Video Transcript
- G'day world. Chris Hogan, coming to you live from Biotica Water Studio here on the Gold Coast. And I have with me the managing director of Bio-az. Bio-az is the company that owns Biotica Water and also produces the ingredients that go into Biotica water. Jeff, thanks so much for joining me.
- Not a problem. My pleasure.
- Jeff, just a brief background, what is it that you have done in the past in your career that, I guess, makes you the man to be talking to today about Biotica Water and essentially microbiome and all of these words that are getting thrown at people these days?
- Yeah, so I did a biochemistry physiology double major when I left school, so bachelor of science, and then I did nuclear medicine, then I did physiotherapy, then I did my masters of science and my sports specialty, and I had physio practises and sold them off. But my area of interest and expertise all the way through was epigenetics, so how we express our DNA and the innate immune system, which is the immune system that pretty much presents a barrier to the external world, whether it's on or in us, and the interaction between those two and the microbiome. And so, yeah, that's been my background. So that's exactly what we do at Bio-az, we specialise in the production of synbiotic ingredients, which is combination of pre, pro and postbiotics, that positively impact your health directly through those mechanisms attached to the microbiome.
- That word, well, there's multiple words in there, microbiome, certainly seems to be a new buzz word being thrown around a lot right now. What is the microbiome, first of all?
- Yeah, very good question. Everyone says microbiome. What actually microbiome is, is the sum total of genetic material presented to our bodies through the organisms that are living inside us or on us. So let's think of it this way, there's thousands of different organisms that live on us and in us, whether they're bacteria or even like parasites, little insects on your skin, they're all part of the microbiome. So they're all things that you would say are kind of external to us as an organism, but without them, we don't survive. Like they're that important. We're like a walking ecosystem. Every single one of those, let's talk about the bacteria that form the microbiome in the gut, all the organisms in your gut, in there, there's a series of chemicals or messages they provide our body and some bacteria produce the same chemicals or present the same message to our immune system, for example, or our neuroendocrine system, our nervous hormonal system, they present the same information as another organism in there. So both of them have a similar gene or the same genetic material in there. So the microbiome is kind of like a summary of all the genetic material in there. So what kind of potential messages and what kind of benefit, what kind of chemical messaging or physical interaction is there between the organisms that are living in you and on you and your own body? So the micro, when we say microbiome, we're talking about all of it in sum total and what the potential interaction is with us.
- Yeah, I understand.
- [Jeff] Bit nerdy probably.
- No, that's fine. And that collectively there, there's a weight that I heard, was it about two kilogrammes if they're all put together?
- Oh, yeah, yeah
- Trillions of those.
- I mean, I can get really gross for you. I mean, every time-
- Don't get gross.
- Yeah. Well, most of what you defecate is dead or living organisms, it's not actually the food you just ate.
- Okay.
- So yeah, there's a lot in there and a wide variety and yeah, and constantly changing and evolving too, that's what's really important to understand.
- So why is the focus so much on gut health and the microbiome now? Why is there so much, I guess, being proliferated through podcasts and science papers and all of this sort of stuff? Like it feels like all of a sudden this, like I said, it's a buzzword. For people out there that are, I guess, hearing this information, you know, is this just another fad? You know, how did we get here, to 2023? And talking so much about the microbiome and placing so much importance on it?
- Yeah, it's definitely not a fad. So when I did my physiology biochemistry and got thrown out of a biochemistry lecture, because I asked the lecturer like, "Well, what about those bacteria in our gastrointestinal tract? Surely they make chemicals. What influence do they have on our physiology?" Nothing. And I, of course, argued back and back maybe they did and got kicked out, but. And back then we didn't really. This information was emerging. It was only in the research laboratories of universities that people were really thinking and talking about this. But over time, we've come to understand. And a lot of it went back to the Human Genome Project and some of the technology that was invented and became quite mature during that, you know, many year process to map the human genome. And originally we thought when we map the human genome, okay, that would be it, we'd understand everything about what it is to be a human, it'd be like the user manual is there, and this is gonna have this profound impact on treating all sorts of diseases. Actually, it took the lid off Pandora's box, 'cause we realised, oh dear, there's a lot of information in there, and actually we're really not sure what most of it says. But the technology that was developed was then applied to the Human Microbiome Project, 'cause there was this growing body of knowledge all through the '80s and '90s where we realised that, geez, seems to be a lot of organisms on us, but we didn't really have good techniques to really identify them except through like faecal analysis or skin. And so that technology, all the 16S sequencing, all the new generation sequencing, was applied to the microbiome. And the more they look, the more they found and they realised that this is incredible. And we're not just identifying organisms, now we can identify what molecules, what chemicals are produced by them, what impact they have. And at the same time, big steps forward in technologies allowed us to understand different aspects of our own body as well, how our own physiology works. And then we look at how this interaction between the two works. So the reason why it's getting thrown around a lot now, why there's such excitement, is 'cause we're finally dawned upon us, 'cause we can measure it and understand it is, we don't live without the microbiome. This microbiome, it's so difficult to separate us from the rest of the world. Our microbiome, it's really our interface of the whole planet. And whilst it's always gut everyone talks about, well that's because probably 70% of your immune system is in your gastrointestinal tract. But really, any surface, whether it's your skin or your eyes all through your mouth, all down your gastrointestinal tract, your urogenital system, any surface that could possibly have any exposure to the external world, that's where your innate immune system is, that's where your microbiome is, and that's where this whole interaction is. But it goes further, right? 'Cause now we know that there's a microbiome in your blood. Well, surely not. Surely your blood should be clean. Well, no, it has a microbiome as well. And so with this, it's just this ballooning, exploding area of research and understanding of what it is to be us and how these organisms in us and on us and around us impact us and how we work with them to achieve states of wellness or ill health as well. So now you're gonna hear a lot more about it. And I know it sounds like there's a lot going on, but in our lifetimes, nobody knew what a probiotic was really 20 years ago, now everyone knows what a probiotic is. Nobody knew what a prebiotic was maybe 10 years ago, now most people are starting to know.
- Well, for those that don't, that's a perfect segue. Let's start with the prebiotic, 'cause it seems like that's the first one you're supposed to start with in a conversation. So prebiotics, what are they, and specifically I guess for Biotica, like what is the prebiotic? How did we get to having that prebiotic in the water? And then what does it do?
- Yeah, so a prebiotic is a organic nutrient that provides, I guess, a fuel to the microorganisms that are in us and on us or can be utilised by the microorganisms in us or on us for their own metabolism, but generally as a precursor to them being thriving and well and producing all sorts of metabolites that are good for us. And that is often carbohydrate-based molecules, so a sugar or like a monosaccharide or disaccharide, either one single sugar or two sugars joined together, we can digest them and assimilate them. And that's the things like sugar that you have and sucrose and fructose and you've heard all these things. But a prebiotic is generally three carbons long, so three sugar building blocks long, up to about 10, they're called oligosaccharides, and anything over 10, some definition definitions will say 13, but anything over 10 is more like a fibre, but these are what we call indigestible carbohydrates. Carbohydrates that we can't digest, but the microorganisms in us can digest and use them as fuel or use them as building blocks for something else they're trying to make. Now that's the original capture in that definition, but it's actually gone further than that, because a lot of omega-3s, omega-6s, different phytonutrients like the colour in blueberries, et cetera, actually they are all metabolised by the microorganisms as well. And so they fall under the classification of prebiotics as well. So prebiotics is quite a broad spectrum of different ingredients. And just, say, in Biotica Water, for example, just the sparkling, we have inulin in there and we have a basic oligosaccharide is a fructooligosaccharide, a galactooligosaccharide, and you can look these things up on the internet. They'll tell you all the different benefits they have for us. Inulin can be derived from things like chicory root or Jerusalem artichokes, but they're all plant-based chemistry. And the reason they're in the product is not for the probiotic actually that's in Biotica Water, the prebiotics that are in the Biotica Water mix have been carefully selected to actually up-regulate or improve the health or increase the number of good bacteria in your gut. The probiotic that's in Biotica Water does something completely different. So the prebiotic isn't in there for our probiotic in Biotica Water, it's in there as a fuel or an energy source for all good bugs in your gut.
- So bad bugs can't utilise prebiotics?
- The ones we've selected typically are not metabolised well by organisms that are not beneficial for your health. They tend, like especially the the fungi, they love sugars. So obviously, not a lot of people would know that. But no, a lot of prebiotics, not all organisms can metabolise all prebiotics, there's thousands of them and they all have different diets or things they like to eat. So we've specifically selected prebiotics that upregulate the more beneficial microorganisms in your gut biome.
- Cool, all right. Prebiotics, do they come in, I guess, foods that we would normally eat? Do they exist anywhere else?
- Yeah.
- Like that we would've already consumed, maybe in our diet at some point in time? Like what are some other examples of prebiotics that I guess you can get from the supermarket?
- Yeah, so any plant-based material will have indigestible carbohydrates in it. So lettuce. You know, you wouldn't say lettuce is sweet, but I mean salad's good for you. Yeah, it is really good for you. So there is chlorophyll in there and there's lots of other vitamins and minerals, but there's a lot of prebiotic fibre in there, really important. So any plant-based material, fruits, salads, vegetables, all of it's beneficial. Some have higher levels than others, some prepared in different ways are better than others. So again, you know, just a little bit of research will find. But generally, lots of living plant cells and lots of plant-based material in your diet's really beneficial. And we know that anyway. Most nutritionists and people who are interested in health or giving health advice will say, "You wanna get a lot of plant material, get more salads, get more fruits, get some more vegetables in your diet."
- Yeah, well it certainly seems like we've been through a wild ride, especially over the last 20 years. There's been so many diets and fads come out and people like swing really hard left or right on those diets and consuming even, like, it amazes me that there's even such a thing as the carnivore diet. So, you know, like-
- Oh no, it makes sense. I mean, there are different enterotypes. And an enterotype, if we did a faecal microbiome analysis of yourself, for example, and from that, we'd get that back and we'd look at the profile microorganisms in there and you can see from those profiles that most people fall into kind of three categories, three enterotype types, one: more protein-based metabolism, more protein-based diets would be good, the opposite is almost purely just more carbohydrate driven, and then there's a mix, right? There's kind of three different enterotype types. So everyone knows a vegan, everyone knows a vegan, that's gone out and gone on a diet and got super well. And then someone else says, "That sounds great, I'm gonna try that too." And it didn't go well for them. And same for carnivore. You see people get these, "Oh, these carnivore diets. I mean, it's the best thing ever. How can that be true? Like how can just eating meat be good?" And they're super well, but then someone else says, "I'll try that." And then they feel super terrible. Yeah, it's based on your enterotype type, because you aren't digesting what most of what you're eating, your microorganisms are doing the heavy lifting for you. So if you've got microorganisms that are suitably developed for meat, for protein, the you're gonna feel great on that diet. But if you haven't got that in your enterotype type, if you are more of a carbohydrate base, then you're not gonna do well on that. But you're gonna feel super fantastic if you have a massive amount of plant material. Most people kind of fit into one of those three. And even for the people who are, you know, more associated with more protein diet, there is still a benefit in having a lot of plant-based material in your diet, 'cause you don't wanna specialise, you know, you want general spread. Specialising is fine, you know, if everything's good and stays the same. I think I remember looking at some literature, they used to say that hunter and gatherers, you think, "Oh, they had a lot of meat when they go." Well, turns out only about 1 in 30 hunting trips were successful. And so the rest of the time, they were having, you know, leaves and nuts and fruits and vegetables, like all this kind of stuff. There's only 1 in 30 that'd get the meat, so.
- The Hadza in Africa, they've been, I think, the focus of a lot of recent studies, 'cause they're pretty much the only hunter gatherer tribes still left on the planet.
- Still left. Yeah, well we go down the supermarket, we have a successful hunt every time, right? I'm coming home with meat. So I mean, if you think of how, you know, we've developed over thousands of years, we've developed to suit the environment we're in, so we're super adaptable, but we thrive best when we've got a mix of protein-based, animal-based materials plus plants.
- Well, it's really interesting. I was listening to some podcasts recently and Tim Spector's one of them.
- [Jeff] Oh yeah.
- And they were talking about they Hadza and how they were, like their favourite meals is actually honey and meat, but because they can't get that all the time, they exist mostly on a plant-based diet. But yeah, if you were to put them in the same crappy situation like that we are presented with, us humans in first world countries with supermarkets, they would choose the same things and make the same bad mistakes that we have or most of us make when we go to the supermarket. And so that was really interesting.
- I've been to Africa a few times. If you watch how some of those communities I watched, I was in the Congo and the pygmies how they actually got the honey, I mean, there's a lot of risk to get honey. You have to climb the tree to get that. They haven't got, you know, beehives like we've got, their honey comes with significant risk. So there's a real reward. Oh, you get that honey. It's great. And it's not always successful. You know, you might lose somebody getting some honey, so.
- [Chris] Far out.
- Yeah. Yeah, it's very interesting. You're taking all that into account.
- Risk versus reward. Awesome. So, I guess, we danced around probiotics there and like what's a probiotic? And I guess in a real world scenario, what is a probiotic that you could purchase from your farmer's market?
- Yeah, probiotics are living organisms that when you consume them in a high enough dose will confer some health benefit on you. That's essentially the definition. And a traditional sources of probiotics are things like cultured dairy products, like cheeses and butters and yoghurts and kefirs and all those kind of fermented dairy products, sauerkraut, even some of the cured meats, Beet kvass was another one, there's a drink, you use beet root. Every different society, all over the world, no matter where they've come from, they will have evolved some kind of fermented or cultured food in their diet. Now, a lot of the times these cultured foods were developed to secure or preserve food, so that in times of challenge, whether it's an environmental challenge or they're on the move or whatever, they still had nutrition available to them. But sometimes though they would develop just because it was the only way to preserve them, 'cause they didn't have fridges, you know? So cheese and butter and these things were developed to take the value of the fresh milk and preserve that value, that nutritional value for later on. So they had to somehow come up with a way of keeping the milk so it was safe to consume. But all of those traditional foods, those fermented foods example, which should be thriving in different microorganisms that would be considered probiotics, and a lot of them produced, as a byproduct of their metabolism, these little organisms will be produced lactic acid. And so you think of the taste of sauerkraut, it's kind of a bit acidic. Yeah, well, that's right. And that's what apple cider vinegar, if you get the apple cider vinegars, they're still got the mother in them. You know, they're acidic. And that lactic acid, that acidity, has come from the microorganisms in there. And that lactic acid is what's preserving them. And so there's always some kind of metabolic pathway where those organisms produce something that cures or preserves and prevents pathogenic or nasty bacteria living in it. And so it's safe to consume long term. So probiotics, they've been around forever and ever and ever. And the other thing to consider is not just foods like that, but, you know, if you grew carrots, you know, 3,000 years ago, if you grew a carrot, it'd be slightly different to the ones we see in the supermarket, but when you pulled it out of the ground or if you discover it, you pulled it out of the ground, you'd give it a rub off, and you'd eat it, and you'd be eating some soil, and you're probably not that clean yourself, so you're covered in soil-based organisms and the plant matter that eating is covered in soil-based organisms. And a lot of those soil-based organisms are what we call spore forming bacteria, that they have a way of keeping themselves safe in harsh conditions. And about just over half of our own microbiome are spore forming bacteria and most of them from the soil. So, you know, they talk about children in the city versus children in the bush. You know, the children in the bush are out in the dirt all the time and they've got more diverse microorganisms profiles or microbiomes compared to the children in the city, they have less allergies and illnesses compared to... Yeah, that makes sense, 'cause the more biodiverse the organisms, the better. And the more soil-based organisms in our diet, the better. And not all probiotics are the same, some have just specific jobs and some have more kind of general "I'm in charge" jobs and helps everyone, so you want to profile probiotics as well. You don't want... And you definitely want some soil-based organisms in your diet somehow. And so eating plant matter and having things like Biotica Water is the way to go to get that.
- All right, so bacillus subtilis is the probiotic that's in Biotica Water. That's been, I guess, coupled together with the prebiotic inulin from chicory root. But where would we have found bacillus subtilis in the environment, I guess before Biotica Water came along?
- Yeah, well it's ubiquitous. It's in the air, it's in the soil. And so traditionally, anything we would've eaten, any plant-based material we would've eaten, would've had it in it. Any animal we will have killed on a hunt and eaten would've had bacillus subtilis throughout the gastrointestinal tract and all over their skin. So you would've been eating it all the time. And as I said, it's in the air as well. So yeah, the bacillus is soil-based organism and it has two life cycles. You know, in biology at school, you all learn about, you know, cells, here's a cell, it splits into two, now got two cells, they split into two, we've got four, and these cells are like jelly bags that keep splitting. That's one life cycle. But bacillus subtilis, like other spore forming organisms, have a second life cycle. So when they're challenged or they think conditions are really harsh, they'll produce, instead of a copy of themselves, they'll produce a hard encapsulated seed-like version of themselves. They could sit dormant in the soil on any plant material for years if necessary and wait till the conditions are favourable again and then it would germinate and start to grow and go back to the other lifecycle, the splitting lifecycle. And it turns out that when those spores go in and experience the enzymes in our saliva and the acid in our gut and our bile juices, our pancreatic juices, et cetera, it triggers their growth. And so they love, they get all those like switching, switch on, switch on, switch on, replicates in our guts, and then on the way out, it goes back to a spore again. So yeah, you would've found it, it's pretty much everywhere, but it's particularly in the soil. That's where bacillus subtilis comes from.
- So I understand Asian cultures would've consumed it quite a bit in kimchi and natto in Japan.
- [Jeff] Yep.
- And Miso soup even.
- Yes, yeah. All those traditional fermented type foods. And natto, for example, is a great one, because on the natto beans, I'm not sure if you've seen natto beans, but they're fermented soybeans, when you pull 'em apart, there's like this sticky kind of drawn out material, that's all produced by bacillus subtilis. They're the way they metabolise the soybean. Yeah, it's a traditional food that's been around for thousands and thousands of years. And it's probably one of the most research microorganisms that we have and we know so much about it and why it's so beneficial for human health.
- So it's soil-based, plant-based, nature-based.
- [Jeff] Yep, absolutely.
- It doesn't come from animals. So I mean, from my mind, I was vegan, I'm not so much anymore and-
- Some people suit. As I said, like different enterotype types.
- [Chris] It's probably just because my family just wouldn't become vegan, right? And I just had to, I guess, work into that whole family, family life cycle of food.
- You adapted to your ecosystem.
- Yeah, basically, yeah. So yeah, just getting back to the bacillus subtilis and how is it that it's, I guess, I mean, that might be proprietary information, how is it that we are getting it into Biotica Water? And it's crystal clear, like we can't see anything.
- Yeah, absolutely. So there's got a couple things there. So first thing, like our company launched on the back of an absolute, absolute paradigm shift in discovery in microbiology. It's a dirty secret in the industry that if you buy something that's got a probiotic in it, generally it's not there, it's dead, or by the time you open it and start consuming it, it'll die off or it won't make it through your stomach acids in your stomach and-
- Or it have has to be refrigerated.
- Or it has to be refrigerated, and even then they don't survive. We know probiotics have incredible benefits from it. The challenge commercially is how do I get a probiotic from the laboratory, which we can get it into mice and rats and people at the laboratory, but how do I get it from production through a supply chain, into a product, and get it to you? Even if I put it in a capsule in the fridge, they still don't survive. And then how do I get it through your stomach acids? It's a huge challenge. And it's something no one's really wanna talk about, because we want the benefit, but that's what our company was founded on, we discovered how to get them to survive. And when you look at the microbiome, there are a lot of, I call them a lot of soldiers, that have very specific jobs to do, and they just do that one job. When they receive their order and they do their job, and they talk to each other about, "I'm doing my job, I'm doing my job." There are other organisms that are like the general of the army that come in and have an overarching plan. "Right, all of you guys, I want you guys to do more work, I want less of you." And that's what bacillus subtilis is. And the strain we use upregulates or increases the number of good bacteria, specifically decreases the number of bad bacteria, and directly messages your body, all organ systems, gut brain, gut skin, gut liver, gut lung, gut urogenitals, gut everything. The interesting thing about the strain we're using, the bacillus subtilis, is it comes in, it's almost like it turns up with the original blueprint and goes, "All right, you guys have got outta control, you're all outta balance. Less of you, more of you, you guys need to produce more of that, more of this. Human cell wall, produce more mucin, please. We need more mucus on the gut wall here to protect the..." It rebalances everything. And sorry, I could talk days about this organism, it's fascinating. And it actually, it's a thing called quorum sensing, all these bugs keep talking to each other in the body and they're all kinda sharing information with each other. Bacillus subtilis is literally like the general. He turns up and just goes, "Right, I'm in charge. I'm just gonna tell you all what to do. We're all going back to the original template, which was thriving health. So I'm gonna tell you what to do and I don't really need to hear all your stories, I just want you to go out and do it." And it rapidly rebalances your microbiome, profound impacts on your immune system, and your neuroendocrine systems, all your hormonal, your nervous system, and it doesn't just have an impact on your gut, it goes throughout your whole body. And so that's why we picked that organism. One, we've discovered how to get them to survive. But if you're gonna pick one, you wanna pick the general, you don't wanna send in someone who's just gonna do one job, you wanna someone to come in and help all the microbiome participants are there. You want them someone to come in and help them all do their job better to operate and coordinate. And that's kind of what bacillus subtilis does.
- Yeah, great. I think I had so many questions in there, but I've sort of lost 'em a little bit, but we've got Biotica Water and it's called, in general terms, a functional food. So what is a functional food? Could you explain that?
- Yeah. I think all food's functional. So I'm kind of... What is trying to be communicated about a functional food is that when you consume this, whether it's a drink or a food of some type, it has a specific function, as in a purpose that comes in, like...
- So water hydrates.
- Water hydrates, you know, certain proanthocyanidins or certain chemicals are anti-inflammatory, some are immune stimulating, some help produce more mucus in your gut wall, some of them help your brain function, some help you... There's all sorts. So lots of different, I guess, chemicals in different plant-based products or foods have specific impacts on us and on this part of the organism and on the rest of the gut microbiome, for example. And so I think when they're talking about functional foods, they're talking about things that have quite direct and significant, if you like, measurable impacts on what's going on. I always joke and say everything, all foods functional, because every everything that's natural has a role, a specific role or a function or purpose. When you try to get too tricky, and I think a lot of manmade kind of chemical-based things.
- Processed foods, yeah.
- Processed, yeah. I'm trying to be difficult.
- No, no, don't be difficult.
- I think we lose that intelligence that comes from nature. And we gotta admit, we're a mobile, dynamic, constantly evolving ecosystem. And we need to reconnect with nature as much as possible and we need to take in as many natural things as possible. If at any point in time, we think we're smarter than mother nature, well we're having ourselves on and generally it's leading to ill health in some way. So there's this huge return, both in research, but also in the way we're all buying our food and drinks and the way we're thinking is we've gotta reconnect. And you can see that across the board in everything. Whether it's materialistic things, food, drink, all sorts of stuff. There's a real return to understanding that, "Hey, as clever as we are, we don't know everything." Just look at the microbiome research and just exploding knowledge there. We don't know everything. And if we stick to natural is best, you're generally on a winner to start with, so.
- Yeah, I can't remember the scientist that said this, but he wrote in his book, "Whole," you know, at what point did humans, you know, realise or think that they could actually deconstruct an apple and put it back together better than what nature actually did it? You know, it was kind of like a bit of a joke really. Like, oh, you know, "It's got vitamin C and fibre in it. Let's do put that into a capsule, 'cause that's great, 'cause it's in apples," but actually no, that humans haven't been able to replicate what nature has actually given to us, which is quite amusing. So I guess where we're at is we've got prebiotics, probiotics, specifically the general getting in there and I think creating and organising the bad bacteria out and the good bacteria up. What sort of timeframe are we looking at for the consumption of, I guess, Biotica Water before we start to, I guess, realise these results in our body? Is it different for everybody? And let's just start with that one.
- Yeah. Well, the short answer is yeah. It depends what situation you're in when you start. And if you're someone who's making great choices, you've got a fantastic diet, organic, natural, plant-based foods with a bit of animal protein in there and other things, good fats, and you exercise, like you're super well, right? You're probably feeling great already. Biotica Water will come in and help optimise what's going on and you'll get a little tweak out of that and you'll notice it. And that can take anywhere from three days to a few weeks of consumption, but that's all. It won't take that long.
- Just one a day, right? We've got 1 billion CFU in there. What's a CFU?
- [Jeff] Colony forming unit. It's a way of measuring how many went in there in the first instance.
- Great, so we've got a measurement unit there. 1 billion in each bottle. We start out consuming just one a day. What happens if we... I've heard on other podcasts that, you know, their scientific studies have consumed up to six servings of probiotics in a day. I think it was six ounce, I don't even know what that is in millilitres, grammes, or whatever it is. So I think, though, if someone was diving straight in and starting to improve their microbiome, you would only start with one first.
- Yeah, and it's about what's needed as well. You can create a dysbiosis in your gut by taking too much probiotic. But you can't do it with this one. And I'll tell you what, because remember I said there's kind of soldiers doing their bits and then there's the general who got this overarching blueprint, that's what bacillus subtilis does, it's kind of like, "All right, i'm gonna try and balance everything up here. I'm gonna balance my microbial community around me and I'm gonna balance the messaging that's going on between that community and myself and the human host that we're in. We're gonna try and get everything working slick." That's what his job is. But there are some bacteria that just do one job. So you can imagine if you just took too much of one product and there's too many of those one soldiers, they're all trying to do their job, you can actually create a dysbiosis by trying to do something good. But you can't do that with the Biotica Water product. And I should say there's three things in there, there's probiotics, prebiotics, but there are postbiotics in there too. And so there's some of the bacillus subtilis are in there as what they call dead or damaged bacillus subtilis cells. You think, "Why would you put that in there?" The prebiotic and the postbiotic will have an immediate direct physical contact and impact. So when they go through your stomach, through your gut in, and they get into the small intestine, they have an immediate impact in messaging your immune system about what's going on. And there's a lot of information on the cell wall and the cellular contents of the bacillus subtilis wall, like the dead organism. It's communicating to your body already, particularly the immune system. The prebiotics come in and start feeding up the good bacteria straight away. The bacillus subtilis, when the spore, when it gets into your small intestine, it will start to replicate and vegetate. And so as it's moving through, it's getting more and more, you may have drunk a billion. By the time it gets across to your ilium, there may be a trillion. Oh it just keeps replicating, replicate, replicate. And then when it gets into the environment of the large intestine, that's when it's got a little bit more oxygen exposure and it will start to go back into a spore again. And so that whole process of splitting and growing, it's producing all these metabolites that are going in our body and communicating. And then as it comes back out, it then starts to shut down again, provides some simple messaging on the way out. And so-
- Metabolites.
- Metabolites are like chemicals produced by the bacteria, like a byproduct of its existence. It's like a little factory, it produces certain things.
- So where they say that bacillus subtilis can actually be beneficial for mental health,
- Oh, most definitely.
- it's producing a metabolite, tryptophan, is that right? A little tryptophan?
- Yeah. Dopamine and serotonin levels and cortisol levels are all directly impacted by metabolites produced by bacillus subtilis. And so cortisol, for example, is a stress hormone. But bacillus subtilis will reduce cortisol levels. And dopamine, serotonin, all that reward, risk, reward, the metabolites, and there's not just one, there's a whole suite of them reduce that impact, that whole neuroendocrine in that gut-brain system, and help kind of... The best way to describe that is, I meet you, haven't seen you for ages. "Hey, how you going?" What am I actually asking? How are you going?
- Are you well?
- Yeah, and that's kind of what we're asking, how well. And you know that, "Yeah, I'm happy, but underneath I just, I'm all right today. A few things happened, but generally, I'm feeling a bit flat." That feeling a bit flat, that's that gut brain, that's background story, the background noise behind the up and down things that are happening every moment of the day. That background, how happy and how well I feel, that's kinda the gut brain basis. So if your gut microbiome's really balanced, and that's a thing people can notice from Biotica Water, right? You drink that for a few days and start to get that gut-brain connection working, you get the gut microbiome better. I kind of just feel good and I can't put my finger on it. And that, that is that serotonin, dopamine, it's all the cortisol levels, you're just kind of feeling better. But we've had people with inflammatory kind of issues in their gut. Like my gut doesn't feel better. People with chronic bladder infections feel better. Lung, there's all... Bacillus subtilis, like I said, has a broad impact on your body and yeah, you can notice it in many ways, skin.
- It sounds great,
- Skin as well.
- Because I guess being the general, like you've said before, it controls the good and the bad. So I guess at this stage, we don't really need to go and do a cleanse, you know, or anything like that, like a rid our system of bad, I guess biome or nutrients or bacteria that we think is in there, we could just go straight into consuming. Are we going to experience any, I guess, changes in our body that might be noticeable? Like, for example, some people have asked me or maybe I've read online, you know, are we gonna be farting more and, you know, or is my gut gonna be less bloated or more bloated or you know?
- No, it'd be less. Yeah, so it is natural and normal for the byproduct of our gut microbiome metabolism for some gases to be produced. Now most of it we breathe out, goes into your bloodstream and we exhale it, but sometimes, particularly if it's in the large intestine, comes out the other end. So if you consumed a lot quickly, because the amount of prebiotic, you would get a shift in the microbiome and you may notice that. But that would settle down, even if you drank a lot, that would settle down over, probably take about three to seven days for that settle in. So yeah, sometimes, but generally not. The way we've blended it and the way we've put it together, if you drank a bottle a day, you'd be just feeling fantastic. And you may, for the day, first day. So again, it depends how you start.
- Yeah, of course.
- [Jeff] You know, how well you are, how balanced you are, and what your diet's like and.
- That's right. If you're still eating a packet of chips every time you consume a Biotica, you're not doing yourself a very good service.
- You want to to generally move towards a healthy lifestyle anyway. But if the only thing you can do, for a lot of reasons, is drink a bottle a day, well you've made a massive step towards it, because, like I said, just the general and just that guidance, and it's not just in the microbiome changes, it's actually our whole physiology, biochemistry.
- Yeah. So it's all well and good for us to say that, you know, there's these synbiotics which is the pre, pro, and post even in the water. But like why should people believe us, you know? Do we have a third party that's involved in actually proving to people that, you know, that there is this, I guess, quantity of probiotics, synbiotics in the water and...
- Well, first thing is the law. You shouldn't say something like that unless it's true.
- Of course. But I know, myself, you know, like my background is in nutrition as well, and fortunately, the company that I worked for at the time was I guess the general, you know? Like doing the right thing by the industry. And there were so many cowboys out there that were saying one thing on the label that was just completely untrue. And we had independent tests getting done on their products that indicated they...
- [Jeff] Oh, it's common. It's really common.
- I was so shocked.
- In the industry, anything that says it's got a probiotic in it or some kind of organism, most definitely, if you check the label, a lot of labels will say at time of manufacturing or at time of bottling.
- Back then it was just protein that they said it was whey protein isolate and it wasn't, it was wheat protein, you know, so.
- Look, our company, our Bio-az that makes the ingredients for Biotica Water was founded on this research about getting probiotics to survive. And so it's something we hang our hat on. So every time there's a manufacturing run, it's always checked. Like are they in there? We've got some of our initial R&D work from over three years ago. For example, we've got a bottle, couple of bottles on the desk upstairs, one's just water with the Biotica Water ingredient in it, still got the same CFU count, everything's in there exactly like it was over three years ago. And it's been sitting just on the desk in the sun or in a storage shed in the summer heat in Australia, still there. That's what our product is. And then we've got others that are sitting in sugarcane juice with kind of fruit juices. We really challenge that. Still stable, still the same CFU count. But every time Biotica Water's made, it is enumerated. So we send it off for testing. And so we either do it ourselves over at Bio-az or we send it off for independent third party testing at NATA accredited facilities. What's actually interesting in the industry is that a lot of the labs are set up to identify the presence of pathogenic or bacteria that aren't good for you, but not many are set up to count the number of bacteria that identify and count the number of good bacteria that are in a product for you. It's really interesting. But there are a couple of labs that we've worked with and we've done that and we've established a repeatable, valid, verifiable methodology. And so we do that as a discipline anytime we make a production run. So yeah, what's on the labels in there. That's an absolute guarantee and you could have that analysed. You'd see it. Doesn't need to be refrigerated, it's stable.
- Fantastic. I'm sure there's gonna be heaps more questions, you know, coming from like the general public, you know, while they're, you know, looking forward to consuming and I should ask, now that we have flavours out, what's your favourite flavour?
- I'll be honest, I just like water, but if I had to pick one of the three, oh, probably the lemon. I think I'm kind of a sucker for anything a bit lemony or citrusy. I really like that. So that's probably my favourite. My wife has it with gin so. Well not my wife, my wife's friends.
- Mine too.
- [Jeff] It still survives.
- Yeah. Yeah, that's an interesting thing isn't it? That, well, I've asked that question, you know, because the first thing my wife and her family said was, "Oh, the cucumber mint, that's gonna go great with gin."
- Yeah. It actually does, it's a great mixer.
- Yes, they did it the first time they got hold of it, which was hilarious, and they loved it, which was good. But yeah, that the probiotics and the prebiotics and post all still survive in the glass, in the gut, oh sorry, in the stomach, and get through to the gut. It's funny that even I've had to learn, I think, the difference between stomach and gut and constantly having to say stomach.
- Yeah, i always say gastrointestinal tracts. So from your mouth all the way to the end, that's the gastrointestinal tract and your stomach's one part of. But it's amazing how many different environments there are all the way through. Different chemistry, different amounts of oxygen, different pH. And it's quite a challenging environment. It was designed like that to keep us safe from nasties. And so of course, any probiotic gonna be challenged as well. You know, it's designed to kill microorganisms on the way in so they don't... And it's really only the ones that are meant to get through that are designed to get through. So those soil-based spore forming microorganisms are more likely to get through, but you have to get 'em direct from the dose, 'cause usually manufacturing kills 'em. But again, that was our, I gotta say, incredible discovery to be honest, 'cause it's the thing that no one thought was possible. And yeah, it's quite exciting to get it out there.
- Yeah, I think that's all we've got time for. Thanks so much, Jeff.
- [Jeff] Okay, no problem.
- Thanks for watching guys. We will be coming with back to you with a lot more podcasts and you can check us out on Instagram and Facebook. Just search for Biotica Water and also bioticawater.com. So stay tuned for more podcasts. Cheers mate.
- Thanks.