BiotiQuest® Gut Health & Probiotics Blog with Martha Carlin

What is fall telling your biology?

Martha Carlin | Oct 01, 2026 |

As we move into fall, I’ve been thinking a lot about the changing seasons and all of the little things that change along with them.

I often talk about seasonality and the changing signals of the seasons. Our bodies evolved in a world where the environment was constantly giving us information about where we were in the year. The amount and timing of sunlight changed. The foods available to us changed. Our activity changed. Temperature changed. These were all important signals.

As we move past the fall equinox, the days get shorter and we're exposed to less natural light. Most of us already spend far too much time indoors under artificial light, so that change can be more significant than we realize.

As the weather changes and the daylight wanes, many of us also gradually start moving less. And then the farmers' markets begin to close, gardens wind down, and the wonderful variety of fresh, local produce that was everywhere a few weeks ago begins to disappear.

None of these changes seems particularly dramatic by itself. But they add up.

That's part of why I believe eating seasonally is important. Food isn't simply calories, protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. What is available in our environment—and when it is available—is also information about what is happening around us.

So this month we'll be exploring some of these seasonal changes what happens as our exposure to natural light changes, what happens when we start moving less, how our food changes with the season, and some simple things we can do to work with those changes rather than ignore them.

I've also been writing more over at my Martha's Quest Substack, including some of what came out of my recent trip to Australia and the ongoing scientific work that followed me home. If you haven't subscribed, you can subscribe for free. There are paid options for people who want to support the work, but most of what I write there is available without a paid subscription.

I'm also starting a little 30-day experiment of my own. I won't go too far down that rabbit hole here—we'll be talking about it in the Learning Lab—but it involves trying to support one of the most important membranes in our mitochondria. I'm curious not only about the biology, but about what I actually notice: energy, sleep, recovery and how I feel day to day.

Sometimes the best questions start with simply paying attention.

Later this fall we will also bringing two new products to you. The first is a unique fiber product we have been working on for almost a year. I will be sending out more on this later in the month. The second product is our Digestive Defense™ product with Dietzia natrolimnaea which I have been working on with Dr. Tom Dow for a number of years now. Dr. Dow has been studying this strain for nearly twenty years in his work focusing on Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis in the milk supply and its connection to Crohn’s and Type I diabetes. Because of the research and development time in bringing this to market and the complexity of producing it, the product cost will be significantly higher than our other products. We are working with Tom to support several clinical studies and are working hard to have product ready for Black Friday. If you'd like to be notified when it's available, you can submit your info here.

And finally, something exciting came out of a conference I recently attended in Florida. Dr. Tom O'Bryan, who is well known for his work in autoimmunity and his interest in glyphosate, included our Sugar Shift® glyphosate remediation research in his presentation. We've since been talking about ways to expand that relationship, including an upcoming webinar. I'll share more as those plans come together.

There is a lot going on here—as usual!—but in many ways it all comes back to the same question I've been asking for years:

What is our environment telling our biology, and are we paying attention?

Fall seems like a particularly good time to ask.

With gratitude,

Martha Carlin, is a “Citizen Scientist”, systems thinker, wife of Parkinson’s warrior, John Carlin, and founder of The BioCollective , a microbiome company expanding the reach of science and BiotiQuest, the first of it’s kind probiotic line. Since John’s diagnosis in 2002, Martha began learning the science of agriculture, nutrition, environment, infectious disease, Parkinson’s pathology and much more. In 2014, when the first research was published showing a connection between the gut bacteria and the two phenotypes of Parkinson’s, Martha quit her former career as a business turnaround expert and founded The BioCollective to accelerate the discovery of the impact of gut health on all human disease. Martha was a speaker at the White House 2016 Microbiome Initiative launch, challenging the scientific community to “think in a broader context”. Her systems thinking background and experience has led to collaborations across the scientific spectrum from neuroscience to engineering to infectious disease. She is a respected out of the box problem solver in the microbiome field and brings a unique perspective to helping others understand the connections from the soil to the food to our guts and our brains.

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