AI Summary
5 min read🎙️ The Voices & The Context
- The Format: Casual interview with hosts bantering freely before diving into expert Q&A on microbiome science.
- The Key Players:
- Guest: Colleen Cutcliffe, microbiome scientist, PhD, founder of Pendulum (probiotics/prebiotics company), health advisory board at Johns Hopkins. Interesting for her startup journey from pharma to consumer products, backed by Mayo Clinic and celeb investor Halle Berry.
- Hosts: Dax Shepard and Monica Padman – electric chemistry blending humor, personal anecdotes, and geeky questions; main banter on cultural identities, Ruth's Chris origins, and gut health experiments.
- The Vibe: Fun, educational, optimistic – mix of laughs, mind-blowing science, and relatable health hacks.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **🎙️ Introduction: Colleen Cutcliffe**
- 2 (04:22) **Personal Backgrounds and Origins**
- 3 (13:22) **Career Path to Microbiome**
- 4 (17:02) **Microbiome Fundamentals**
- 5 (22:32) **Coprophagy and Fecal Transplants**
- 6 (25:02) **Obesity, Diabetes, and GLP-1 Strains**
- 7 (27:27) **Akkermansia Muciniphila and Leaky Gut**
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
Colleen Cutcliffe (Pendulum Therapeutics) is a doctor of biochemistry and microbiology and CEO and co-founder of Pendulum Therapeutics. Colleen joins the Armchair Expert to discuss starting a microbiome supplement company inspired by her premature daughter who had to take antibiotics, applying hyenas' evolved ability to digest rotting meat to study gut bacteria, and how fecal transplants reliably help treat C. diff. Colleen and Dax talk about the real linkages between microbiome and depression, obesity, and more, how the body’s natural GLP1s function, and why a healthy gut is a resilient gut. Colleen explains her wooden fence analogy to illustrate leaky guy syndrome, remarkable results from experiments giving mice Akkermansia, and that the beauty of the microbiome is that everything is recoverable.
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