Dr. Colleen Cutcliffe On How To Naturally Boost GLP-1, Stop Cravings, Fix Bloating, & The Truth About Gut Health

23:24You know, you get in line, you do what you're told. You know, this is the way it works. And so I think in general, many people are very uncomfortable with people that kind of buck the system or push back or do things in their own way. And I think it's something that's ingrained in a lot of people where if they see somebody saying, I'm not going to do what everyone else does, I'm doing it my way. It's almost like you're disrespecting not only the system, but like the societal structure. and they get uncomfortable with it. I see it all the time, even like doing what I do in media and social. If you don't quote unquote follow the unspoken rules in media, you're allowed to talk to these people.

23:57You're not allowed to talk to these people. You're allowed to do this, that. And you don't, and you also don't care that you don't. People get strange about it. They like things to be organized. Yeah, I mean, I think generally speaking, we stay with the herd because that's what helps us survive in the old days. But I think in this case, when it comes to the medical profession, there's an additional factor which is liability so like if you said oh i don't want to get those blood tests done and they're like that's cool then later you could be like well but no one ever informed me like why should i have gotten them done they just said that's fine and i'm not a doctor and so i think we live in a world where people are suing people all the time and hospitals and doctors are some of the most sued people and so i think that's another reason why we get pushback Talk to us about the Amazon supplements.

24:43What is going on with these fakers? Well, I think one of the kind of myths out there is that if something is on Amazon, it's legit. So many people think like, oh, well, I didn't see it on Amazon, so it's probably not legit. Oh, I found it on Amazon, so that is a complete myth. Because Amazon is a marketplace that allows anybody to put anything on there and sell it. And so that is the most egregious when it comes to supplements. And so I had never really thought very deeply about it until we experienced this ourselves at our company. So we put a product out. We called it Acromantia. It's a next-generation strain.

25:20It's probably the most important strain in your gut that no one's ever heard of. And we have done, not just us, but around the world people have done research on this strain. There's over 3 ,000 peer-reviewed publications. It plays a really important role in your gut lining. And it's actually one of only two strains that can directly stimulate your body's natural GLP-1 hormone. We can get to that in a second. And so one of the places we sell our products on is Amazon. And it literally is a clean bottle that just says Acromantia on it. It's really clear. Like it's just this ingredient that you're buying.

25:52And we started to see all these copycats about six to 12 months later putting Acromantia on Amazon. And I was like, how are these people? It's actually a really hard strain to manufacture. We built a manufacturing plant because no one could actually grow it. I was like, how are they doing? This is crazy. And so I was saying earlier, I just got off the phone with one of our collaborators at Cornell. He basically bought a bunch of these Acromantias off Amazon. He DNA sequenced them and he called me up and was like, Colleen, the only product that actually has Acromantia in it is Pendulums. And so we call the other ones fake romancia.

26:31But this is just a really important buyer beware that just because it's on Amazon does not mean it's legitimate. And you still, unfortunately, have to do the homework of is that a legitimate company and look it up and make sure that they're doing real stuff. So if someone's buying Pendulums, do you recommend and they're doing it on Amazon, they go to like your Pendulum Amazon page and buy from there? They don't just search, obviously, the product name, Pendulum Ackerman. Like you've got to get it from your storefront. They can buy it off Amazon. There are some copycats that are literally using our same label.

27:01But if you're careful when you go into Amazon and you can see where the vendor is, you'll be able to see, okay, the vendor's pendulum or some random company in China that's made up. They need to look for the pendulum as the seller. Yeah, as the seller. Or you can buy it directly from our website, which definitely you're getting from us. Someone did this to me. A bunch of people did this to me with mouth tape. I sell mouth tape on Amazon. This is obviously different because it's not a supplement. but there's different toxins in the adhesive. So all of a sudden I started seeing my mouth tape copied because it's in a shape of pink lips.

27:33And I saw it everywhere copied. And you have to be careful of what adhesive you're buying. What I always tell people as it relates to supplements, like one, all the things you're saying, go to the company. But this is not the area where you want to look for deep discounts. Exactly. I look at it in the same way. It's like you don't go to a tattoo artist and say, who's the cheapest guy in here? You know what I mean? And I think if it's going in your body, again, you have to be really thoughtful and you don't want the cheapest version of that because likely it's either it's not real or it's low quality or it's completely fake.

28:06Yeah. I totally agree. I mean, you're putting something in your body. It's not the time to get cheap. And it's not the time to try to look for the... I mean, there's so many fly-by-nighters in the supplements industry. They'll pop up. It's like a game of whack-a-mole. And then they'll go away and then they'll pop back up again with a slightly different name. And part of the issue with Amazon is that, and I don't know if you experienced this, but you tell Amazon, like, these are not real. And they're like, okay, we've had the same experience. Yeah. We wanted to have you on the show initially because we heard that Pendulum provides the perfect natural alternative to GLP-1s.

28:47First of all, let's unpack that. Yes, let's do unpack that because I want to be real clear. It's not like the drugs. And so maybe we'll start with like, what is GLP-1 and like, what is it supposed to be doing? I think we all know GLP-1. Oh, it's an injection or now a pill that helps you lose weight. But underlying that is actually what's happening in your body. So what is supposed to be happening in your body is you eat a meal. It goes into this big manufacturing factory of your microbiome. And one of those departments in there says, OK, we just ate a meal. we need to stimulate our GLP-1 hormone.

29:22It's actually a hormone. And so it stimulates your natural GLP-1 hormone. And so now you get GLP-1 in your bloodstream. And that GLP-1 does two really important things. One, it tells your body, we just had sugar. Almost every meal you have has sugars. So like let's metabolize that sugar. So it stimulates your insulin pathway and helps you metabolize that sugar. And the second thing is it tells your brain, we just ate, so we don't need to eat anymore. We're full. And so that happens. And then that hormone gets metabolized, like every other hormone in our body gets metabolized and it goes away. And then you'll get hungry again.

29:53And then it comes back up. And so that you're supposed to be on a natural cycle of your GLP-1 hormone. Now, as pharmaceutical companies do, they realize, wow, this hormone is really great because it helps you metabolize your sugars and tells you your body you're full. Can we make a drug that looks like it? And so all the GLP-1s out there that people are familiar with, ozempic, semaglutide. These are chemicals that are made to mimic your body's natural GLP-1 hormone. And because they're chemicals, they don't go through this cycle. You're basically injecting this GLP-1 hormone and it doesn't get metabolized.

30:26It just stays at really high levels at all times. And the reason why that may be problematic is like if I was talking to you through like one of those megaphones, you would definitely hear me better. But after a time, if I'm talking to you through that megaphone, you're going to go deaf. And the body actually literally works the same way, your body can become deaf to these things. So one of the things that happens for people on insulin is they have to have higher and higher doses as time goes on because their body is not reacting to that insulin anymore. It's turning deaf to it. And so one of the things that is likely to happen that we're all going to find out is that when you're having these high levels of GLP-1 and all the time for long periods of time, your body's going to stop responding to it the way that you really want it to.

31:05So even these people that are saying, oh, I'm just doing a micro dose over time, that dose is going to have to increase for them to get the effect. It is. It is. And that's because you're really, you're kind of keeping it at this high level. So even a micro dose is still like this instead of like the cycle you're supposed to be on. So I think GLP-1s are an awesome invention. I think all of those drugs are really helping people in important and massive ways that we need. But my suggestion to anybody who's thinking if that works for you, that probably means that your body's natural GLP-1 system was out of whack for all the reasons we talked about, about your gut health and your gut diversity being gone.

31:43So if you're missing those strains, you're not getting your normal GLP-1 cycle. So if the drug is working for you, that's awesome. Why not also help your body make its own natural GLP-1 hormone? Here's what my fear is with these GLP-1s. I agree with you. I think it's an incredible technology. I think many people have benefited huge lifestyle changes to the positive effect by incorporating them. What my concern is, is that the direction we're moving into is that instead of trying to get your GLP-1 production back on the right track naturally, we are no longer even going to try. We are just going to jump to a drug because humans are lazy and we want the easiest path and we want the least amount of work.

32:25and the problem, the way that plays out long-term, I think could become problematic for individuals and for society. And what I tell people that maybe that come to me privately that maybe don't are not necessarily like, I don't want to say a real candidate, but a typical candidate, maybe you're not obese or you don't have these issues, you're just trying to lose a little weight. I would say like, let's first try to get the natural process firing again and do what you need to do there first before you jump. But I think, again, a lot of people are just going to take the easier path, which is get on the drug, disregard that.

33:02But again, what this looks like in 20, 30 years, I think we're going to find out. I remember being postpartum and just remember thinking, this is not easy. If you are like me, you're nursing, you're pumping, there's a whole mix of things going on and it's overwhelming. And so enter kindred bravely. Okay. So this is a bra that is designed for the postpartum chapter. It's a bra that stretches with you, but it also supports you. For me, that is important. I want to feel supported and it makes feeding really simple instead of stressful. Okay. I have tried all of the nursing and pumping bras, the cheap ones, the overhyped ones, the ones that look amazing online but do not hold up in real life.

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35:44Wegove is the registered trademark of Novo Nordisk AS. To get started and learn more, including important safety information, Wegove clinical study information, and restrictions, visit ForHers.com. Mouth tape. it's so fucking cute. You've never seen cuter. I definitely would say if you are not using mouth tape, you are missing out on so many benefits. It's absolutely changed my life. I cannot say enough good things about it. So what I've noticed is that it's made my jawline stronger because it supports your tongue posture all night. It's encouraged nasal breathing, which gives you a better sleep and more energy in the morning.

36:26And most importantly, it's trained me sort of where to put my tongue. I would never dare sleep without mouth tape. So subscription, I would recommend because we sell out all the time. We literally cannot keep this mouth tape in stock. If you want to chisel your jawline while you sleep and get a better sleep, go to shopskinnyconfidential.com, shopskinnyconfidential.com. So tell us about what the natural alternative, what does it do exactly? It's basically stimulating your body's natural GLP-1. It's the same thing, but your body's able to do it in a natural way, the way it's designed to. The way it's designed to do it.

37:07And so then what happens is the repercussions of your GLP-1 being back to what it's supposed to be, having your natural GLP-1 stimulated, is that you will not have these weird random food cravings when you're not supposed to have. Some people will, actually many people will say, if I get a chocolate bar, once I open that chocolate bar, I'm eating that whole thing. I'm not going to eat a piece, wrap it up, and put it away. And even though halfway through you're probably full or whatever, a couple squares in, you're full, your body is continuing to make you think that you're still hungry. So you have all these unwanted food cravings.

37:42Your metabolism is slowing down. You're eating sugars, but your body isn't actually metabolizing it. You're eating carbs, but your body isn't actually metabolizing well. So when you get your real natural GLP-1 hormone back in sync, all of those things will start to go away. You'll have less food cravings, less food noise. Your metabolism will be back in sync. And to the point about like, well, gee, that sounds like a lot of work to try to get my natural GLP-1 back. It probably involves dietary changes, supplementation. Why don't I just go on the drug instead? Instead, I would offer for people that if that's the way that you can jumpstart getting onto into a healthy frame of mind, I'm all for it.

38:18But then just consider if you're not wanting to be on that for the rest of your life to then try to add in these things after you've gotten into a good place. And we have a lot of practitioners that do that. They'll start someone on a drug and then they'll be like, great, now we want to reduce your dose or now we want to do an on-off regimen. And so what do you do in the off? You got to get your natural GLP-1 working. Why do some doctors, and you're the perfect person to ask this, say that once you start with these drugs, not all of your doctors, but some, say that you'll need to be on this for life?

38:47And how do you, if you don't want to be on these medications for life and you want to get on a natural path again, how are you able to do that and get off in a healthy way so that you don't have to be on these medications forever? I mean, I think any practitioner who says once you start GLP-1s, you have to be on the first year of life, like, should be disbarred. Like, that's insanity. That is a complete lie. That's not true. I mean, we know that even if you have actually type 2 diabetes, there are so many studies that are showing that if you can improve, I mean, nutrition is one of the biggest things, nutrition and exercise, you can reverse your own diabetes even without drugs.

39:27I mean, there are companies that are premised on this. There's a company called Virta Health. They can reduce diabetes and A1C and all that stuff as good as drugs, and their whole regimen doesn't involve a single drug. And so I think that is maybe more psychological. So yeah, once you're on the drug, it's an easy fix. Maybe you never want to go off of it again, but you certainly can. They'll frame it as like, oh, you'll likely need to be on this. And again, I don't want to say that for every doctor, but there's definitely some people that come to mind that say once you get on these things, it's likely you're going to be on it for forever.

39:57And I think that is concerning. Yeah, I would say so. How many of your natural alternative do you take a day? Is it one? Is it 10? How many pills? Oh. Or supplements, I should say. Well, I just take the one pendulum supplement, which is... But is it just one? Yeah. Well, the product that I take is called Pendulum Glucose Control. Okay. As its name suggests, it's to help you with glucose control. So it's a formulation of five different strains. They work together as a team in order to help you stimulate your body's natural GLP-1. They work together as a team to help you with your gut lining. And so I take...

40:37Those are two pills a day. So I take two in the morning and kick my day off with. And you like it in the morning? I do it in the morning because that's when I have, I have like a morning routine. Usually involves coffee. I never miss my coffee, so I never miss my supplements. By the time I get to the end of the day, like it's hard for me to routine. So I always tell people like whenever you've got your routine, just slot it in there. And you also take your other probiotic. I'm going to flub the name. Say the name. Is it acromantia? Acromantia. Yeah, that's the strain name. It sounds like arachnophobia.

41:07Sounds like you're casting a spell. Yeah, it sounds like you sneezed. Yes, Harry Potter or something. Halle Berry is an equity owner. That's cool. How did she get involved? Yeah, Halle Berry, a lot of people don't realize she actually has diabetes. Right. And so she, and you might imagine she gets pitched all kinds of products all the time to try to help her. she tells uh and this is kind of what she has said is that she learned about pendulum from the cleveland clinic and we have physicians there that have been using our products almost since day one and so they she had somebody from the cleveland clinic call her up and say like hey have you heard about this company pendulum i think you should try it out and so she tried it and it's the only thing she's ever up supplement she's ever taken that lowered her a1c like in a meaningful way and in a sustainable way.

41:59And so she's like, what is this company? And so I got a invite that said, Halle Berry would like to talk to you. And I was like, okay, that's hilarious. Sure. But it was in fact, Halle Berry wanted to talk to us. And she's like the nicest person. We get on this Zoom call and she says, I love your product. I really want to figure out how I can help you. What can I do? It's like a dream call for anybody who's trying to build a business. And so it's a good call. It's a good call. It's a good call. And then she and I on a personal level have really bonded. And we have, you know, kids the same age and some of our personalities are kind of similar to each other.

42:38And so she became an investor in the company. She is our she has it. She took on a title, which is chief communications officer, which isn't just like a gimme title, a bullshit title. she really felt like the way she could help our brand is by helping us communicate better what it does and why it's different from all the other supplements out there and one of the first things she did was she made us change the bottle so if you look at old school pendulum bottles they're like these very um almost medicine-y looking she was like this is terrible this feels like old school stuff if we have innovation on the inside we have to be communicating that in all the different ways that people experience the product, including the packaging.

43:19Yes, Hallie. Yeah. And so I'll tell you this. We went through a whole exercise of building a whole new packaging and bottle. And the bottle design we came up with was actually inspired by a Petri dish. So it was almost like a disc shape, if you remember back to seventh grade biology, a Petri dish. And you would open it up like this, and all your pills would be inside. We're like, oh my gosh, this is so cool. We built a bunch of them. We started selling them. And she did all these posts about them. and what we found is that um it was only us like it was like me and her and some other women in the company who've been opening it all the guys are like i can't this thing is so tiny i open it up and everything spills everywhere it was kind of a little bit of a disaster so this was like kind of a crazy moment because i had to go back and tell hallie berry like this thing that we designed together it's not working and you know she's not from this startup environment she is from film.

44:13You don't put a movie out and you're like, oh, people didn't like it. We got to go back and redo it. It's out there. It's done. And so I didn't know how she was going to take this phone call of like, it's not working. We have to pull it. What did Catwoman say? Catwoman said, okay, well, if that's what our customers are saying, we got to listen to the people. We got to listen to the people. She did a pivot. She did a pivot. We took the whole thing. So you can't, that's like a historic thing. If you happen to have one, you should hold on to it because no more of those are being made. And then we moved to the current bottle you see.

44:42which is beautiful. Which I think we're all very happy with. Where is your daughter now? How is your daughter's health right now to round out this conversation? And on that note, not to just pick on your daughter, but for anyone that's maybe exhibited early gut issues or had a similar story, or maybe they've done something where they've, you know, messed up their gut microbiome. I think a large theme of this episode is being able to change that. So yeah, I think we should talk about it. Yeah. So my daughter was definitely an early user of the product. And I can say like she can eat anything now.

45:15And I remember there was one day she came home and she was like, Mom, where are the pills? And because we had like every one of my family is taking them. And I said, oh, I haven't reordered. We don't have any right now. And she was like, but we're going to go out for ice cream this weekend. I was like, well, we should have a talk about how this isn't really an ice cream enabler. But effectively, she can eat anything. And how old is she now? She's 19. And how long did it take her from your perspective till that started to resolve itself until the gut got stronger? It was like less than 90 days.

45:43Oh, wow. So it happens quick. She was pretty, I mean, she was in, at that point, she was still in elementary school. Colleen, now he's going to take all my supplements. I know you're going to go home. He's going to start looking through for the pendulum. If someone jumps into the pendulum protocol and they want to do this 90 day, like, is that what you guys recommend? And how do you recommend most people dive in and start incorporating? I definitely recommend the first step is what do you feel like you're trying to fix? And like literally I say, write it down, like write down what you feel like.

46:13These are all the things that I think could be improved in my life. And don't, nothing is out of scope here. Everything is, write it down. How do I get my wife to stop yelling at me? Yeah, write it all down. Write it down. Fix your microbiome. Fix your microbiome and then she won't be as irritated with you. Get rid of your hairspray. and then the reason I say 90 days is because if you were to become a if you were to change your diet so let's say you're a vegetarian you became a carnivore within eight weeks your microbiome will look totally different so you know it takes about that amount of time to really introduce something new into your gut some people feel a difference in a matter of days and some people take six months but on average I give you like give it 90 days and the kind of things that can also bolster this are if you can start to increase the amount of fiber that's in your diet, that can be through foods or supplementation.

47:03That's the food for these strains. And so if you can feed them fibers and polyphenols and take the pills, within 90 days, go back to your list and just see, like, did anything get better? And would you just take one pendulum a day? Is that it? Just the one strain per day? I always recommend for people to take pendulum metabolic daily. So I know we've talked a lot about acromansia. That's one of the strains. It's in Metabolic Daily, but Metabolic Daily has all the strains. Like I said, it's an ecosystem. So you think the Metabolic Daily by Pendulum, that's the best place to start when you're just getting going with your company?

47:36That's the best place to get started. It's the best price performance. I mean, that's really your daily. I want to tell you about the charity that I am so passionate about, and it is called I Stand With My Pack. They are committed to getting dogs fostered and adopted. I have been a fan of this specific charity for about five years. When my daughter was born, I met a woman named Lucy and she was helping me with Zaza and she told me all about this incredible charity, I Stand With My Pack, where they helped animals find homes that were in really bad conditions. And I started following the Instagram account, fell in love with what they were doing, and then decided to partner with them to bring awareness to their cause.

48:21If you're looking to adopt or foster a dog, you have to check them out. It's I Stand With My Pack. They are accepting donations too if you can't adopt or foster. And all of the money goes to their mission, which is to help dogs with major medical needs that are often not seen by adopters or other rescuers. Check them out. I stand with my pack.org. This episode is brought to you by Woo More Play. All right, if you're out West, this one's for you. Woo More Play just launched with Fascinations, the one-stop shop for adult toys, lingerie, wellness, and more. If you're a listener in Arizona and Colorado, you can visit their local Fascinations store to pick up the full line of Woo More Play.

49:07So think lubes like the coconut love oil, which is magnificent. It's organic, non-toxic, the only lube that I will use. And it's not filled with shitty ingredients. It also tastes like cupcakes, which makes everything so much better. If you need to get Woo in a hurry, go to fascinations.net to buy online and pick up in store. Definitely get your favorite non-toxic Woo More Play lube today. You can use code SKINNY both in store and online at Fascinations. Of course, you can also shop my favorite vibrator and lube at woomoreplay.com. That's woomoreplay.com. This episode is brought to you by Lauren Bostic for P-Volv.

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51:43Lauren Bostic for Pvolve. Before you go, we have a huge female audience. What is the menopause microbiome link? Yes, this is actually really, really fresh information. So, and I think I'll also caveat it by saying we're very early in research, like we as a, you know, global community. But one of the things that happens during menopause, one of the biggest things that happens during menopause is your estrogen levels kind of go through this massive decline. The microbiome for women also has certain strains that you could literally overlay exactly that estrogen decline and they go down at the same rate.

52:29and maybe I'll take one step back, which is to say that if you're a woman and you're between puberty and menopause and you sent me your microbiome, I could tell you, are you a man or a woman? We actually, women's microbiomes look different from men's until menopause. Controversial statement these days, Colleen. Are ours like little hearts? Without getting into any of that. And I'll explain why, because it really is about hormones and about what you identify as. But once you get through menopause, our microbiomes look like men's. You can't tell anymore, is this from a man or a woman. That's interesting.

52:59That's so interesting. Yeah. Wow. And what it boils down to is this thing. So as our estrogen levels are declining, so are these very specific strains in our microbiome are also declining. And when you dig a little bit deeper, those strains actually can increase your body's free estrogen. So your body naturally has a system that when you're between puberty and menopause, your whole body is regulated in, you get increases of certain hormones, and then there's like a thing that decreases your hormones. So everything is really cyclical when it comes to hormones. And so estrogen has a system for increasing your estrogen and it has all these systems for then decreasing your estrogen.

53:32And the microbiome is it plays a role in that decreasing of your free estrogen. And so what happens is that we lose those strains that can put free estrogen back into our body. And so the idea is the hypothesis is if you could give those strains that are like, especially I think during perimenopause, when these cliffs can feel really dramatic. if you can give people back those strains that help kind of stabilize that free estrogen level that you could maybe help to manage these symptoms that we go through when we go through menopause. With that also in mind, is it potential to delay the onset?

54:08No, no, that's right. That is actually the whole goal. The whole goal is to actually try to target women before we're like in the throes of menopause. But as you're starting to feel all those symptoms, like people, women start to feel those symptoms, some like within their 30s and you don't necessarily recognize it but the whole idea here is to make it less dramatic and terrible and by the way there are also systems um that do the same thing with testosterone sure so all these it's a hormone thing it's another hormone yeah colleen you're fascinating you're welcome to come back on the show anytime that was a great conversation where can everyone shop pendulum yes i um i would love for everybody to check us out at PendulumLife.com.

54:49There's a lot of information. There's a lot of stuff we talked about here today. There's a lot of information there. If you're a healthcare practitioner, we have a special section just for you that has all the papers and protocols written by your peers. And so please come learn, ask us questions. I think if you're just looking to boost your gut and metabolic health and you're looking for which product is right for me, Metabolic Daily is the one to go after. If you have diabetes, take Pendulum Glucose Control. And again, if you can boost your nutrition with fibers and polyphenols that's all going to feed these guys and be great for your gut you can go to pendulumlife.com skinny they gave you a code skinny you get 20 off your first purchase michael keep your paws off my product go buy it use the code michael i'm getting my own 90 day he always does this like we'll interview someone about something and then i already have it because i'm already taking it and then he'll start getting into my supply i like to meet the person first.

55:44Yeah, that makes sense. Then I get bought in. Now I'm like, okay. All right. Well, I'll tell you something funny. We've met investors where they're like, oh, my wife has this product. And now they're meeting the company and realizing we're a real company buying the product. I love what you're doing. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, guys. Thank you for doing this.