How Mimio’s fasting supplement boosts metabolic and cardioprotective health

US-based Mimio has created a supplement that replicates the anti-inflammatory, metabolic, and cardioprotective benefits of fasting without having to fast. The company’s clinical trials and research on human cells find the formulation’s four human metabolites synergistically activate cellular pathways similar to fasting. 

Nutrition Insight meets with Dr. Chris Rhodes, co-founder of Mimio, to explore how the company developed its fasting mimetic and a recent human clinical trial supporting its benefits in hunger control, reduced oxidative stress, and cardiometabolic health. 

He explains that the Mimio supplement provides the same molecules that the body would naturally produce during fasting. “You can essentially recreate fasting at a molecular level, activate those same pathways, and get those same benefits, but without having to fast.”

The supplement contains four metabolites — spermidine, palmitoylethanolamide (PEA), oleoylethanolamide (OEA), and nicotinamide — that are elevated during fasting. As human metabolites, these are all considered dietary supplement ingredients in the US, backed by clinical evidence and with safety profiles.

Rhodes explains that after the initial research on human cells and animal models, Mimio needed to conduct a pilot clinical study to ensure all molecules are bioavailable, safe, and efficacious.

“We were able to show that when you take Mimio, even when you are eating, you can get these cellular health benefits that are very similar to fasting — those same anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, cardioprotective, and metabolic effects.”

Longevity benefits of fasting

Rhodes says that the Mimio formulation was inspired by his research on fasting and its impact on longevity and health span. “When you do alternate-day fasting with animals, they can live anywhere between 30 to 80% longer, even if you’re not changing their caloric intake.”

Clinical research finds Mimio’s composition of four metabolites has anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, metabolic, and cardioprotective effects.“The fascinating part about that, to me, was that all of that happens without actually adding anything into the body. Fasting is somehow activating this dormant longevity bio program that we all have inside of us.”

During his Ph.D. in nutritional biochemistry at the University of California, Davis, US, his research team conducted a study with participants doing a 36-hour fast. They found that such a fast resulted in a unique set of molecules that are “only elevated during a fast.”

“When we screened those molecules, we were able to find a synergistic combination of four of them that together could recreate many of these cellular health and longevity benefits of fasting, such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, metabolic, and cardioprotective effects,” details Rhodes.

“We even showed that it could extend lifespan in animals by 96% just through supplementation.”

Decentralized clinical trials

Mimio conducted a decentralized clinical trial on its supplement with the research company People Science. Published in Nature, the study found that the fasting mimetic creates benefits in hunger control, oxidative stress, and cardiometabolic health in humans.

Rhodes highlights the benefits of decentralized trials over traditional single-site studies: “This was more economic for us, but then also has a better general applicability of the final results, and you get to target who you are recruiting into the study, which gives you much higher speed as well.”

He details that population samples included in single-site studies are often limited to the demographic makeup of the area from which the research team is recruiting, while decentralized trials allow for a more representative sample.

Moreover, when comparing cost estimates, he notes that a traditional trial could have ended up “doubling the cost of the study for the same sample size.”

Speed is another benefit, says Rhodes: “We were able to do this study with People Science over the course of about six to nine months. Doing a single-site study with a physical location can easily take a year and a half.”

Mimio conducted a decentralized clinical trial on its supplement with the research company People Science.At the same time, he says that decentralized trials are limited to standard metrics of health outcomes. “You don’t get as far into the nitty-gritty of science.”

Studies that rely on consumer perception or tracking data through an app or wearables work well in this format. Researchers can also analyze blood samples in a decentralized setting, but these will offer a standard panel.

However, Mimio already assessed the underlying cellular mechanisms of the supplement in earlier studies, assessing the cellular function, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and cardioprotective effects of the supplement on participants.

Therefore, Rhodes notes that it was great to see the broader blood work impacts of Mimio in the decentralized trial, because those are much more relevant in clinical practice.

Cellular pathways

Rhodes explains that Mimio’s benefits are linked to its core ingredients and their impact on cellular health — without fasting, the supplement activates various pathways associated with fasting.

The company investigated the supplement’s impact on pathways, such as:

• AMPK, a regulator of cellular energy.
• Nrf2, which regulates cellular defense against oxidative stress.
• NAD+ and sirtuin signaling, linking cellular energy to metabolism and aging.
• FOXO signaling, which regulates genes for glucose metabolism, longevity, oxidative stress resistance, and cell death.
• PPARα signaling, a regulator of fatty acid metabolism.

According to Rhodes, activating these pathways provides metabolic impacts that are similar to those when a person is fasting. Typically, after eating, the body relies primarily on glucose metabolism, activating pathways like insulin and insulin-like growth factor, a hormone that manages the effects of growth hormones.

Using Mimio helps the body shift cellular metabolism more toward autophagy (the body’s cellular recycling system), lipid oxidation, and fat metabolism — away from glucose metabolism.

“You are essentially helping to shift around cellular metabolic processing to behave more like it’s in a fasted state, which eventually goes on to impact whole-body metabolism and cardioprotection,” says Rhodes.

The company is positioning the product under metabolic longevity, with average consumers being around 56 years old.“The benefits we found, such as glucose regulation, lower cholesterol levels, lower LDL particle numbers, and lower oxidative stress levels in the body, are all coming down to that cellular signaling and that shift from more glucose-heavy metabolism to prioritizing fat metabolism.”

“That’s why we’re seeing the impacts on both glucose and cholesterol so profoundly.”

Satiety and gut health

The decentralized trial also found an impact on hunger control, satiety, and digestion. Rhodes explains that Mimio includes two human endocannabinoids — PEA and OEA — that have cellular and brain impacts.

OEA helps to stimulate satiety and suppress appetite through the gut-brain axis, while PEA helps to reduce neuroinflammation and relieve pain and discomfort.

Rhodes says that Mimio’s benefits on digestion were the most surprising outcome of the study, which found a significant decrease in bloating and digestive discomfort compared to the placebo group.

“Another interesting element of it was the reduction of oxidative stress levels, which has been shown in some previous studies, but in much less healthy populations,” he details. “This study looked at normal, healthy people who had elevated risk markers of metabolic disorder or dysfunction, but weren’t over the line yet.”

“It’s interesting to look at this from a perspective of health optimization rather than disease management.”

“Metabolic longevity”

The study also helps Mimio to narrow down the supplement’s positioning. Rhodes notes that, initially, the company positioned its product to provide “the benefits of fasting without the fasting” to grab consumers’ attention. 

With the latest clinical findings, the company is repositioning the product under metabolic longevity, helping consumers to “rejuvenate their metabolism.” The average consumer is around 56 years old, with an equal split between men and women.

Rhodes highlights the synergistic functioning of the four metabolites in the Mimio formula, which were already backed by clinical evidence and studies. Their complementary pathways indicate why the effect is so profound in a short time with the company’s clinical studies.

Mimio is focusing on creating a new product for GLP-1 aftercare, based on the supplement’s appetite suppression effects.“When we were looking at the lifespan extension ability of the molecules in the formulation, we saw that when we used the individual molecules, lifespan was extended, but it was extended by 10, 12, maybe up to 28%. But when we put all four of those together, that’s where we saw this 96% lifespan extension.”

He adds that Mimio took a top-down approach in its research. Rhodes and his research team made their discovery in humans instead of the more common process of using models with organisms, like the Caenorhabditis elegans model, which then has to be translated into humans.

This meant that the company could more quickly apply its research in human clinical trials.

What’s next?

As a biomimetic supplement company, Mimio can study human biology in other interesting states of the body, beyond fasting, to decode how they work and recreate the benefits on demand.

For example, Rhodes says the company can do similar research on exercise, sleep, cold exposure, or meditation and tease out what is happening in the body during those states to determine why they are beneficial. 

“That’s what we’re doing on the back-end R&D platform, looking at human biology in these interesting states to find this new wave of clinically derived health and longevity molecules that have an immediate context within human health.”

Rhodes says the company is developing new products from the fasting study data set and is looking at creating an energy product and a specific cravings relief product for GLP-1 aftercare, based on the identified natural satiety factors.

“We already have people who are using Mimio as a way to help wean off of the GLP-1s. When people go off the drugs, there are these big hunger withdrawals, and cravings come right back.”

In addition to regaining a baseline weight, people discontinuing GLP-1s also lose their cardioprotective and metabolic benefits.

“There’s a need for a natural way that can be sustainable in the long term, for people to sustain their results from the GLP-1s. The appetite suppression effects from Mimio have been great with that, and we’re focusing on creating a new product that can have even more benefits.”