The Liz Moody Podcast - Healthy Gut Brain Habits: How To Reduce Risk Of Dementia, Parkinson’s, Anxiety, Depression, & More

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

I’m diving deep into the fascinating connection between your gut and your brain with the world’s leading expert on the gut-brain connection, Dr. Emeran Mayer. Whether you’re looking to prevent neurodegenerative diseases, struggling with mental health, or just want to optimize your gut health, this episode is packed with insights that will change the way you think about your mind and body. Tune in for practical tips, cutting-edge research, and empowering ways to take charge of your health. In this episode, we get into: Exactly how your brain and gut are connected Brain development during pregnancy  If GLP-1s are good or bad The surprising effects of stress on your gut health If you’re gut health is putting you at risk for neurodegenerative diseases What to eat for optimal gut-brain health What sugar substitutes are the best Positive emotions on the microbiome Practical tips to improve your gut-brain health For more from Dr. Emeran Mayer, find him at emeranmayer.com or check out his books: The Mind-Gut Connection or Interconnected Plates: A Mediterranean-Inspired Gut Healthy Cookbook. Support the non-profit mentioned in the episode: eatreal.org. Ready to uplevel every part of your life? Order Liz’s book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now!  Connect with Liz on Instagram @lizmoody or online at www.lizmoody.com. Subscribe to the substack by visiting https://lizmoody.substack.com/welcome.  To join The Liz Moody Podcast Club Facebook group, go to www.facebook.com/groups/thelizmoodypodcast. This episode is brought to you completely free thanks to the following podcast sponsor: Masa: visit MASAchips.com/MOODY and use code MOODY for 25% off your first order. The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. The Liz Moody Podcast music by Alex Ruimy. Formerly the Healthier Together Podcast.  This podcast and website represents the opinions of Liz Moody and her guests to the show. The content here should not be taken as medical advice. The content here is for information purposes only, and because each person is so unique, please consult your healthcare professional for any medical questions. The Liz Moody Podcast Episode 347. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are we talking about just things like anxiety and depression? Are we talking about brain fog? Are we talking about energy? Can you define the areas that our gut is impacting in our brain? The neurodegenerative diseases, Parkinson's and cognitive decline, Alzheimer's. By midlife, this imbalance between the brain and the gut will manifest in degenerative changes within the brain. For people who don't have access to the ideal diet, what are some things that most people would have access to that would actually move the needle? There's some really exciting developments that are also good for gut.

health. So one is... There's a lot of conversation about autism right now. Do you think there's a vaccine connection to autism? What do you think about dairy? It's another controversial topic. If that can be confirmed and what test you need for that, that would have huge implication. And I think this could become a standard. How do GLP1's impact our gut microbiome? Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Liz Moody podcast. Today, we're diving into one of my absolute favorite topics, gut health. And we are exploring how it impacts can be a lot of the like IBS, brain fog, anxiety, depression, autism, Parkinson's, dementia, and more. We're going to talk about exactly what impacts our gut and thus our brain health during our

childhood, our adult life, and even in utero. And because this is the Lizzie podcast, we're going to share exact tips and techniques that you can use to help your brain via your gut. Our guest today is Dr. Emron Mayer. He is a gastroenterologist. He is a neuroscientist and a distinguished research professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He is the executive director of the G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience and the founding director of the Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center at UCLA. Dr. Mayer has published over 430 scientific papers. He has co-edited three books and he is the author of the bestsellers, the mind-gut connection, the gut immune connection, and interconnected plates. Basically, he's one of the world's leading experts

on how our gut and our brain are intricately connected. If you have any of the conditions that I listed earlier, or you want to do your best to help prevent those conditions, or you're just curious about how you can optimize your gut better for better overall well-being, this episode is going to give you so much food for thought, and it's going to really help you approach these things in a way that you probably have not heard elsewhere.

And if you know anybody who's dealing with anxiety, hello, I'm raising my hand, or gut issues, send them this episode. It really, there was so much stuff in here that even I had never heard before. So I really hope that it changes all of your lives. Emron, welcome to the podcast. Nice to be here, Liz. I'm such a fan of your work. And I'm just such a fan. So I personally, backstory for you, I've dealt with anxiety for years and years and years. And so for me, unlocking these pieces of these things

that can be contributing to my mental health and to my brain health has been really, really profound. So when we talk about how our gut impacts our brain health, our mental health, our mental health, mental health, are we talking about just things like anxiety and depression? Are we talking about brain fog? Are we talking about energy? Are we talking about dementia? Are we talking about Parkinson's? Can you define the areas that our gut is impacting in our brain? You may feel the butterflies. For both positive and negative things, so when somebody falls in love, they might feel the butterflies. You know, it's just the emotional arousal that is reflected in the gut. So these are these ultra short-term connections. Then with anxiety and depression,

that's usually a persistent relationship that starts very early in life. These issues like brain fog, there's mechanisms that we know, like inflammatory molecules that are generated in the gut that reach the brain and that create this brain fog phenomenon. So I think that's fairly well established. And then there's these more long-term things. There's the neurodegenerative diseases, Parkinson's and cognitive decline, So by midlife, this imbalance between the brain and the gut will manifest in degenerative changes

within the brain. So we also know, like, just inflammatory conditions of the gut, like ulcerative colitis, or they also are associated with the greater prevalence of Alzheimer's disease later in life. So any inflammatory or immune activation process is gone in your gut either from your diet, lifelong chronic inflammatory diet. There's many conditions nowadays that we say where microbes play a role in generating immune activation in the gut, so it's not full-blown inflammation,

but immune cells are activated and then they can get to the brain, and you won't even know it. So it's like high blood pressure and heart attacks. So if somebody doesn't measure your blood pressure, you won't know until you have the heart attack. And it's kind of similar with this low-grade inflammation. that you don't have a fever, you don't have pain.

So this is why there's very serious. And one thing I forgot, so neurodevelopmental anxiety is one. And the other one is autism spectrum disorders, you know, which start very early in life. I actually believe they start in utero. And it's the microbiome with the mother and the inflammatory situation in the mother that reaches the developing fetus in the placenta. And then when the child is born, it has already an old. altered brain, and then the exposure to an environment will then bring out the full-blown

autism spectrum picture. Is there a reason that some gut inflammation would manifest as anxiety and other would manifest as Parkinson's? How come different guts that are experiencing trauma manifest these different conditions? Yeah, certainly genetic factors, vulnerability genes play a big role. Any of these low-grade inflammatory changes in the gut, 40% of the population is, overweight and obese. So, I mean, obesity, you know, has the cosmetic dimension, which is not that important,

really, but it has the metabolic implication. And that's really the danger, you know. There's a lot of talk about this now with this Make America Healthy Again movement, you know, which I think that movement is actually great that this is finally happening and being talked about by a lot of people, you know, in my opinion, unfortunately, it's in the wrong hands. It's not the people that really understand. So this is really an epidemic, you know, that we have this disturbance.

Simply taking probiotics, for example, will not help that. It's all the metabolic changes that come along with the wrong diet and the lack of exercise. And since most of the immune cells of our body are in the gut, you know, the gut becomes the center of this whole problem. But like the way that these things are appearing, like, means. with my anxiety, my gut might have had some sort of issues. And then that would have been combined with maybe childhood trauma and a predisposition to anxiety. And that's why that manifested in that way for me. So you mentioned the word early life adversity. That's a big factor. And there's a range of these things like discord between the parents that ultimately results in divorce. So it's not a divorce.

It's before the struggle, the unstable family environment. Which is so interesting because so many parents are like, we want to stay together for the kids, and it's actually that discord before, before, and the divorce is the solution in some ways. Yeah, the solution, yeah, the divorce might actually be the good thing. Yeah. And the earlier that happens, it's probably the better. But these things are extremely common, you know, like when we take, so we give a questionnaire, and I would say, yeah, 50% of the patients that I see with what got issues

have had that. And some of them were really well aware, you know, they had horrible, like, particularly like alcoholism in the family, create some of the worst, you know, situations and the biggest trauma, then obviously when you read all the news now about, you know, war situations, what these kids go through, I mean, you can predict that all of them will have disturbances in their, I mean, nobody talks about that, you know, with the long-term disturbances and brain function of, of these people is. I mean, it's not the physical trauma. It's the emotional trauma.

Well, and is it acting in two ways? So, like, if you have this childhood trauma, is it acting directly on your gut and it's acting on your brain? And then your gut is also acting on your brain, if that makes sense? I think the most likely is it acts on the brain primarily. And then, you know, anything that happens at the brain level, like emotion, so there's these circuits within the brain that generate emotions. And then they also, they're linked to what we call the central autonomic networks that generate signals that go back to the body. So anytime anybody experiences a negative emotion that will be mirrored in the gut. I read this in your book and I always like, I kind of had a vague sense of like, yeah,

my stomach hurts when I'm stressed or blah, blah. And you're like, no, on a physiological level, your gut is mirroring what's going on in your brain. Yeah. And it's actually fairly specific what emotion it is. So it's different for the fear response or anger. So fear response that inhibits your stomach and stimulates the end. So the two parts of your G.I. tract that are most susceptible to these influences is the proximate part. So the esophagus and the stomach and the end of your intestine that receives the strongest inputs.

So that's why you have these symptoms, you know, what's now called functional dyspepsia or symptoms that are referred to the upper GI. attract often reflect an inhibition of gastric contractions. And on the other hand, with anger, you know, you get the opposite. You get this really strong. And all this has been measured in experiments. Wait, so with anger, you get really strong gastric contract? So will you feel like you need to poop when you're angry? No, so gastric, so it's the upper part.

So you feel like, you know, cramps in your upper part of your stomach. And with anxiety and stress, it's a lot of. It's the lower part. You know, there's an urge to have a bowel movement or diarrhea. Yeah. So my first time I did my first event on my book tour, I was doing like a one-woman show. And they were actively introducing me. And I turned to my husband. I was like, I really need to poop. And he was like, you can't go poop. Like they're actively introducing you for hundreds of people. And I was like, no, I really need to. But I think that was just my anxiety. Yeah, that was exciting. And I did the show. And it was great. Yeah. Well, so this is all why you say you shouldn't eat while you're stressed, correct? I mean, always tried to sort of go back in evolution and in history.

So food intake in general, particularly with once cooking became part of human interactions, it was a social event, sitting together, being relaxed, feeling good. With animals a little bit different when you see, you know, when a lion catches an animal and then they fight over it and with the other lions. But with humans, it's pretty clear. You know, it's a social event. And that's a very important point to come back to you and a feel good event. And it puts your stomach in its default digestive mode, increased vaguely tone, parasympathetic balance

and minimum amount of the sympathetic influence, which is the stress part of your autonomic nervous system. So there's studies like, you know, with the Mediterranean diet. I now use the term Mediterranean lifestyle and not diet because I believe, and there's evidence from studies that a big part of the benefit of the Mediterranean diet is that social interactions when you eat something. We have experienced this many times traveling in Italy, in summertime, everybody sits outside and spends the whole evening together, not just once going up for dinner. It's like, that's the lifestyle. You know, everybody's outside and together. Yeah, and there's studies now that suggests that that that's more important than what people actually eat during that time.

been in different cities in Italy, so almost each year, we go to a different place, get invited to give a talk. And then the last one was in the center, in the center and northern part of Italy. Parma, which is famous for its ham, for its unhealthy food items. Ham and pasta and cheese, at least in restaurants, that's all that's on the menu. You know, we had a hard time finding a salad or a side of a vegetable dish. I said, this can't be true. This is not a Mediterranean diet.

And then I was curious, I looked up the statistics on life expectancy. It's the same as in Sicily, where they really eat the Mediterranean diet, where it's fish mainly and very little red meat. The main factor in the life expectancy is that social part. It's kind of surprising. You know, we like to focus on diet because you can't really do too much about changing people's behavior in big cities. It's hard to live their lifestyle.

It's also just harder to study. I would imagine. Yeah, yeah. Being like, oh, go have dinner with your family or friends every night and we'll come back and look into that versus eat this diet and we'll see these results. But you think that we're over-indexing on the food part and we're under-indexing on the social and the slowing down and the lifestyle part? Yeah, I've come to the conclusion. It's a real holistic view of gut health that it's influenced obviously by the brain. We know a lot of studies about the negative ones, you know, the stress, anxiety, anger.

Much fewer studies on the positive dimensions of brain states, like relaxation, meditation. There's some studies, so we actually did one with mindfulness-based stress reduction, which did have an effect on symptoms and brain got interactions. But in general, I mean, I would say that the science really supports that idea that multiple factors contribute. it's kind of the systems biological view. The traditional model was there's one factor and you have a hypothesis what this one factor does to one outcome.

And this works less and less. So now, you know, systems biology where you look at the behavior of the whole system, multiple factors influencing the outcome, and there's other approaches now with AI that you feed in a mass amount of data and the eye looks at it holistically. It looks at what all these factors do to the outcome.

So I'm a strong believer that of this holistic approach, I mean, holistic is an old-fashioned term, but it really fits well here. It's systems biological that spiritual, emotional factors from the brain, exercise from your muscles, diet and whatever else you put into your gut, they all interact. And because they interact, different people have different components. And then the genes obviously provide the background.

And since if you take 100 people, then not many who are exactly the same, you know, in terms of these factors. I think this whole movement now personalized medicine, you have to tailor your treatment recommendations to the individual constellation. And we still have a long way to go before we can do this well. And as I mentioned, AI will be one way of doing this. measuring more and more things and have wearable devices to look at a heart rate variability, a vagal tone. All this goes into this equation. Ultimately, we'll tell us what the best treatment is.

Is it exercise? Is it, you know, weight loss? Is it? Of all of these, pretty diet is the most tangible and probably the easiest to implement. I mean, you can tell people, here's a cookbook, you know, go with these. if they do it at the end and if they'd sustain it, it's another question. But I think a lot of people are willing to try. For sure. But also, I do think there's a lot of people out there who would prioritize eating with friends or eating with family or slowing down if they knew that was having a

tangible impact. It wasn't just something they were doing because it was a little reward or they get to do it if they finish everything on their to-do list. But actually, this was an important part of their brain health and their body health. It is. It is. What impact does does eating while you're stressed have on how you're digesting the food, how you're assimilating the food, on your gut health, on your brain health, on all of that? Yeah, so just imagine when you stress these signals from the brain, mainly the autonomic nervous system, you know, the stress branch, the sympathetic and the perisimpathetic, the more relaxed part, they get activated.

You have a much more strong a sympathetic tone. it changes like pretty much every dimension of your gut function, you know, from contractions, regional transit, how fast things go empty from the stomach, empty through the small intestine, how long they stay in the colon. So each of those are affected by the stress level. And then you have also the cortisol, which we know less about, even though people always talk about cortisol levels, the fight and flight risk, but it's not. not, so we're not in the fight and flight response. In general, it's a very different kind of stress.

It's a chronic sustained stress level that not necessarily goes along with an increased cortisol level, but it does go along our studies have shown with an increased level of gene expression of the sympathetic nervous system that, you know, that changes all these gut functions. it also, you know, it stimulates acid secretion, it changes blood flow, it changes the immune cells in your gut, it changes the microbes. The microbes have receptors on their surface that respond to the sympathetic nervous system, neurotransmitters, no epinephrine. So if you're stressed, your microbes know that.

And there's a change in their gene expression and a change in their behavior. So if you have any potentially harmful bacteria in your gut, they will attack your gut more likely under a stressful situation. So imagine when you're eating and you're stressed, your gut is completely different. And it's not a minor stress that's important. It's the real, as I said, this chronic, what we call, allostatic load, you know.

And a lot of people are in that condition. A lot of people. Yeah. So what advice would you give to somebody listening? Let's say they are struggling with gut issues or they're trying to prevent brain health issues down the road or they are dealing with brain health issues. Would you say that having some sort of stress management practice is a really important part of that prevention or treatment strategy? Yeah, I would say that would pretty be number one that I would say. Wow.

There's so much scientific data that supports that. the microbiome, just as diet has a negative effect on the microbiome. So stress does the same thing. And if both of them act together, you have the perfect storm. Microbes are under stress from two sides, from the brain, from the stress system, and from an unhealthy diet, an inflammatory diet. And that's what a lot of people now in the U.S. are under in that situation. And I think that's the cause of this chronic disease epidemic. have, you know, that politicians now want to attack and hopefully this will happen. And it's a massive undertaking. I mean, you have to start in kindergarten, you know, you have to start with. How mothers

during pregnancy are they, because the stress during pregnancy affects both the brain development of the infant, but also affects the mother's microbiomes. And these microbes are changed in a stressed mother. So the infant gets a... The first colonization of its gut by an unhealthy microbiome. Look, I'm never going to make everything that I wear organic. But your sheets, your pillows, your comforter are literally touching your skin for eight hours every single night. That is a third of your life right there with one simple swap. And if your bedding is worn out, it's trapping heat or it's made with questionable materials,

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Yeah, you've said that the first three years of our lives are really critical to our brain and our mental health and our microbe development. Are there things that a mother can be doing during pregnancy or during the first three years of their lives that they could sort of add in that would increase health outcomes down the line? Yeah, so the impact of, I would say, diet slash obesity, stress, and intake of antibiotics. There's animal studies that have one dose of an antibiotic in a pregnant mouse has an impact on the microbiome, the health of the microbiome of the offspring. And I'm sure a lot of women take antibiotic for whatever reason, you know, during pregnancy.

And obviously, like some are warranted. Antibiotics are incredibly life-saving, but the idea would be avoid antibiotics that aren't necessary. Like when you go to the doctor and you have something that's viral and they're just like, oh, just take this antibiotic just to be safe.

Yeah, so 90% of infections, freaking children, are viral. You know, and all these antibiotics that are given to newborns and it's often the mothers that demand it because they're so worried

about their child. And then there are these stories, you know, that people tell afterwards, oh yeah, my child was so sick but once they gave him or hurt the antibiotic infection went away. That's probably, so I don't believe these stories because the statistics tell us most

are viral and antibiotic will not help with the viral infections. So judicious use of antibiotics would be one thing to sort of be aware of. Yeah, that's one thing. I think being aware that obesity and associate metabolic syndrome is definitely a risk factor. So diet, paying attention to the weight. stress and antibiotics, I think, would be the three things that I would list as one of the main factors. And then what about when the child is born in those first three years of life, what can we be doing to optimize those outcomes? Minimizing sugar, and that has two reasons,

because if the baby or the infant is exposed to very sweet foods and sugar and desserts, and the taste preferences are programmed early in life as well during the first year. So this child or this adult later will have a very different level of getting comfort based on the sweetness of the food. Wait, I didn't know that. The taste preferences are set during your first year of life. Is my sweet tooth program by my first year of life? Yeah. So that's a big factor.

And it's not set in stone. You know, you can retrain it back. By changing your microbiome? No, by changing your sugar intake. just sugar but sweet intake. So this is also artificial or non-nutritive sweeteners. If you wean yourself off this or get off them completely, your taste preference will adapt and you will no longer crave for the sugar. Wait, it's interesting, though, that that's set. I've never heard that that set in the first year of your life. The other thing that you mentioned, you believe there's

a link to our microbes and our inflammation levels and all of that in pregnancy is autism. there's a lot of conversation about autism right now. Do you think there's a vaccine connection to autism? No, I don't believe this. As a scientist, I have to say, you know, you're always open. So if there's evidence coming out that this proves your belief, then you have to change it. And I've done this many times in my career. But at the moment, I think there's overwhelming evidence that there's no connection.

But there are factors. So infections of the mother during pregnancy, there's examples from a flu epidemic and Scandinavia some 20 or 30 years ago where the autism rate went up. There's also evidence that both in animal studies

and in women that obesity and metabolic syndrome, so basically obesity and hypertension and metabolic derangements increases the risk of autism offspring. It's sort of

clear. I mean, autism doesn't start it after the baby is born, you know, even though most efforts today start with clinical trials or fecal microbial transplants in anywhere from one to 10 years of age, you know, and I think that's way too late because when you think about it, brain development happens in utero, and the microbiome of the mother, you know, produces molecules, all these new reactive molecules and inflammatory molecules, that can cross the placenta and can affect brain development of infants. There's now, there's studies from some colleagues at UCLA that have actually shown that this happens in animal models.

And to me, it's surprising how long it's taken for this concept to take hold is that this starts prenatally, factors from the mother or the, environment infections. Autism keeps increasing progressively, but I think that's more likely associated with the increasing rate of obesity and metabolic derangements that humans in modern societies. The infections part is interesting because that would actually be an argument for vaccines for pregnant women if we're trying to avoid getting infectious diseases that could contribute to this type of thing.

Absolutely. It's kind of ironic that we have the opposite. discussion now. Certainly before you get pregnant, you should make sure there's no chance that you are going to develop measles or any other infectious disease where we have vaccines for. How do GLP1's impact our gut microbiome? If you believe the data that's been published on this, they actually have a positive effect. They change the gut microbes into a less inflammatory pattern. I'm a little bit doubtful because, you know, I know how how industry, the pharmaceutical industry, what tricks they play to increase sales.

And, you know, some of these studies may have been financed by the companies, you know, by Lilly and other companies. But knowing what you know about sort of the mechanisms of actions of these drugs on our guts, like what would your hypothesis be? They clearly act through the gut, you know. So this, this chlp1 receptor response to hormones, released by so-called enter endocrine cells in the gut. So one of the biggest parts of our endocrine system, hormonal system, is in the gut,

in these specialized cells. What I learned in medical school that food components, protein and fat would stimulate these hormonal cells. So after a meal, you feel satiated in full. So we know now with the microbes, so the microbes also produce molecules that stimulate these same cells to release this satiety hormone. So we have both a direct effect of the diet and the effect of the microbes, the microbial molecules that they generate.

So we don't know if that's the only mechanism. So when you take the shield, you one agonists, you take them in much higher doses that are ever produced physiologically. So we don't know what that does. So typically a receptor would desensitize if you expose it to a very high dose of the agonist, you know, so it doesn't seem to happen with the CHLP ones. The second one is, you know, there's so many studies coming out, and you have to be careful, again, what I said earlier, industry is sponsoring all these studies. They want more and more

indications, you know. But it does seem to be true that it has a beneficial effect on some other chronic diseases that are related to this chronic disease epidemic. This could all be because you get a healthier metabolism and you lose weight. But it could also be, for example, the effect on craving and on substance use disorders, that could be a totally different mechanism. So initially, when I talked about JLP once, and I got these nasty comments on social media,

you know, you're just an industry guy and they're promoting this and we should change our lifestyle as well. changing lifestyles has not helped with obesity, you know, I mean, so many things have been tried to different diets. And the GLP ones have a relatively small amount of side effects, considering intervention with a high dose of a hormone. And now with all these new things coming out, even if only a few of them are true, like the substance use disorder component, it would be a miracle drug.

It would help people. And there's now also attempts, initially was the recommendation you have to stay on lifelong. Obviously, industry loved that concept. But now there's studies coming out that you can, once you lose your weight, you're 10 or 20 pounds,

you can go on an intermittent schedule, you know, that you'd only take them once a month every three months. So there would be an amazing thing if you think that you could actually bring a large percentage of the population, 40% of the American population to a normal weight, and then relatively inexpensively could keep them at this weight.

So you're cautiously optimistic? I'm cautiously optimistic, and I was interested in trying it out. You did it yourself? Yeah, I did myself. Because I just wanted to see it. And so you will be satiated with half of you plate, you know, and you won't touch alcohol anymore, you know, which was an amazing thing to me. You won't eat the dessert, you know.

But then to maintain this habit, I think you still have to have the healthy diet recommendation. So I think the combination that I see now is I'm very enthusiastic and very optimistic about unless some unexpected long-term side effects come out. I mean, that we never know until 10 years later. I think that's the first time in modern post-World War II history that we can actually, effectively treat obesity with all its, it's not just the cosmetic thing, it's all these other chronic diseases associated with it. We're going to get into a lot of like pragmatic action steps, like when you've said healthy diet, what have you meant by that, things like that in a second.

But first, I just want to address, how do we know if we have a healthy gut? Like, are you a fan of any of the microbe tests that are out there? Are we just doing this in a symptom way? As a normal person who's not just like going into a GI doctor to assess this, how can we know if our anxiety, if our brain health stuff, if that is related to our gut health. Yeah, I think it's an unfortunate trend and obviously it's driven by the marketing on social media, you know, of these stool tests, aggressive marketing. I've talked to people that are also involved in this at the cutting edge of that kind of clinical research. It's almost like there should be specialists that are just focused on that give you the advice when you have this

test and you have these findings and the kids. can give you a special advice. They can tell you this has to do with anxiety or you need to change your diet in a certain way. These specialists don't exist right now. There's also differences in the quality of these tests. You know, the initial ones, I used the techniques at the time

they were sort of considered state of the art, but they're no longer the case. There's newer ones that I sort of support. Tiny Health is the one that I like. in some ways the most, and I'm actually collaborating with them. There's Jonah, and it's difficult for the lay public, you know, and the physicians right now, the way they're trained to give you advice. So you're lying on the dietitians of these companies that get on the phone with you

after you had a test and tell you. Some of these dietitians are actually pretty sophisticated, in my experience, what I've seen, but probably not all of them. You know, they give you advice that is not evidence-based. So it's almost like the tests can be good, but the interpretation of the test is not where we would want it to be. Yeah. And it could be, you know, I would say in five years from now, that you'll get a much better recommendation from it. There's also some tests that take just blood samples, they look at the molecules that the microbes produce to get into your systemic circulation.

kind of the easiest one because you don't have to collect a stool sample, which for a lot of people is kind of not gross. Yeah, it's funny that all of a sudden this can't be dinner conversations, you know, what stool tests do you use? Yeah, I think this field will progress further. I mean, there's also all these potentials, which we're not quite certain yet. You know, it's, is your gut microbiome or the ecological health of your gut microbiome, is it good for you right now?

Does it put you at risk for Parkinson's? Does it put you at risk for Alzheimer's? If that can be confirmed, you know, and what test do you need for that? I mean, that would have huge implication. And I think this could become a standard test that you, not as a young person, but certainly before your middle age, because some of these diseases, these neuroderect diseases start in middle age in your 40s.

Even now, you can probably even take one of these tests. you could tell in combination with the risk genes that always play a role, that you had a high risk of developing cognitive decline. I'm not sure if I would want to know that, quite honestly, because it could really ruin the rest of your life. But you could look at your lifestyle and counteract it, you know, at the early stage. Same with Parkinson's probably. So in absence of kind of the level of information we'd want to have,

Like, if I'm trying to figure out if my anxiety is rooted in my gut in some way, am I just going based off symptoms, or should we all just generally be doing all these things that are good for our gut and, like, hoping that that will pay off down the line? Like, how do we know if our gut is contributing in absence of these better diagnostic tools? My recommendation at the moment, unless you have diagnosed anxiety disorder, I think, but in general, I would say you should follow the general guidelines of a healthy diet. healthy lifestyle. Unless you can't afford it. I mean, this is a big barrier. You know, so when we talk

about the conversation applies mainly to the bi-coastal areas, wealthy, highly educated individuals. I think if you go in the middle of the country and to the south, also along socio-economic boundaries, a lot of this, what we're talking about is not reality. You know, they don't have access to these healthy foods. They can't afford it. For people who don't have access to the ideal diet, what are some things that most people would have access to that would actually move the needle? I would say probably most people have access to a variety of fruits and vegetables or fresh fruits and vegetables. So the general recommendation, actually it's based on one study. So I wouldn't say that that's a gold standard.

But that's what everybody goes by, some 35 different fruits and vegetables a week. There's one approach that I think is very exciting. And it's a nonprofit that was started by a woman Nora Latoria. This nonprofit is called Eat Real. And they go into the, they've gone into the school system. And I don't know exactly yet, even though I'm on the advisory board, how they've done it. They've been extremely successful. They're targeting now one million children that they reach in all socioeconomic categories.

So they are in the south. So just is a recent podcast with, with Nora and who's super excited. I mean, that somebody could accomplish something like this is almost unbelievable because we would think that the parents, the mothers, are opposed to this, that they tell them in school what they should eat instead of what the mothers thought they should be eating. But she said it was completely the opposite. There was enthusiasm by the mothers that they now, that their children are sort of on a

on a trajectory to healthy eating. When Michelle Obama tried this, you know, it failed because it was considered a government intervention in personal lives. So if it comes from a nonprofit, I think that's a more successful model. I don't know if this Meja movement will do something like this.

I doubt it. But so it can be done. Do you think we need systemic intervention in some way? this is not going to... This is not an onus of the individual situation. And I could imagine once you introduce these kids to this healthy eating style

and, you know, they're doing outcome studies, they feel better, they have less emotional issues. It sounds almost too good to be true, but they have such huge numbers now. Then they would also be interested to read more about it. You know, so right now they have no clue

about this connection, kids in in underprivileged neighborhoods. But if that model works, that it really changes children's behavior and insights and awareness, that could be the one, the biggest solution. I think if it comes from the government, it's generally, I mean,

it's certainly based on experience where we have seen so far, it didn't work. What's the nonprofit called again? Eat real. Eat real. Okay. Everybody should look this up. Yeah, yeah.

Great. It's not a conference. with a lot of volunteers and mothers for volunteers in that as well. Okay, so let's say we're now speaking to people who do have access and they just want the best information out there to transform their health. You've said healthy diet a few times. In your mind, what is the ideal diet for our gut? So starting with the one thing that we know is the worst effects

is decreasing the amount of sugar. And that's not just the sugar that you add in a cup of coffee or eating cakes. Sugar is ubiquitous now. The high fructose corn syrup is used because it's so cheap, it's government subsidized, so companies use it as a kind of a filler for anything from ketchup to sauce, like all these salad dressings, they all have that in it. And why is sugar bad for our gut? It has all these downstream metabolic effects that are all negative. So it's, I would say it's not only gut targeted. It's much wider the metabolism. But in the gut, it does have an effect on the gut microbiome as do the non-nutrative sweeteners, the sugar substitutes. And do you mean both the

less healthy ones we think of like aspartame and sucrose and the ones that we think of as having a bit more of a health halo like stevia and erythritol? Yeah, I think we did a recent review on this and I think stevia came out as the best one. Some of the other ones are basically, you know, synthetic chemicals that some of the non-absorbed and they definitely, I think these studies were done with not with stevia, but with sucralose and, you know, some of the diet Coke. Yeah. Yeah, diet coke is a horrendous thing. I mean, for gut health. For gut health. And it would be so easy. And also, if I look in the crystal ball, you know, the way that the soft drink industry will be moving. There's some really exciting developments that are also good for gut health. So one is

there's companies that make fiber molecules, synthetic fiber molecules, that can be added to these drinks. And there's a big interest now of the big coax and, you know, Coca-Cola and two antis and then you have basically a soft drink that gives you half an amount of fiber that you need, you know, for your health. How does then interact? It's hard to say with stevia and you provide the fiber which has the beneficial effects on the gut, you know, if that outweighs it. But I think the soft drink industry will go through some dramatic positive changes. Right now it's terrible because people have this illusion.

Even most of my colleagues at UCLA, you know, I always watch this when we have a noon lecture and Diet Coke is still far the most popular drink. people perceive that to be healthier than normal Coke. And you're saying they both have a pretty bad effect on your microbiome. Yeah. And I forgot now what's in diet Coke, what the main sweetener is. I think it's Aspartame. Aspartame, yeah.

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So I think people have to learn to look at the labels. One of the first things that we look, and my wife looks at is, is the sugar thing on these white tables that are on the bottle on the product, the amount of added sugar. And then I got to ask fruit sugar. Yeah, that's an interesting thing. So fruit juices, we take out the fiber from the juice and just have the sugar then are almost certainly not healthy. I mean, obviously you take up vitamins, orange juice.

I'm always surprised that if you go in any restaurant, there's always the glass, do you want orange juice. And it's kind of a worst thing for your metabolic health to get this boost of sugar and your insulin goes off, an insulin spike. And if you eat the whole fruit, there's tons of fiber in it and health-promoting molecules that both slow down the emptying, the gastric emptying of the sugar. So prevent that spike. but also counteract the absorption. So you're pro whole fruit but anti-fruit with the fiber extracted. Yeah, and it was for a while, I think five years ago, this juicing movement, you know. I did.

I started, I think like very early in my health journey, I was, I had a juicer and I was juicing every day. And I was making pretty green, like gross juices, like garlic and kale and stuff. They're not good. But I started in that whole world. Yeah. Yeah, that has fortunately gone away. But definitely, you know, I mean, whole fruit is definitely something. You're a pro.

You're not. Well, there's definitely a lot of people online who are like, don't even eat whole fruit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not you. Absolutely not. Okay, cool. So we're getting rid of sugar. What else are we doing?

What are the next steps for our healthy diet? We're constructing the healthiest possible diet for our gut. You stay away from ultra-processed food. And that kind of overlaps with the sugar because most ultra-processed foods, have high amounts of sugar and chemical additives. A good example is on the airlines you get these pretzels, what they call pretzels, mini pretzels. If you look at the rear side of that package, it probably has 50 names on it, chemical names.

You know, they have no idea what this is. It's all chemicals. So that's a typical ultra-processed food. So you want to eliminate that. And that includes a lot of things. So it's not just processed foods, almost everything we eat is processed. Like olive oils are processed food. Yogurt's or, yeah.

I mean, almost everything. You know, unless you eat raw vegetables, I mean, that's. Yeah. So, but the ultra process is the addition of all these molecules and the extraction of fiber. So you take out the good things and you add the sugar and you add the chemicals to it and fats to it. So a lot of the snacks, you know, and power bars, I think you have to be very careful if that doesn't fall into the category of ultra-processed foods. So there will be the second. Then the things that you don't avoid but you want to increase, actually, is if it's available, you know, this high variety of fresh fruits and vegetables.

And then there's the question we talked about earlier briefly about how is this food grown. Is it organic? You know, is it regenerative organically grown? A lot of people say that doesn't matter because organic food is sprayed with just different chemicals than non-organic food. You think there's enough data right now that shows that non-organic food

is having some sort of negative impact on our gut microbiome? It's not just the spraying of things on foods. I mean, the organic label, I think, is fairly fluid. You know, it's not 100% strict. But suppose the things that are being sprayed on it and increasing amounts because a lot of herbs and the bugs have become resistant. So they keep increasing the amount of like, you know, the chemicals that they use, round up. This is where the regenerative organic comes in. This is a movement that's still starting, you know.

The reason that's important because chemical agriculture is basically putting chemical fertilizer in the ground getting beautiful, big fruits and vegetables. But what it does, it basically suppresses the microbiome of the soil. So normally there's close interactions between the microbes and the soil and the roots of the plants. And the microbes stimulate the plants to produce these health-promoting molecules. So if you eat – and there are studies on this. If you eat food that's grown in regenerative organic fashion, so without the chemical fertilizers, it has much higher concentrations of polyphenol molecules. Which are also good for your gut, right?

Yeah, there are antioxidants. We can come back to this in a minute. It's kind of demanding for a person that goes shopping. So what exactly is important? So the gold standard, I would say, the farmer's market that you verify it yourself. Second one, if you go to a market that has an organic section, and it still may be not the ideal food. Ideally, you know, buy it from farmers that use this regenerative organic technique.

The polyphenol molecules, we always talk about fiber, you know. So the reason that these 35 different vegetables and fruits per week are important is because there's many different kinds of fiber and there's many different kinds of these polyphenol molecules, thousands, really. So if you just eat tomatoes only, you're vegan and you live with tomatoes or one other vegetable, it's not beneficial to your microbes. That if you eat this multi, this number of fruits and vegetables, it forces the ecosystem and you got to diversify because you need to bring in microbes that are specialized for the specific fiber or for the specific polyphenols that are in different kinds of plants. So the more you add this in, and it could take a while. So if you have been on the standard American diet for most of your life,

and I wouldn't recommend from one day to the other go on to the 35 vegetables, you know, because you're probably going to get bloated and for all kinds of symptoms. So you gradually have to do this and imagine that you bring in more and more, I would call it immigrants into the gut ecosystem that have special skills. you know and so it's it's very similar to other ecosystems you know that that diversity changes with a challenge that an ecosystem has in terms of what they have to process and and i would say that that applies both to the fibers and and to the polyphenols the fibers have gotten more attention the polyphenols are kind of similar molecular structures as these human milk oligosaccharides

these very large ones, that our gut cannot absorb intact. So if you eat these fruits and vegetables with those components, they will move down into the end of your small intestine and the large intestine because the microbes have the tools to break them down into smaller. So the polyphenols become phenols. And then these molecules, they feed the microbes. They increase the diversity. So improve gut health.

but they're also absorbed they're anti-inflammatory and they're also absorbed just like the fiber metabolites and go into your systemic circulation, go all the way into your brain and do a lot of things for

your overall health. So it's kind of interesting how plants are the main suppliers of these things that are the best for our gut health and for overall health, you know. And the plants produce these molecules.

So if a plant is stressed, for example, in a drought or with infestations or with any challenges, it sends signals down into its root system and the root system

secretes these sugar molecules and the sugar molecules attract these microbes in the soil. And then the microbes stimulate the plant to produce these remedies, basically this polyphenols. So a stress plant produces more of these than a plant that's not stress. That plant may not show the same beautiful fruits and vegetables as you get in the whole foods market.

But that's another reason why having organic will have higher rates of these polyphenols, because when you're protecting them with the pesticide, that chain is not kicking off, essentially. Yeah, you interfere, actually, with this natural process. Yeah. And I've sort of been fascinated how to come up with this one health concept, how the health of the soil, the health of the plant and the health of the gut and the health of our organism that all are connected. It's an amazing story. Are there any other food things that we definitely need to be talking about this? We need to pay attention to this when it comes to our gut microbes.

Always a story about red meat. It's not just the meat. It's also the antibiotics that eat with that meat. And again, if it's organically raised meat, grass-fed meat, that all lessens the negative effects. I think the fanciest and the most tasty steaks, I mean, so we have eliminated red meat from our diet. Are the ones that are marbled, which is all fat. So, you know, that fat is not good for your gut health. It's one of the inflammatory molecules.

replacing not totally but to a large degree red meat with with poultry and fish is definitely a way to go in our current world all these better products also have their their problems you know with contamination in the ocean so the fish that you eat have mercury content and and the same thing with the chicken, the way the chickens are raised, you know, is also horrendous and the antibiotics they get. And you go back to the same thing. If you can get organic chicken, pasture-fed chicken, it's more expensive, but it's definitely there's evidence that that is beneficial, you know. What do you think about dairy? It's another controversial topic. The reason that our organisms have enzymes to break down dairy or milk or lactose is basically to prepare to optimize us for

the postnatal periods. So, you know, milk is a good thing for and the body has or the gut has enzymes lactase that breaks down the milk. Most adults, with exceptions of the Inuits and some Scandinavians, lose most of their enzyme that breaks down lactose. And, So a lactose or lactase deficiency is the normal state. Some patients come to me as I say, I've been diagnosed with lactose deficiency. Well, that's the normal state for an adult in the Western world. I would say milk products, unless you're Scandinavian or, you know, it's not something that I recommend. Unless they're fermented, you know, where you basically break down a lot of milk sugar.

To like a cafeer. Yeah, or yogurt or Greek, you know, Greek yogurt is obviously a great product because of the high protein content. Okay, so yes to fermented dairy, but you pretty much don't. Does cheese count as fermented dairy? Yeah, yeah, cheese is fermented. Oh, thank God. And it's, you know, it's pretty part of the explanation for what's called the French paradox that the French and the Belgium's consume more cheese than anybody else. And that doesn't come along with a higher mortality or, you know. And it's. Partially one thing could be that they eat a lot of fermented foods and cheese in the rind or the cheese.

That's where most of the microbes are. Each cheese has a different population of microbes. That's why they taste different and why they smell different. So to eat a variety of cheese is probably a good thing. Okay. Not the kind of cheese you put on a hamburger, you know, that is basically totally ultra-processed. But like a good Parmesan or something like that we love. Okay.

You heard it here first. Are there lifestyle factors that you think have an outsized effect on our gut microbes and our brain health, either in a positive way or a negative way? Yeah, so exercise, physical exercise, have been studies on that. So mild to moderate but regular aerobic exercise has a positive effect on the health of the microbiome. High performance exercise has a negative effect. That's perceived by the body and the brain and the gut as a stressor. and you see exactly the same changes you would see with a severe psychological with trauma. You know, you get increased permeability or leakiness, inflammation, diarrhea.

If you do these things like marathon running, which is obviously become very popular, it's good for your mental well-being, I think, but it's not beneficial for your physical health or your gut health. I would say clearly a benefit through stress reduction and probably through other mechanisms as well that we incompletely understand. I mean, there are studies also on long-term meditators that have shown an effect on the gut microbiome. Do you meditate? I try to. I do sort of simple things like autogenic training or progressive muscle relaxation, which is sort of a cheap way of

doing meditation. In phases in my life where I've done it more regularly in the Zen Center at downtown L.A. But with our lifestyles, it's hard to do it. But the research bears out that it is beneficial. Yeah, but then there's a strange thing. You know, if you look at the life expectancy, I mean, I always like to go back to real life examples, just like in Italy and in Parma, you know.

The life expectancy of monks is not higher. if anything, a lot of them die at an earlier age. This may have to do to other factors. I mean, living in high altitude in the Himalayas may not be the healthiest thing. But the meditation by itself does not guarantee that you become a centenarian. That's interesting. I think of it, though, is like because our daily lives are so stressful, we need to figure out some way to mitigate that, whether it's meditation or reading or the community time, like all these things we've talked about. but like to not have something to deal with the fact that modern life is really stressful is problematic.

Yeah. And so once you recognize it and you realize the health implications of this allostatic load, I think that gives you motivation to, you know, to. And both the regular average exercise and the meditative, the contemplative practices. And I would include everything, even the short periods of, of, abdominal breathing, I would count into this. Or like dinner with your friends. Dinner with your friends.

Yeah. Back to what we talked about at the beginning. Like that is an important health practice and we need to be talking about it as such. Yeah. So I have a student. Actually, she's a postdoc now who's doing these studies on positive emotions on the microbiome. So there's a whole literature on this, you know, not on the microbiome, but the effect of positive emotions on health. and well-being, which is kind of interesting.

And there's something called Sympathia. And there are studies that this sympathy, which is sort of this positive emotion towards your children and towards your people around you, has this health-promoting effect. It's amazing that it's the first time that I heard this through her. That's cool. But so she's now studying this on the microbiome, you know.

So stay tuned. Yeah. Cool. Can you leave us with just one. homework assignment, something that we can all do as soon as we turn off this podcast, that will have a positive impact on our gut and thus our brains. Assuming that you have not done anything, these various things that we have talked about in this, maybe spend 10 minutes into your diaphragmatic breathing, you know, stimulating your vagal

nerve, changing your whole mode of operation of the brain into a parasympathetic mode, which is beneficial for your gut and for your health in general. And those are just deep breaths into your belly? Into your belly. It's an interesting thing with my patients. I do this with every patient. The first thing is, I mean, I look at them when they're lying down. First thing is to take a deep breath.

And most people will do it into the chest. They think a deep breath always has to be into the chest. And then you show them, you know, put your hand on your belly and make your belly come in and out. Most patients can do this fairly quickly, but there's some patients who cannot do it who are unable, and I think they really have a major issue in terms of switching their system. It's also interesting that children, up to 18 years of age, do the belly breathing naturally. But there's something as an adult, I guess, with the stress level, that we shifted to this, you know,

fight-in-flight response pattern. Interesting. All right. So breathe into your belly. Well, thank you so much, Emron. Do you want to take a second and shout out your books, your online programs, all of that, anything you want to direct people to? The simplest way is to go to my website, mormeer.com, and there's a lot of opportunities

that you have going to our newsletter or subscribe to our newsletter. Like you see, the books have published, The Mind Got the Immune Connection, Mind Got the Immune Connection, the rest of your book, The Interconnected Plates. and there's also a podcast that you can. So going to the website, I think, will open a whole world. The whole world. And we're in the process of expanding this also with products. I've been skeptical for a long time of supplements,

but there's a small, a limited group of supplements that I think has scientifically based benefits. And there will also be things like extra virgin olive oil from a special cycle. in southern Italy. So that part developing, it's actually my son who is developing that part, but ultimately you'll be able to go to this website

and find everything you need, both educationally, awareness-wise practices and products. Perfect. Well, thank you so much for taking the time today. I really appreciate it. It was a pleasure.

Thanks for having me on the show. Unfortunately, that is all for this episode. Make sure that you're following the Liz Moody podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify or YouTube, so that you never miss out on an episode. Following means that new episodes will show up right in your feed. And also, we now have full video versions of all of our episodes. If you're watching, hi, hello, on Spotify

and YouTube too. I've started to love watching podcasts. It's really fun. So if you're in that camp, let me know, but we have full video episodes for you if you are interested. We're able to bring you this show completely for free thanks to the amazing brands that we partner with. If you're looking for science back products to elevate every single part of your life, you can find all of our current discount codes at Liz Moody.com slash codes. We have codes for like workout plans, for different types of supplements, for delivery food stuff. We really, we like anything you're thinking about, we've probably got a code for the best product in that category. And do not forget to send up for our newsletter. It's called the takeaway. You can find that at Liz Moody.substack.com. It's where we

break down every single episode with action steps, with challenges and bonus content. You can also So find full transcripts for every single episode over there. And really interesting things that we don't cover anywhere else. Like we just published a deep dive into if red dye is actually harmful to our health. I know there's been a lot of public conversation around that. So we were like, what does the science actually say? So you can find that over at lizmoody. com.

Lastly, come hang out with me on Instagram. I am at Liz Moody. I have completely revamped my Instagram recently to make it even more helpful to you. So go check it out and give me your honest. feedback or you can be like, I hate it. And let me know that too. I want to know, I want to know whatever you got to say. Okay, I love you. I love that we get to spend this time together. I love that we get to learn and grow together and that we get to aspire to do the most with our precious time on this planet. And I will see you next time on the Liz Moody podcast. Oh, just one more thing.

It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, a psychotherapist, or any other qualified professional.