Can your gut control your lifespan? What if molecules produced by your microbiome could prevent obesity, Alzheimer’s, and inflammation, just by supporting the right immune response?
In this episode of The Augmented Life, Michael Tiffany sits down with Dr. Dan Winer, the team behind Propion, a new science-backed startup exploring the frontier of postbiotics, specifically indole metabolites like indole-3-propionic acid (IPA). Dr. Winer unpacks how decades of immunometabolism research led him to the gut-liver-brain axis, and how he and Nicholas translated that science into a product aimed at improving healthspan, not just lifespan.
We cover:
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⏱️ Timestamps
0:00 – Intro
1:00 – How video games led to an obesity discovery
2:45 – T cells, B cells, and metabolic disease
4:30 – Why fat is downstream of gut inflammation
6:00 – From gut to liver to brain: the immune system’s travel map
8:30 – What is “meta-inflammation” and how it links to aging
10:30 – The top environmental drivers of aging
13:00 – Prebiotics, probiotics, postbiotics: what’s the difference?
14:30 – How short-chain fatty acids modulate the immune system
16:00 – Discovering indole-3-propionic acid (IPA)
18:00 – The neuroscience link: Alzheimer's and indoles
20:00 – Why Propion chose to go prebiotic first
24:00 – How tryptophan gets converted by gut bacteria
28:00 – Fixing leaky gut and insulin resistance at the root
32:00 – Gut-derived immune cells can end up in the brain
34:30 – Could a virus or gut bug be triggering autoimmune disease?
38:00 – Building Propion: from molecule to market
42:00 – Why prebiotics may be safer (and more scalable)
47:00 – Citizen science + tracking metrics = product evolution
53:00 – What’s next: GLP-1, sarcopenia, and custom formulations
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