The Blindboy Podcast - Psychobiotics

Episode Date: March 17, 2021

Mental health and its relationship with the gut and food. I chat with UCC professors John Cryan and Ted Dinan about their world-leading research into psychobiotics Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast you gammy panhandlers. This is the first ep- we're nearly up to 200 episodes. I've been making this podcast since late 2017 and I have never missed an episode. Every Wednesday lads. I even did one on Christmas Day. Every Wednesday I've come through with the episode and I've never, I've never let anything

get in the way of recording a podcast episode and this week is the first time that I almost didn't upload a Wednesday podcast because of technology and if you have particularly sensitive ears this is why this week's podcast might sound slightly different so if you've been listening in for the past 10 weeks you'll know that the computer that i record this podcast on is on its last legs while i was waiting for a brand new computer to arrive which was taking ages because of brexit and uk customs so my computer finally packed in it gave up this week it got completely full and it got hot and the fan got overheated and it simply wouldn't let me record anymore but then the brand new computer finally

arrived so i was like fuck it it doesn't matter, who cares? The old computer packed in, but thank God, the new computer arrived. So I set it up today, rubbing my hands together, going, brilliant, can't wait to record the podcast on the brand new computer. But alas, the company who sent me the computer, with the software, I got a bunch of audio software on it in order for me to make music and record this podcast

they sent me all the software which I purchased but they didn't send me any of the activation codes which validate the products including the activation code for my windows so I'm recording this on a computer right now Validate the products. Including the activation code for my Windows.

So. I'm recording this on a computer right now. And every piece of software on the computer. Is the trial version. And I'll be waiting until tomorrow. Before I get my activation codes. So. I almost didn't put out a podcast. Because here's the thing.

Using trial version software. And it's not just one piece of software it's several it means that i can only record audio in in possibly five minute bursts or possibly even three minute bursts depending on which piece of software decides to arbitrarily stop working and remind me that i need to activate it and purchase the full version so I nearly didn't put out a podcast and then I said to myself I can't do that I must put out the podcast no matter what happens I can just tell you what the problem is and we'll try our best so what I'm doing is recording this it can stop at any minute and then when it does stop i have to go back and edit it so you don't notice but it's like trying to record the podcast and there's a dog pulling my leg there's

a dog biting my sock and trying to pull my leg while someone else is throwing ping pong balls at my head so it's it's difficult but luckily i do have a backup plan i do have a backup plan so this week's podcast is actually it's going to be really really good because i have an interview that i did with some people which i've been keeping in my back pocket really really good interesting um interview and a topic which i think you're gonna enjoy and i'm gonna play you that before i do that actually i know i'll tell you what it is i'll tell you what it is because i don't like that suspense shit um i spoke to two professors who are world leading experts in the relationship between mental health and gut bacteria and the food that you eat

and mental health and it's incredibly exciting emerging research so i have a fantastic chat lined up this podcast for you but first i have some things i want to speak about firstly thank you very much for the feedback for last week's podcast it was a mental health podcast um I got a lot of lovely messages I couldn't respond to all of them but I I like doing last week's podcast because when I do a mental health podcast it's not just for ye it's it's an act of therapy for myself there's a bit of self-talk going on and I'm really glad that so many of you found it helpful. Also, something that I've been requested, that I received several requests this week to speak about,

is there was a woman murdered in England called Sarah Everard. And it's very sad and it's very tragic. And there was a lot of grief and anger online particularly from women because of how the murder highlighted the the lack of safety that women feel when they just simply live their lives in society so i had a lot of people asking me to speak about this specifically which makes me feel sad because the reason and i've mentioned this many times the reason i'm getting asked to speak about this is women saying to me will you speak about this because the the certain lads will only listen if another man says it which is very frustrating because if you're one of these lads who all of a sudden it's it's like something may something something which women

are speaking about only makes sense to you when you hear a man say it please work on that and focus instead on listening to women rather than needing something translated through a male voice because when you when you operate like that it contributes to the problem rather than solving it even if the thing that the man is saying makes you have like an awakening the fact that you needed to hear a man say it rather than listen to a woman that um that contributes to the problem so i was asked to speak about just the the everyday violence that women face that men men don't, essentially. And this is something I've actually spoken about before.

This is something I've spoken about before. I did almost an entire episode on it. One of my first ever podcasts back in 2017, the podcast episode is called Yarty a Herne, where I speak about an area where I go jogging where I see an otter called Yorty a Herne who I still see he's got a family now

and I speak about acknowledging the privilege that I have to go running in the dark at night time whenever I want and I don't have to think about my safety sometimes I have to worry will my phone get robbed

in the back of my mind but I don't really have to worry about my physical safety this isn't something this isn't how I navigate my life is such one thing one small thing I do want to point out I brought this up once at a

festival at a chat at a festival i was doing and one lad put his hand up and he said that some men do have to worry about their physical safety when they're going about their daily lives or walking and this lad in particular said that he as a gay man because he happens to walk in a way that's camp he is at risk of violence and harassment so that's worth pointing out and just to relay that that lad's experience when i was at a festival but if you've been looking at the news all week or you've been on social media you'll be aware that lots and lots of women have been sharing their experiences of needing to be very cautious and aware and afraid of their physical safety when they simply try to live their lives in public especially when they're on their own so what can we do as men to adjust our behavior and bring this situation into our awareness so i mean the obvious

one is if you're out walking at night time and you see a woman be aware that she doesn't know who you are and she has good reason to be frightened of you you could be minding your own business so keep physical distance cross the road be very cautious if you're walking behind a woman or a group of women that if you just appear from nowhere your your appearance to just suddenly appear can be very frightening very very frightening and traumatic so if you are at a distance and you're walking on the road and there's a woman a few yards in front of you, maybe make some noise, like jingle your fucking keys or scratch your feet on the ground so that she then becomes aware that there's a lad behind me before you then cross the street.

I mean, offer to walk a woman, if it's your friend, offer to walk her home, if it's someone that you know. If she is walking home and she's on her own and she gives you a text you go, how are you getting on there, do you want me to come and meet you at a certain spot, is that a ask, don't say not all men that's fucking ridiculous, listen when you hear women talking about this stuff, and if you are one of these lads who heard all this stuff during the week on social media and decided to start to think not all men i'm i'm a man and i i don't attack

women on the way home well fair play to you fair play to you that's the that's the bare minimum fair play but instead of saying not all men just go well if you're not someone who attacks women on the way home then how about improving the situation even more by becoming a man who is incredibly aware of your own physical presence and what that might mean to women and what compassionate empathic things can you do to make the streets feel a little bit safer alright, that's all it is make the streets feel a little bit safer

through some self awareness and some mindfulness that's it, and chat to other lads about it, chat to your friends about it normalise it in conversation I did a full podcast on this the podcast is called Yarty a Hearn and you'll find it in my podcast episodes and it's one of the earliest episodes that I made

I can't speak at length about it this week obviously because I have this technological issue which means I have to record everything here in short bursts what I also want to talk about is it's St. Paddy's Day, it's St. Patrick's Day it doesn't

mean much now because we're in quarantine i'm not even going to be drinking because i'm off the drink i'm off cans and what am i doing for patty's day i'm taking a lot of cardboard to the dump and i'm excited about it because it means getting outside of the house so i'm taking cardboard to the dump for patty's day and being excited about going to the dump to put the cardboard there and then being excited about the lack of cardboard in my house once it's gone because that's what quarantine has done to my brain and that's where my level of excitement and expectations are actually maybe what i'll do is i'll like I'll go I'll pretend I'm St. Patrick

and the cardboard that's currently all over my living room floor I'll pretend that that cardboard is snakes and me removing the cardboard and taking it to the dump is me as St. Patrick removing the snakes from Ireland and then I'll go

back to my living room and teach Christianity to the floor that's then I'll go back to my living room and teach Christianity to the floor that's what I'll do but I've I've I've strong opinions about St Patrick's Day St Patrick's Day is uh it's an Irish holiday that's celebrated the world over which i think is is remarkable for such a small country and actually as well i'm i'm involved in there's no saint patrick's day festival this year as such there's no parade because of coronavirus so instead what there is is there's saint patrick's festival it's it's all moved online so the official irish saint patrick's festival i'm involved in that online what they asked me to do this week was to give a daily message to the artists of ireland i did five

little video messages which you can see on saintpatrick'sfestival.ie and you can see it the world over i did five five minute messages for the artists of Ireland which I was asked to do to help artists with their creativity and mental health. Five separate episodes where I speak about what is success, incorporating failure into a process, how to deal with criticism, how I basically use emotional awareness and good mental health practice specifically as an artist to protect my creativity and to avoid creative block and procrastination

so you can check that out if you want to see them also they got me to read out one of my short stories which I think is going out tonight I read out a short story called Jolie which is from my last book it's either set during the Irish famine or it's set in the future

post climate collapse it's about two women who find a dead priest and eat him so I'm really looking forward to the reaction to that because there'll be yanks watching that but anyway I digress I've been kind of rabbiting on now for a few years that i would like to see saint patrick's day because it's already

green in in its theme saint patrick's day is associated with the color green and i think in light of the climate emergency and the biodiversity emergency that we should start rebranding saint patrick's day as being about the environment because the thing is every country in the world is going to have to reduce its carbon footprint if we're to fight the climate emergency okay and to improve biodiversity every country's going to have to reduce its climate or carbon footprint but ireland's a very small country with quite a small carbon footprint so some people say what's the fucking point in ireland becoming green because we're so tiny that if even if we you know get rid of all carbon from ireland and the larger scale of things in the world how can it make a

difference surely it's countries like the US and China and India that need to sort their shit out. And to a certain extent there's an argument, but we've got a tiny carbon footprint but we've got a huge cultural footprint. Like I said,

we're a country of 4 million fucking people and we've two holidays that are celebrated the world over. Patrick's Day and Halloween. Like for a tiny country. That's mad. So our cultural footprint is huge. So if we start to incorporate green, ecological, environmentally friendly, biodiversity friendly themes into St Patrick's Day we can use our massive cultural footprint

to have a large influence on the world which then reduces the carbon footprint to me that seems like a really positive thing to do and it also shifts Paddy's Day away from negative connotations of excessive drinking and smashing pint glasses into people's faces so i want to propose something now this is this is a little advert but it's the type of advert that's i'm really happy to do this and this is something i really believe in and i think it's it's an incredibly positive thing so currently it's national tree week or no it's not National Tree Week now. From the 21st of March to the 28th of March is National Tree Week. Okay? And there's a company called Wolfgang Reforest.

And Wolfgang have put ads out on my podcast before. But basically what Wolfgang Reforest are doing is they're really interested in Irish biodiversity biodiversity and improving irish biodiversity biodiversity is simply the diversity of insects and animals in ireland and how this is rapidly disappearing because of climate change and because of eradication of natural habitats right ireland used to be a rainforest many many years ago years ago, Ireland was, I believe, a temperate rainforest. The whole country was covered with fucking dense forest. And you can imagine the animals and insects and birds that went along with that, that disappeared. We were deforested as a result of colonialism.

When the British colonised Ireland, in particular Oliver Cromwell and afterwards they cut all our forests down and replaced it with pasture land for cows and dairy to be exported so Wolfgang Re Forest are basically they're trying to grow a giant forest in Wicklow of native broadleaf trees now that's the important thing because the Irish government said a couple of years ago that they were going to plant a million trees and then you look into it and you find out that the trees are actually Sitka spruce which are not native trees they're not broadleaf and they're being made not for the climate but they're being made for the logging industry but the government Fine Gael specifically were

pretending that this was some type of noble climate thing that they were doing it wasn't but Wolfgang Reforest is a social enterprise that's literally trying to plant native broadleaf trees for the

sole purpose of improving biodiversity and having more forestry of native broadleaf trees in Ireland, which is a fantastic good thing. So if you want to contribute to this, right, firstly, go to wolfgangreforest.ie because they're reforesting the great oak woods of shillela up in wicklow and for 20 euros a month right if you subscribe to this for 20 euros a month they're going to plant on your behalf 12 native irish trees a year right you're invited if you want to actually come and help to plant your own trees up in Wicklow and when you do this when you essentially sponsor a forest you'll get updates on your trees for the rest of your life so if you're interested in that if you're interested in if you're getting down

about the climate emergency or getting down about biodiversity and you're going what can I do this is a fantastic initiative wolfgangreeforest.ie 20 euros a month and 12 broadleaf trees are planted on your behalf that you can look at I think that's I think that's pretty good stuff lads for National Tree Week

so if you're interested in that wolfgangreeforest.ie so before I go into my interview with the professors about the relationship between food and the gut and mental health let's have a little ocarina pause because of my technological limitations this week

I don't think I can drop the ocarina pause in the middle of the interview so I'm just going to do it now in the middle of the interview. So I'm just going to do it now. Rock City, you're the best fans in the league, bar none. Tickets are on sale now for Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday, April 13th, when the Toronto Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre

in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at TorontoRock.com. it's the girl witness the birth bad things will start to happen evil things of evil it's all

for you no don't the first omen I believe girl is to be the mother mother of what is the most terrifying

666 it's the mark of the devil hey movie of the year it's not real it's not real it's not real who said that

the first omen only theaters April 5th. That was the ocarina pause. You would have heard an advert there in the middle for something. I don't know. Support for this podcast comes from the Patreon page. I write patreon.com forward slash theblindboypodcast. If you're enjoying this podcast, if you listen to it regularly,

please consider becoming a patron. Which essentially just means paying me for the work that I'm doing if you're consuming this podcast. This podcast is my full-time job. This podcast is how I earn a living. It takes up all of my time to create this podcast is my full time job this podcast is how I earn a living it takes up all of my time to create this podcast I love doing it being a patron also means that I have editorial control over what I do

advertisers don't get to tell me what to talk about or how to talk about it this is an independent podcast with full creative control so all i'm looking for really is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month that's it and you get four podcasts a month for that so if you're if you're listening to it and enjoying it ask yourself if i met blind boy in real life would i buy him a pint or a cup of coffee well you can and if you can't afford it if you're not working or you don't have the money and you

can't afford it don't worry you can listen to the podcast for free but if you can't afford it to become a patron then you're paying for the person who can't afford it so everybody gets a podcast I get to earn a living and it's a lovely model based on soundness and kindness patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast follow me on twitch i'm on twitch on thursday nights all right making music to the events of a video game and chatting with people twitch.tv forward slash the blind by podcast thursday nights at 8 30 and subscribe to the podcast suggest it to a friend you know the crack all right so on to the topic of this week's podcast um about about a month ago or a bit longer only two months ago i had the

opportunity to speak with two professors in the emerging field of psychobiotics, Professor John Crayon and Professor Ted Dinan of University College Cork. And it was part of an initiative that was put on by an organization called CorkDiscovers.org, which was a Europe-wide series of talks and public events that were showcasing the work of researchers and Cork Discovers was specifically about drawing attention to important research work that's been done in the city of Cork and professors John Kryan and Ted Denaan are world leaders in psychobiotics and they wrote a book called The Psychobiotic revolution and what this is essentially it's how our mental health how our brains our emotions our mental health is affected by bacteria in our guts in our stomachs and the food that we eat so basically it's how how the

food we consume and the health of our stomachs impacts our mental health. And it's an emerging field and it's incredibly exciting. And I had a chat with these two professors. And it's one I had in my back pocket. Like I said, because I was worried about this PC packing in, I had this little interview in my back pocket going, this pc packing in i had this little interview in my back pocket going right if something goes terribly wrong at least i have this interview to put out so i can get things sorted so thank fuck i have this interview to put it out this week and it's really enjoyable and i hope you like it so here's the crack before i get into it actually before i get into it so the professors speak about the importance of fermented food

in that that we should bring fermented food into our diets to have a healthy gut and since i recorded this podcast two months ago i started to get into fermented food in particularly making my own fermented food i'm talking about things like sauerkraut and kimchi okay and once you hear this interview you're probably going to want to make your own fermented food and I just want to give you just little pointers that I've learned so you don't make the mistakes that I make I've been making my own kimchi kimchi is a type of Korean fermented cabbage it's very spicy it's fizzy

it's a little bit of an acquired taste but it is incredibly tasty and I love kimchi and I make kimchi stew and what I've learned with kimchi and sauerkraut and a lot of fermented foods sometimes when you buy them in shops

they don't contain the beneficial fermented bacteria because a lot of the stuff you buy in shops is actually pasteurized and the stuff that's like would you call it raw kimchi the stuff that contains the beneficial bacteria is very very expensive to purchase i've found so i've been making my own kimchi you can get tons of recipes online so here's two little tips that i will say to you it's it's cabbage it's cabbage that you ferment in jars and when you make it yourself it's really inexpensive there's two important ingredients there's the right type of cabbage and there's a korean chili paste called gochujang which is very easy to get in any asian store or you can order it online as

well so here's what i've learned from making kimchi um firstly don't use tap water because the chlorine in the tap will not allow fermentation to occur so use water that you filter yourself with a water filter or just simple bottled water okay secondly when you're looking up recipes for kimchi they always suggest using napa cabbage in ireland napa cabbage is called chinese leaves and you can get it in most supermarkets when you see a product called chinese leaves it looks a bit like lettuce that's what napa cabbage is so if you fancy making kimchi don't use tap water and napa cabbage is called chinese leaves so here we go here is the interview with professors john crying and ted dinan from ucc

about psychobiotics so um ye lads are you're both in ucc and you're working in the area of psychobiotics is it fair to say you're in the area of psychobiotics? And what is that? Well, psychobiotics is a term that John and I introduced into the literature about a decade ago. And it really refers to bacteria, which when we take them in, when we ingest them, can positively benefit our mental health. So we describe any bacteria that will positively impact our mental health as a psychobiotic. And so I'm familiar with terms like probiotic. Yeah. Is it in the same territory?

Like, here's just from what I've been reading, right? Now, tell me if I'm wrong. Yeah. Just from what I've been reading, now tell me if I'm wrong. Are ye lads trying to find basically a version of Yakult that improves your mental health? That would be a great goal in one way.

What we're really trying to understand is basically over the last decade or so, there's been a real interest in medicine in general about what are the bacteria in your gut, how they're influencing all aspects of your health, whether it's your immune health, your gut health, your cardiovascular health, et cetera,

where Ted and I have been working on is really trying to see how these bacteria that we have in our gut, that we get on the day we're born, and that travel with us the entire of our life, how they could also be relevant to our mental health and help in protecting us during times of stress, etc. And then can we generate or can we look at specific ways of manipulating them, bacteria,

either through these kind of probiotic drinks or by other means through diet. In particular, we're really interested in the relationship between food and mood and how diet could be playing a role in that, in shaping our behaviour and in being a positive influence on our overall stress resilience. And that's...

There's an enormous quantity of bacteria in the intestine. In your average adult, there's over a kilogram of bacteria, which is really almost the weight of the human brain. It's a virtual organ in its own right, that collection of microbes in our intestine. And really, those bacteria, they produce a lot of substances that our brains and our other organs in the body actually need. So we really are very dependent upon those bacteria.

And of course, they're very dependent on us as well because we feed them. So it's a two-way process. What's the most basic description? So if I eat a dinner, right, are these bacteria responsible in helping break down the necessary nutrients for that to go into my body and then my brain? Is that how that works? Yeah, it is.

Yeah, at one level, for sure. I mean, there are many processes involved. But for example, if you have a lot of fiber, let's say from green vegetables, fiber is resistant to the normal digestive processes, the acids and the various things, the enzymes that are normally breaking down other things. But fibers, a lot of them are resistant to that. And so they're broken down, acted on by the bacteria in a process. It's kind of like a fermentation process in the gut. And then these fibers are turned into chemicals that our bodies wouldn't have without the bacteria acting on them. And some of these

chemicals are really good in providing energy to the gut. But also we're learning more and more about how some of these chemicals can then get to the brain and also influence the brain. And so we're beginning to see that you can either, you have a number of options then. You could change your diet and change what comes in to act on, so increasing fiber would be, we would think would be a good thing to try and do that if you can tolerate it. Or you can change the bacteria itself and try and create an environment where there is good bacteria that are able to work on these fibers. Because if you take all the fiber you want, if you don't have the right bacteria, it won't make any difference.

So it's kind of a, it's a real process overall. What we've learned over the years is that, like, you know, we've done some studies where we've allowed animals grow up without bacteria. And this is probably some of the best evidence that we've had. And when that happens, the brain doesn't develop normally so this is a really extreme situation these animals grow up in how do you do that to an animal how does an animal grow up with no bacteria so you basically it's delivered very uh it's and in this case we work with mice so so mice that they can grow up without bacteria because we keep them in a complete sterile environment they're born by because we get we get the bacteria at birth it's kind of like a birthday present from your mom as you as you're being born so these are born by c-section and they're kept in

a completely sterile environment and then they're they allow us to do it and the studies that ted and i've been working on we've shown that in animals, the brains just don't develop the same way. And so that's a really extreme situation, but it's confirming it to us that you need signals from these bacteria to have your brain work in an appropriate way. And that kind of underpins a lot of the work we've been doing on psychobiotics, because by psychobiotics, then we're targeting the microbiome. We're looking at it as kind of the place where we could actually look at it and to try and shift what's going on in the brain towards, you know, in a more medicinal type of approach. And as John says, the brains of these animals who are germ-free, who have no bacteria, the brains don't develop normally. And of course, as a result of that,

their behavior isn't normal. You know, mice are sociable creatures, just like we are. And if you give a mouse the opportunity to interact with another mouse, of course it will do that. But when you look at germ-free mice who have no bacteria, if you give them the opportunity to interact with another mouse or let's say within an inanimate object like a pen they're as likely to spend the time with the pen as they are with another mouse so their social behavior is radically altered

and they have other alterations oh my god wow yeah yeah and stress responses. Is it fair to say that creatures that are social, such as mice and humans, that our social interactions with other people also benefit our bacteria? That true exchange of meeting with people, is that something? That's such a brilliant point, Blaine. But it's something we're really interested in because you start to, you know, when we found these really amazing discoveries about the brain and the behaviour of these animals, we started thinking about, you know, if we are in a social environment, bacteria do get spread from one to the other. And so that perhaps there is a relationship there. And so we've been collaborating with some of our colleagues in the school of, in the zoology department in UCC as well.

So that's mice and that's mammals. What if you went back to look at other parts of the animal kingdom? Like, you know, even as far back as insects, like bees and locusts and ants, and all of their social interactions are also driven by their bacteria and so people are beginning to really start to see that there's something really critical about bacteria in the gut and the social brain across the animal kingdom and where that might come to its extreme situation is then in humans, where we have altered sociability and altered social systems.

And, you know, we've been working on this in the context perhaps of the social deficits in autism, but also in social anxiety disorder, where we're beginning to see changes in the bacteria that could also be relevant to that. changes in the bacteria that could also be relevant to that. And so, you know, now in this lockdown world where we're changing our social dynamics and changing everything, the question is, are we also changing our bacteria? And whether there's going to be any long-term consequences of that and how that bacteria signals to the brain. We don't know right now, but it's something that we are quite aware of.

And when we live in close proximity to people, I mean, we do share bacteria with them. And not just with people, with animals as well. I mean, if you've got a pet dog, you know, you're going to exchange bacteria with the dog and the dog will have some bacteria that would have come from humans and vice versa. And people, you know, and this is something that you might be interested in because people start to think about bacteria as something different to us. But if you look at it from an evolutionary perspective,

just look, the bacteria were here long before humans. And so what's happened is we've co-evolved. They're like our, I often refer to them as our friends with benefits. So they've taken on some of the roles to help humans' physiology be better. One of the clear, one of the best examples of this that people may not be aware of is that if you look at human breast milk, right, it's very, very complex. It was really surprising to me when I realized that the complexity of sugars we have in breast milk is way more in humans than in any other mammal.

And what's really surprising is these sugars cannot be broken down by the infant. And so why would that be? Like, why would evolution engender us with these very complex sugars? But they're actually broken down by the microbes. And so you have this really cooperation between the microbes and the actual breast milk. And they're broken down to key chemicals that are very important in brain development, like sialic acid. So some of the beneficial effects that we see of breastfeeding could perhaps be due to what's happening at the level of the microbes. So there's one thing, lads.

The research that you're doing, it feels like the type of stuff that we've kind of known already, that humanity has known, but we're waiting for science to kind of prove it as such. And from my own point of view, like I definitely noticed a relationship between my stomach and my own mental health especially when i was suffering from mental health issues but i never thought food so put it this way when i had bad anxiety i would notice every single day i'd have a pain in my tummy anxiety

would manifest itself in my stomach and And then after a couple of weeks, I'd actually start to turn off food because I'd have such a problem with acid in my stomach that I didn't want to eat. Now then, on top of my anxiety, I'd start to experience depression. And when I had depression, I don't even want to engage in the act of making decent food for myself.

I'm not thinking about food. I'm not thinking about the aesthetic enjoyment of food. I'm just eating small things for the sake of it because I'm sad. But then when I started to use cognitive behavioral therapy, that's what I used personally that helped me with depression and anxiety. As part of my process of improving my mental health

and being mindful of my thoughts and behavior cooking food cooking wholesome decent food became part of it as in i knew that simply going to the takeaway would not is is as an act isn't as rewarding as the practice of going to the shop, selecting my vegetables, thinking about what I'm eating, then engaging in the narrative aesthetic journey of cooking, then completing that cycle and then enjoying the dinner that I've made. And I was doing things like that as part of a behavioral thing. I knew that for someone with depression and anxiety and very low self-esteem to simply make a dinner to engage in that process would help my sense of self-esteem. But now looking back, I'm probably going, there was probably also a benefit in the fact that I was

by doing that, I'm getting better nutrition. And surely that's helping me, too, in overcoming my anxiety and depression, which I did. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, all of these things are connected. And one of the things, you know, you said that we've known all this for a long time. But in, you know, we tend to in medicine, we compartmentalize the body. And so we look, people specialize in different areas. But if you go back to the ancient times, Hippocrates thought all diseases begin in the gut.

And so there's a real sense now that if we look more holistically at all the signals that are coming into our brain from our gut and from everywhere else, from our immune system, et cetera, we're beginning to really appreciate how important that is in modifying our behavior. And so now over the last, say, five years, there's a real push towards the whole area of nutritional psychiatry, which is basically targeting mental health processes through diet and really appreciating the impact that diet can have. And with that, Ted and I have really believed that one of the ways that what you eat is impacting your brain is through how it's interacting with the microbes. So when you were going through your process and cooking these meals. And you are now not just getting the processed,

very pro-inflammatory fast food meals, but you are now probably thinking more about the vegetables and the fibers and the foods that are really good for your microbiome. And by taking them in, you're getting your microbes to really make all of these wonderful chemicals that are helping to support your brain

and to modify these circuits in the brain. And as a neuroscientist, that's what I'm really interested in trying to understand and changing your behavior in that way. So everything is connected in that way. Wouldn't you say, Ted? Absolutely. But I think that at mental health clinics, whether one is a psychiatrist or a psychologist or whatever, I don't think that we put enough emphasis on diet. I mean, there is a really strong relationship between a poor diet and poor mental health. And we've known that for a long, long time. We know that people who live in the Mediterranean region who are on a classical Mediterranean diet have less depression and anxiety. And it isn't just simply that they have more sunshine, because if you take somebody in Northern Europe who's on a Mediterranean type diet, they are less likely to suffer from depression

and anxiety. So I'm always suggesting to students when I teach them or to colleagues in psychiatry that we should be playing a far greater emphasis on nutrition. And of course, also related to that is exercise. Aerobic exercise is the most potent antidepressant out there. If you could put it into a capsule, one would be a multi-billionaire. It has potent antidepressant properties. So I think, you know, whatever psychological interventions we use, whatever antidepressants we use, I think when we're treating someone who's suffering from depression or anxiety, that we should be recommending changes to diet

and also that they get vigorous aerobic exercise on a regular basis. And there's a study from Australia, from a really good friend and colleague of ours, which she took people who were on normal antidepressants or on normal CBT, and she added in a Mediterranean diet to it. And it had a huge impact. It's a small study. It needs to be replicated.

We need to understand how that's happening. But we're collaborating with them to really see how the microbes are playing the role and basically are shaping how this diet is having a positive effect on mental health and we've done a study now um that was still ongoing where we've taken people who are stress sensitive and have bad diets a lot of our student population for example and we've put them on what we've coined as a psychobiotic diet so it's a a diet that's really rich in fermented foods like kefir and kombucha and sauerkraut and yogurt and high in fiber. We've really ramped up the fiber intake. And we just put them on this for a month, like one month.

And we're already seeing really good changes in terms of how they manage stress and on their overall moods. Now, these are not depressed individuals. These are just normal people. But because of the way they are, and they all report feeling better after a month. And I think, you know, I work in a medical school. Our medical students get so little nutrition advice overall. Our dentists get more. And so we really need to embed nutritional health

into our overall education so that people can do it. Absolutely. And the flip side of what John's saying is that if somebody goes on a diet of just fast food for several weeks, you see a radical change in their gut microbiota. The microbes in the gut alter, they become less diverse, they become less rich in terms of variety. So, you know, basically the relationship between bad mental health and bad diet, I think is unquestionable at this stage. And yet, I don't think that we place enough emphasis on it. You know, as you say, sometimes patients

pick up the relationship themselves, but I'm not sure that clinicians actually give people advice in relation to nutrition. Well, I would have i i i studied uh psychotherapy for a couple of years myself and this would have been nearly 10 10 years ago at this point and i knew myself so i knew by listening to my own body that yes i'm definitely getting benefits from attending therapy i was using a transaction analysis, cognitive behavior therapy, a bit of gestalt therapy, and this was helping me. But I also knew the running that I'm doing every day, running every day, and then how the running, when I would do a big long run, and I knew I was running because I felt good

after the run, and then the run would then make me want to eat wholesome foods. After a decent run, your body doesn't crave fast food your body craves natural whole foods that you prepare yourself and i found this stuff happening anyway but i did find that this holistic thinking was kind of stigmatized that it do you know what i mean it is is there a sense with what the stuff that you lads are researching now is there a struggle to be for it to be seen as legitimate because the diet and exercise was seen as mumbo jumbo do you know what i mean it wasn't seen as serious you're putting your finger on a very important point there. I think that, you know, treatments in relation to mental illness are very narrowly focused. I mean, psychologists will use cognitive behavior therapy frequently. patients with depression or anxiety, we've got to use more holistic approaches. Now, the philosophy that guides what John and I do is that we want to do good science and we try to publish in the best journals out there.

So I think whilst some people may poo-poo what we're saying now, I think because we do publish in in in first class journals you know that increases the audience and i think people are more likely to accept it but the flip side or following on from that there is still a lot of also a lot of snake oil out there so you have to be very careful and and you really need to be you know where where is the evidence and so that's what we're trying to do is build evidence, firm evidence that this is not just a marketing ploy overall. And so it's, you know, and also I guess one of the other things is in relation to diet is what we want to come up with is our solutions that are easy to democratize,

that are not, you know, because often the people that are going to benefitize, that are not, you know, because often the people that are going to benefit most from these types of interventions are not going to be the ones to go into the fancy foods, whole foods type places. You know, so we need to make it available to people that doesn't cost a huge amount overall. There's a question now, John, right?

There's a question. So when you say things to me like kombucha, sauerkraut, kimchi, these, in Ireland anyway, these foods are quite prohibitive. Like kombucha is currently quite expensive. So sauerkraut's not that expensive. If you go to an eastern european shop

it's it's affordable there kimchi is expensive yeah yeah like but you can what i'd like the what i'm here's what i'm cautious of right and this is another i i speak to a lot of people about mental health and i try and listen so an issue that i find especially with young people in this country is when terms such as when exercise and diet are brought up, some people feel insulted because the vibe that they get is that people are sick of going to their doctor and the doctor say to them, you've got depression, go for a run. And then I know it's like, no, no, no, no. It's holistic running. It has to be part of a systematic approach to your mental health you're trying to look at behavior and how you're thinking about yourself your diet you're running

um another thing is class comes into this if we're to have a diet that is psychobiotic it then must be affordable to everybody. Not everybody can walk into a shop and spend four quid on a bottle of kombucha. Do you know what I mean? Indeed. So absolutely. And that's why I actually feel very passionate about this, because you can like I make kefir at home, milk kefir. It costs nothing except the price of the milk.

And kefir is like a kind of yogurt. It's like a kind of and you can do the same with yogurt it's basically it's like a yogurt it it's a grain grains that that keep propagating and they contain yeast and bacteria and you just make it every day and it costs nothing except the milk kombucha you can make yourself but we don't have a culture in Ireland of this fermentation. So all of these are coming from ancient practices from their home countries. Kimchi from Korea, kefir from Eastern Europe. And it's really something that I think that we should be educating people more. No one is making money out of kefir.

And the kefir grows. You give it to your... It keeps growing and growing. And so if we launched... And that's why we're doing this psychobiotic diet. Because everything in that should be doable at home. Increasing fiber should be relatively easy for everyone. Yeah, fiber seems like the easiest one there. You're talking about increasing your greens, broccoli, cabbage,

all this stuff that is already affordable. Yeah, yeah. But sauerkraut is just cabbage that's gone off, really, isn't it? You make it with vinegar. Kimchi you can make at home as well. All of these are ancient foods. And fermented foods are among the most ancient foods that we have. And exactly what we don't want to create solutions overall.

Where this is also really a live topic right now is in Africa, where some of the effects of malnutrition in early life on the brain in particular are due to the problems with the microbes, because the microbes aren't there, and they're not able to harvest the benefits out of breast milk etc. And so people are really focused now on creating solutions but not solutions that big food can come in and put in but solutions that are based on locally sourced fibers and locally sourced materials that will be different in parts of Africa than there will be in parts of Bangladesh where some of this work is also going on. So I don't think why we shouldn't have solutions in Ireland that are suitable for, you know, culturally and sociologically

what we're trying to do. You know, we don't want to just have a solution for the middle classes because, you know, we really are focused on a whole diet approach that might be actually beneficial. But it'll take education and it'll take destigmatizing, you know, and also it'll take within the medical profession, people to think more holistically and to understand what we're trying to do really is understand that there's a science behind why these foods

are beneficial to your mental health. And I think with that comes education. Yeah, and one of the great foods from a mental health perspective is fish. Now, fish has essential oils that are great for our microbes in the gut, but they're also essential for the structure of our brain because the brain is just a fatty organ.

And a lot of fats are bad for your brain, but the fats that are in fish are essential for brain. And I suppose it never ceases to amaze me that here we are living in an island where, you know, fish is readily available. Some of it is very expensive, but some of it is inexpensive. I mean, mackerel is not an expensive fish in the middle of summer here. Mackerel is not an expensive fish in the middle of summer here. And it is full of fats to an extent way in excess of what other fish are. And it's cheap and readily available.

But so many people in Ireland, despite the fact that we live on an island, don't like eating fish. I mean, I would mention it to my patients and they would say, oh, God, I hate the smell of fish. I wouldn't eat fish at all. and they would say, oh, God, I hate the smell of fish. I wouldn't eat fish at all. And of course, some people then are ending up going into health food stores and buying supplements with fish oils, EPA and DHA, and taking the fish oils in a capsule, when in fact the best way to take any food ingredient is in good food, which in this case we're talking about fish.

So here's a question then lads right this is what i'd be interested in so this research that you're doing um the the i won't say the fear i won't say a fear what i'd say is because of capitalism we have a tendency to to medicalize so you saying right the best thing for you to be doing is actually eating fish that doesn't help the pharmaceutical industry who want to go hold on a second i want to put fish into a pill like what's this what's the story here is are you are you fearful of the we'll say the pharmaceutical industry trying to put this stuff in pill form or is whole natural foods actually the best approach what where's your feeling on this well i think that the supplements industry globally is not

very well controlled and what you have is a lot of supplements companies making outlandish claims. You know, I sent off a tweet there last night or this morning. It was about vitamin D. Now, if one looks at the literature on vitamin D, it seems to be the cure for everything from cancer to Alzheimer's disease to baldness, you name it. Now, it can be. I'm not saying that vitamin D isn't an important vitamin. It clearly is. But it is clearly not the cure for all these things. And yet there are clearly supplements companies out there selling vitamin D who are making a lot of money out of vitamin D. I just take that as an example because there are so many other supplements as well. Many of these components are found in food. Now, the best matrix or the best way to get any ingredient, in my opinion, is not in a capsule.

It's in good food. There are occasions where, for whatever reason, maybe somebody has an abnormal digestive system and they're not able to absorb a substance, then, of course, you recommend a capsule. But really, I'm firmly of the belief that good food is the way to deliver good ingredients and not capsules lads if someone said to you right what is what what what's a psychobiotic diet what what should i begin eating immediately to improve my gut

bacteria what would you say to them right so there's a few things there's a few things you should add and things you should take try and and and lower so it's a two-way it's a two-way scenario in terms of adding we know fiber is king in terms of you know and good fibers are really what does fiber look like to the person in the shop? Lots of grains, green vegetables, they will be the two biggest sources of fibre for sure. I mentioned the fermented foods. If you can make your own at home, don't be spending fortune on them, but

they are there and they really are a rich source of these good bacteria themselves. There's a thing, what we call, which fits into the fibre area, we call them prebiotics. So these, to be distinguished from probiotics. So prebiotics are basically dietary substances on which the bacteria can act on. One of them we've worked on a lot is inulin.

Now, inulin is present in things like leeks and artichokes and many vegetables and chicory and many vegetables. So increasing that is also really good. So they're the kind of dietary things that we can add. We know Ted mentioned the omega-3 fatty acids. They almost act like a prebiotic in our gut in some ways. Then there's a class of foods, what we call polyphenol. You know, it might sound like, you know, I always think it's like a 1970s disco queen, polyphenol. You know, it might sound like, you know, I always think it's like a 1970s disco queen, polyphenol.

But polyphenols are really enriched in things like nuts, in grape juice, in onions, in many vegetables. And many of the polyphenols, when we take them in, they're also in dark chocolate and red wine, but, you know, we don't want to... But many of the polyphenols, when we take them in, they're also in dark chocolate and red wine, but many of the polyphenols, they don't get digested at all. They go all the way down to your lower bowel, to your colon. And there, they change the composition of the microbes, and the microbes change the composition of them to produce positive things.

And they've been implicated in healthy aging as well. And then there are things we should try and avoid because we now know science tells us that things like emulsifiers in food, sweeteners, artificial sweeteners in food, these are all pretty... Wow, but even like the stuff that's in like Diet Coke and stuff is bad. Oh yeah, really.

It's not clear now which is worse for your microbes, the Coke or the Diet Coke, because the Diet Coke, the sweeteners have been shown to be pretty bad on the microbes. So these are things that we should try to avoid from a diet point of view. Then we should be looking at things like trying to minimize antibiotic usage because there's widespread antibiotic overuse.

Does that include getting it through your messe? Not so much in Ireland, but in the US for sure. Like, you know, in the US, we know that too much red meat is probably a bad thing because there's chemicals made from red meats that aren't that good. But everything in moderation, you know. And we put together in our book like a pyramid, a psychobiotic pyramid, that people are very familiar with these kind of food pyramids and trying to give people some advice as to, these are the things we know which are good for your microbes, and you

should try and enrich your diet with them. And it's easier said than done. And it doesn't mean what we want is a diet that people can be compliant with and that they can take and they can enjoy. Because it goes back to your point there's an enjoyable aspect of the art of making food as well in that and and i'm sure that's all related i mean it's it's it's if if we evolved this way of course we should

enjoy this the aestheticism of preparing and eating food there's a a reason for it. Yeah, for sure, for sure. And the contrast there, of course, is highly processed foods, because, I mean, John is talking about good foods there that have a really positive impact on our gut microbiota and on our brain. But, of course, highly processed foods have various fats that keep the food

reasonably fresh for extended periods of time. We know that some of these fats are bad for your heart. And in recent years, we've learned that they're bad for your brain and for your microbiota as well. So, you know, there's no doubt about it that intermittently eating, you know, fast food, we all do, and there's nothing wrong with that. But a diet that's exclusively based on fast food has a terribly deleterious impact on one's physical health and definitely on one's mental health as well. And it leads to this inflammation. See, the microbes in the gut are also really important in tuning our immune system. And so they're the first thing that keep our immune system at bay.

And so if you have a diet that changes these microbes, it can lead to a kind of inflammatory way. And this inflammatory aspect then talks to our brain and puts the brain into an inflammatory state. And here's a question, actually. If someone's gut biome is not in a good state, if someone's listening to their body, what should we be listening to if our gut biome is in a bad way? Well, that's collection of microbes is in a bad place. I think the two things that one can do that will have a very good impact on that will be the sort of diet and the components

that John has just described. There's plenty of fruit, plenty of vegetables, maybe fish if one likes fish and you know so good foods like that and exercise we know that exercise obviously it impacts on our muscles but we know that it directly impacts on our gut microbes as well so i think a combination how does it do that how does exercise impact that is actually the million dollar question there's a lot of research going on to look at that at the moment. How exactly? Because we do know that somebody who engages, who's been relatively sedentary, who doesn't really like exercise, who begins to exercise on a regular basis will show a dramatic change in their gut microbiota. And it may be due to molecules that are produced by muscle that then impact the gut microbiota. And an interesting aside, there's an American company

that are trying to produce a probiotic with bacteria that they got from olympic athletes so these particular bacteria were only found in in olympic athletes and you know the rest of us don't possess these these microbes and this particular company are producing a probiotic with these particular microbes so i don't know maybe we'll all run a bit faster if we take these these particular microbes. So I don't know, maybe we'll all run a bit faster if we take these particular probiotics. But also like, just again, me listening to my own body, like I said, when I run, when I exercise every day of the week, my appetite changes. I actually don't want pizza.

The thought of fatty, oily, processed food, the thought of it doesn't satiate me. I crave homemade whole foods when I'm actively exercising. Yeah. And you feel chilled out. I mean, look, I'm 65. That's true. But I run a lot.

And I find that, you know, when I go over, mostly on a Saturday, I run usually 10 or 15 miles on a Saturday, and I feel so utterly chilled out after that. So it has a positive mental health benefit directly, but it certainly is impacting one's gut microbes in a positive way too. And one of the big things we're trying to do here in UCC is trying to figure out these mechanisms. So how could, why would microbes in the gut be able to signal to your brain to change your behavior and make you chilled out? And that's one of our big science questions. And we're really, you know, one of the ways is we have this nerve called the vagus nerve.

You know, vagus comes from the Latin for like, for wandering. Like vagrant is the same, comes from the same word. And this vagus nerve sends signals from your body, from your gut, but also from your lungs and your heart to your brain to basically tell you how you feel and to feel how you feel. And so when you do your mindfulness training, it's your vagus nerve that's becoming activated

and it activates these emotional circuits in the brain to be able to stay chill out and, you stay in the moment and and whatever else and so so what we showed almost a decade ago now take yeah we showed that that that that the microbes in the gut are able to more or less hijack this vagus nerve and through the signals not directly it's not that they're they're infecting it but it's just that they're sending signals that are activating this vagus nerve and that that's how they're getting to the brain. And so we're trying to disentangle this now

because, you know, we can measure, these are things we can measure. And so you really see that everything is connected. And that's kind of the, microbiome science is really about understanding how everything is connected and that how you're feeling. You know, if your microbes change, then it'll change how you feel. And there'll be feedback loops in that.

And these feedback loops have evolved and we have evolved to be able to do that. And one of the transmitter systems in the brain, the chemicals in the brain that regulates our mood and our sleep and appetite is serotonin. Now, most people refer to serotonin because iconic drugs like Prozac obviously work on serotonin. But in fact, serotonin is made from the amino acid tryptophan, which comes partly from our diet, but is partly synthesized by microbes in our intestine. Now, as humans, we actually have very limited storage capacity for tryptophan in our brains. So we need tryptophan to make serotonin, but we actually can't store it in high quantities in our brain. So we need a constant supply from our microbes and

from our diet going into the bloodstream and crossing the blood-brain barrier into the brain to manufacture serotonin. Now you can envisage a situation where if somebody's diet is really poor and if their microbiota isn't functioning properly, you ain't got enough tryptophan entering the bloodstream to cross the blood-brain barrier to provide normal serotonin transmission in the brain and in those situations you obviously have a dysregulated or poor mood um a question lads um so i mentioned earlier that when i was experiencing long-term anxiety i would I would feed it in my stomach. I would have an excess of acid. Now, I know that my body was releasing stress hormones. So stress hormones like cortisol or adrenaline.

What when someone is in a state of mental unhealth and their body is releasing these chemicals, do those chemicals have a negative impact on the gut biome? They certainly do. I mean, there isn't an area of the body that cortisol doesn't act upon. I mean, it acts directly upon the brain, which is something that's only been recognized within the last 20 years, really, that cortisol directly influences the brain. When I was a medical student, we were told it acted outside the brain to regulate your metabolism. But there's no doubt it does impact the gut microbiota. You know, for instance, if you give somebody cortisol as a steroid, and if you gave somebody high doses of a steroid, that would have a really negative impact on the gut microbiota. And of course, as you say, when we are stressed, when we're pumping out adrenaline and cortisol, we pump out acid in

our stomach as well. And of course, this can lead to gastritis, irritation of the gastric lining. But in a worse state, it can obviously lead to peptic ulceration, where you actually get a peptic ulcer as a result of stress. So there's no doubt about it. These stress hormones, we can't live without them. You know, they're absolutely essential. You couldn't function in your job today, or I couldn't, if you didn't have some level of stress hormone pumping through your system. And we've just done a study where we've looked at how, now it was done before lockdown, but last year,

where we looked at students going through exams, the stress that they have during that period. Now, this is a natural stress, but it is a stress. And so we looked at their microbes before and after, and we're able to show the big changes in those, and especially, it's also inter-individual. The interesting thing about all of this microbe work is that everyone is going to respond differently. And so it may underpin why we respond differently to different things.

But the students that were more stressed, their microbiome changed more, and this correlated with their cortisol responses to this stress as well. So we're beginning to slowly begin to disentangle this relationship between stress hormones, stress and the microbiome. And the flip side then is, can we look at whether through diet or other ways, by fixing the microbiome part, can we attenuate or block how the stress hormones are having effect on other parts of the body as well? stress hormones are having effect on other parts of the body as well are you let's see in an increase in certain mental health issues depending on how society's diet changes also as well um things like celiac disease ibs yeah these are being spoken about more people are presenting

with these things more today is this interconnected oh so everything is interconnected and so some of the best studies now in the microbiome are cross-cultural studies so like if you go and people have done this really cool studies where they've looked at people in Tanzania who still maintain a hunter-gatherer diet which is very rich in fiber they have a very diverse microbiome really really diverse then you can start to see a Now, with hunter-gatherer, so they're mainly in the gatherer side of things rather than the hunter side of things. Yes, in the Hadza community, we often focus on the meat path, but the fibre intake is huge.

And then you can start to see, well, what did agricultural practices do? So if you go to places like Malawi and Venezuela today, they're still in that agrarian type of societies. There, you start to see a diminution of the microbiome composition in terms of diversity. And in short, diversity, like in all aspects of life, is really good. And you want to have as diverse as possible. Then if you look at our Western society, either in US or Ireland, you see there's been an extinction of these microbes so our ancestors would have microbes that we no longer have and that's largely thought to be driven

by the introduction of processed foods by the use of antibiotics in the food chain by the stressful lives we live in but the the flip side of that is if you look at these other societies there is no inflammatory bowel disease there's no multiple sclerosis. There's many of the Western diseases that we have are just completely a product of this change in the microbiome. In relation to mental health, we know less overall. And so, you know, one of the things we're trying to really understand is, but like MS and inflammatory bowel disease is really, it's really striking when people look at these disorders. And so people are beginning to really look at studies now on the impact of these inflammatory diets on all sorts of negative outcomes. And we know in mental health, the large epidemiology studies are showing that the people who have really bad diets have much more higher propensity to depression, anxiety, etc. What do you say lads to people, so some people are looking at we say ketogenic diets

or intermittent fasting when it comes to things like MS, inflammatory diseases, have you looked at that? We're very, so the ketogenic diet is also is thought to mediate some of its effects through the microbiome as well as well what we think is like all meat all but it's it wouldn't be long-termly good for your microbiome you know like anything that's that's so so severe intermittent fasting is a different thing because it's really interesting because one thing we're studying right now is the influence of circadian rhythms on your microbiome and on your mood. Because they're very, very closely connected. And studies have come out in the last few years showing that not only does your microbiome change across your life, but it changes even across your day. So maybe the time of when you eat, you're providing basically the raw materials to this microbiome could be really important

and could be optimized. And so that's something that we're beginning to really look at. And of course, sleep and jet lag and all of these things are being shown to affect the microbiome. And also in relation to depression, Ted, I mean, sleep. What about phone screens, lads?

What about phone screens? What about, so I lads? What about phone screens? What about, so I haven't gotten eight hours sleep since I started using an iPhone in 2011, right? And that's a fact. I used to get eight hours of sleep when I went to bed and I used to read books. But as soon as a phone became part of my life, I'm six hours of sleep.

Indeed. And I know there's studies into blue light and things like this. Is sleep quality and the biome, what's the crack there? Well, I think to get back to your point about the screen time, I think there's no doubt about it that overstimulating yourself with a phone just when you're lying in bed has a terribly, terribly bad effect on one's sleep pattern. And of course, you know, it's often said that we live in a more stressful society now,

and we experience more stress than, let's say, our grandparents did. And of course, you know, I'm not really sure that that's true. I mean you look back at ireland in the 19th century where people didn't know where the next meal was coming from heck that was that was far more stressful than what most of us are experiencing nowadays but i think what has changed is i think our capacity to deal with stress is altered i think we've seen from one century to another a decreased ability to deal with stress. And that is partly related to diet and partly related to alterations in the gut microbiota. So it isn't, I mean, clearly, look, you know, no one is suggesting that Ireland is a stress-free zone. It is far from it. And for many people, life is very stressful, but it's still not

as stressful as it was for their great-grandparents. But I think that what their great-grandparents often had, if they did have an adequate diet, it was probably a healthier diet than what many people now have. And I think that, you know, that is one, it's not the only reason, but I think it is one of the reasons our capacity to deal with stress, you know, has altered. And one of the things we just published a paper, we looked at, again, in our student population, when they're stressed during exams, we looked at their sleep, and their sleep becomes disturbed. And we, in this study, we gave them a specific bacteria, so a psychobiotic bacteria, and we found that those that had taken the bacteria compared to those taking placebo

had a better sleep quality. And so that was kind of really surprising to us. It's quite a crude measure. It's a small study. It needs replication. But it really reinforces how sleep and circadian patterns are also intricately linked to what's going on in our gut. And, you know, I think, you know, circadian rhythms are very important in relation to our body and our health. But, you know, as we age, we all want to age in a healthy way. No one wants to end up demented or very, very frail. And these are obviously, you know, problems with an aging society. But what is clear is that if one loses diversity and the gut microbiota as one ages, frailty and ill health follows rapidly. If you look at elderly people in their mid-80s who are healthy and who are reasonably fit, their microbiota is the same as a 30-year-old. If you look at somebody

in their 60s who's unhealthy and approaching frailty, they are losing diversity in the gut microbiota. So really, you know, the key to healthy aging, there are obviously many, many variables, and clearly one needs to exercise to to maintain good health but it is imperative that one retains diversity in the gut microbiota if one loses it frailty follows rapidly from that yeah what about um so earlier when we were mentioning ireland not having a culture of fermented foods but we have a culture of fermented drinks. Alcohol, what's the role of alcohol? Is there beneficial or negative or what's the craic? So this is something we've studied quite a fair bit. One of the things we found on the microbiome and again this was started off in animal studies we showed that that there is almost an inflammatory-like effect of alcohol on the guts.

It's not really positive. But yes, we know that certain beers, especially the Belgian beers, are quite highly fermented. And they've been shown to have some positive effects. And I think it's all always in moderation. So, you know what I mean? Red wine is full of these polyphenols. So polyphenols are good on the microbiome. But, you know, the question is grape juice is equally full of these polyphenols. So polyphenols are good on the microbiome. But, you know, the question is grape juice is equally full of these polyphenols.

So there are different components there that we need to be looking at. One of the things we're looking at right now is a study on binge alcohol intake and the microbiome. And there seems to be something about this binging continuously that's quite negative on the microbiome and also on some of the cognitive processes that are underpinning this binging and so well i can tell you when i binge i like listening to my own body the next day i'm my behavior is as if i had a very bad mental health i'm depressed and the food that i crave is high fat high salt processed food i don't want to exercise. And for one day, I'm back where I was 10 years ago, including my cravings and my desires. And the question is, is it your microbes that have been so disturbed?

They're saying, we want these types of foods now because we're craving these types of foods. And is that the signals they're sending to your brain to really get you to get these foods for them? And that's one of the provocative aspects that we're really interested in. A big question I got asked was about poo transplants. Oh, right. What are poo transplants and why is everyone talking about it? Right.

Well, right now there's only one indication clinically for that. There's an infection in elderly people called C. difficile. It can be a fatal infection. It causes terrible diarrhea, and it can be very difficult to treat with antibiotics. So if an elderly person has it, it really can have awful consequences. If antibiotics aren't working, the effect of treatment in 90% of cases is to do a microbiota transplant, a poo transplant. And as I say, it works in about 90% of cases. That is the only current clinical indication.

There isn't a week goes by that I don't get several emails, usually from the US, asking me if we could do a poo transplant for people who are suffering, someone who's suffering from depression. Now, right now, one would have to say no is the answer. There isn't sufficient data out there. But there are other emerging illnesses where maybe a microbiota transplant might be beneficial. transplant might be beneficial. There's a study out recently within recent months in Parkinson's disease, which is a terrible disease in elderly people. It's a motor disorder where people can have a terrible tremor and have an inability to basically get around. It has a big impact on motor performance. And this preliminary study did suggest

that a fecal transplant actually benefited the symptoms, both the motor symptoms and even the psychological symptoms of patients who have Parkinson's disease. So there's a lot spoken about poo transplants. And there's a lot of clinical trials ongoing right now. And so it sounds really terrible. But again, it goes back to ancient China. There's a guy called Guihong who was using fecal transplants.

He called it a yellow soup to treat his patients, you know? So like a lot of this goes back to ancient wisdom. We're, again, with our colleagues in Australia, they're starting to do trials of what we call crapsules. So basically putting poo into tablets and to see if it could have beneficial effect and be more palatable way of delivering this type of medicine. It's a hard pill to swallow. But the analogy I like to use is that like if you think about your microbiome almost like a lawn, and sometimes you can add grass to it. If your lawn is starting to have problems,

sometimes just adding new grass seeds is good, and that's what probiotics do. Or you add fertilizer, which is what the prebiotics and the diet do. But sometimes you kind of have to take up the lawn and start again, and that's what the fecal transplants are about. It's about re-putting back in. And, you know, we'll see where there's been one study now just out also in alcohol intake to show that some of the cravings associated with alcohol. These are small studies.

All come with health warnings. But they offer some hope overall. Again, in autism, there's one small study, an open pilot study. But again, we need to get a lot more data and science and evidence. And so that's where we will see a lot more coming. And it may very well be that as we move forward, when we find out what are the bacteria in the poo

that are really fundamental, then we might be able to put together a consortium of bacteria. It might be able to put together a consortium of bacteria. It might be eight or nine bacteria that you could put into a capsule or into a drink or whatever, and that it wouldn't involve using poo, that you could just simply have eight or nine bacteria that you could give someone with a specific illness and that that eight or nine bacteria would help to treat that particular specific illness. So that podcast interview actually ended quite abruptly on the subject of poo transplants.

I think the recording went wrong at the end, but that was fascinating. That was absolutely fascinating, and it was a pleasure to talk to Professors John Cryan and Ted Dinan in their area, To talk to professors John Cryan and Ted Dinan. In their area. Which is. It's just a really interesting area. And I hope you enjoyed that. Thank you as well to Cork Discovers. For giving me the opportunity to.

Chat to the two lads. Also I am conscious of the fact that I opened this episode. By urging men to listen to more women. And then I followed that up. With an interview with two men. The irony of that is not lost on me it's just the situation I found myself in this week because of

technology that interview with the two lads which was fantastic that I was very grateful to have is the only interview I had at hand because technology has not been kind to me the past year I also have a hard drive full of live interviews that is corrupted

and i'm trying to retrieve the files with a lot of live interviews on it but gender balance is something i'm conscious of in the live gig setting back in the dark old days when i was allowed to do gigs i used to keep gender balance to about 50 50 but i'm conscious that over the past while it's just been lads that I've been talking to and it's something I've been aware of recently so I will have some speakers who are women soon in two weeks time actually

I've got a fantastic woman who I'm going to be chatting to about some interesting stuff so just to let you know that's in my awareness dog bless have a magnificent week I'm going to be back next week hopefully with a fully working computer and I won't have any technological headaches so please cross your

fingers for me yart Thank you. Thank you. rock city you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation night on saturday, April 13th when the Toronto Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the

same seats for every postseason game, and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com.