Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Dr. Steven Gundry on How Your Microbiome Shapes Your Identity | EP 599
Episode Date: April 17, 2025Imagine that your thoughts, cravings—even your emotions—aren’t entirely your own. That they’re being driven by trillions of microscopic organisms living inside you. It sounds like science fict...ion, but in Episode 599 of Passion Struck, Dr. Steven Gundry explains why this is scientific fact.Dr. Gundry, a former cardiothoracic surgeon turned gut health expert, joined me to discuss his new book The Gut-Brain Paradox and the profound connection between your digestive system and your mental state. As he puts it, "We are passengers on a bus driven by our microbiome—and they’ve been at the wheel a lot longer than we have."For full show notes: Key Takeaways:Your Gut Runs the Show: Dr. Gundry explains how trillions of bacteria in your gut send messages that shape your thoughts, cravings, and emotional states.Leaky Gut Is Everywhere: If you’re battling fatigue, autoimmune disease, or mental fog, there’s a high chance you have a leaky gut—and it's reversible.Food as Medicine: Changing what you eat, including eliminating certain lectins and processed foods, can reverse chronic conditions like Parkinson’s, anxiety, and more.Microbes vs. Free Will: The bacteria in your gut may be influencing your decisions more than your conscious mind.Beyond SSRIs: Many antidepressants work by altering the microbiome, not just serotonin levels—a strong argument for gut-first mental health care.Connect with Dr. Steven Gundry: https://drgundry.com/Sponsors:Factor Meals: http://factormeals.com/factormeals50off and use code “FACTOR MEALS 50 OFF”Rosetta Stone: Unlock 25 languages for life at “ROSETTASTONE.com/passionstruck.”Prolon: Reset your health with 15% off at “ProlonLife.com/passionstruck.”Mint Mobile: Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at “MINT MOBILE dot com slash PASSION.”Hims: Start your journey to regrowing hair with Hims. Visit hims.com/PASSIONSTRUCK for your free online visit.Quince: Discover luxury at affordable prices with Quince. Enjoy free shipping and 365-day returns at quince.com/PASSIONNext on Passion Struck:In the next episode of Passion Struck, John sits down with Anne Marie Anderson, an Emmy Award-winning broadcaster, sports journalist, and leadership expert. Anne Marie has spent years breaking barriers in sports media, navigating high-stakes environments, and coaching top athletes and executives on leadership, resilience, and communication. In our conversation, we'll dive into the mental frameworks of high performers, the art of storytelling, and how to build confidence in any field.For more information on advertisers and promo codes, visit Passion Struck Deals.Join the Passion Struck Community!Sign up for the Live Intentionally newsletter, where I share exclusive content, actionable advice, and insights to help you ignite your purpose and live your most intentional life. Get access to practical exercises, inspiring stories, and tools designed to help you grow. Learn more and sign up here.Speaking Engagements & WorkshopsAre you looking to inspire your team, organization, or audience to take intentional action in their lives and careers? I’m available for keynote speaking, workshops, and leadership training on topics such as intentional living, resilience, leadership, and personal growth. Let’s work together to create transformational change. Learn more at johnrmiles.com/speaking.Episode Starter PacksWith over 500 episodes, it can be overwhelming to know where to start. We’ve curated Episode Starter Packs based on key themes like leadership, mental health, and personal growth, making it easier for you to dive into the topics you care about. Check them out at passionstruck.com/starterpacks.Catch More of Passion Struck:My solo episode on The Mattering Mindset in Love – Choose the Love You DeserveCan't miss my episode with Jennifer B. Wallace on the Consequences of Prioritizing Achievements Over MatteringMy episode with The Art of Listening: How to Make People Feel Like They MatterCatch my interview with Laurie Santos on How to Matter in a Busy WorldListen to my solo episode on Fading into Insignificance: The Impact of Un-Mattering in Our Interconnected EraIf you liked the show, please leave us a review—it only takes a moment and helps us reach more people! Don’t forget to include your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally.How to Connect with John:Connect with John on Twitter at @John_RMilesFollow him on Instagram at @John_R_MilesSubscribe to our main YouTube Channel and to our YouTube Clips ChannelFor more insights and resources, visit John’s websiteWant to explore where you stand on the path to becoming Passion Struck? Take our 20-question quiz on Passionstruck.com and find out today!
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Coming up next on Passion Struck.
We are truly a symbiotic organism and bacteria have been around for three billion years.
The most successful life form ever. We've only been around in our current form for about 100,000 years. A lot of us now think that this bacterial part of us, the passengers
are driving the bus, and they're driving the bus for a really good reason, because they've
had a lot of experience with living. And again, I make the argument that they are sentient
beings, they see, not with eyes, like we see, but they can read
the barcodes on neighboring bacteria. We've known this for
many years. It's called quorum sensing. They know who's in the
house. And you go, well, what the heck? How could that be?
Well, they carry messages.
Welcome to Passion Struck.
Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles.
And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips,
and guidance of the world's most inspiring people
and turn their wisdom into practical advice
for you and those around you.
Our mission is to help you unlock
the power of intentionality
so that you can become the best version of yourself.
If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays.
We have long-form interviews the rest of the week
with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists,
military leaders, visionaries, and athletes.
Now, let's go out there and become passion struck.
Welcome to episode 599 of Passion Struck.
Whether you're a long-time listener or joining us for the first time,
I am so grateful you're here.
You've turned into a movement dedicated to unlocking your potential,
living with intention, and making what truly matters, matter most. Before we dive in, let's take a moment
to reflect on the incredible conversation I had earlier in the week.
On Tuesday, I was joined by Laura and Isabelle Hoff, daughters of Wim Hoff, and
authors of Secrets of the Icewomen. We explored how cold exposure, mindset, and
breath work can transform hormone balance,
emotional resilience, and personal power.
And in my upcoming solo episode, number 600,
I'll be making a very special announcement
that marks a major next chapter for this community.
You don't wanna miss it.
Now let me ask you this, what if your thoughts, cravings,
even your emotions, weren't entirely
your own?
What if trillions of microbes inside you were pulling the strings, shaping your mood, metabolism,
and mental health in ways you never imagined?
And what if fixing your gut was the key to unlocking peak cognitive performance, resilience,
and longevity. That's exactly what we're exploring today with Dr. Steven Gundry, renowned medical
researcher, cardiothoracic surgeon, and best-selling author. In his latest book,
The Gut-Brain Paradox, he challenges everything we thought we knew about mental health,
cravings, weight loss, and even free will. In today's conversation, we impact
the groundbreaking science behind
how your gut microbes control your brain,
mood, and metabolism.
Why the war on germs might be making us sicker
and what modern medicine needs to rethink.
How conditions like anxiety, depression,
and even Alzheimer's may actually start in the gut.
And a step-by-step roadmap to healing your gut brain axis and reclaiming your clarity and health.
This episode is a game changer for anyone dealing with brain fog, anxiety, chronic fatigue, or constant cravings.
It's also a blueprint for how to regain control of your biology and your mind.
And if you want to go even deeper, check out our curated episode Starter Packs at passionstruck.com slash starter packs or Spotify. With over 590
episodes, we've organized playlists on topics like biohacking, personal mastery,
and mental resilience to help you find the inspiration that meets you where you
are. And don't forget to subscribe to my Live Intentionally newsletter for
exclusive insights, behind the scenes content and tools to live the life that truly matters.
Now let's get into this fascinating conversation with the one and only Dr. Steven Gundry.
Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your
journey to creating an intentional life.
Now let that journey begin. I am so honored and ecstatic today to have the one and only Dr. Stephen Gundry with me
on Passion Struck.
Welcome, Dr. Gundry.
Hey, thanks for having me, John.
It's great to see you again.
And I think I want to start there.
The last time we spoke, I was in a position I never thought I was going to be in as the
editor in chief of this publication called Bold Business.
And I had developed something called the Bold Leader Spotlight, where we looked
at eight to 10 characteristics of what we thought described someone who was a bold
leader.
And so I interviewed you as a member of that club.
So it's been nearly six years since we last spoke.
And since then, your work has continued to push boundaries of what we know about nutrition,
disease prevention, and now the link between gut and mental well-being.
What inspired you to shift your focus to the gut brain connection for this book? With each kind of passing book, since the plant paradox came out in 2017,
interestingly, the human microbiome project actually finished in 2017.
And with every almost passing month, thanks to that project, we now know who lives
in our microbiome. And for those who don't know yet the microbiome, the microbiome that
just lives in our gut probably has 100 trillion bacteria alone, not to mention fungi and molds
and viruses and worms. And we're now able to identify who all these creatures are and the roles they play in our health.
And because we can now identify who they are,
we can start to see that the types of bacteria,
the balance of good and bad bacteria
really has a huge effect on personality, on depression, anxiety, addictions, mood,
and you can actually do animal experiments and human experiments showing
that manipulating these groups of bacteria with food, for instance, or supplements, for instance,
can have a huge impact on us.
And so this book is a deep dive into the gut brain paradox,
that our brain is basically a good receiver for signals from the cloud of our microbiome. Just put
it another way, you and I are on computers and I got to you by clicking on a link
that took us up to the cloud and here we are.
My computer really doesn't have a lot of computing power.
We've put that up into the cloud.
A lot of us believe that our genome,
human genes is not very big,
but the microbiome genome is enormous,
and this genome actually divides constantly and constantly changes. So many
of us think that we've uploaded our computing power or downloaded our computing power into
our gut and the gut then makes the decisions and then it uploads it. I'm holding up my
phone near my head. It uploads that information to my brain, which is merely a receiver for that
information. And it's an interesting way to think about it, but Hippocrates said 2,500 years ago
that all disease begins in the gut. So I'm just trying to catch up with what he knew 2,500 years
ago. I'm a slow learner. Well, you open the book with incredible patient stories, people with Parkinson's, mental illness,
even addiction, who all improve dramatically by fixing their gut.
How does a single protocol explain such a wide range of transformations?
Really, the single protocol works.
And again, I see patients six days a week even on the weekends
the single protocol works because
If people are watching on video, I have a big sign behind me a painting
the road to health is paved with good
intestines and
This is what Hippocrates taught 2500 years ago. And all of these various people
that are described in the book all had one thing in common. And that is they had a dysbiotic
microbiome. That means they had an imbalance of good guys and bad guys and they all had leaky gut intestinal permeability.
Now, if you'd asked me 25 years ago when I started this part of my career about leaky God, I probably would have told you it's pseudoscience, but thanks to work by professor now at Harvard, Alessio Fasano, who identified
how leaky gut occurs, how lectins and gluten are a big piece of causing leaky gut, and
how we can measure leaky gut with blood tests or stool tests, that's opened up an entire window of opportunity
to show in fact that somebody with Parkinson's can be treated by restoring their microbiome
into balance and stopping their leaky gut, just as an example.
And that same protocol of restoring a balance of microbiome
and stopping leaky gut can treat addictive behavior
and so on down the line.
But about 80% of my practice now is autoimmune patients
who have been everywhere, tried everything
and end up in my office.
And 100% of these people have leaky gut
and intestinal dysbiosis and imbalance of their microbiome.
This works.
And like I say, I'm a slow learner.
Hippocrates clearly knew this 2,500 years ago.
He didn't have the human microbiome project to help him out, but he knew this intuitively.
And I spent the last 25 years trying to figure out how we knew it.
I want to start with this important yet often overlooked scientific feud that you discussed
in chapter one. we knew it. I want to start with this important yet often overlooked scientific feud that you
discuss in chapter one. You really go into germ theory, which is Lewis Pasteur's theory versus
Antoine Nan's terrain theory. And it's interesting because as we all know, for years and years pastors approach dominated modern medicine leading to this
era probably that led to when you were going to medical school, the focus on antibiotics,
germ killing solutions, et cetera. But you actually argue that the train theory was actually
right all along. And if we were to rewrite the medical textbooks today, what fundamental shift do you think needs to happen?
I'll give you a striking example. One of my friends through the years is Dr. Mark Hyman. And Mark and I were talking just a little bit ago.
He has a daughter who's a third year medical student at a very prestigious university.
daughter who's a third year medical student at a very prestigious university. And in her third year, and there are four years of medical school, she has not had a course on the microbiome, which just
flabbergasts him and me. And yet that if we could only give credence to what we now know about the influence of the microbiome.
What Bashamp knew well over almost 200 years ago now that it's this, the microbiome in our
intestines and in our mouth and in our skin, which I call the holobion,
is akin to a tropical rainforest.
And there's all these interconnected species that are dependent on each other.
Bad guys, good guys, but they're all in perfect balance. And Musham was arguing with Pasteur that germs per se were not bad or good.
It was when the balance of this tropical rainforest, or as he called the terrain, became in balance.
That's when a disease or an infection started. And unfortunately, Pasteur was a much better public speaker.
As Stewart was discovered that was bacterial contamination of the wine
grapes being fermented in wine by yeast that caused it to go bad.
And obviously he was a big hit with the King of France, finding that out.
So he was elevated to a great place of honor and Bechamp was relegated to the
obscurity. But as I write about in the book, and I've read every book about both of them,
many of the books cite that on his deathbed, Pasteur called Bechamp and his colleague
Bernard to his bedside and he said, you're right, it was the terrain.
I hope this story is true because it sure makes sense.
So again, we don't even teach this in medical schools.
I'll give you a great story. I was just reading today. So one of my feeds about the new exciting research into the treatment of
IBS and all sort of colitis and what I do every day.
And the article was going on and on about this poor young lady who is on
steroids and other immune suppressing drugs.
And her mother was not happy with the fact
that she was on this.
And the exciting part of the article
was, well, there's now we know so much more
about immune suppressing drugs that we now can really
pinpoint what we should be doing.
And buried down at the bottom of the article
was the fact that this young lady figured out
that it was actually the food that she was eating
was her problem.
And that she now tailors the food that she eats
and she no longer has this problem, she's off of all drugs.
And she's actually created a business
where she provides food services
for people with IBS and ulcerative colitis. And imagine that. But the entire article was
basically, oh, the miracles of all these modern drugs. And I'm a transplant immunologist by
training as a heart surgeon and heart transplant surgeon. And when I have a patient walk
in on these immune suppression drugs, I go, I didn't do a heart transplant on you. You don't
have a kidney transplant. You don't have a liver transplant. So what the heck are you doing on a
transplant drug? And they go, yeah, you're right. What am I doing on that? The immune system is being told to look the other way.
And that's not what we want to do.
We want to find out what the immune system is revved up about.
Hmm.
That's what we do.
Yeah.
It reminds me of one of the interviews I did last year on the podcast with
Dr.
Terry Walls, who you probably know.
Good friend.
And I think hers is, is a story that kind of parallels that she was suffering
from multiple sclerosis, if I have it correct, and had gotten to the point
where she was actually in a wheelchair when she started to change her whole
diet and over time, she found herself riding a bike again and exercising
and living a normal life.
And one of the things that I really love about her work is she does a lot of
patient care in the VA system.
And so veterans who have exhausted all Western medicines, she invites into her
clinic, but says, if you're going to commit to it, you have to commit to exactly
what I tell you to do.
And her results had been pretty fascinating. but says if you're going to commit to it, you have to commit to exactly what I tell you to do.
And her results have been pretty fascinating.
I have a very similar philosophy here. I can show you the path, but it's you who must walk it.
And we can see people who stray. We do leaky gut tests usually every three months in our patients. And we can see slip ups, or we can see
where they're really doing spectacular. And the fun stuff is it's measurable stuff. We can watch it.
Just actually, before I got on this podcast, I have a young man who flew in from Midwest. He's 50 years old.
had really horrible leaky gut, had liver inflammation from his leaky gut. He had vascular inflammation from his leaky gut.
And he's now six months into this and his repeat leaky gut test is, oh, 75% better than six months ago. And his antibodies to the various forms of wheat
are 75% gone compared to six months ago. And his liver inflammation is gone. His vascular inflammation is gone.
And he's just sitting there going,
oh my gosh, look, this works.
This isn't a placebo effect.
He's, oh, I can see it.
Yeah, I didn't make this up.
And the excitement that people see
without immunosuppressant drugs is why I get up every
morning and watch this.
If you're a listener or a viewer, what are some signs that you might have a leaky gut?
I made the bold statement back when I wrote the plant paradox that if you have any disease process, whether it's, oh, a migraine headache, whether
it's high blood pressure, whether it's diabetes, whether it's coronary artery disease, whether
it's arthritis, whether it's a skin rash, whether it's any autoimmune disease, then you have leaky gut. I'm sorry, get over it. And Hippocrates knew this. Hippocrates,
I've tried to read as much as I can about his teachings. Hippocrates believed that all of us
have a green life force energy, which is very California speak, that wants us all to have perfect health
and that there were external factors that would
suppress the expression of this green life force energy.
And Hippocrates thought that a physician's job was to be a detective and to
find out what these external factors were and teach the patient to remove them.
And then the patient's green life force energy would solve the problem, would heal the patient.
And he was right. And all I do is be a detective and teach the patient to remove these external factors. Now, since the human microbiome project, the green life force energy is actually
our microbiome, so maybe we should call it the brown life force energy to be
more descriptive, but our microbiome, this is their home and they would like
their home to be around for a considerable period of
time.
It looks like.
You mentioned Dr. Mark Hyman a few minutes ago and he's also my friend.
I've had him on the show a couple of times and a couple episodes ago that I did with
them, we were talking about the latest book he had published and we were going through biological age and how to extend it compared to our chronicle age.
And so we spent a lot of time also talking about the microbiome.
And one of the things you both talk about, and it's one of the most mind blowing takeaways,
I think from your book is that about half of the cells in our bodies are not actually
human, they're
microbial. And you take this even further by suggesting that we need to rethink what
it even means to be human. Can you expand on that?
My previous book, Gut Check, I introduced people to a little one cell organism called toxoplasmosis, which is a single cell parasite that has,
like many parasites, has two life cycles.
And many parasites have to spend some time in an intermediate host to get to their final
place they really want to get to.
And toxoplasmosis wants to get into a cat, and that's where it wants to go.
And its intermediate host is strangely selected to be a mouse or a rat. Now that's a really,
you would think, a dumb idea because mice and rats are deathly afraid of cats.
and rats are deathly afraid of cats. If they smell cat urine, they run the other direction. But toxoplasmosis gets into a rat or a mouse through contaminated water that a cat has
pooped in. And it basically goes to the brain and literally rewires the brain primarily using dopamine receptors.
And it makes the smell of cat urine sexually stimulating to the rat.
And it also makes the sight of a cat incredibly exciting.
And the rat literally runs to danger and gets eaten.
Now what's so interesting about that is we know
that great apes, particularly chimps,
can be infected with toxoplasmosis.
And why?
Because believe it or not, tigers, big cats,
chimps are one of the favorite foods. And these animals become
emboldened around tigers. Great studies out of Yellowstone Park showing that most wolf pack
leaders are infected with toxoplasmosis because, believe it or or not the predator of a wolf is a cougar a mountain lion and
They become more bold take more risks and that's actually how they become leaders
What's really scary is that humans can be infected with Toxoplasmosis and people who are infected with Toxoplasmosis
for instance the vast majority of motorcycle riders in fatal accidents are infected with To toxoplasmosis. For instance, the vast majority of motorcycle riders
in fatal accidents were infected with toxoplasmosis.
And at one point, the US military was very interested
in infecting troops with toxoplasmosis
so that they would run towards danger.
So the reason I brought that up in that book
and the reason I talk about more of this in this book is the power of a single cell organism to completely rework our thought process for that organism's benefit. benefit and in that case it's a parasite but the parallel the organisms if
they're in balance within us want us to try and get the food that they need to
take care of their apartment building and if everything is in balance like Bush I believe
Then that makes a really good place to live and keeps us alive. In fact
Mark and I obviously and I wrote the longevity paradox that one of the things that to paraphrase
Hippocrates is that death begins in the gut?
and is that death begins in the gut. And you look at all these super old people,
and he and I study them around the world,
none of these people have leaky gut.
They have this incredibly rich, diverse microbiome.
And they have a microbiome that literally
fends off all these environmental toxins.
They eat plastics, for instance, and people go, what?
They eat plastics?
Well, we have bacteria that eat oil spills and plastics are merely petrochemicals.
They're just looking for carbon atoms.
So again, the road to health is paved with good intestines and that's all.
There was, and I know you talk a lot about lectins and that's one of the
things you're known for the most.
But if someone is suffering from leaky gut, what are one or two of the foods
that they're probably eating that they should eliminate completely onto their diet.
I'll give you a great story.
You mentioned this wonderful woman who had Parkinson's
that I start the book with.
And I won't go into her whole story,
but she had very leaky gut.
She was very sensitive to gluten, a component,
a lectin in wheat, rye, barley. There's also a molecule in oats and
corn that cross reacts with gluten, just as an example. And she had antibodies to all these and
we changed her diet, we took these things away. And within a year, her leaky gut was gone. And within a year her Parkinson's symptoms really completely abated.
She was back running again.
She didn't have a tremor anymore.
And I saw her and her husband about a month and a half ago for her two year follow-up.
And she still looked really good.
And she said, I don't know. I think I'm slipping.
I can feel myself slipping.
I don't know what it is, but I'm just not as good the last few months.
And I said, well, let's look at your blood work.
Let's look at your leaky gut.
And sure enough, her leaky gut was still pretty good, but it
was not as good as six months ago.
was still pretty good, but it was not as good as six months ago.
Then she had some antibodies to gluten that she didn't have.
And I said, I know you so well by now, but are you eating out more? Are you going to restaurants?
Are you cheating?
She said, Oh no, I wouldn't cheat.
Why would I?
And I said, well, something's different.
I said, you're getting exposed to gluten.
And her husband perks up and he said,
would sharing a cutting board with somebody
who's cutting bread, regular bread on a cutting board,
do this?
And I said, what do you mean?
He says, well, our son who's 30 moved in with us
about four months ago and he doesn't follow our diet.
And every day he cuts bread on the cutting board
and then we have our bread that is safe
and we use the same cutting board.
And I said, son of a gun, and when did you start noticing you were changing?
And she said, it's when our son moved in with us.
And so we could see it on the blood test.
She knew it. And that was the contamination in her.
Now people go, oh, come on a few breadcrumbs.
If you told me this again, 30 years ago, I would have laughed you out of the room.
But there it was, we could see it. She felt it. And again, Hippocrates was right, just be a
detective. And there it was, that was the thing that was now stopping her green life force energy from expressing itself.
And it sounds so hokey. But I mean, it does. Because when you think about it, like you said,
it's probably just dust on the board. It's not just residual, just a few molecules of gluten. And
some of my what I call my canaries, that is enough to do this.
Again, I would have told you that these people are just crazy.
They're not, and we can actually measure it.
And it's like, son of a gun.
You're right.
Look, your gut is leaky again.
Look, you've got antibodies to gluten.
Where'd you get those from?
There it was, the sun.
I appreciate you sharing that and I want to shift the discussion
to, of all topics, free will. Because you write in the book that microbes don't just live inside of
us, they actually control us. They dictate what we crave, how we think, and even how we feel and this is a radical idea. Can you explain just
how much power these microbes have over our behavior?
To me, again, if I look back, this seems like an incredibly radical idea. But Deepak Chopra has been talking about the intelligence
of single cells, the sentient beings.
Some people now want to talk about the intelligence
of mitochondria, which are the energy producing organelles
in all of our cells, which are actually engulfed bacteria.
And I've come around to the way of thinking that we are truly a symbiotic organism, have been around for three billion years.
The most successful life form ever.
And we've only been around in our current form
for about a hundred thousand years.
And that a lot of us now think that this bacterial
part of us is driving,
the passengers are driving the bus
and they're driving the bus for a really good reason
because they've had a lot of experience with living.
And again, I make the argument
that they are sentient beings.
They see, not with eyes like we see, but they can read the barcodes on neighboring bacteria.
We've known this for many years.
It's called quorum sensing.
They know who's in the house. I'll give you an example. There's a keystone species in our gut
that's called acromonsia mucinophilia.
And there's a company that makes a probiotic acromonsia that
is a living bacteria.
And I'm a big fan of them.
They're called pendulum.
But there are also companies that make dead acrimoncia. In other words,
they're not living. What's really interesting is swallowing
live acrimoncia has measurable effects. But swallowing dead
acrimoncia has measurable effects, but beneficial effects.
And you go, well, what the heck? How could that be? Well, they carry messages.
I had a chapter and got checked my current book that dead men tell no tales, but dead bacteria do.
And so we're beginning, we're getting come to grips with what seems basically just incredibly impossible, but
final I have a Sanskrit
Buddhist scholar is one of my patients and we were discussing this one day about Hippocrates and
Gut health and all disease comes from the gut and he says I'll be back
And he comes back. He says I've read all the Buddha's sayings in Sanskrit. He said, do you know what Buddha said? Buddha was a contemporary of apocrates.
He said, enlightenment comes from the intestines. And I'm going, son of a gun. How did these, these great ancient wisdom, I don't know where the bacteria telling them about
this, but we have to give these guys a little more respect. So I want to ask maybe a follow-up
question to this. And I'll phrase it like this. many people, including myself, struggle with food cravings.
And we think it's a willpower issue. But you suggest that it's actually their gut bacteria
calling the shots. And I think this kind of goes into what you were just talking about.
Can you break down how that works? Yeah, I was first enlightened about this a few books ago. There was a fascinating Chinese study
where they took volunteers and they put them on a 14-day water fast. All they got was water,
which is a long time. And half the group were given 100 calories
of prebiotic fiber.
Now we can't absorb this prebiotic fiber.
We can't digest it.
So it's, we can't get 100 calories from it.
But the gut bacteria, the important gut bacteria,
this is what they love to eat.
And what they found was that the people who
were on a water fast were really hungry. Now, eventually that hunger went away, but it took a
long time. But the people who got the hundred calories of prebiotic fiber had no hunger for
14 days. Now, it's called the gut centric theory of hunger and it basically says
That these guys if their needs are being met they
Send text messages in fact glp1
Which is the in thing are made by gut bacteria and it tells the brain. Hey, we've got everything
We need you don't have to go looking for anything else. We're fine by gut bacteria. And it tells the brain, hey, we've got everything we need. You
don't have to go looking for anything else. We're fine. Now, why are all of us
continually hungry? Why do we want other foods? Well, because as I talk about our
great-great-grandparents ate whole food and they that whole food whole and
There was lots
left over
After we digested it into sugars and amino acids and fats
That kind of filtered down to our colon where most of these guys live
With all this stuff that they like to eat, all this prebiotic fiber.
And so everybody was satisfied.
In fact, go ahead, look at every picture from the 40s, 50s, even 60s of human beings and
everybody was skinny because we were actually eating a lot of whole foods.
In fact, we're eating more calories than them.
Now almost everything is processed or ultra processed and we've stripped away all of this prebiotic fiber. And what happens is that these guys can hear us chewing, they hear us swallowing,
they can hear the stuff coming down, they say, oh boy, it's coming. And nothing arrives. And I go, what the heck? I heard you eating. We've
been gypped, go find some more and keep eating until we get
something. And you see the side effect of that.
I thought that was one of the most fascinating and quite
frankly, disturbing things that I read in the book
is that our bad gut bugs actually hijack our hunger signals making us crave the very foods
like you were just talking about that allow them to multiply. These bad guys can use simple sugars and they can actually use fats that the good guys can't.
And the bad guys have actually gravitated higher in our intestines to grab this stuff
before anybody else can. And people go, wait a minute, they're moving around in your intestines
to grab this stuff. I'll give you an example. One of my offices is in Santa Barbara and the Santa Barbara channel, we have
whale watching and for many years, all we had was the California gray whale.
And they're not exactly cute and they're a little boring, but over the last few
years, we now have huge pods of blue whales.
We now have humpback whales, humpback whales
from Hawaii. And we now have pods of killer whales. And it's what the heck are those doing
in Santa Barbara in the Channel Islands? Well, because with climate change, their food sources
have migrated. And all they do is follow the food sources.
And what I want people to realize is that these bacteria
are sentient beings.
They are following food sources, number one.
And number two, they are directing us, the food consumer,
to get the food sources that they want and
I'm sorry get over it. These guys have had three billion years to work this out
If you're someone who has these bad
microbes
Controlling you and you want to reset your system
and you want to reset your system
to let the good microbiome come into play more. What are some of the best ways to do that in your opinion?
And it's all in the book.
First of all, you gotta starve these bad guys
of what they need.
And those are processed foods, simple sugars and fats.
Number two, you gotta give the good guys what they need
to eat and that includes prebiotic fibers. Inulin is a great prebiotic fiber
in asparagus and artichoke hearts and in the chicory family of vegetables like
radicchio or Belgian endive. You can take supplements like psyllium
husk, like chicory supplements, which work great. But you also have to get a lot of polyphenols in
your diet. Now polyphenols, we've learned really only the last few years, are some of the favorite foods of the good gut bacteria. And polyphenols are these bright, dark
colored fruits and vegetables that you can get. And many of the supplements that I manufacture
Gundry MD are polyphenol based supplements. That's actually what made Gundry MD famous.
that's actually what made Gundry MD famous. So polyphenols, but the third piece of the puzzle
is you've got to get fermented foods into you or the products of fermentation.
And one of the easiest things for everybody to do is add more vinegars into their diet.
Vinegar is a product of fermentation.
It's a post-biotic.
And we now know that it's the products of fermentation
that actually give the good guys, the gut buddies,
the one up on everybody else.
And one of the easiest things for people to do,
get yourself some sparkling water,
buy some balsamic vinegar,
put a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
in a glass of sparkling water,
and have a fake Coke, as I called it years ago.
And it's a great way, or put apple cider vinegar in it.
It's an easy way to give the gut buddies
what they need to eat.
Finally, we know that vitamin D,
the higher your vitamin D level,
the more diverse your microbiome.
And again, the more diverse,
the more this terrain is balanced and diverse,
the better your health.
Well, thank you for sharing that. And I wanted to now switch to another topic
that I think is becoming more prevalent in society
and that's cognitive decline.
And I know whether it's Alzheimer's or dementia,
both are significantly on the rise.
And I've had discussions with neurologists talking about this from a neuroscience standpoint
about how different plaque and amyloids aren't getting cleaned out from the system.
But I'm also wondering, could this also be stemming from gut dysbiosis that is also contributing
to cognitive decline?
Yeah, absolutely.
As my friend Dale Bredesen will remind anyone
who will listen, if the tau protein and amyloid plaque
theory of Alzheimer's or cognitive decline was right, then $20 billion later,
we ought to have an effective drug targeting those. And as anyone knows, this has been
a dismal failure. Every one of these drugs has been a failure, despite cleaning out amyloid
plaque and cow proteins.
So I like to use the example. After 911, all of us remember that all of a sudden, barriers, concrete barriers were erected
in front of government buildings in front of airport entrances,
wherever we thought or suspected a terrorist could drive a car or a truck or something through. bacteria can get through the wall of the gut and they're recognized as attacking.
80% of all of our immune system, our white blood cells are down in our gut.
And there is a way of saying they're an early warning system and they send text messages up to the white blood cells in our brain, which are called microglia.
And these guys are really the body guards of the neurons.
And they get the message, oh my gosh, the army is advancing on the brain.
Do everything you can do to protect these neurons from harm.
And so I like my patients to visualize that these amyloid plaques and these tau proteins
are merely concrete barriers that have been erected in the brain to protect the neurons
from the terrorists who are on the way. And the more people understand that this is merely a response
to what's going on in the gut, that's how, you know, this young lady with Parkinson's
reversed her Parkinson's because there was no longer a threat and we were no longer at threat level
five or whatever it was and we could stand down and we can also watch microglial actually
nibbling like Pac-Man the dendrites of the neurons communicating to other neurons, trying to bring guys back
into the fort circle, the wagons, because the Indians are attacking.
And so we can watch this.
And I was lecturing at a neuroscience conference at Harvard a few years ago
about this, and one of the professors stood up and he says, so what's wrong with
moderation and everything.
And cause I was saying, like, here's the cause of leaky guy.
We got to get these guys stop this.
And he's going, what's wrong with moderation?
And I said, that's fine.
She want moderate memory loss, moderate heart disease, moderate
arthritis, go right ahead.
I don't want that.
He had no response.
I can see why he had no response, given where you were speaking at.
One of the things I wanted to touch on, because as I was reading chapter seven, thought it was something that was important to cover is the topic of SSRIs.
And you make the compelling case that antidepressants like these don't just increase serotonin,
they also alter the microbiome.
And I heard you talking to Ed Mylett about this on his podcast, about how you notice
this because when you take an SSRI, if it's really doing what it's supposed to do,
just increase in serotonin,
then you would expect it to work within 12 to 24 hours,
but that's not how it works.
Correct.
If this is true, should we be looking at healing the gut
as a first treatment for depression
instead of prescribing these types of drugs?
I'm not against pharmaceuticals.
They have a place, but I view them.
If I break my leg, I'm going to let somebody put a cast on it.
And my leg will heal, but I certainly am not going to need
a cast the rest of my life.
Once it's healed, I don't need the cast.
And I view a lot of these pharmaceuticals, whether for
instance, a statin drug or an SSRI as potentially beneficial
until we can fix the underlying problem. And the underlying
problem I submit is gut dysbiosis and a leaky gut and what's interesting with these SSRIs is that
indeed
They do change the gut microbiome into a much more rich
Biodiverse gut microbiome than when you started with.
And people with depression and anxiety
have a really dysbiotic gut microbiome
with some bad actors that have overgrown.
And a lot of this is thanks to the active ingredient
around glyphosate, which actually targets
the tryptophan, serotonin pathway bacteria and kills them and allows
other bugs which are resistant to round up to flourish. And these SSRIs take a month even more
to kick in because the gut microbiome doesn't change instantaneously. It takes quite a bit of time, as I've learned through the years, to change
the gut microbiome.
And so it's the same way, I'll give you another example, metformin, the famous diabetic drug.
We thought there was all these magical, mystical ways that metformin improved mitochondrial
function, et cetera, et cetera.
But now it comes to find out that metformin actually works most of its magic by changing
the microbiome by actually promoting the growth of this keystone species, acromansia.
And it takes a while for it to kick in. And what was interesting to me in patients who I had
or put on metformin to treat their diabetes
or their insulin resistance,
about 30% of them would get really interesting gut issues.
Diarrhea is a known side effect of metformin.
And about 30% of people get diarrhea so bad with metformin
that they can't take it.
And it's because it's changing the gut microbiome,
not because of any side effect of these drugs.
And when you start looking at all of these drugs now,
even for hypertension, you begin to see these changes in the gut microbiome
that are happening from these drugs. So rather than saying, oh, the drug is having this effect on
this person's blood vessels. No, it's having this effect on changing the microbiome. And why don't
we just go and change the microbiome and then we won't need these drugs
And this is what I learned
early on when I was still a professor at Loma Linda having people follow this program and
These people who had operated on were on two or three anti hypertensive drugs. They were
Having hip replacements and they were many of them were diabetics.
And as we went along through the months, they're throwing their blood pressure meds away.
They're throwing their diabetes drugs away or they're lowering their insulin.
And I'm going, this is amazing.
Wow.
Look at this just by having them eat certain foods and not eating other
students and going to the health food store and buying a few supplements.
Look at this.
And that's what made me do a leap of faith and quit as chairman and
professor of heart surgery and set up a clinic where I just teach people eat.
What an idiot.
But, but Hippocrates
was right. And so we see all of these effects just by getting these guys the food they need and
stop swallowing razor blades as I call lectins. Is it hard work? But is it worth it? Most people
think so. So my final question for you, Dr. Gundry,
is gut research is still in its early days.
Where do you think the most important area of the field
is heading in the next five to 10 years?
Well, we talk about personalized medicine,
and we talk about, well, let's look at your genes
and see what your genes determine and snips. We have to
realize that our genome isn't very interesting. There are more genes in corn than in humans.
There's more genes in a sand flea than in humans. But the microbiome genetic material is incredibly
vast. And the cool thing about bacteria is their genome can be
exchanged between bacteria and the viral genome is capable of
changing the bacterial genome instantaneously. And these guys
are constantly dividing. And so they're just
swarming with genetic information. And what we now know, because of the microbiome project,
we can do personalized medicine by knowing which bacteria does what, which messages bacteria send to control our
mitochondrial function, our cellular function. I just
recently came back from the annual meeting of Get Ready for
This, the Society of extra cellular vesicles. And it's like, so we now know that bacteria and plants can send packets of
genetic information to through our body to hook up with a cell a target like a neuron in the brain
hook up with a cell, a target, like a neuron in the brain, to tell that neuron to do something completely different
that will be a benefit or a detriment
to the body as a whole.
And we can now, we can see these text messages.
We can look and find out what that text message is.
And the idea, again, that these little single cell organisms We can look and find out what that text message is.
And the idea again, that these little single cell organisms
are so sophisticated that they can send out pieces
of genetic material that will bind with our genes,
epigenetic activity. It's just the holy cow.
Talk about personalized medicine.
We'll know which bacteria are missing.
Well, we already know which bacteria are missing in certain people.
And the exciting thing is we're beginning to find out what it takes to give each of
these bacteria what they need to grow and prosper.
It's not enough to just swallow these bacteria.
I can assure you, you got to know what they want to eat.
You got to know what the bacteria next to them is making that they also need to eat.
And so it's a complex recipe.
that they also need to eat. And so it's a complex recipe.
And since I was trained as a chef by my mother,
you just have to figure out all the ingredients
that make the perfect cake.
And that's what's gonna be exciting.
Dr. Gundry, congratulations on this fantastic book,
The Gut-Brain Paradox.
It's always such an interesting discussion
every time I have it with you.
And I know you're easily discoverable, but can you tell the listeners the best
place to find out more about you, your work and your products?
So they can go to GundryMD.com and my supplement food company, DrGundry.com.
All about me.
Two YouTube channels, Instagram.
Hopefully I appear when people are surfing the web,
waving at them with some wonderful something to talk about.
And you can get the book wherever books are sold.
I've had multiple New York Times bestsellers.
So they're in most bookstores.
Yep, you've sold millions of them
and have had tens of millions of views on YouTube. Well, sir, thank you're in most bookstores. Yep, you've sold millions of them and have had
tens of millions of views on YouTube. Well sir, thank you so much for coming on today. It was
such an honor. Great to see you again and thanks for having me on your new podcast.
And that's a wrap. What an incredible conversation with Dr. Stephen Gundry. His insights into the
gut-brain connection, the hidden influence of our microbiome, and the groundbreaking science behind the gut-brain paradox have truly reshaped how we think about mental clarity, cravings, energy, and long-term health.
This isn't just about digestion. It's about how we feel, how we think, and how we live.
So as we close out today's episode, I invite you to reflect on a few key takeaways.
What daily choices are you making that either support or sabotage your gut?
Are your cravings and energy crashes actually being driven by your microbiome?
And what would it look like to take back control, not just of your diet, but of your mind?
If today's conversation resonated, please take a moment to leave a five-star review.
It's one of the best ways to help this movement grow and bring conversations like this to more people around the world.
And if someone in your life could benefit from Dr. Gundry's wisdom, send this episode to them. ways to help this movement grow and bring conversations like this to more people around the world.
And if someone in your life could benefit from Dr. Gundry's wisdom, send this episode
to them.
A single share can spark real transformation.
All the resources we discussed, including Dr. Gundry's latest book, are in the show
notes at passionstruck.com.
If you want to see today's conversation, check out the full video on my John R. Miles
YouTube channel.
And while you're there, hit subscribe and join the community.
If you're looking to bring these kinds of insights into your company, your team,
your organization, head over to johnrmiles.com
to learn how we can work together. On our next episode,
number 600, I'll be sharing a powerful solo message that marks a major
milestone for this podcast and this community. We'll celebrate how
far we've come
and I'll be unveiling something brand new that I've been working on behind the scenes for months.
You won't want to miss it. Then I'll be joined by Yangge Mingor Rinpoche, one of the world's
leading voices in mindfulness and meditation. We'll explore how joy and awareness can coexist
with emotional pain. We do a deep dive on the Buddhist perspective of mattering
and how to train your mind to become a tool for healing
and deep present moment living.
It's a beautiful conversation, profound, practical
and grounded in a lifetime of wisdom.
At a certain level, I discovered that I have the panic of panic.
What I call that aversion to panic,
resist feeling of resistance to the panic attacks. The panic of panic, what I call that aversion to panic,
resist feeling of resistance to the panic attacks.
I'm fighting with my panic, actually.
And my father said, don't fight. Welcome the panic.
And I begin to welcome that a bit.
It helps a little bit.
And I thought, oh, now I know the new strategy.
So if I say welcome, then panic will not come back.
It's become a little bit like dog chasing tail, but even that fake welcome helps for me.
And remember, the fee for this show is simple. If you found value in today's episode,
share it. Text it. Post it. Email it to someone who needs to hear it. Because knowledge doesn't change lives, action does.
Until next time, live life passion-struck.