Episode 140 | Jul 24, 2025

How to Support the Skin Microbiome and Fight Chronic Disease, With Kiran Krishnan

We often think of skin in terms of appearance, but what if it also reflects our internal health and serves as a predictor of chronic disease? In this fascinating episode of Health Coach Talk, Dr. Sandi is joined by Kiran Krishnan, a research microbiologist and co-founder of Microbiome Labs, to uncover what most people are missing about the skin microbiome, joint health, and how artificial intelligence is advancing functional medicine.

“The skin microbiome plays a significant role not only in how your skin looks and functions, but it becomes a very important risk factor for chronic disease.”

Kiran Krishnan

Kiran brings a refreshingly integrated perspective to the conversation, showing how different body systems connect in ways we are only beginning to understand. From the link between barrier loss in the skin and osteoporosis to the role of environmental microbes in restoring balance, he paints a compelling picture of what it truly means to take a systems biology approach to health. The episode also covers what most supplements get wrong about joint care and how new research is showing promise in reversing cartilage damage.

This episode is packed with relevance for health coaches. Kiran shares practical ways clients can support their skin microbiome through everyday lifestyle changes and offers critical insights into the often-overlooked early signs of osteoarthritis. Coaches can also learn how AI may soon empower practitioners to analyze test data more efficiently and create more personalized, effective client plans. The message is clear: the future of health is connected, personalized, and coach-supported.

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Transcript

Dr. Sandi: How much do you know about the skin microbiome? You may have heard of the gut microbiome because those conversations are everywhere. But what about the skin microbiome? Well, that’s one of the fascinating conversations that I have with our guest today. We also talk all about joint health and the issues with osteoarthritis, as well as the importance of AI for practitioners to help their patients and how research can be much more beneficial and impactful for precision medicine using AI. This conversation I found fascinating, and this is with my friend and colleague, Kiran Krishnan.

Let me tell you about Kiran. He is a research microbiologist, health and wellness expert, who aims to make complex information understandable to all. He has founded a number of successful health and supplement companies over the last 20 years, including co-founding and leading Microbiome Labs, which is the preeminent microbiome therapeutics focused brand amongst healthcare professionals. He is currently a co-founder and partner in three other companies that aim to revolutionize wellness care. He’s conducted and published several research studies in scientific journals, has published chapters in scientific textbooks and reference books, has global patents, and is a sought after speaker on human health and the microbiome. I know that you are really going to enjoy this conversation with Kiran. Welcome to our “Health Coach Talk” podcast.

Kiran: Thank you so much. I couldn’t think of a better way to start off the week than getting to have a conversation with you. So, thank you for having me.

Dr. Sandi: Thank you for being here. And we’re going to discuss many things today. You have such a rich background, and a special interest is the microbiome. And let’s start out by talking about the skin microbiome, which might be unfamiliar. We may think of the gut microbiome. But can you share what we are now coming to know about the skin microbiome?

Kiran: Yeah. It’s been a little bit of an obsession for me for the last four or five years. I did a lot of work in the gut microbiome, and especially on leaky gut. When I was looking at what is one of the most important roles of the gut microbiome, it became clear that managing intestinal permeability and the barrier function of the gut is a critical role with the gut microbiome, because if that falls apart, then we can see all of the disease progression that comes about from that. Then it led me to start thinking, well, we know that the skin is teeming with microbes. We’ve got 30 times more bacteria on our skin than we have skin cells. We can have upwards of a thousand different species that live on our skin, trillions of bacteria.

So, our skin is loaded with microbes. Obviously, anywhere you have microbes, they’re not just passive passengers. They’re doing some very important functions. And when we think about a barrier, the skin is the epitome of a barrier, even more so than in the intestinal lining, because the intestinal lining is really a semi-permeable barrier. It’s supposed to allow lots of stuff through, and then have checkpoints to not allow harmful things through.

The skin, on the other hand, is really a structural barrier. Very, very few things are actually designed to make their way through, and very few things are designed to escape the barrier as well. Then that got me thinking that if there’s microbes there at such high concentrations, the skin has very specific barrier function. Skin cell turnover, the stacking of the cells, the ceramide layer, the fatty acids, the pH maintenance, the tight junctions, just like you have in the gut and so on, all of those components are likely influenced by the microbes on the skin.

And so, as you start digging into it, what you come to find out is not only, of course, are the microbes on the skin highly responsible for the barrier function of the skin, they’re also really responsible for the structure, the appearance, and the resilience of the skin. And then lastly, when that starts to fall apart, when the skin microbiome starts to fall apart, you start to actually lose the barrier function of the skin, creating this issue that we’re calling leaky skin. And barrier loss on the skin becomes an independent risk factor for chronic disease. And these are diseases that are not directly related to the skin.

There’s some very strong ties between barrier loss on the skin and development of Alzheimer’s, or osteoporosis, or cardiovascular disease. And you would never think that something going on in your skin could affect your bones, right, or your brain, but it does. Right? And, really, as we get better at understanding the system’s biology approach of the body, then you tend to not get surprised by some of these connections. So, yeah. So, I think the skin microbiome plays a significant role not only in how your skin looks and functions, which is what we’re all mostly concerned about, right? But at the end of the day, it becomes a very important risk factor for chronic disease.

Dr. Sandi: Wow. And this is really almost unheard of, and we don’t hear people talking about this. So, how do we harm our skin microbiome? Can you share some of the common ways. Thinking about hand sanitizer or all of the products we’re putting on our skin.

Kiran: Yeah. We do know that a large majority of personal care products are likely, and some of them have been shown to be detrimental to the skin microbiome. So, we think about even just lotions that we all put on, right? The majority of people are still using lotions that have high levels of preservatives in them, things like phthalates, and parabens, and benzoates, and so on. And that’s to maintain and reduce fungal growth and bacterial growth in the container itself. The problem is those same chemicals also then can harm the skin microbiome.

We over sterilize. A lot of people are still using body soaps and all that that have antibacterial function in them. The market did a really good job of convincing people we have to kill 99.9% of all microorganisms, right? And so, a lot of people are still using a lot of antibacterial, antimicrobial products, personal care products. And then if you look at detergents and fabric softens that we use, that we then put those fabrics on our bodies, those can have a negative impact on the skin microbiome.

On top of that, then we wash and bathe actually likely too much. I know a lot of people that shower twice a day, right, in the morning when they wake up, and then at some point again after workout and all then before bed. And that’s a lot. That’s a lot of soaping, and cleaning, and sterilization of the skin microbiome. And you add to that our lack of exposure to the environmental microbes. That becomes double whammy because the way the skin microbiome is designed, about 70% of the microbes that reside on the skin tend to be permanent residents. Their numbers can fluctuate based on what ecosystem you’re in, what you’re surrounding yourself by, what your exposure levels are. But about 30% of the microbes on your skin at any given time are transient microbes. These are microbes that jump on from contact in the outside environment. And then they actually have a modulatory effect on the other microbes on the skin immune system, on skin function and so on. And then they jump off again.

And we’re hardly getting exposure to those microbes because our ancestors were, of course, covered in dirt all the time, and they were gaining all that exposure. We know there’s lots of places you can pay lots of money to go sit in mud, like mud baths and things that are known to be really good for your skin. So, when you combine personal care products that are generally harmful to the skin microbiome, over-cleansing, over-sterilization, and the lack of exposure to the outside environment, it becomes a perfect system for dismantling the skin microbiome.

And then one more thing for people that use cosmetics and makeup, those can have a negative impact on your skin microbiome, and it’s sitting on your face all day. And I think a lot of people know that if you leave it on, if you don’t wash off the cosmetics and you go to sleep with it, it can have a detrimental effect that you could see. So, there’s lots of things. And the thing is, we’re not going to get away from most of these things, nor would I ever expect people to stop using makeup and stop using personal care products and all that. So, then the question to me becomes, what can we do to modulate the effect? Because we still have to live, right? We live in the modern world. It’s not realistic to be completely raw and pure with how we deal with our skin. So, it’s really about how do we modulate the effect.

Dr. Sandi: Such important points. And I noticed that when I’m at the gym, they have wipes, of course, which they or you must use. But I see people wiping down every piece of equipment, even, like, the foot bar. There’s no chance that you’re gonna…they’re wearing shoes, but they’ll still wipe it down, and they leave the machines as they’re soaking wet. So, they’ll leave the bar soaking wet from these wipes. And I think in the course of a workout, they might use 20 wipes. So, this is just everywhere. And what are some of your favorite things for actually healing the restoring the integrity of the skin microbiome?

Kiran: Yeah. I think, a couple of things. Number one is, to actually gain exposure to beneficial microbes in the environment. So, for example, if you’re going to go out for a hike in a natural environment, assuming that the weather allows, you want to have the minimalist amount of covering that you can have. Right? So that your skin is actually exposed, especially the dry areas of skin, like your legs, your arms, and so on. Because those are the areas with the highest diversity. Your face has very low diversity because it’s a sebaceous environment. It’s a very unique environment for microbe because it’s very oily, there’s large pores. And so, there’s a lot of anaerobic environments. So, the microbes that actually do the best on the face are ones that deal well with lipids and ones that are anaerobic. And typically, that’s the type of bacteria called cutibacterium.

But on the body, you can have upwards of a thousand different species, and you want high diversity on the body. And so, your arms and legs are exposed. You go out for a hike. I always encourage people to sit on a log, eat something, touch things as you’re walking through, and then don’t sanitize your hands, of course, right after, or sit on the ground even at some point, right? You don’t have to roll around in the dirt. That’s a bit of a misnomer. Proximity matters. And microbes are in the air, and they will hop onto your skin. And that actually has a really significant effect on your skin microbiome.

And then working on cleaning up your personal care products. And that’s hard to do. I know that because we all have a product that we really like for our lotion, our soap and all that. It’s hard to navigate away from those. So, I tell people not to get overwhelmed by it and just focus on one type of product at a time. For example, I worked on finding the cleanest deodorant that works for me. Right? And it’s going to be different for everybody. Everyone’s chemistry is a little bit different and so on. And so, it took me a year of trying 6, 7, 8, 10 different products before I found one that works for me. And then I went on to lotions, and then I went on to soaps, and I tried to get the cleanest, most simple bar soap, not like a bath gel that has 75 ingredients in it. And so, I’ve slowly been trying to clean up my personal care products.

And then we had developed this biome balancing serum called SIV. And it actually kind of looks like this. I always have one by my desk. So, what we have in here are transient spore-based bacteria in an oil matrix. And so, it’s a lipid matrix. The lipid is very light. It’s, like, a skin mimetic lipid, and it carries the spore-based bacteria onto your skin. And that has a profound effect on changing the microbiome of the skin, in particular, competing against the overgrowth of dysfunctional microbes and then modulating the immune response of the skin.

So, we see really great results, both in studies that we’ve done, and then lots and lots of cases on inflammatory conditions on the skin. So, anything where there’s redness and inflammation, where the immune system is overreacting or conditions that are driven by pathogens, like staph aureus, for example, but anything in that dermatitis realm or acne. We have really great data on acne. And just putting it on once a day after you clean your skin, after you wash your face or you put it on your body, after you wash your body, that has a measurable effect.

And why I think the skin is so important, because you can consider three stages of life where the skin and a dysfunction in the skin has a dramatic effect on people’s outcomes. If we look at in younger kids, there’s something called the atopic march. And I don’t think it’s being talked about enough because we know that allergies and asthma and all that are an epidemic among children, right? There’s well over 10 million kids that have severe allergies in the U.S. And part of the question is, why is it so much more prevalent now than it used to be back in the day? Everyone knows you can’t bring peanuts to school and things like that. That was never an issue when you and I were growing up. And so, what’s actually happening?

Well, one of the explanations for that is something called the atopic march. And this is where kids are born with a dysfunctional skin microbiome. And early behaviors like over bathing, utilizing things like talc and other powders, and all of the antimicrobials, and sterilizing the child’s environment, which is what a lot of parents do, all are very harmful to the skin microbiome. The skin microbiome leads to barrier dysfunction of the skin. And what can actually happen, which most people aren’t aware of, is that food-borne antigens like peanut, for example, peanut allergens can migrate through the skin of the child and end up in circulation. Now, because it’s not going through the normal immunological sampling route, which is through the mucosa and the digestive tract, you’re not getting an immune sampling and building of tolerance of that antigen because it’s going right through the skin into circulation.

So, that’s called the atopic march, where constant exposure to food-borne and environmental antigens through the skin creates an overt reaction, like an IgE response in these individuals, because there’s no opportunity to build what we call oral tolerance. Right? And we call it oral tolerance because most things that go through the oral route and end up in the gut, which is the largest sampling site, there are mechanisms for your immune system to figure out if it’s harmful or not. And if it’s not harmful, like a food antigen, it doesn’t attack it. But if things go through the skin and end up in circulation, it’s going to elicit an inflammatory response, and the child is likely going to end up being allergic to it.

So, people don’t understand that these food allergens and environmental allergies are, in fact, largely coming from barrier dysfunction of the skin and the antigens penetrating through. This also aligns really well with eczema. This is why eczema is such a big issue in kids these days. It’s a barrier dysfunction and an overgrowth of a pathogen called staph aureus. And so, early on in childhood, it makes a big difference. Later on, we become very conscious of how our skin looks. Right? We’re concerned about fine lines, wrinkles, hyperpigmentation, thinning of the skin, dryness of the skin. Every one of those features is influenced by your skin microbiome.

And then as we get older, we now know through something called the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, which is a 60-plus-year study, that aged skin is the number one predictor in that cohort, which is over, I think, 4,000 individuals that they followed for 60 years, one of the top, if not number one predictor of chronic disease risk. They could predict the risk of developing certain sets of chronic diseases, which included Alzheimer’s, dementia, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, by how aged an individual’s skin looked.

Most of us in the functional world would think, well, that’s because the skin is a reflection of an unhealthy inside. But that’s not actually what they found. They actually found that the aged skin is a loss of barrier function in the skin. And antigens actually moving through the skin are causing chronic low-grade inflammation in the body. And that chronic low-grade inflammation is triggering disease pathology. For example, they could find skin-based antigens in bones, and can see that skin-based antigens are actually creating osteoporosis by creating inflammation in the bones. So, in every stage of life, managing the skin microbiome becomes really important.

Dr. Sandi: Wow. I was with a mutual friend and colleague, Dr. Trupti Gokani, yesterday, and we had a long talk about gardening. And she was saying she’s recently got into gardening and is now passionate about playing in the dirt. Yes, I’m now in the dirt. And I love it. I like getting my hands in the soil. So, so many ways that we can restore, build up. So, this has been fascinating to talk about the skin. Something else that you are also passionate about now is joint health conditions like osteoarthritis. So, can you talk about joint-related issues, and again, what those issues say about our overall health, and what we can do about these joint-related conditions that affect so many of us?

Kiran: I became really interested in joint health because, in part, it’s a inflammatory condition. It’s a progressive condition. And what’s so interesting about it is that it starts in almost everybody at the age of 30 and above, right? So, every adult has some degree of arthritis or osteoarthritis in some joint in the body. It’s a progressive condition. So, it just continues to get worse. And when we explain the mechanism that’s going on here, it becomes clear why it’s progressive, and according to the World Health Organization, one of the top, the second, I think, leading cause of disability worldwide. And we are now fortunately in the era, and you exemplify this as much as anybody else, of fitness, and movement, and weightlifting, and resistance training, where we know how critically important that is to our health span, to our longevity, to disease resilience, and all that.

The one thing that can really take that and eliminate that as an option for people is osteoarthritis. If your joints aren’t functioning, if it cannot bear weight, if they’re too painful just to walk around the house and go down to your mailbox, you’re not going to be deadlifting and squatting. You’re not going to be doing any weights, right? There’s a lot of focus on muscle, and people are understanding more and more about their muscle and biochemistry around the muscle, and that when you lift, you have to recover the muscle. So, you’re taking things like proteins, and aminos, and branched chain amino acids, and leucine, and creatine, and all of these things that we know, okay, we got to nurse our muscles back to health after the stress we’ve put it through, which is of course where all the benefit comes from. But we’re not doing any of that for our joint. And the joint and the cartilage takes far longer to recover than the muscle does, right?

So, if we keep stressing our system and we’re not taking care of the mechanics around…that allow our system to bend and function and all that, at some point, we may end up in a position like 55%, 60% of adults after the age of 50 that have confirmed diagnosed osteoarthritis. And then mobility becomes an issue, movement becomes an issue, and you don’t have the option of lifting and having resistance training, and being healthy as a result of it. So, to me, I was like, okay, we got to really look at what’s happening in the joints.

And what’s happening, which is so interesting, is you have these cells called chondrocytes. Chondrocytes are the cells that really form the articular cartilage, right? And the cartilage is critically important for providing that cushion and that lubrication so that your joint can function the way it’s supposed to function. As cartilage degenerates, not only do you lose the lubrication and the cushioning, but at some point, you start to get bone-on-bone rubbing in different positions. And that becomes excruciatingly painful for people. And even as the cartilage is degenerating, that’s a painful process, there’s a lot of inflammation in the joints. And there’s a few features of the joint that are really interesting that create this progressive condition.

Number one, as inflammation accumulates in the joint space…so, the synovium, they call it, right? That’s the empty space between the joints that tends to be fluid-filled, and then has cartilage and the meniscus and so on that people are familiar with. As inflammation builds up in that space, you tend to start to get a degeneration effect. So, the chondrocytes that build the cartilage and lay down the collagen type II, which is what builds the cartilage, start to go from cartilage building, which is an anabolic function, to cartilage degrading, which is a catabolic function, right? So, imagine the cells that’s responsible for building and maintaining your cartilage, in the milieu of inflammation, actually switches to a degradation cell.

And so, it starts producing things like MMPs, which are these enzymes that break down the cartilage. And as that milieu becomes more and more prevalent, because you can’t recycle, it becomes a really difficult thing to recycle the immunological or inflammatory components out of the synovium or the synovial fluid, that process accelerates faster and faster.

Now, why is it hard to circulate out that synovium? Well, number one, what tends to happen is, as we become more inflammatory as we age…right? We know that aging is very well described as this inflammaging process. So, as we become more inflammatory, inflammation tends to hone in on areas of high stress, which is, again, joints that are weight-bearing. So, this is one of the reasons why you get a concentration of inflammatory mediators like ILs, TNF-alpha, and all that in areas like the joints. So, they’re making their way there.

Then the chondrocytes that get bathed in this inflammation, not only do they start degrading the cartilage, they themselves cause more inflammatory cytokines to be released. And then that synovium, that area of fluid, doesn’t have its own circulation. So, cartilage doesn’t have its own circulation. It’s depending on diffuse circulation from bone, which is nearby, the subchondral bone, which is the very edge of the femur and the head of the bone.

Once you start getting vascular damage, which happens with age as well, your microvessels start to collapse. You’re not getting good circulation in that area. So, the diffusion capability of circulation into the joint to remove the inflammatory milieu and then recycle healthy blood is also compromised. And so, now, you’ve got a joint sitting in a back of inflammation that’s really hard to recycle, and is driving degradation at an accelerated pace. And this happens in virtually every adult.

There was a study called the Framingham study on osteoarthritis, where they took individuals. And I think the age was over 50. And these were non-symptomatic individuals. They never complained of joint pain. Through x-rays, they would not have diagnosed any sort of osteoarthritis happening in these individuals. And they did MRI scans, and they found that 90% of those asymptomatic individuals had progressive osteoarthritis disease happening in at least one joint. And those individuals are just a few years from experiencing symptoms, and then a few more years to potentially being disabled from them. And to me, I’m like, okay, that’s another inflammatory aging condition that we have to be really cognizant of because that’s the thing that can really inhibit our ability to be healthy.

So, we spent about 11 years, lots of investment, developing this very specialized blend of a celery seed and a Boswellia, and the unique combinations of each. And then we’ve done now three big human clinical trials, almost 2,000 subjects, published studies. What we see is a 75% reduction in pain, in inflammation, about a 60% increase in mobility in a 90-day period in osteoarthritis patients with confirmed disease. And the most exciting part is we see that we can rebuild cartilage. We see about a 50% increase in cartilage in rebuilding, even in individuals that had full-on bone-on-bone rubbing in a 90-day period.

And we actually ended up inadvertently going head to head against prescription pain medication in one of our trials because the placebo group ended up on prescription pain medications. And so, we’ve performed better than the prescription pain medications in terms of pain, inflammation, mobility, and of course, rebuilding of cartilage as well. So, this product, we ended up partnering with a company we both know called Calroy Health, who were pioneers in cardiovascular health. And now, we work together on this product called Cartigenix, which is for the joint health space.

And here’s another thing that’s really important because a lot of people use things like glucosamine, chondroitin, MSM with the idea that it’s going to help the joint. A meta-analysis study came out on glucosamine, and I think chondroitin was added in some of those studies. They reviewed about 17 randomized human clinical trials, and they found that, at the end of the day, there was zero effect on joint health, right? Zero effect. And I think the people that buy it on the store shelves and utilize it and feel some benefit are likely feeling a placebo effect, which is fine. I’m happy with placebo effects, but it’s not stopping that disease progression. It’s not stopping the degeneration of the joint.

And so, we really want to give people a tool so that they can stop that or even reverse that inflammatory progression, maintain joint health so that they can maintain overall health. And that doesn’t take away from them their freedom of mobility, freedom of movement, and their ability to choose to be healthy. Because once your joints fall apart, you no longer have a choice. You are now unhealthy because you’re sedentary. And this is why there’s a 50% increase in cardiovascular disease in people with osteoarthritis, or people with rheumatoid arthritis have two times the increased risk of cardiovascular disease and metabolic disease because you can’t move anymore. That becomes an issue.

Dr. Sandi: A big issue. And I see this all the time, my contemporaries in their 70s, and they don’t move because they hurt. Bone health. They’re told to jump. I jump every day, but it works. And they said, I’m afraid. I take a ballet class. And I’m in the class. They just realistically can’t jump. But I saw this product at IFM’s annual conference and got so excited. I bought, like, a 12-month supply.

Kiran: Amazing.

Dr. Sandi: And I just started taking it. And even though…really don’t…minor issues, but I use movement. So, I override it. I just keep going anyways, and often feel better that way. But I think this is wonderful. What I love about all of your work, including your earlier work on microbiome, spore, probiotics, is that it’s so well researched. This is not hype. This is you really putting in the work to do the trials, to do the studies, and are partnering with such a wonderful company, which is Calroy, which we know the founders quite well. So, this is really exciting.

And for health coaches who may be listening, these areas that we’ve discussed today, the skin microbiome, that there is some help for osteoarthritis and joint issues, that you can be educating your clients about this and providing information about this product, although you would not be directly recommending it if you are functioning as a health coach. But you can help them to be informed consumers. And I think that’s what we all want.

So, this has been absolutely fascinating. I just want to touch on one other thing that I know is something that’s interest of yours, and that is AI. And how can we use AI for better outcomes? And have you been using AI within your work?

Kiran: Yeah. I have, actually, on the joint health. And I’ll describe a couple different ways that we use AI. On the joint and other products that we’re working on, we have a pipeline of herbal products, and we’re doing a lot of clinical research on. When we discover new compounds within the product…right? And we did that for the joint, for the Cartigenix product. We discovered new actives that had never been described before. So, then you have no idea what they do. And then it’s a very arduous process to figure out what this molecule could potentially do in the body.

AI allows you to do something called in silico trials. These are clinical trials in the computer, which are absolutely fascinating. And this is something that was started 15 years ago that people are not aware of. And that’s because if you look at the breadth of scientific literature out there, hundreds of millions of papers, where lots of receptor sites and biochemical pathways have been very clearly described, you can take your compound, and you could set up a clinical trial, and have the AI search for the molecular structure and the properties of your compound against what is known from receptor sites and mechanisms and all that, and make a very strong guess as to what your compound may do.

And we did this with the new ashwagandha we developed that we identified four new actives that have never been described in ashwagandha before. And the first thing we did was an in silico trial. We put it into an AI clinical trial system, and it identified that these four actives are likely working on mechanisms that impact aging, in particular, sirtuins, and the upregulation of those proteins, lengthening of the telomeres and so on. Then we said, wow, okay, that’s a new thing. Now, we can take that, and target and test that in animal models, and then go on to humans, right? So, it really shortcuts the discovery process, and really allows you to hone in on what may be effective.

Now, the other thing is you can also use it in studies to combine things to figure out if there are synergistic effects, or there could be some sort of contraindications. And that’s where some of the Cartigenix came from was that we said, okay, we have these two novel ingredients. If we combine them, are these complementary effects? And we got validation that they likely are. Then we can test it in humans, and validate it in humans as well. So, that’s one way we use it all the time in the development innovation side of it.

We also built a company called EndoAxis, where we’re using algorithms, and these are algorithms we’ve designed ourselves. So, this isn’t AI that’s available as open source. But it’ll have machine learning AI capability on top of it, where we use computational power of algorithms to assess a whole bunch of variables, in this case, hormones, and look at all of the hormone metabolites in the DUTCH Test, for example, and then discern really complicated patterns of dysfunction for individuals. And it becomes very targeted to that individual.

And what we’re seeing now, since we’ve launched EndoAxis to clinicians in September, is that overnight clinicians are becoming absolute hormone experts, because they can utilize this program to analyze the test result. And then the program shows them deep insights that would be really hard for the typical clinician to understand themselves, because you can’t be an absolute expert on everything. And our clinicians deal with a huge array of conditions and areas. And so, now, on top of that, we can not only identify the specific biochemistry and patterns, and the connections that are affecting that patient, but then also what you can do about it, right? Because we can create very targeted solutions for that individual.

So, we’ve started that in the realm of hormones, which to us is an underserved, very complicated area, even in the world of functional medicine. And it’s going really well with EndoAxis. And then we plan on expanding that to a lot of other areas as well. You know very well that, in the world of functional medicine, there’s a lot of testing that happens, because there’s a lot of digging to try to get to root cause. And in that process, you’re doing all these tests, and it’s really hard for any clinician to be an expert on all of the tests. You can’t be the best expert at a microbiome test, and a genetic test, and a hormone test and everything else in between. So, at some point, we’re going to need computational help to truly get all of the value from all of those outputs, and connect all those dots, which is the hardest part of it.

If you have a microbiome test here and a hormone test here and an OAT test here, it’s so hard to connect all those dots and figure out, okay, what do I go after first? So, we’re building a system where we will use computational power and algorithms to help understand that, and really outline what is happening within that patient.

Dr. Sandi: Well, you’ve always been on the cutting edge. So, I look forward to these new discoveries. And where can people find you?

Kiran: So, I try to engage with people as much as I can on social media. So, on Instagram, my handle is @kiranbiome, K-I-R-A-N-B-I-O-M-E. And if they want to learn more about the skin microbiome, they should look at @sivcare. So, the Instagram handle is S-I-V-C-A-R-E, and the website is sivcare.com. We also have a YouTube channel that we’re putting together just on the skin microbiome to teach aestheticians and skincare professionals and consumers about the skin microbiome, and go through cases and so on. If you look up SIV Care or SIV Skin Microbiome Series on YouTube, you’ll find it. And then, of course, Calroy Health for the Cartigenix, if you want to understand about joint health. And then EndoAxis Labs or endoaxis.com is where the hormone algorithm is. So, lots of different things happening.

Dr. Sandi: Fantastic. Well, we will put all of that in the show notes. Thank you so much. This has, as usual, been a very fascinating conversation. I know I learned so much.

Kiran: Thank you.