Why your Sh!t is the Future of Health

Sure! Thanks for having me here. My name is Sequoia. I'm a digital shaman and clinical herbalist, and my background is in psychology and nutrition.

What I typically do is work in the microbiome space. I really focus on nutrition and on bringing together an entire ecosystem around the medical field. At the moment, we're really focused on metrics: really trying to understand everything that's happening with you and your entire environment, as well as trying to create a dashboard for the human body.

I do what I do because I have a passion for helping other people. I really enjoy seeing people be at their best.

As a child, in my adolescence, I had what's called lead poisoning. Because of this lead poisoning, I had to learn how to walk. I had to learn how to talk properly, and I was often made fun of in school and really, really bullied. But it brought me a lot of insights, not being able to speak properly and just being an observer, really observing everything.

As I got older, I really didn't mind health care too much. As an American, we didn't really focus on health as a big priority or a big topic. I became vegan, and when I moved to Austria, I saw that the healthcare system was completely different. We had to put our money and our resources into the healthcare system, which I was completely against.

And it wasn't until I felt this pain in my right arm, which just felt like a slight muscle ache, as if I had done a workout of some sort. I went to the hospital, and what they noticed is that I had 14 blood clots in my right arm. I was completely surprised, because I was completely healthy. There were no other indications that something was wrong. And then they later found out that I had a blood clot that went to my brain as well.

They didn't understand the real reason why all of these symptoms had come into play. And to this day, there was no real way of diagnosing this. So I decided to shift my focus from nutrition, from psychology, from this natural, holistic way of helping people, and move that into a digital field, which is why I say digital shamanism. Really looking at what it is that happens within our bodies that will give us the opportunity to heal ourselves.

So that's one of the reasons why I decided to dive deep into the entire ecosystem of our environment, of our medicines, of our microbiome. What within our microbes is allowing us to be at our best?

In hindsight, yes. I would also say my grandmother, when she passed away, when I was 18 years old. She passed away from a heart attack. She was only 50 years old. But these are things that can ultimately be prevented. We have this linear way of looking at things, an old version of taking care of your health, which is just reading something off the internet. So that played a big role in my life.

Other than that, what happened with me was just eye-opening as to why we don't have better systems. We know the systems of our computers. We know the details of how they work, how to upgrade the software. The same with our vehicles: how to change the engine, the oil, the gas, how to update something. We even have this dashboard inside a vehicle: how fast we're going, when the check engine light comes on. So why can't we do that with our bodies? And that's something that we are heavily investigating and looking at, so we can keep these impacts from happening to anyone else.

My field is absolutely health, yes!

I try to stay out of neuroscience, although all of those components are necessary. That's a field that I don't fully understand too much. However, I do understand that the gut microbes have a huge impact on the brain, on the way that we think, on our emotions, on the way that we feel.

There's also the correlation with those who have Alzheimer's disease, for example: there's a major correlation with the gut microbiome completely malfunctioning and out of order. As well as when a child is sick, or has a specific disease, or is born with something: very often you see that they have this malfunctioning within their gut microbiome.

So I'd like to say that the gut microbes are almost like the logic of a system, of a computer. Without that functioning correctly, the rest of the body can't function correctly. And just so everyone has a bit of an understanding of what the gut microbiome is: it's trillions and trillions of gut bacteria that are responsible for protecting your immune system.

Sure. In a human body, I believe they say it's roughly around 10% of our body that is human, and the rest of it is alien. I'd like to say that 90% is our gut microbiome, which is more expressive as DNA. So we have all of this alien DNA within us. Alien just means unknown. We have all of this alien DNA within us, and we don't fully understand how it functions.

So when you see different things happen around health, it's typically coded there within the gut microbes. When something goes wrong, like the blood clots in my example, there was a signal within my gut microbes that says: "Hey, we're trying to notify this guy." It's not that my gut microbes are turning against me yet, but they're trying to warn me: "Hey, you're not feeding us the nutrition that we need!"

The same thing happens with people who have heart attacks. If people are not listening to their gut, the gut microbes send off something to the body. A great example is TMAO, which is responsible for blocking up the veins, clotting the veins, which eventually leads to a heart attack. So all in all, it's about listening to your gut and understanding what your body is trying to say to you.

Absolutely. And it's really interesting to see that they've been talking about this for thousands of years. But since modern-day medicine has come into play, we've kind of forgotten how to really listen to our gut. With the television that we watch all the time, with all the entertainment that's out there, we've forgotten to listen to the one true thing, and that's the vehicles that we are.

That's very interesting.

Oh, that's really interesting. Absolutely. I think that's a nice feeling, because it shows how in tune everyone is, from a cultural standpoint. Knowing that emotions tend to come from your gut, like depression as well, right? When people feel depressed, very often it's coming from their gut. And that is very often connected to a lack of proper nutrition. Of course, the outside environment and the way that you think also play an important role, which is why meditation is very important for stabilizing or balancing your gut as well.

It's been shown in recent studies that people with gut issues who very often do meditation tend to lower those inflammation levels. Very often, when people have these stomach issues where they can't consume food properly, if they do about a five to ten minute meditation before eating, everything gets settled and they can digest their food properly.

And that's just one case scenario. Obviously we can go a lot deeper into aspects of meditation that were practiced by the Brahmins back then, where they talk about the chakras and how everything is centered in that area. But I like to look at science as well as the holistic approaches, and see how we can merge those two to bring a balance between, again, the shamanistic world and this digital world that we live in.

Correct!

It's not me who says that, this is typical science. There are some discrepancies: some people say it's 50/50, some people say that it's 80/20. But all in all, the majority of the body is alien, being unknown, undiscovered. We have yet to really dive deep in and understand these foreign aspects that play a huge role in our immune system.

A great example: if we look at blood work over the past few decades, we've really just looked into blood work, the DNA of blood. But when we talk about the foreign aspect, you're only able to really get a deep sense of what's happening through your microbiome, which is your poop, your shit.

So when you look at these things, you say: "Okay, why is this something that comes out of us, yet it has such a huge impact on our entire immune system, our bodies, our brains, our sight? Why have we not looked deeper into it, to really see how we can optimize our bodies in general?"

So when we say 90% alien, or whatever percentage alien, which is the majority, it's just really undiscovered. And that's something that really makes me feel good about the field that I'm in, because we really get to understand this aspect. It's kind of like going to a new planet somewhere, or being out in the galaxy, the universe. How can we put this puzzle together and make it a benefit for all of us to utilize?

Most people look at it as kind of a disgusting or gross thing. But obviously we don't really enjoy anything that we don't understand, or that we lack knowledge of. And that's the same thing with poop. You smell it, you're like, "This is disgusting." But when you know that there's real data behind it that can benefit you as a human being, and not just you, but can benefit others via fecal matter transplant, there's something really special there. And the science shows that fecal matter transplants, the transference of them, are really beneficial for other people, given the current status of your health.

Sure! A fecal matter transplant is basically your microbiome. Let's just say someone goes to the bathroom and does a number two, poop. That's your microbiome. And let's say they are a really healthy individual. You then take that fecal matter and transfer it to someone else.

There are two ways that you can transplant it. One of them would be from the other end, which is rectal. The other one would likely be in pill form: swallowing it and making sure that it breaks open inside the gut. What that does is transfer all of those healthy gut microbes and a majority of your DNA.

And the amazing part is that you're able to shift the other individual's DNA. You're able to shift their microbiome. Not completely change their DNA, but shift it just enough to give them a healthy flora, a healthy environment within them. So if they had some preexisting health conditions, you can help them get rid of those health conditions.

Let's just say someone is overweight or obese. If you take the microbiome of someone who's fit and you transfer it over, you see that those people's metabolism speeds up. And it's been noted scientifically that people have gotten rid of arthritis. They no longer feel this pain in their knuckles or in their bones. People have lost weight.

And this was actually discovered by accident, while they were doing a fecal matter transplant for IBS, irritable bowel syndrome, which is just a lot of inflammation in the gut that creates a lot of health issues. When they did this transfer, they did it from an unhealthy person who was overweight. A few months later, the person who was feeling a lot better became overweight, and no matter what she did to get the weight off, she maintained that weight. And then when they did the studies on rats, they realized: "Okay, wow, there's a huge role in this."

So there's a lot of research going into this field right now. Not enough, not fast enough. And that opens up so many doorways to health, and really to biohacking, in a completely new way.

Right now we have this virus pandemic going on, and this is an exceptional thing that we can look at. When we look at fecal matter transplants... no, let me back up a bit. When we look at the microbiome, and I'm surprised that nobody has spoken about this solution, because it's obvious. It's completely obvious to me. When you look at the microbiome of a person over the age of 50, they lose somewhere between 30% and 50% of their gut microbes, meaning that they lose these warriors that are responsible for protecting their immune system.

As we get older, of course, we start to lose microbiome diversity, but that doesn't mean that the microbiome ages. The microbiomes do not age at all. Those microbes don't age. So I'm really shocked that nobody has said: "Hey, we can take the fecal matter of younger, healthy people who will absolutely survive this, and transfer the fecal matter to the older people, to give them a fighting chance, as we give them more diversity within their gut to protect their immune system."

We know that it works. There are a few rules that the FDA requires: they check for a few things, that [donors] don't have a certain gene that allows another person to become immune to certain medicines. That's one of them. As well as C. difficile, I believe it is, which is highly contagious and can be very problematic long-term. I completely understand that. But at this moment, in any virus or pandemic-like state, trading fecal matter, even from people who have had the virus and gotten rid of it, is a really great way to support people and help them build up an immunity completely naturally, and build up their immune system with a lot of strength.

I completely believe so. And I believe that fecal matter transplants are the future of health. I believe that we will begin trading it on platforms, based on health and based on your metrics. And this is why we're really exploring these metrics: to help people help people.

A lot of people talk about what we do, putting it in an app type of format, and they ask us: "Is this dangerous? You have all of this data on people." Well, it can be dangerous. Anything can be dangerous. Eating a bunch of bananas can be dangerous, but it depends on how you utilize it. Do you use that fruit to make a fruit salad, or do you just abuse it? It's the same thing with sugars as well.

So for us, I say one thing: if you believe that healthcare should be free for everyone everywhere, then the data around it should absolutely be open to everyone. Not associated with you, but associated with your attributes. And the reason for that is that it can absolutely help the planet, and help everyone who has the same attributes. Just like understanding the DNA of someone on a deeper level: their gut microbes, their nutrition, the way that they move, the environment that they're in.

We can actually be this natural intelligence, by bringing all of this together as a collective, as a people: in essence healing one another through an abundant amount of data that we bring together. It's kind of like this tree in Avatar, where everyone comes together and they're connected to the tree. Eywa, I believe it was. If we come together under this tree and bring together our data, then we can not just change the world of health, but change the world of biohacking and optimizing, becoming the best versions of ourselves, living longer, trading different attributes that will make us better.

We started a few years ago, and we basically started off just with nutrition. As time progressed, I realized, okay, nutrition is not going to be enough. Our goal was to really create this dashboard for the body, and that's just our complete vision. How do we create a dashboard? Nutrition is not enough. So we added another layer on top of that, which was the microbiome.

With the microbiome aspect, this field can be quite difficult, because you have so many people competing against each other, not to change the field of the microbiome, but over who's going to be first, who's going to be better. And again, this goes back to needing to create this collective to really make a difference. So now we have a few partners within the microbiome space.

Okay, how can we record these metrics? So now we're getting these health metrics, and we're recording them. People are programming these aspects where you can look at the heart rate and you can look at the movement, all of these things that different health kits and software allow. But it's about the context of them.

So what we're doing is not just going to be a bunch of data. That's content, and that's where we get a big data issue. It's going to be this content put within context, so that you can allow another person to imitate it, to copy it.

What does that look like? Let's say I go to sleep at 10 o'clock in the evening, but 10, 15 minutes before I go to sleep, I do a 10-minute meditation, and then I wake up at six or seven in the morning and I have a sleep score of, let's just say, 97%. We will allow other people to copy you, if you want them to be able to imitate you.

And within this healthy ecosystem that we're creating, that will allow the user to make revenue by sharing their health metrics within the ecosystem, and allow someone who is slightly below their level of efficiency to become more efficient by imitating your 97% sleep average, as well as your heart rate and your movements throughout the day. So it's not just about following the movement of people, it's about following the metrics!

The same thing applies to nutrition, although we have some things to play around with there: how the gut bacteria are shaped based on your nutrition and your movement. We're still playing around with how to build these algorithms correctly. It's been a process, but we're really happy to get to a point where our entire ecosystem is really defined.

Most people would say: "Ah, these guys are wasting their time, they've pivoted." We have pivoted, but we haven't changed the essence of our vision, which is: how do we create a dashboard for the human body? And how do we do that by encompassing this entire ecosystem that's going to make us completely better?

Microbiome tests from this aspect are completely inefficient. When you do one microbiome test, it does nothing, because your gut microbes are constantly changing. And you need to be able to understand how a person is consuming food, what their environment is like, what their stress levels are like, and what can potentially help decrease those stress levels within an individual. This is where we tie in meditation, sleep, nutrition, movement. Your interactions with people, what your work life is like. It's about the environment.

This brings one song to mind for me: "Love and marriage, love and marriage." What can you really bring together that creates the proper data? You can't have one without the other in this aspect. So you have to create an entire ecosystem of data to create context. And the marriage of all of this data is what creates this ultimate self-identity of who you are and who you could become.

There are a few things to fit in there. Microbiome testing is very, very often done one time by competitors, and microbiome testing should be done on a monthly basis. But it's way too costly to do that, and it's about getting the cost down so people can do microbiome testing on a monthly basis.

We are a health company, and within our ecosystem, microbiome testing is there. That doesn't exclude the fact that we may be working with external partners to incorporate their microbiome testing. Because again, it's not about competing against these microbiome testing companies. It's about saying: "Guys, we need to work together so we can make a difference in people's lives. Most of all, rather than thinking about finances, let's think about our own health. Let's think about our own families and what we can do to protect them, and then share that with the rest of the world."

Adding to that, we're not just looking at the microbiome, but at these health metrics that people can share. People can decide not to share their data, but you shouldn't really expect anything around health care if you don't share this data anonymously. If you choose to, you can also share it publicly, with people you choose to let follow you. Just like on Instagram: you're allowed to look at somebody's profile, or if they have a private profile and I'm accepted into it, then I can see the data that they allow me to see, so I can imitate them.

So at the moment we'll have three different categories of data sets, where people can allow others to follow their data. Then people can choose to imitate that data, for which they will be rewarded in the form of a digital currency. So it's really important not just to say, "Hey, put your data out there and do something with it," but to allow people to make money and be rewarded for great health behavior that they're passing on through an entire ecosystem, and to allow people to level up. So in a nutshell, that's absolutely what I do. That's correct.

Correct! Absolutely. As we move into a digital world, not just with digital computers and digitizing health, it's also going to be moving into digital currency, and we want to make sure that we're a part of that entire ecosystem with health. I think this is extremely important.

Anybody can be an influencer. Someone who believes they're overweight: there's always going to be someone who's even more overweight, right? So it's important for everyone to be able to play their role within health. Let's just say there's someone who's 20, 30 pounds or kilos over their weight. That person may feel like they can't be an influencer because of the attributes they bring into the ecosystem. But you'd better believe there's someone just a step lower than them, and the metrics present within that individual are going to allow this other person at a lower level to imitate them and be brought up.

And that person who thought they never could be an influencer is then influencing this person with their metrics, with the way they sleep, with the way they're starting to move and making progress. And then maybe what happens next is that the person who leveled up by using those metrics levels up off someone else's metrics and is able to surpass that, and then maybe they go to someone else next, within that same range, within that ecosystem. So it's really about finding out how we can really benefit one another.

Right now, I believe that when it comes to influencers and content creators, data is so biased, with the way that we view beauty, with the way that we view everything, rather than helping one another. It's just: "Hey, look at me. Hey, look at this." Whereas this is all about taking action, and it allows people to take these daily actions that help them become better every single day.

Absolutely, it's about the transfer of wealth. I'm sorry: of health. And health is wealth. That's really important. Health is wealth, and we'll absolutely be able to show that within the ecosystem. By living these healthy lifestyles, you can create this health and wealth within your life in general.

And I think that what's really important is to incentivize people to do better. And if they choose not to, that's fine! Right now, whatever action you're taking, you're not necessarily being rewarded or having anything taken away, and nobody will ever have anything taken away from them within our ecosystem.

So for me, it's clear that we're moving into a future that's really kind of a shared weconomy when it comes to health. And it's really, really important for us all to participate in this if we want to see a real change and a real evolution, and really optimize the greater aspects of who we are and what we are to become.

That's right. Let's just say you take Arnold Schwarzenegger, or The Rock. These are all people that, maybe not women, but that we somewhat really admire when it comes to their health. Or even J.Lo, right? These are people that we look up to and say: "Wow, how do they age like that? What are they doing?"

So if we want to be like Arnold Schwarzenegger, what would happen is maybe we say: "Here are 10 people that you need to go through to be able to attain the metrics of Arnold Schwarzenegger." Maybe not being him physically, but imitating this lifestyle enough will eventually get you to the point where you're either the same as him or above him in many ways.

There will be different challenges that we offer within the platform, where people will be able to play these games and take on challenges, like who can meet these challenges within a one-week period. Also with partners that come to our platform, whether that's Nike or Adidas, with a special challenge that people are able to go through. And I think this is a really unique perspective of gamifying an entire platform around health and lifestyle.

Yeah, I think this is something we're definitely looking at moving towards in the future. We want to be the number one company that's helping people trade their fecal matter based on their health. A lot of people have made fun of it and call it a shit trade, but that's kind of what it is. It's a fecal matter trade, rather than a transplant: trading your health genetics.

But there are things that we have to identify first, because you can't just trade these genetics without knowing a certain number of factors that are present there. And that's what's been happening when other people have been trading their fecal matter: you don't understand their lifestyle and where they're going.

So I believe that's the future of health, also when children have issues; trading this fecal matter is really, really important. One of the first fecal matter transplants, if you will, is the one we receive when we're born. Because it's not just fecal matter, but the microbiome that our mother gives us when she gives birth to us. These microbes grow and they influence us. So it's really important to understand that the very first fecal matter transplant, or microbiome transplant, if you will, is transferred over to us then.

Very often, when women have a C-section and are cut open, these microbes don't go over to the child, and the child very often has health issues because of the lack of transfer of this microbiome. So in general, that's an area that we do want to go into. That's an area that we believe is going to be the future, and it's paramount for the future of health. Fecal matter transplants will absolutely do a lot for changing people and helping people become more optimal.

The paradigm that needs to be changed is that data around health and biology should not be private. It should be public. If we have to pay taxes, the governments, or whoever, always want to know what we're purchasing, what we're doing with our money, because they want to make sure that they're getting the right amount of money. And if we want the right amount of health within health care, we need the right amount of data.

So hiding and keeping this data private, and thinking, "Ah, I don't want these people to have my data," is the same thing that's going to kill people. And it's so important to stay alive by sharing what you can. So the paradigm that needs to be changed is the idea [of privacy]: we need to share our data as much as we can, we need to come together, we need to stop privatizing these things.

The GDPR is actually holding us back more than putting us ahead. There are some aspects of it that are there to protect us, but overall, the GDPR is making the bigger companies more powerful. How do I mean that? These huge corporations had this data, and they held it for a really, really long time, and then the GDPR came into play. So it's difficult for smaller companies to have data and even compete with these larger companies, which have backwards business models that have taken advantage of the public.

So in retrospect, we really need to look at certain areas that revolve around public safety, public health, public benefit, and make sure that anything associated with them is decoupled: the identity decoupled from those metrics, or whatever the case may be, the data that's connected with the user. And then say: "Here is this health data. We need to share it publicly and put it somewhere where everyone can attach to it." So that not just doctors can say, "I know what to do with this data," but the public, we ourselves, can say: "This is what I'm going to do with my data. I have a choice over my health."

You nailed that, absolutely.

No, our health data should be public, every bit. Because if something happens to me, as I said with the blood clots, and these factors are put there alongside all of my data and metrics within the system, and I survived that, there's a large, large window for someone else to survive the same thing, because now those metrics are out there and can help someone else who's going through the same thing.

It's so vital that we put this data out there publicly, so we can help one another. Again, a lot of people may have some issues with it, because they believe that their identity is going to be connected with it. It's about decoupling the identity and making the user anonymous, away from the data that they deem as something they want to be private.

I imagine waking up in the morning and getting your health stats immediately when you walk into the bathroom and look in the mirror. Having this entire overview, knowing everything that's happening within your body based on your gut microbes and the bacteria that are present. You have a list of meal options that say: "Hey, these are your options that you can eat for breakfast. This is the amount of time that you have."

And just moving throughout the day effortlessly. Whenever something is going wrong with the body, or the user is experiencing some type of stress or health issue, you can find a time within your algorithms that says: you should meditate. Or: if you have five minutes, here's what we're suggesting that you do. And this isn't just based on us. This is based on everyone sharing their data about what makes them better.

This is what I imagine the future to be like: that nobody has to worry about health. And that when something does come up in their life, or within their families, their mom, their dad, their brother, their sister, their son or daughter, they can say: "Okay, we need to resort to a fecal matter transplant, and we know just the place to go to, and we know that will be a solution." This is how I imagine the future: everything is tied in, and you have a dashboard for your body. Whereas right now, for the one vehicle that we have, which is the human body, we literally don't have a dashboard.

I want you to imagine one thing. If you're driving a vehicle, and the speed limit says 90 miles or kilometers per hour, and you don't have a dashboard in your vehicle to see how fast you're going, or when you're about to run out of gas, or if there's something wrong with the vehicle, you're going to feel completely uncomfortable.

We should feel completely uncomfortable right now that the technologies around us have these dashboards, have all of these traits that make them better, and that we don't have this. So our mission and our goal is absolutely to bring that forward, so we have a better future and we can take the power back into ourselves and say: "I'm responsible for me. I'm responsible for changing these aspects. That's going to optimize myself."

Actually, it's quite simple: for people to know who they are! That's it! For everyone to know exactly who they are. For everyone to feel that sense of what they've become.

And I believe that we can truly get there by sharing things. They say sharing is a greater form of caring, and we typically limit this to our household. But expressing it, because the world is our household, is what I truly believe will allow us to go deeper within ourselves. So: recognizing who we are!

I hope so.

Thank you for having me. All right, you have a good one.