that like a three months? Is that like a six months? Is that, what's a typical timeframe? 

Martha Carlin: I mean, typically. People are like, you know, one to two months and then they'll switch to another product. But I, I do actually have a, I have some people who take that as their regular probiotic.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Gotcha. Okay. Okay. Maybe someone that's like prone to urinary tract infections or something like that. 

Martha Carlin: Well, if you, if you just think about, I mean, there's a lot of antibiotics in our food. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Okay. Yeah. That's a good perspective. 

Martha Carlin: You know, people don't think about it, but. Like if you're buying a tub of hummus at the grocery store, which I tell people not to buy because it's a Petri dish, but they, you know, they put anti enzymatic food preservatives on top of it.

So it won't grow stuff, but then, of course, when you eat that, it's anti enzymatic in your, it's an anti enzymatic is antibiotic really. So it's, you know, stopping that digestion process as well. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Absolutely. Well, man, I mean, this is all amazing information I definitely think we could go into so many different topics and concepts and, and I would love to one thing I want to make sure because I think a lot of people might be a little overwhelmed, right?

Because they're thinking, oh my gosh glyphosate is killing me and all these things in the food and the toxins and, and I, what am I going to do? And I'm sure there's some people freaking out right now. So, while this may be overwhelming, how can you help the listeners kind of cut through the noise and focus on what really matters?

Maybe what are some good, simple action steps from your perspective? 

Martha Carlin: I mean, the simplest action, action step I tell most people is make sure you have a good clean water source. So, are you drinking mineral water that has minerals in it to, to restore those minerals? Or, you know, you've got some quality filtration, and if you're doing that, then you're going to need to add minerals back.

And that's a, that's probably 1 of the biggest drivers of helping your microbiome and helping you overall because we need minerals for, you know, the whole system to run and. Focus on fresh local food as much as possible. And, you know, you're not going to be able to get that all the time. People want to go out and eat.

They're going to go out and eat and. That's probably not going to be fresh local food. So the other thing is. Like, try not to stress yourself and obsess to a point where it just disrupts your whole, whole life. I mean, I, I do talk to people who get so concerned about it. They almost can't eat anything and I, I, I don't want people to feel that way.

I mean, We need to have a life that we enjoy. We enjoy being with friends and family. Thanksgiving's coming up. We're all going to eat things like we probably shouldn't eat. Like I'm the queen of pie. So I'm going to have plenty of sugar and have my sugar shift. But you know, and I actually think part of.

The wisdom of the body, I'm going to get a little out there for you, but, you know, and, and it probably connects to prayer actually is if you, if you are grateful for your food and you tell your body, you know, I want this food to nourish me, not harm me. You know, you're, you're giving yourself a signal and an intent and consciousness for the food to nourish you.

And so, you know, just try to make the best choices you can, but don't overstress about every little thing. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: I totally agree with that. And that's definitely not out there. I mean, our. Foundational pillar is faith, and I thoroughly believe in Dr. Imoto's work even, you know, Dr. Emoto showed that we can change the structure of water crystals simply by speaking or thinking into a water source.

That was very telling for me, right? And even when I'm interacting with patients. If I'm having a hard time kind of being in that, that proper space that I'm supposed to be, I will just consciously think love and gratitude, just love and gratitude as I'm working with that patient because that's what I want to channel into that patient.

I don't want to be thinking about all my different problems and all the different things going on in my world while I'm working on that patient and I'm known for. My laser focus, which pun intended but that's, you can ask any doctor I work with any patient I work with when I'm with someone, it's like I'm in a trance and it's because that mindset, that intent, it has a huge, huge benefit or detriment depending on how, you know, your state is.

So you're right. Why wouldn't you facilitate that into? The food you're about to ingest to nourish your body, it just makes sense. Definitely, you know, just a huge source of information. I love the work you're doing. I definitely want to, you know, support it however we can. So if there's any kind of, you know, I don't know if it's helping with a pilot study.

I don't know if it's helping however we can, you know, just let us know. And I'll, you know, definitely am going to using the product line. and then in my family, using it with my kids, my wife, et cetera and clinically with patients. So it's an amazing product line. You've done a phenomenal job with that.

I love the research that you're doing. The, the paper you're about to, you know, publish with endotoxins and improving short chain fatty acids is huge. That has far reaching benefits. And for, you know, if anyone's in the neuro space. You hear those words and you're thinking, Oh my gosh, this is going to impact cognition is going to impact neurodegeneration is going to impact neurodevelopmental issues, etc.

Right? So this is very far reaching concepts that you're publishing out there. So again, just very grateful for all the work and everything that you've shared with us today. So for everyone listening, they're going to want to learn more about you more about your work. Where can they go to learn more?

Martha Carlin: So, to learn more about the probiotics, they can go to BiotiQuest, that is B I O T I Q U E S T. If they want to know about our, my Parkinson's research and all the things I write about there, I have a blog called Martha's Quest. And there I write not just about the Parkinson's and the microbiome. It is primarily focused on that, but I do also cover mindfulness and stress management and other techniques and modalities that can be beneficial for Parkinson's.

And then. If you want to know the history of the poop bank, you can go to the bio collective, 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: the poop bank. That's funny. I know several people, some functional nutritionists and everyone. They always talk about all the poop samples I get. It's funny. I think of Kate Caro personally, she's always talking about.

The different stool samples she's seen and all the different things they're seeing. 

Martha Carlin: Well, I can tell you a quick story from collecting stool samples in our lab. Actually, The people processing the samples in the lab could actually tell a person with Parkinson's just by looking at their stool because it was it had the consistency of concrete and that has gone on to inform.

It's not published anywhere. You can't find anything about that anywhere. But it's There's a researcher in Australia that I'm working with Dr. Barry Nenum on a kind of a new framework for Parkinson's. And part of it is about the battle going on in the gut and the production of or the dumping of calcium and phosphate that makes this dense colloidal mass like concrete.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Wow. That's, that's rather intriguing. Different, you know, definitely gives you a perspective on why you should be analyzing bowel movements. It's just, again, just amazing work that you're, you're doing thank you again for all of that. So just to speak to the listeners for a little bit if you're into exploring the latest in health and brain optimization, check out my other episodes of the Longevity Formula.

We explore everything from cutting edge therapies for chronic conditions to practical ways to optimize your health and longevity through functional neurology, cutting edge therapies, and much more. Kind of like what you've heard us talk about today with Martha. If you've enjoyed the episode, please give us a rating and review on Apple podcasts.

It really helps others find the show for YouTube. Don't forget to hit the like button, subscribe to the channel. That's one thing I'm noticing. A lot of people are watching, but not subscribing. Please hit that subscribe channel because it really does help us bring better content to you guys. So and then of course, turn on notifications so you don't miss anything, guys.

So again, Martha thoroughly enjoyed this thoroughly support everything you're doing. You're an amazing person, amazing human doing amazing things. Thank you so, so much. Is there anything else that you'd like to leave our listeners with before we sign off? 

Martha Carlin: Yes. Thank thank you and just gratitude for people listening.

That's. I'm grateful to be here. I'm grateful to my husband for all that he did over the 23 years to help us advance the science of Parkinson's and the microbiome. And, I'm just thankful for the opportunity to be here and tell people about it. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Awesome. Well, I appreciate you and I appreciate your time.

Everyone, thank you and we will see you next time.

Voice Over: We hope today's episode has inspired you to take that next step towards your best self. Remember, the path to longevity is paved with small, daily decisions. Your journey is unique and every step, every choice brings you closer to your ultimate vision of a healthier, happier life. For more insights, tips, and resources, visit drbrandoncrawford.com.

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