What if the probiotic you trust doesn’t contain what’s on the label? Dr. Sabine Hazan, MD has the stool samples to back it up. The Malibu gastroenterologist and microbiome researcher joins the Doc Lounge to get real about product testing, “refloralization,” and where she thinks medicine is actually headed.
In this episode:
🔬 Why she says most “Bifidobacteria” products she tested didn’t contain it
💊 How she vets nutraceuticals before recommending them to patients
🤖 The role of robots and AI in medicine, and what they can’t replace
🧬 Why she believes fecal transplant research is still very early
Dr. Hazan is a gastroenterologist and microbiome researcher who has run hundreds of GI and non-GI clinical trials and authored “Let’s Talk Sh!t.”
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Stacey Doyle (00:15.39)
Yeah, let us know. Yeah, are there any habits or anything that you would recommend to patients to improve and support their healthy microbiome or things that they’re doing to damage it?
Sabine Hazan MD (00:32.428)
So yes, there’s a lot of things we work with patients. First of all, we look at their microbiome at a research level and we tell everyone this is a research tool. It’s not really, you know, science that’s approved by any associations or, you know, medical group. So this is really the beginning. We show them what we see.
And then we start working with certain things. So one of the things that I’m very big on is the whole nutraceutical. And there’s a benefit to the nutrients, right? The vitamin C, the vitamin D, the vitamin B, the zinc, the copper, the selenium. So it’s all about like, where are you at in your nutrition, right? So we monitor that.
We monitor the microbes that are supposed to break down the vitamin B, the calcium, the sugar. We replenish, we try to work with different. we’re very big on, I’m very big on testing products, okay? I find that there’s a lot of products out there. You you talk about vitamin C, there’s a lot of vitamin C that have arsenic in there. There’s a lot of chocolates that have arsenic in there. So I tend to be,
You know, I mean, the list is enormous. If I told you, you know, I’ve been the guinea pig on the, on the pen, during the pandemic. So I have about 300 stool samples of myself. I can tell you that I test everything. You know, I I’m friends with Miranda because she has a line of products, Cora organics. And before I started putting it on my face, I tested that right to make sure it’s safe on the microbiome. is. you know, so there’s a lot of things that I do.
that are basically, and it is preliminary, obviously we need to do more studies, et cetera, because in some people it can affect them, et cetera. But we need to look at products and have more transparency in the product, knowing where those products are from, what they’re doing. It’s kind of like right now, it’s a crapshoot, right? You go to a pharmacy, you think you’re taking probiotics,
Sabine Hazan MD (02:55.822)
because it has Bifidobacteria on the back, 16 out of 17 products on the market that say Bifidobacteria do not have Bifidobacteria in there. Our own study looking at 23 yogurts showed that out of 23, three of them had Bifidobacteria. That means 20 is basically lying to the consumer and saying there is a bacteria when there isn’t, right? Now it doesn’t mean that the yogurt itself
may increase the bifidobacteria, but the fact is if you’re putting a product in there, you need to tell the consumer and there needs to be a way to test that product. So, you know, I kind of became, because I saw all this, I started, you know, developing my own protocols of refloralization essentially, and developing my own products and putting them under my, you know, we have a four page protocol that we give patients and I basically circle.
You you should take this, you should take that, you should take that. But I’ve tested all those products for them to be given because here’s the thing. If you’re telling a patient take vitamin C, but then they take vitamin C from CVS, okay? And it’s not tested and there’s, you know, whatever in there and they’re not improving. Well, it doesn’t matter that my 23 patients improved on vitamin C, their bifidobacteria, they’re not improving because there’s something.
either on the capsule or in the product to preserve that product that kills, that destroys the vitamins, that may not destroy the vitamin C, but destroys the microbiome. So it’s very important to have clean products, okay? Now, when I started this, was, you know, it was so important for me to be by the book and not appear like I’m selling vitamins or selling products.
So I actually created a nonprofit and the nonprofit basically houses all these vitamins and any profit from those goes to the foundation continues to support research. So these products are really there to help with the research so we can continue research on them and say, okay, and then I test them, but also it’s my go-to, right? When I tested 23 yogurts, it’s not that I was like on
Sabine Hazan MD (05:17.454)
you know, on a path to destroy companies. In fact, I never tell people what are the three yogurts and what are the 20 that were lying. I want the company to be legit. I want to be the voice that says, Hey, I’m watching. And if you want me to refer your yogurt to my patients, then make sure that there’s Bifidobacteria in that yogurt. So we, so I tested not for, know, to
bust the companies I tested to basically make sure that my patients, you know, I’m a Malibu physician. I need my patients to get better. And my patients are unfortunately, or fortunately the high rollers. They’re jetting, you know, the world. So I need to get them back to what, to their lifestyle. So I cannot afford to tell them to drink a kefir.
that’s not gonna do anything for them and possibly could cause them worsening, right? So it’s very important to test everything, you know, and not just be a salesperson of products, right? So I think that’s at the end of the day, the re-floralization process for me is about re-aligning the gut with good nutrition, good tested products.
good farming practices, good regenerative farm practices, and then educating my patients to de-stress, to decrease their stress level. Because if they’re coming to me every six months sick because they’re flying all over the world, well guess what? At some point, when does it become enough money for you to stop what you’re doing, right? I mean, I’ve got these billionaires, like how many billions do you need to slow down?
because you’re speeding up towards your grave. So, you know, I think we need to have that balance. You know, I’m very big on balance where I know some weeks I’m stressed like crazy, and then I’m gonna force myself to take that week to put my feet in the ground, go to the beach, go gardening, do whatever, painting, know, ceramics, fishing, whatever gets me out of my world. So.
Sabine Hazan MD (07:35.052)
The one thing I encourage all my patients to do is if you’re a high achieving personality, slow it down, calm down, right? You can’t, you know, sleep a lot, right? So I sleep a lot. I love my sleep because sleep is the moment where the body just stops. It realigns itself. you know, your, your mind is rested and it’s going in another zone, right? So I think it’s important sleep.
prayers, I’m very spiritual, good nutrition, and being a warrior, I think stopping the fear. I see so many people dying because they make the wrong decision, because they function out of fear. And that’s what we saw during the pandemic. Fear controlled the world. People were afraid of a virus.
fearful at the beginning, I’ll be honest. And then when my first patient was treated that had COPD, CHF, had a bypass two weeks prior, and he was saved from COVID, I said, well, if this guy’s okay, I’m going to be okay. And then I started trusting God, you know, and believing in a higher power. And I think that’s what really pulled me through. It was really that sense of, I’m on this path to understand the microbiome. I’m going to stick to this path.
and I’m not gonna be stressed and I’m not gonna be fearful and I’m gonna trust whatever comes my way.
Stacey Doyle (09:07.638)
You know, it’s getting to me. I’m sorry. I should have brought my water up with me. I love that. Well, tell us Dr. Hazan, where can we get your products or your recommendations? I know you have a book. I know you have a foundation, but tell us more about that.
Sabine Hazan MD (09:10.975)
It’s okay. I get it.
Sabine Hazan MD (09:26.091)
Yeah, so my book is Let’s Talk Shit. The foundation is the microbiomeresearchfoundation.org. And I encourage everyone to just go on the progenobiome.com website where they can see your podcast and my social media, I’m on Instagram and X, where basically they can educate themselves. Going to the products is not really the answer because really everybody has a specific microbiome signature.
What I hope to do in the future is basically develop that marker per disease. know, companies can start using that. You know, my interest is to work with companies to basically bring good products to the market and to test their product. You know, when we did the biome booster plus, which is bovine immunoglobulin, we worked with the company to, to showcase what it did to the microbiome, that it increased the Bifido, that it decreased the bacteroides, that it
decrease the proteobacteria, increase the diversity. If you’re that person that’s low in Basiata, low in Bifido, high in Bacteroides, well, that’s what I believe could help you, especially if you’re having diarrhea, IBS. But this is again research. So we published on it, but essentially there needs to be more research. But we worked with the company that’s developing that, and we’re happy to give it to our patients when we see that formula and we say, you know what?
and you have some of the criteria that I’ve seen with other patients, let me try that because really, re-fluorization process is the art of medicine. I see we’re heading into a world of robots and believe me, I was in the hospital the last three weeks with patients and I can tell you robots are coming rounding and I literally, there’s a post of me on Instagram of a robot and I said, are you my replacement?
There’s gonna be a role for robots, right? The nursing stations, you know, they’re short staffed. The nurses are gonna need robots to help them because there is a short staffing. There’s a burnout in the doctors. So we can train robots to do what we’re doing, you know, to evaluate the patient, to, you know, take the history to, there’s certain things in medicine where robots will be helpful to the doctor.
Sabine Hazan MD (11:50.455)
But I think we cannot lose the art of medicine. We cannot lose, you know, my function as a physician is not just to be a robot, because anybody can do colonoscopies, right? A robot could probably do a better colonoscopy than I can. But my, my, you know, oversight of the robot is really my experience. How does the polyp look like? Does it need to be taken out?
Stacey Doyle (12:18.108)
Bye.
Sabine Hazan MD (12:19.05)
How does, is this a diverticuli, a pocket, or is it an inverted, is this a polyp or is this an inverted diverticuli? And therefore don’t touch it because you might perforate, right? So there’s so many things. And then in the microbiome space, it’s really, you know, instinct, it’s human. You know, I think part of the reason that I think I was perfect in a way for this role,
is because I’ve done hundreds of clinical trials for pharma. So not only am I practicing within the guidelines of medicine and GI, but I’ve also done hundreds of clinical trials in GI on Crohn’s disease, all sort of colitis, C. diff, and then in non GI psoriasis, cardiac disease, Alzheimer’s, acne. So I’m privy, I’ve been privy to a lot of protocols over the years that have formed my brain to say,
this is how it works. Wait a minute, we’re trying breast milk for C. diff. So what is breast milk doing for C. diff? Is it, and we know C. diff is a loss of diversity in the microbiome. Is breast milk possibly improving diversity? You know, we’re doing PRP, platelet rich plasma. Some doctors are using it for the face, you know, I mean, you know, improving the face, right? What is that doing to the microbiome?
Right? What is that doing to decrease inflammation? You know, somebody talked to me today about peptides. know, peptides, yes, there are some people that are doing amazing stuff with peptides and they’re working great for those patients. But what happens when a healthy person takes peptides? Is that not dangerous for them? Are we offsetting their balance? So this is why we need to do the research. And I think…
you know, my involvement in the microbiome space, yes, I’m gonna have, you know, robots and AI try to help, but AI is limited because AI is only as good as what you feed it. And right now AI is completely in the rabbit hole in the microbiome space. Because I can tell you that 90 % of the papers out there, I cannot reproduce. When somebody comes out and says, MS is this microbe,
Sabine Hazan MD (14:38.782)
and I have a hundred samples of patients with MS and I look at their stools and I go, no, I’m not seeing this microbe. And literally you’ll see my tweets, I’ll say on X and I’ll say, go back to the lab guys. You know, I’m not afraid to call a spade a space to call out something. That doesn’t mean I know it all, but the fact is good research needs to be valid, verified and reproducible. If I cannot reproduce your data, there’s a problem there.
especially if I’m using the same exact protocol. Now, the reason I say fecal transplant is very early in the game is because when you look at cases of Colleen Kelly where people lost hair and she did fecal transplant and they had two of them re-grew hair, that data was not reproduced. When you see Dr. Baroti fixing 28 patients with Crohn’s disease,
That data was not reproduced. And the reason it’s not reproduced is because, in my humble opinion, is because of donor selection. We have not figured out the microbiome. So you wanna start, you want to push the pill poop, you gotta start understanding the microbiome. And that’s what I’m trying to do, and that’s what I’m trying to bring Pharma. You know, someone said at the National Institute of Standard, you’re shaking the beehive of Pharma.
And during the pandemic, someone said to me, my God, you’re going to get killed. You’re going against pharma. I’m not going against pharma. I worked with them for like three decades, practically. I don’t necessarily like pharma very much, but I, you know, I have a good relationship with them that I tell them like it is and they know who I am. Cause I can be a nag to the max. Especially when a drug is not going the right way as I see it with my patients.
But I’m here to bring pharma to the microbiome. I’m here to say, hey guys, start looking at these signals that I’m seeing. And yes, you have a drug that’s working, but what is it doing long-term? What is it doing to the microbiome? I’m very excited because the people that have come to my path are actually not the pharmaceutical companies, which in my opinion is a big mistake. It’s the companies that I’ve been.
Sabine Hazan MD (17:00.032)
completely outside the pharma world. It’s the technology companies that are basically seeing something, a tool to look for inflammation that is completely different than what we’re used to. And together we can see improvement of the patient, me with the microbiome space, them with their technology. And it’s also people that have natural products, people that have farms, people that have…
a yogurt they want to push, drink they want to push, a vitamin they want to push, a cream they want to push, you know? So it’s one thing to have, you know, transparency. And by the way, I’m drinking from this, which is the, you know, environment working group cup. You know, they’re doing a great job by testing all our products, right? But what are those products doing to the microbiome? It’s one thing that they’re safe for the environment.
What is it doing to our microbiome? That’s the next step I want to get into. I’m all about the environment. I’m all about protecting the planet. I’m all about the future for our kids. I don’t have a kid with autism and I spent, you know, a lot of money on my protocols for kids with autism, mainly because somebody needed to, right? What if my great grandchildren are autistic in a hundred years from now and I’m not in this planet?
I’m always seeing ahead, you know, past my life. I also believe that, you know, this life is not just the end. think, you know, there’s, you know, souls come back. And I think, you know, my soul is that of a warrior. I’m sure I was a warrior in previous lives. Not to sound like, you know, I’m off, but I think, you know, everything in life and the planet recycles. Why not souls? You know, and I think we all have.
some strong feelings of deja vu of something. There’s so much we don’t know. And to say science is settled is wrong. It’s arrogant. We need to be more humble. We need to push the real science. so progenabiome.com is where you can find me. And let’s heal the world together and let’s come together and stop the divide because I think the divide and the…
Sabine Hazan MD (19:23.368)
Stress of the divide is what kills us.
Stacey Doyle (19:26.898)
Well, thank you so much, Dr. Hazan. We will share all of those links with our listeners. And this has been really, really a very eye-opening talk. And I’m so glad we got to talk to some of leading this whole space and really pushing the boundaries. Thank you so much for your time.
Sabine Hazan MD (19:46.103)
My pleasure, a pleasure. Thank you. Bye.
Stacey Doyle (19:49.139)
Thank you. me just stop this and make.
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FAQ:
Q: Who is Dr. Sabine Hazan?
A: Dr. Sabine Hazan, MD is a Malibu-based gastroenterologist and microbiome researcher who has run hundreds of clinical trials across GI and non-GI conditions and authored the book “Let’s Talk Sh!t.”
Q: What is “refloralization”?
A: Dr. Hazan describes refloralization as her process of re-aligning the gut through good nutrition, tested products, regenerative farming practices, and stress reduction. She notes this is preliminary and still requires more research.
Q: What did Dr. Hazan find when she tested probiotic products?
A: She says that in her research, 16 of 17 products labeled with Bifidobacteria did not contain it, and that of 23 yogurts her team studied, only three contained Bifidobacteria. She frames this as a call for more product transparency and testing.
Q: Does Dr. Hazan think AI and robots will replace physicians?
A: She believes robots and AI will help with staffing shortages and certain tasks, but argues they can’t replace the “art of medicine,” which she ties to physician experience and judgment.
Q: Where can I find Dr. Hazan’s work?
A: At progenabiome.com, the microbiome research foundation, and on Instagram and X.
