[00:00:01] Luke: So Sarah, tell me how you got interested in helping people with weight loss and calorie control and things like that? Because so many of us struggle with that particular issue. What was your personal motivation?

[00:00:17] Sarah: Yeah. I grew up in a family of four girls, and I've had this love-hate relationship with food my whole life. I love it, but I hate it. The binging, the dieting, and so on. So you'd eat a lot, you'd hate yourself. This has been for years, so I'm obviously always fascinated. And when I was presented this science in 2017, I had never seen that amount of science behind an ingredient in a category as large as weight management.

[00:00:54] Now, you got to remember, this was 2017. This was long before Wegovy and Ozempic. So no one really understood this whole mechanism of action with these appetite suppressing hormones. So I was presented it and immediately fell in love with it. And then started taking the test capsules. And I can honestly say it has changed my relationship with food.

[00:01:22] Of course, I'm going to say that because I'm the founder, but over the last seven years, I'm at peace with food. I really enjoy it. I just don't eat as much. I no longer have this love-hate. So it's been really special for me.

[00:01:38] Luke: Did you ever struggle with being overweight, or was it just more of a mental struggle with feeling like you were eating more than you should or more than you wanted to? Did you at any point in your life actually become heavier than you wanted to be and had yo-yo diets and trying to exercise it away and all that?

[00:01:59] Sarah: I think it was indelible on my mind, and I think it's unfortunate. I was a little fat kid, and I was put on a diet when I was 10. And I think it's always been that for me right throughout my life. I don't think I was ever massively overweight, but I'd be 10 to 15 pounds overweight. I'd lose that. I'd feel fantastic, go on, put it back on again, and so on.

[00:02:31] But from 10 years old, so I've always had that been put on a restrictive diet. I've always had that. So to be now, six years, seven years in, the same weight that I was at 28 and have this peace with food, it's just such a liberation. We hear people say it when they're on the injections, you take the noise away from my brain.

[00:03:00] It's like that. It's just liberating. I still have to do things like exercise, and I still have to eat a healthy diet, but I'm at peace with it. I can have small treats more. I just don't eat as much. So yeah, it's been liberating.

[00:03:18] Luke: Why do you think people struggle so much with weight issues? And I'm sure it's different, but since you have some experience with that, how much of it do you think is emotional, self-medicating, versus some people just being inherently wired to eat more calories than they need to to sustain their life?

[00:03:42] Sarah: Yeah. So I want to talk to you about evolution, and I hope this helps people. If you reduce your calories by 25% a day, your hunger doubles over four months. So that is hunger. So your hunger is going to double. It's an evolutionary mechanism that made us get out of our caves and go and hunt.

[00:04:08] You imagine if we were in our caves and it was like it was raining outside, and you're like, "Yeah, you know what? It's cold. I'm not going out." So this hunger drove us to hunt. Now, that was an asset to us then, an asset to us in those times. It's a liability for us now when we are surrounded by food. So you are driven by your hindbrain to go and look for food when you reduce your calories, or when you are not getting your calorie intake.

[00:04:37] Your hindbrain is saying you are going into famine. Now you think about it. Your hindbrain is there. That's your hindbrain, which is a very primitive part of your brain, and we have our full brain over it. And our full brain, we go, "No, I don't need to eat. I've got willpower, and I don't need to do that."

[00:05:00] You put stress, lack of sleep, hormones-- and we can talk about that-- alcohol or anything. That forebrain falls off and that hindbrain goes, "Yay, I'm off to eat." So I always say to people, how many times have you eaten hot chips or something that you shouldn't be eating late at night after you've had one too many drinks?

[00:05:26] That is because your full brain has gone, "Woo hoo, I'm falling off." And your hindbrain-- so what was an asset to us when we were evolving is now a liability. To your point, some people have it more than others. I would say the ones that have it very strongly, they would've survived back in evolution.

[00:05:49] They would've just survived in prehistoric days. The ones that don't feel so hungry, they wouldn't have survived. So a lot of our hunger is partially genetic, and it's also environmental what we are surrounded by. So it is not your fault if you are hungry, and it's not your fault that you break your diet. It is actually your body. It's your hindbrain telling you to eat. It is actually the whole etiology of it.

[00:06:16] Luke: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Something I really enjoy as a entertainment pastime is watching survival shows. Actually, I watched one recently that was filmed in New Zealand, come to think of it.

[00:06:30] Sarah: Oh, wow.

[00:06:31] Luke: Yeah. But one of the things that I find so interesting about those shows is that these people are out surviving in the wilderness, so they're always fighting against a calorie deficit. They're spending more energy building their shelter, chasing animals that get away, and so on.

[00:06:48] And what they're always after is fat and sugar. Of course, sugar is extremely rare. The only time they get that is the occasional fruit or they crack open a beehive or something. But it's really interesting to look at that mimicry of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and compare that with the modern lifestyle in which we live, where down the road is a 7-Eleven.

[00:07:14] I don't know if you have those in New Zealand or a gas station, or a grocery store, where you can go in and for $3 or $4 you could get as much sugar or fat, usually the wrong kinds of fats by the way, that would've cost so much in calories and energy expenditure for our ancestors not that long ago.

[00:07:35] You would've had to work your ass off to get the equivalent of 32 grams of sugar that you'd get in a soda or something like that. So how much do you think is that evolutionary, drive that you talk about, and the mismatch of the availability of these empty calories now that are so cheap and readily accessible?

[00:07:58] Sarah: As you said, it's not that long ago, and we haven't evolved that much. So we still have our prehistoric brain. We still have our hindbrain and that full brain that goes over. And I find it fascinating. They've done a lot of studies in animals, and honestly, what rats will do to find food.

[00:08:18] And that's exactly what you're seeing on the survival mechanism. And this is this whole feedback loop. So reducing your calories will just double your hunger. So how do you manage that? And that's where Calocurb comes in. Because we are telling you you're full, before you eat.

[00:08:39] So we are super stimulating that feedback loop mechanism by stimulating your natural GLP-1, CCK, and PYY to go up to the brain and say, "Hey, you are full." So how I find it so useful is I take mine in the morning because I intermittent fast. So it means I just don't have those hunger cues at 10 o'clock.

[00:09:05] I can walk past that bagel, I can walk past that muffin, which is really just loaded carbohydrate, very high, which is only going to satiate you or depress your appetite for a short amount of time. I can walk by and go, "You know what? I'm okay." It allows you to make healthier choices.

[00:09:26] Luke: So it's interesting, when I got your Calocurb product, which by the way, my wife loves, because she's not one to take pharmaceuticals and so on. And I wish she was here because I could get her to give you a real testimonial. I'm on the other end of the spectrum. I wish I had more of an appetite.

[00:09:48] But she is sometimes eating more than she wants to. And she started taking that, and she's like, "I don't know, man. It works." I don't get the munchies, I think is what her experience was. But what was interesting to me when I started researching the Calocurb and looking at the active ingredient and saw that it was derived from hops, I thought it was so ironic because beer is the thing that makes-- most of the fat people you see out in the world, it probably has something to do with-- or at least truck drivers, a certain demographic has something to do with drinking too much hops.

[00:10:24] So it's just like one of creator's kind of weird, cosmic jokes, I think, that hidden in that thing that causes so many of us to be overweight is something that can actually reduce your appetite.

[00:10:36] Sarah: So beer won't do that. Now hops are blamed for a lot. Hops are just the bittering agent in beer. What makes beer fattening--

[00:10:46] Luke: Really?

[00:10:47] Sarah: Yes, just the bittering agent. They only ate a small amount. What makes beer fattening is it's made from grains, from wheat. So that's what makes it fattening. Not the poor little hops. They're just the bittering agent.

[00:11:01] Luke: Got it. Got it.

[00:11:03] Sarah: And the  bittering agent. So interesting about it, hops didn't come to us. Just a little bit of the background. And all primary research in New Zealand is done by the government. In 2010, a group of very talented scientists from a government-owned research institute had a hypothesis that they would find a plant-based extract that suppressed appetite.

[00:11:32] So they had this hypothesis both from history. So in times of famine, Scottish people in the Scottish Highlands would eat very, very bitter berries to suppress their appetite. And in fact, a really interesting fact from that, it was Charles I used to give these to his mistresses to lose weight.

[00:11:55] So it was known from a long time ago, this bitterness. Also, in the Kalahari desert tribesmen would chew on very, very bitter cactus before they went out hunting to suppress their appetite. So these were these historical reasons. And then there'd been some recent work on animal studies. So they put in for this grant, it was called Food for Appetite Control, and got $20 million back from the government to study this.

[00:12:26] They did some incredible work, but first of all, they took 300 biopsies from the human gastrointestinal tract. So right down from the stomach to the colon, they got these biopsies. And they studied the biopsies, and they showed that we have bitter taste receptors right down our gastrointestinal tract.

[00:12:49] Now, that wasn't known before that. Really fascinating. That's been published as well, but we all have bitter taste receptors on our tongue. We know that we have 25 of them there. And if you eat something bitter, you spit it out. But if you eat something bitter and it goes down into your stomach, it'll either promote the release of ghrelin, which is your hunger hormone, so you eat more to dissipate, or you'll vomit it up.

[00:13:20] But when it goes down to your upper duodenum or your upper gut, below your stomach, it stimulates the release of three appetite suppressing hormones, which are CCK, which is very potent GLP-1, which we all know, and PYY. And why it's doing that, because by the time it's in your gastrointestinal tract, you can't vomit it up. You can't spit it out. So it's sending signals to your brain or hormones to your brain to say, "Stop eating. This could be poisonous."

[00:13:54] So it was once again, a human evolution to stop us from eating bitter products that could be-- and interesting enough, plants evolved at the same time. So if you look at up something like an apple tree, apples are very, very sweet. So they want us to eat them so we spread the seeds. But their leaves are very, very bitter because they don't want us to eat their leaves.

[00:14:21] So humans and plants evolved simultaneously together so we wouldn't eat bitter things and we didn't eat the things that they didn't want us to eat. So really interesting. So they took these biopsies, they showed that these little bit of taste receptors, which live in the lining of our gastrointestinal tract release these appetites suppressing hormone.

[00:14:45] They then built this high throughput model, this high throughput enteroendocrine model, and they tested over a thousand extracts, and literally only two promoted the release of these appetite-suppressing hormones. One was a potato oxalate, which is great, but it's poisonous. So you'd be thin but dead. You'd be thin but dead.

[00:15:13] The other one was a hop. And this is a bittering agent, of course, for beer. So being they were planted food research, they bred all of the hops in New Zealand, so they tested another 50 or 60 hops, and they came up with the variety, which was literally, they called, the eureka, which stimulated the most of these appetite-suppressing hormones.

[00:15:40] So remember, out of 1,000 extracts, only two promoted this, promoted the release of appetite-suppressing hormones. Now, that is not unusual because it's an evolutionary protection mission. If we ate something bitter and stopped eating, we'd just be not eating. We'd have a cup of coffee, and we wouldn't eat.

[00:16:03] So it's a very specific mechanism. So they then did a lot of tests on dose responsive, how to get it released at the right stage. So they encapsulated it in a delayed release capsule. They put it with oil to make sure it dissipated in that, in the upper intestine.

[00:16:26] They did all of that in laboratory, so in vitro. They then took it to their first human clinical in 2015. And this was a large clinical because they had to cannulate or take bloods from all of the participants. But literally, they gave Calocurb an hour before an ad libitum or eat to your full lunch and snack and measured the bloods.

[00:16:56] And we got a 600% increase from baseline of CCK, GLP-1, and PYY, which is a huge increase. And with an average of an 18% reduction in calorie intake over four hours. So this was, we'd shown it worked in the laboratory. They had shown they worked in the laboratory, and then they showed it worked in clinical.

[00:17:24] And this was massively significant. And I'll just give you a comparison to that 18%, is we know a semaglutide, which is Ozempic and Wegovy will reduce on average a 24% calorie intake. So we do around about an 18%, and we are promoting the release of your natural GLP-1 versus using a synthetic injectable.

[00:17:53] So they did this, and that was about-- they had all of this. They had the paper. It was going to be published. And then what happens in New Zealand, they go, "Oh, we think we have something that could be commercialized." So they look for commercial partners. And they approached me. You heard about my background, and they approached me, and I was just so entranced by the science.

[00:18:19] I'd never seen anything like it. So I'm a bit like the man that bought the company because he liked it so much. I said I want it. And you know what I know now, but I said I want it. So I raised the money, formed a team, and launched the product in 2018. So that's what happened. And then we've done three more human clinicals since that stage.

[00:18:45] So it's been a wild ride, but it's an incredible product. I think what really changed the landscape for us is when we launched in 2018, people really didn't understand the etiology or what weight management was about. And it is these feedback loops with these appetite suppressing hormones. So whilst we sold, it wasn't massive. I had the best mousetrap, but no one knew it.

[00:19:17] But in 2021 when Wegovy was approved by the FDA for use for weight management, Nova Nordisk spent a billion dollars on advertising in '21, '22. They spend 500 million now a year, but they spent a billion dollars. They took out to lunch and dinner, 239,000 doctors. So they really educated the market on appetite-suppressing hormones and this etiology or how weight came about. And then we became the natural alternative, and people could understand it.

[00:20:03] Luke: That's crazy timing. It's like the pharmaceutical industry unwittingly paved the way for your marketing campaign. I love that.

[00:20:12] Sarah: Oh my God, I get down on my knees and I pray to Nova Nordisk every day. They suddenly made it like people understood, actually, this is part of evolution. It's actually not their fault they fall off diets. It is their fault they eat bad food, but it's not their fault with that. And there is something to assist them with it.

[00:20:39] Luke: I have an off the wall question for you. The way you describe the results of this clinical research-- and I've looked into it myself. I know you're not making it up. It's all easy to fact check. This is the equivalent in the supplement versus pharmaceutical realm of developing a car engine that runs on water or refrigerated. You know what I mean? You know what I'm getting at? Do you ever feel afraid that you're potentially interrupting a market that's so lucrative to such powerful entities?

[00:21:23] Sarah: Yes, every day. Which is why our first value is science-led. So everything we claim can be backed by a human clinical study to that exact ingredient. So we have a US regulatory consultants, and everything we say, we feel very, very comfortable in because it's backed by these. And we're actually owned by the New Zealand government, so I licensed the technology from them.

[00:21:54] So I don't know if you trust government, but this is the New Zealand government, and yeah. So I have to be very, very factual. And of course all of our clinicals are done by their research agencies for their research institute. And I wish I had 49 million a month to spend on saying what Calocurb does.

[00:22:21] It's fascinating. Every person I meet and every practitioner I meet, they go, "Why haven't we heard of you? Why haven't we heard of you?" And I go, "I don't have 49 million a month to spend, but I'm doing what I can in webinar and podcasts like this, in the conferences we go to, in the editorials we do. I'll just go onto the two more clinicals because I think they're really important just to help people.

[00:22:51] We wanted to get measurements of hunger and craving, so we did-- we, I'm saying these are all independent-- did these clinical trials. The first was in men. Most people don't realize just about all two thirds, over two thirds of clinical trials are done in men. Men don't have hormones. They have some hormones, but they don't have fluctuating hormones.

[00:23:14] So just about all clinicals are done on men. They're very easy to do clinicals on. You're a bit like lab rats. We put you, do you, and they're very easy. So the first one was done in hunger, and it was a 24-hour water only fast. And we gave Calocurb. Remember there was those that didn't have it and those that did. We gave Calocurb at 16 hours and 20 hours.

[00:23:39] The last eight hours of a 24 hour fast are the hardest for people. We got an 80% decrease in increased hunger in men, which is hugely significant. So that 80% less hungry at 24 hours than they were at 16 hours. We then repeated that in women, and I was really grumpy about this because I had to do it for Australian regulations. Ad I was grumpy because women are inherently much more difficult.

[00:24:17] You have to do them in the same time of the menstrual cycle each month, and you have to do it at the same day of the week. And we were doing three treatments, so that 30 women to be treated three times at the same day of the menstrual cycle, same day of the week.

[00:24:35] And this was during COVID. So it took, I think, 18 months to do this. But I look back now and the results were just stunning. So in women, we believe-- well, we know they are more sensitive to GLP-1. We got 100% decrease in hunger. So at 24 hours, they were no more hungry than they were at 16 hours.

[00:25:02] But the one that really I loved was we got 120% decrease in craving. So craving is a different measure than hunger. You crave for something sweet. So you imagine after dinner or during, I say to a woman during PMS, woman will eat 200 calories more a day, and that's, once again, natural because they're looking to feed their body in case an egg is implanted.

[00:25:34] But of course, that's not going to happen every month. So it really helps in that PMS or luteal side. We also did a rebound eating. So we gave an ad libitum or an eat to your full meal at 24 hours, and the people on Calocurb ate 14 and a half less calories. And that was four hours after their last dose. So amazing.

[00:26:00] We can very confidently say when we extrapolate that over 24 hours, we get a 30% decrease in hunger, a 40% decrease in craving, and an 18%, or an average of an 18% calorie intake. And all of those are backed by human clinical trials on that exact ingredient.

[00:26:22] Luke: That's incredible. What's perhaps even more incredible to me is, how did you get all of the female test subjects to be in sync on their cycle?

[00:26:33] Sarah: Oh, you recruit them at different times? So say you have the-- they're coming at different-- no, you didn't.

[00:26:39] Luke: Got it. I'm like, "Okay, did you have them all move into a house together couple months?

[00:26:44] Sarah: The chief researcher, the government chief researcher, said he needed danger money to, a, during a certain cycle of the month, put them through a 24-hour water only fast, and he wanted danger money. So it was an amazing-- we're just finishing our fourth human clinical now, which is our larges, that's on 150 patients, men and women, BMI between 25 and 35 over six months with a three-month follow up. Because it'd taken two years. It just finished in June.

[00:27:21] And by the time it's analyzed and unblinded, we'll get the results in November. But we are measuring weight loss, body composition, which is really important, and that's muscle loss. So we're really excited about that. We're measuring bloods. And interesting enough, we are measuring the GLP-1 throughout this because the scientists have a hypothesis that we are actually upregulating your gut-brain access. So instead of people say, "Well, if I come off Calocurb, will I just go back to eating."

[00:27:57] And you're like, "No, because we've actually upregulated or made your gut-brain access work better." Because we're constantly stimulating these little [Inaudible], bitter taste receptors. It's like a little muscle I put them to. So very excited about that. So you'll notice we never, ever say weight loss because we don't have the human clinical behind that.

[00:28:25] We have thousands of people with anecdotal that tell us, but this will give us the weight loss with it. So that comes up in November, or we get the results. But how people are using it and how practitioners are using it and how consumers are using it is one of two ways or one of three ways. They're using it as an alternative.

[00:28:51] So a bit like you wife, they don't want to inject themselves. They just really want to manage their eating. They just want to manage that eating. It's everyday life. They can't afford the injection, or they can't take the side effects. Because remember the side effects are pretty dire. 67% have a gastrointestinal issue with it.

[00:29:16] The second way practitioners are using it, which I find very interesting, is they're using it in combination with the injectable because they can lower the injection down to the lowest level, so the starting dose. And so you're both getting this natural release and this external injection.

[00:29:38] So you're getting exogenous and endogenous, and it's really helping to reduce the side effects because it's at a very low dose, and reduce the cost. So where a vial would've lasted a month, it'll last two months. So reduces that. And it also helps with that breakthrough hunger people get it about day five, which is why you keep increasing the dose. You'll get this breakthrough hunger.

[00:30:05] And the third reason, the third mechanism or use, which I say is not an enough-- it's a must-- when people come off the injectable, most people don't realize that your endogenous or your natural GLP-1 has been reduced to zero, almost zero.

[00:30:25] Now, if you think about it, whenever you are using an external hormone, your natural or your endogenous hormones, they're just going to go on holiday. They're like, "Yeah, I don't need to do anything. You're doing it for me. Thanks so much." So they go down to zero. This is published as well.

[00:30:43] So when you come off the injectable, your hunger is going to be twice, three times as much, because you don't have any endogenous GLP-1 to say, "Hey, stop eating. You've had enough." So we call it this valley of death because people come off, they get the supercharged hunger, and they go back to eating, and then they put on the weight.

[00:31:08] So this is part of the reason why you get this rebound weight gain. And so when you titrate off or when you are coming off, use Calocurb. And then you are restimulating and restarting that gut brain access, and it's also giving you a really convenient way to manage that hunger as you come off.

[00:31:33] So you are not loading your body seven days a week with GLP-1. You are using this as you need it. Remember, you're going to take it once or twice a day, and it's two small capsules, and you are just super stimulating the release of your natural hormones.

[00:31:52] Luke: Wow, that's wild. Looking at the pharmaceutical injectable, that's a great business model. If you downregulate the natural GLP-1 while someone's using your product and then they boomerang back like that, many people are going to be inspired to get back on it, obviously. Right?

[00:32:12] Sarah: I just talked to someone the other day, and they failed twice in coming off tirzepatide. And now they're too scared to come off. So you're just getting this boomerang, this yo-yo dieting. And the drug companies say to you, "You'll take it forever. And every practitioner and patient I've met, look some real chronic, I would say yes.

[00:32:39] But every practitioner and patient I've met want to come off at some stage either for the expense or the side effects. And you are taking away the body's natural cues of feeling hunger. There's nothing wrong with feeling hunger, and you're taking away those natural cues. So yeah, at some stage, just about everyone wants to come off. But how do you come off and maintain that?

[00:33:07] We do talk about weight management, and we say Calocurb is to modernize human consumption. And that's what we talked about before. Today we are surrounded by food. We don't have to go out and hunt it. We are surrounded by it. So how do I modernize my consumption? How do I make healthy choices when I'm surrounded by food all the time? And that's why six years later, I still take Calocurb every day. So I can walk past that muffin. So I can walk past the bagels. So I can make healthy choices. I'm not like, "I just have to have food. Give me something to eat."

[00:33:57] Yeah, so I probably take it once a day now, but if I'm eating late, if I'm going out late to dinner, I'll take it about 4 or 5 o'clock, because I know by 8 o'clock I'm going to be starving, and I'm going to eat too much. So I'll take it just so I can eat, but I just don't eat as much.

[00:34:17] If you are going out to a beautiful degustation dinner, I'd say don't take it. If you want to eat every course, don't take it. And that's a wonderful thing about it. You can come in and out of it very easily. And that's what a lot of people do. They're like, "Oh God, I'm going on a holiday, which sounds funny, but I'm going to be-- like a cruise-- and I'm going to be surrounded by food. I'm going to take my Calocurb."

[00:34:44] And the other thing, is, in animal studies, only 1% is absorbed in the bloodstream. So it's working down through your gastrointestinal tract. So very safe for the liver, very safe for the kidneys, very safe for everything, and safe for taking with other drugs. Because it's really only acting on your gastrointestinal tract.

[00:35:10] Luke: Why are women more receptive to GLP-1 than men?

[00:35:15] Sarah: I am going to give you a biological reason, and then I'm going to give you another one, and we don't know which. But a biological, we believe it's a protective mechanism of women, once again for evolution, of a growing fetus. So to protect them more from eating bitter, which could be toxic. The far more, which we don't know, factual one is we think women just fill out forms better.

[00:35:43] So they're more consistent in filling out their forms. So when you're in a 24-hour water only fast, they read the questions and fill them out properly, where we think males just tick boxes sometimes. So I gave you the evolutionary one and then I gave you the one we just think women fill out forms better. I don't know, but let's go with the one it's a protective mechanism for the fetus.

[00:36:10] Luke: Both sound pretty plausible. When we were talking about bitters before and human evolution, something I find really interesting is that as we've gotten more dependent on agriculture, we've hybridized so many of the plants that we eat and taking the bitters out of them. Even though the mechanism of action you're talking about, as you said, happens in the gut. It's not about your taste buds.

[00:36:48] It's not an oral receptor kind of thing. But I wonder if part of the propensity we have to overeat has to do with the fact that we've all but eliminated bitters from our diet. Do you think there's any correlation there in terms of bile production and things that bitters help do that we would've had in our diet on a regular basis and now we've just made everything like iceberg lettuce? It just is basically like green water.

[00:37:16] Sarah: No. In fact, bitters when they reach your stomach is promote grill in the hunger hormone. And that's why you're having a pair of teeth. So if you look at [Inaudible] and that you're having a pair of teeth before a meal, which you'll often be a Campari or a-- forgot the other one. Because that's to stimulate.

[00:37:36] Because remember when it hits your stomach, you stimulate hunger because your body wants you to eat more to dissipate potential toxin, to dissipate it. So I know we have taken a lot of bitters out of our diet, but it is actually used to stimulate appetite. The other thing I'll say about the hops, which we often get asked is, hops have been known to be pro estrogen.

[00:38:04] In our extract-- so just a bit about the supply chain. We grow this specific variety in New Zealand. It's grown in one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand called Motueka, which is at the top of the south island, in this wonderful microclimate. And we grow it there. We extract it, and it's extracted, and we take out all of the phytoestrogens and all of the biological plant-based matter.

[00:38:34] So we are only left with the alpha and beta acids and a small amount of the essential acid. So if you get-- like when you take a capsule-- a tiny burp, men love it. It's like a beer burp. You'll get that tiny amount of essential oils, but literally it's an extract. It's a very insoluble extract, which literally I try to equate it to a pinball machine going down your gastrointestinal tract, hitting these wonderful bitter taste receptors and releasing these appetite suppressing hormones all the way through. But once again, there are no phytoestrogens in there. It is like a thick honey, and it's with alpha and beta acids in it.

[00:39:24] Luke: Cool. That's good to know. Yeah. If people are trying to lose weight, they definitely don't want to be taking phytoestrogens.

[00:39:30] Sarah: No, no, no, no. So there's none. We get asked that because I always make that-- and I think importantly, just to say how to take it, when you take it, we always have an onboarding protocol where you take one a day for two days, two a day for two days, and then work up to two an hour, an hour and a half before lunch and an hour and a half before dinner.

[00:39:55] The reason we say that is if you're doing an injectable, it takes a month to bring it up. That you keep adjusting your dosage. We are [Inaudible] a week. Remember, you are super stimulating the release of GLP-1. So you really want your body to get used to it. And that's why we just do that onboarding for a week.

[00:40:18] We say take it on an empty stomach or a semi-empty stomach because you want the capsule to go into that upper part of the digestive tract. We want it to go past the stomach and into the digestive tract. So take it on an empty stomach with a glass of water. It's really easy. There's no exact measurement.

[00:40:39] Most people have a cup of coffee or something at about 10:30 in the morning. Just remember to take it then. 3 o'clock, you're thinking, oh, I want to pick me up. I want something, a sugar-free soda or something like that, or another cup of coffee. Take it about then.

[00:41:01] You will be so surprised when you go-- a, it'll take your hunger away. But when you go to eat your lunch, you just won't be able to eat as much, and you'll feel full for longer. You can get to lunchtime and you have this little meal, or you have a couple of boiled eggs or whatever you have.

[00:41:19] And then about an hour and a half later you go, "Oh, you know what? I'm hungry." Because you haven't had that carbohydrate. You haven't had that. That'll just take you all the way through. And then at about 3:00, 3:30, just remember to take it again, and it'll decrease your dinner size.

[00:41:39] The other thing people are using it for is that after dinner munchies, some people get into a habit. They've finished dinner an hour or so later. They're like, "Oh, I'm going to have something sweet, or I'm going to have something savory. And it's a reward at the end of the day. I'm watching television. You just won't feel it.

[00:41:59] Luke: I'm going to do that. I'm going to do it tonight.

[00:42:02] Sarah: Yeah. Just remember taking on an emptier stomach.

[00:42:05] Luke: Okay.

[00:42:06] Sarah: So if you take it about 6 o'clock, take it before dinner, and remember, it'll see you through for four to six hours. So it just depends on when you go to eat. I'll just tell you, I remember the first time I ever took it. It was hilarious. I was out to dinner with a group of girls, and I had these test pills or test capsules.

[00:42:29] I was peddling them across the table like this drug dealer. I'm giving them out to these women, and we're all talking and laughing. Because it's New Zealand, we had this beautiful, slow-cocked leg of lamb that we were sharing between us. And all laughing and having a glass of wine and things like that.

[00:42:47] And I was happily eating, and I'm suddenly like, "Oh, I'm full." And normally, you probably stop eating, but you might pick up those beautiful little crunchy bits around. And I've been a terrible picker my whole life. You might pick at those. And I was just like, "I'm full. I'm full. I can't eat anymore."

[00:43:09] And it was like this incredible revelation for me that suddenly I didn't carry on eating or even picking. So yeah, it was just like the thunderbolt to me. And a lot of people say that with injections, and we're just this natural form of it. And as I said, started this research 15 years ago, so we didn't suddenly come along and go, "Whoa, this is a great trend. We're going to get onto it." Started in 2010.

[00:43:40] Luke: I wasn't entirely truthful before when I said I never have an appetite, so I don't need help with that. You reminded me, the only time I really have an appetite is after dinner for sweets. You just nailed it. I'm going to watch a little TV, wind down, reward yourself. God, I really worked hard today.

[00:44:00] I barely ate. That's my thing. I'll be like, "I barely ate anything all day." If you added up the total calories, I probably had 200 calories the entire day, and then I had a normal-sized dinner, but then comes the cravings for ice cream and things like that.

[00:44:15] Sarah: All of those things. And that's where people are finding an incredibly-- and it is part of that dump. You are unwinding. You're relaxing. It's a bit of a treat, but on it every night, there's nothing wrong with that. But you'll just go, "Yeah." We've also had feedback with alcohol. Look, it doesn't work for me. I still want my glass of wine.

[00:44:39] But a lot of people-- because remember, your addictive part of your brain is in your hindbrain as well. Hunger and addictive centers are very much close together in that hindbrain. So we do have quite a bit of feedback on that as well. So yeah, I wish it worked for that, but no, no-- I can't at the moment. I'm in dry July, but I'm like, "Give me that class of wine."

[00:45:09] Luke: That's funny. At least it works for you for all the other things. One of the things I love doing is just discovering new supplements, products, technologies and things like that. And the first thing I'll do when I get something is, even before I order something, generally, I'll go on the website and zoom into the ingredient deck because I want to make sure there's nothing weird in it.

[00:45:33] I didn't do that with Calocurb, but when I was going to give it to my wife, I thought, well, let me just take a look at the ingredient. And I was a little-- not majorly concerned, but a little bit concerned with the fact that it had vegetable oil, omega-6. And I think it said non-GMO, no hexane.

[00:45:53] So it was a clean version of that, but I was curious why-- you mentioned earlier that the fats were necessary for the absorption. Does it have to be a particular fat, like an omega-6, or could it be done with coconut oil or a saturated fat or something?

[00:46:12] Sarah: Yes. Look, I have this discussion, you wouldn't believe, all the time, and with the scientists. It is very, very stable and what you want. And it's very high in vitamin E. It's very high in vitamin E, so it's got a very stable-- it's a stable, high in vitamin E oil as an antioxidant and it's sustainability.

[00:46:36] And what it actually does is help disperse that Amarasate or that hop. So you've got to get it to disperse, otherwise it'll go through in this insoluble lump down through and you'll pass it through the other end. So it helps it disperse. And if it just helps anyone, there are two drops of the vegetable oil per capsule.

[00:46:59] So there's literally two drops. So you'd find more in your muffin or anything else. It's very, very stable. We have literally talked till we're blue to the scientists, and they're like, "No, no." I'm like, "Couldn't you have picked anything else in the world?" But naming it Amarasate, no one can pronounce it.

[00:47:19] And they're like, "No, it's the most stable. No, it has the best profile. No, it has this antioxidant. No, it is this." Yeah. And there's two drops of it, and they absolutely stand behind it.

[00:47:34] Luke: That was the next thought I had. And part of the reason I asked that is because many people will hear this show, and I'm assuming be interested in trying Calocurb, and they're going to look at that ingredient deck and go, "What the hell, Luke?" Because it's part of my job, is to help people vet things and all of that.

[00:47:52] And I do so with honesty and a lot of care because I don't want to suggest anyone takes anything that's not good for them. But that's one thing that occurred to me, is when I opened the bottle up and looked at the size of the capsule, I thought, if you're taking two of these, even if the entire thing was vegetable oil, that is probably one one hundredth or one thousandth of eating three French fries. You know what I mean? On your cheat day.

[00:48:19] So it's like the amount of vegetable, if you go to any restaurant and you get anything, unless they specifically say on the menu and they're honest, no seed oils, you're getting tablespoons of the worst omega-6 inflammatory oil. I wasn't that concerned about it myself based on the fact that you're doing it in a clean way and it was such a small amount.

[00:48:45] And also adding that, you said, it's only two drops. If I had the choice between overeating and being overweight versus taking two drops of vegetable oil, I wouldn't be worried about it. But these are the things that discerning, biohacking-type people and people that listen to this show, they're very particular. And so that's why I wanted to address that.

[00:49:10] Sarah: Look, honestly, I've talked till I'm blue in the face, and they are absolute-- and you'll find videos on our website with the scientist explaining it. They are absolute about it. They're all videos. We're very open. But it is non GMO. It is cold-pressed, so that's also very important, and it's glyphosate-free.

[00:49:38] Really, two drops, cold-pressed, GMO-free, and glyphosate. So we test all of that. We've got a little certificate on it and everything, and two drops. And it's the stability and the antioxidant of it. I think it's the stability of it. And we have that tiny amount of rosemary, one milligram of rosemary, which is actually on natural preservative.

[00:50:02] There's one milligram there. So there's really only three ingredients. And people will go, "Well, why can't anyone do it?" We are patented. And to be patented has to show that you have a world-first mechanism. So we're patented in Australia and the US, and pending Europe, and pending New Zealand.

[00:50:28] So yeah, it really does show it's a world-first. We've got all of the clinical papers on the website, so everything is published, and they're published by high-end journals as well. Yeah. As I said, when I saw it in 2017, I'd never seen something with that amount of science in it. I just was in love with it.

[00:50:57] Luke: You're telepathic because I was just about to ask you, why isn't somebody jumping on the bandwagon copying this? It's like I said earlier, like having a free energy device or a car that runs on water. I could just see dollar signs in people's eyes that jump on a supplement bandwagon.

[00:51:16] They're like, "Oh my God, an alternative to these drugs." And obviously, obesity is a major issue and behind so many other chronic health conditions and things like that. So the patent explains why there's not 50 brands that just popped out last month using this particular compound.

[00:51:35] Sarah: Interesting. It makes us very grumpy, but you go on, and so many things will say they're a GLP-1 supporter or a GLP-1 activator. As I said to you, have a look to what they say. Unless they activate GLP-1 at 600% above base level, they're not going to do anything.

[00:51:58] And not one of them we look up has what-- one of them, and I won't even say the name of it, has 65%. I talked to them and said, "What's that going to do?" And they're like, "Yeah, no, it does do something." And I'm like, "Yeah, I can eat a piece of bread, and I can do that." So to make a behavioral change, you have to be above that.

[00:52:18] So everything else you see really will not stimulate it. And we know this because we literally follow it daily. The other thing is, remember we tested over 1,000 different extracts, and only one or two, but only one that you could use worked. And then we have a patent over all hops. So it's not just that specific variety.

[00:52:43] We have a patent. So I do say to people listening, a lot of things say that GLP-1, and look, they probably do because anything stimulates your natural GLP-1. But unless it super stimulates it to over 400%, and we are 600, it will make no difference.

[00:53:02] Luke: Got it. Something you said earlier that I didn't know that was quite shocking was having to do with the downregulation of the body's endogenous production of GLP-1. And we know this about testosterone and other synthetic hormones. That to me is like terrifying. That does not sound good.

[00:53:23] Sarah: And do you know, no one ever says it. No one ever says it. And do you know, we are doing more clinical work on it, but to us to find that paper was so difficult, so difficult.

[00:53:36] Luke: I bet.

[00:53:37] Sarah: Because they're not published, because pharmaceutical companies obviously do the most amount of this research, and they're not going to publish that. But yeah, absolutely, it's published. It's open. You have suppressed your endogenous GLP-1 to almost zero.

[00:53:56] Luke: Wow. What are some of the other verified side effects of the GLP-1 drugs? Because I'm sure I'm not alone in seeing a lot of scary information on social media and whatnot regarding muscle loss, bone density. I've seen things about people going blind. There's some pretty extremes.

[00:54:18] I haven't looked into them deeply enough to see which of those side effects have been proven and validated. But what are a few that people might want to be mindful of that that have been shown to actually be true?

[00:54:30] Sarah: Look, all of what you're talking about, but they're in very extreme cases. But what is the most, 67% of people will get a gastrointestinal effect. And the gastrointestinal fact will be nausea, vomiting, and constipation are the most common. It's what we would call a supraphysiological level.

[00:54:55] It's at a really, really high level. And whenever you're at that high level, your body's going, whoa, hold up here. And you've got high GLP-1 when you're asleep. You've got high GLP-1 all the time. You really only need high GLP-1 when you go to eat. You don't actually need it for 24 hours a day.

[00:55:14] But yeah, they're very, very common as a nausea and vomiting. And a lot of people just go, "I just can't take this long term." And constipation. Maybe diarrhea is one, but those three are the most common. And 67% of people will feel those.

[00:55:32] Luke: Yeah, that doesn't sound fun. Something you just said though is actually quite shocking, and that is the fact that you only need to increase GLP-1 when you're eating. To me that's a major red flag for the injectables, is that you're shutting it down 24/7 when that's not even how nature does it within your own body when it produces that hormone.

[00:55:58] Sarah: No. You're 100%. It's high when you're asleep. It's high all the time. And of course, the other thing is, psychologically you get out of the rhythm of food cues. So you're just not hungry. So you're not eating the right foods when you do eat, and you're not actually getting into what will be a long-term healthy eating pattern.

[00:56:23] So yes, you really need-- if you look at the graphs on the website, we follow the normal bio rhythm of the body, as you would. But we are just twice the amount that you would normally produce. So we are just limiting or reducing your hunger for longer. So we say it's one of those throw out lines feel full faster than we could actually put longer on it.

[00:56:54] Luke: That's a pretty good tagline. We're going to have a lot of show notes because I want to link to all of these studies that you're referencing.

[00:57:03] Sarah: Great. I'll send them to you. I think they might have, yeah.

[00:57:06] Luke: So we'll put the show notes at lukestory.com/calocurb. So you guys listening know that everything we talked about today will be linked there. We'll also put a link there to calocurb.com/lukestorey, and the code there looks like LUKE10 for 10% off your first order. So I'm sure some people are going to be really interested in trying this because based on talking to you, I can't find any downsides.

[00:57:31] Usually, I can pick holes in things like, it might still be good, but there's this, this, and this. I don't know. It seems like you got a home run here. But talk to me about the effects of Calocurb on the vagus nerve. I'm really interested in how the nervous system relates to this overeating issue.

[00:57:49] Sarah: When we release these GLP-1-- let's just talk about GLP-1. Part of it goes into the bloodstream, but part of it is it's stimulating the vagal nerve. And they're the ones that go up to the brain to tell you to stop eating. So you've got the peripherals and then your central.

[00:58:11] The peripherals slow down your gastric motility. And this is what happens normally in your body with the vagal nerve and the other one. So you've got your peripheral and then you've got your central, and it's stimulating that, and that goes up to your brain.

[00:58:31] So some in the bloodstream, which go to other sites, but some-- this is a GLP-1, your natural GLP-1. But your vagal nerve is what we are stimulating as well to tell you your fault. The one that goes to the brain and the peripherals, got a fabulous diagram of them.

[00:58:49] Luke: That's really interesting because I'm sure I'm not alone in having the experience of being emotionally dysregulated, stressed out, upset, break up, lose the job, someone dies, and so on. And it totally wrecks your digestive system. You'll become constipated or you get loose stools. It's obvious that that connection is profound. So it makes sense that this is going to also use that as part of its mechanism of action.

[00:59:18] Sarah: Yes, it does. I've got a wonderful paper and diagram on it, and it fascinates me as well. So you're not actually getting that, and that's your gut-brain access. You're not actually getting that when you inject yourself. Because remember, we are stimulating those little nerve endings.

[00:59:36] So when you inject yourself, it's in the bloodstream, and it's acting in the bloodstream. But we are doing the little vagal nerves, particularly the peripheral ones that sit on the gastrointestinal. But I'll send you. They're fantastic.

[00:59:52] Luke: Awesome. And what about fasting? Over the past few years, one of the major health craze has been fasting and intermittent fasting, water fasting, all these different kind of methods. You've got entire methodologies based on fasting. And it's not something I've really been personally that interested in.

[01:00:13] I don't know. It's always just felt complicated, to be honest. But some people get great results, for a lot of different health challenges and things like that. And obviously for weight loss, what have people's experience been, if any, using Calocurb in conjunction with varying fasting protocols?

[01:00:37] Sarah: I intermittent fast for no other reason than of that I'm lazy. So it just is an easy thing for me to do. And of course I use Calocurb with it. So I don't eat before 12:00 or 1 o'clock. And so I use it. That's why I take mine at 9:00 or 10 o'clock. But remember those two clinicals we did. That was done on a 24-hour water-only fast.

[01:01:00] So to get those measurements of hunger and craving. Of course Calocurb for fasting is incredible. A, you're not going to break your fast. I think each capsule of Calocurb is no more than six calories or even less than six calories. And so you are going to suppress that hunger.

[01:01:23] So, so many people tell us they use it on intermittent fasting like I do, that 18:6. Or do I do a 16:8? I can't remember. One of them. And I do a 16:8. And the ones that use it, our COO, he does a four to five-day fast, and he uses Calocurb all the time. So anytime he's starting to think he's going to get hungry, he takes Calocurb.

[01:01:50] So for fasting, yeah, I wouldn't-- people use it with prolonged all the time because it helps them get through that five-day mimic of fasting diet. So yeah, I absolutely would use it. It's certainly not going to break your fast, and it's just going to help.

[01:02:10] Luke: Awesome. Yeah, I've had many of my friends do regular water fast, 48 hours, 72-hour water fast, and it's one of those things that's on my to-do list, but it's really easy to put that one off. It's like, wow, when is that really convenient when life is in session? But when and if I do finally discipline myself enough to try it, I think this could be very helpful.

[01:02:33] Sarah: Interesting. When you say the word discipline, you put it with willpower. And what we do is we're helping you. Because you're not like, "I will not eat. I will not eat." We're just taking away those hunger cues for you. We're taking part of them away. So you're like, "You know what? I'm all right. You know what? I'm all right."

[01:02:54] Luke: Awesome. Well, that makes sense based on you seemed in the beginning of this conversation, overjoyed with your new relationship with food, of having someone where it's like that internal battle, do it, don't do it. I want it, but I don't need it, that kind of thing, which I'm familiar with.

[01:03:10] Sarah: I've eaten too much. Why did I eat too much? Why did I need that? Doing all of that. It's just gone. It's fabulous.

[01:03:22] Luke: That's also such a stressor, right? When you're having that internal battle and then you feel guilty because you did the thing and then the guilt causes more stress. And so you go to whatever the thing is, whether it's drugs, drink, food, sugar. I'm very familiar with the addictive pattern-- is like, you want to feel a certain way, so you perform a certain behavior, but you regret the behavior and then you feel worse.

[01:03:49] So you do the behavior again. This is like the cycle of addiction. And its severity, of course, can vary depending on whether it's donuts or heroin, but the person who's caught in that is really the one suffering.

[01:04:08] And it's something that's really going on within your own awareness that no one really shares the burden with you. It's this thing, you're the one that's sitting in there at the dinner table or at the bar having this internal conflict, and no one even knows that's going on. And if there's a way to help that, man, that's amazing.

[01:04:30] Sarah: Yeah, I totally say. And as you said, it's time consuming. It's stressful. It's unhealthy into something that should be a great joy in our lives and something you do with family and friends. And I think every founder has a story because something must push you towards this madness, this total obsession of doing something. And that was mine. And as I said, I will continue to say it and continue to be overjoyed with it.

[01:05:05] Luke: How did these researchers find you when they're doing 15 years' worth of research on this hops extract? What was your prior career experience, life path? How did you actually connect with them? Because it seems like it's a very synergistic and fateful meeting.

[01:05:23] Sarah: Yeah. So just a really quick background, I actually, many, many years ago graduated as a veterinarian, which is why, obviously I understand a lot about animals and pharmacological and so on like that. And I practiced for about five years, but then I got more into both animal nutrition, and then I moved into human nutrition. And I became the CEO of a small but iconic supplement company in New Zealand.

[01:05:57] Over 10 years, we grew up from 25 to 200 million, and we're the third largest in Australasia. So that was really my background in functional medicine, which I absolutely loved. And then I was very lucky. I did my Sloan fellowship at MIT in the US. And so was more exposed and lived in the US, which I absolutely loved as well.

[01:06:28] And then I came back to New Zealand, and I was managing director of Frontera Nutrition. So Fronterra is the largest dairy company in New Zealand. It's about 25 billion here in New Zealand. And I looked after all the R&D and nutrition. So that's why I'm very hot on protein and all of those things.

[01:06:53] And then it was just after that that I was approached. So I knew plant and food research and I knew a lot of that, and they knew my background, particularly in functional medicine. And they really came to ask for advice. What should we do with this? And I was like a kid grabbing lollies. I'm like, no, I want it. I want it. Give it to me.

[01:07:14] Luke: You said, "I know what you should do with it." Give it to me.

[01:07:19] Sarah: Give it to me. And so I went through a period of negotiation with them and so on like that. But they've been amazing to work with. So fortuitous, incredibly lucky in all of those things with it. And so proud of the New Zealand government that supported this early. I pay a royalty back to New Zealand, which I'm also very happy about.

[01:07:46] So that supports further science and supporting this science ecosystem that we have in New Zealand, which is our government funded. So yeah, some pretty cool things have come out of New Zealand, and it really has come out of this government funding of this primary research.

[01:08:05] Luke: That in and of itself is fascinating because the government anywhere in the world in history doesn't have a very solid track record in terms of looking after the interest of its citizens. You know what I mean?

[01:08:20] Sarah: Because we have an obesity problem here in New Zealand as well. And in 2010, of course, we know there weren't that many great drugs around that could help that. And it makes you laugh at this. It makes me very grumpy because as our dietary supplements regulations in New Zealand, I'm not allowed to make one claim in New Zealand.

[01:08:48] Doesn't matter that I've spent 30 million and a part of that is government money. I'm not allowed to make any claim in New Zealand, so we've got to do it very subtly through radio and having KOLs and having doctors speak and everything like that. So a little bit the madness of, we developed it, but I sell it overseas.

[01:09:09] Luke: That's so interesting. It seems strange to me based on the efficacy that you've been able to prove through the research that you can't even-- can't you cite the research, or is that considered making a claim? Wow.

[01:09:25] Sarah: Making a claim. So it's hilarious. Because New Zealand is 5 million people, so it's not a lot of people because we have the US. We have Australia. We have everything like that. I absolutely go nuts on it, and my team go, "Get over it, Sarah. Get over it. Move on, Sarah. Move on."

[01:09:45] And I'm always saying, we want to be-- anyway. We will move around that. I'm doing lobbying at government level at the moment. But yeah, it's just one of those things. But we are known virally in New Zealand, so we get a lot of sales. I just want to say one other thing when I talked about protein.

[01:10:07] And I always say this to people, "We are a tool in the toolkit." So really important tool, but you still have to try and eat healthily. You still want to make sure you're getting good protein and vegetables and all of those things. If you go from 10 donuts to eight donuts, you really aren't going to do a lot.

[01:10:28] So we are a tool to help you eat healthier. So a lot of people forget that we are not a magic pill. Just like injections aren't magic pills. 30% of people on the injections eat through them. So it doesn't work for everyone. They will eat through it. And the same with Calocurb. You have to work with it.

[01:10:52] And just remember, we are a tool in there. And if you don't have good knowledge, go to a nutritionist. Go to a dietician. Go to these people who can help guide you through, because we are a tool to help you. We are not the whole thing.

[01:11:08] Luke: I think most people listening to this podcast on a regular basis probably have their diet pretty well sorted out. But I'm sure many, including myself as I admitted late at night, sometimes eat more than they plan to or would like to. So yeah, I think it's a really great tool. I'm stoked. I'm stoked to have met you and--

[01:11:29] Sarah: Yeah. Thank you.

[01:11:30] Luke: --discovered something. I say this all the time on this podcast, but just when I think I've found everything cool that's out there, something else emerges. I'd say 99% of the things that emerge maybe aren't that exciting or useful, or they're just duplicates of things that are already out there.

[01:11:48] But this is actually very unique. So having some experience as you do in this type of industry, are you looking to innovate and come up with other products that are as unique and meaningful, or is this just going to be your thing? Is Calocurb just one SKU and you know you've accomplished what you wanted to? Or are you tempted to start to create a whole product line?

[01:12:18] Sarah: I think, as I said to you, we have values. One of them is science-led. Customer success is the second one, and simplicity of the third one. With Calocurb, there is so much more science we can do, so much more science. We can look at subgroups. We can look at adolescence.

[01:12:41] I'd love to do something in adolescence because if you think about adolescence, I think it's one in four adolescents in America are overweight. And this is a worldwide trend once again, that shows to the environment we are in, in a developed world. So we'd love to do more.

[01:13:05] So I can keep doing science and I can keep broadening it on this group. We do have one very special project, but that's at its very, very early stages, which we have taken Amarasate or the active ingredient, and we have microencapsulated it. Once again, I got a half a million dollar grant from the government.

[01:13:29] I still won't be able to say anything about it, but I got a grant from the government to microencapsulate the special microencapsulation, which will take it into the upper digestive tract, the upper duodenum. I want to take it into in vitro and then clinical trials, but then I could add the ingredient to food. So you can imagine if I could--

[01:13:52] Luke: Wow.

[01:13:53] Sarah: If I could put that into a high base or a high value whey protein or something like that, where I've not only got the satiation of protein, I've got this hunger. I've got this appetite suppression as well, so people could have it in a food or in a drink. That would be absolutely. So that's quite a lot of research.

[01:14:18] And that'll be another two years. But that's a very special project for us. However, we're growing so fast at the moment, it's about where do you put your resources? So we're just about to start another clinical in the US, which will be this titrating off.

[01:14:39] There's a whole lot of things, so it's just one after the other. So if you said to me, widen your SKU range, I'm like, "No." And there's other very, very good products that can support us. There's wonderful proteins. There's wonderful amino acids. There's all of these types of things. So would I just be duplicating them? No, it's not just Calocurb. It's the active ingredient, Amarasate. So if I could get that into a food product, I would be, yeah, over the moon.

[01:15:13] Luke: What I thought of when you mentioned getting it into a food product was a really delicious pizza where it's like you eat one piece and you're just totally full, as delicious as it is. That's where I think you should go with it because I love pizza, but I can't ever eat just one. Do you think that there would be a good pairing or companionship between Calocurb and some of these other ingredients or supplements that work on blood sugar?

[01:15:47] Sarah: We know a blood sugar anyway.

[01:15:50] Luke: Oh, okay.

[01:15:51] Sarah: Yeah, because really, we are lowering blood sugar. So yeah, we do that anyway, and we'll have more blood results over this longer term because we stimulate insulin. So we lower that, and then we'll have longer term with that. Look, any supplement is, like some of the probiotics.

[01:16:17] Anything that helps the microbiome is going to help as well, anything. We specifically work on stimulating these appetite suppressing hormones, and we are quite singular in that. Other supplements, I think antioxidants are great. I take mitochondrial every day, but we are quite specific in what we do.

[01:16:46] Luke: Got it. All right, beautiful. All right. I got one more question for you, Sarah. Who have been three teachers or teachings in general that have influenced you and your life?

[01:16:55] Sarah: Ooh, three teaching. I think teaching is interesting. I became a CEO when I was about 32, 33. So really young when I took over that supplement company. And I remember, I think it was a reading, not so much teaching, and it was like, you have to get off the team and become the coach.

[01:17:28] You are not the superstar anymore. You've got to be the coach, and you have to create a team around you. So that was really, really interesting for me, first becoming a CEO and then creating that team around me. I think the second one, which is-- and I think any founder or startup company would always recognize is, and I was actually taught this at Harvard, was never run out of cash.

[01:17:59] And it's a simple as that. You look at everything, but cash is king in a star company. And I think my third one is never lose that wonderful, almost childlike curiosity in the world. That childlike curiosity of like, why is that? Why is that? And it's a bit like never stop learning. And always looking at that. And I suppose in the field I'm in at the moment, I have this wonderful new studies that coming out every day. So I have this childlike wonder to it.

[01:18:39] Luke: Awesome. I relate to that one. That's what's kept me podcasting for nine years, is--

[01:18:46] Sarah: Absolutely.

[01:18:48] Luke: Talking to people like you, I just want to learn more. I'm just obsessed with learning, understanding, discovering. So yeah, that one's very motivating, because it's like you know you'll never be done.

[01:19:01] Sarah: No.

[01:19:03] Luke: You're never going to arrive at a place where you go, ah, I pretty much figured out the nature of reality. It's just like, there's so many cool things to learn, especially in the realm of just human potential and vitality and health and emotional wellbeing. It's like sometimes it's a matter of unlearning things too and just letting go of the old things that don't serve you. But yeah, that curiosity, man, I think is one of my most cherished assets. So I agree with you on that one.

[01:19:31] Sarah: And I say to people, we forget-- and so much of I've talked about in this podcast is evolution. We've got to remember where we come from. And I think it's interesting coming, from a veterinarian background, looking at animal behavior, humans, we think we're much higher beings.

[01:19:52] We imitate animal behavior so much. But an animal doesn't have that forebrain to have that cognitive or that reflective behavior. But we do. So look at evolution a lot. And also trust the cues of your body sometime because we want to override it the whole time. And your body sometimes is telling you things that you know it's telling you, and we just keep overriding it, going, "No, this is not right. This is not right." So yeah, I just think about those things sometimes.

[01:20:28] Luke: Awesome. Well, it's been great to chat with you today. Thank you so much for joining me, and I look forward to seeing you again.

[01:20:33] Sarah: Thanks, Luke. Really enjoyed it. Thank you.