Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - The Gut-Immune Connection - With Dr. Emeran Mayer

Episode Date: June 14, 2021

// R E A D Y • S E T • R E S E T In this episode, we talk all about what conditions in the gut suppress the immune system the most. Plus, Dr. Mayer reveals which diets hurt the microbes in our guts and which diets help the microbes in our gut. Dr. Emeran A Mayer is a Gastroenterologist, Neuroscientist, and Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and the Executive Director of the G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience at UCLA. As one of the pioneers and leading researchers in the role of brain-gut interactions in health and chronic disease, in particular in IBS, his scientific contributions to basic and translational enteric neurobiology with wide-ranging applications in clinical GI diseases and disorders is unparalleled. He has published more than 385 scientific papers, co-edited 3 books, published the best-selling The Mind-Gut Connection book in 2016 and the Gut Immune Connection book in June 2021.  He is the recipient of the 2016 David McLean award from the American Psychosomatic Society and the 2017 Ismar Boas Medal from the German Society of Gastroenterology and Metabolic Disease.  His most recent work has focused on alterations in the bidirectional communications within the brain-gut microbiome system and their role in chronic inflammatory and functional diseases of the gut, obesity, and cognitive decline. In this podcast, we cover: How the standard American diet affects our microbiome The ways that we can improve the diversity in our gut Can fasting have positive effects on our immune system? The causes of leaky gut and what you can do about it // R E S O U R C E S  M E N T I O N E D Feel the impact of Organifi - use code PELZ for a discount on all products!  Fasting Cheat Sheet Book: The Gut Immune Connection book Book: The Gut Mind  Book: Overstory // M O R E  O N  D R.  E M E R A N  M A Y E R Website Instagram Facebook // F O L L O W Instagram | @dr.mindypelz & @theresetterpodcast Facebook | /drmindypelz & /theresetterpodcast Youtube | /drmindypelz   Please note the following medical disclaimer: By listening to this podcast you understand that this video is for educational purposes only. It is not intended to substitute for professional medical advice and should not be relied on as health or personal advice. Always seek the guidance of your doctor with any questions you may have regarding your health or medical condition.  

understand, grasp, the interconnectedness of healthy systems, be it in your gut, be it in your body, be it in the plants and the soil, and being on the planet in general, because they're all interconnected. And if you probe into it, you'll be surprised how close these interactions really are. I am a woman on a mission that is dedicated to teaching you just how powerful your body was built to be. I like to do that by bringing you the latest science, the greatest thought leaders, and applicable steps that help you tap into your own internal healing power. The purpose of this podcast is to give you the power back and help you believe in yourself again. My name is Dr. Mindy Pels, and I want to thank you for spending

part of your day with me. Okay, Resetters, on this episode of the Resetter podcast, we are going to take a new twist with the information I've been bringing you. And we're going to dive into your gut microbiome. Now, I want to give you a little bit of a background, not only on the next guess, but on this topic. So for many, many years, we thought that our health was 100% determined by our human cells, specifically our genetics. And it wasn't until like the 1980s when the microbeys, when the microbeckons. Biome Project came around that we discovered that human cells and microbes are interacting with each other and that microbes are not all bad. I mean, stop and think about that. That's only 40 years ago that we started to realize, huh, microbes are not all bad. In fact, these microbes do magic in our

body. They give us neurotransmitters that calm our brain. They help with mental clarity. They prevent things like Alzheimer's, and they have a strong impact on our immune system. So my next guest is Dr. Emron Mayer, and he has written a book called The Gut Immune Connection. And this is his book that as you're listening to this, this book is being released just right now. His prior book was Mind Gut Connection. Both of them are fascinating. And in this episode, we talk about some very specific and applicable things. for your life. One, we talk about what conditions in the gut are suppressing the immune system the most.

And we're not just talking about infectious immune system. We also talk about autoimmunity. We talked about diets that hurt the microbes in our guts and diets that help the microbes in our gut. And it's a little different than you might suspect. So I'm excited to share that with you. And, of course, we talk about fasting. I had to ask him what he thought. about the research on fasting because what we see with all of you guys is that fasting has a dramatic effect on your gut microbiome. And so he talked about that. Really fascinating conversation. We dive into everything you would need to know about the gut microbiome and its effect on your immune system. You will walk away from this conversation with not only a greater respect for these microbes,

but with some really clear steps on what you can do to keep your microbiome in great shape. So Dr. Emron Mayer and his book is The Gut Immune Connection on Amazon right now. We will leave links in the show notes so you can dive into the science and the application of repairing your gut microbiome to improve your, not only your mind, but your immune system as well. Enjoy. I'm a huge fan in the microbiome. I really am excited about anybody who's putting out information on the microbiome because I feel like it's not talked about enough,

even though it's talked about more than ever. It's still not enough. We don't give it enough credit. And it's something that people need to be aware of. So I'm really excited to have this conversation with you and super happy you wrote the book. Yeah, I know it's sort of the book has taken. I mean, I can pretty say this when you ask me a question, why I wrote the second book.

But it's been an interesting journey, you know, from my original complete lack of interest and expertise in nutrition as a gastroenterologist, paradoxically, to getting really interested during my first book, then more interested during the follow-up to the book with all the interviews and talking to different audiences. And then, you know, with the second one, it really dives even deeper into that. Yeah, it's been an interesting journey. So I come more from the brain side because, you know, the brain gut interactions was kind of the thing that really fascinated me. But then with the brain gut microbiome system, that has kind of, you know, the diet part has sort of taken a big importance in this.

Yeah. Well, and I think it's interesting you were saying that you wrote the book last year. Were you writing it last year as we are going to? through the pandemic? No, it was interesting because it was kind of a moving target as a pandemic. And I think a lot of people have forgotten that we're in the midst of this epidemic, which is equally, it's moving slower and people are not dying as fast as with COVID. But I think it's equally impactful, you know, on what impact it has on the healthcare system

and on people's health and mortality. Talk a little bit about that. because the one thing that shocked me last year is that people thought we had a virus problem. And what I saw is we had an immune problem. Can you talk how do we determine the difference between both and what's your feeling on that? Did we have a viral problem or did we have a compromised immune system problem? Well, I mean, I would say it's the two of them coming together. You know, I mean, clearly this virus is something that, you know, we have experienced before exposure to

these viruses that most of the time come from animals and will continue to increase in their danger with, you know, the way we farm animals, you know, in humane ways of producing our meat supplies. And but they also come from, you know, encroaching on habitats of wild animals and making this interface smaller between the wild animals and us. but there's also clearly, as we can see from the people that are most vulnerable to this virus, you know, is a good story to be learned. I mean, it's not everybody got it.

Not everybody had to go to the ICU and not everybody developed along COVID. So there's all these factors that I think have to do directly with the immune system, you know, and the vulnerability of people. And that links it again, you know, to the immune system in our gut, you know, where most of it is located. Well, I find it fascinating that your training is as a gastroenterologist, and yet I'm finding many people, well, people in general, but a lot of the medical profession has not acknowledged that gut problems aren't just

stomach aches. They're not just constipation, that an imbalance in the gut is something bigger than that. Can you talk a little bit about that and bring our audience up to speed? Yeah, this is definitely not being part of the curriculum, you know, in gastroenterology or even in medicine. I mean, gut health. And so typically for gastroenterologist, there's two things. There's either something you see on your endoscopy or if it's not there.

It's something what's called functional and it's, you know, it's dismissed as something, you know, it's not really that serious. and that has changed a little bit over time, but it's certainly not being replaced by this concept of gut health or well-being, you know, that's now at the center of the discussion and of attention. At the same time, you know, we have learned so much about these different systems in the gut. You know, it's not just the digestive organ, it's not just the organ warrior, you know, your colon,

polyps and cancers grow. It's our biggest part of the immune system, biggest part of our hormonal system has its own nervous system, that is, you know, 150 million nerve cells. And then several other cell types, you know, and they all interact with each other, and then you add the microbiome to it. That system by itself, interaction on these various, you know, heave homeostatic systems in our body. That's the health of that system, that's something that has not received any attention, really, I would say, from gastrology or from the medical system. You know, it will probably change now.

It's been good that there has been this wave of interest and publicity and media attention. I think that is, you know, I've talked to some colleagues. that are pursuing that as sort of the same, you know, the same concept, same philosophy that I have had in this area. Yeah, all you have to do is go to PubMed and type in, you know, gut and brain, gut and immune system. You can find thousands of peer-reviewed journals talking about it. And I feel like it's a topic that just really needs to be shed, some light needs to be shed on it. And yet I think that many people in our world believe that you only have a gut problem if you've got constipation or diarrhea or something of that sense. So help us understand what exactly, how does the gut control our immune system and how would we know if it's not doing a good job giving us a strong immune system?

Yeah, so I wouldn't say that the gut controls the immune system. I made a big case in my new book about this, just concept of systems biology that there's an interaction of multiple parts, and it's not one part that determines influence the other. It's always feedback loops, and it's really the system behavior that we're interested in. And so, yeah, I mean, just from the anatomy, you know, there's this, you know, 70% of our immune system is, is sandwiched just underneath the lining of the gut, microns away from all the microbes.

And, you know, so it's in very close contact to this microbes. In a healthy gut, it's insulated from the influence of the microbes. But if anything happens to this intestinal barrier, then you get an activation of which either can stay, in the gut. So you have this spatially limited immune system activation, which may not give you any symptoms at all. But if it's more severe, then it affects the tightness of the actual, the epithelial layer, the gut layer, and then microbes can get into the immune system directly, and it can get into the systemic circulation. You know, so this is, and once that happens, once you have the signaling molecules and the actual microbes in the systemic circulation,

they can go anywhere. You know, they can go to the liver, to the fat tissue, to the brain, and can cause inflammation there. You know, and there we have this. So it's almost like, you know, probably one of the main entry points for agents that can ultimately, for influences, they can ultimately lead. to this system-wide immune activation. Would you say leaky gut is the most dangerous gut scenario that we can get inside of us? Probably the most dangerous.

You know, there's certainly other things we can talk about that as well. But, I mean, the leaky gut concept is, you know, I mean, I still remember when the first patients told me about this word, I dismissed it. This was like 10, you know, 15 years ago as something crazy. that they picked up from their functional medicine practitioner that has nothing to do with reality or science. Right. And I still have not found out how this first came into existence. That, you know, certain parts of medicine practitioners came up with this idea.

So, yeah, in the meantime, I would say that is probably, as far as we know today, is at the core of many of our chronic health problems. And I mean, there's obviously other things, you know, the microbes themselves produce, produce many signaling molecules. I mean, hundreds of thousands of so-called metabolites. And from the food that we eat and from some molecules that circulate in our, you know, in our system like hormones, female, estrogen, female sex hormones, bio acids, the microbes modify those molecules once they get into the gut and then they're being reabsorbed. So those processes with these signaling molecules do not require a liquid gut. You know,

you just need the microbes that can do this. You make it sound so simple. You just need the microbes. Aren't the microbes also struggling with the modern living environment that the human body is in? Yeah, so this has been something, you know, that's really been going on in the last 75 years since World War II with accelerated industrial agriculture and, you know, ultra-processing of food, ingestion of chemicals, poisons, pesticides, antibiotics. I mean, there's been a constant assault on the integrity of this, you know, what we call it. an ecosystem. It's a very complex ecosystem. And the reason that we haven't developed more problems is because any ecosystem is stable and resilient to change. That makes sense.

Despite all these onslaughts of all these negative things, you know, that we have lost some microbial strains and species permanently. So if you look at the curse, you know, what has happened to our diversity. it has continued to decrease in the last 75 years and is continuing to decrease with many of the things continuing unabated, you know, these influences that I mentioned. And so that has, yeah, that is a couple of consequences. One is it does contribute. It makes us more susceptible, for example, to viral infections. because one major function of an ecosystem is its resilience and its defense against invaders, pathological invaders.

Another thing is, if this happens early in life, there's an altered interaction of the immune system with the evolving microbiome. And so the immune system is less able to learn how to differentiate. between good and bad, so the cause of the all-immune, the, you know, epidemic of autoimmune diseases and food sensitivities. So all these things, you know, happen without, so you don't need the leaky gut syndrome to explain those. And concepts now about, you know, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease, there's many mechanisms.

I think the most likely is it's a lot. it's a combination of that leaky gut and the inflammation with these other signaling molecules that are altered gut microbiome produces. And it's, yeah, so I would say welcome to the world of, you know, welcome to the ecosystem world because there's not many diseases left that have one single gene. It's obviously interactions of multiple factors. What do you think is causing a leaky gut? So you talked about the microbes not being prolific because of the environment that is going on in the gut, the ecosystem.

What do you think opens those junctions up? Yeah, so the junctions really are open by, you know, inflammatory molecules, cytokines, that the immune cells that are located in our gut just underneath the surface that they produce. And the mechanism that, you know, the way it works is there's a subclass of these immune cells, dendritic cells. They actually, their extensions reach into the gut lumen, into the mucous layer. And if any micro gets close enough to those extensions, to the receptors, these toll-like receptors, then that dendritic cell is activated, produces cytokines, the cytokines affect. the other immune cells.

And then the immune cells together, you know, there's many of these cytokines, then act on these tight junctions and loosen them. So, and the inflammation that goes on in that area, you know, loosens these tight junctions. And it's sort of like opening the floodgates to the actual microbes, the intact microbes, you know, that. And what's dangerous about that is, I mean, there, the cell membrane of microbes has molecules, it's made out of molecules, like LPS is one of the

best non-lipopolysaccharide. Another group of molecules are so-called MAMPS, MAMPS, and they act on these specific receptors on immune cells, on these tol-like receptors, or TLRs. And when that happens, you know, in the gut or then once these cell wall components are in the circulation, it happens everywhere they go, you know. And so then all of a sudden, our fat tissue turns into an immune organ because it gets inflamed and produces more cytokines. Same in the liver, you know, this, just Nafel, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is a similar mechanism that immune activation plays a role in creating changes in the liver that makes

causes inflammation and so it's it's almost like a contagion within the body you know and it starts the floodgates are is or are in the gut and I think we know that process now pretty well how that starts you're talking a lot about a cytokine storm and I'm thinking you know that was a term that are cytokines. That was a term that I feel like the world learned last year. And do you think there's the possibility that this cytokine storm was already going on inside many humans' guts? And then when they came in contact with COVID, they created this hyperactive immune response because they already had a low-level cytokine storm going on. Yeah. So I think to say, you know, in general, I mean,

most of these problems we're dealing with today are some form of a hyperactivity of the immune system. So in allergies, it's against substances that we shouldn't be allergic to it. We shouldn't have a reaction of our immune system. Same thing with all the immune diseases. We should not, our immune system should not attack our own body cells. And with the cytokine storm, that's just the last, you know, the last example. And, um, I mean, there's a very complex balance in the gut between the certain cytokines like IL10 into lukin 10, produced by a subset of immune cells called the T-Rex cells. And that aisle 10 is anti-inflammatory.

So if there's an imbalance between the IL10 and the other inflammatory, pro-inflammatory cytokines, then you have a state of enhanced inflammation potential. and if that was present in people, it's sort of hard to say retroactively, you know, because so we don't have data on all the people that develop COVID, even though on some of them, so there will be studies coming out on that topic because on some of the patients that later developed or died or developed long COVID, there were blood samples available from before they fell ill.

but it's the general concept is that anybody who has any of these not what's called non-infectious chronic diseases so they make up our chronic disease epidemic you know heart disease colon cancer Alzheimer's metabolic syndrome diabetes there's a whole range of these diseases and they often co-occur in the same patient risk factors are obesity and um um um um um um an unhealthy diet and, you know, and metabolic dysregulation. And this kind of breaks down. People in lower socioeconomic parts of our country are more likely to have these diseases for a variety of reasons. You know, less access to health care, unhealthy diet for the main thing.

And so this group of society has been at far at increased risk to develop, not only to develop regular, you know, COVID-19 infection, but also the more severe forms and this cytokine storm. And it's sort of, yeah, it's kind of interesting. I was not, you know, so if you look at populations around the world, to have the healthiest gut microbiome, the most diverse and the richest its populations

that live on the Orinoco River in Brazil and Venezuela. And so I have a particularly interest in those because during my college time, I was fortunate to be on a film expedition to these people. And unfortunately, they are particularly susceptible. But this is something else

because they've never been exposed to many of our viruses and infectious diseases. It's just the same as with, you know, indigenous populations everywhere in the U.S. as well, that when, you know, Europeans came, they died, you know, rapidly from these infections. So this is, so the microbiome cannot apparently protect you against those kind of, or, you know, yeah, cannot protect you from this. There must be other factors. As I said, if a population has never been exposed to Western infectious diseases, then the immune system just doesn't know how to react to them.

I was going to say, is that a training of the immune system? You know, there's a lot of talk about how we really enhance our immune system by small doses of exposure to a variety of bacteria and viruses. So when I hear you talk about that, I'm wondering if they're just exposed to different viruses, different bacteria, so they're not getting the more Western infections. And maybe if you plopped them in New York, in 2019, they may have been better prepared to handle the virus in 2020. Yeah, and that's an interesting thing because, you know, the training, what you call the training of the immune system, the optimal training seems to require infections, chronic infections with

with organisms and parasites that are not very dangerous, you know, that you can live where. Right. So many of these indigenous people, they have these infections. You know, they, and what their immune system gets used to that. And so, but if they're exposed to something that comes from the outside, it's not part of their natural environment, then, you know, they're even more vulnerable than, than people in the U.S. with a compromise. microbiome.

How much do you think the standard American diet is contributing to our deficient microbiome? A lot. I would say, if I had to single out one factor, it would probably top the list. And that also is relatively simply explained by that, you know, our diet has lost in diversity. First of all, it's lost in the components of plant-based foods in general and replace it with animal-based products. Secondly, the diversity of these plant-based foods has gone down dramatically. You know, the types of grains or the types of beans or anything, you know, has gone down from hundreds to less than a handful. And so even if somebody eats a healthy diet, you know, largely plant rich in vegetables and fruits,

they'll get a much smaller variety of these plant-based molecules, which are essential for the diversity of the microbiome. And the two categories are the fiber on the one side. You know, it's not just one type of molecule. There's hundreds of different types of chemical structures. they make up these fibers from different. And then the other group of molecules are these polyphenols or antioxidants that are these large molecules, again, that you need the microbes to break them down.

So if you reduce the diversity of the plant-based foods that you ingest, you also greatly reduce the amount of these microbe-targeted food items. and so the microbes are starving. On top of that, you know, what's happened with the ultra-processed food, we don't leave even that reduced diversity of food. We don't leave alone. So we process and over-process it. And to a degree that many of these large molecules are broken down and absorbed in a small intestine,

so they're no longer go down into the large intestine. So we really have been starving our microbiome. on. I mean, that's, you know, and that process has been going on ever since humans invented cooking. I've forgotten how long this goes back, probably more than 100,000 years. But initially, this wasn't as extreme as it is now. I think there's definitely been an exponential increase of this processing, ultra-processing, in the last 50s. 50, 75 years, because food companies, in combination with industrial agriculture, I mean, this goes hand in hand, you know, industrial agriculture produces these monocultures of crops

because it's cheaper to produce. And then the food industry takes these and over-processes them, so take out even the good parts out of these foods, you know, and adds sugar to it and takes out fiber. You can almost go to a market and, you know, if you look for natural high-fiber food, so rice is, the white rice is still considered the best one. pasta, you know, the pasta that you get now in Italian restaurant is almost devoid of fiber. So most things that in industrialized societies and in the standard American diet, well, potatoes, is another example.

You know, potatoes are now optimized for making French fries. And those potatoes have a very low fiber content compared to sweet potatoes, for example, you know, which are staple food of the open album. That's my favorite food, literally. Well, you're in that, you know, you're totally conscious in that space, but you're not representative for the majority. So with the number one thing we could do to feed our. microbiome be fiber? Fiber and these polyphenols. So polyphenols are these large molecules.

They cannot be absorbed in the small intestine. They are part of every fruit highest in berries, all kinds of berries. Red wine. Red wine. Even though, I mean, red wine is not on the top of the list of these, you know, it's always sort of been used as the example of polyphenolene. But there are many other things, particularly, I would say, berries, nuts and seeds that have higher. And just about any vegetable has it. And again, there's not just one. You know, there's hundreds, 30, thousands of different molecules. And so why is it so important when I emphasize, you know, that diversity of fiber and polyphenols?

Because many microbes are specialists. they don't they don't digest any any kind of fiber they specialize on certain types of fiber certain types of polyphenols and so if you feed them this large variety you force the system to add on other specialists that can help and and you expand you know the the ecosystem of that food process, this endogenous food processing system in your, in your gut. And if you do this, I think you asked that before, if you do this today, so obviously our diversity and richness has gone down a lot, continues to go down. And you could say, well, it's too late.

So, you know, maybe some of these strains have gone extinct. So why should I pay much attention to this? well before they go into extinction as we know from macro ecosystems like a jungle or so before species goes into existence it goes into um you know being being totally eliminated it goes through a stage four it's almost undetectable but there's still a very low level of those organisms present so now if you bring in this food you nurture and you grow back you know like like a gardener you know you bring back things that that have not been doing well. Yeah. And if you're lucky, there's enough lift of them that, you know,

they come back. Yeah. So you can restore your ecosystem, you know. You know, we've done thousands of gut tests on our on our resetters and not one. I kid you not, not one. I think I had maybe a little bit of an inkling of one in a child, but not one had. I had, enough diversity. The, the, the test came back that their microd diversity was very low and they had created this monoculturing of their microbiome. Do you think that's because we tend to eat the same foods over and over and over again? Is it because if I'm eating the standard American diet, I'm always eating the standard American diet? If I love sweet potatoes, I'm always eating sweet potatoes. what is it that we can do to really improve the diversity?

Do we need to buy from different farms all the time? How do we get that diversity up? No, I mean, if you rotate, I mean, first of all, I think you have to become aware of the problem. You know, it's not for sure. You know, you can be a vegetarian by just eating pizza, but it's not going to good for your health. Well said. And it's the same, you can be a vegetarian just eating carrots, you know, and it's not going to, particularly carrots that have been, you know, selected from hundreds of different types of carrots to the one that has the most

sugar in it, because that's the tastiest. Yes. So as much as different types, you can use seasons to influence that process, you know, you get different varieties, particularly in California. We overcome this obviously by having everything available all the time. That's true. But not in all, you know, not in all parts. parts of the country, not all parts of the world.

So you can rotate them seasonally. And we know that that's a good thing for microbes. The ones that don't get enough or the variety. So we know this from studies in Africa amongst, you know, people at the hot stuff, people that sort of the descendants of the last remnants of hunter-gatherers. So they have this seasonal food supply. And they have a season where the diversity of their food intake goes way down, as does the diversity of the microbes and the molecules that the microbes produce,

this goes down to almost the level that's comparable to our Western, our standard American diet situation. Interesting. The difference is when they then eat going to another season, they all come back. So they don't go extinct. They just are suppressed to a very low level. Yeah, so clearly, you know, you may not have access to all the same fresh vegetables in wintertime, many parts of the U.S.

as you have in the summer. Yeah, so this is something, I mean, going also another thing is just going to, if you know the source, where and how it's grown, has also a big influence. So the polyphenol content, for example, is dependent on the health of the soil and the microbes in the soil. So if this food is grown, and there's a big discussion about this aquaponics that this could allow us to, you know, double triple our food supplies, but they're grown in waters. And the roots are no longer in soil and not exposed to the microbes.

So these foods have a much lower concentration of these health beneficial molecules. So you want to know exactly what it comes from, how is it grown in an organic fashion or in better regenerative organic fashion. So get to know your farmer is what I heard. What do you think? I'm curious what you think about fasting because I have this new aha since we have a tremendous amount of people in our community that fast together, that chronic disease is coming from the standard American diet. But getting everybody from the standard American diet to the

Whole Foods diet, it could be expensive. But what if we got everybody to fast? The research that I see on fasting shows that you can repair the microbiome. Everybody can afford to fast. What are your thoughts on fasting for repairing this? Yeah, this is really interesting. I mean, to date, there has been 30 years of pre-clinical research on fasting in mouse models and shown that increases longevity. I mean, when I start with, when I was still in college, I remember once visiting a lab at UCLA that, you know, somebody did studies, it was a famous guy, somebody did studies in fasting mice and they lived, you know, 20% longer and stayed healthy. So we've known this for a long time in animals. I've, even,

you know, I have done animal studies in the past, I've become a big skeptic of the translatability of, I mean, you can show anything in the mouse that you cannot reproduce in humans, you know, because of the different genes and the heterogeneity and the many factors. But there's some evidence, you know, that fasting has benefits on metabolism, for sure,

on metabolic syndrome. There's also some really interesting data on one form. I mean, I don't really call it fasting, but it's included in this intermittent fasting categories. The time restricted eating. I find that particularly attractive for two reasons. One, it's practical. Anybody can do this.

Exactly. To compress the time when you eat to eight hours a day or less. So we've been doing it during the pandemic. and have not really felt that this is incompatible with a normal lifestyle. And so there are fascinating studies that during that, I mean, two things happen. One is if no food is in your GI tract, then it switches, the entire function of your GI tract switches to a different pattern. It switches from these unique contractions that you have when food is in there,

peristaltic reflex and mixing and grinding. And it goes to a very different clockwork kind of pattern that every 90 minutes, you have this big contractile wave going through from your esophagus to the end of your intestine, which moves everything with it, including microbes, removing them from areas where they don't belong to. Like the first part of the small intestine. Yeah, SIBO stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

So one thing that protects us against SIBO is this, what's called the migratory. motor complex of the GI tract during fasting. For most people, that pattern has been reduced to the time that they sleep, even though in other cultures, coming back to these indigenous people on the Orinoco River, you know, that sort of, I mean, they don't munch or eat throughout the day. They don't even have time because they're walking outside or going hunting, But they sleep their 12 hours from sundown to sun up.

And so they have at least 12 hours, absolutely nothing in the stomach. And then unfortunately at the time when I was there, you know, I was not aware of all these questions. I would love to go there now and pass all these theories. But in the West, so we have even the nighttime, we have encroached upon. with food. You know, there's snacks after dinner and the glass of wine after dinner. And then, you know, for many people, a big breakfast and early breakfast because they have to commute, get up at 5 o'clock.

So they, and then there are these people that pride themselves, so they only need to sleep four hours, and then they can work again with something in their stomach. So all this has sort of encroached on this time that our. our GI tract is in this cleansing fashion. And so that's one, at the same time, secretions into the gut go along with this cyclical pattern. And what we know recently is the, what's called the geography of the microbes in relation to the gut. So they are the distance of microbes to the gut lining changes. if you're fasting or if you're eating something.

And so you basically change the whole interactions that your microbes have with your immune system and other cells in the gut just by having a long period where no food gets there. And then it's the metabolic thing, as you know, I'm sure that our body then switches to this burning ketons for, for energy. Yep. And, I mean, that clearly happens to a certain degree during those, this prolonged period of without food in the stomach. And you can even extend it by when you have your first meal.

So we do it, for example, at noon to have the first meal to make this consisting of, you know, I would say plant-based keto. So it's nuts and seeds and no easily digestible carbs, no sugar. So you can extend that period where there's no sugar to burn even longer than these 16 hours. Yeah, you're talking my language now. That's exactly what I always say is what you break your fast with will determine if the benefits continue on. So what I hear you saying is if you break it with something plant-based, something

fibery, you're feeding the microbiome that is ultimately going to help your metabolism. Yeah, and that first meal today, you know, is pretty high in plant-based fats, you know, the nuts and seeds and, you know, the things that we put into it. So it's essentially, it's, it's polyphenols, fat, and fiber and no, and no sugar and, you know, no, that's obviously another thing we haven't talked about, you know, this, um, Why is the diet so unhealthy? I mean, the excessive amount of sugar, not just adding the sugar to a cup of coffee, but the hidden sugar in high fructose corn soup, syrup being just in any kind of food that you consume

has been shown to be bad for a microbial system and for gut health. So there's no question. Well, that's why I actually have this vision. And one of my missions for 2021 has to be to get a million people fasting because I believe it's the quickest way out of this chronic disease problem. We are, the food industry has trained our taste buds. They've destroyed our gut like you're commenting. And yet not everybody has the resources, the financial resources to walk into whole foods. But everybody has the financial resources to fast.

So they just need to know how to do it. and the science is very compelling as to what it does for the microbiome, both in mouse studies, but also in human studies. How long do you think it takes to change your gut? Because that's the other question that a lot of our community has asked us. If you're listening to this, you're like, oh, man, I messed up. I've been eating the standard American diet. Now I need to start to change.

Does it take days, weeks, years? Well, there are these studies, you know, the early quite famous studies where people were switched from a vegetarian to a keto diet. And it switched within 48 hours. I've heard that. So, yeah, the adaptability is pretty high. I mean, the microbes, you know, they have millions of genes, many more than we humans have, which gives them a tremendous ability to adaptability. to new situations. They can,

even though, you know, switching to the pure animal based, not a good thing for the microbes, for their diversity, because they don't get enough of the stuff that they really like. But, no, the adaptability is pretty remarkable. And it's also important to realize,

we talked about this earlier, So some of these diversity has fallen by the roadside over the last 75 years, you won't bring those back, but you can bring back the ones that are at a very low level, you know, almost undetectable. So, and there's a lot of those, and you can actually add quite a bit of diversity and richness and abundance to, even if your system is compromised. Which is really encouraging because, I mean, again, this is what I love about fasting is it's the ultimate reset. You can start to repair the body. The human body is so inclined to repair. And it's not, you know, but you're dealing with human cells and we have more bacterial cells than

we have human cells. So I've always wondered if it is the bacteria is as adaptable or more adaptable. It sounds like they may be more adaptable than human cells. Yeah, I mean, the microbes are much more adaptable. And, you know, what we see with these, it's sort of hard for people to think about it this way. The reason we have this chronic health crisis now, chronic disease crisis, it's because our food supply and environmental factors and lifestyle factors have changed rapidly during the last 75 years. The micros were able to adapt quickly to this in a way that, you know, it's a reduced diversity. they don't need that many players because there's much less fiber coming in and much less.

So if you just look at it from the microbe standpoint, they have adapted to this new situation. But our gut has not. So now you have a mismatch between these altered microbial communities in our gut system. Interesting. Our gut system is determined by our 20,000 mere 20,000 genes. And this mismatch between these two. systems is probably the reason why we get the immune activation. You know, it's, I mean, like, immune activation is always like a warning sign that's something

bad goes on. So, yeah, you can look at our current crisis as the warning lights have gone on to tell us that something negative has been happening, you know, to the outside. And the microbes, they will continue to adapt. I mean, if we, you know, if it couldn't be if he's. stay at our current, you know, standard American diet. Some people have said this in theory. Hopefully it won't happen.

But if you stayed on this for like 15,000 years, I don't think humans would survive that. But if you stayed on it, there would be enough time for the genes to adapt, for the human genes. So then potentially would actually get less inflammation because now our GI tract has adapted to it. it sounds kind of interesting, but I think people have always realized microbes are extremely smart. It's the most abundant and the most adaptable.

And I would even say, dare to say the most intelligent life form on Earth, it's spatially distributed, it's not in the brain concentrated, but it's a brain that surrounds the whole world. you know, it's a, it's a network of cells that surrounds the whole work and interact with each other. So I look at this as, and, you know, microbes have survived any major catastrophic events, like, you know, the extinction, five mass extinctions, microbes have always survived because they are better in adapting, you know, to extreme changes in the environment. I love this conversation. I'm so grateful that you wrote two books. I know your new one coming out is the gut immune. But your first one was a gut brain, right? Gut mind? Yes. Yeah. And I think both of these are incredible topics. So how do people find you? Where can they go? Can they pre-order your book on Amazon? Where are you located? Yeah. So the first thing is, so this is the new book which comes out in one week.

Ah, exciting. And they can pre-order it from any bookseller now. And so the best way is to go to my website, Amerenmire.com, which will give you information. So one is you can sign up for a newsletter that we have, the MindGut conversation, which deals with many topics of the MindGut diet system. But they also can go to all the social media channels

and presence on all of them. So I think going to the website, signing up for the newsletter would probably be the first step. Good starting spot. Yeah. Awesome. Well, okay, I have five rapid fire questions for you that are unique to you. So my first one, and I'm really curious about this, what do you feel like is the greatest health habit that you personally do to support a healthy microbiome?

I would say it's adhering to a largely, an emphasis is on largely plant-based diet, and paying attention to where this diet, where the food comes from, how is it grown, and when do I eat it? So this is, I would say, the main thing. Love it. Okay. What book or person really influenced you the most? You have a very interesting story of going from a more traditional medical,

practice into this more functional world? What was there a book? Was there a person? What influenced your obsession or your desire to understand the microbiome at the level that you are educating people on? So to be honest, it was really writing my first book and being asked by publishers and agents if I would want to write this book like six years ago. That is taking me on a path that was very different from what I had been on. And if I had to identify one individual, it's the owner and founder of Pedagogia. Nice.

Yvonne Grinart, who is a visionary, in my opinion, you know, having gone from an extreme rock climber to somebody who is mainly concerned about, you know, the environment. And his main thing is sustainable, organic agriculture, with all the health consequences that this has. So, yeah, I've had to identify one individual. And there's many others that have come up in the meantime, that have approached me or that I have learned at meetings

that are not part of the traditional gastroenterology community. Love it. And it's been wonderful. I mean, it's really been a wonderful thing. Yeah, we're huge fans of Patagonia. We try to purchase their clothing. They have a food line that's come out. Just support him in any way possible because he's doing incredible work in the world.

So here's a really interesting thought that I keep thinking if we had people like you in the positions like the surgeon general, what would last year have looked? How could that have looked different? So if you were a surgeon general right now and you wanted and you were instructed to clean up the health of America, what would you do? Well, I mean, it's a difficult one. I think that question is more relevant now for the search in general to prevent that this is going to happen again. And, you know, because once the pandemic started, obviously it was an extreme emergency situation.

You know, this could have this, if he didn't, if you didn't have the vaccine, it would have knocked out a lot, millions of people in the U.S. It would still be ongoing, raging now. And so I would say the main thing that I would do now is really to, I mean, this sounds kind of crazy if having been a scientist and NIH-funded scientists all my career. I think people should think about put more money into lifestyle modification. Yes. Starting in kindergarten and then in finding out, you know, which molecule does a particular thing, because that research benefits ultimately primarily the pharmaceutical industry.

It's going to make tons of money with it. I think if you change the lifestyle, and that would involve exercise, diet, you know, sleep, hygiene. And so there's a whole range. I mean, you could have a whole course in school. And, you know. Yes, you could. Yes, you could. And you should.

Yeah, you should. And teaching the kids and the mothers. You know, it should be. Yes. Yes. I always say that there is traditional medicine. There's alternative medicine. And then there's lifestyle medicine.

And I feel like we need to start with lifestyle. And if we do, then we like, to your point, we don't need as many supplements. We don't need as many medications. We really have it backwards. We go to the pills first, whether they're natural or chemical based, and then we try to fix the lifestyle second. We should flip that on its head and start with lifestyle first. And it's also something, you know, it's a little bit of a detour, but I sort of love this idea. You have recently written this, this blog post for our newsletter, which came out today. You know, about this whole web. that's going on in psychiatry with the psychedelics.

Yeah, it's getting a lot of traction. Plant-based molecules, you know, I think we've come to a point now that with a healthy diet, we bank on plant-based molecules, the polyphenols and the fiber. And now in psychiatry, we bank on another group of molecules that also plants are producing. And it's amazing. It's sort of, I wouldn't be surprised if we were on the words of moving away from this total focus on chemical, you know, interventions that is sort of like the last resort because we don't know what goes on before that, what leads to this.

So I think, yeah, we can learn a lot from the plants and the microbes. I think that's very smart life forms. Have you read the book, Overstory? I've not read it. Oh, you have to read. I just, a friend recommended it to me, and it's about how trees communicate with each other through their roots and through microbes. But it's told in like a story.

It's really good. So you would like it with your passion for microbes and nature and plants. Yeah, yeah. It's beautiful. Okay, last question. If you had one message for the world that you could get into everybody's brain and get everybody to understand, what would that be? that's that is a tough one you know um yeah i mean the one message would be that that i've been

promoting also in my last book in my new book is adhere to the one health concept you know understand grasp the interconnectedness of of health of healthy systems be in your gut be in your body, be it in the plants and the soil and being on the planet in general, because they're all interconnected. And if you probe into it, you'll be surprised how close these interactions really are. So if you want to fix one, I think you should address the whole package. And I think we can do this today. Agreed.

I don't know if you can do it politically, but we certainly can do it scientifically. Hey, resetters. I just want to start off by saying thank you so much for all your wonderful reviews. And those of you that have left me comments on iTunes, I just greatly appreciate your thoughtfulness and how much you guys are enjoying these episodes. And it seems like you're enjoying them as much as I am enjoying doing them. One of the things that I've learned in just interacting with so many people is that we've really lost the art of deep conversations. And for me, the Resetter podcast stands for having meaningful conversations with people who are

thinking about health, about life, about mindset in a way that we may not be getting on social media or in mainstream media. And so I just want to say, give you guys a shout out and just say thank you for participating in this process with me. Because as much as I absolutely love delivering the information to you, I love even more knowing that it's impacting your life. So please let us know if there's anything we can do to make this podcast more customized to you, to make it better.

We are now officially in season two, and we are working to bring you the best conversations that health influencers have, that mindset changers can give, and to really deliver you something that you're not able to get anywhere else. So from the bottom of my heart, as I always say my YouTube, from the bottom of my heart, I am deeply appreciative of you. I am deeply grateful to be on this journey with you, and let's get healthy together.