WHOOP Podcast - The Second Brain: The Importance of a Healthy Gut with Dr. Megan Rossi

Episode Date: August 7, 2024

On this week’s episode WHOOP Global Head of Human Performance, Principal Scientist Kristen Holmes is joined by Dr. Megan Rossi, founder of The Gut Health Doctor. Dr. Rossi is considered one of the most influential gut health specialists internationally. A registered dietitian and nutritionist for the last decade with an award-winning PhD in gut health, which was recognized for its contribution to science, receiving the Dean’s Award for outstanding research. Kristen and Dr. Rossi discuss what is a healthy gut (2:47), Megan’s passion for gut health (7:43), the research gaps in the gut health space (12:00), the gut being the center of the problem (18:57), HRV and gut health (21:13), diet supporting a healthy gut (25:16), gut health and sleep (41:41), gut health and stress (46:12), supplements for gut health (53:46), and gut health and exercise (59:53).Resources:Stanford Medicine Study on Personal MicrobiomesDr. Rossi’s Gut Health QuizThe Gut Health Doctor WebsiteDr. Rossi’s InstagramFollow WHOOPwww.whoop.comTrial WHOOP for FreeInstagramTikTokXFacebookLinkedInFollow Will AhmedInstagramXLinkedInFollow Kristen HolmesInstagramLinkedInSupport the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

We know that our gut health is a marital, not a sprint. So we see that if you do amazing things for your microbiome for a month and then stop, it's just going to revert back to what it was. And you're not going to get those longevity benefits, those hormone regulation benefits and all of that sort of stuff. So, you know, what I would say is just thinking, what is one thing that you could then implement? You know, is it just focusing on that plant diversity, you know,

getting in at least 30, if not more different times in a week? or, you know, is it actually focusing on each day getting something from those super six plant-based food groups? What's up, folks? Welcome back to the Whoop podcast. We are on a mission to unlock human performance. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, the founder and CEO of Whoop. If you're thinking about joining Whoop, you can visit Whoop.com, sign up for a free 30-day trial

membership and use insights to better improve your health and performance. That's right. That's Whoop.com. Okay. This week's episode, Whoop Global Head of Human Performance, Principal Scientist, The Fearless, Kristen Holmes, is joined by Dr. Megan Rossi, founder of the gut health doctor. Dr. Rossi is considered one of the most influential gut health specialists internationally, a registered dietitian and nutritionist for the last decade with an award-winning PhD, which was recognized for its contribution to science, receiving the Dean's Award for Outstanding Research. Kristen and Megan discuss the makings of a healthy gut, Dr. Rossi's work as the gut health doctor, the research gaps in the gut health space, how the gut is connected to other parts of the body,

they touch on HRV, sleep, and stress, dietary habits to improve gut health, and supplements like pre and probiotics that can impact your gut. If you have a question was answered on the podcast, email as podcast.com. Call us 508-443-4952, and we'll answer your questions on a future episode. here are Kristen Holmes and Dr. Megan Rossi. Dr. Megan Rossi, welcome to the Woot Podcast. It is an absolute pleasure. I'm so excited for this conversation.

I don't know that there is an aspect of health and well-being that is more noisy than the gut health conversation. I don't know if you agree with that, but to me it seems like a really kind of the Wild Wild West in a lot of ways. Yeah, look, it certainly is having its moment. And I think with good reason, like it is a landmark scientific discovery that is, game-changing in terms of how we see food impacting our health. Like, we've always known, right, that food has a role in longevity, mental health, heart health, all that sort of stuff. We haven't had the full picture. We never really understood until technology allowed us to discover we've got these trillions of bacteria. And now we're like, oh, okay, ah, that makes sense.

So just to frame up this conversation, I have two questions. So the first question is, and it's kind of just a yes or no, and then we're going to dig in to, however you answer this question. But do we have agency over our gut health? I say yes. Yeah. Okay. Amazing. The follow up question is what is a healthy gut? So based on all of the years of your clinical experience, all the thousands of repetitions you have seeing patients and just this has been your life's work for a very, very long time. How do you define healthy gut? Yeah. Someone who is not getting sick all the time, someone who's got, you know, strong mental health, someone who isn't having digestive upset, someone who sleeps really well, someone who's able to deal with

stress effectively. And that, you know, as you know very well, Kristen, comes back to the fact that this discovery, these trillions of microbes, is literally connected to every organ in our body. And it is, yeah, it's a game-changing sort of concept that is, you know, worth the noise. But I think with anywhere where there is science, there's a lot of kind of Charlton's out there and confusion and all of this sort of stuff that actually kind of, in my mind, kind of degrades the science in some ways because people are so excited and passionate about it. But they get led down these ways where actually they're harming their gut because they're taking things or doing things that actually the science doesn't recommend. And that's actually how I kind of got into more of like public engagement side of science because I think it's like that injustice. to the gut. I like to, you know, be very protective of the science and what we're saying about it. I love that. Yeah, I mean, I would love to dig into just, you know, supplementation,

because I think that is an area that's really confusing. I would love to know what do we know and what do we don't know. So what do we not know? And we can dig into that in a second. You mentioned mental health sleep and a laundry list of areas that, or that markers or kind of signals that help you understand whether or not a person has healthy gut. What about menstrual cycle? Is that a signal in some way? Yeah, really, really interesting question. And you probably know, Kristen, that women's health Sally is under-researched. So a lot of the research today has been done in males. But what we do know is that it seems to be a bi-directional effect. So we know that hormone fluctuation can impact our gut health. And you probably have experienced yourself like period

poops, like loose the poops around your periods. And that's because the hormones are changing, gut functionality and movement and stuff. But then equally, we know that our gut microbes can help actually regulate estrogen. So you may have heard of the term estrabalone, so this new kind of scientific classification of microbes are able to help recycle estrogen. And therefore, we're seeing that they have a really important role in a lot of women health conditions, whether it is something like PCOS, polycytic ovary syndrome, or whether it is like going through menopause, last stages, but absolutely, I see in clinical practice,

not just in the scientific world, we know how important, you know, for women in particular, and nourishing our microbiome really is for that hormone stability. Do we see relationships to markers of kind of gut health and you mentioned sleep? So have we been able to pinpoint specifically sleep duration, sleep consistency, sleep quality? Do we know what aspect of sleep is kind of impacted the most? Yeah, I mean, we don't know the exact specifics. There has been scientific studies that shows that after two nights of sleep deprivation, and I think the clinical trial used, it was like four or five hours of sleep.

Actually, their microbiome started to change. So we do know that there is kind of that impact of that sleep deprivation. I suspect sleep quality is going to be the same thing, right? Because if we're not having good quality sleep, then essentially our microbes aren't able to get that gut rest, time to then kind of clean the gut and re kind of focus themselves they've got their own circadian rhythm right so it's not just like the human cells they also need that that rest and that time to sleep but also there's been one study um which looked at actually supplementing the gut with a

specific probiotic actually seemed to improve sleep duration so again it is very mechanistic but suggesting that it's bi-directional right so it's not just the case that paul sleep's going to impact our gut health, we also know that our gut health is probably going to impact our sleep quality. Yeah, I love it. What got you into this work? You know, you're so passionate about it, Megan, and following your work on Instagram and all of the research that you're engaged in and, you know, the lab that you have at Kings, you know, it's just, it's, it's really inspiring. And I find that, you know, for a lot of folks who are, you know, engaged at the depth that you are, you know, there's something that's kind of, you know, underpinning that, that passion. And I wonder what

that is for you. Yeah, look, I think, like you said, for most people to work, you know, most days and weekends, you know, there has to be that passion there, right? And for me, so I grew up in a farm in Australia. So good gut health was inherent to my upbringing, you know, playing in the dirt, all the stuff we didn't know was good for the gut. We now see, actually, is amazing for the gut reduced your risk of allergies because of the gut immune connection. But actually, I was in my final year studying nutrition and diet headaches and I lost my grandma to bowel cancer and I think a lot of people can relate like it's a third biggest cancer killer in the world but my grandma was really instrumental in my upbringing so I had a single mom and she was always there so she was like my rock

and yeah so I hated the gut you know it it took her it put her through chemo the surgery and you know even we're talking about it just makes me feel so angry at that time I had no idea I was like, this is a horrible organ. And then I started working as a dietitian. So I graduated, worked as a dietitian in the hospital setting or different types of conditions, whether it was heart disease, obesity, mental health. But then also was very fortunate to be the nutritionist for the Australian Olympic Seafide swimming team.

And it was that observation of working with elite athletes and very, very sick people, both of them coming to me complaining of the gut. And I'm like, what is about this organ? like we've got it you know the disease of my grandma's gut fine that kind of makes sense but like why is everyone else coming to me with this complaint and that was like you know 2010 11 there hadn't been a whole lot of gal of research come to the forefront at that stage so I thought you know what I owe it to my grandma and to my patients and clients to find out what's going on here so that's when I embarked in the PhD and it was that like it just completely changed my

relationship with the guy I was like far out I am so sorry for all of the swear words. I threw out you gut like it was just misunderstood and you know we didn't know how to treat it and that was you know causing so much pain and hurt so at that point I knew I wanted to dedicate the rest of my career um to the gut because I could see obviously with the PhD but also you know as a as a clinician that actually targeting the gut was having these far reaching benefits not just you know helping people with very frustrating and often debilitating gut symptoms but you know things like their mental health, their performance, you know, lowering their risk of things like dementia, right, that you can't change your genetics. But that's why I said yes to that

question, you can influence who's living in you and what they're actually doing that we now see is impacting so many chronic conditions. So that's kind of what, what's kind of, yeah, gets me out of bed every day. And, you know, I love research so much. So I would never let that go. and that's why that brought me to the UK, essentially, after PhD. Hilariously, we did our PhD both in Australia, UK, but I knew I needed to elevate my research. And Australia is amazing. I love it. I told my mum was going away for a year just to establish myself internationally in the research world.

But, you know, Kings in London just were doing so much cool stuff. And the grants that we've been able to get from the government has been incredible. So it's kind of kept me here nine years on. So, you know, we're doing many. And we'll probably talk about some of the clinical trials we're doing. But I think the other side is that science communication. And I am so passionate about that because, like I said, we need to protect the science. We need the right science to get out to everyone, right?

And not let it kind of be diluted by people who are probably saying not science-backed things. Right, of course. Well, I mean, your contributions are remarkable. And, you know, you mentioned the misinformation. I'd love to just start there, you know, because I think if anything, if people are listening and they're deciding whether or not they continue to listen, I think it's as a publicist, you know, kind of service, we need to make sure, you know, what are the limitations of the research that exists as it stands today, right? And what do we know? What do we not know? Where are these gaps? And how are people erroneously filling those gaps?

So I'd love for you to just try to unpack that for. Yeah, look, I think that's a really, a really good one because there is still so much we don't know about it, right? Like it is such an exciting space, but also there is limitations to it, right? So there's still, you know, I would say like 30% of our microbiome, which we actually have no idea what these microbes are called, what they're actually doing. And so most of the research so far has focused on the bacterial component. of the microbiome, right?

But actually, we've got a viral component called the viroen, and we've got a fungal component called the microbiome. And these elements, we've just so under research, which actually, they're like synergistically working together with the bacterial component. So there's all of these like interconnections,

which we've got no idea and no understanding of what's actually happening. So, you know, in clinic, a lot of people are coming to me with these microbiome tests done, and they're like, here's my results. Now, tell me what I need to do. And I'm like, I love that you're so interested in the microbiome.

And I think it's cool that you've got your microbiome tested to have a look, what's there. But like this is so primitive in terms of actually where our knowledge is at. So of course, like in our clinical trials at Kings, we do these microbiome tests. But we're not just looking at the bacteria that we're looking at the metabolites. So, you know, what's actually going to happen in terms of the functionality, right? so we don't just want to know what bacteria because identical bacteria can be in two people's two different people's guts and treated differently and in one situation they can be really helpful and anti-inflammatory in other situations if they're not treated well they can be pro-inflammatory

and also it depends how they work with the fungal component right so I think we can be led astray by a lot of these kind of commercial tests on the market I think probably give us five years we'll know a lot more and if you've got the money and you want to investigate it you know go for it, but don't think it's going to give you like this personalized diet because we're just not there yet. I do hope we'll kind of get there. But actually, Stanford University just published a cool paper highlighting what you said, like what is a healthy microbiome. And it showed, I think they followed like 86 people over six years because we don't really know transiently what happens over time, right, to our microbiome. And what they showed is those who are maintained health

over those six years. Actually, their microbein is all really unique to them. So there's no, like, perfect microbiome based on the types of bacteria. I should mention that that study literally just looked for the bacterial component. Because that's, you know, we're not really at the stage of being able to look at the viral component, the vireome and the microbiome together yet. Yeah, so it was really like a bit of a moment, I think, to be like, guys, we don't,

there's no, like, perfect thing we should be searching for that we should be uniformed. Like, everyone's got their own unique microbiome. if you treat yours well through the diet, through the sleep, through the de-stressing, through the exercise of, you know, the pillars of gut health, then actually you're going to have your unique combination that will then be super resilient, look after you, help you perform at your best. Amazing. So you mentioned metabolites is the best way.

So if we're doing kind of a fecal test, a commercial fetal test, a commercial blood test, is that enough, you know, because you're, I guess if you're measuring metabolites, you're looking at plasma. So are the commercial tests actually doing that? Like how, what are the actual limitations? Yeah, so there's different ways of measuring metabolites. So obviously the plasm, we can look at it there. We can also look at the volatile organic compounds, so via breath.

And that's actually based on a clinical trial we did at King's, where we looked at how people responded to certain probiotic and certain diet, right? And we showed that actually the bacteria they had in their gut, so the names of the bacteria, like biflo bacteria, lactoicin, all that sort of stuff, didn't predict how they would respond to the diet or the probiotic. What predicted it was those volatile organic compounds. So the chemicals, the bacteria are producing that were then able to breathe out. And then also in your stool, right?

So you still have got these volatile organic compounds. So when they, you know, you obviously pass stool, then they can isolate the ones that evaporate. So volatile, obviously, that's where the name comes from. And it's kind of those profiles that are starting to be used to, you know, predict how people will respond to different diets, treatments, but also maybe even be a marker of different conditions and diseases and things like that. So in terms of, I guess, the commercial tests on the market,

sometimes I look at a couple of metabolites, but they aren't doing these comprehensive, you know, networks of micro metabolites yet. Hopefully we'll get there. How transient is the picture of like blood or feces? Like, and I, because I, you know, I think if, I go to the doctor, you know, a lot of time it depends on where I'm at in my menstrual cycle. It depends on how much sleep I've got over the last seven days.

It depends whether I exercise or not. You know, there's a lot of things that impact, I think, those tests and those reading. So, you know, how do you get like a true picture of gut health? Yeah, Kristen, this is so spot on. And like in all our clinical trials at Kings, I always say that part of the protocol has to be, like, the meal the night before needs to be standardized, you know, at baseline at end of intervention. because we know that, you know, a microbiome can change, you know, within a couple of hours, essentially, what you're feeding it, right? Not necessarily the number of different bacteria, but certainly the metabolites.

So, again, that adds the picture of we don't quite know. I, you know, if I was to look into Christopal, I think it's going to have to be, you know, one or two microbiome tests over a space of six months on the monthly to have a look at what's going on it. And what we're certainly seeing is stability is one of the key markers. So yes, we know diversity is important, but actually stability as well. So if you have a nice stable microbiome that just constantly, you know,

tracking similar ratios of microbes, similar metabolites, you are much less likely to get different chronic diseases as well as, you know, things like the cold and flu and stuff like that. So, yeah, the kind of the two things we want to look for at that, you know, the stool level. But again, like I said, the metabolites, I think, is what really excites me, but we just don't have all of the science yet. Right. And would you say, you know, how foundational is this type of testing, right? Like, I don't, I don't know that many people have a clear picture of their gut health, right? They might have in, they're like, oh, I have a really irregular menstrual cycle or, oh, you know, I have insomnia or, oh, I have loose stool or I'm constipated or, you know, they might have all these kind of. symptoms, but are they actually connecting it to gut health? Like where, I guess I wonder what those conversations with the PCP are, you know, how to how do people think about, you know, or would you say, you know, not to lead this conversation too much, but, you know, like, is there, is, is the gut really

at the foundation of a lot of the issues that you see? Yeah. I mean, yes, it is, but that question is certainly one that I, you know, get asked all the time. Like, how do I not have got a healthy gut? Oh, my God, it's linked to things like, you know, longevity, your mental health, all the things that I want. How do I know where I'm at, right? And unlike kidney function, heart function, where we've been able to come up with, you know, a marker essentially, you know, we haven't gotten there with gut microbiome for two reasons. One is that it's still new, right? We've only recently kind of got the technology that's enabled, enabled us to kind of identify not just what bacteria there, but the functionality, the genomics, what their genes are capable of doing. So I think that's

kind of a limitation, but also the fact is that it is very complex, unlike every organ in the body. And yes, most organs are talking, but actually we're appreciating is the gut because they produce metabolites is probably more central in terms of their ability to influence every other organ. So when I was writing my first book, I was like, how can I, because people are going to ask me this question. I know they are. And I need to deliver it in a book. So I came up with 10 questions essentially and we can put it in the show notes completely you know free to access the quiz but it asks people 10 questions so are you getting gut symptoms how often are you sick are you stress what's your sleep like are you on medications are you on a restrictive diet and a few

other things and it scales you from a zero to 20 as to where your gut health might be now obviously it's not hugely comprehensive but you know i have certainly validated in clinic and it does give a decent predictor of probably where your gut health is at and hopefully like I think people take away from it is like what areas of their their gut health might they need to focus on right because I see it all the time in clinic people are like I just want to focus on my god because I feel like a lot of high performing people in particular like super OCD perfectionist they can control their diet but actually the stress the sleep exercise kind of gets pushed away And why I always say to them, no matter how perfect your gut-boasting diet is, if you're failing the other three pillars, sadly, the science is showing, you know, you're not going to have the optimal gut health that you kind of deserve. So you do need to be more holistic.

You mentioned markers, right? We don't have a great marker. There's been some recent research basically showing a relationship between hearty variability and gut health. So I think this is really exciting, right? And of course, at WOOP, we measure heart rate variability. And in this paper, they found that lower H.RV, which we know is an indicator of a less flexible autonomic nervous system. And I'm very biased, but I feel like the pathway to human health and functioning is having control over the autonomic nervous system, right, via all of these levers that we're going to kind of talk about today. But they said that the folks with lower heart rateability are more likely to have gut dysbiosis. So what exactly is this, I know it's an imbalance in the gut microbiome, very, you know, my crude understanding of it, but what exactly is that? And how do people get that? And how can they, and if they improve it, would we see their, their autonomic

nervous flexibility actually increase and improve? I love that that, you know, you've highlighted that study and that Woop is actually trying to measure it. Because I think there is definitely something in there in terms of that tapping into this gut brain access, right? So like you said, our brain and our gut constantly communicating via what is known as the enteric nervous system. People probably heard of the vagus nerve, you know, hundreds of millions of nerves, innovating and connecting the two. But also we know that our microbiome produces different types of chemicals like short-chain fatty acids when they metabolize foods.

Some of them are thought to pass that blood brain barrier, also affecting, obviously, hormone regulation, things like cortisol release and those sorts of elements. So as well, then, of course, the immune system, 70% lives in the gut. So it's impacting the immune system's ability to release inflammatory markers. So I think that's kind of like an alarm system. The microbes like sensing, ah, activate the immune system, inflammation goes throughout the body and has that impact on heart rate variability as well. So in terms of the dysbiosis, I'm not even slightly surprised that kind of that imbalance.

And again, it is a very loose term in terms of what dyspiosis is. So how we kind of come up with that is every study dysbiosis will be slightly different because they just compare healthy and those who have a disease state or those who in your like mentioned if they have irregular heart rate variability. And it's those kind of groupings that shows actually they don't have as much diversity or they're missing some key microbes. So absolutely I think if you do notice, you know, your heart rate ability is not, you know, optimal then focusing on those pillars just for a month and see what happens.

And, you know, there has been a few, I don't personally measure. but one of our psychologists at the gut health clinic has been measuring heart rate variability and showing that by getting that down through different techniques of, you know, relaxing that gut-brain interaction, whether it's gut-directed hypnotherapy or gut-directed yoga flows or that sort of diaphragmating, et cetera, actually they've really been able to improve gut symptoms. So they haven't actually measured the macrobion for the dysphiosis. But yeah, that sort of thing. So it is a really exciting space. And that's what I think is going to happen more and more. will appreciate different markers of the gut,

which on their own is not going to be like the number one marker of your gut, but actually it's combining all these other things, which will actually start to piece together and give people that insight that they so dearly want and they should have, right, to know where their gut health is at. Yeah, and I think if, you know, I get a lot of folks who are like, gosh, you know, my HRV just is, you know, not really improving and I'm doing everything related to sleep and exercise.

but I think the lever maybe that they're not leading into enough is maybe food, right? Maybe they have the wrong kind of program for them or, you know, their diet isn't diverse enough. And so I want to talk about sleep, I want to talk about exercise and supplementation, but maybe let's start just with food, right? What do we, you know, if we're really striving to have this kind of healthy guts per your definition at the onset of this discussion, you know, what does that that diet actually need to look like. And, you know, what are the basic principles? Yeah, look, where the science is

currently at, it shows that people who eat more different types of plants seem to have better gut health than those who eat the same 10 on repeat. And I think a lot of people are saying to hear this concept of plant diversity. But I think it's important to understand why that's, you know, something we should take note. Because I think when people know the why, they're more likely to take it on board as a strategy, right? If someone just says, do this, Megan, I'm like, I'm not going to do it unless I know why. So if you think of a superfood like blueberries, right? So if you just ate loads of blueberries, you're only going to feed the gut bacteria that like blueberries. But actually our gut bacteria like us, you know, there's thousands of them and they all have different

preferences, like taste preferences. You and your friend might like different foods, right? So if you're just, you know, narrowing down and having, you know, some superfoods and not eating across what I call the super six, you're actually going to only nourish my non-yrength. You're actually going to only nourish my minority of your microbiome, which means you're going to have a minority of skills within you, because they, you know, can do tens of thousands of things in a functional level. But if you're not feeding them well, they're not going to be able to perform, you know, like most of us, right? So if you think, I mentioned the super six. So there's six different plant-based food groups. A lot of people know them, but actually it's worth thinking about, hey, have I had

something from the super six today? Because most people don't, right? So it's your legumes, So things like your chickpeas, butter beans, et cetera, your veg, your fruit, your whole grains, your nuts and seeds, and your herbs and your spices. Now, each different category actually contains different types of not just your micronutrients, but actually different types of fibre. We talk about fibre like it's one thing, but there's like close to 100 different types of fibre, let alone these other things called phytochemicals. And like just take your boring old apple, right? It contains over 300 plant chemicals, including things like in sitel, which we know is helpful for PCO, West, it's got even some melatonin and some dopamine, the feel-good hormone, and that's just like your boring old apple. So if you extrapolate that out to all your other plants, you start to

get the, I guess, the appreciation that each plant's got its unique kind of profile. So instead of every morning having your blueberries, switch it up with your three berry mix, instead of just picking your pumpkin seeds, get your four seed mix. So it's actually things that super easy to switch in, not taking an extra time or cost, but actually it's going to fertilise more different microbes, which will give you more kind of skills and more functionality. So that's kind of, I guess, the general principle, what we're seeing come through the science, right? But I think there's a few additional things which probably haven't been captured in that. And that is things like fermented dairy and oily fish.

So a lot of people initially thought that having, you know, healthy gut, manned plants only. but actually we see that fermented dairy because of the different bioactive chemicals that bacteria produce through that fermentation process so they take dairy, you know, unfermented dairy and get the proteins and the fats and the lactose, the milk sugar

and they convert it into different bioactive chemicals, let alone also adding extra microbes into your diet. So fermented dairy, I think there is good evidence out there that suggests that's got a pro benefit on the guts, adding that in. and then so whether that is things like your quality cheeses or your kaffirs or your live yogurts and then oily fish and what i typically say i know we're going to touch one into supplements but if you aren't having at least two serves of oily fish a day a day a week um so things like

uh your salmon your herring your anchovies sardines macrull then you should actually take an amygic three supplement, because again, we've got pretty good evidence out there to show that that is having an additive benefit on the microbiome. So I think those sorts of things. And then obviously this whole world at ultra-processed foods is like unbelievable at the moment. And we have just finished collecting or recruiting people to our clinical trial, which is now five years in the making of so long it takes research to kind of come through. But it's, you know, you know, the first clinical trial to ever look at, in the human, obviously, setting, looking at food additives, emulsifiers.

So there's all these rumors around there saying that certain types of additives actually could have a negative impact. Now, if we think of additives as a category, right, there's over 400 of them. You know, they've gone through rigorous testing, right? So, you know, the government is wanting to look after us and not trying to poison us. But a lot of that testing was done before we knew about a microbiome. So actually, they approved it from the cell, human cell molecular level, but actually they didn't look at how it's impacted in microbiome because they didn't know about it.

So actually, the governments, you know, around the world are starting to reassess the safety of these food additives. So our team's looking specifically at amortifies as categories, there's about 60 different types. And they're found in like 20% of the foods we eat, you know, packaged foods are everywhere. And what, again, we haven't done the data analysis yet, but what? the preliminary kind of pilot studies which fed into this suggested that it's probably individualized response firstly.

So not everyone's going to react the same, particularly people who are more genetically susceptible to gut issues might be more vulnerable. And we're specifically looking at inflammatory bowel disease, so Crohn's disease, where we already have a good basis that we know there's something in diet that's triggering a flare-up. Is that genetic? Genetic, yeah. So there's definitely a genetic component, but it's kind of three parts to it, right?

So there's genetic, there's environmental, and the microbiome. So we know all three are doing something, but it's just trying to understand why. And so it's probably that we think maybe it's the environment that's kind of triggering it, things like the emulsifiers. So how they work is emulsifying kind of, you know, the oil and the water, they bring it together to mush it down. So we think the mechanism action is the amulsifiers kind of eat away the mucous lining. So make our gut lining more thin and therefore allow pathogens kind of through the gut, which normally would be blocked. and therefore can create that inflammation triggering kind of the genetic downfall of people who are, yeah, more genetically predisposed to inflammation of our disease.

Is it the same idea, you know, we all have cancer cells? Yeah. And, you know, if, you know, our lifestyle and environment are really going to drive whether or not those cells become cancerous, you know, become turned from, is that kind of of the same sort of principle? Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of overcrossing mechanisms. I mean, if we look at the molecular level, they are very different. Ones are autoimmune condition and one is more of the, you know, the older cells that have kind of transformed in a negative way, so to speak.

Yeah. But I think definitely there is that same sort of triage of like, yes, there's a genetic component, but also the environment's doing something and even the microbeim. In fact, you know, I think some new research has just come out showing that actually bowel cancer in young people is the rate. I think in those under 50s, like doubled in the last like 40 or so years. Like, and that highlights, it's not just genetic, right? Because it turns, they change that far. So there's something in the environment that's triggering this. So yeah, I think there's this whole new world.

So what I think, though, is an important message is that we don't go too extreme, right? So what we're seeing from the literature, it's not if you have a little bit of ultra-processed foods with some of these amulsomized, it's going to be fine, right? Like, you know, you've got to enjoy your food because if you're super anal about food, food, that means you're not eating out with friends. You're not socializing very often. So actually, that's going to have a negative impact on other elements of your life. So the concept is very much about inclusion, not exclusion, adding in as many different plants and the diversity as well as the oily fish and the fermented dairy.

And then if you have some chocolate with, you know, additives in it, it's going to be fine. Okay, there may be more research coming where there might be specific additives where it's like, actually this is really something we should not have at all, you know, like trans fats, for example, we discovered, oh, no one should have any of that and now it's being banned. But I think at the moment, you know, this is what I recommend not only for my clients, but my own family. So this is kind of where my head is at with it, with, you know, a critical kind of review of the science to date. I love that. What about grains? So I add barley to everything. I love it so much. So I know fiber is important, right? But, you know, you hear on the, on the internet,

like, grains are so bad. You know, I, I mean, I've even heard, you need to, to set the record straight on kale. Should I eat kale? You should eat kale, yeah. Not, but you know, this is what's wrong with society and I, but I get it. It's not like, it's because everyone wants to be healthy and they want a hack that's going to game change them. But the truth is, it is boring as diversity. So if you go and eat, you know, 500 grams of kale every day, yes, that's going to be way too much and that's kind of like off balance things like the oxalates and the anti-nutrients and all that sort of stuff and therefore you're not going to absorb certain things and that will only grow the kale-liking bacteria and therefore it's going to narrow them down and reduce the skills. So that's kind of,

I think, where, you know, we go wrong is we see one study or two study where they're showing benefit of a thing. Then we just go crazy on it, ain't nothing but that. where like, you know, obviously, you would have heard of things like the lectins, right? So lectins as being like the worst thing in the world, we should not have lectins. And that's where, you know, that famous book that came out saying the plant herodocks, whatever, we shouldn't be eating plants because they contain lectins in it. And actually, yes, the truth is, that's the thing. The truth is always, there's always a little bit of truth in something, right?

That's why it validates it for a lot of people. But the thing with lectins is that having a lot of lectins, yes, is terrible. So if you ate raw kidney beans and that's kind of where the initial research from lectins came out where I think it was a hospital setting, they undercooked the kidney beans. They're quite chewy and then people had an overdose of lectins. I think some person might even died from that, right? So it's quite acute. Then yeah, it's going to be awful.

So if you eat loads of raw legumes, which would probably break your teeth in the meantime and you know that they're not right, you don't prep them right? you know, you probably know it's not going to be good news, then, yes, that's going to be dangerous. But actually, more recently, studies have suggested that lectins in small amounts, mostly in test tube studies so far, actually have anti-cancer effects. So they work, why, you know, that mechanism. So anything in, you know, moderation, boring, you know, no one wants to hear that, but it's honestly the truth, right?

So, yeah, that's the thing with Kales, the long, winded answer of your question. Yeah, I mean, anything. you know, consumed in, like, large doses is, seems quite intuitive that it's going to be bad for you, right? So, yeah. You also asked about grains, which I think is an important one to go down because I totally get, you know, a lot of people I see in Clinico and they've cut out grains and stuff like that.

So my take on it is that we aren't eating too many gluten-containing grains. Now, I have not seen any research yet. that has suggested that unless you've got celiac disease, which affects about 1% in the population, or non-celiac gluten sensitivity, which is like gluten intolerance, which we think is probably anywhere between maybe 3% and 7% of the population, that gluten is having a negative impact.

I don't think gluten is a health food. We need to have more gluten in our diet. But the reason why I think we're having too many gluten-attending foods, grain, sorry, is that means that we're not having your chemo on your body, buckwheat. We're not getting in that diversity. So actually, we're just having way too much of the one type, the wheat. So actually, we're only feeding the wheat liking microbiome. And that's narrowing down the kind of that diversity. And when we again have that narrow diversity, certain populations start to dominate and they get a bit cocky and they can start be a bit pro-inflammatory.

So, yeah, I see the grains is actually we should be having, you know, a diverse range of grains in our diet, we do see, you know, from these large observational studies that people who are having, you know, a diverse range of grains in their diet do have a lower risk of type two diabetes, do have a lower risk of heart disease. So I think we've got good evidence on an observational level that having grains in our diet is important. It's a, it's the, that diversity of grains and also the form of grains, right? So, you know, ultra-processed grains is probably how most people are having grains and therefore that's not going to be great because actually it's stripped of I think it's like 20 different micronutrients when you take the fibre out of wheat for example so the the wheat

contain sorry the whole grain containing wheat and the you know the white pasta so to speak you know so you're losing not only those micronutrients but then I'm sure and probably another hundred types of phytochemicals let alone the fiber which is fuel for the microbiome so yeah that's kind of where I think my stance on the research is currently at. I love that. It's super helpful. It's so funny to hear you talk about the gut biome. I feel like it's like a person. It has preferences. It has an attitude. Do you have a name for your gut biome begin? Come on. I know you know. I don't actually have a name alter ego. It could be my alter ego. But I do. I am such a nerd, but I think it pays off right. Where actually every meal I sit down to, even if it's snack, I'm like,

okay, what is on here for my microbiome? Yeah. And it's like, I think it's a way of thinking that we need ingraining kids from a young age. So even if they don't like their broccoli, the little pet or their little bestie in their gut actually loves it. And if they want to be a good pet owner or good friend, they should just, you know, have a few pieces. And actually, it changes the oral microbiome.

I've done it to my husband. Like he used to, he's a medic, but he never used to eat plants. I mean, they do about like 10 hours of nutrition in their whole degree. So I'm not surprised, but anyway, so, you know, he hated them. So I used to just start to, like, add them in without him necessarily knowing, you know, the simple turics of, like, cutting out half the mints, adding lentils, and blending in mushrooms so they can't even see it. And actually his oral microbiome has now changed where he, you know, has gone away on, like,

you know, some bucks trips with, you know, for friends and stuff and being a trashy diet. And he's come back and like, I can't even eat it. I just don't enjoy it. I feel sick. And so for those who don't like plants, we're listening to this, trust me, you can train your oral microbiome to enjoy them. And there's clinical trials to back that up, not just my anecdotal evidence with my husband that like to throw under the bus occasionally. Yeah. What's up, folks, if you are enjoying this podcast or if you care about health, performance, fitness, you may really enjoy getting a whoop.

That's right. You can check out whoop at whoop.com. It measures everything around sleep. recovery, strain, and you can now sign up for free for 30 days. So you'll literally get the high performance wearable in the mail for free. You get to try it for 30 days, see whether you want to be a member. And that is just at woup.com. Back to the guests. Now, but I love that little conversation that you have with yourself. You know, like you're, you know, I think about that too. I'm like, all right, what is, what am I fueling for right now? You know, I really try to

think about the composition of my diet and the timing of my diet to kind of help me do whatever it is that activity I'm doing next. I think about that in the context of my sleep, right? Is this meal right now or is what I'm putting in my body going to help me do my next activity, which might in fact be sleep, right? Or rest or, you know, if I'm weight training versus cardio, you know, I really think about fueling for my activity. And I think thinking about, all right, how is this actually enhancing my gut health is part of that conversation. And I love, I love that framework. And I think that is going to be super helpful for folks. I want to get into sleep and an exercise. And I think we finish with supplements. So I look at, you know, I study,

I'm a psychophysiologist, but a lot of my work is in this area of circadian physiology. And so I look at behaviors like sleep wake time and how that impacts all sorts of aspects of psychological and physiological functioning. And one of the studies that drew my attention was this 90-minute difference in midpoint of sleep. So this 90-minute variability basically in kind of the mid-point of sleep is associated with harmful gut bacteria. It's just this notion that I think we want to help people, or what are the practical things that I can do? All right, I've got this super six. I focus on, I focus on that. You've got two beautiful books that kind of outline all of this. We'll put some of the stuff in the show notes as well. But also knowing that, you know, our sleep really contributes to

a healthy gut biome. And there's actually an aspect of sleep that is really important. You mentioned duration and that beautiful study looking at sleep duration. And, you know, when folks are getting four to six hours of, you know, time in bed, that's negatively impacting the diversity in their gut biome. That's fascinating. And then, in fact, sleep consistency matters too, sleep regularity. So making sure that we're not, you know, having huge amounts of variability in terms of our sleep onset and offset is another thing that we can control. Yeah. Absolutely. So, I mean, in terms of that research, I think, It's so fascinating and some similar research, although didn't directly look at the microbiome

by colleagues of mine in the nutrition department looked at the impact of sleep on our nutrition, but also how to enhance sleep, right, sleep quality. So they developed this sleep hygiene protocol. So it included, you know, I think it was like nine simple steps. So half of the participants got this sleep hygiene protocol. The other half just got general advice, sleep more. essentially yeah and they found those who got the protocol they slept I can't even remember the specific maybe it was like an extra 30 30 minutes and it was heightened

quality but also they didn't in that this particular one I'm referring to they didn't necessarily look direct they didn't mention diet at all but they showed that those who slept more also I think it was about two teaspoons of added sugar less per day by just sleeping more so it just shows how influential it is and why it's also connected you know in other ways to the microbiome because you're having more of these added sugars and less of the fibre and all that sort of stuff. So I'm sure people like, what was the protocol? So from my vague memory, it is in my first book because they were so nice, they let me

publish the protocol. But essentially it's like as soon as you wake up, exposing your face to light, just regulating the simple ones, right? I think your room temperature at being like 16 degrees. So actually quite cold kind of helps you get a better quality sleep. No phone time. like the blue light thing, I think it's like two hours before bed, you know, meal time, not having a big meal, having a worry diary.

So literally brain dumping all of your worries into a book. So you don't wake up at 2 a.m. Like I often do with a great idea or like, oh, yeah, I needed to execute something and I forgot to all that sort of stuff. And then, yeah, those sorts of things. So all really, you know, practical things. But when you do them together and make them like a ritual, you can start to improve your sleep quality and then we've got those additional studies like you mentioned that then shows that

has that knock on impact your microbiome too yeah i love that i think understanding you know sleep is you know at a foundational level is just going to impact is going to have the second and third or effect that impacts every aspect of our our kind of physiological and psychological and psychological functioning and you know getting that right is is worth all the effort you know and i i think a lot of other things kind of start to fall in line to your point like i think we crave we crave less you know, processed foods, right? When we're well slept and we have quality sleep and, and you mentioned scheduling worry. And I love that so much.

And I recommend that to folks often when they're like, I just can't fall asleep or we notice in the data, you know, someone's struggling and they reach out and we look at the data and like, yeah, it's okay. Sleep onset is really a problem. It seems like your sleep onset variability is, there's lots of variability. But it, you know, they'll tell us, oh, you know, I really, I'm in bed at the same time, I can't fall asleep, and a lot of it has to do with just that stress accumulation throughout the day, right? And I love, I find scheduling worry is such a powerful, simple intervention that it really does help with sleep onset and it helps with quality of sleep.

So I love that you've highlighted that. What other kind of techniques? Well, number one, there's a connection between stress and gut health. So maybe just talk broadly, what is this connection? And what are maybe some other practical interventions people can deploy? to kind of pay down that stress that will help sleep that will help their their gut biome yeah what's the connection there yeah so we kind of briefly touched on these different pathways right how the gut and brain are constantly communicating so you know via i like to think like the mobile phone

that enteric nervous system kind of zips up those messages yeah by the immune system those inflammatory markers impacting you know asleep in that way and then obviously the snail male kind of where the bacteria actually produced chemicals gets into our blood and some of them can pass that blood-brain barrier. So that's kind of what's going on. And it's bi-directional, as I'm sure a lot of people have found, that, you know, if they're stressed up here, you know, they can get the butterflies in their tummy, right? We've all experienced that butterfly feeling and there's nothing, you know, happening in the gut other than the messages that are being fed to it. And I think, you know, a really good example of this gut brain kind of dysfunction is in irritable bowel syndrome. So, you know,

one and ten people, if not more, probably struggle with some level of kind of this disconnection between the gut and the brain. And we never really understood it in any great detail until, I guess, more recently where we now have like this diagnostic criteria for IBS. And, you know, although many different things can cause IBS, including gut infection. So if you go away, travel abroad and get, you know, a tummy bug, then you're a threefold increased risk of getting IBS in that subsequent year. But similarly, chronic stress and trauma can actually also cause IBS.

but the underlying mechanism, the Roan Foundation, do amazing work on this. They're the ones who kind of really lead the way, is this dysfunction between the gut and the brain. So it's not talking, not very, you know, functional. So in terms of the, I guess, the strategies around that, we do know there's a diet out there. You may have heard of a low-pod map diet, which actually is not a healthy diet. It's really unhealthy because actually it cuts out prebiotics, certain types of fertilizers for the microbiome. But it is very effective in the short term. So people should only follow it between four to eight weeks.

And that's cutting out dairy, right? Yeah, lactose cut out. But the main thing of why it's unhealthy is the fact that it cuts out prebiotics. So it cuts out your legumes, cuts out your garlic and your onion, and a lot of, you know, mushrooms. And so it cuts out, yeah, your prebiotics or your fruit tans, your lactose. But then also your polyols, which sounds like avocado and salary. like a lot of healthy foods, but we know it works for moderate severe IBS, you know,

it's a medical diet, but then you go through the second stage of reintroduction and then get to personalisation. So we know, we've known that it's a medical diet, really effective. We use it for severe cases. But more recently, because of this science around the gut brain interaction, there's now been studies looking at gut-directed hypnotherapy, literally talking therapy, where they targets this connection, so top-down, and then also gut-directed yoga. flows where they've put them to the test in a randomized control trial against a low FODMAP

diet, that IBS diet, and have shown that they've got equal efficacy of reducing IBS-related symptoms, so things like your stomach cramping, but also your bloating and your altered poops and things like that. So I know we were specifically talking about the, in the sleep setting, but I think it's just a really nice kind of case study or example of how targeting this can probably help, you know, with other elements, whether it is, you know, you know, you know, that level of sleep where we know that the microbes, if they're dysbiotic or unstable, they're probably going to cause you to have unstable sleep. So doing, you know, 10 minutes of a mindfulness app, I don't know if Woop has got a component of mindfulness. Yeah,

amazing. You know, there's really good research out there that also shows, you know, helps via, you know, or helps with, you know, sleep quality and a mechanism could be because it's also impacting our gut microbiome. incredible and you recommend the diaphragmic breathing right so breathing from the belly um so just kind of not the chest yeah slow paced diaphragmic breathing yeah and and people phaumatic i should say yeah exactly and people who um struggle you know with food and in terms of digestive symptoms doing diaphragmic breathing for like five minutes before a meal it sounds super simple but it can game change you know a lot of my clients who are struggling

with altered poops, bloating, reflux, which is, you know, about 20% in the population at some point is going to struggle with that. So, you know, tapping in to this gut brain connection, it really reduces down that overexcitement or that enteric nervous system, which like strangles the gut. So like what a lot of people with gut, like, gut issues are like, I can't pinpoint what my trigger foods are. And it's like, because it's feeding in sometimes from here. So no matter what you feed your gut, any sort of activity, even if it's a very like bland food, can move the gut and therefore these nerves that are like really heightened because of this is stressing them like live wires, it's going to activate your gut symptoms. So it's not necessarily

just what you eat, but, you know, what's going up here. So basically when you are stressed, that is going to manifest in your gut and influence how the microbes in your gut activated or metabolizing food. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So basically I think, so what it sounds like from a mechanistic standpoint, where basically we're activating the parasitic branch of the nervous system prior we're almost like priming our nervous system to eat yeah it sounds so simple and so obvious right it's so obvious but let's be honest we all live very busy lives and the thought of that five minutes can be a bit overwhelming but if it means you know you're not going to suffer with these really burdensome digestive symptoms then it's worth doing and you know while we're there in terms of how we eat chewing our food

like so boringly basic, but they've done, you know, clinical trials again, and they've shown that chewing your food more, you know, increases your nutrient absorption quite significantly. I think it's like 15% of your nutrients you absorb. So if you're only chewing, yeah, if you're only chewing food like 10 times, you malabsorb a lot of that nutrition because we don't even start to physically break it down, but we have the enzymes in our saliva, which start to chemically break it down. So for a typical bite, what is my average chew?

So how many more times? The average person. But yeah, so what the clinical trial did, it was going to think about, all right, if I add three more choose, is that like kind of per week and try build it up to get, obviously it depends on the consistency. You're not going to chew bread, a really soft bread 40 times. But the clinical trial looked at nuts, right? And they showed like 10 chews versus 40 chews.

and 40 choose. Just the almonds? Yeah, 40 almonds. Yeah, you probably've seen it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, well, yeah, exactly what you said. Add an extra three choose on per week if you can. And then if you're good there, then add an extra three on to get to at least,

I would say about 20 choose per mouthful, probably for, you know, standard consistency of food is probably optimal. But yeah. Amazing. Any supplements folks should be aware of. Like, what are the ones that we're just like? there's just there's no evidence whatsoever that these things are helping with gut health. God, there's there's a lot of different supplements on the market.

I would say probably where there's no research and I see a lot of people having them, so I say save your money, is these like broad spectrum digestive enzymes. So a lot of people who struggle with gut issues, you know, go on them, which mechanistically make it makes sense. You're like, okay, I must be not having enough of these enzymes and therefore I'm malabsorbing food, the bacteria fermenter, and that's why I'm getting these gut symptoms. But unless you have pancreatic insufficiency, which you'll know about because you'll have severe symptoms where they actually do recommend, or not recommend, they prescribe these high

dose broad spectrum digestive enzymes, essentially to make up for your pancreas. And the brand people probably heard as creon, they were huge, you know, so effectively life-saving, but you need to titrate it to what you're eating. Whereas these ones over the counter, there's a real lack of clinical evidence that suggests they have any benefits. So what I recommend is, actually, you need to identify what are you deficient in? Is it, you know, you can't digest lactose and therefore you take the lactase enzyme or actually do struggle with beans, in which case I do, you know, really believe you should

teach your microbiome to digest the beans more effectively. But in the short term, you might want to take the digestive enzyme alpha-gloctosidase, which helps digest the component of beans known as Goss or Glockologosaccharides, which you're struggling with and causing a lot of gas and upset. similar with, you know, fructose, xylose, isomerase, you should take the specific enzyme that you're kind of lacking. You know, these broad spectrum ones, I would say, yeah, there's a real lack of kind of evidence for.

And then I think this world of pre and probiotics, we have to obviously touch on that. We're talking about how all right. It'd be wrong, not too. So prebiotics is the fiber. So not all, you know, they've changed the definition. It used to be just fibers. Now they're thinking, actually, some other types of phytochemicals might

also be called a prebiotic, but that's just, you know, the science jargon, but essentially they fertilize the microbiome. Well, I say if you're getting in that, your super six most days, eating really diverse range of plants, you're going to get enough prebiotics that fertilize it in your diet. So prebiac supplements, the market's just going to take, contain one or two of these prebiotics. You're not really going to get that diversity. So I rarely recommend a prebiatic supplement, if I'm honest. Then probiotics, so these are those live microorganisms. And that's actually what I did my, my, my, probiotic my PhD in is looking at symbiotics pre and probiotics um and the thing about probiotics

it's just completely misunderstood how we should be using them right so there's actually no evidence on the you know out there that suggests we should take a general probiotic for for good gut health on the daily basis right and it makes sense because the probatics kind of like a drop in the ocean but that's not to say probiotics are a waste of your time and money we just need to start using them the way that they should be used, and that's kind of condition specific. Because there's, you know, like I said, thousands of these different types of bacteria, and they all do different things, they've got different skills. So, like, if you have iron deficiency, you're not going to go and take the vitamin D supplement

and expect your iron deficiency to improve, are you, they're different nutrients. They do different things. Exact same with probiotics, right? So an example is if you have to go on antibiotics for whatever reason, obviously we don't want to go on more time, but it can be life-saving sometimes you just have no choice. then there's really good evidence and it's guidelines that you should take a specific probate called lactobacillus raminus gg.

You would take it at 10 billion units twice a day throughout your antibiotic period and for a week after. So we know that medications, a lot of them are impacts to the microbiome. Now actually, a very small subset we think might have a benefit that might be the mechanism like metformin

that's often used for type of diabetes might be how it has its benefit. Is it targets a microbiome and does beneficial things to regulate hormone, regulation of insulin and appetite and all that sort of stuff, so I might have a benefit. But actually, you know, we certainly see it with things like PPI's, right? So PPIs are so overprescribed, so many people on it. And they don't even have that effect for a lot, their benefit for a lot of people.

They just take it, they'll prescribe it once, and they get stuck on it. And even though it's not helping with their reflux any great deal, they stay on it. Or actually, if they just, you know, change their lifestyle, reduce down their food triggers, lost a little bit of weight, stop smoking, drinking as much, sleeping, slightly elevate, all of these things, which we know we can help with reflux, they might not even need the PPI's. But we know the PPI's change your microbiome and makes you more vulnerable to gut infections. And we think maybe that could be why Lachivo, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth on the increase. You know, we see their correlation there. So, you know, I could go on and on about that.

People might not know the acronym for small intestine. Yeah. Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Essentially, we've got this nine meter long digestive tract. Most of our microbes live in that last 1.5 metres, the large intestine, and there's this little trap door that kind of prevents a lot of the microbes from getting from the large intestine into the small intestine for the iliosicle. And what happens is that for whatever reason, it might be the PPIs have changed kind of the profile of the microbes. Could be your gut movement is not as effective. The little door opens a bit. It means the microbes can crawl up higher into the small intestine. And the small

test and can't deal with a lot of these microbes as effectively. So it can cause a lot of bloating, altered stools and all that sort of stuff. I mean, we could talk a whole podcast on C-V-R-O-N-I-V-S and that. But just, I know, that's a bit of a tangent. But yeah, I think we need to start thinking about, actually, can we get on top of the condition or the disease or the symptom via diet and lifestyle? It might be a little bit harder than taking a pill. But trust me, in the long term, it will pay back and do it.

it ends by grief, you know, the grief of premature death or disability, all of this sort of stuff that people don't really think about at that very time. Yeah. So you have someone come into your practice, let's say, and how do you think about exercise as an intervention for improving gut health? What's the connection? What's the mechanism there? Yeah, really cool. So independent of diet, and I like to make that disclosure because a lot of people, like I said, fixate on diet. It's all connected, yeah. Yeah, they control. diet. So there's something else going on with exercise. In particular, I think, more like endurance exercise, like, you know, cardio-verse strength training, particularly, I think, is where

the research is that. Maybe it's because we haven't done a lot of strength training, you know, research on the microbiome, but most of the research is suggesting, you know, three times a week, you know, at a moderate to high-level intensity seems to be correlated with a more diverse microbiome. And it's been actually in an intervention study also kind of to confirm that. I guess in terms of the mechanisms, we haven't completely discovered what the mechanisms are. It might be because when you're exercising, you're more likely outside, and there's like, you know, millions of bacteria floating in the air, so you're exposed more to microorganisms that way. It might be because actually when you're exercising, it changes the gut motility, the gut movement, and therefore exposing the

microbiome to different types of fertilizers. And then also there's a, I thought that perhaps like lactic acid might actually be a bit of a prebiotic for the microbiome. So actually, feed some of these beneficial microbes. And I think there's this whole, whole very exciting world of gut health for athletes, where you've probably seen the research where they looked at the Boston Marathon runners and that, you know, the stars, the winners. And what they looked at is their microbiome. And they had specific types of strains of bacteria that was more effective at metabolizing

lactic acid and turning it into an energy. So they had less muscle burn, therefore could go longer. Well, that just gave me goosebumps. Wait. What? Yeah, I know. That's insane. So they're now looking at trying to understand that more.

So there has been follow one studies where they've taken. We did a bite on those strains. I know, exactly. I mean, everyone's like, could I have that? And they, so they have, they've done that. And they did it. And they put in animals, because obviously we like start in animal studies. And they showed those who had those specific strains extracted from those marathon runners.

they then did like treadmill running and I think it was 13% increase in their performance output or whatever which for an athlete 13% is huge right now I think it still probably is early early stage but what my concept not concept but my theory around this is is that we will be looking at elite athletes once who are just like crazy good at something where like even without loads of training they just you know I just excelled a sport and everyone's like how is this person so great they will take their stool and they will develop, you know, a faecal microbiome transplant.

So have you heard of the stool transplants? Yeah. I sure have. Yeah. One of my former colleagues has IBS and got a fecal transplant. It felt like a million bucks afterwards. Yeah. Insane.

Interesting. Yeah. Because there is, there's a lot of studies in IBS because we've considered it Kings and some of them are shown no benefit of fecal transplants and IBS and others have. So we think there's like these supermarkets. super donors. So it really depends on who still you're getting. And I always say a caution because in London, I don't know, it might be similar to where you are. There is actually transplant, microbiome transplant clinics running privately. And I just say, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait up because we're

seeing studies mainly in animals, but we're translating things like depression. And the donor of these still samples might not be declaring that they've got a family history of anxiety and depression. So you might, you know, improve your IBS perhaps, but actually gain something that you don't want to get. So I'm just always really cautious that only stick to clinical research for for transplant something because I have to screen them. But I think there will be a day where we'll take the community of microbes and put it in a pill. So it's probably not going to be just one magical type of strain. It's probably the collection because I think, you know, what we're seeing is like I mentioned at the start, is different bacteria at different and different environments.

So if you're just putting one in there, but it's not the right environment, it might not eat the lactic acid and be as effective as if it was in a different environment. So you need kind of combinations. It's phenomenal. You mentioned resistance training and, you know, I'm super passionate about improving the quality of the muscle tissue. And I wonder if that's actually the mechanism. Because there is, in fact, a gut muscle access, right? Yeah, yeah. Like there's like a really strong connection. It's interesting that there's a lot of research out there. Yeah. What's that? They produce amino acids as well, our microbiines. So yeah, there's so much in there. So I'm sure resistance training, you know, clearly it's proven to work.

work, something, one of the things that you're doing, not being sick in 10 or so years. So, yeah, I think, well, I know a lot of muscle people. So if you're interested in, and more research in that area, I've got a lot of people who'd be interested in collaborating. This has been just an amazing conversation. And I learned so much and I just appreciate all the good work that you're doing in this space. So thank you.

No, thanks to having me. It's been so much fun. Hence my rambling. I've had too much fun. I know. Thank you. Thank you to Dr. Megan Rossi for sharing all of her insights and tips on gut health. You can take her gut health quiz in our show notes to see how your gut health is doing.

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