Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Fred Jeska Rudkin and I'm Louise Area.
Speaker 2: And this is season four of our New Zealand Herald
Speaker 2: podcast The Little Thing.
Speaker 1: So good to have you with us. In this podcast,
Speaker 1: we talk to experts and find out all the little
Speaker 1: things you need to know to improve all areas of
Speaker 1: your life. And look. In series one, we spoke to
Speaker 1: Tim Spector. You may remember this about food our guts,
Speaker 1: expanding our consumption of plants, and how our accessibility to
Speaker 1: real food has diminished over the decades, at least in
Speaker 1: Western society. And it keeps coming up.
Speaker 2: Isn't it ye gut house the gut as the second
Speaker 2: brain or is it the first brain? The gut's relationship
Speaker 2: with our mental health, longevity, disease resistance, and it goes on.
Speaker 2: It isn't our intention to blind people with science and
Speaker 2: have us too scared to have a French fine at
Speaker 2: bee once in a while, because that would be a
Speaker 2: bit sad.
Speaker 1: It would make me sad to Louise. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So look, as with everything we look at, we just
Speaker 2: want to have a closer look at the health information
Speaker 2: that keeps coming up over and over again. And this
Speaker 2: is just one of those things.
Speaker 1: So we're going to talk gut health, and in preparation, wheez,
Speaker 1: I did the blue Pooh test again because I'm really
Speaker 1: keen to know try and get sort of a feeling
Speaker 1: for the state of what my gut is in. And
Speaker 1: this is something that we did when we spoke to
Speaker 1: Tim Spector. You had good success. I didn't the first
Speaker 1: time I did it, And can I just say the
Speaker 1: second time around, it doesn't look this. Look I thing's
Speaker 1: improved at all. One of the only tests ever failed.
Speaker 1: I can't even I don't think I can even execute
Speaker 1: this test properly because nothing ever seems to go blue.
Speaker 1: It's like my body absorbs blue food coloring and it
Speaker 1: just doesn't. So I'm seventy two days in ideally around
Speaker 1: this between what is it but twenty hours hours? Oh god,
Speaker 1: two days, Well, I think it will be seventy two days,
Speaker 1: seventy two hours, and there is no change. I do
Speaker 1: not have blue after eating my two blue muffins. And
Speaker 1: there were a lot of dye in those things, was there?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think they were okay. And it's really concerning me
Speaker 1: as well, because twenty nine hours is sort of around
Speaker 1: a good time after eating the muffins where you're sorry
Speaker 1: to talk about those folks. Your poo to turn blue
Speaker 1: and nothing, and I'm really sick of looking at my poop.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, and I was like twenty one hours again,
Speaker 1: so were you? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And I told you, I told you I would be.
Speaker 2: Nothing much has changed there. I don't know whether that's
Speaker 2: good or bad.
Speaker 1: I thought, because I've taken a lot of advice from
Speaker 1: Lara Brydon, who was in our first episode this season,
Speaker 1: and I've been sheltering from ultra processed food and alcohol
Speaker 1: and sugar. Not entirely. I haven't cut these things out.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to be really realistic and create sort of
Speaker 1: something which is sustainable. But I really did feel I
Speaker 1: feel like I've been doing a lot of work on
Speaker 1: my gut, and does your gut feel better? My gut
Speaker 1: does feel better, and I do feel better. So but
Speaker 1: really wouldn't worry too much.
Speaker 2: I think we all know what sets us off and
Speaker 2: when we've upset the natural rhythm of our tummies. You know,
Speaker 2: for some people it's dairy, for other people it's coffee,
Speaker 2: could just be a rich meal. Yeah, that's right. And
Speaker 2: I've probably been sheltering from those a little bit too.
Speaker 1: I'm quite intrigued to also know whether there's any impact.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of challenges middle age. I'm
Speaker 1: interested to know whether there's you know, how that how
Speaker 1: the gut might be reacting to things. I mean, when
Speaker 1: the estudents left the body that was yeah, all sorts
Speaker 1: of things. Just is your aging Are there any changes
Speaker 1: in there so we can sort of talk about the
Speaker 1: I'm in an aging stage way too.
Speaker 2: I do want to know that this is an area
Speaker 2: where they are looking at women as a separate thing
Speaker 2: to men. You know, we've talked a lot about a
Speaker 2: lot of the research that's been done. It's been done
Speaker 2: and meant so I'm interested to talk about that. And
Speaker 2: we wanted to just touch on the other lovely thing
Speaker 2: that comes up from time gas, whether you're.
Speaker 1: Bare pin or farting. I mean, if you have a really.
Speaker 2: Really, really good diet filled with pulses and stuff, do
Speaker 2: you start to just accept that you have to fart.
Speaker 2: I know a family who did it, and they just
Speaker 2: were like, yes, we all fart all the time, but
Speaker 2: we were already healthy.
Speaker 1: I know that this is just a personal interest of
Speaker 1: Yoursise You're just asking for a friend, right, definitely those
Speaker 1: early morning runs that we go on. I'm also really
Speaker 1: intrigued by the idea that we're all completely different and
Speaker 1: all our guts and you know, like it's not a
Speaker 1: one size fits all and we're not all the same
Speaker 1: and things. I think that's really interesting.
Speaker 2: I think it's actually super important because we could accidentally
Speaker 2: all of these fads or diets of way of eating
Speaker 2: apply to the population, right and actually when we are
Speaker 2: all individuals. And as far as I'm a fan of
Speaker 2: pop pulation health, I think gets a lot done, but
Speaker 2: we do kind of need to see if there are
Speaker 2: little tweaks and things we can do for ourselves.
Speaker 1: But also, just because your mate feels better not eating
Speaker 1: dairy or not eating gluten doesn't mean you will. Absolutely
Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: So we're delighted to be joined by doctor Will Bolschwitz.
Speaker 2: He is a guest rentroler, just a passionate researcher and
Speaker 2: an expert in digestive diseases and the gut, and he
Speaker 2: works alongside to inspector at nutrition company Zoe as the
Speaker 2: US medical director. Welcome, doctor, Well, thanks so much for
Speaker 2: joining us today.
Speaker 4: Oh it's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 4: It's great to be here.
Speaker 1: Well, I think most people are familiar with the gut microbiome,
Speaker 1: but can you just start by giving us a quick
Speaker 1: explanation as to what it is.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, Francesco, it's amazing to consider the statement
Speaker 4: most people are familiar with the gut microbiome, because not
Speaker 4: many years ago there was zero awareness even among the
Speaker 4: medical community to what we're about to talk about. We've
Speaker 4: come a long way to where now this is bordering
Speaker 4: on a mainstream conversation that you may be having with
Speaker 4: other people.
Speaker 3: I love that. I'm very excited about that.
Speaker 4: So it's important for everyone to understand that there has
Speaker 4: been this huge discovery that's taken place during the last
Speaker 4: twenty years in science, and it's transforming the way that
Speaker 4: we think about our own body as humans, and that
Speaker 4: is the microbiome. So it turns out that we are
Speaker 4: completely covered from the top of our head to the
Speaker 4: tip of our toes with invisible microorganisms, bacteria, yeasts, these
Speaker 4: things called our KaiA that are kind of my favorite.
Speaker 4: We can talk about that more if you want to.
Speaker 4: Sometimes parasites and it turns out believe it or not
Speaker 4: many parasites are good for us. It sort of defies
Speaker 4: our expectations. And so they're there all of those places
Speaker 4: our skin, our nose, our mouth, but they're most concentrated
Speaker 4: inside of the large intestine, which is the colon. And
Speaker 4: in that place, just that place alone, your large intestine,
Speaker 4: you will find approximately thirty eight trillion micro organisms. Thirty
Speaker 4: eight trillion.
Speaker 1: That's hard to get your hid around, Ryan.
Speaker 4: Oh, it's it's a you know, it's like trying to
Speaker 4: understand the numbers from World War Two. It's like there's
Speaker 4: just no way to sort of put that framework into
Speaker 4: your brain. But let's break this down in a couple
Speaker 4: of ways. First of all, let's imagine it's a beautiful
Speaker 4: night and you look out up to the sky. You
Speaker 4: see every single star that's in our galaxy. Okay, And
Speaker 4: if I were to take all those stars and pull
Speaker 4: them in and form them into a ball and insert
Speaker 4: them into your margin, Testine, not you personally, Francesca, Please
Speaker 4: don't feel weird about this.
Speaker 3: Or you either, at lease. This is just theory. It theory,
Speaker 3: all right.
Speaker 4: So I insert this ball full of stars, the entire
Speaker 4: galaxy full of stars, into your rgin. Testine, I would
Speaker 4: have to do this three hundred and eighty times to
Speaker 4: call the number of microbes. Yeah, so you have three
Speaker 4: hundred and eighty galaxies full of stars. And perhaps even
Speaker 4: more shocking to me is that we only have about
Speaker 4: thirty trillion human cells. So with total clarity, I can
Speaker 4: say you are less than fifty percent human.
Speaker 1: That is so bond becerus.
Speaker 2: Wait though, so in amongst that number, are they viruses, bacteria,
Speaker 2: and parasites and they're all getting along.
Speaker 4: Well, they're not necessarily all getting along. But we're not
Speaker 4: all getting along either, are we.
Speaker 1: We're not doing so well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well so, and that's you know, it's kind of
Speaker 4: interesting because it's a microcosm on what we see happening
Speaker 4: on planet and Earth. It's a microcosm for other ecosystems.
Speaker 4: So what is happening inside of us is appropriate A
Speaker 4: biologist would define this as an ecosystem them in the
Speaker 4: same way that a person might look at, you know,
Speaker 4: a forest or the Great Barrier reef as an ecosystem.
Speaker 3: So, and within an ecosystem.
Speaker 4: There are there are you know, sort of the ones
Speaker 4: that are friendly that we love as humans.
Speaker 3: There are the ones that are a.
Speaker 4: Bit malicious and we don't like so much. And what
Speaker 4: ends up happening is they all fall into a balance.
Speaker 4: And when that balance is healthy, you see the same
Speaker 4: balance that you might see in a healthy ecosystem. I like, imagine,
Speaker 4: imagine a city, and we want a city that is
Speaker 4: low on crime and people who are getting along and
Speaker 4: not too much traffic, right, and like, that's that would
Speaker 4: be our ideal existence. But alternatively, when a city is failing,
Speaker 4: then these problems start to emerge, and there's more crime,
Speaker 4: and there's gridlock and bad traffic, and there's pollution and
Speaker 4: you know, and it's not kept clean and all these
Speaker 4: types of things. Right, So, so we want to keep it
Speaker 4: on the side of like thriving as opposed to the
Speaker 4: side of failing. And there's terms that we use for this.
Speaker 4: So a thriving gut microbiome we would describe as u biosis,
Speaker 4: which means in balance. Or a failing microbiome, the term
Speaker 4: that we would use is dys biosis. But you might
Speaker 4: hear people characterize this on the internet as leaky gout
Speaker 4: or something like this.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, yeah, I have heard that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a little bit concerned that the wellbeing of
Speaker 2: our microbiome is in stat contrast to the human condition.
Speaker 4: Welliz, it's an interesting question because they cohabitate with us,
Speaker 4: and when we think, you know, we love to tell
Speaker 4: stories about evolution. Where did we come from? How did
Speaker 4: we get here? What makes us human?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: These are questions that we wrestle with all of us
Speaker 4: and and they inform our biology. But there's something that's
Speaker 4: been missing, which is the understanding that it was always
Speaker 4: co evolution. We were never alone. We always had our partners.
Speaker 4: They might be invisible, we may not have been able
Speaker 4: to see them, but they were there. They were outnumbering us.
Speaker 4: They were thirty eight trillion, And as we evolved through
Speaker 4: these years to become the version of ourselves today, they
Speaker 4: were there a part of it with us. So and
Speaker 4: what ended up happening as a result of this is
Speaker 4: I can tell you with total clarity as a medical
Speaker 4: doctor that we grew to trust them because we gave
Speaker 4: them very important responsibilities. We allowed them to be gatekeepers
Speaker 4: for our nutrition that's our source of life, to interact
Speaker 4: directly with our immune system that's inflammation, to have quite
Speaker 4: a bit of control over our metabolism, to actually play
Speaker 4: a role in the balance of our hormones, both men
Speaker 4: and women, and to even communicate from the gut all
Speaker 4: the way up to the brain and effect the way
Speaker 4: we think our memory. So you take a step back
Speaker 4: and you say, like, wow, in medical school, I separated
Speaker 4: these things. I saw them all as separate. The metabolism
Speaker 4: is different from inflammation, is different from our digestion, is
Speaker 4: different from our brain and neurology or psychiatry. And now
Speaker 4: what we see is there's this common thread, this command
Speaker 4: center in the middle that is operated by these gut
Speaker 4: microbes that's playing a central role in all of these pieces.
Speaker 3: They're not different, They're connected.
Speaker 1: It's so fascinating what you're describing here. Your term speak
Speaker 1: to has said that this is the most exciting and
Speaker 1: fast moving area of science today because we have been
Speaker 1: making these big knowledge leaps. What you're talking about there,
Speaker 1: would that be the biggest thing that we've kind of
Speaker 1: discovered in this field.
Speaker 3: I think so.
Speaker 4: But I think that in science, when a new field emerges,
Speaker 4: you have to have the patience to allow it to mature.
Speaker 4: Allowed the science to mature, and so where we have
Speaker 4: been for the first fifteen years. I mean, just to
Speaker 4: put a historical context to what we're discussing here. Prior
Speaker 4: to two thousand and five, we were using just culture plates.
Speaker 4: So culture plate for the listeners at home is like, hey,
Speaker 4: if you were to take a bacteria and watch the
Speaker 4: ecal I grow, that's how you see what kind of
Speaker 4: bacteria are there. All right, that's an old technique.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know how old it is, but
Speaker 3: that is an old technique.
Speaker 4: And what we were missing was some sort of technique
Speaker 4: that would allow us access to these microbes inside of
Speaker 4: us that do not grow on a culture plate. And
Speaker 4: we discovered that around two thousand and five. Okay, And
Speaker 4: the other thing that happened around that time is our
Speaker 4: computers started to get more advanced. So people that are
Speaker 4: our age, you know, because I'm in my mid forties, so.
Speaker 1: We're sep joining us in your in your right.
Speaker 4: You're yeah, you are to your late thirties, right, sure, yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker 4: But compared to these Gen Z kids who are growing up,
Speaker 4: they grew they're growing up with powerful computers. We didn't
Speaker 4: grow up with powerful computers. We grew up before computers.
Speaker 4: I grew up before computers. In nineteen eighties, we didn't
Speaker 4: really use computers. And so we needed the computers to
Speaker 4: progress to a point that they could handle massive data.
Speaker 4: So the microbiome is massive data. And now we have
Speaker 4: grown where our computers are able to keep up with this.
Speaker 4: Our computers can now handle multiple amounts of massive data,
Speaker 4: meaning like big data sets of lots of people. And
Speaker 4: the first fifteen years, Francesca, we spent just kind of
Speaker 4: describing what we were seeing, What is this, what are
Speaker 4: we seeing here? What happens if you have a disease ease?
Speaker 4: What do we find in the microbiome? But now it's
Speaker 4: an exciting time because we're moving past describing it and
Speaker 4: we're moving into manipulating it for our advantage. And there's
Speaker 4: many examples of where this is emerging. And it could
Speaker 4: be the person who's listening to us or right now
Speaker 4: who just wants to be healthier. Okay, we're going to
Speaker 4: get into that. But it can also be the person
Speaker 4: who's undergoing cancer therapy and they're now using something called immunotherapy,
Speaker 4: which takes advantage of our own immune system to fight
Speaker 4: the cancer. It's a different approach than chemo. Chemo has
Speaker 4: attacked the cancer directly, and like all the other cells
Speaker 4: kind of suffer too. Immunotherapy is empowered the immune system
Speaker 4: and let the immune system attack it. And what we've
Speaker 4: discovered is the gut microbiome plays a very important role
Speaker 4: in that process and there's ways that you can use
Speaker 4: that to your advantage.
Speaker 1: I read, and I don't know if this is correct, Will,
Speaker 1: but I read that seventy percent of our immune system
Speaker 1: lives in our gut microbiome.
Speaker 4: That is absolutely correct, and it's fascinating because you ask
Speaker 4: a person where does your immune system live and they
Speaker 4: probably would say your bone, marrow.
Speaker 1: I don't know, might say I don't know where I
Speaker 1: thought it.
Speaker 4: Was then no, yeah, and Michael, lymph node, yeah right,
Speaker 4: You might say a lymph node or your spleen. You
Speaker 4: might say your spleen, right, And the answer is no,
Speaker 4: none of those. The correct answer is your gut. Seventy
Speaker 4: percent of your immune system resides within the wall your gut,
Speaker 4: and in fact, so close to these microbes that just
Speaker 4: let me pretend for a moment that we pick up
Speaker 4: our microscope and we take a look and we're zooming
Speaker 4: in on this very very minute part of what's happening
Speaker 4: inside of you, and what you would see is you
Speaker 4: would see these microbes and then there's a single layer
Speaker 4: of cells. We call it the epithelial layer, and it's
Speaker 4: thinner than a fraction of a hair off the top
Speaker 4: of your head. And the epithelial layer, single layer separates
Speaker 4: those microbes from the immune system on the other side.
Speaker 4: Seventy percent of the immune system is on the other side.
Speaker 1: That is crazy.
Speaker 2: Do you mind keeping that balances the part that's protecting
Speaker 2: your immune system or.
Speaker 4: Yeah, these things end up released, These things end up
Speaker 4: being completely intertwined. You can't separate them. Because let's go
Speaker 4: back to the term I used, wiki gut. We could
Speaker 4: do an entire hour on wiki gut. There's certainly there
Speaker 4: are things that exist and the lore of the Internet
Speaker 4: that I would not come on board and agree with, right,
Speaker 4: But here's what I do, like with clarity, agree with
Speaker 4: is that this single layer of cells that I was
Speaker 4: describing a moment ago, it's held together together by like
Speaker 4: think of it like cement, all right, And that cement
Speaker 4: is a protein called tight junction. And if you disrupt
Speaker 4: that protein, then you create a hole between those cells.
Speaker 4: It's like having a hole in the wall of a castle,
Speaker 4: and now things can sneak through. And that's what leaky
Speaker 4: gut is and when things start to sneak through, that
Speaker 4: could be the stuff from inside your intestine, it could
Speaker 4: be pathogenic bacteria, and they start to go across this
Speaker 4: barrier that was put in place to keep them out.
Speaker 4: They start to go across. That's not the end of
Speaker 4: the world. But what that is is that is inflammation
Speaker 4: because your immune system is forced to now step up
Speaker 4: to protect you. So, Louise, if I were to describe
Speaker 4: the layers of defense that we have, the first is
Speaker 4: actually our gut microbes. The second is our gut barrier,
Speaker 4: and you have to get past those two. But when
Speaker 4: you get past those two, you get to the third,
Speaker 4: which is the immune system. And this process that we're
Speaker 4: describing creates chronic low grade inflammation. And that chronic low
Speaker 4: grade inflammation is at the root of so many of
Speaker 4: the epidemic diseases and health conditions that the Western world,
Speaker 4: including New Zealand and Australia and US in the United States,
Speaker 4: we are struggling with these things right now.
Speaker 2: They're creating a real burden on the health system as well.
Speaker 2: And I find it really interesting. So people who say, oh,
Speaker 2: I've got a grade immune system, I never get a cold.
Speaker 2: I never get the flu, but my raging arthritis, for example,
Speaker 2: So the immune system is still not functioning optimally.
Speaker 4: Would you say the immune system within arthritis is clearly
Speaker 4: being activated. And it depends on what we're talking about,
Speaker 4: which type of arthritis, because there's a few types. So
Speaker 4: one is rhumatoid arthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis is actually an
Speaker 4: autoimmune health condition. That means that the immune system is
Speaker 4: actually confused, right, and it's attacking your own body. Alternatively,
Speaker 4: there's osteoarthritis, and that's inflammatory too, but it's different. It's
Speaker 4: not autoimmune, but it's still activation of the immune system
Speaker 4: in the joint that's creating inflammation and then you feel.
Speaker 3: It when you walk or whatever.
Speaker 4: It may be, okay, So these things are clear cut
Speaker 4: manifestations of inflammation. And if a person has an autoimmune
Speaker 4: disease like rheumatoid arthritis, without question, their immune system is
Speaker 4: confused and it is struggling. So we know that with
Speaker 4: clarity and wise, if you lift up the hood to
Speaker 4: take a look at the engine, meaning the gut microbiome,
Speaker 4: if you were to take a look at what's happening
Speaker 4: in the gut microbiome, but then the context of these diseases,
Speaker 4: you would see that there's a damaged gut microbiome, there
Speaker 4: is dys biosis. So, as I said before, the immune system,
Speaker 4: in our microbiome, they're interconnected.
Speaker 3: It's hard to separate them.
Speaker 4: So in inflammatory health conditions, it is expected that if
Speaker 4: you look at the gut microbiome you will find dys biosis.
Speaker 4: They're running in parallel and in tandem. Now, this concept
Speaker 4: of like never getting sick and this kind of thing,
Speaker 4: it's a little bit hard for me to totally you know,
Speaker 4: understand exactly what's going on with this. Certainly you could
Speaker 4: try to avoid being sick, right then, this is something
Speaker 4: that we dealt with during the pandemic. And I would
Speaker 4: make the argument that our immune system actually, like I'm
Speaker 4: going to paint with a broadstroke, So I have to
Speaker 4: be a little bit careful here, because like if I
Speaker 4: were talking to an individual person, I might frame this
Speaker 4: slightly different. But our immune system needs to be trained.
Speaker 4: Our immune system needs to the opportunity to practice and
Speaker 4: be strong. So in a way, getting sick is good
Speaker 4: for us because it allows our immune system to get
Speaker 4: used to dealing with this, you know, infection. Clear it,
Speaker 4: and now because it cleared it, your immune system actually
Speaker 4: is stronger than when it started. And if we totally
Speaker 4: avoid it, you know, if we live in a sterile world,
Speaker 4: that's actually quite dangerous.
Speaker 1: Coming back to if we wanted to be preventing of
Speaker 1: long term diseases and things we hear so much about
Speaker 1: information these days as well, it comes back to drevention
Speaker 1: of disease or managing disease right now comes back to
Speaker 1: gut health.
Speaker 4: I would argue, yes, Now, I want to be clear
Speaker 4: on this because you have a reputable show, and I
Speaker 4: don't want to make it sound like I'm being hyperbolic
Speaker 4: in my promises here. Yeah, I'm not making the claim
Speaker 4: this is the only thing. But let me paint this picture.
Speaker 4: Here's this thing that we have been ignoring, and because
Speaker 4: we've been ignoring it, we've made choices with our culture,
Speaker 4: with the way that we live, with what we consider normal,
Speaker 4: We've made choices that actually are causing harm to it.
Speaker 3: Let's address that we all want.
Speaker 1: To take some control and some responsibility for our health,
Speaker 1: and this is I suppose the way that we can
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 4: This is the way that we can do that. Because
Speaker 4: if you repair and restore the gut. From my perspective,
Speaker 4: there is a tremendous opportunity to elevate and enhance your
Speaker 4: health throughout your entire party.
Speaker 2: And I would argue, even if you were well, I
Speaker 2: went through chemotherapy about I don't know, eight years ago. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I went absolutely full noise on the rainbow and healthy
Speaker 2: food throughout it. And I did my own research because
Speaker 2: I don't expect my own colleges, and I didn't expect
Speaker 2: my own colag just to give me a diet, although
Speaker 2: I hear that some centers do now actually, and I
Speaker 2: would put my success of staying really well through the
Speaker 2: chemotherapy down to what I was putting my body, despite
Speaker 2: the fact that the chemo was knocking every other cell
Speaker 2: out of the water. But it definitely helped.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: It's interesting because the way in which we respond to
Speaker 4: these treatments in many cases chemotherapy or aminotherapy is a
Speaker 4: more profound and obvious example because we're doing something so
Speaker 4: extreme all at once. The way in which we respond
Speaker 4: to these streaments quite clearly is associated with what's going
Speaker 4: on in our gut microbiome. So in melanoma research, melanomas
Speaker 4: is the number one cause of death related to skin
Speaker 4: cancer and in melanoma research, for many years, they've been
Speaker 4: using sort of amminotherapy based approaches. There's some research out
Speaker 4: of MD Anderson, which is in Texas and the United States,
Speaker 4: where what they noticed was that when they gave people
Speaker 4: antibiotics prior to the immunotherapy, they didn't do as well.
Speaker 4: And they said, huh, well, maybe they're just sick, because
Speaker 4: if you need antibiotics, you're sick, so maybe it's just
Speaker 4: that that's the case. So they did a randomized control
Speaker 4: trial and actually when they randomized people, it wasn't that
Speaker 4: they were just sick. They still did worse. So the
Speaker 4: theory was maybe the antibiotics are wiping out the gut
Speaker 4: microbio and that's affecting their immune system, that's affecting their
Speaker 4: response to immunotherapy. So they said, well, let's try the
Speaker 4: opposite direction. Instead of wiping it out, let's rebuild it.
Speaker 4: So they gave a fecal transplant to a series of
Speaker 4: patients who had failed They had failed immunotherapy, so these
Speaker 4: are people that are sort of like at a point
Speaker 4: of desperation, and they gave them a fecal transplant, which,
Speaker 4: in other words, means they gave a healthy microbiomeframe from
Speaker 4: another person to these individuals repeated the immunotherapy, and many
Speaker 4: of them, not all of them, but many of them
Speaker 4: had an amazing response to a treatment that they had
Speaker 4: previously failed. And so then they asked one more question
Speaker 4: is the last one where they said, okay, interesting, what
Speaker 4: about fiber because fiber is the fuel for the gut.
Speaker 4: And so they looked at fiber intake and response to
Speaker 4: immunotherapy and they saw amazing things where for every ten
Speaker 4: grams of fiber that a person consumes, they had a
Speaker 4: thirty five percent increased.
Speaker 3: Risk of life as a result. That's incredible.
Speaker 1: Fiber is really an interesting If twenty twenty four was
Speaker 1: the year of protein and us all being told to
Speaker 1: eat the right amount of protein, I feel like twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five is all about fiber. I'm hearing. I'm hearing
Speaker 1: this so much more focusing on this. Look, you mentioned antibiotics,
Speaker 1: and let's just quickly touch on that because a lot
Speaker 1: of time, if you're at the doctor and you are
Speaker 1: prescribed in antibiotic I can't remember the last time I
Speaker 1: was on antibiotics. It will be over a decade ago.
Speaker 1: I think but these days, if you are then the chemistore,
Speaker 1: someone will immediately say to you, oh, you're going to
Speaker 1: need a probiotic or a probiotic or a post you know,
Speaker 1: biotic in things. Do we need to do that if
Speaker 1: we have an antibiotic? And what role does the probiotic have.
Speaker 1: I was under the impression that a supplement like that
Speaker 1: can't actually colonize you'll get my home your microbiome, but
Speaker 1: it might help things as it passes through.
Speaker 4: There's a bit of to be on this question, to
Speaker 4: be honest with you, so I'm going to I'm going
Speaker 4: to lay this out for you. And there's some aspects
Speaker 4: of like what do you do you have to take antibiotics? Okay,
Speaker 4: because that's the question that everyone wants to know.
Speaker 1: So much faster and more so saycty, thank you, Yeah, no.
Speaker 3: That's okay.
Speaker 4: The answer is, in a perfect world, if I had
Speaker 4: my way, and it's a perfect world, you would already
Speaker 4: be eating a very healthful diet that's rich in plant
Speaker 4: based foods. You would already be doing that because that's
Speaker 4: going to put you in a position of strength going
Speaker 4: into the antibiotics. And I would supplement with a fiber
Speaker 4: supplement in addition to that while you're on the antibiotics. Actually,
Speaker 4: I'm a big fan of pre bodic supplements, that means
Speaker 4: fiber supplements for the most part, because that helps you
Speaker 4: to feed and fuel the good guys and you can
Speaker 4: be lifting them up even though the antibiotics are pulling
Speaker 4: them down. You can still be lifting them up, and
Speaker 4: you would continue to do that after the antibiotics for
Speaker 4: two to four weeks at least. You want to avoid
Speaker 4: during this period of time things that make it worse,
Speaker 4: So that to me means sugar and excessive amounts of
Speaker 4: saturated fat and alcohol. Now you don't have to be
Speaker 4: a teetotal or, but like, now is not the time
Speaker 4: to be flogging your body.
Speaker 3: Now is the time to be protecting it.
Speaker 4: So optimal diet, sleep, exercise, time outdoors, fiber supplement, avoiding
Speaker 4: the stuff that hurts your body. This is the way
Speaker 4: that you would approach this. Now, the probotic question, this
Speaker 4: is where the debate exists. Do you take a probotic
Speaker 4: or not? And I could impact this for many minutes.
Speaker 4: The short of it is that there was a study
Speaker 4: out of Israel that called into question whether or not
Speaker 4: probotics are appropriate I don't think that they're necessary for everyone.
Speaker 4: If you were to take a probotic, the one that
Speaker 4: I recommend is called Sacrimices Billardie.
Speaker 3: It's actually a yeast.
Speaker 4: What I like about it is that the yeast will
Speaker 4: not be killed by the antibotics, so you can take it.
Speaker 4: And it's actually been shown with clarity to reduce antibotic
Speaker 4: associated diarrhea and to reduce the risk of developing an
Speaker 4: infection called Chaostridioides difficile. So, and those are the main
Speaker 4: things that we worry about. So that's why you would
Speaker 4: do that. It's not actually required though, Okay for.
Speaker 2: Most interesting interesting we're really good at taking pills and
Speaker 2: or capsules or what supplements and telling ourselves that we're
Speaker 2: doing something for our body, but really we could just
Speaker 2: eat better.
Speaker 4: Well, I think that's where it needs to start. You
Speaker 4: can't you can't out supplement a bad diet. So you can't, seriously,
Speaker 4: you can't. You can't take a A C minus diet
Speaker 4: and then supplement yourself all the way to an eplus
Speaker 4: of health.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've learned that about exercise. Perhaps we need to
Speaker 2: expand that.
Speaker 1: I like that you're listening to the little things in.
Speaker 1: Our guest on the podcast today is doctor Will Bullschwitz,
Speaker 1: a gas stratontologist and US medical director at nutrition company.
Speaker 1: Zoe will be back in just a moment. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about what the best things are that we
Speaker 1: can do to improve our gut health and let's start
Speaker 1: with our nutrition.
Speaker 4: Okay, great, so nutrition, Let's take a zoom out for
Speaker 4: a moment. The way that I approach nutrition is to say,
Speaker 4: what are the things that are missing that if we
Speaker 4: add them, could radically transform our health. That's the right
Speaker 4: place for us to start. We don't need more of
Speaker 4: the stuff that we already have a lot of, So
Speaker 4: what is missing? Well, a big part of what's missing
Speaker 4: is fiber. Francesca, you said that twenty five would be
Speaker 4: the year of fiber. Oh my gosh, would I dance
Speaker 4: a dance a joy? If that is the case, I
Speaker 4: would be doing an Irish jig all over the town.
Speaker 3: And I'm a quite tall person.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's just me, but I feel
Speaker 1: like we're hearing it all of a sudden. That's kind
Speaker 1: of the thing to focus on. Well, is there you go?
Speaker 1: It's good.
Speaker 4: I wrote a New York Times bestselling book called fiber fuel.
Speaker 4: You can see it behind my head if anyone can
Speaker 4: see the video. And it's sold over three hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty thousand copies in the United States. And people told
Speaker 4: me you can never write a successful book about fiber.
Speaker 4: It's too boring, and I said, I'm gonna try. And
Speaker 4: so if people are into fiber, that would be a
Speaker 4: beautiful thing. Fiber is what's missing. Okay, Fiber's what's missing.
Speaker 4: If we take a look out, whether it's the United States,
Speaker 4: Australia or New Zealand, the vast majority of people are
Speaker 4: below the mark of the amount of fiber that they
Speaker 4: would actually need.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: Guidelines and the recommended amount are slightly different in different places,
Speaker 4: so depending on where you look, you may see slightly
Speaker 4: different numbers. But in general, I'm just going to throw
Speaker 4: out the numbers that we use in the United States,
Speaker 4: and I think they're slightly different than they are in
Speaker 4: Australia and New Zealand. In general, women should be getting
Speaker 4: about twenty five grams per day and men should be
Speaker 4: getting about thirty eight and we're below that.
Speaker 2: Tell us what that looks like in terms of actual food.
Speaker 4: Well, if you if you were to you know, some
Speaker 4: things like whole foods tend to be higher in fiber.
Speaker 4: I guess I'll start with this. All plant based foods
Speaker 4: contain fiber. So for the listeners who are saying, okay, well,
Speaker 4: doctor B what has fiber? All fruits, vegetables, whole grains, seeds, nuts, legomes, spices,
Speaker 4: and herbs, they all contain fiber. Mushrooms technically are not plants,
Speaker 4: but to me they're honorary plants because they also have fiber.
Speaker 4: So all of these things what are great sources. Well,
Speaker 4: legomes really are like jam packed and you yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: they're a beautiful thing because like basically this is nature
Speaker 4: has provided us with microbiom food, Like it's fertilizer for
Speaker 4: our gut. So it has fiber and resistant starch and polyphenols,
Speaker 4: which are all the things that are gut microbes gobble
Speaker 4: up and they love. And the one caveat to this
Speaker 4: is that I don't want to make it sound that
Speaker 4: you need as much fiber as possible at every moment
Speaker 4: of every day. Think of your gut like a muscle.
Speaker 4: It needs to be trained, it needs to be made stronger.
Speaker 4: If you go to the gym, I certainly would not
Speaker 4: tell you to put the heaviest weights on the bar
Speaker 4: and lift that on the first day. You would start
Speaker 4: with what you can do, and then you would build
Speaker 4: and you would do more over time. When we approach legomes.
Speaker 4: These are the ultimate gut foods and the reason why
Speaker 4: they make people bloated is because they eat more than
Speaker 4: their gut can handle all at once. So I say
Speaker 4: start low and go slow, and that's how we introduce
Speaker 4: these foods.
Speaker 1: Would you like to discuss farting now? The way I
Speaker 1: am going to throw under the mass. So we're running partners,
Speaker 1: and we early in the morning will hit out and
Speaker 1: and I do fat. I'm fat.
Speaker 2: She loose and she has been concerned about the lagume.
Speaker 2: But but I don't feel bloated though. So can you
Speaker 2: have a lot of high fiber diet and not do
Speaker 2: you just have to expel some gas at some point?
Speaker 3: Well, okay, so a few things.
Speaker 4: Number One, Louise, the good news is you are definitely
Speaker 4: not abnormal. Everyone farts except for my wife, but everyone
Speaker 4: else farts.
Speaker 3: Okay, so including me.
Speaker 4: Number two, Uh, that gas is in some ways a
Speaker 4: beautiful thing.
Speaker 3: Because I want to tell you why. Okay, yeah, here's why.
Speaker 4: So I ignore for a moment that the stigma that
Speaker 4: we've associated with the smell and things like this. Consider
Speaker 4: this that when we get the true benefit from fiber,
Speaker 4: what's happening is the fiber is being transformed and it's
Speaker 4: no longer fiber. It becomes what are called short chain
Speaker 4: fatty acids. So these short chain fatty acids are the
Speaker 4: result of our gut microbes metabolize and consuming the fiber,
Speaker 4: but rate acetate and appropriate. That's what we get, and
Speaker 4: they have healing effects. These short chain fatty acids have
Speaker 4: healing effects throughout the entire body, including our gut microbiome,
Speaker 4: including our gut barrier, including our immune system. All Right,
Speaker 4: so we want more. And when you produce short chain
Speaker 4: fatty acids, you also produce gas. So fermentation, which is
Speaker 4: what we're describing. Fermentation produces both gas and short chain
Speaker 4: fatty acids. You have to produce some gas if you
Speaker 4: want to get the short chain fatty acids. That are
Speaker 4: the most anti inflammatory thing that I've ever come across.
Speaker 4: So that's that's number two.
Speaker 1: It's a good thing.
Speaker 4: One more, that's a great thing. It's a great thing.
Speaker 4: All right, here's the one thing that I do want
Speaker 4: to point out though, for and I think this will
Speaker 4: perhaps Lise, we can get as into this as you
Speaker 4: want to. I'm an open book, I'm an astrologist. This
Speaker 4: is what I do for a living, Okay, But I
Speaker 4: think this also is applicable to your listeners. You might
Speaker 4: notice that you start passing gas before you got a poop.
Speaker 4: You might notice this, ye right, Oftentimes our poop is
Speaker 4: associated with the production of extra gas, and when you
Speaker 4: relieve the bow movement when you defecate, the gas drops
Speaker 4: off dramatically, right that much, so it can be an indicator.
Speaker 4: So for example, if you're going early in the morning
Speaker 4: for a run and you haven't had your morning bower
Speaker 4: movement yet, this is just your body saying, hey, Louise,
Speaker 4: like we got an appointment I expect to see in
Speaker 4: the restroom in a couple.
Speaker 1: We have no idea, Well with this could go, but
Speaker 1: we're going to We're not going to put our listeners that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you've pretty much now that I.
Speaker 2: Know that if either of us seems to taxt sake,
Speaker 2: I'm just running a couple of minutes late.
Speaker 1: It's exactly. The reason is, like, oh, I just have
Speaker 1: to do one more Okay.
Speaker 4: I'm making I'm making you all blush a little bit.
Speaker 1: As you know, we're just our poor listeners. They know
Speaker 1: far too much about us. But it's not it cannot
Speaker 1: be just us. Oh no, and we should be talking
Speaker 1: about it. It's a perfectly normal natural thing. It's all good. Hey,
Speaker 1: you're talking about us fomenting. But fermented foods.
Speaker 4: Good for the gut, massively good for the guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So if I were to mine up, like, what are
Speaker 4: the top things that doctor B recommends? All right, Number one,
Speaker 4: add more variety of plant based foods to your diet.
Speaker 4: That's number one. So plant blessed foods all have the fiber,
Speaker 4: but we also want the different colors. Variety becomes key.
Speaker 4: When we have a diverse diet, it creates a diverse microbiome.
Speaker 4: That's a healthy microbiome. So so my first rule is
Speaker 4: try to get at least thirty unique plant based foods
Speaker 4: per week. That's number one. Number two is fermented food.
Speaker 4: The fast majority of people are not consuming fermented food
Speaker 4: in the industrialized world.
Speaker 3: Yet this is where we came from. Look at it,
Speaker 3: look at look out.
Speaker 4: Across the globe, at all of the beautiful food traditions
Speaker 4: that exist, and every single one of these food traditions.
Speaker 4: Whether you're in the Mediterranean or you're in East Asia
Speaker 4: or wherever you might be, you're going to find that
Speaker 4: fermented food is at the heart and soul of the
Speaker 4: of what they celebrate the most in.
Speaker 3: Their food tradition.
Speaker 4: All right, but we abandoned this because we had canning
Speaker 4: and preservatives and all this stuff. We need to get
Speaker 4: back to living food. So fermented food they come in
Speaker 4: many varieties. It could be sauer krau, kim chi, miso, tempe,
Speaker 4: sour dough, bread, yogurt, kafir, kombucha, there's many more.
Speaker 3: Pickles.
Speaker 4: Pickles are one, so but no matter which What we
Speaker 4: know is that there was a study out of Stanford
Speaker 4: University in the United States. Is there actually some of
Speaker 4: my friends who did the study and over eight weeks,
Speaker 4: by increasing the fermented food intake, they actually had more
Speaker 4: diversity in their got microbial again that's a measure of health.
Speaker 4: And number two, they reduced inflammation in their body. So
Speaker 4: where I'm at is okay, if we want to do
Speaker 4: the things that we're not doing, let's add more plant
Speaker 4: based foods in variety, and let's add more fermented foods
Speaker 4: and then you're going to feel the difference. You should
Speaker 4: feel the difference.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the one is the one that falls off for me.
Speaker 2: I've been oh, I love it, I love it, I
Speaker 2: do love it, but I just it's I forget it.
Speaker 1: So let's eight weeks.
Speaker 2: Frenchisca, I'm going to increase my fermented It's not just
Speaker 2: about nutrition, though, is it.
Speaker 1: When it comes to our gat house. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of other things that we can be doing,
Speaker 1: and it comes down to sleep and stress and exercise,
Speaker 1: you know, not smoking. I use the term. At the moment,
Speaker 1: I'm sheltering from ultra processed food and alcohol and sugar.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot more that we can do than
Speaker 1: jest nutrition.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there really is. And you know, if you're the
Speaker 4: type of person, these people do exist where your gut
Speaker 4: is struggling.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: I think about my patients that have all sort of
Speaker 4: clients or Crohn's disease, and if I were to say,
Speaker 4: increase your fiber, and that's the only thing I say,
Speaker 4: it would be really hard for them. Right, So let's
Speaker 4: take a step back. There's things that you can do
Speaker 4: without lifting a fork. And Francesca did a beautiful job
Speaker 4: there of introducing these concepts sleep. So sleep, to me,
Speaker 4: eight hours is the ideal where we want to be
Speaker 4: consistent bedtime. Don't underrate that consistency is really important. There's
Speaker 4: a difference between going to bed at ten every night
Speaker 4: versus ten one night and one the other night. Even
Speaker 4: if you get eight hours, it's not the same. So
Speaker 4: sleep is free, it's an opportunity for us to take advantage.
Speaker 4: Let's build a schedule around the clock that's based on
Speaker 4: consistency and that supports our health. So one of the
Speaker 4: things that we can do in the morning is get
Speaker 4: outdoors and bring in some morning sunlight. And that morning
Speaker 4: sunlight you will find I promise you try it. If
Speaker 4: you haven't been going outdoors in the morning, you will
Speaker 4: feel energized, you will have more focus, you will get
Speaker 4: more done during the day, and then that night you
Speaker 4: will sleep like a sweet little baby. Yeah, okay, because
Speaker 4: morning sunlight.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: It takes a minute for me to fully unpack this,
Speaker 4: But the bottom line is there's ways in which our
Speaker 4: morning sunlight sets the rhythm in our body so that
Speaker 4: we can enjoy sleep in the evening much better. So
Speaker 4: I recommend that exercise there's different types of exercise. Obviously,
Speaker 4: right running and cardio biking, swimming are not the same
Speaker 4: as strength based training, and they're both beneficial in their
Speaker 4: own way for our got microbes. So much as I
Speaker 4: encourage diversity when it comes to our diet, I also
Speaker 4: recommend diversity in terms of your exercise. Don't just always
Speaker 4: do the same thing, switch it up, try new things.
Speaker 4: Make sure you're doing both cardio and strength based training.
Speaker 4: It's important for all of us. We want to build
Speaker 4: healthy muscle and cardiovasque fitness, make our hearts strong. And then, lastly,
Speaker 4: in terms of stress, I feel like people might be
Speaker 4: a little stressed out there these days. I live in
Speaker 4: the United States. I'm pretty sure you've read the news. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 4: neither can we. So and look, it is what it
Speaker 4: is with regard to that, and I think that that
Speaker 4: affects people more if that's what their world is, whereas
Speaker 4: it affects me less when I spend more time with
Speaker 4: my children off of the internet. So I think finding
Speaker 4: time to reconnect with other humans, being aware that human
Speaker 4: connection is actually deeply ingrained in who we are and
Speaker 4: it's necessary. This is like, this is what we need
Speaker 4: in order to thrive. I also believe that there's a
Speaker 4: place where spirituality needs to be openly acknowledged, and that
Speaker 4: can come in different forms. I'm not it doesn't have
Speaker 4: to be the same thing for you as it is
Speaker 4: for me. But I do believe that if you look
Speaker 4: out through human history, every single culture they were looking
Speaker 4: for a connection. They were asking the question, what is
Speaker 4: my purpose?
Speaker 3: Right? Why am I here? We're still grappling with us.
Speaker 4: We need that last, but not least, the acknowledgement that
Speaker 4: when you're constantly stressed on the go in what I
Speaker 4: would describe as sympathetic overdrive, it's actually very bad for
Speaker 4: our gut and we pay the price. And for some
Speaker 4: people that does manifest literally with gut symptoms. For many
Speaker 4: people that we had nauseated or have pain or diarrhea.
Speaker 4: Just understand that, like your body is actually providing you feedback,
Speaker 4: the stress has gone a little too far, and so
Speaker 4: we need to create. We need to basically build in
Speaker 4: ways in which we take our foot off the gas
Speaker 4: and ideally we push the brakes a little bit, we unwind,
Speaker 4: we relax, We create time with one another, create time
Speaker 4: for human connection.
Speaker 3: Things like this.
Speaker 1: Well, can we just have a quick talk about gut
Speaker 1: health and perimenopause and menopause and things and the dropping
Speaker 1: off of estrogen. What happens to the gat at this
Speaker 1: sort of period of time, this age and stage.
Speaker 4: Well, many people may not realize or it may surprise
Speaker 4: people that our gut actually plays a quite active role
Speaker 4: in the balance of women's hormones.
Speaker 3: And we actually have a term.
Speaker 4: This is a specialized part of the gut microbiome that
Speaker 4: we called the astrobolome, helping to maintain hormonal balance through
Speaker 4: the many different phases of a woman's life. And when
Speaker 4: the gut is in an unhealthy place, then it can
Speaker 4: result in estrogen levels getting drained much more quickly from
Speaker 4: the body, and that's what leads us into perimenopause and
Speaker 4: into menopause. So as women age, it's really important, Like
Speaker 4: I want my wife, my three daughters, I want them
Speaker 4: to be thriving at all stages of life. And so
Speaker 4: it's the acknowledgment that no matter where you are, today
Speaker 4: is the day to start focusing on your gut because
Speaker 4: it's going to help to propel your health and there's
Speaker 4: many different ways that it can. At Zoe, we did
Speaker 4: some research Francesca where we took a look. We're very
Speaker 4: curious and interested in menopause because the vast majority of
Speaker 4: people who use Zoe in the UK are women and
Speaker 4: so and many of them were reaching out saying, hey,
Speaker 4: this is what I'm dealing with. I want to feel better,
Speaker 4: and we want to help, and we wanted to help them,
Speaker 4: and so we asked the question, like, what are some
Speaker 4: of the things that can help, and we discovered a
Speaker 4: quite strong connection between diet and menopausal symptoms, and that
Speaker 4: in essence, as people improve the quality of their diet,
Speaker 4: which means more plant based food, which means less sugar,
Speaker 4: less unhealthy fat, more healthy fat, it's not the fat ist,
Speaker 4: bad healthy fat.
Speaker 3: When people make those.
Speaker 4: Kinds of choices, then actually we found that those particular
Speaker 4: people were less likely to suffer from the symptoms of menopause,
Speaker 4: or at least had a reduction in the burden of symptoms.
Speaker 1: It's just so nice to hear that you're actually looking
Speaker 1: at it from a female perspective, because so much of
Speaker 1: research that has done has been done on college aged males,
Speaker 1: you know, like healthy, healthy male, healthy males. It's really
Speaker 1: good to hear.
Speaker 2: Is there anything else you want to I just want
Speaker 2: to ask one question because this is my biggest, biggest,
Speaker 2: bad bad thing. Salt is salt? What a salt? Quickly, sorry,
Speaker 2: that was just my quick thing.
Speaker 4: Well, so salt. Let's uh picture this for a moment.
Speaker 4: Why are canned foods so salty? Because salt is a preservative,
Speaker 4: and to preserve something means to keep the bacteria out.
Speaker 4: So if you have enough salt, then it does impact
Speaker 4: the bacteria. And there is some evidence that high salt
Speaker 4: in the diet does have consequences within the gut, including
Speaker 4: increasing some risk of autoimmune disease.
Speaker 3: Is the thought. Okay, so.
Speaker 2: Now yours a sugar minus salt, you're the sweet salty one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, saltym Anyways, you know the.
Speaker 4: Interesting thing about that is there may actually be some
Speaker 4: gut microbiom origins for why that would be. Yeah, So
Speaker 4: those those taste preferences, those dietary preferences, they actually found
Speaker 4: that here's a quick example. They found that some people
Speaker 4: love chocolate and some people don't really.
Speaker 3: Care that much.
Speaker 4: And they actually found that there was a gut microbe
Speaker 4: that was producing a specific chemical and that chemical was
Speaker 4: kind of manipulating the brain of the person to crave chocolate,
Speaker 4: so it's interesting to consider that it's possible our cravings
Speaker 4: may be connected back to our microbes.
Speaker 1: I've been manipulated. I like that, and then she let's
Speaker 1: finish on that. Will because I think it's a really
Speaker 1: important thing for everybody to note, because a lot of
Speaker 1: the time, you know, women will hear other women say, oh,
Speaker 1: this worked for me, or I stopped eating gluten, or
Speaker 1: I stopped eating dairy, and it's worked wonders for me.
Speaker 1: But actually, we're all our microbiomes all unique.
Speaker 3: Aren't they completely unique?
Speaker 4: Francesca, if you had an literally identical twin, you would
Speaker 4: only share thirty or thirty five percent of the same microbes. Right,
Speaker 4: your got microbiome on a planet of eight billion people.
Speaker 3: It is our belief.
Speaker 4: We don't have a study, it's impossible to prove this,
Speaker 4: but it is our belief that this is completely unique
Speaker 4: to you, as unique as your fingerprint. And I do
Speaker 4: think that there's this element of there is no one
Speaker 4: size fits all. Now that doesn't mean that it's the
Speaker 4: wild West. There is clearly biology and there are rules
Speaker 4: to nature. But I do believe that ultimately part of
Speaker 4: what we each need to do is become advocates for
Speaker 4: ourselves to find what works. And as a medical doctor,
Speaker 4: I am driven by results. So what I care about
Speaker 4: is that you're better. That's what I care about, and
Speaker 4: how we get there, that's what we're working on together.
Speaker 2: It's fantastic. Thank you so much for your knowledge and
Speaker 2: the way you deliver it. It's just amazing.
Speaker 1: I know, I think I feel like we could talk
Speaker 1: to you for another hour, but let's just keep going.
Speaker 1: We just go on and on and on about it.
Speaker 1: It is just so fascinating. So thank you so much
Speaker 1: for talking us through it and pointing us in the
Speaker 1: right direction. We really appreciate it. Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you so much. And thank you to everyone
Speaker 4: else for hanging out and listening to us tonight.
Speaker 1: Just that one last christ you had to ask one
Speaker 1: more question, didn't you about yourself?
Speaker 2: I know it's bad for other things, so you're not
Speaker 2: gonna they might have been an upside.
Speaker 1: It's like me and Sugar, but I finally accepted the
Speaker 1: fact I know now that I'm not going to get
Speaker 1: that someone's going to tell me it's okay. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's okay. Obviously you know you got you know guys
Speaker 1: and fruit and things like that. But you know, ill
Speaker 1: that added sugar. But I love the way I feel
Speaker 1: like with the salt, you're still just hoping that someone's
Speaker 1: going to try and to go.
Speaker 2: And an actual fact, it's the reverse of that too.
Speaker 2: I needed him to tell me, you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: I love the way he describes our microbiome. I love
Speaker 1: the way he communicates what's going on. I love the
Speaker 1: way he communicates this thing which has been part of
Speaker 1: humans forever and it's evolved and developed, and I don't know,
Speaker 1: it just kind of makes me more interested in taking
Speaker 1: care of my own. Oh.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, you need to have a connection to something to
Speaker 2: to look after it. Maybe I don't know. It's a
Speaker 2: little bit like us doing our weight stuff. When you
Speaker 2: pick something up and you go, gosh, that feels lighter
Speaker 2: than it used to because we've grown some muscles there.
Speaker 2: You start to appreciate the muscle more, you know, and then,
Speaker 2: like you said, treat it like a little bit like
Speaker 2: a muscle. Even though from what remember what Tim said,
Speaker 2: Tim Spector said, we lose it in our bowel movements.
Speaker 2: We lose millions and millions in their replace so that
Speaker 2: there are Friends, Team Ferraily Justine, and then they come
Speaker 2: back again a couple of things.
Speaker 1: Fiber. I just think we're going to hear more and
Speaker 1: more about this. You heard it here first, get your
Speaker 1: fiber in. But I do think that's important. I'll take you.
Speaker 1: It's a really interesting message that we seem to have
Speaker 1: forgotten about while we've been more interested in sugars and
Speaker 1: fats and protein and everything else like that. The second
Speaker 1: thing that struck me, and it seems to be a
Speaker 1: little bit of a theme maybe in this season, was
Speaker 1: the consistency that he mentioned. So that consistency around not
Speaker 1: just nutrition, but your daily routine and in the time
Speaker 1: you go to bed and the time you wake up,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: And I think it's really time to stop thinking of
Speaker 2: consistency as boring, because feeling good is not boring.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: You know, with every little thing that I have been doing,
Speaker 2: I feel better, you know, And I know when I
Speaker 2: stop doing it too, I feel worse. So consistency isn't
Speaker 2: something to be kind of. Oh god, this sounds so boring.
Speaker 1: It's great, But I suppose too that don't need to
Speaker 1: be a big deal. It make something happen. It's not
Speaker 1: like you're having to think about it, like I have
Speaker 1: to go to bed now, because I have to go
Speaker 1: to bed it, you know, in my case, nine thirty.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, bring on the daylight saving seven thirty and
Speaker 2: I can just go it's.
Speaker 3: Bed.
Speaker 2: But I love the morning and and I was thinking
Speaker 2: about this as I came in this morning. It's I
Speaker 2: wish that my kids in some ways, well, my younger
Speaker 2: self understood how gorgeous the morning is and how beautiful
Speaker 2: that morning light is.
Speaker 1: I can remember being I've turned into my mother. I
Speaker 1: can remember being a teenager and I would hear my
Speaker 1: mum gardening summer. It's six am in the morning. I'm like,
Speaker 1: watch doing it. She was having a moment to herself outside.
Speaker 1: The sun had come up, It's quiet, it was lovely,
Speaker 1: and she just really loved that time. And I've turned
Speaker 1: unto that person, you know, since you have kids, you
Speaker 1: got I'm just gonna go up to my own go
Speaker 1: for my walk, over my run, watch the sun come up,
Speaker 1: just have a moment to myself. No, it's good that
Speaker 1: daylight savings flecked, because you and I have been running
Speaker 1: stumbling around on the dark fly too long now.
Speaker 2: But one thing I will say, is that I know
Speaker 2: listeners and myself, Well, nobody's immune to this. It feels
Speaker 2: that we're getting things piled on top of piled on
Speaker 2: top of pilt. But just let's just remember it is
Speaker 2: the little things down little thing and so you know,
Speaker 2: you hear the means and stuff. Oh, I'm gotta eat
Speaker 2: my protein. Oh now they're gonna tell me to eat five.
Speaker 2: Oh now they're going to tell me to sleep eight hours.
Speaker 2: And I just pick one or two and work on
Speaker 2: it slowly.
Speaker 1: Wellre's well said. You don't change your entire diet all
Speaker 1: of a sudden and shovels for a minute. You just
Speaker 1: need to build on it. So the thirty foods a week,
Speaker 1: isn't it a week? No, it's a week a week.
Speaker 1: It's actually not as hard as you think. If you
Speaker 1: just grab a really good seed mix from the supermarket
Speaker 1: and throw it on your salad, you can knock five
Speaker 1: or six things off in one go. Like, there's lots
Speaker 1: of little tricks you can do there to throw those in,
Speaker 1: So that too shouldn't be a big deal. But you're right,
Speaker 1: and he said, just just slowly, just add one one
Speaker 1: little thing a day maybe or a week. Just all
Speaker 1: these things you just take your time on. Each of
Speaker 1: us will have one thing we're not so good at,
Speaker 1: So don't worry about stuff you're okay at. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: pick that one thing you're missing. As well said, what's
Speaker 1: the one thing you know is missing? Is it your
Speaker 1: sleep that you're not great? Is it your stress? Is
Speaker 1: it your fermented foods? Is it your fermented foods? Is
Speaker 1: it your salt or your sugarhol you need to shelter
Speaker 1: from something, just I'm sheltering. Thanks for joining us on
Speaker 1: our new Zealand Heild podcast series, The Little Things. We
Speaker 1: hope you share this podcast with the women in your
Speaker 1: life so we can all have trillions of bacteria working
Speaker 1: their magic in our guns.
Speaker 2: You can follow this podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you
Speaker 2: get your podcasts, and for more on this and other topics,
Speaker 2: get to inzidherld dot co dot zed and we'll catch
Speaker 2: you next time on the Little Things