Professor Dr Dilek Çolak has spent more than 30 years studying the invisible world inside us. Her thinking helped shape a very different approach to supplementation.

There is an entire world living inside you.

Trillions of microorganisms. Hundreds of species. An ecosystem shaped by what you eat, how you live, the medicines you take and countless other factors. It is changing all the time. And yours is unlike anyone else’s.

Professor Dr Dilek Çolak has spent her career studying this microscopic world. She is Professor of Medical Microbiology, author of more than 110+ scientific publications and Miiood’s Chief Scientific Advisor.

When we began developing Miiood, we didn’t ask Dilek to endorse a finished product. We asked her to help shape and challenge the scientific thinking behind it.

Here, she explains some of the thinking she brought to Miiood

Most people think of gut health and brain health as separate. How connected are they really?

Dilek: Very. The gut and brain communicate continuously through neural, immune, endocrine and metabolic pathways, with the microbiome playing an important part. We separate digestion, stress, cognition and mood because it makes them easier to talk about. Biology is much more connected than that.

Are our guts really that different from one another?

Dilek: Yes. Each of us has a different microbiome, shaped by diet, lifestyle, age, medication and many other factors. Modern microbiome research is also increasingly interested not simply in which microorganisms are present, but what they are doing.

Two people can have very different microbial communities while many of the same functions are still being performed.

Different inhabitants. Similar jobs.

What does that change when you think about a supplement?

Dilek: Selecting the ingredient is only part of the challenge. Every ingredient enters an existing biological environment, and that environment differs between people.

One of the things I encouraged the Miiood team to consider was not only what should go into the formula, but the environment those ingredients would encounter once someone actually took it.

Is that where Dual-Brain Fibre™ came from?

Dilek: That way of thinking was one of the ideas behind it. Prebiotic fibre is interesting because it interacts with the microbial community already living in the gut. So supporting that community became an important part of the team’s approach to the formula.

Miiood developed that thinking into Dual-Brain Fibre™, our proprietary system.

Does more mean better when it comes to supplements?

Dilek: Not necessarily. An ingredient name tells me very little on its own. I want to know the strain, form, extract, dose and the human evidence behind it.

More is not automatically better. Every ingredient should have a reason to be there.

Why does the way a supplement is manufactured matter?

Dilek: Because the formula on paper still has to become the product someone consumes.

Between those two points there are many variables: ingredient quality, extraction, stability, compatibility, processing, storage and batch consistency.

In laboratory medicine, the quality of the process matters enormously because it determines how much confidence you can place in the result. I think the same discipline should apply when developing a supplement.

That is why Miiood’s pharmaceutical manufacturing standards, batch controls and independent testing mattered to me. There is little value in being precise about the science and then becoming less precise about how the finished product is made.

What does good science look like in a product like this?

Dilek: Good science is not about making the longest ingredient list or the most claims. It is about asking better questions.

Why this ingredient? Why this form? Why this dose? What evidence supports it? How is it made? What biological environment will it enter?

For me, scientific discipline means being able to explain those decisions clearly.