¶ The Benefits and Science of Fasting
The benefits of a short term .
Faster , usually more on the metabolic and cardiovascular side of things , and that's because your body doesn't truly enter into fasting metabolism until around a 20 to 24 hour fast , and that's the amount of time that your body takes to really run through its glycogen stores at store hydrates and then the man that can project podcast podcast in power .
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Dr Chris Rhodes , thank you so much for joining me .
Yeah , absolutely Welcome . Thanks for having me . I'm excited to be here .
It's been one of those ones that I've had to reschedule , unfortunately , a number of times . Just with the move to the US . I didn't realize how many moving parts I would experience . I thought as a bloke I was like , yeah , it's pretty straightforward . My wife said no , it's not . And I was like surely it can't be that bad .
So travel as always , you know , famously straightforward .
Yeah , so I appreciate you bearing with me . Mate , I'm very excited to chat to you . I've been fasting as I was saying to you offline since 2014 .
And it's not something that I always discuss on the show , it's just something that I do in the background is I've found a lot of benefit in it and I know it is polarizing for some people because you know , some people like no , it's terrible for you , and then there's a lot of science saying it's not , and for me I just do things that work really well for
me , both mentally and physically , that I've experienced benefits , and I originally got invested in fasting because of Dr Dom Dio-Gostino when he was talking about Alzheimer's and dementia and cancer , for how autophagy and all that sort of stuff can clean up the cells . So to be able to chat to you and see what you've developed is going to be very awesome .
So I've got plenty of questions for you . But , to kick off , how did you get into the space of fasting and all of that .
Yeah , so my personal background . I got my BS in biochemistry from Loyola Marymount University down in LA and then got out and then , like a lot of college kids , didn't really know what I wanted to do with that . Right , I knew it wanted to be something in research but wasn't entirely sure what I was really passionate about .
So I took a two year immunology fellowship at Stanford University where I just kind of started pouring through all the research that I could get my hands on , trying to find out what interested me , and eventually came across a healthy aging research and longevity research , which I thought was so fascinating because it used to be this thing that was relegated to like
myth and legend , right Like constantly on in the fountain of youth and all that , all that fun stuff . But it's now this very , very active area of legitimate scientific research .
And when you are in that space , eventually you come across fasting , because fasting is one of the only ways that we know of to reliably extend lifespan in model organisms and kind of like what you were saying , lachlan , and has these other like very profound effects on helping to like treat , prevent or delay most major diseases .
Like thousands of studies can kind of back this up from clinical to experimental and like animal models and things like that . And that was really really fascinating for me , because fasting can essentially , you know , enhance lifespan , it can prevent a lot of disease from happening in the enhanced health span .
But it does all of that without actually adding anything into the system , right ? So it's not some super food or some wonder drug , right ? It's somehow activating this like dormant longevity bio program that we already have inside of us but just like isn't actually actively being turned on .
And when that clicked for me , I got like mad about it , honestly , because it was very much like all right , my body knows how to be 120 years old and in perfect health , but it's just not doing it . So that was like unacceptable for me .
I was like no , I , I as a scientist , like I need to know , like why my body is so lazy , right , and how I can like wake it up , turn on these regenerative processes , turn on this longevity bio program .
So that's really what catapulted me into researching fasting and figuring out what's going on in the human body during a fast and is there a way that we can recreate it .
Yeah , I found that really fascinating .
I was listening to an episode you'd recorded recently and for me I struggled to get my head around how you can recreate the benefits of fasting without doing the fasting Cause to me it's like , okay , well , almost like a steroid , where people want to avoid the training but still have the same benefits of the muscle growth or muscle .
So that's where I got really curious in how you've sort of gone down the science route of understanding that and I do believe obviously the body can recreate things it's designed to heal itself . It's designed and since the primal days we've feasted in , we've had famine , right and it's . You know , sometimes you could go 24 plus days without getting food .
So your body would get in that , I guess , ketogenic state or not ketogenic , but like , yeah , that's so , and then , yeah , fasting , and then now there's a lot of as sorry , exogenous ketones on the market to sort of do that sort of thing .
So when you went down that rabbit hole of how can we recreate this in the body without necessarily having to go into the fast and I'd love to talk about fasting in a moment as well but when you went down that rabbit hole , what was it that really stood out to you where you were , like , it's definitely possible to get our body to wake up without having to
go through , I guess , the challenge of fasting .
Yeah , absolutely . I mean that was kind of the end , like the end treat
¶ Effects of Fasting & Supplement
of the study . You know , when we , when we originally designed the study and the research where we started kind of decoding what was happening in the human body during a fast , we were really interested in just almost confirming what we had seen in previous literature from animal and experimental models , right .
So you see , all these great immunological effects that happened during fasting and there had been at that point in time a few clinical studies looking at fasting and showing that there were these really powerful effects , but no one was really looking into the how and the why that this was happening .
They were like all right , yes , you can reduce inflammation , you can reduce , like joint swelling , you can reduce , like you know , you can actually reset the immune system within the context of autoimmune diseases and that was shown clinically .
But no one had delved into what are the molecular mechanisms behind what's actually happening here and how is how is this all occurring in a way that we could potentially recreate ? So we started the study looking at all right , can we confirm that when we take people and we fast them , that things actually happen in the body ?
That was kind of step number one and essentially what we did for that was we had healthy young people just like you or I come in and do a 36 hour fast . And we were really interested in a 36 hour time point because that's in the literature where you see kind of the best lifespan extension .
So we had people come in do a 36 hour fast , look at their before and after , and essentially what we saw was that when people fasted their plasma functionalities were really really enhanced . So they were functionally optimized . Essentially they became more anti inflammatory , they became more antioxidant , more cellular protective .
Their metabolic into like you know markers and indications were much , much better and then their plasma became more cardio protective as well .
So that's a big deal in the nutrition world because when you can take already young , healthy people and do one single intervention over the course of essentially a day and then at the end of it make them into super people , right like , optimize their functionality , like that's a big deal .
So we wanted to find out , all right , what's the difference between one state and another that could kind of be responsible for these beneficial effects that we were seeing . So we did what's called comprehensive metabolomics , basically looking at all of the different small molecule portions of the plasma .
And what we found was that there were over 300 significant differences between the baseline state and the fasting state .
And when we combed through those and screened through them on our like ex vivo modeling techniques and our cellular assays , we were able to identify that , you know , there were these bioactive components of these metabolites that , when combined together , could recreate these great cellular effects of fasting that we were seeing and these immunological effects of fasting that
we were seeing .
And then , you know , just because we were super curious about the lifespan portion of it , we tested them individually , we tested them together and found that while all of them could extend lifespan together , which is , you know , on its own very exciting , they could synergistically extend the lifespan by 96% when combined together and really help like recreate these
beneficial effects of fasting just through supplementation , so basically doubling their life without actually having passed .
Yeah , so that alone is literally just using the supplement , not fasting in itself . Right yeah fasting at all ? Wow . So then can you use the supplement as a tool along with fasting or like is there any impacts of doing the fast and then , for example , adding the supplement into your diet as ?
well , yeah , yeah , that's a great question . So basically because we made the supplement in order to mimic what happens in the human body during a 36 hour fast , it can be really , really helpful for shorter term fast . So the most popular form of fasting is typically 16 eight right , where you have the 16 hour fasting window and then an eight hour eating window .
And people think because you know just the way that the scientific hype machine works that a lot of these studies that show you benefits of longer term fasting , like multi day fasts or 36 hour fasts or whatever they usually conflate the benefits of those fasts with the shorter term fasting .
But when you really look in the data , the benefits of a short term faster usually more on the metabolic and cardiovascular side of things and that's because your body doesn't truly enter into fasting metabolism until around a 20 to 24 hour fast and that's the amount of time that your body takes to really run through its glycogen stores at storage hydrates and then
you know , after that's through , then you really go into fasting metabolism where you're entering ketosis , you're turning on a lot of these cellular regenerative pathways like autophagy . But most people by and large , when they're doing the traditional style of 16 a fasting aren't actually achieving those benefits .
So these molecules are not actually elevated , not actually , like you know , out there doing their thing promoting these beneficial cellular effects during a 16 hour fast . We only saw them significantly elevated during a 36 hour fast .
So taking these supplements alongside a 16 a fast can really help to maximize the benefits and give you more of these benefits that you wouldn't ordinarily get from a shorter term fast . So it's kind of you know our way to you know , enhance a fast , hack it , make it and optimize it , while also helping to make it easier .
Because we kind of got lucky to a certain degree with the molecules that we identified , because not only do they have these great cellular effects but they also have a great clinical history of having more of these tangible effects you can feel .
So when you take the supplement you can get an appetite depression effect , a mood elevation effect like pain and discomfort relief element to it . So it can not only maximize the benefits of your fast but actually make fasting itself easier , and we've heard that a lot from our customers .
That's awesome , because I always notice that , that glycogen depletion moment you talk about when you sort of hit those lows Generally .
For me it would be if I , for example , if I were to fast today , have my last meal at five Tomorrow around 3 pm , I just hit a low , low , low mood , yeah , and it lasts for about three to four hours and I'm just unmotivated , I get a bit snappy . But after that the benefits my brain is just like I Like I just can't switch it off .
It's , it's so clear and I feel incredible . But I can see why a lot of people hit that wall During that moment and they sort of break fast or they get the cravings etc . And a lot of people that I know that fast do it for weight loss purposes , yeah , which I think maybe a common one potentially . But I'm not necessarily doing it for weight loss .
I'm doing it for those benefits that you've mentioned there , like cleaning up the cell for inflammation and really trying to , you know , allow my body to perform as well as it can for as long as it can .
Yeah , and that's great . The that's , I think , something that is definitely .
It needs to be a bit more spoken about in terms of fasting , because I think you're right , a lot of people do Fasting with weight loss and they're gonna go out there and they're gonna be like , alright , I'm gonna use it just for this , I'm gonna get to my goal weight and then I'm just kind of gonna stop doing it .
But when you really , you know , utilize it as a , as a lifestyle , that's when you're gonna see the true , the true benefits of it and really get the things like the cellular regeneration , the autophagy , the longevity and health ban promoting effects .
And so for yourself , how does fasting and I guess even the product as well Fit into your lifestyle , especially as a scientist and someone who I'd imagine works very hard ? How is it , you know , how does it blend in with your lifestyle , how do you make it work ?
And then , I guess a Add another question to that as well afterwards what benefits have you sorry benefits have you personally experienced as a result of , you know , the fasting in that process ?
Yeah , absolutely
¶ Fasting's Impact on Food Relationship
. So I actually started a fasting around the same time that I got interested in it , when I was at Stanford . And when I got interested in it , you know , I came in at reading a paper from Volter Longo , who I like , I consider very much like the granddaddy of fasting research .
Yeah , like all he wrote , like all the big review papers about it , along with Mark Madsen , so like they're , they're amazing folks . I got like really really enthusiastic about it . So I was like , alright , fine , I'm gonna start doing just like alternate a fasting . That's where you see the best lifespan extension . So that's the program that I'm gonna try .
And I was actually , you know , taking my blood at the time and actually assessing my own cellular functionality , seeing what was happened . And I saw the same thing that we ended up seeing in the study , which was that I Could fast for , you know , up to 60 hours and see this progressive increase in cellular functionality , in plasma functionality .
I was , you know , more resistant to stress . I was , you know , more resistant to autoimmune stimuli , some more , you know , immunoprotective there , and I just kind of got hooked on it . From that . I was like , alright , great , I can see the data happening , I can see this actually working for me .
So I just kept doing it for a while but I eventually got to a point where you kind of reached burnout . I did alternate a fasting , well , essentially for two years , pretty pretty religiously , pretty non-stop .
And my sister Caitlin , who's also the COO of Mimeo , my co-founder she just told me one day we were like on vacation and I was still alternate a fasting and she was like okay , great , like you're gonna get all these great longevity results . Like you know , you can see it working in your body . That's amazing .
But what is the point of living longer if you have to live less right ? And that was this big catalyst for me to kind of be like oh yeah , maybe we've taken this a little bit .
So , like that , that was another , you know , big , big catapult for me to go into my PhD at UC Davis and really try to figure out is there a way that we can do this without having to make that lifelong sacrifice of fasting every day ? So what my program is now is actually like one meal a day .
I find that that's the thing that works the best for me from like a productivity point of view , just from a lifestyle point of view . I really like that . So I get up in the morning , make green tea , have my Mimeo with that in the morning , and that just kind of keeps me going All day long .
And then at the end of the day you get your big like food reward , right , like that's kind of how I relax and unwind . It's like all right , I've done all the tasks that I need to do for the day and now I get to just like come home and relax and eat this huge meal and that's just . You know , that's , that's great .
It gives me , gives me everything that I want out of life because I'm not distracted during the day , I can be really productive being a CEO , running a company , and then just really like rest , relax and recharge .
I like having my little life Compartments I guess you would call it and before I would do that , you know I'm very , very much into food , very much a foodie . So my thoughts were almost always like what's the next meal gonna be ? Like , oh , should I look at the reviews for this restaurant ?
Should I look at , you know , like recipes for what I'm gonna make at home ? It was kind of like this constant you know , food , young boys that would happen throughout the day , and fasting really can help me , you know , get , get through that , get over that , increase my productivity .
And then Mimeo has also been really helpful for that because you know there is always a certain degree of hunger that comes along with any kind of fasting and Mimeo has been really great for Suppressing that , giving me more all-day energy but then also kind of just making me happier and bubblier throughout the day .
Yeah , there's like this great new enhancement effect because of the palm of oil , of an olamide that's in there , pea . It actually helps stimulate Anandamide secretion from neurons and anandamide is one of the ball , is like bliss molecules . So great , great for that . Like 10 out of 10 would recommend .
I'm a little bit biased , but that's , that's my experience with Mimeo .
Did and did you notice ? Obviously , doing traditional fasting in the beginning helped you Change or even improve your relationship with food .
Oh , oh that thing definitely did . Yeah for sure , because I think that you know I had , I was like . You know I'll be the first to admit that I was definitely like a chubby or kid , right . I think that's kind of what happens , like with a lot of chubby kids , right , we get to the point in our life where it's like I don't want to be chubby .
Yeah , I got to like get find a better relationship with food . I think my heaviest was when I was coming out of my freshman year of college , like very cliche Right , where it's like , oh , what's the first year that I've ever been on my own without parental supervision . I'm just gonna eat everything in sight . And that was like freedom , freedom , very much me .
That's like , oh no , it's not responsible enough for freedom , but that's okay . We , we got it in the end and that's that's kind
¶ The Benefits and Challenges of Fasting
of . After my sophomore year of college , when I got more into the health and fitness , because I was like , alright , I gotta , I gotta turn this around . This is gone . This is gone too far .
It's perfect . But the reason why I wanted to bring that point up a lot of people Blokes that I work with and people that listen to the show have done well Career-wise and they have sacrificed their health to that point .
A lot of them want to start with the training because you know they watch things on Instagram or they want to get back in shape , but their diet is absolutely atrocious .
They don't have the energy , their moods all over the place they get injured and they don't want to address the food and it's very hard for people to change their relationship with food because of cravings and things like that .
And I just remember for myself when I first started fasting I was a you know , as an athlete back then and I thought I was fit and healthy . But when I started fasting , it just unlocked this whole new level of recovery and mental Like clarity that I was like I can't believe I felt healthy before , like this is a whole level .
And but it also helped me change my relationship with alcohol , with certain foods , because I realized how good I could feel . So I started seeking out those foods that made me feel better and I wish I think I Look at fasting I probably give Eat . A lot of credit for allowing me to do that .
So then , obviously , I also understood the challenges of fasting , of missing out on certain meals and all that sort of stuff .
So that's where your product with Mimeo to me , I wish we had 2014 , when I first started fasting , to make things a little bit more easy and could make my lifestyle a lot better Back then , because I just remember , you know , would go to dinner with my wife and wouldn't eat certain things , or I wouldn't be eating , I'd just be , you know , fasting for three
days and she's like , well , this is no fun , yeah .
Like that was one of my big experiences during the alternate day fasting was that , like it's , it's hard to socialize , right , like it's , it's very much ingrained in our socialization Rituals that there has to be food involved and it's also very strange for people to be like , yeah , like let's go out to dinner and then look at it , but fine , you're gonna eat ,
it's my fasting day . I'm gonna like check my hair and just like I'm gonna drink it and while you eat your food and I'm just gonna stare at you while you eat and like I'll just carry the conversation . It's just a weird , a weird social dynamic .
And , yeah , that's one of the reasons why I did end up switching to alternate day fat or sorry into the one meal a day . Fasting because I got into a relationship with my partner was like , no , like you're , you're gonna eat meals with me . Like at least at least one . I'm together , together , and that's gonna be . That's gonna be how it goes .
Well , like I said , it's just , you know , it's different shows for different folks . You got to find something that really does fit in with your lifestyle and make sure that whatever you're doing is something that you can sustain and that makes sense for you . But I do .
I do really like what you were talking about with finding that control with fasting , because one of the things that I'm not kind of like optimization of like oh my gosh , I've like unlocked God mode , right , it's very much like when I , when I first did the like my first ever day of fasting , I was convinced that I was gonna die .
Like I was just like so so sure the the first day I did it , I was like I was going to sleep and I had a really hard time falling asleep , not because , you know , I wasn't tired or anything , but it was just because , like I just I just like I had this fear that like I'm not gonna wake up tomorrow .
Like I know it , like I've been told my entire life that you need to eat three meals every day and if you don't do it , your body , like you know , can caves in on itself , and like you'll never be able to make it . But yeah , I was like oh my gosh , like I can do anything , like I'm so empowered , like I like , yeah , I'm like I'm a god now .
So that was kind of the really interesting part about it for me , and then catapulting off of that Was kind of this realization that , oh , if I can go for a whole day without eating , then there's no reason to eat things that you know like aren't gonna be good for me .
I feel like people have almost as like this sense of obligation towards food a little bit , where you know I don't want to be wasteful , I don't want to like . If something's in front of me like , I feel like I have to eat it or , like you know , I'm not really all that hungry or whatever , but it's my lunch break , so , like , what am I gonna do ?
I'm gonna go , like I'm gonna have a snack bar , I'm gonna do whatever . And a lot of those experiences are not super duper fun for people . It reminds me of like eat , pray , love , where she's like , oh , what did you have ? For a long time . She's like I don't know a salad , and I'm like , isn't that sad ?
Like shouldn't you , like you know , be really enthusiastic about your food ? And I'm like , yes , you totally should . So fasting really helped me .
Knowing that I didn't have to eat all the time To survive was like , you know , I'm just gonna eat the things that actually like , I like and make me happy , and only eat them when I'm actually hungry , so kind of almost defaulting into intuitive eating .
Yeah , that's so . You explain that so well , because I think Definitely I've been guilty of it and many people are where they just eat what's in front of them and they go .
I don't feel good after I've just had that big , big shake , or I don't feel energized when I have my huge breakfast and it's like okay , well , have you maybe thought about asking yourself why ? Why is this happening ? Happening , and , if you do want to perform at your optimal level , what foods are going to allow you to do that ?
Because I think people , as you said , they just like I , have to eat X amount of meals per day and breakfast has to look like this or dinner has to look like that . It's like , well , does that ? If that's not working for you , change it ? Yeah , do that in different .
I also think like there's this weird disconnect that people have Between the things that they eat and the way that they're feeling . You know , I hear countless people all the time , especially in the nutrition space , where it's like , yeah , you know , I don't like , I just don't know what it is like .
I don't exercise , I eat , like you know , pizza and hamburgers every day . I never have a salad , but for some reason I feel awful and I just don't get it and I'm like , oh well , maybe , maybe it's those things . I mean , just like a hypothesis .
I'm not entirely sure what it is , but I feel like we just have this weird disconnect between Thinking that the way that we're feeling has something to do with these things that we're putting in our body , and what's really interesting about that to me is that we often rely on things like supplements , which are , you know , typically I'm taking , you know , a
milligram of something , or like 50 milligrams , 100 milligrams or , like you know , at the very most like a gram of something per day , and I want it to have x , y and z effects in my body .
But when you think about food , right , you're eating pounds , pounds of that a day , but you don't think that those things are gonna like go on to really like impact your health , your well-being , how you feel , like your sluggishness , your energy levels , things like that .
It's like the biggest , the biggest component of day-to-day health and wellness that you have , and yet I feel like we don't think about that all the time or we have that disconnect where it just doesn't quite click .
Yeah , so with your meal . So you're eating at the moment , you're currently eating one meal a day . How many calories roughly like , for example , my , my ideal ? I've burned about 3700 calories on a training day , for example , so would you be trying to eat that much in one meal ?
Yeah , I mean , if I was doing that , I would be a . Yeah . I would probably be trying to do , like it more spread out .
I would probably do something more akin to like 20 , a like 20 hours of fasting , like a four hour eating window , because I think trying to stuff in 3700 calories is is it's gonna be hard for one meal , unless you are really like a professional eater . Yeah , like it .
Typically what I do , I Stick to around like 200 to 2000 calories a day , like that's kind of that's kind of my sweet spot , and I go to the gym , I work out . I do primarily , like you know , strength training , high intensity interval training , things like that , the classic , you know , like CrossFit , bro , paleo style stuff .
Yeah , I do it because , just like I know that , like the low impact strength training stuff , that's the thing that's really good for longevity . Your muscle mass is actually one of your biggest determinants of how long you're going to live .
As you approach 65 , there's a very , very direct correlation between muscle mass entering 65 and actual longevity , because at that point in time you really start getting into a lot of people dying from frailty and falls and the muscle wasting and sarcopenia .
So for me , getting as much muscle mass as I can while also keeping things like low impact so I'm not overstraining my joints or actually causing physical injury . That's my sweet spot . I can do that really effectively with the calories that I'm taking in and with the lifestyle that I have .
So typically my day capper is finish up with work , I go to the gym , I do the strength training workout , I go home and then I eat my big meal . So I'm fasting throughout the day where I don't really need all the energy for performance that go out and I do the gym and then I come home and have that big meal .
That's going to be stimulating , like the insulin and the growth hormones of the I-tricks one and promoting those anabolic pathways to support that . And I know there's a big problem right now with folks thinking that if you're fasting it is for weight loss . You're going to have a problem with building muscle , you're going to have a problem with muscle wasting .
And I think that you really have to be conscious of when you're doing these strength training exercises , what kind of exercises you are actually doing and then what you're eating . Timing and pattern is to kind of support whatever your nutrition and body composition goals are .
So are there any rules of thumb around that when you should train , if you were to be doing , for example , let's say , the 18-6 intermittent fasting with your training windows to make sure that you aren't doing any damage there , or is it more just a longer term fast ?
Yeah . So in doing the supporting stuff , I think that there's always a way that you can utilize nutrition to kind of like help tell your body what to do and kind of tip the scales in the right direction . So when I was doing alternate day fasting , I basically did an alternate day training schedule as well .
So on my fasting days I would focus a lot on more of like the catabolic exercises , so cardio and sprinting , the high intensity interval training , because those are the things where you're basically trying to get to exhaustion , because there's physiological benefits that happen just from getting to the point of exhaustion .
And it's a lot easier to get to the point of exhaustion on your fasting days . So that's when you're going to maximize the amount of catabolic effects that are going to happen . That can be very beneficial , help you lose fat mass .
And then on my actual eating days , that's when I would do the strength training , because I knew that I was going to be eating a lot of food that day , really stimulating the anabolic side of the coin , so I could help build muscle and maintain muscle on those days .
And I would say that for folks that are doing 16 , 8 , you can kind of operate it in the same way where , if you want to do something like cardio or a catabolic workout , do that in the beginning of the day where you're not eating , so do it in a fasted state and that's going to really help kind of accelerate the glycogen depletion timeline and help you
better utilize fat and carbohydrates and to actually promote fat burning , get those catabolic side of the coin going . And then , if you're going to do strength training , do that at the end of the day when you actually have the food to support the anabolic pathways . Yeah , awesome .
Thanks for giving us some more on that . So do you have any exceptions as well ? Like I just experienced my first Thanksgiving here and I've never seen so much food in my life , so are you really strict with that ? Or , for example , like a Christmas or Thanksgiving , do you eat a bit more there ?
Yeah , I've definitely . Because of that conversation that I had with my sister , I've definitely become a bit more relaxed about it . I'm not super duper regimented and religious about the fasting as I once was . So when I'm in typical day-to-day work mode , that's what I'm going to be doing the real hardcore one meal a day , fasting , and just really stick to that .
But on holidays on Thanksgiving , on Christmas I'll definitely give myself a break . Essentially , and be like this is when you get to live life like a normal person and sometimes it's weird because you do .
You end up running very smooth and clean and efficiently when you're on this fasting lifestyle and then to go back to kind of like oh , I have to eat breakfast now I get full really quickly and I'm like I don't think I can do this , guys , but I still . I do it to the point of enjoyment and no further than that .
I'm not like , oh my gosh , I have to eat these meals . It's like I'm going to have my good time with it and then that's going to be the end of it , and then just listen to my body and let it guide me through .
And , like we were talking about , I think fasting has been really helpful for just kind of resetting that tolerance of I know what I need and I'm not going to overdo it , you guys . I think that I have to .
Yeah , oh , that's cool . Thanks for showing
¶ Founding Mimio Health and the Science
that . And how did you go about founding your company as well , mimio Health ? So obviously you did all the study and everything like that , but how then did the idea to have a product there and build a company around that come about ?
Yeah , so that actually just came out of the science too , right . So we I'll say this till the cows come home we just really got lucky with what we ended up actually discovering from the data set , because the molecules that we ended up finding that these are the best ones that outperform other molecules , including ketone bodies .
Like on our cellular assays , these molecules could outperform ketone bodies at anywhere between 100 to 10,000 X lower concentrations . Like that's how bioactive they are and like you know the amount of great effects that they can actually produce .
And then they just also happen to be molecules that were already identified , as you know , dietary ingredients , so that we could actually use them in supplements . And they're rare , they were very hard to , very hard to source because they're natural human metabolites and molecules and a lot of people aren't super aware of them .
But they had already been , you know , acknowledged for use as dietary supplements . So we kind of found at the end of the thing that , oh , we could actually turn this great formulation back into a dietary supplement . So what we did for that was , you know , we found that it worked in cells . We found that it worked in these , you know , model organisms .
We wanted to make sure that it actually worked in people as well .
So we did another clinical study there where we took the Mimio formulation and essentially had people come in eat a standardized breakfast alongside a placebo control , or after a one-week washout period , those same people came back Eat that same breakfast , but then just with supplementation with Mimeo , and what we found was that when they had the , the standardized
breakfast with the placebo control , there was essentially this big loss in plasma functionality . That's like very , very typical of the post perandial response , the post eating response . So their plasma became pro inflammatory , it became , you know , less antioxidant , it became less cardio protective . Their metabolic markers were all over the place , as you would expect .
But when they had that same meal with Mimeo , we were able to not only prevent all of that loss of function but then actually add a gain of function on top of that . That mimicked what we saw during a 36 hour fast .
So instead of being pro inflammatory , their plasma became Anti-inflammatory and cellular protective , more antioxidant , more cardio protective , you know , balanced metabolic markers . So , which is really really cool .
So we could take these molecules , actually give them back to people and essentially raise the level of these you know , fasting metabolites even during a meal to help prevent a lot of these negative effects of eating and activate these same beneficial fasting pathways , just on demand through supplementation .
And that was kind of that was when we knew Essentially like , alright , this is gonna be a problem , it's like this is gonna help a lot of people . This is really really cool , kind of like hacking into human biology , recreating fasting at a molecular level .
And that's when we were working with Davis to put , you know , patent protection around the actual discovery , around the formulation . And then Davis has a really great startup program called venture catalyst where they help , you know , professors and students take their technologies and spin them out into companies . So that was basically the first thing that we did .
And the first thing that we did after actually founding the company was Get into the Indie bio accelerator program , which is the largest biotech accelerator program in the world , essentially like the Y Combinator of biotech . And then from there it kind of just , you know , lep lept forward right .
We got a lot of exposure , we got a lot of investor interests , we were able to raise a seed round and actually get the product made and manufactured , get the brand done , get all of the like , you know , key supply chain components in place , and then we've been selling it since June .
Congratulations . How does that make you feel like , if you look back on the journey that you've , you've had to now have Created something that's literally changing people's lives .
Yeah , it's very , very humbling , I'm not gonna lie , because it's a very rarefied experience , right , I , you know , as a as a scientist , so many of us do not actually get to see the results of our research , actually , you know , be turned into a product number one , but then be turned into a consumer product that you're then the CEO of , where you get to
directly interact with all the people that are taking it , you know , telling you what their experience is with it , and get to see it has this , like tangible impact in their lives and is actually making them , you know , feel better , making fasting easier for them , like helping to relieve pain , helping to just , like you know , live better lives . It's .
It's really , it's really really humbling to be able to get to see all of that and it's something that , like I said , so many scientists never get to experience . So I feel very , very lucky .
It's . It's incredible . And where does the science take you next ? Because obviously , yeah , same from the scientific standpoint , it's always about funding to be able to find that next bit of research . So people potentially have to go to you know Once them what the trends are , etc . So like ketones and ketosis , then fast it's .
There's so many different areas where the funding goes . So now that obviously you've probably got yourself in a position with the success Of your product and the science behind it , what are you curious about next ? I guess is , yeah , in that direction .
¶ Biomimetic Health Product Discovery and Development
So we have a couple different things that we're really interested in . So number one is the Fasting data set itself is really interesting to us . So you know , from that list of 300 , you know we narrowed it down based on there being some kind of literature results Of the molecules themselves having any kind of bioactive ability already .
So we narrowed that list of 300 down to , you know , probably around two dozen that we actually screened through on our cellular Assays to be able to find the final Mimeo formulation .
But that leaves , you know , 275 of these , you know , interesting molecules that haven't really been very well researched or categorized yet but could have these really , you know , big impacts on cellular health and longevity work within this larger , you know , bio program of fasting .
So we really want to kind of use that as our discovery platform to continue to Research these new , you know , clinically derived longevity molecules that have this direct impact on human health , because they're Human molecules that are already inside of our body . We know that they're going to do something there .
They were evolutionarily designed to Work within a human body , perform some specific function and then work with these other molecules to then create this kind of you know , complementary synergistic effects .
So we're really interested in continuing to do discovery on that data set and find out what new molecules can we identify , add into new formulations and then make new products .
That way , and then , further down the road , we're really interested in , you know , in the same vein that we did with fasting , you can also do this with other interesting Regenerative states in the body .
So you could do this with Exercise , you could do this with meditation , you could do this with , you know , sleep , cold exposure , therapy , things like that , right , and identify these interesting molecules that do these fun , fun things within human biology . So really pumping out more Biomimetic products , and that's really what Mimeo is all about .
You know , we are the Biomimetic human health company really looking to just understand the mysteries of human biology so that we can , you know , activate it on demand dude , you got such a fun once again .
You've built such a fun life and , I guess , career for yourself to be able to Study that sort of stuff .
It's it's so fascinating as you're talking about the next steps for me , I'm like I cannot wait for you to hit those milestones so we can continue learning and learn how to optimize our body in a way that Allows us still to live our life , because obviously , as science is just getting into a lot of those areas , there is a lot of restrictive protocols there
that take away from some fun elements of your life , which is why , obviously , yes , the most you know , mass populations of people aren't doing it because they are prepared to know , I guess , that external Um Gradification what's the word I'm looking for ? Prolonged gratification , yeah , I mean .
Yeah , there's there's always like a certain amount of delayed gratification , especially when you go into , like , the pharma space , especially when you go into the supplementary . Like everything in science is always like Like one day it'll be cool , like one day we'll find something , yeah and I've . But it like it's really , it's really important , right .
And I think that One of the reasons why we took Mimeo into more of the supplements base in the pharma route for stuff is because these are all natural human molecules , right , so they're not super attractive from a pharma perspective in that way , but we wanted to make sure because you can't patent them . That's why they're attractive from a pharma perspective .
Obviously , it's just not a good business interest , which is gross for me . I would rather find something cool and safe even if I can't necessarily patent it and just make it accessible to people , rather than trying to put it behind some prescription wall , right .
But I'm still very much informed by and use pharma as a guidepost of here's how you really do the science you make sure that these things are effective , you make sure that they're safe and then you give them out to people in a way that can make the most impact in their lives .
So I think that the delayed gratification of scientific research is always just worth it , especially when you're trying to build a brand number one but then number two if you're actually trying to provide people with a good product that is going to actually be able to have an impact in their lives .
And that's really what is the core guiding principle for Mimeo is making sure that we are giving people access to something that can really help them on a day to day basis and let them unlock their own biology .
That's awesome . So where can people find you on social media ? And also , if they wanted to purchase a Mimeo , where can they find all of that ?
Yeah , so they can find Mimeo at MimeoHealthcom , m-i-m-i-o Healthcom , and you can check out our clinical studies there . You can read about our science , you can see our cool branding and design . We're very happy with that , very proud of it . We just had a website revamp so I'm still nerding out on it a little bit and I'm like it's so cool , yeah .
But yeah , there's all the information that you can want is there . Then I also have my own TikTok channel . That's at that nutrition doctor DR , and basically it's just me screaming about nutrition into my bathroom mirror .
So that's always a fun time too if you want to learn more about fasting if you want to be entertained by , like my day-to-day lifestyle and my nutrition magic recipes where I teach you how to eat more while still eating less . That's a place for that .
A lot of people are wanting that . But , dr Chris Rhodes , everyone , thank you so much for your time , mate , and honestly , I'm looking forward to continuing to follow your research and your journey with what you're creating .
Yeah , thanks for having me , lachlan . It's a really fun time . It's been a great conversation , thank you .