October 29, 2025 • 11 mins
WHAT'S IN YOUR GUT? Hippocrates way back in 400 BCE taught that all health begins in the gut, and we seem to be having a full circle moment as science is studying the connection between gut health and overall wellness. Today at 2:30 I've got Alex Martinez from Intrinsic Medicine on to talk about this study which showed that a healthy gut microbiome was the key to a healthy long life. His company Intrinsic Medicine is working with human milk to create a synthetic version that can boost heath and hopefully help with diseases like Parkinsons. Find out more here. He joins me at 2:30 to discuss.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joining me now is the CEO and the founder of
a company called Intrinsic Medicine. And when you hear what
they do, I bet you your first question is going
to be the same as mine, which is what Alex Martinez.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the show. Hey Mandy, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
So what does Intrinsic Medicine? What are you guys investigating?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Basically, we believe that nature has already provided the solutions
to some of our most pressing problems today. And really
what we're trying to do is bring that back and
make it accessible with the body of scientific evidence. It
needs to be put into practice and put into real
use to help people improve their lives.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Now, you guys focus on gut health, and this is
something I've talked about quite a bit, and back in
four hundred BCE, Hippocrates believe that all gut, believe or
all health began on the gut. But you're specifically looking
at one thing in order to sort of heal the gun,
and that is human milk. Am I right here? What
(01:04):
what do you what is going on there?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Correct?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
And and let me riff off of you there, Because
Havocrates knew what he was talking about, right and he said,
you know, all diseases start in the gut. And he
also said, let food be thy medicine. Yea as well.
So that gets us along the line of inquiry where wait,
(01:29):
what was okay? So food's medicine. Well, what's the first
human food? Oh, it's it's milk, milk from our mothers.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
And what if we explore that?
Speaker 3 (01:40):
And and we we look at it as not just food,
but we find components that are non caloric and lo
and behold we did, and there's there's fat in human milk,
there's there's lactose right freely available energy. But then there's
(02:03):
these compounds called human milk, oligo, sacrize, sugars, but they're
they're not digestible by a human being for clark energy,
So what are they doing? And and and that that
really is the line of inquiry that kind of led
to the programs that we're advancing for different purposes.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
So I could hear a lot of people in my
listening audience going ah, and honestly, there's sort of this
vision of you guys with this group of lactation within producing, but.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
That's not what this is at all.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
So tell me about the actual substance that you guys
are using.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Ye, that's that's hilarious.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
And look, let's what's hilarious is when we look back,
every civilization but ours has used actual human milk, this
scenario that you are describing for adult medicinal purposes. So
let's not forget that that history, let alone the body
builds who buy gray market donor milk.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
God, that's so weird, right, I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
That's just weird to me.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
But but I'm sorry I didn't many interrupt, let's continue,
go ahead, No, but.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
But right, but it still gives us a vector that
there's something to this, right, And so like the line
that I want to put down is that milk is
for babies donor milk banks, that is for babies that
need it.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
You know, when when my when my.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
I know, among all people, how important is the breastfeed
and when my my wife had issues with it, like
we use donor milk and that was a blessing. And
so that's a resource that is for babies and should
never be diverted. So our compounds are produced with precision fermentation,
so they are nature identical. They do not take any
(03:54):
milk away from any baby They do not come from
any abreast there is there. They they are fermented. You know,
imagine you know, a brewpub, except instead of alcohol, you're
producing something that actually is foundational to human health.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Now, you guys are actually you have several sort of
pipeline things going on right now, and you're doing your
research in Australia. I'd like to kind of dip a
toe into why Australia makes it easier for you to
investigate some of these things, because in the case of this,
I'm guessing that your product, in even the limited sort
of research that you or the beginning of the pipeline
(04:33):
that you're in, probably doesn't have a lot of negative.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Side effects exactly.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
And that's where there's a bit of a of a
paradox here in the United States because these compounds are
generally recognized as safe to be included in infant formula
right already, right to make it closer to human milk
and to provide the comprehensive spectrum of benefits to babies.
(05:00):
But the FDA considers these new drugs right, that's like
a big, long, expensive pathway. Australia has a much more
pragmatic one where they literally look at the same body
of evidence that we're looking at that supported inclusion in
infant formula, and they're like, yeah, this thing is super safe, right,
(05:20):
and it's likely to help these people, So they go
through a local institutional ethics approval process. So I mean,
these are this common sense, this fancy way of saying.
It's like looking at this in a very pragmatic aspect
and saying this is much more likely to help people
(05:41):
than to harm them, and it would be minimal at best.
Let's try it out and move it forward and get
an answer.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
You have a study that seems to be the longest,
farthest along in the pipeline on Parkinson's disease. How are
you looking at different illnesses and positing that they could
be helped that specific illness. What made you say Parkinson's
may we may be able to do something here.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
This is a great question.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Let's go back to the Hippocrates, you know quote right,
all diseases beginning the gut. And so we need to
start reframing our thinking that what we call individual diseases
are really kind of manifestations of a common biological dysregulation,
(06:29):
and it's dys biosis in the gut. And immune disregulation, right,
and there's different permutations and thus there are different manifestations
of what that looks like and how that impacts each
one of us as an individual, right, that's our individualized
dis ease. And so what we what we look for
(06:54):
is we look for like hardcore statistical correlations data and
one of the things in Parkinson's, So we already know
these compounds in adults.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Can they work amazing for IBS?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
I'm an IBS patient myself, Like when I started syndrome, yeah,
rdable bowel syndrome. My philosophy was like, hey, you know what,
we would have awesome drugs if every CEO was required
to be like patient here, right, yeah, exactly, right, like
right right, we would have no side effects and everything
would be amazing. Right. So I lived it, and I've
(07:31):
been I've been taking this for five years and I've
I've constructively cured my IBS.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
And that's like what gets me.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Up in the morning is saying, I can't be the
only one benefiting from this, and you know, and and
there's a clinical study that actually supports all of that.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
But what we realized is because of the.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Safety of these compounds, that's that's that opportunity to get
to people in in diseases that typically no one thought
you could prevent, like parkinson Like how do you prevent Parkinson's?
And they have what's called prodromal symptoms. So these are
the ones that like happened like years sometimes decades before
(08:15):
the nerds degenerative, like the cognitive stuff happened, right, And
constipation is the biggest one if you have a prior
history and this was like there was a study it
was a couple of years ago, I think it was
in the British Medical Journal, and they looked like twenty
four thousand patients and if you had a prior history
(08:38):
of like chronic constipation or irritual bowel syndrome right consumption dominant,
your odds of getting Parkinson's were like four point one
one higher.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Wow, that's significant, Yeah, like four hundred and that's a lot.
I mean, well, so let me ask you this, how.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Far away are we?
Speaker 1 (08:58):
And somebody asked on our text line on the Common
Spirit health text line we have here, Mandy, is this
the same as colostrum cow's milk now being sold for
health benefits like cowboy colostrum? Is this a similar thing
obviously you're talking human peptides or human that's the wrong word.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
But yeah, this is a different component and and and
I know, like so colostrum has is proteins. Think about
like those are proteins and those are like soluble antibodies.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Okay, okay, So how far away from we.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Are we from having a product or a drug that
people can actually use that that you know, if it
does prove to be successful.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
What are we looking at in years? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (09:43):
So this is where I'm going to do something a
little bit different because I actually my patience is up.
I'm doing the formal drug development process, yes, but we're
starting a separate entity that actually can make these available
today as.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
A nutritional supplement.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah. Yeah, well yeah, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
I mean, I hate to say it, but our we
can have a whole conversation Alex on our FDA and
the way stuff is approved in this country. I think
that's kind of cool. I'd love to have you back
on because we're out of time now. When you when
you've got that out, I got a lot of people saying, Okay,
I'm ready, where can I find this? So let's touch
back when you have that going and when it comes
(10:28):
to supplement that people can buy.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Alex.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Yeah, yeah, that'll be working on that like today. So
so this is this is a wonderful conversation. Thank you
for having me.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
It's fascinating.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
I mean, I long believe that food is medicine and
that you know, if you feed your body right, you're
gonna feel a million times better.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
So this tracks with that.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Diverse fiber everyone get it. Just eat it, like, get
get your you know, go out and nature, be around children, like, oh, to.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Get your diseases, to get your germ hits.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Is that what we're doing, To get your germ hits,
but also to get your biffidobacterium right because right families
and people, their microbiomes converge, and so you have a
more youthful microbiome if you are around younger people.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Yeah, and then you and then you feed it with
healthy fibers and you can you can nurture it. And again,
just go out look socially and you'll see it in action.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
You'll see it in principle.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Intrinsicmedicine dot com is their website. Alex Martinez, thanks for
your time today.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
I appreciate it.
Joining me now is the CEO and the founder of
a company called Intrinsic Medicine. And when you hear what
they do, I bet you your first question is going
to be the same as mine, which is what Alex Martinez.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the show. Hey Mandy, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
So what does Intrinsic Medicine? What are you guys investigating?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Basically, we believe that nature has already provided the solutions
to some of our most pressing problems today. And really
what we're trying to do is bring that back and
make it accessible with the body of scientific evidence. It
needs to be put into practice and put into real
use to help people improve their lives.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Now, you guys focus on gut health, and this is
something I've talked about quite a bit, and back in
four hundred BCE, Hippocrates believe that all gut, believe or
all health began on the gut. But you're specifically looking
at one thing in order to sort of heal the gun,
and that is human milk. Am I right here? What
(01:04):
what do you what is going on there?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Correct?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
And and let me riff off of you there, Because
Havocrates knew what he was talking about, right and he said,
you know, all diseases start in the gut. And he
also said, let food be thy medicine. Yea as well.
So that gets us along the line of inquiry where wait,
(01:29):
what was okay? So food's medicine. Well, what's the first
human food? Oh, it's it's milk, milk from our mothers.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
And what if we explore that?
Speaker 3 (01:40):
And and we we look at it as not just food,
but we find components that are non caloric and lo
and behold we did, and there's there's fat in human milk,
there's there's lactose right freely available energy. But then there's
(02:03):
these compounds called human milk, oligo, sacrize, sugars, but they're
they're not digestible by a human being for clark energy,
So what are they doing? And and and that that
really is the line of inquiry that kind of led
to the programs that we're advancing for different purposes.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
So I could hear a lot of people in my
listening audience going ah, and honestly, there's sort of this
vision of you guys with this group of lactation within producing, but.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
That's not what this is at all.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
So tell me about the actual substance that you guys
are using.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Ye, that's that's hilarious.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
And look, let's what's hilarious is when we look back,
every civilization but ours has used actual human milk, this
scenario that you are describing for adult medicinal purposes. So
let's not forget that that history, let alone the body
builds who buy gray market donor milk.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
God, that's so weird, right, I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
That's just weird to me.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
But but I'm sorry I didn't many interrupt, let's continue,
go ahead, No, but.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
But right, but it still gives us a vector that
there's something to this, right, And so like the line
that I want to put down is that milk is
for babies donor milk banks, that is for babies that
need it.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
You know, when when my when my.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
I know, among all people, how important is the breastfeed
and when my my wife had issues with it, like
we use donor milk and that was a blessing. And
so that's a resource that is for babies and should
never be diverted. So our compounds are produced with precision fermentation,
so they are nature identical. They do not take any
(03:54):
milk away from any baby They do not come from
any abreast there is there. They they are fermented. You know,
imagine you know, a brewpub, except instead of alcohol, you're
producing something that actually is foundational to human health.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Now, you guys are actually you have several sort of
pipeline things going on right now, and you're doing your
research in Australia. I'd like to kind of dip a
toe into why Australia makes it easier for you to
investigate some of these things, because in the case of this,
I'm guessing that your product, in even the limited sort
of research that you or the beginning of the pipeline
(04:33):
that you're in, probably doesn't have a lot of negative.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Side effects exactly.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
And that's where there's a bit of a of a
paradox here in the United States because these compounds are
generally recognized as safe to be included in infant formula
right already, right to make it closer to human milk
and to provide the comprehensive spectrum of benefits to babies.
(05:00):
But the FDA considers these new drugs right, that's like
a big, long, expensive pathway. Australia has a much more
pragmatic one where they literally look at the same body
of evidence that we're looking at that supported inclusion in
infant formula, and they're like, yeah, this thing is super safe, right,
(05:20):
and it's likely to help these people, So they go
through a local institutional ethics approval process. So I mean,
these are this common sense, this fancy way of saying.
It's like looking at this in a very pragmatic aspect
and saying this is much more likely to help people
(05:41):
than to harm them, and it would be minimal at best.
Let's try it out and move it forward and get
an answer.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
You have a study that seems to be the longest,
farthest along in the pipeline on Parkinson's disease. How are
you looking at different illnesses and positing that they could
be helped that specific illness. What made you say Parkinson's
may we may be able to do something here.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
This is a great question.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Let's go back to the Hippocrates, you know quote right,
all diseases beginning the gut. And so we need to
start reframing our thinking that what we call individual diseases
are really kind of manifestations of a common biological dysregulation,
(06:29):
and it's dys biosis in the gut. And immune disregulation, right,
and there's different permutations and thus there are different manifestations
of what that looks like and how that impacts each
one of us as an individual, right, that's our individualized
dis ease. And so what we what we look for
(06:54):
is we look for like hardcore statistical correlations data and
one of the things in Parkinson's, So we already know
these compounds in adults.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Can they work amazing for IBS?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
I'm an IBS patient myself, Like when I started syndrome, yeah,
rdable bowel syndrome. My philosophy was like, hey, you know what,
we would have awesome drugs if every CEO was required
to be like patient here, right, yeah, exactly, right, like
right right, we would have no side effects and everything
would be amazing. Right. So I lived it, and I've
(07:31):
been I've been taking this for five years and I've
I've constructively cured my IBS.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
And that's like what gets me.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Up in the morning is saying, I can't be the
only one benefiting from this, and you know, and and
there's a clinical study that actually supports all of that.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
But what we realized is because of the.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Safety of these compounds, that's that's that opportunity to get
to people in in diseases that typically no one thought
you could prevent, like parkinson Like how do you prevent Parkinson's?
And they have what's called prodromal symptoms. So these are
the ones that like happened like years sometimes decades before
(08:15):
the nerds degenerative, like the cognitive stuff happened, right, And
constipation is the biggest one if you have a prior
history and this was like there was a study it
was a couple of years ago, I think it was
in the British Medical Journal, and they looked like twenty
four thousand patients and if you had a prior history
(08:38):
of like chronic constipation or irritual bowel syndrome right consumption dominant,
your odds of getting Parkinson's were like four point one
one higher.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Wow, that's significant, Yeah, like four hundred and that's a lot.
I mean, well, so let me ask you this, how.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Far away are we?
Speaker 1 (08:58):
And somebody asked on our text line on the Common
Spirit health text line we have here, Mandy, is this
the same as colostrum cow's milk now being sold for
health benefits like cowboy colostrum? Is this a similar thing
obviously you're talking human peptides or human that's the wrong word.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
But yeah, this is a different component and and and
I know, like so colostrum has is proteins. Think about
like those are proteins and those are like soluble antibodies.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Okay, okay, So how far away from we.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Are we from having a product or a drug that
people can actually use that that you know, if it
does prove to be successful.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
What are we looking at in years? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (09:43):
So this is where I'm going to do something a
little bit different because I actually my patience is up.
I'm doing the formal drug development process, yes, but we're
starting a separate entity that actually can make these available
today as.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
A nutritional supplement.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah. Yeah, well yeah, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
I mean, I hate to say it, but our we
can have a whole conversation Alex on our FDA and
the way stuff is approved in this country. I think
that's kind of cool. I'd love to have you back
on because we're out of time now. When you when
you've got that out, I got a lot of people saying, Okay,
I'm ready, where can I find this? So let's touch
back when you have that going and when it comes
(10:28):
to supplement that people can buy.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Alex.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Yeah, yeah, that'll be working on that like today. So
so this is this is a wonderful conversation. Thank you
for having me.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
It's fascinating.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
I mean, I long believe that food is medicine and
that you know, if you feed your body right, you're
gonna feel a million times better.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
So this tracks with that.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Diverse fiber everyone get it. Just eat it, like, get
get your you know, go out and nature, be around children, like, oh, to.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Get your diseases, to get your germ hits.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Is that what we're doing, To get your germ hits,
but also to get your biffidobacterium right because right families
and people, their microbiomes converge, and so you have a
more youthful microbiome if you are around younger people.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Yeah, and then you and then you feed it with
healthy fibers and you can you can nurture it. And again,
just go out look socially and you'll see it in action.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
You'll see it in principle.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Intrinsicmedicine dot com is their website. Alex Martinez, thanks for
your time today.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
I appreciate it.
The Mandy Connell Podcast News
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