Just As Well, The Women's Health Podcast - How the Gut Microbiome Changed My Life - and Could Change Yours | Megan Rossi

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

In this episode of Just As Well, gut health expert Dr Megan Rossi joins Gemma Atkinson and Claire Sanderson for an in-depth conversation about the gut microbiome - and how it affects everything from mood swings to menopause. Megan shares how a personal tragedy led her to study the gut, why she once hated it, and what changed her mind. She explains the life stages where the gut plays a crucial role - from infancy to puberty, pregnancy, perimenopause and beyond - and breaks down the science in a way that’s smart and totally accessible. You’ll learn: The difference between probiotics and prebiotics What the “Super Six” food groups are and why they’re vital for gut diversity How your gut health impacts mental health, sleep, hormones, and even taste preferences Why feeding your microbes properly could reduce perimenopausal symptoms — and improve mood and immunity at any age Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Definitely the sets. Full size and minis bundled together? What a steal. And that packaging? So cute. It practically wraps itself. And I know I should be giving them away, but I'm keeping the summer Fridays and rare beauty by Selena Gomez. I don't blame you.

The best holiday beauty sets are only at Sephora. Gift sets from summer Fridays, rare beauty, way and more are going fast. Get full-sized favorites and must-have minis bundled for more value. Shop before they're gone. In-store online at Sephora.com. Hi, I'm Gemma Atkinson. I'm Claire Sanderson, the editor-in-chief of Women's Health UK. And we have just had a lovely chat on Just As well with Dr. Megan Rossi.

She was brilliant, wasn't she? I thoroughly enjoyed it because I learned so much. And I think I'm quite clued up. You know, being the editor-in-chief of Woman's Health, I'm... Yeah, I'm lucky enough to read features that my brilliant team have put together on the daily. and I learn something every day. And I've actually known Megan for years

and I've had a long existing professional relationship with her, but I found today's chat fascinating, which just goes to show how quickly the research in gut health is evolving. Because she said things today that I hadn't heard her say before in other features I've read with her or podcast she's been on. And she took us through the life stages of how important you've got health is from conceiving for your baby to when your child's born, toddlers, teenagers,

Perry's post-perimenopause, everything. The full spectrum. Yeah, so she gives you tips and advice on how to manage each stage. Little hacks to get your kids eat in the Super Six, as she called them, which are the six food groups, which are great for your gut.

She was very realistic, very relatable, I thought. And I love the fact that she was very much anti an all one approach. Like she told us, didn't she, it's daily changes, daily small changes in the long term as opposed to just going all in, because it's not realistic to go all in with stuff, is it? Yeah, and she said if you do go all in,

you're more likely to stop. Or if you're trying to deprive yourself of anything that is bad for your gut, you'll end up wanting to like it more. I especially love what she had to say about the teenage microbiome. I'm there at the moment with my teenager at home and all the hormone fluctuations and the testosterone surges causing my lovely, blonde, beautiful boy one minute to be a little cherub and the next minute to be... She goes wild.

Yeah, like a raven banshee in the house. And I hadn't realised how important the microbiome is at that age. Yeah. And she certainly gave some tips that I'm going to take away into our house. But she talked about the microbiome in perimenopause. And we're both in our 40s. I'm firmly in the perimenopause. I'm older than you.

I'm 47. You're 40. But you think you're heading that way as well. A little look at the things she said, I thought, oh, I've had that. And, you know, occasionally I go through them. Yeah. But she does put you at ease, though. It's not natural.

It's normal. Yes. It's all normal. And the changes that she suggested are very easy to do. Simple advice that we could go home now and find them in our own fridge or quickly pop to the supermarket and buy. We won't tell you what her top tip product is, that she keeps in our own fridge.

But it's going to be a good one and easily accessible. Easily accessible, available in all supermarkets. And she says that it's the one product she keeps in her fridge. And if like myself and Claire, you were wondering the difference between probiotic and prebiotic, Megan goes into that as well. So turn this one up. You will absolutely love it. This is just as well with Megan Rossi.

So our guest today is a leading expert in gut health, specialising in nutrition and gut microbiome. She's a registered dietician with a PhD in gut health and also happens to be a Sunday Times best-selling author. Rightly so, indeed. With the following of over half a million online, she's also the founder of Bio and Me and Smart Strange, which we're going to delve into today,

because I need to know more about this. Please welcome Dr. Megan Rossi. What an introduction. Thanks for having me. Thank you for being here. We're genuinely so excited for this episode because we're going to go into mass detail about the gut microbiome

but also its effects during pre-post peri's because we're kind of in that stage aren't we? We need help. We're in our 40s and we're struggling a bit. The joy of being female but that's why I love the gut health space so much as I find it really empowering particularly

for females. Yeah. Because it's something I don't think you've spoken about a lot. I think it's now it's changing a little bit now with people like yourself. People are now realising for example the gut-brain connection and, you know, how powerful it is for not just feeling good, but kind of everything working well. How did your journey into gut health begin? What made you so excited about it all? Look, I wasn't excited. So I hated the gut, right? So my grandma, who was like my best friend,

she had a really big part in my upbringing because we lost my sister when I was young. My mom was a single mom. So I was really like my grandma was my thing, right? And then the gut took her. So, you know, it put her through chemo surgery. So she died of bowel cancer. So I really hated it. And then I graduated as a dietitian. So I was working in the hospital, sitting a situation with all different types of conditions, whether they had kidney disease, heart disease, different cancers. But it was also really fortunate to be the nutritionist for the Australian Olympic synchristaming team.

So two very different populations, very sick, elite athletes, both coming to me complaining of the gut. And it brought back all those emotions. I was like, what is going on? I hate this. Anyway, and then I thought, you know what? 2010, there wasn't a whole lot of gath research at that stage. I thought, I'm going to do a PhD to help, you know, try to elevate this space. And it was really that PhD that got me going, wow, I'm so sorry, gut for all of the horrible things I said.

You know, you're just misunderstood. And I knew at that stage that I could help people improve their lives in very real and often surprising ways by tapping into this whole new landmark scientific discovery that is our gut microbiome. Was it quite unusual to be studying the gut at that? time? Yeah, like it was very new and that's why I was like there's such a lack of research in this space. I had so many questions. So yeah, you know, my early 20s dealing with poo samples in the lab was kind of not the most glamorous but it was just incredibly rewarding and, you know, I wouldn't change the world. So Megan, you and I go way back actually, don't we? So we first met years ago, not long after I joined Woman's Health, which was eight and a half years ago. So were you

quite fresh to London as that time. I was, yeah, I've been here for a decade now, so it must have been the first year or so, yeah. So you must have been a newbie, yeah, so a year and a year and a half. Is there much difference between the state of health, in your opinion, in the UK, to Australia? I have this perception of all Australians

living on the beach in their bikinis, being super healthy, yeah. Bare foot, yeah. Juice, son. Yeah, those I envision it. There are pockets of that, right? I mean, certainly every time I go back, it seems to regress like the rest of the world, right?

But I do remember when I moved over to the UK, just being really shocked by a food industry here, like walking into a local supermarket and just seeing all of these ultra-processed sandwiches, which you don't get in Australia, right? It's kind of like you make most things from scratch. Now, things are changing in Australia as well, but at that point I was like, wow, this is different.

So, yeah, I mean, it was perfect timing, obviously, because I moved over to work as a research fellow at King's, to do nutrition research and gut health. And I was like, well, actually, we've got a lot of candidates who need support where they got microbiomes. And what is it about the gut that makes it, like you were saying, you apologize to your gut saying I had no idea what an important organ you were. What is it that makes it so important for people?

Yeah, look, I mean, if I had to boil it down, it comes back to three things, right? An obvious one is digestion. So if you think if you've got, it is this nine-meter-long tube that deliver this food. Nine metres? Yeah. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Wait, does it start here?

Yep. Still, it's free from entry all the way to exit. So you think of it like this hollow tube. So the obvious one is digestion. If you don't have good gut lining, no matter how healthy the food to put into your body is, you can just go out the back end. It won't get absorbed to kind of feed,

you know, your skin, your hair, your brain, all of that sort of stuff. So that's the obvious one. The other thing is that 70% of our immune system lives along that 9 meters. So people with better gut health also have more resilient. immune systems. But it's this third one and that's what I did my PhD in and really what's brought the fame to this whole space. And that is a scientific word called a gut macrobium,

which essentially is just the community of all these different microorganisms like the bacteria and some fungi and even some viruses, which work together. And it's these guys that we completely underestimated. So it's quite humbling for the human ego because we used to be like, oh yeah, we regulate hormones, we produce vitamins. We like, you know, dictate brain. But actually, actually were like now discovering a lot of those functions is impacted by gut microbiome. So these organisms are dictating a lot of these areas. So if people will say, I don't know, struggling with acne or feeling lethargic or bad breath or just, you know, that all could be gut related.

So it's a really interesting one. So our gut is literally linked to every single organ in our body. Now, in terms of the gut skin connection, so we have like billions of bacteria on our skin and we know they talk to the trillions of bacteria in our gut. Yeah. But in certain conditions like acne, I would say it still is very much genetic and hormonal that we can't necessarily target via the gut. But other things like, you know, as we'll talk about, you know, going through perimenopause,

those sorts of things, the hormone roller coaster, we know definitely targeting the gut microbiome can help mental health, you know, things like exma, so many other areas. But I guess that's why, you know, I got more into science. communication is because it's a really exciting space, but ultimately it's quite sciencey. So there are areas where actually there's no research. So I'd be like, you know, don't fix eight on you've got health in this space, you know, do X, Y and Z. But actually, for a lot of other cases, it is game changing for how we manage a lot of conditions and prevent them as well. It's fascinating, isn't it? Yeah. So can you lay down the groundwork?

But we're both mums. Well, on yourself, you've got two children. And it can be, a real battle to get children to eat a diverse diet. It sounds like yours are quite good actually because Gorka does all the cooking. Yeah, they're milder half Spanish so they are like a Mediterranean palate. They love it and we always, I'm proud to say actually that it makes me feel like a really smug mum. But they've never had cereal in the life, my kids, every day. They start the day. They always have an omelet between them.

They love an omelet, some cheese, some tomatoes. They love all that. But I am also cautious that because I, I, I, read adotomy, you can confirm if it's true, that the gut microbiome will change through kids to teenagers, to adults, to perimenopause. So I'm cautious of making sure it always stays healthy for them so they don't get sick. Absolutely. You know, it is, it is constantly evolving and changing. There's key periods like we think the first thousand days of a baby's life. So from conception up to kind of their second birthday is when the microbiome is really

starting to embed and teach the immune system. And I think that's why we're We see a lot of research highlighting that if you really train your immune system via your gut microbes, so exposing them to different microbes, you know, people who grow up with pets or grew up in a farm like I did, that they seem to have more diverse microbes younger. They train their immune system to know what to react to and what not to react to. And that kind of sets them up for life. But of course, you know, if you miss those first thousand days of life or something happens, you know, don't freak out.

There's many other interventions. But yeah, like you said, it sounds like your kids have, you know, had a really great start. And then it's a case of, okay, well, what's the next stage? And obviously puberty, right, is the next kind of fundamental thing where hormones are raging. And actually, that's when we first start to see differences between males and females. Yeah. Because you've got the estrogen and progesterone, like soaring in women and then the testosterone. And that actually is kind of bi-directional, right?

So those hormones impact our gut microbes, like who's living? there and how they're acting. But actually we know that our gut microbes also start to help regulate those hormones. And not to mention things like our mental health and our immune system during, you know, puberty. There's a lot going on. So yeah, it's quite an interesting space. Yeah, so we're there in my house at a moment.

My boy, he's a lunatic a lot of the time. He goes from being my lovely little. back to an absolute raging monster quite quickly as well. It can flip like that. I know, it's smelly, all those things going on. But could I adjust his diet then to try and regulate those moods or is it just a given that testosterone is swirling and he is going to be an enress. Yeah, menace.

Yeah, so there is going to be a lot of things you can't control. But I guess the research is suggesting that you can do things. to kind of prevent such aggression or such like high spikes. So what can you do? Yeah. So some of the fundamentals of thinking of these gut microbes is they all like different types of fertilizer. Yeah. So think of, you know, fertilizing a plant, right?

Each different type of microbe, we call it a strain, the scientific name, lacks different types of plants. So instead of just going like you just need your fruit or you just need your veggies, thinking about there's six different plant-based food groups, I call them the super-scentral. I'm not going to quiz you both. I'm thinking about have your kids. Okay, give us a go. One of the super six. One's got a bit of an avocado, surely.

No, the groups. Oh, the groups. Oh, the groups. Oh, sorry, the food, sorry. Eat, vegetables. Yeah. grains. Yeah. Proteins.

No. Oh, nuts and spices. Nutts and seeds. Nuts and seeds. How many is that? They said proteins are legumes, so chickpeas, butter beans. That's it. So we've got them.

Yeah. You got them. I mean, there's a reason why you're a head of women. Help them and sell those. Brilliant. I mean, and that's amazing. So thinking about can you try sneak something from the super six in most days? Yeah.

Right. And obviously there's this ideal diet that we all want our kids to eat. And then there's a reality because especially going through puberty, they're going to want to have a lot of these ultra-processed foods school lunches. Let's not even go there, right? It's out of our control. First school lunches of mine. They pick, she'd pick every, I get at the best school lunches.

lunches on the menu. Yeah. And then she goes in on the day and says I changed it to a cheese sandwich. I'm like, but why you have that every single day? You have a hot, proper meal. Honestly. It can make their own choices. Yeah. You know, I'm sure when my kids are old enough to make their own breakfast, they will go for the cereal. Yeah. Yeah. It's really, I'm just about to go there with my eldest, Archie, and I'm going to join the kind of, the parent group to try change it. Yeah. But I'm kind of like, do I take in the food and then let him get bits? It's just really hard because I know I've seen the research. During these years where, you know, they're growing so much, things are changing their mental

health. They really need to feed their microbiome because we actually have really strong clinical evidence that feeding a microbiome the right food can have an impact on the mental health. And look at the stats of mental health issues in our kids. It's wild. So it's just, it is a real, you probably tell, a really emotive area for me. And I'm like, I don't want him to be excluded because it's a weird kid. So there's that at play. But we need to do better. Like this is, we have the science. And I just, that's my thing with a lot of, you know, what in terms of science translation,

if we've got the science, we have to use it. And that's the whole point of, you know, spending so much government money on research. If we don't translate it. It's like, what a waste. And you feel like the bad parents sometimes. But I'm kind of like kids parties, for example. If my daughter goes to a party, someone will come around. Does she want orange or ibina?

And I say, she's got water. She doesn't want any of them. And me or bless her. She'll say, no, I'll have water. But I was never allowed fizzy drinks or anything growing up. And obviously at the time I was like, oh, Mom, but now I'm like, thank goodness, because that addiction to sugar or whatever it was, the teeth rottinger could have had, whatever, it wasn't there.

But it is hard, especially if you're a single parent or if you're exhausted, you just think, oh, do whatever's easiest. Yeah, easy. But then I'm thinking, no, you've got to stay, you've got to teach her resilience to know that she can't get her own way in life anyway. But it is mum guilt as well that why should your kid be the only one who's not allowed, Harry Bowl for breakfast when on a weekend all the other kids are doing it. Yeah, it's really hard.

And I think the way I'm going to position it is trying to sneak in or add in any extra plants, we need to see that as a win, right? So like if they want to have orange use for breakfast, what I do at the moment is just blend a whole orange, they get all the fibre. And then I sneak in a little bit of frozen cauliflower, which actually blend really smoothly. So actually getting some extra veg, a bit creamy a best. Yeah, exactly. So it's like thinking, how can you add it in?

So they don't feel deprived, and it's just kind of like switching it out. Now, of course, I'm lucky Archie's only four. So there's going to be a point where, you know, maybe he doesn't love his microbes as much as he talks about them now. So there's all different phases, Ryan. You've got to approach it in different ways. But there is really good research highlighting that so we don't just have the bacteria in that nine metres. We've also got an oral microbiome, so bacteria in our mouth. And they also help dictate kind of our taste preferences as well as obviously a taste bud.

So if you start to sneak more plants in, so if a parent's at a stage where the kids are like, I hate plants, you sneak them in, you know, a can of mixed beans and bolognese and blended up or mushrooms, that actually their taste buds start to change and they become more plant-loving. Okay. So you can start to manipulate kind of their food choices. Obviously then there's the society factors that come into it. Yeah. But on a like a physiological level, you know, we are in control more than we think we are. another vegetable, frozen vegetable, which is good to blend into smoothies

that you can't actually taste as courgette. Have you ever tried that? I have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a winner, isn't that? Yeah, you can't taste it. It just makes it thicker. You tried that, yeah.

I like the corsette cake, cogette and chocolate cake. Yeah. And that's my excuse for having chocolate cake. Got a bit of corsette in it. Life's fine. It's got a virgin. I grate carrot into everything

because they don't seem to notice when I've grated carrots. Yeah, it can get away with it. It's back while I'll grate the carrot in. Yeah. And that's the thing. It's finding like easy hacks. And I do the cauliflower because I don't have time to go and cook everything. So I just buy the like pre-cooked frozen cauliflower.

Yeah. So it's like little thing. So it kind of helps with the mum guilt. But also doesn't mean you have to like, you know, slave away in the kitchen and, you know, do all these things when there is a chance of people reject it. And then you'll be super upset about that. Frozen avocado is another one. Yeah. Love it.

For in smoothies. You can buy that from any supermarket in a bag. Chuck it in a freezer. It's a good one. Yeah. You've obviously got smart strains as well, which again, if people were struggling to actually physically eat the food, there's other supplements, there's other things. Tell us about smart strains. Yeah. So I think this whole world of probiotics is really exciting, but the way we've currently been using is very much outdated. So I do my PhD in probiotics. That was one of the key interventions was giving probiotics. So I've seen that each different type of bacteria, like I mentioned, the strain, that's what we call them. They actually do do. different things. So this concept that we should just take a daily probiotic for a general health, there's literally no science behind that. It's kind of just marketing hype. But we do know that

actually there are specific types of bacteria that can do specific things. So the way I describe it in clinic is, you know, if someone has iron deficiency, I wouldn't go and give you a vitamin D supplement and expect your iron deficiency to improve your because they're different nutrients. The same goes with probiotics. They all actually do different things. So, for example, if you want antibiotics, there's really good science to take a specific strain called LGG during your antibiotics to protect your gut, whereas if you want to reduce risk of thrush, vagina thrush reoccurrence, then taking the strains LA14 and LHNO1 with some lactoferrin actually can be really protective.

And that's being shown in like these amazing placebo-controlled trials. Now, I know you look at me going, do I need to write those names? Yeah. That's crazy, but that's all the point of smart strains, right? because it's taking quite a complex science and putting them into a really easy kind of user-friendly, okay, this is what I need for my vagina microbiome. This is what I need for when I'm on antibiotics. And the thing is, there's actually international guidelines from health authorities that literally detail these strains.

It says, if you go on antibiotics, give your patients LGG strain. These formulations never exist on the market. So I was talking about like the translation. It's just like wild that sometimes we've actually. actually got robust science never makes it onto the market shelves because what makes it on is often things that make money which is this concept we should just have more random strains even they've never been studied and it's going to help with general gut health you're lovely i think over here if you're told to take a probiotic with your antibiotic a lot of the time

it's not even mentioned in the same sentence and again you mentioned the vagina microbiome i remember growing up you know bath bombs and stuff used to really irritate me and it's only now as an adult, I think, ah, that's why. You think you're doing it a favour, putting all this pink, foamy liquid around it. Oh, I'm going to smell lovely. No, you're just going to ruin the BH. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's bizarre.

What's sold you in marketing. Yeah, and I guess that's another really exciting space, I think, for women's health, right? Because thrush, 75% of women will experience thrush at some stage in their life, right? So it's very common, right? And we know that antifungal is really helpful in the short term. Relapse rates are huge. There's kind of nothing else. other, like you say, kind of unfragrant soap and, you know, non-sithic nickers and stuff.

So when I saw these like placebo-controlled trials, which is when they give people a fake intervention, a real intervention, and it showed that result of reducing relapse by like three-fold compared to placebo. I was like, this is amazing. But back to your point about general gut health, I wouldn't recommend a probiotic. Oh, I really wouldn't because there just is no science behind that. For general gut health, it's things like fermented food. There's a great clinical trial showing that people who had high cemented food diets, so things like aged cheeses, kaffir, those sorts of things,

actually had more diverse microbes in their gut. And that's kind of what we use nearly as a surrogate measure of gut health at the moment. It's so complex, but we're kind of like typically people with more different types of microbes in their gut, have better gut health, more ozone immune systems. Because you think they've got more skills. Each strain does different things. You want more different types within you. With Amex Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not only satisfy your travel bug, but your taste buds too.

That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. So you mentioned that teens is when the microbiome evolves. What's the next life stage when things start to change up again? Yeah, so things like pregnancy, if you do want to have kids, another hormonal role. holocauster happens. Yeah. So things like, you know, the progesterone really starts to change things like our gut movement. And therefore, a lot of women will experience things like constipation. And obviously that will then change the types of microbes they've got. But also

just during pregnancy, it's really fascinating. The microbiome actually changes. And it changes in a way that is more reflective of what you would see if someone is overweight, where actually your microbes start to hold on and distract more energy from your food. Now that's obviously a physiological thing that's helpful for us because, you know, pregnancy and then the lactate, like, you know, the breastfeeding and growing a few, all that sort of stuff, it uses extra energy. But that's, you know, one of the things we see with the microbiome is it's quite smart. So where it, you know, we need certain nutrients, it really can help, you know,

increase the absorption of that. The post that, when you said constipation, that first post-pregnancy poo, No one warns you about that, do they? I felt like I was birthed another child from literally. It was awful. It takes a few days to get at the courage, doesn't it? Yeah. And also like just things that happen along the way, like antibiotic use, is huge in pregnancy,

particularly if you have a C-section. Yeah, and the painkillers. Yeah. And all of those sorts of things. And obviously they can be life-saving. I really need it, all that sort of stuff. But we need to appreciate it is interrupting our microbiome. And I think there's certainly a case of where perhaps we've been more, we've used certain medications like antibiotics too much.

Yeah. And in cases where actually they might not be needed. And, you know, there's some really interesting research looking at, you know, kids back to, you know, the kids, but also moms, you know, during pregnancy and how often she has antibiotics and whether that impacts her breast milk and those sorts of things. So I think, yeah, we need, there's a lot of factors assigned to impact our microbiome, you know, from daydott. Well, is there not an element of your diet goes a bit out of the window when you're pregnant? So when I think back, I was literally drinking custard. Drinking custard. I would go to the canteen at the magazine brand I worked at at the time and I'd go up to the dessert counter and Jess asked for a cup of custard and I go, I'm pregnant.

And then by the, yes, we can see that your brain then. It's just like, just like, just I want to drink custard. Oh, I was just having like bowls of chips. And I remember I was obsessed with lemon and lime squash. Literally to the point, the minute I gave birth, I threw it all out. I literally couldn't look at it again. It just goes the craving once they're out. But my normally quite balanced diet, which normally includes a lot of salad,

was not a factor when I was pregnant. So that must cause chaos with your microbiome. Yeah, 100%. Especially, you know, that first trimester where you've got that HXG hormone, which really, you know, the pregnancy hormone, which really, you know, increases the nausea. It actually starts to change, like,

parts of your brain, which kind of triggers nausea. Yeah. You know, I know so much about food, nutrition, microbiome, and 100%, I, like, could not face certain healthy foods that I would eat every single day. Like it is so powerful. So you're right. That definitely is changing your microbiome having that impact.

And, you know, being pregnant and going through that, I don't want to put any more pressure on mums, right? Like, it's a bloody hard thing to do. But what I would say is I want to empower you with the science. So at least you know when you're able to, that it is worth trying to really up your nutrition. So particularly from the second trimester, thankfully, because I feel like the first trimester with those hormones, it's like a lot. But actually your Bob's taste preferences start to develop.

So they've done some cool studies where they've fed, obviously, the mum, you know, from second trimester and certain foods like garlic and have other moms haven't had it. And babies which were exposed to that in Euro actually are more garlic loving. So when they're out in the world, right? So actually, if you can, I know it's hard, but, you know, pre-pre-pre-up, like egg for tartar and have it cold. Like this smells often is one that really triggers nausea. Or get someone in your family to, you know, add extra or do some cooking for you and then

having things cold. All that we talk about the smoothies. You can't eat the veggies. Drink them. Yeah. Because it will, from the science, probably impact how easy it is to go through the weaning process with kids and get their taste buds established. And for anyone listening who maybe has just had a big.

cause of antibiotics or he's pregnant or he's just eating and drinking rubbish and now thinking, oh my gosh, I need to make changes. How quick is it to, because you can heal your gut microbiome, can you? How quick is it to do that and how easy is it? Yeah, absolutely. So it actually can be quite a fast thing in terms of, we know that microbes start to change after like three days. Oh, wow. Of what we eat. But of course, you know, they'll start to change. But if you then go back, So if you binge, you know, for a week and then you have a really good week and that sort of thing, then overall they're in a bad place, right? So it needs to, you need to start making changes that are, you know, for life. If you can, I know it's really hard.

So I want people to be really excited by the space, but not be like it's a sprint because when it's actually a marathon. So start to make changes like adding in those super six way you can. Like literally, whatever someone's hanging for dinner tonight, think even if it's like takeaway, I don't care of mixed beans in. Do you know what I mean? Super efficient in terms of you don't need to cook them. They're already cooked. You know, cost a factor, but also a really good source of prebiotics. So different from probiotics, probiotics is those live microbes.

Prebiotics is the fiber for them. The specific ones called galactolicosaccharide, for those who love some science, but really nourishes those microbes. They produce all these amazing anti-inflammatory chemicals, and that also can help regate your appetite. So garlic is a prebiotic. I know that. And Ian is a prebiotic.

I know that. I was like a coffee, didn't we? No. That was, that's a fermented food, coffee. So what are some other prebiotics that we might just have in our cupboards at home? Yeah, so all of your, all of your legion family is a really good source. Things like your leeks, holliflower, you know, even wheat has got fructans a type of prebiotic in it. Yeah.

So again, instead of fixating of like, I have to just have my prebiotics because preotics is one great thing. But there's also these things called polyphenols. Again, not to get too science, people love, I mean, scientists love P-words, right? Provakes, pre-wadics, polyphenols. Post-Biotics, all of these words, polyphenols. But essentially, it's just plant chemicals. Which all comes back to that concept of the super six. Because each different category of those plant groups actually is providing your body with different types of pre-botics, different types of polyphenols.

So that kind of concept of diversity there will then help you get that nourishment. So this comes back to the eating the rainbow. saying that we've all been told, there is, there's truth in that then. You need to eat the rainbows. Because there was a point not so long ago was that only green vegetables. I remember that, you know, the green vegetables are the healthiest and the coloured vegetables have more sugar in them. But that's, there may be some truth in that, but it needs to be ignored because the benefits

far outweigh were. And it's just, I guess, not just the colourful ones, right? Like the whole grains are things like quinoir and buckwheat and oats. You know, you wouldn't think them in a rainbow, but actually they're. They're providing your microbiome with different types of pre-aubics and fibres. So it's not just your fruit and veg. And actually our team at Kings has just received a grant from the government to actually explore this more. Because obviously the government guidelines are still fruit and vat, right?

Yeah, yeah. Which can be very misleading, whereas the science are starting to suggest we need to get the super six. So again, research does take quite some years. We've got like seven years. But the concept will be to see, like to really prove. randomise people to either a really high diverse diet or those who just get your fruit and veg sort of thing and see how important it is to have your legumes, to have your nuts and seeds, again, providing those different types of polyphenols and fertilizers for a microbiome.

And what about the gut brain axis? Can you explain? Because obviously stress is everyday life for a lot of people, isn't it? You're trying to balance career, relationships, kids. And that can have a negative effect on the gut, can't it? Yeah, I think it's one of the most fascinating areas and probably most well studied, I would say. So essentially there is this two-way communication that occurs between our gut and our brain, right? People, you know, have heard things of like the second brain. And the way that, you know, I describe in terms of the mechanisms, because sometimes it can be helpful to understand what's going on. Otherwise, people are like, oh, that's just like hippie-dippy stuff.

So in terms of how they're chatting, right? So if you think of your gut microbes, they can zip messages up, kind of like a mobile phone to your brain. by things like the vagus nerve, people have started to hear that. It's kind of like this instant message system. So that's a mobile phone communication. The second one is why the immune system, remember 70% lives in the gut, right? So if you've got the microbes sensing something's going on, they activate the immune system. That produces inflammatory markers, which then again, you know, alerts the brain in different ways.

And then the third one is where the microbes actually produce chemicals. And that is kind of like the postal service. So when they eat some of our food, like the prebiotic. like the fibres and a lot of polyphenols, they produce these chemicals, some of which then get into our blood and can pass that blood-brain barrier. Wow. So mobile phone, alarm system, postal service, kind of how they're talking. And it's game-changing, particularly, you know, for me as a dietitian nutritionist,

I was always told at university back nearly 20 years ago that food had a role for mental health, right? But it's got to be really careful, maybe not that much, you know, more medications. And there was this amazing landmark study called The Smiles trial, and there's been subsequently it's kind of reconfirming this is a legit thing. But they put people, half of the people with moderate severe depression on a gut-boasting diet, kind of like the Super 6th, very Mediterranean, extra virgin oil, you know, fermented dairy, and the other half got a befriending type of counselling. And they followed them for 12 weeks.

And those in the gut-boasting diet group had a significant improvement in their depression. scores in, I think, over 30% that would have classified them as no longer clinically depressed. In the control group, the counselling group, that was only 8%. And it was just such a really, like, to big... Wow, loan, right? Now, of course, it's important to disclose everyone stayed on the antidepressant medication. So if anyone's watching this, never ever go cold turkey and be like, I'm just going to switch it out for a die and I'm all good, right?

But it certainly does kind of empower people that as an agile, additional therapy, targeting their macrobate through diet can be really powerful for their mental health and maybe earlier stages before they go on medications and certainly in my own clinic with support of the prescribing medic

you know we have gotten people who wanted to come off the antibiotics by focusing on the gut in a lot of a lot of people so because the medication would have well it is affecting the gut as well so it's kind of like a circle whereby it's helping them with the depression

but then it's destroying the gut and then it's helping with depression it's just so it's kind of if you can match the two like you say don't ever go cold turkey. Yeah, yeah. But if you can outbalance one with a good diet, it could help. Yeah, I would say always we need to be careful with, like, the medication.

Because not all medication has a negative impact on the gut, but you're right, certain medications where probably, like, might not be great. I wouldn't say, like, some antipress and some people need to be on them. And I would say that they can still have brilliant gut health, right? Yeah. But, like, certain things like reflux medications, like PPI, so many people on the young kids are on it because reflux is really common. And we know that can potentially have a negative impact on their microbiome.

So I'm always like, you know, if that doesn't work for you as a treatment, because all of people get stuck on it, then you need to look, you know, at other therapies. And we know diet and lifestyle can be really helpful for reflux. So yeah, absolutely, I'm always like, medication certainly has its place. But if we can really use the science to target this new emerging area like the microbiome to help people and therefore maybe they won't need it, so exciting. or as an addition to their medication to kind of supplement it. Yeah.

It's a win for everyone. Before we move on to the next life stage, where the microbiome goes through a change, which I'm going to assume is going to be the perimenopause chaos years that I'm living through. And Gemma has suspicions that you're heading that way as well. You're a bit younger than me, aren't you? I'm 41 this year.

So I don't know if that's too young or not. I'm not sure. No, I was not too young. No, I was definitely head first into it by that. Really? Yeah. So it's different for ever, because it gives you these,

these ages, don't they? Yeah. But it's just different for everyone. But before we want to go on to that, I think listeners would benefit from just a simple explanation of the difference between prebiotic and probiotic, because I've always found that a bit confusing. I know what a prebiotic is,

but for me, probiotics are supplements, but are there other ways to get probiotics on board? And if you can just give us the layman's explanation of what each is. Yeah, absolutely. So the probiotics are, these live microorganisms, so live bacteria, that when taken in an adequate amount, like high enough dose, can have therapeutic benefit. Right.

So actually, probiotics are not fermented food. I think it's a really important to distinguish that, right? Because, for example, if I make kaffir at my house and you make kaffir at your house, which is a fermented type of milk, they would contain different types of bacteria, different types of strains, right? So although they've been linked with health benefits in terms of having CAFIA on that, you know, that diverse diet, that fermentive food diet, actually I couldn't say that your CAFIA will have the right strain of bacteria that will do X, Y and Z. So that's why fermented food for general gut health is really great. Yeah.

But when we want to use the therapeutic approach for probiotics, i.e. you know, saying that we want to reduce your risk of cold and flu, then I would give you the specific proven strains, LGG and BB12 together. or, you know, help baby with colic. It's BB12 strain of bacteria. So they are actually different things and have different purposes. But that's why, you know, taking a probiotic with all random strains, you know, trying to mimic a fermented food is not even need it. Yeah, you don't need it. And it's like, why would you add these things in that, you know, there's no science behind for a therapeutic kind of treatment, right? You need to get very specific when it comes to probiotics.

Femander foods have more different types the better, right? And then you've got the prebiotics, which are literally like the fertilizers. So they feed those different types of microbes. And I very rarely would recommend someone take a prebiatic supplement, because if you're getting the super six in, you're going to get enough different types of prebiotics. And if you've got a sensitive gut, having too many prebiotics can actually irritate things and trigger bloating and altered stools. So a lot of, I'm sure, the listeners will have heard of a low foodbap diet before.

Yes. So it's a medical diet for her. managing irritable bowel syndrome and our team at King's do a lot of research and actually FODMAPs are mostly prebiotic. I've not heard of that diet. Yeah, so it's interesting. It's really helpful but it's a very short-term diet and a lot of people get stuck on it. Actually, they get stuck on what we would therefore be a low prebiotic diet.

So they starve their microbiome. So that can have a very negative impact in the long term. So what would you eat in a Fodmath diet? So you would need to do a lot of switching. So you would take out things like your wheat because that's got prebiotics in it. you couldn't have your garlic and your onion. You couldn't have things like your chickpeas and butter beans. So it's like a four to eight week diet of that restriction.

So it'd be like switching out all individual foods. And actually I've got a table which talks about the switches if you want to do just a lighter version. We could put it to the show notes. But essentially it's quite a restrictive diet and not a healthy diet for four to six weeks. Then you look at if you responded. If you didn't respond, you go back to your normal diet. If you did respond, you would then go through this reintroduction, kind of very systematic, having a little bit of this prebiotic and that probiotic, sorry, that type of FODMAP.

And then you would go through the third stage, which is called personalisation, where it might be a little bit lower in prebiotics, but it's much higher. And you start to train your gut and your microbiome. It could be really helpful in those with IVS. And now Perry's. Yes, so peri menopause. I'm 47 this week, actually. 47.

I didn't know that this week. Yeah. Oh, we need to do a birthday cake episode. Day over 30, do I? No. I don't. So 47 this week and 41 in November. Yeah.

So we're, and I'm very much been in perimenopause for, for you. Since I was about 40, which is why I don't think that you are too young. And I take HRT and I think I manage the symptoms well. But I. What seems we've been getting? So initially I got the classics, the hot sweats and the brain fog. Now I would say my anxiety levels are increased and sleep is elusive. It's, you know, hard to come by.

But I allow work stresses to interrupt sleep. So, you know, I find it harder to switch off. Brain fog is definitely something. I have word blindness, you know, when you're trying to put, And my job, I'm the editor-in-tree for women's health, it involves pitching out to big brands, hosting events, and having not been able to recollect the appropriate words at an optimum time is a problem.

You know, I spoke to Davina McCorn about this, and she says that she has someone in her ear when she's presenting TV shows to help her, when they can see that she's panicking and she can't remember the word she's supposed to say. It's mad how it affects so, because I was going to ask you if there are any genetics because my mum, she flew through the menopause.

She said it was bizarre. She said, I had a few hot sweats but nothing really. My sister, who's 47, is very similar to you at the minute. She's struggling to the point where at work, she's having to go and sit in the back room and just, she means she was in the garden at Christmas fanning herself in December. Because I was thinking, oh, my mum was fine, I'll be fine, but then Nina isn't.

So is there anything? Yeah, yeah, definitely. to know it's going to have a role. In terms of, I guess, the things that we can empower ourselves with, right? There was an observation study, right? So it's not the highest level of evidence, but still, I'm like, let's take what we can get because there hasn't been much research in the space. And I think they lived at like 900 women. And they showed that women who had oily fish and legumes on the daily actually seemed to have delayed the natural menopause by four years. That's a long time. Yeah. So, I mean, that's, you know, pretty good going. So thinking of

things like the omega-3 from the wheelie fish, those pre-buttics from those legumes, you know, starting to manipulate our gut microbiome, which obviously is going to have a really big role. Because I did allude to it before in terms of that hormonal rollercoaster, our microbes are having a role. So yes, the hormones are impacting our gut health because things like estrogen, obviously, going down. estrogen, we've got these like little receptors along that nine-meter gut, right?

So estrogen's got a really important role in strengthening our gut lining. So if it starts to go down, then, you know, for a lot of women, they might experience more leaky or permeable guts. Other things, we know, obviously, the immune system. Eestrogen is really important for regulating our immune system, again, 70% in the gut. Also, our gut lining sensitivity, which is why a lot of women experience more bloating, going through, you know, menopause. You know, estrogen has a role in that. Now, the other thing, though, is kind of, again, coming to the empowering part, the other direction is that our microbes actually can help. regulate estrogen. So what they do, it's a group of the bacteria called the estrabolome,

another sciencey word for you. So the estrabolome is important for turning inactive estrogen to active estrogen. So essentially when our estrogen gets old and, you know, needs to be dumped, it gets dumped into the gut. And normally you would poop that out, right? Yeah. But actually, if you've got those right microbes, the estrabolome, it turns that inactive estrogen back to active estrogen and puts it back into the blood. So obviously going through pen and menopause, you you know, where the, you know, women is not making it like it should. And then actually this recycling is really important. Yeah.

So there's other studies, you know, highlighting that women who eat more plants have a, you know, really high plant diet, again, have lower risk of hot flushes. Other studies looking at omega-3 from your oily fish, again, less night sweats. And other studies looking at things like soybeans. So whether it's in the form of tofu or edamami beans, again, they've got these things called phytoestrogens in them, which can kind of act a little bit like estrogen, help your body out there. Again, seem to have lower, you know, rate to these symptoms. So thinking about adding those foods in as much as you can, again, not going to cancel out the symptoms,

but actually there's some really good research suggesting that it can have quite a notable, significant impact and how people are feeling. I've just got to ride the wave with it, aren't you as well, I guess, because it's a sign. as annoying as they are or will be, it is a sign as well that your body's doing what it's supposed to do, isn't it? It's like, I remind myself of that every month when I have my period, sometimes I'm like, oh gosh, but then I think, no, it's doing its job. You weren't getting your period, it would be a worry?

Yes, yes, no more kids. So it is, but it's interesting that genetics could play a role in it as well. Yeah, I mean, and that's a thing I find exciting and impairing about the microbiome, right? Because there's so much we can't control without genetics. Yeah. You know, you can't go back and like, Mama, you should have married this guy instead. Yeah.

But we can control the types of microbes living in our gut. And as we're seeing from the studies, these microbes can really have measurable impacts in things like the symptoms level of severity of them, things like our mental health, you know, how often we get sick, all of these sorts of things. Anxiety as well, some really cool research coming in in that space as well.

So where we can, targeting the microbiome, and the research is very much at the stage where it's having those super six, having certain foods, like we mentioned, the oily fish, particularly through the menopause, the soybeans and stuff.

But I think it will get to a place. You know, it's still early, like in terms of the discovery, like we still don't know a lot of bacteria living in our gut, but I think we'll get to a place where we can then be even more targeted.

Maybe they'll be more specifically targeted probiotics. Currently don't exist. We need to do the research, but I think it's such an exciting space. So you've, we've gone through the perimenopoles, we're over the hump. So we're in our early 50s, let's say.

Yeah. We've, you know, we've had our final period. So we're in the menopause. How does our microbiome look then? Yeah, a lot less diverse. So remember we said that microbial diversity, micro different types, was a good thing, right? And it does, after the going through pari menopause,

the menopause hits, it does take a dive because the microbes that are stradolone actually feast off some of that estrogen, right? So it kind of acts as a fertilizer in a way. Yeah. So our microbiome starts to resemble more like a male. And we think that might also explain, you know, some risks, you know, as we go through, such as high risk of, you know, cardiovascular disease. Obviously, Eastern's going to, you know, play a role in that as well.

But also things like weight gain and those sorts of things. So yeah. Middle-edged spread. Yeah. Yeah. Just you start just going wider and shorter and what we've got to look forward to. Yeah. But I mean, well, I'm.

would say in terms of that stage because a lot of people are like, well, you know, when is it the end of my gut health? Like when will I know that's really regressing? And if we look physiologically, so like just at what's happening inside your gut, it doesn't necessarily need to regress until you're kind of like in your 80s. Well, that's weird. But of course, many of us, you know, as we get more tired. We don't exercise as much. We know that exercise independent of your diet increases your microbial diversity. You know, we might not be sleeping as much. And again, some great research from my colleagues at Kings have shown that if you're sleeping less, actually the next day you eat loads more kind of extra added sugars and kind of processed foods. Yeah. Yeah. You're just

one of those things. So so many things start to happen in our diet and lifestyle, which then start to really have a negative impact on the macroband that didn't need to happen until we're 80, if you know what I mean. But that's so true, isn't it? I didn't sleep very well the night before last. And we arrived in the studio yesterday and Gemma was going over to get a coffee. And I said, get me a chocolate croissons. Yeah.

I did. I should come back with a chocolate croissons and I ate it. And as I was eating, I'm thinking, this is filthy, but I'm really enjoying it. But it's because I hadn't slept. And you're just so much more prone to eat rubbish, aren't you? Well, I would say, when you go, I mean, you need to accept. this is a real thing and can't override a lot of those hormones and that sleep deprivation. But if you're having the croissant, you know, just say, look, I'm going to have it and enjoy it, but I'm also going to have, you know, half an apple or also going to have a few almonds.

So that's kind of one of my food philosophies I think can be helpful because this whole, like, cutting these foods out forever, you know, is very unrealistic. And a lot of people, they've done studies that if you are really, like, can't have it, you want it more. You're going to binge. Yeah. And then you'll gain more weight. you're, you know, overdue it.

But if you go from a headspace, sort of like, okay, I'm going to have this as a treat, but at the same time, I want to eat something that's going to treat my microbiome. And mechanistically, we know that feeding the microbiome, you know, helps regulating your appetite hormones like GLP1 hormone, the target hormone for a Zempic. Actually, our microbes have a really important part in kind of stimulated production of that. So it's kind of, you know, thinking, you know, quite primitive of being like, I need to feed my microbes because they're my best friend when I'm going to eat. But actually mechanistically, there's loads of signs to how that's going to help with your Appet Regulation,

feel more satisfied with maybe like half a croissant. Because there's GLP1 supplements now that you can buy. They're fled in the market. So these are supplements that they claim mimic the impact of the likes of Manjaro, Zempe, Wagovi. What's your thoughts on that? Not science-based. Yeah, it wouldn't be, would it? No.

But we do know that things like feeding the macrobombs are having the fiber, you know, can help there. But, yeah, I mean, this whole weight loss drug space is a really interesting one in itself. A lot of people don't realize, but you get a lot of gut symptoms because one of the way it works is kind of making you feel really full. So gastroporesis happens where essentially not in everyone, but a lot of people where food gets stuck in your tummy for longer. So you just don't feel hungry. and that's why you lose weight. You don't want it as much. A friend of mine has it, and she's very open about having it.

It's the Monjourno, Mangana. Monjono. And she gets acid reflux a lot with it. Yeah, yeah. She's constantly burping, she said, with it. Yeah. Which I don't know if that's... It's all...

Yeah, yeah. Her food's sitting in your stomach for longer. Yeah. So if you think of that nine metres, the stomach's kind of up there. It's got this little trap door, which prevents the acidic kind of environment of the stomach from going back up the wrong way, the food pipe into your esophagus.

Wow. which is where reflux happens. So it kind of like traps it like that. So it only goes down to the small intestine, the large intestine and then poop it out. But when your food kind of sits in there for longer, actually this is a common symptom in menopause as well because the estrogen kind of changes how the muscle is moving. Then the tractor pops open and the acid moves up and kind of burn. So yeah, there's a lot of sign effects to it, right?

So I think when people go into it, they need to appreciate, you know, there are consequences. And just because you don't want to eat as much, doesn't mean you can just fill your diet with half a Mars bar for breakfast, half a croissant, because you will become malnourished. You will starve your microbiome. And that's going to have really negative impacts on your microbiome in the long term. Well, low mood is a very common symptom as well on that must be linked to your microbiome. Yeah, yeah.

We've got the science, right? Like I said, that Smileschild feeding your microbiome, all of those plants, which when you don't feel hungry because you're appetite suppressed, it's really hard to get your 30 grams in the white brain, right? Yeah. And we've got the, you know, clinical data to show that can increase, you know, you'll increase low mood. So, yeah.

Well, hopefully with more work that you're doing and we're getting the word out there, a lot of people realise there's other options. And you've given me a peace of mind for when I get to 50 plus, that I can, you know, we can manage it, we can all do it together. Thank you so much for joining us. Before you go, we've got some quick-fire questions,

and a little hack or hate game, if that's all. I didn't fret to you in advance to these either, did I? they really are going to be off the calf. So what are your top three daily habits for optimal gut health? I would say first one is the super six. So I literally, like before I have dinner? I think have I had something. If not, okay, which group did I miss?

And I have that. The second one is something I will be honest and don't always stick to. But it's so important. And that is chewing my food at least 20 times. And that's because we don't only start to physically break down the food. but we have enzymes in our saliva, which like to chemically break it down. So specifically, if you're susceptible to bloating or reflux, then you need to chew it to really enhance that absorption so you get melabsorption.

And then the third one, I mean, it has to be de-stressing that got brain access. So doing diaphragm breathing, belly breathing, can't underestimate it. I think I came from very yoga as hippie-dippy-dippy back. ground of like it's not scientific, but we actually have really impressive science showing that doing things like relaxing that gut brain, whether it's got directed yoga flow or whether it is that diaphragmic breathing can really help not just the gut, but also relax that brain, it's kind of bi-directional. By the seven-time world's best leisure airline champions, Air Transat. What's the biggest mistake people make when trying to improve their gut health?

I would say all or nothing approach because if people go and listen to this like I'm having the super six on steroids tonight like just throw everything in a bowl what happens is they have so much fiber now fiber is our gut microbes favorite nutrient hugely beneficial but the thing about fiber is human cells can't digest it

so think of that nine meters digestive tract we actually eat fiber from plants and it goes through most of that digestive tract undigested, unlike things like our protein and our fats, which get from our gut into our blood higher up. Fiber can't, right? Because we don't have those enzymes. Microbes have the enzymes.

So they produce, they break it down and they produce all these amazing anti-inflammatory chemicals, so it's amazing, but they also produce a bit of gas. So if you go from little fibre to loads of fibre, loads of plants, all at once, you're going to get loads of bloating, you know, tummy pain, altered poops and things like that. So it's a case of slow and study. Just like you would train your muscles at the gym, right, for an event. You would never go and just run a marathon. You go through a very rigorous.

Small changes daily, isn't it? The same goes with your gut. You need to like start having, if you're sensitive to legumes, make you bit bloated, then start having one tablespoon every day, second week, two tablespoons. And I know it sounds painful, but seeing it in clinic all the time. Like, it really does teach your gut. And then you're set up for life with a really, you know,

healthy microbiome with all these health benefits. I'm coming to your house for dinner. I've invited myself. What are you going to cook me? I am such a lazy cook. I really am. So what I typically, if someone comes over, no prep, I usually just get one of those mixed stir fry bags.

So like all the different veg, I'd whack that in. Extra virgin olive oil. There's a myth that you can't cook with it. If it's good quality, I always cook with extra vegetable. I mean, you, I'm sure, from, you know, your husband drink. They have a little shots of it in the morning, his mom and dad. So beneficial. Add some garlic in there.

Then I'd add some salmon. So I love, I love salmon. I'm definitely with those Amiga-3s, mental health benefits as well as the other things we spoke about. And then I'd add some mixed grains in there. And then I would treat you to some frozen berries with some kaffir. And I'd whip, like just whip them and it takes two minutes. It turns into like an ice cream. Oh, lovely done that.

It's like the easiest dessert. Sounds nice. Frozen berries, some kaffiria. And it just turns into this like colorful ice cream. ice cream of all different like mixed berries. That's what you'd get. Do you want to come still? Yes.

Oh, and it can of it means obviously. Well, yeah, that sounds lovely, isn't it? And finally, what's the one thing we'll always find in your fridge? You'll always find kaffir. Yeah, I'm a huge fan. And actually, when I go through weaning, you know, my boys, I, you know, after the six months, I give them kaffir instead of milk. So it still obviously has the, the kaffir.

even things like that in it. Now, I will say that if your kids aren't used to kaffir and you haven't drunk it during pregnancy and those sorts of things, then you just start with small amounts because it has live microbes in it. But, you know, I just went straight on because I, you know, have it on the daily.

So, yes, kaffir, my biomekofia. Because bioami is your food range. It is my food baby, yeah, yeah. Essentially, again, just translating that science, you know, into products that are accessible and easy. Right. So you'll go out and buy that.

So Gemma, ha. Yes, this is hack or hate. So I'm going to give you some things and you can either say whether it's a hack and you do it or whether it's a hate and you wouldn't. So I can't ramble. I get your point. Getting up at 5am.

Wouldn't do it. Yes, that's a hate. Drinking lemon water. A hack if I'm a bit consternated. Daily meditation. Hack. Meal prepping every Sunday. Hack.

No caffeine. Affine after 2 o'clock. Definitely, hack. Always doing 10,000 steps. Hack. No screens an hour before bed. A hack, but I can't always commit. Everyone says that.

Everyone said exactly the same. Cold showers. On the fence. Sawness are better, but there's a little bit of science around cold showers. Journaling. Hack. And lastly, matcha flavored everything. Hate.

Yeah. That nach is nice, but not with everything, is it? No. And you have to add so much. added sugar to get past the bitter taste. Yeah, it's a bit earthy, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, well, thank you so much for joining us on Just as well. It's been amazing to meet you, and I'm going to go straight to bow me and get some affair. Yes. Yeah, and thank you. Good luck with everything. Keep going with it all, because we really do need more information about gut health, especially when it comes to children and teenagers.

So, yeah, thank you very much. Thanks for having me, guys. I have a ball. Thank you. Rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door. expertly cleaned and folded. So you could take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you.

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