# The Gut & Poo Doctor: You Have A Gut Problem And Don’t Know It | Dr Will Bulsiewicz

An episode of [Live Well Be Well with Sarah Ann Macklin | Health, Lifestyle, Nutrition](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1508380100), 18 Mar 2026, 1 h 55 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/1033d1554/podcast/play/117098425/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-2-18%2F420265526-44100-2-f37a2680877ad.mp3

Exciting news - pre-order my debut book https://linktr.ee/HealthySBTH?utm_source=linktree_profile_share I've never spoken publicly about my polyposis syndrome. About the bowel obstruction. About spending years doing everything right. The diet, the supplements, the appointments, and still ending up in hospital. I share it in this episode, because Will said something that made it impossible not to. Healing, he told me, didn't really begin until he fixed his relationship with his father. Not his diet. His dad. This week on Live Well Be Well, I sat down again with the brilliant Dr. Will Bulsiewicz, gastroenterologist, gut health researcher, and author of the brand new Plant Power Plus, for a conversation that starts in the gut and ends somewhere far more human. Will has this extraordinary ability to make the most complex science feel personal and urgent, and this one, our third conversation together, might be the most honest we've ever been. Here's What We Dive Into: - How half the population has normalised a damaged gut microbiome without ever realising it. - Why your symptoms, health history, and poop tell a more complete story than any expensive gut test. - Why fiber is the longevity nutrient and how to introduce it without the bloating and pain. - How colorectal cancer became the leading killer of millennials and Gen Z, and the screening steps that can protect you. - What one evening of drinking does to your gut lining within the hour. - Why unresolved trauma, stress, and your closest relationships may be the missing piece in your gut healing. Love, Sarah Ann 💛 *** This episode is sponsored by: NOWATCH: The compassionate health tracker Connecting body and mind with unique stress recovery insights so you can live fully today 15% off with code LWBW15 at https://nowatch.com/ Mojo: the app for expert-led courses in better sex. Learn from world-class sex therapists and relationship experts with courses tailored to your needs. 15% off with code LiveWell15 at mymojo.com/livewellbewell *** The Great British Veg Out How to support your gut, energy, and hormones by eating more — not less. 👉 https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/p/the-great-british-veg-out Reset Your Health If your body feels off after stress, travel, or burnout — this is where to start. 👉 https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/s/reset-your-health-in-30-days 👉 Practical beats perfect. Here’s a free 5-recipe PDF I use to support energy and stress during busy weeks. https://open.substack.com/pub/sarahmacklin/p/download-your-free-5-recipes-to-relieve 👉 If this resonates, you can join the thousands who read The Compassionate Cure each week. https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/ *** If You Enjoyed This Episode, You Might Also Like: Akkermansia, Cancer & GLP-1: How Your Gut Microbiome Shapes Immunity & the Brain | Dr William Lihttps://youtu.be/yZDzsfNjG_M *** Sign up to Sarah’s Compassionate Cure newsletter: Science Simplified, Health Humanised. Join thousands in exploring actionable insights that prioritise compassion, clarity, and real-life impact. https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/ *** (00:00) Intro (00:03:49) How to Know If Your Gut Is Healthy (00:06:25) What Your Poop Says About Your Health (00:08:02) Signs You're Constipated (And Don't Know It) (00:13:00) Why Antidepressants Are Prescribed for Gut Problems (00:18:39) How to Fix Chronic Constipation (00:24:32)How to Choose a Fiber Supplement (00:30:56) Akkermansia: The Gut Bacteria That Fights Cancer (00:41:28) How Stress Destroys Your Gut Microbiome (00:46:38) Polyps, Bowel Obstruction & Why I Changed My Diet (00:58:13) How to Add Fiber Without Bloating or Pain (01:05:49) Why High Protein Diets Harm Your Gut (01:15:55) How to Repair Your Gut Lining in 3–5 Days (01:26:57) Why Hangovers Are a Gut Problem (Not Just Alcohol) (01:41:54) Why Diet Alone Won't Heal Your Gut (01:51:13) What It Means to Have an Authentic Self

## Transcript

[0:00] They didn't realize that they had a problem until they lived
[0:03] with another person. They would poop once a week and
[0:06] then they move in with significant other and that
[0:08] person's pooping every day and they're like, what?
[0:10] Who's normal here? What percentage would you say
[0:13] people that have no idea they might have an unhealthy gut
[0:15] microbiome and just walking around thinking they're healthy?
[0:18] Roughly half of the people out there are walking around every
[0:22] single day not realizing their gut is a problem.
[0:25] How would you distinguish what a healthy gut microbiome looks
[0:28] like? I don't know how your audience
[0:29] feels about me talking talking about this, but I'm just going
[0:31] to go for it. It's your poop, doctor.
[0:33] Will Bolsowitz is. Back I honestly think that gut
[0:36] pain is one of the worst. People who have severe
[0:39] Constipation or have symptoms from Constipation, they feel
[0:42] pain that is on par with requiring a surgery.
[0:45] Smelly farts versus non smelly farts.
[0:48] Is there a difference? Smelly farts tend to come from
[0:52] one of three major compounds, and they're all sulfur based.
[0:56] The rise of colon cancer is increasing in younger people.
[0:59] Why is it that younger people seem to be suffering with this
[1:02] more than ever? You.
[1:02] Have to understand that colorectal cancer has a powerful
[1:06] gut microbiome input. This is actually a preventable
[1:08] disease. For the last two years I have
[1:12] kept a secret from you and it's this.
[1:15] It's my new book, Healthy Shouldn't be this hard.
[1:18] And I think it is a problem that we are all feeling.
[1:21] And I was feeling it so much that I wrote a book on it.
[1:24] Now, if you've been a guest of this podcast for a while, you
[1:27] know that I am all about kindness, self compassion.
[1:30] But when I dug into the research of this, my mind exploded.
[1:35] The connection between the mind and body is so integral, but we
[1:38] completely miss out on all the conversations on health, on how
[1:42] we speak to ourselves. And that is such a driving
[1:45] factor on how our food responds to what we eat, to the choices
[1:48] that we make. And we are so overwhelmed right
[1:51] now in the $8.5 trillion industry that is the Wellness
[1:55] industry, which is predicted to be by 2027.
[1:59] So if you need a helping hand, if you want a new way to live
[2:03] and be well and buy my new book Healthy shouldn't be this hard
[2:06] out on May the 28th. But you can pre-order it now.
[2:11] I'll pop the link below in the show notes.
[2:13] And I would love if you could support me on this.
[2:16] And I honestly think it will support you too, because
[2:19] everything on the gut microbiome is very central to health right
[2:22] now. So I actually want to start off
[2:23] with quite an interesting question.
[2:25] If you could think on a percentage of people that are
[2:27] walking around who seem healthy but actually might have symptoms
[2:32] of poor gut health but they don't even know it yet, what
[2:34] percentage would you say people that have no idea they might
[2:37] have an unhealthy gut microbiome and just walking around thinking
[2:41] they're healthy? I think this is I start to
[2:43] approach this like, OK, number one, we know that on the order
[2:48] of 90% of people in the United States are suffering with
[2:52] metabolic disease, like depending on the estimate, 88%
[2:55] in one study, 93% in another study, OK.
[2:58] All of those people already just that one statistic has told me
[3:02] that they have a damaged gut microbiome.
[3:06] And so if we start with that and then you sort of pull out the,
[3:11] if you say, OK, well, there's these people that suffer with
[3:14] gut symptoms. They, they know, they know that
[3:16] their gut is not well because they eat food and they, and they
[3:18] feel it. So if you pull those out, which
[3:21] is probably like 40 or 45% of people, then what you're left
[3:25] with is roughly half of the people out there are walking
[3:29] around every single day not realizing their gut is a
[3:32] problem, Perhaps realizing that there are some health
[3:37] opportunities that they have, but not knowing that the gut is
[3:40] the way in which they could actually achieve their health
[3:42] goals. So when do you think that we
[3:44] normalized kind of having just gut problems?
[3:47] Because I think a lot of us are so unaware that maybe their
[3:51] day-to-day maybe bloated tummies, pain, all of those
[3:55] things they've just normalized. Yeah, it's actually quite
[3:59] shocking. I've actually seen many patients
[4:01] throughout my career where they didn't realize that they had a
[4:05] problem until they lived with another person.
[4:08] You know, they would poop once a week and and then they move in
[4:13] with, you know, significant other and that person's pooping
[4:16] everyday and they're like, what that's who's normal here.
[4:20] So I, I do think that there's a good bit of us.
[4:23] I also think that there is tremendous power for us to
[4:26] normalize things that are not normal.
[4:28] I mean, look at what we've done with our food system.
[4:31] So our food system is completely riddled with things that didn't
[4:36] exist for our grandparents when they were kids.
[4:39] And we accept these as normal because we were raised with
[4:42] them. You know, you and I, we come
[4:44] from a generation. We were one of the first to like
[4:47] be exposed to these new foods, the ultra processed foods.
[4:51] And now here we are. And for our children, 70% of
[4:55] their diet, 70% of their calories come from ultra
[4:59] processed foods. So of course they think that's
[5:02] normal because it's making up more than 2/3 of the food they
[5:05] consume. It's interesting because we, we
[5:07] say this word normal, right? But what does it mean when it
[5:09] comes to kind of a healthy normal gut microbiome?
[5:13] Like, how can one listen to this and try and distinguish?
[5:17] Oh yeah, Doctor Wilby said this. I feel like I fit into that
[5:20] category. How would you distinguish what a
[5:23] healthy gut microbiome looks like?
[5:25] There's no consensus among scientists how to like with
[5:29] clarity, define a healthy gut microbiome.
[5:31] Many times in studies though, it's of relativity.
[5:35] So you'll say, well, this is diseased and this one is not and
[5:38] we can see that and therefore this one is the healthy 1, but
[5:41] it's relative. And so here, here's what I would
[5:44] say from my perspective as as a gastroenterologist and and
[5:47] author. There's three things I would
[5:50] look at. So I would look at are you
[5:52] suffering from symptoms that are related back to your gut health?
[5:56] Of course, that includes digestive symptoms, bloating,
[6:00] gas, abdominal discomfort, diarrhea, Constipation, acid
[6:04] reflux. But it also includes things
[6:07] throughout your entire body. You know, the gut is, the gut is
[6:09] not quarantined off. It's not compartmentalized.
[6:13] Our body is fluid. It is 1.
[6:15] And so you could be suffering with skin issues, you could be
[6:18] having headaches, migraines, you could have a mood disorder, you
[6:22] could feel fatigue and low energy.
[6:24] You could be suffering with insomnia.
[6:26] All of these things could be manifestations of something that
[6:29] does involve your gut. It's not that the gut is the
[6:31] only thing, but it does involve your gut.
[6:34] So number one is symptoms #2 is looking at your health history.
[6:40] So if you end up being diagnosed with health conditions, health
[6:45] conditions are what happened when the body crashes out.
[6:48] You didn't just land in that place one day.
[6:51] There was a build up to that moment and then the body
[6:53] collapsed and now all of a sudden you have whatever it
[6:55] might be and there's a So I think that when you look at a
[7:00] person who has different health conditions in my new book, part
[7:04] of what I did is ask the question how many health
[7:06] conditions are associated with a damaged gut?
[7:08] Where I can show you the study. How many?
[7:13] It's over 130, I think it's like 135 or 136.
[7:18] So all of them, if you come to my website, you can download
[7:20] them. You don't, you know, like
[7:22] instant access, just literally click and you'll be able to
[7:24] download and get the full report on all of these health
[7:26] conditions. And the study that I was looking
[7:28] at with my own eyes as I was writing this up.
[7:31] So if you have a list of these health conditions, you go down
[7:34] the list. It's not just gut.
[7:36] It's not just gut, it's, it's cognitive, right?
[7:39] Which could be like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, things like this.
[7:43] It's mood, it's skin disorders, it's metabolic health, it's
[7:47] hormonal health, both men and women.
[7:51] It's obviously autoimmune. Yeah, autoimmune allergic,
[7:57] right. So you go down the line and if
[7:59] you see a whole bunch of these things in your personal health
[8:02] history, the puzzle pieces are starting to fit into place.
[8:06] There's there's a story that's being told here.
[8:09] The gut is struggling. And This is why we're
[8:10] manifesting these diseases. So, so number one is symptoms #2
[8:15] is health history. And then #3 is I, I don't know
[8:18] how your audience feels about me talking about this, but I'm just
[8:20] going to go for it. It's your poop.
[8:22] Love it. We always talk about this that's
[8:24] we love talking about poo. I always have to check in
[8:28] because sometimes people are like, OK, OK, Dr. B.
[8:32] So anyway, this is this is what I do for a living.
[8:35] So I'm very comfortable talking about this.
[8:36] Yeah, I've normalized this in my life, talking about poop.
[8:40] Thank you, standing ovation for that one.
[8:44] So anyway, I, I do think there's a, a story that to be told in
[8:50] what's going on with our poops, because the truth is that with
[8:54] total clarity, the health of your microbiome is reflected in
[8:58] your bowel movements. Why?
[8:59] Because your bowel movements actually are mostly made-up of
[9:01] microbes. It's not the excrement of your
[9:04] food. It's not food waste that
[9:06] dominates. It's the microbes that dominate.
[9:09] And so when they're healthy, then you get those healthy,
[9:13] satisfying sausage shaped bowel movements.
[9:16] And when the microbes are struggling, that's when we start
[9:18] drifting into other places, drifting into Constipation,
[9:21] drifting into diarrhea, drifting into struggling poops,
[9:24] struggling, you know, drifting into urgency where you like have
[9:27] to rush to the restroom, drifting into a place where you
[9:29] don't feel like you completely emptied and you feel like you
[9:32] still have to go. And it's weird.
[9:33] So to me, those are the ways in which I can measure up
[9:37] independent of gut tests. Like to me, actually even
[9:40] stronger than gut tests, these are the ways that I can measure
[9:43] up what's going on with a person, symptoms, health
[9:46] history, and how are your poops? I'm glad that you did that
[9:50] because I actually had a whole section literally on
[9:52] Constipation because I think it's it's an embarrassing
[9:56] subject for many to speak about. So they don't talk about it.
[9:58] And you said something really interesting at the beginning,
[10:00] when someone moves in with someone else, that's when they
[10:02] start reflecting and go, wait, this person seems to have very
[10:06] different behaviours to what I have now is that I think
[10:11] everyone obviously is relative to their own kind of normal kind
[10:14] of rhythm that they have. But can we just break down like
[10:17] Constipation? Like really when is it a bit of
[10:20] an alarming signal? When would somebody say that
[10:23] they're maybe they are all constipated all the time?
[10:25] Is it once a week or is it every two days?
[10:28] Like what is the understanding there?
[10:30] Because as you said, that is one of the guys, one of the biggest
[10:33] drivers and understandings for you as a gastroenterologist to
[10:36] say, well, let me look at your literally bowel transitions
[10:39] every day. That's a really good insight and
[10:42] you know for many people this is so uncomfortable if they are
[10:45] stuck in Constipation. Totally.
[10:47] It's a huge percentage of people.
[10:49] We actually did a study with Zoe of 140,000 people across the UK,
[10:55] the largest study of bowel movements ever done.
[10:57] I'm proud to be part of that. Actually wrote the survey
[11:00] myself. Thank you.
[11:00] My second. We're only a couple minutes in
[11:02] now. I've got my second standing
[11:03] ovation. I'm feeling quite good about
[11:05] myself right now. And they both relate to poop.
[11:08] How? How impressive.
[11:10] So we did a study of over 140,000 people in the UK, the
[11:13] largest study to ever be done. This the take the Bristol Stool
[11:17] study and multiply that by 70. That's how big the study was.
[11:22] Yeah. And what we found is that about
[11:25] 20% of people are suffering with Constipation.
[11:29] So that's a lot. 1 in five people are suffering.
[11:33] Yeah. How do we define this?
[11:34] Well, there's the definitions that you can, you know, that are
[11:37] written up in textbooks, but I think that there's something a
[11:40] little more fluid and personal there beyond the actual
[11:43] definition, which is that to me, like on some level, Constipation
[11:47] has a very simple AA very simple pattern, which is that you are
[11:55] inadequately emptying your bowels.
[11:59] And because you are inadequately emptying your bowels, you are
[12:02] suffering the consequences of that.
[12:04] And there are things that come with that, including symptoms
[12:07] and those symptoms, Well, so the number one by far will be
[12:13] bloating. Every person who's constipated
[12:16] is bloated. All of them.
[12:19] I I don't know that I've met a person who was constipated
[12:21] without bloating, to be honest with you.
[12:23] And that's because there's so many, there's so much volume in
[12:26] that, right? Is that why that they're
[12:27] bloated? Because they kind of haven't
[12:29] allowed that to digest? There's like a vicious cycle at
[12:33] play when you get constipated. Yeah.
[12:37] So it kind of involves what you just said, but let me let me
[12:39] unpack it. So basically what happens is
[12:42] because you are not moving things through as efficiently as
[12:45] you should, you're allowing more time for the microbes to ferment
[12:50] whatever it is that exists in there.
[12:53] So it's not just fiber that gets fermented.
[12:55] Protein gets fermented. Tons of things get fermented.
[12:59] These microbes get to go to work with unlimited time and
[13:02] opportunity. And when they ferment, they
[13:05] produce gas. And here's the here's where it
[13:07] becomes the vicious cycle. The gas that is produced when
[13:11] you are constipated, which includes methane gas.
[13:14] It's actually been shown that methane gas actually slows bowel
[13:18] motility. So Constipation leads to
[13:21] increase gas production, increase gas production leads to
[13:25] slower bowel motility, which leads to more Constipation.
[13:29] And round and round the circle we go.
[13:31] So, and This is why from my perspective as a
[13:33] gastroenterologist, the solution to this, to this vicious cycle,
[13:37] you got to break the wheel. And you do this by basically
[13:40] getting the bowels moving. If you get the bowels moving,
[13:43] then the expectation is that the bloating will improve, as does
[13:46] the Constipation. And I know that a person has
[13:50] improved with regard to their Constipation.
[13:52] When they come in and they tell me they're not bloated anymore,
[13:55] that's when you know you've really gotten there.
[13:56] So that that to me is like probably the most clear sign
[14:00] that exists. So bloating is #1 there's a
[14:04] whole bunch of other symptoms that could be in play.
[14:07] You could have abdominal discomfort.
[14:09] It could be a dull discomfort. You might actually feel it in
[14:11] your back. You might actually believe it's
[14:12] your kidneys. It could be a sharp pain.
[14:15] It could be a sharp pain that comes in waves.
[14:18] I've had people who think they have a gallbladder and it's
[14:21] actually Constipation so and they like literally are going
[14:26] looking for a surgeon saying take my gallbladder out, take my
[14:28] gallbladder out and no, actually let's give you a laxative, get
[14:33] you pooping. Let's get things moving.
[14:36] I mean, I honestly think that gut pain is one of the worst.
[14:40] It's so underestimated and how painful some gut, gut symptoms
[14:44] can be, like even things like, you know, trapped wind can be so
[14:48] painful for so many people. 100% people who have severe
[14:52] Constipation or have symptoms from Constipation, they feel
[14:57] pain that is on par with requiring a surgery.
[14:59] They think they need surgery. And part of the Saran is the
[15:04] number of nerves that carpet our intestines.
[15:06] So, you know, they're not as finely tactile as my fingers
[15:10] are. So for people who are listening
[15:11] to the podcast but not on YouTube, I'm holding up my hands
[15:14] and I'm rubbing them together like an ASMR video.
[15:19] And please stay with us, though, don't fall asleep.
[15:23] But you are allowed to get nice and relaxed and settle in.
[15:25] So they're not as tactile as our fingers.
[15:29] Our fingers, we can, we can interpret precise touch.
[15:32] They can't do that. They're much more simple, but
[15:34] there's tons of them. There's 500 million nerves in
[15:37] our gut. It's more nerves than we have
[15:38] anywhere in our body except for our brain.
[15:42] Five times more nerves than you will find in your spinal cord.
[15:46] And they're constantly feeling and sensing.
[15:48] And they do. They're they're that that sense
[15:51] is with a purpose. And when there's something
[15:54] that's wrong, it sends this pain signal.
[15:56] And the pain signal is meant to tell you that something is
[15:59] wrong. That's the entire reason we were
[16:00] wired this way. So this is the reason why the
[16:04] pain can be quite intense because you have so many nerves.
[16:08] They can and they can. The other thing too is when you
[16:10] suffer with chronic digestive issues, particularly within the
[16:14] context of having a damaged gut microbiome, you can develop
[16:18] something called visceral hypersensitivity.
[16:21] And that is like, imagine for a moment that we're listening to a
[16:26] song that we both love, and I walk over to the sound system
[16:30] and I turn it up so loud that it's making your ears bleed.
[16:33] That thing that was totally fine and in fact kind of enjoyable
[16:37] before has actually become problematic because it's like
[16:40] way too loud. And that's visceral
[16:42] hypersensitivity, as these nerves start jumpy, getting
[16:45] jumpy and reactive to things that they shouldn't even react
[16:47] to. I attended Ted earlier this
[16:49] year, and I found myself in conversations with the founders
[16:52] of no watch. You've probably seen me wear
[16:54] something on my wrist, and lots of you have messaged me asking
[16:58] me what this is. It looks like a classic watch,
[17:00] but it's actually quietly tracking something much more
[17:03] meaningful, your autonomic nervous system.
[17:06] This is the system that governs everything from how you respond,
[17:09] from excitement to anxiety, calm to overwhelm.
[17:12] Most wearables just give you a score, but if you're anything
[17:15] like me, that score can sometimes make you feel worse,
[17:19] like you're already behind before your day even begins.
[17:22] No watch works differently. There is no judgement and there
[17:25] is no dopamine chasing dashboard.
[17:27] It simply reflects what your body is already experiencing and
[17:31] also helps you notice what it might be missing.
[17:33] It gives you minute by minute timeline of your stress
[17:36] responses and your recovery. The recovery is the most
[17:39] important part and it's the part that no one talks about and it
[17:42] is often the most revealing marker of our long term health.
[17:45] In just five days, it calibrates your body and it builds build
[17:48] your personal health fingerprint.
[17:50] You can try for free now for 30 days.
[17:53] And if you use the code LWBW, you can also get 15% off.
[17:57] If you want to understand your body not just through
[17:59] performance but through self-awareness, then this is
[18:02] where I'd begin and we will get to the the solutions of
[18:09] Constipation. But before I forget, when you
[18:11] said that, is that why some gastroenterologists actually
[18:14] prescribe a low dose of SSRI for people that do have that
[18:18] hypersensitivity to a gut? Because there's some really
[18:20] interesting research there to show actually in different types
[18:24] of protocols of the gut, that can also be one really helpful
[18:27] step to help the sensitivity of the gut calm a bit more.
[18:31] Yeah, that's right. So actually, Sarah Ann, you've
[18:34] read my, my new book Plant Powered Plus and chapter 8.
[18:38] Yes, you're good. You've done your homework.
[18:41] Chapter 8 of my new book is actually my favorite chapter and
[18:45] it's about the brain, gut connection.
[18:46] And in this chapter I discuss my relationship with one of the
[18:50] most famous gastroenterologists in like basically in the, in the
[18:53] history of my profession. His name is Doctor Douglas
[18:55] Strassman and he, so he's my friend, he's my mentor and he's
[19:01] actually the one who what you just described of using SSR is
[19:04] which are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.
[19:08] These are the drugs that we think of as being used for mood
[19:12] disorders like depression and anxiety because they increase
[19:15] serotonin levels. But it turns out that you can
[19:17] apply these drugs to gut issues at a very low dose.
[19:21] And he's the one who really started us in this sort of
[19:26] process. He started this back like late
[19:29] 80s, early 90s. He was starting to unpack some
[19:33] of these concepts that we're talking about that now finally
[19:36] are becoming more mainstream. 10 years ago, I would talk about
[19:38] this and no one knew what I was talking about and thought it was
[19:40] crazy. So, but yeah, So you could use
[19:44] SSRI's to increase serotonin. You could use tricyclic
[19:47] antidepressants, which are actually wonderful for people
[19:50] who have diarrhea type issues. In fact, they're preferred to
[19:53] the SSRI because SSRI's make people poop more.
[19:56] And you could also use the what we call SNR is selective
[20:01] norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors like Cymbalta, which
[20:06] are actually very good at targeting pain.
[20:08] So if you wanted to target pain and you had Constipation,
[20:12] actually the ones like Cymbalta are the perfect choice.
[20:15] It's not your primary treatment for Constipation, but you're
[20:18] using it to help to control the discomfort that comes.
[20:20] That's an amazing sidestep that so many people wouldn't even
[20:23] think about when it comes to Constipation.
[20:24] But if you're talking about in this cycle, which is so
[20:27] interesting because also the methane gas is also such a big
[20:31] driver of also, you know, people get really embarrassed about it
[20:34] because it's also smelly. And all of those situations
[20:37] people get into this cycle, there's one area to look at.
[20:40] But what are the other areas to help kind of break this cycle to
[20:43] get people into feeling that they have a healthy gut rhythm
[20:47] and healthy bowel transitions and not feel like they're stuck
[20:50] constantly going round and round?
[20:52] Because I can imagine for some people, they also, they just
[20:54] feel like everything's quite hopeless when it's just going on
[20:57] and on and on. It's incredibly frustrating and
[21:01] it can negatively affect your quality of life in a major way.
[21:05] And if you don't feel well, then it starts to like you, you, you
[21:10] start to realize how important your health is because it
[21:13] doesn't matter how much money you have if you don't feel well.
[21:16] Yeah. So in terms of the solutions to
[21:18] this issue of, of chronic Constipation, the, the way that
[21:23] I like to approach this is that I want to get things moving,
[21:27] number one. And then #2 I want to basically
[21:32] support the gut microbiome and make it as healthy as possible.
[21:37] And so typically the way that I approach this, and let me let me
[21:40] first say that Constipation is a rather nuanced topic.
[21:43] It is not one-size-fits-all. You have to understand some
[21:46] details with individual patients and you have to sort of tailor
[21:50] fit. But a typical approach that I
[21:53] will take is to start off with magnesium supplements.
[22:00] Now, it's not the magnesium glycinate that you're taking at
[22:03] night to go to bed. It's got to be either magnesium
[22:07] oxide, magnesium citrate, or magnesium sulfate.
[22:12] Oh wow. I tend, yeah, specific types,
[22:15] different different types of magnesium do different things.
[22:18] Can you explain why it's those three and not like the thionate
[22:21] or the glycinate or the other ones?
[22:24] It's an absorption issue. So like particularly the
[22:26] magnesium oxide, it is very poorly absorbed.
[22:31] So you would take more and your body gets less.
[22:35] And that's actually what you want within the context of
[22:37] Constipation, because then what happens is the magnesium that
[22:41] stays within the tube of your intestine, it's not getting into
[22:45] your blood, it stays within the intestine.
[22:47] That magnesium starts to pull water in and so that water that
[22:53] then comes in, it basically helps to flush things through.
[22:57] So it's kind of like imagine that we have this dried up Creek
[23:03] and there's a log on that dried up Creek.
[23:05] It's the logs not moving. But if we could make, if we
[23:10] could actually restore the Creek and get water flowing again,
[23:13] then the log basically gets lifted up and very easily passes
[23:17] through. So we want to float, float that
[23:20] log down the river. I like that analogy.
[23:25] That's a very easy. One to understand.
[23:29] Tried to create poop analogies that are like easy on the eyes
[23:32] as opposed to like seeing what's in a toilet bowl.
[23:34] Every time you do one, I'm going to give you another applause.
[23:38] So what was it? Magnesium oxidate?
[23:40] What was the other two? Yeah, yeah.
[23:42] So magnesium oxide, magnesium citrate, magnesium sulfate,
[23:45] these are these are the three main ones that you want to look
[23:47] at the the beauty of magnesium. So if you have kidney issues,
[23:52] you certainly should not be doing this, but you should talk
[23:56] to your medical doctor and you could always get magnesium
[23:58] levels checked before you do it. You can get them checked after
[24:02] you do it and just make sure that your magnesium level is
[24:04] where you want it to be. What I find is most of the time
[24:06] people are low on magnesium before we start. 70% of the
[24:10] population, I know this as AUK start.
[24:12] I'm not sure on the Americans, but I think it's very similar.
[24:14] We are always quite similar on our stats are deficient in in
[24:18] magnesium, so it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of people
[24:22] are also deficient in magnesium with gut problems.
[24:24] Huge percentage of people and the magnesium is not just there
[24:28] for pooping magnesium impacts so many facets of our health.
[24:32] I'm a huge believer in magnesium in general like if you're not
[24:37] taking magnesium for pooping, then you might be taking
[24:40] magnesium for other reasons because there's a lot of
[24:43] benefits there. So anyway, but the key here is
[24:47] if we imagine that this, you know, the, the, there's like a
[24:51] gridlock, right? There's gridlock within the
[24:53] intestines. Things are not moving.
[24:56] Step one is let's get things moving.
[24:58] And so the magnesium is what allows us to do that.
[25:01] We would basically titrate with what that means is you start at
[25:04] a lower amount and then like every four days you start to
[25:07] increase the amount until you get to the sweet spot.
[25:11] The sweet spot is you're pooping.
[25:13] So you don't want to go too far because if you go too far and
[25:16] too fast, you're going to end up with diarrhea.
[25:20] So you start with that. And then Step 2 is to sprinkle
[25:26] in some fiber. And the reason why I love fiber
[25:31] Step 2 is because if you do it step one, but you don't
[25:35] successfully get things moving right.
[25:37] So if you're stuck, things are stuck and you start dropping
[25:40] fiber in there. OK, if the fiber gets you
[25:43] unstuck, cool, you win. But if you stay stuck, that
[25:48] fiber, it's going to get fermented.
[25:50] And if you're going to be even more gas and then you're going
[25:52] to curse my name and say Dr. B doesn't know what he's talking
[25:55] about. OK, so step one is get things
[25:59] moving. And once things are moving,
[26:01] fiber is 100% your friend in your mission.
[26:06] This is where like I would opt for a high quality fiber
[26:09] supplement. So now Full disclosure, I have
[26:12] my own fiber supplement that I created because I was never
[26:16] satisfied with what was out there.
[26:18] So I felt like the world needed a higher quality product and
[26:23] that's why I created the start of the company, 38 Terra, our
[26:25] products called Daily Microbiome Nutrition.
[26:27] But basically what you would do, whether it's that or it's a
[26:30] different choice, there's other choices.
[26:32] What you would do is after you're already got the bowels
[26:35] moving, you would start to take a fibrous supplement every
[26:37] morning with consistency. And what you will find is that
[26:41] it will form up your stool to give you the sausages that
[26:44] you're hoping for. It'll help you to maintain that
[26:47] rhythm and regularity, and it's ultimately going to feed your
[26:51] microbiome, which is addressing the root of the problem.
[26:53] And when you do that, it's not to say that you stop having
[26:56] Constipation instantly, but really what you're doing is
[26:59] you're ultimately treating the source of the problem and making
[27:02] yourself healthier. So you said fiber supplement
[27:04] people might go, oh, fiber, I know what fiber is, but what
[27:07] would they be looking for in a fiber supplement?
[27:09] Because I know that you said you've made your own because you
[27:12] felt like there wasn't good quality ones on the supplement
[27:14] on the on the market, but when OK, so people might go well, I
[27:17] don't even know what that looks like.
[27:19] What would what would I be looking for on the back of a
[27:21] fibre supplement? Yeah.
[27:22] So I guess some of the, it's a, it's actually pretty
[27:25] straightforward to explain why I felt like I had to make my own.
[27:28] Like I think that kind of answers the question, which is
[27:31] to say that number one, the fibre supplements that are out
[27:35] there, they're outdated. They're outdated.
[27:37] We have learned so much about the microbiome in the last 10-15
[27:41] years. We shouldn't be using products
[27:45] that were created when I was five years old in the 80s.
[27:49] So that's number one. Number two, they're mono fibers.
[27:52] Mono fibers are when you take some sort of plants, that's
[27:56] where fiber comes from. You extract the fiber, pull it
[27:59] out chemically. That's not natural.
[28:01] And then this like isolated fiber, you just sort of like
[28:04] pump that in and when you do a mono fiber, you overfeed certain
[28:09] microbes that love that type of fiber, you overfeed them and
[28:13] meanwhile you underfeed everything else.
[28:16] Is that because? You've so the structure of the
[28:18] cell wall when you. Break down the structure.
[28:22] Yeah, you've lost the structure in the other elements of the
[28:24] food that do contribute to a healthier microbiome, and you
[28:27] also are overfeeding that one. It would be like saying I'm
[28:31] going to take one amino acid and only one amino acid, right?
[28:36] So you're just like overloading with one thing and you're not
[28:40] actually addressing the broader issue, which is you need a
[28:42] variety of amino acids to truly be healthy.
[28:45] So I think that variety is an important thing.
[28:48] This is why with with Daily Microbiome Nutrition, we have 7
[28:51] plant based ingredients. None of them are extracts.
[28:53] They're all coming from original plants, just just ground into
[28:56] powders. But that provides you with seven
[28:59] unique different types of both fiber and, and polyphenols.
[29:05] And then the third thing is just the lack of transparency.
[29:08] This is a problem in the supplement industry everywhere.
[29:11] So if you look at the supplement industry, there are a lot, a lot
[29:15] of products and the vast majority you have no clue what's
[29:18] actually in there, whether or not it's clean.
[29:21] So This is why we, for example, opted to have our products be
[29:26] NSF certified for sport. Yeah, and it's a good marker.
[29:30] So, well, you know, it's, it's not, there's not many out there
[29:33] that actually are NSF certified for sport, but this is basically
[29:36] the marker that professionals, professional athletes use to
[29:40] know that something is safe because they could lose their
[29:43] contract if they fail a drug test.
[29:45] But it's far more than that. This is this is knowing that
[29:48] like what's on the label is actually what's in there and
[29:50] nothing more. And it's the most rigorous
[29:53] testing program of over 300 things.
[29:55] And so, you know, so those are the things I would look for.
[29:59] I want, I want, I want variety, I want high quality ingredients.
[30:04] And I want to know that it's been not just like the claim
[30:06] third party tested people manipulate that I want to
[30:09] actually see the test results with my own eyes or know that it
[30:12] has this higher standard. So when they're looking at the
[30:14] back of a fiber supplement, they basically need to aside from
[30:17] checking that it's got quality ingredients and they want to see
[30:20] diversity of different types of fiber.
[30:22] That's really because a lot of fiber supplements might just
[30:24] have one type of fiber and you're saying stay away from
[30:26] that to get clarity on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[30:30] So I, I, I want to have multiple forms of fiber.
[30:34] And in a perfect world, what we have in our product is you have
[30:37] not just fiber, you also have resistant starch and polyphenols
[30:41] because each of these in their own way.
[30:43] So a quick little thing that I found to be very interesting
[30:45] that I've learned in the last few years.
[30:48] Fiber and resistant starch are both precursors to the short
[30:51] chain fatty acids that we ultimately want.
[30:54] So short chain fatty acids are like butyrate, acetate, and
[30:56] propionate. These we discussed these in
[30:58] detail in our last podcast that we did together that was very
[31:00] popular. Yeah, that was like our highest
[31:02] replayed moment by the way of that of that podcast.
[31:05] People were obsessed with understanding this part.
[31:08] Amazing. Just so you.
[31:09] Know. That's really cool.
[31:11] All right, so the short chain fatty acids that these are the
[31:13] most anti-inflammatory compounds that exist.
[31:15] This is the reason that you should be gravitating towards
[31:17] fibre, and you can get them from resistant starch.
[31:21] Resistant starch is not fiber. It's actually a starch, but we
[31:24] call it resistant starch because it doesn't get digested.
[31:28] So it ends up in your colon where your it feeds your
[31:30] microbes. But here's the part that's
[31:32] really interesting. There's research to show that
[31:37] fiber tends to get chewed up by your microbes on the right side
[31:41] of your intestines in your right colon.
[31:44] So basically that's where they enter into the body, and as soon
[31:47] as they enter, that's where they enter into the colon.
[31:49] And as soon as they enter into the colon, they basically get
[31:52] transformed into short chain fatty acids.
[31:56] The resistant starches actually drift further down and they get
[32:00] to the left side of the colon. So between these two, they're
[32:04] actually complementary. So when you have both fiber and
[32:06] resistant starch, you are basically feeding the entire
[32:10] colon and then the polyphenols are like primers for these
[32:14] microbes. The polyphenols don't become
[32:16] short chain fatty acids. They have their own
[32:19] anti-inflammatory effects. But what the polyphenols do is
[32:22] they basically get the microbiome primed so that it's
[32:26] ready to produce the maximum amount of short chain fatty
[32:28] acids. So an example of this real quick
[32:30] is that we did a 15 day microbiome study with our
[32:33] product with incredible results. And what we discovered that was
[32:38] really cool. There were two things that are
[32:41] like my top two most proud moments from the study.
[32:43] There were others as well. But number one, you give the
[32:47] same amount every single day, 5.6 grams of daily microbiome
[32:51] nutrition, but the short chain fatty acid levels were climbing
[32:56] across the 15 days. Why is that?
[32:59] You haven't increased the product?
[33:01] Why is that? Because the microbiome is
[33:02] adapting, the micro bomb is becoming more efficient.
[33:06] It's producing more and more from the same amount.
[33:08] That's really cool. You could get, you could get
[33:10] three times the amount of short chain fatty acids by day 15 that
[33:13] you do a day three. And then the the other thing
[33:18] that was cool is Echomancia. So Echomancia is this gut
[33:21] bacteria that everyone is obsessed with it.
[33:25] It protects our metabolism. It is anti-inflammatory and many
[33:30] people are taking very expensive probiotics trying to get more of
[33:33] it. And my argument has always been
[33:35] we need to feed our own bacteria and people have wanted to know
[33:41] how can I get more acromancia? And we have shown in the study,
[33:45] if you take this product by day 15, you have increased your
[33:49] acromancia levels. That's wild because Doctor
[33:53] William Lee came on the show and we actually thought so much of
[33:56] the show was on Acromancia because it's got so many
[33:58] beneficial even with cancer and everything.
[34:01] You know, the the acromancer, that microbe that you're
[34:04] speaking about, but you can't. He was mentioning that you can't
[34:07] eat enough in your diet to kind of get the beneficial results.
[34:11] So that's why understanding how you can create more Acromancer
[34:15] is really important. But I didn't even realise that
[34:17] that as possible, so that's incredible.
[34:19] So first of all, Will is a friend of mine and I love that
[34:22] guy. And anyone who's listening to
[34:24] this show should go and listen to that episode.
[34:26] I'm sure it's a he does an incredible job as a science
[34:29] communicator. So the thing about it is that
[34:34] it's hard to say, hey, eat this because food is food and it's
[34:40] hard to target specific microbes.
[34:43] What's unique is this is where a supplement comes in.
[34:45] Supplements can be very targeted and we know that the supplement
[34:51] is actually targeting the Acromancia and helping to
[34:53] elevate it. And the second thing that's
[34:55] really cool about this that I love, this is my favorite part
[34:58] actually is this is actually not just an acromancia story.
[35:02] So if you were to take a probiotic, it would only be
[35:05] about the acromancia. You're adding more, you're
[35:06] sprinkling more Acromancia in. That's a good thing.
[35:10] I, I mean, I appreciate that, but if you, if you elevate your
[35:14] own Acromancia, what we've discovered is that Eckermancia
[35:18] is what we call a keystone species.
[35:21] So in essence, the health of your microbiome is proportional
[35:27] to your Eckermancia as your, as your microbiome, the entire
[35:32] system, as the entire system becomes healthy, Eckermancia
[35:36] levels rise. So what we're actually seeing in
[35:39] this 15 day study is that the rising echomancia is indicative
[35:44] of more than just this isolated species, It's indicative of the
[35:48] entire system healing. I want to talk about something
[35:50] important to you guys. People today are lonelier than
[35:54] ever. Most long term relationships
[35:56] aren't happy ones, and 1/3 of people under 30 haven't had sex
[36:00] in the past year. Sexual issues among young people
[36:03] have surged over 3000%. But what most people miss, the
[36:08] vast majority of relationships and intimacy struggles aren't
[36:11] physical problems, they're psychological.
[36:14] And yet, most people never get traditional therapy because it
[36:17] feels awkward, expensive, or just impossible to access So
[36:21] much about Live Well B Wells Mission is aimed to reduce
[36:24] stigma around health and help us understand ourselves better.
[36:28] And that is exactly why I wanted to tell you about Mojo, an app
[36:33] for dating, sex and relationships that I am
[36:36] genuinely excited to tell you about.
[36:39] They are partnered with the world's leading experts in
[36:42] sexology, including some that you're actually here on this
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[36:49] Now their AI personalises everything to your specific
[36:54] situation so you can work through it privately, at home
[36:58] and on your own time. Suffering in silence doesn't
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[37:07] invested in the company. Now, if any of this resonates,
[37:10] go to mymojo.com/live. Well, be well and use the code
[37:16] Live Well 15 for 15% off our sexual well-being matters and
[37:22] everyone deserves support. Well, I think what I've now just
[37:26] remembered from that conversation with Will, which is
[37:28] something that's going to connect to my next question with
[37:30] you is that people that had higher levels of gut acromancia,
[37:34] the one that you're exactly talking about, the ones that had
[37:37] better levels of that responded better to the cancer treatment,
[37:41] the MU, the MU treatment than the ones that didn't.
[37:45] And he was like, that's so interesting when he looks at
[37:47] understanding cancer therapies way more and how important the
[37:51] gut microbiome is by actually making sure that you have good
[37:54] levels of acromancia that actually predicted a better
[37:58] outcome with cancer patients. And I thought that was really
[38:00] interesting when I like when I'm kind of hearing what you're
[38:03] saying as well, like how important this is right now to
[38:06] to understand. Well, and I think that that
[38:09] right there kind of tells you a very powerful story about how
[38:14] the gut is connected to our immune system and health
[38:17] throughout the entire body. Because what we're talking about
[38:20] is targeting a cancer that could be literally anywhere in your
[38:23] body. It could be in your brain,
[38:24] breast could be in your, in your colon, it could be in many
[38:28] places, but it's not, it's not necessarily something that's
[38:31] like sitting right there in your gut.
[38:34] And the, the point is that when you manipulate the gut
[38:37] microbiome, you actually make the immune system more powerful.
[38:42] And these new therapies that are being used that he's referring
[38:45] to, or they're called, it's called immunotherapy.
[38:48] And immunotherapy is basically where you actually use, as
[38:51] opposed to trying to bomb the cancer or poison the cancer,
[38:56] which is what chemo is. Instead, what you're doing here
[38:59] is you're saying, hey, look, a healthy immune system eliminates
[39:01] cancer. So let me actually use this
[39:06] person's own immune system and allow that immune system to do
[39:10] what it does best. Go in, take it out.
[39:13] And so, but what we're saying is that it's not just the
[39:17] immunotherapy that matters. There's these other inputs that
[39:20] determine the result that you get from that immunotherapy.
[39:24] And there's now overwhelming evidence it really started with
[39:26] Melanoma and it's extending into new, new forms of cancer.
[39:31] But there's overwhelming evidence that if you make the
[39:33] gut microbiome more healthy, you actually improve the response to
[39:36] immunotherapy. And that's what he's referring
[39:37] to with the acromancy, because when acromancy gets healthier,
[39:40] the microbom is healthier. I think it's just so important,
[39:42] right to understand how interconnected everything is
[39:46] when it gets to this, because I mentioned to you before and I
[39:49] made this feels kind of a natural time to, to bring this
[39:51] in because it's, it's, it's a hard topic to talk about.
[39:54] You know, the rise of colon cancer is increasing in, in
[39:58] younger people. And I found this kind of really
[40:01] interesting, you know, understanding that since 2005,
[40:04] there's a 1.1% each year increase in colorectal cancer.
[40:10] So it was going from the 5th leading cause of cancer deaths
[40:14] in millennials and Gen. Z's.
[40:16] Now it's the first and that was recently shown in 2006.
[40:19] I'm sure you're quite familiar with the drama report on this.
[40:24] Why is it that younger people seem to be now, this is now the
[40:27] leading cause of, of, of of death?
[40:30] Why is it that younger people seem to be suffering with this
[40:32] more than ever? Is it, is it random?
[40:34] Is it, is there a prediction here that we can try and
[40:37] understand? Like what do you think it is?
[40:39] No, it's definitely not random. I think that the issue is that
[40:43] we have shifted forward the the rate at which we are careening
[40:52] towards these dangerous health conditions.
[40:54] And that's why things that used to affect 50 year, 50 year olds
[40:57] and later, because there is an age-related elements to
[41:01] colorectal cancer, our risk goes up as we age.
[41:04] It doesn't like go up and then go down.
[41:06] It keeps going up. But it used to be a disease of
[41:10] the elderly or at least people past age 50.
[41:12] I mean, I'm almost 50, so are you, But wow.
[41:15] Like, yeah. Thank you for that.
[41:19] It's Sarah Ann, as you as you know, there's amazing things
[41:22] that you can do with lighting these days anyway.
[41:24] I do know. That it used to be something
[41:28] that we really considered to be past age 50.
[41:31] I have diagnosed people in their 20s.
[41:35] I've diagnosed many in their 30s as well as in their 40s, and it
[41:39] is heartbreaking. So this has actually become a
[41:43] big part of my platform is to get out there and talk about
[41:47] this and bring awareness to this topic because there's ways that
[41:50] we can protect ourself. This is actually a preventable
[41:53] disease if we can approach this properly.
[41:55] So, but the question that you asked me is why is this shifting
[41:58] towards younger populations? You have to understand that
[42:02] colorectal cancer has a powerful gut microbiome input.
[42:06] The gut microbiome changes and this leads to the formation of
[42:12] what is originally a polyp. And that polyp will initially be
[42:16] microscopic, not even visible to the eye and it will grow and it
[42:20] will, it will basically double and double and double and keep
[42:23] getting bigger until that polyp becomes something that turns
[42:26] into cancer. And so, and it's just a question
[42:30] like when do you start create forming polyps?
[42:33] Because we believe it takes at least 10 years to go from a
[42:36] small polyp that's visible during colonoscopy.
[42:39] We think it takes 10 years to go from a small polyp visible in
[42:42] colonoscopy to the actual formation of cancer.
[42:46] And if during that window you were able to actually do a
[42:50] colonoscopy, see that polyp, you would remove it and it's gone
[42:54] and the risk is now 0 in that location.
[42:57] So and what is contributing to that specifically?
[43:00] Part of this is diet for sure. There's many elements to that.
[43:05] I think our ultra processed foods are contributing.
[43:08] I am not of the belief that every person needs to be vegan
[43:11] in order to be healthy. That is not my platform at all.
[43:15] But we have a total lack of balance, a total lack of balance
[43:18] between the consumption of meat and the consumption of fiber.
[43:22] Fiber protects us. If you were to increase your
[43:25] fiber consumption, we would dramatically reduce any risks.
[43:28] We would really, really mitigate the risk associated with red
[43:32] meat consumption or, or the deli meats.
[43:35] We would really mitigate that risk if we increased our fiber
[43:37] consumption. The problem that we have is
[43:39] we're not eating fiber. And when you combine that with
[43:42] excessive like, you know, in the US, 220 lbs of meat consumption
[43:45] per year, not to mention the, the deli meats and like the
[43:49] processed meats that are the most clearly associated with
[43:53] increased risk of colorectal cancer.
[43:56] Sprinkle in alcohol consumption. I'm, I'm excited to see the
[43:59] alcohol consumption is starting to cool off.
[44:01] I myself, like I'm not, that's not casting any stone at any
[44:05] other person because I myself went through college, went
[44:08] through my 20s, definitely consumed more than I should
[44:11] have. And but I'm trying to learn and
[44:15] the new studies are showing me that there's a better way and
[44:22] alcohol is contributing to that risk.
[44:24] But there's also a lack of exercise.
[44:25] We're much more sedentary. People are not, kids are not
[44:29] running around outside the way that they used to indoors.
[44:32] They're with devices, they're playing video games.
[44:35] So sedentary lifestyle is part of the problem.
[44:37] So I think it's like when you take this complete picture that
[44:40] includes diet in a powerful way that includes our lifestyle,
[44:43] that includes our gut microbiome, you end up with this
[44:46] story of colorectal cancer doesn't need to wait until
[44:49] you're 50 anymore. Colorectal cancer could start
[44:51] showing up in your 30s or 40s now.
[44:53] Absolutely. The one thing that you didn't
[44:55] mention there, and I wonder if this is connected to colorectal
[44:57] cancer and you can tell me if I'm wrong, is stress.
[45:01] Do you think stress plays a part in the increase in this and why
[45:05] younger people are getting it or not?
[45:06] Or do you think it's not a contributor?
[45:09] So I think that the, you mentioned a moment ago, the
[45:11] entire body is interconnected. I, I don't think that you can
[45:16] separate out things and say, well, that's over there and this
[45:20] is over here. And so stress through the brain,
[45:24] gut connection. And this is something that now
[45:28] is like the idea of mind body used to be a woo woo thing.
[45:33] It's not. This is real.
[45:34] It's not. Oh, it's the foundation of my
[45:36] next book will. Trust me, it's so important.
[45:39] Excellent. Oh, I can't wait to read that.
[45:41] You have to remind me the name of your next book is.
[45:43] Healthy shouldn't be this hard. Oh my gosh, it's going to be so
[45:47] good. I can't wait for that book.
[45:48] So through the brain gut connection, there's ways in
[45:52] which when we when we activate our stress response, we
[45:55] sacrifice our gut. When we sacrifice our gut we
[46:01] increase inflammation and inflammation is contributory.
[46:05] Both gut microbiome and inflammation are contributory to
[46:08] the pathogenesis, the development of both colon polyps
[46:14] and ultimately colorectal cancer.
[46:16] So, you know, is is stress worse today than it was 50 years ago?
[46:23] I don't know if it is. But what I do know is that we're
[46:26] much more vulnerable to stress. Our resilience is reduced
[46:30] because our gut microbiome is not as strong as it used to be.
[46:32] And when your gut microbiome is struggling, it does affect your
[46:36] mood. It does affect your ability to
[46:38] be resilient to stress. And then we ultimately compound
[46:41] that because we make the stress response gets amplified and that
[46:45] compounds with our gut gets even less healthy and then we have
[46:49] more inflammation. I guess with all of this, the
[46:52] thing that I think's really important to get people to
[46:54] understand because this is such an important topic and I'm going
[46:56] to tell you why it's close to my heart in a minute.
[46:58] What are the signs and symptoms that someone should be looking
[47:01] out for when it comes to colorectal cancer?
[47:03] I mean, I mentioned stress because that feels like
[47:05] all-encompassing, but what are the ones that people are missing
[47:09] that now they're getting diagnosed in their 30s or their
[47:12] 40s? You know, you mentioned it was
[47:14] preventative. So what are those signs that we
[47:16] should be looking out for? Yeah, so, well, so first of all,
[47:20] I believe that we should take advantage of whatever screening
[47:23] opportunities are offered to us by the system that we exist in.
[47:27] So the UK, you know, the NHS is not the same as the way that we
[47:31] do things in the States. But in both cases, you should
[47:36] ask your doctor, when can I start?
[47:38] What's the earliest age that I can start colorectal screening?
[47:41] And you should do it. And I strongly encourage you to
[47:44] do that because that's why screening exists.
[47:46] Screening allows you to catch something before the symptoms.
[47:49] That's the ideal time. And that's a lovely colonoscopy,
[47:52] is a lovely probe that goes up your bum and looks all in to see
[47:56] if there's any polyps, just in case.
[47:58] I was like what is a colonoscopy?
[48:00] Yeah, that's true. And to show you that my actions
[48:03] match my words, when I turned 40, because of a family history,
[48:09] I had a colonoscopy and it was something I did not delay
[48:13] whatsoever because I've seen too much in my work as a
[48:16] gastroenterologist. I wanted to be sure that I was
[48:20] safe. So OK.
[48:23] So number one, you should take advantage of the screening
[48:26] programs that are allowed for you.
[48:28] By the way, if you do have a family history or if you have a
[48:30] health condition like an ulcerative colitis or Crohn's
[48:33] disease, then you you would be offered opportunities to start
[48:35] earlier. Yeah, please take them.
[48:38] The second thing is looking for symptoms.
[48:42] So the the scary thing is that many times the symptoms, people
[48:48] will dismiss them and say, oh, it's just hemorrhoids, no big
[48:52] deal. And so if you see blood in your
[48:55] stool, if you are anemic, if you are iron deficient without a
[49:01] good explanation, if you are having chronic abdominal pain,
[49:06] if you have a change in your bowel habits that you can't
[49:08] explain where it came from and it's sticking, you know, whether
[49:12] it's Constipation or diarrhea, these types of symptoms are
[49:16] sufficient to basically go and talk to a doctor and preferably
[49:21] get checked. Yeah.
[49:24] So colonoscopy can be part of the diagnostic assessment.
[49:28] So like you're basically saying, OK, so you have pain or you have
[49:31] blood in your stool or you we have iron deficiency.
[49:35] We want to understand why that is.
[49:36] Colonoscopy can be part of how we explain and answer that
[49:39] question. And in the process of answering
[49:41] that question, which allows us to make you healthier, we also
[49:44] are making sure that we're protecting you from colorectal
[49:46] cancer. So I like to me there's a
[49:48] massive opportunity there. I.
[49:49] Have a 10 colonoscopies in my lifetime so someone who
[49:53] massively advocates for it. I was actually.
[49:55] I haven't spoke about this ever but it felt like a really
[49:58] important point because this is such a prominent topic.
[50:01] But I've got polyopsis syndrome. So you know, my recent one I'd
[50:05] had like between 20 or 30 removed.
[50:09] And it's really important because I didn't, I was, I was
[50:13] diagnosed with not the full syndrome.
[50:14] I started having really bad bowel problems when I was young.
[50:19] And you know, you kind of go into your 20s and you're like,
[50:22] oh, it's fine, I don't need to go to those appointments and you
[50:24] don't. And then I had a full bowel
[50:26] obstruction. And in that bowel obstruction,
[50:30] they also found it's just a huge array of these polyps again, you
[50:35] know, and even though I still go every year, I still have so
[50:39] many. And so it's so important that
[50:41] now I feel incredibly thankful that, you know, I did change my
[50:45] diet 15 years ago because of this symptom.
[50:48] And I did the whole reduce the cut out red meat fully.
[50:52] And again, I'm not somebody who always advocates you shouldn't
[50:54] eat meat, but that's the reason why I don't.
[50:56] That's because I have a fully blown health condition that
[50:59] really exaggerates it, but it's also taken me 15 years to
[51:03] understand it. It's such an interesting Ave.
[51:06] It's such a new area and actually the importance of
[51:09] having these regular colonoscopies, which I think
[51:12] should be way earlier and you know, I think it's over 50 now.
[51:17] You get potentially called up in the UK and I think it's 45 in
[51:21] America to go and have a colonoscopy.
[51:23] But you know, I'm. 45 in America we moved it.
[51:26] Yeah, You moved it recently, didn't you?
[51:28] But I think it's one of those ones, which is why you mentioned
[51:31] preventable, which I connect to, because I think if I wasn't
[51:34] having them, then I'm in this camp of this huge risk.
[51:39] But actually when you can get on top of it and do these
[51:42] colonoscopies, you can massively like reduce your risk because
[51:46] you're constantly, again, stopping those polyps becoming
[51:49] cancerous. So I just think it's such an
[51:51] important topic to talk about. I personally find it to be a
[51:55] beautiful thing when a, a person with a platform shares something
[52:01] about themselves that perhaps it's not easy to share, but you
[52:04] do it out of actually love for your community.
[52:08] So I, I appreciate that. And the thing about that, Sarah
[52:13] Ann, is that so with this, with this condition of Palposa
[52:18] syndrome, if you didn't have colonoscopy, if you lived 100
[52:25] years ago, it's not a matter of whether you would develop
[52:29] colorectal cancer. It's a matter of when.
[52:32] Yeah, exactly. And this is and the this
[52:36] exemplifies the opportunity that exists if we can get to it
[52:40] early, because by, by pruning those polyps, right, it's sure
[52:46] you have to go in and get checked.
[52:48] But by going in and getting checked and removing those
[52:50] polyps every time, they're going to keep you safe.
[52:55] And my expectation is you don't get cancer.
[52:58] And that's a beautiful thing if you think about that.
[53:00] So that really exemplifies the opportunity that we all have.
[53:04] But we must see like a while, most of us won't necessarily
[53:06] have a genetic predisposition of that order.
[53:09] Yeah, mine's mine is extreme. I will put that out there.
[53:13] Yeah, it's it, there's, there's, there's something going on there
[53:16] genetically that's that's quite powerful.
[53:18] But while most of us don't have specifically that, we must see
[53:21] that there are. So Sarah Han, you asked me
[53:24] earlier like the first question was about people who look
[53:29] healthy and something is going on.
[53:32] This is such a prime example. That's why I asked you that
[53:36] question. Yeah, that's so interesting.
[53:40] I didn't realize that that was where you were going with that.
[53:41] And it makes so much sense because I, as an example, I have
[53:44] cared for so many young fit, like basically soccer moms here
[53:50] in the States, You know, people in their early 30s that you
[53:55] would never think. And then you discover these big
[54:00] polyps and you sit there as a doctor because I, I tried to
[54:03] explain to my patients, but I don't want to scare them too
[54:05] much, but it scares me. And I sit there as a doctor and
[54:10] I'm just the biggest sigh of relief because when you remove
[54:15] that polyp, the risk is gone. And you sit there and you say
[54:18] this wonderful person who has two kids, she would have had
[54:22] cancer if I didn't do this colonoscopy.
[54:26] And it started with symptoms. They came, they, they, they
[54:28] chased the symptoms like they came to the doctor.
[54:30] They said, why am I having this abdominal pain?
[54:32] Why am I seeing blood in my stool?
[54:34] Why am I, why am I constipated? They got their colonoscopy and
[54:38] because of that, they're safe. And I think that is like the
[54:40] most important thing. I ignored my symptoms for a
[54:42] while and then it ended up in a bit of a disaster situation.
[54:47] And I think that is something to really to not hesitate is the
[54:52] one thing that I would say is to always go and get checked.
[54:55] And I think, you know, the reason why I think stress is so
[54:58] important is sometimes we can just go, oh, it's just because
[55:00] I'm stressed. Or we can kind of, I don't say
[55:03] the word poo poo, but we kind of push it aside.
[55:06] But it's interesting, you know, I will tell people and they're
[55:10] like, but you're one of the healthiest people I know.
[55:11] I mean, I've obviously changed my lifestyle because of my gut.
[55:14] I have to, but it still means that just because you look
[55:18] healthy, it doesn't mean that and you do all the right things.
[55:22] It doesn't mean that these things can't happen.
[55:23] And I think that's something that's so important to be aware
[55:25] of. Yeah, there was a study, the
[55:28] Adventist to study, which is in Loma Linda, CA, looking at 7th
[55:33] day Adventists who have a very healthy lifestyle and they
[55:37] showed that people who followed a 100% plant based diet had, I
[55:42] believe it was a 22% reduction, 22 or 23% reduction in
[55:47] colorectal cancer risk. So here's the key, this is what
[55:49] I want people to hear. Did that diet reduce their risk?
[55:53] Yes. Did it reduce their risk to 0?
[55:56] Not even close. So you still need these other
[56:02] elements because colonoscopy, protecting yourself is not just
[56:06] hey, am I? How am I eating right now like
[56:08] that? You have an entire lifetime of
[56:10] how you ate. You have your childhood, you
[56:12] have all these other factors that ultimately can be feeding
[56:16] into this one thing. So the most important thing is
[56:18] like having a strong strategy, which is what we've just laid
[56:20] out. Yeah.
[56:21] So let's get onto fiber because I feel like whenever I think of
[56:24] fiber now, I think of you, which I hope that you're happy about
[56:28] because you. Know I'm very happy about that.
[56:30] That's a dream come true. You know, like we'll be it's
[56:35] like the fiber, the fiber guru. I'm interrupting for one moment
[56:39] to ask one small favour. Please subscribe to the show.
[56:43] This helps it grow more than you know.
[56:45] And I'm so bad at asking this from you.
[56:48] I'm so bad at thinking about this.
[56:50] But you know, my goal was 100,000 to get to on YouTube and
[56:54] I really want to bring you more content and bigger episodes.
[56:57] And we can only do that with your help together.
[57:00] So please do hit subscribe. Thank you.
[57:02] And you talk about nutrition workhorses in your book, like
[57:05] the four nutrition workhorses. And people always love things
[57:08] that they have structure to right.
[57:11] And fibre is the first part of that.
[57:13] Now fibre is a word that has been spoken about a lot.
[57:16] Then the protein kind of phase has come in.
[57:19] And again, it's it's an important macronutrient.
[57:21] But I don't think they should be going against one another.
[57:23] I think we need to talk about these, you know, together they
[57:26] all constitute a healthy diet, a healthy plate.
[57:28] But when people like thinking about fibre, the thing that I, I
[57:32] have realized within my clinic and within the show, people that
[57:35] write in and you know, people, the favorite part of this whole
[57:39] podcast is gut, the gut microbiome.
[57:41] Whenever we do an episode of the gut microbiome, our listeners
[57:43] absolutely love it, as you know, and fibre, it's an interesting
[57:49] one because there's different forms of fibre and then some
[57:52] people will write in the comments section.
[57:54] I looked at our last few videos that had, you know, such a a
[57:57] high engagement and people were like, but I'm adding in all this
[58:00] fibre and I'm still in pain, you know, like what's going on?
[58:04] So I thought like, should we just dissect fibre a little bit
[58:07] for to get people to understand it?
[58:09] You know, what does it really look like?
[58:11] What types of fibre should they be eating?
[58:13] And if they are eating a lot of fibre but still having pain,
[58:16] what do you suggest? Fibre is to me the longevity
[58:22] nutrient. If you, it's been shown more
[58:26] than any other nutrient to reduce your risk of disease,
[58:29] including the most dangerous diseases that exist, heart
[58:33] disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer's, chronic
[58:36] kidney disease. I can point you to the studies
[58:40] for fiber so that those studies don't exist with increasing your
[58:45] protein. I do think protein is important,
[58:49] but it shouldn't come at the expense of our fiber.
[58:52] And we have a fiber problem, we don't have a protein problem, we
[58:54] have a fiber problem. And so addressing this becomes I
[58:58] think quite essential. And these four nutrition
[59:01] workhorses that I describe in my book, the way that I landed on
[59:05] these four were that I basically said, OK, I want to know like
[59:11] what are the foundations of an anti-inflammatory diet?
[59:16] It needs to be important and powerful and it needs to be
[59:20] missing for the vast majority of people because those are the
[59:24] greatest opportunities that exist for our health from a
[59:27] nutrition perspective. If you can take the thing that's
[59:29] missing and also powerful and actually address that, that's
[59:34] how you radically transform your health.
[59:35] Fiber is one of them. So the thing about fiber is,
[59:38] first of all, all plant based foods have fiber.
[59:40] Every single plant based food has fiber.
[59:42] Fruits, vegetables, whole grain, seeds, knots, legumes, mushrooms
[59:46] are technically not plants. Fungi, they're fungi, but I am,
[59:51] I am going to bestow upon mushrooms.
[59:54] They are honorary plants because they have fiber and they also
[59:58] have polyphenols, so that's kind of cool.
[1:00:00] So and fiber is a nutrient that is kind of like protein.
[1:00:05] So protein, you would never say that the protein in fish is the
[1:00:07] same as the protein in beef or in a bean.
[1:00:10] They're unique. Different plants have different
[1:00:12] types of protein, different types of fiber.
[1:00:14] They have different types of protein too, but.
[1:00:17] That is different. It's an important point
[1:00:20] actually, that often gets lost. This plants have protein too,
[1:00:24] but the only place that you're going to find fiber is actually
[1:00:27] in these plant based foods and each has unique forms of fiber.
[1:00:30] We tend to break it into like 2 main categories, soluble and
[1:00:34] insoluble. Insoluble is the grit.
[1:00:37] Insoluble is the type that doesn't get digested at all.
[1:00:40] It's the kind that ultimately you're going to poop it out.
[1:00:43] Whereas soluble fiber is the kind that you and I have been
[1:00:47] talking about where I said like fiber feeds the right colon,
[1:00:50] fiber feeds the microbes. Fiber becomes short chain fatty
[1:00:53] acids. That's soluble fiber.
[1:00:56] You don't need to worry too much about like what contains what in
[1:00:59] terms of these plant foods. You just need to eat a variety
[1:01:02] because when you eat a variety of foods, they variety of plant
[1:01:05] based foods, they all have fiber.
[1:01:07] They all have different types. They all have a blend of soluble
[1:01:09] and insoluble. And ultimately that diversity is
[1:01:13] going to create harmony and balance within your gut.
[1:01:16] And that's exactly what you want.
[1:01:18] Now, some people, they struggle to add fiber.
[1:01:21] Why would that be? If it's so good, Doctor B, why
[1:01:24] is it hard? And it's like exercise.
[1:01:28] Is exercise good? Yes, of course it is.
[1:01:31] We 100% agree that exercise is good.
[1:01:36] Is there such a thing as too much exercise for a person?
[1:01:39] Yes, is exercise hard, especially to get started in the
[1:01:44] beginning, but eventually it becomes addictive yes if you
[1:01:48] haven't been exercising, the first couple weeks are
[1:01:51] challenging. So how do we exercise?
[1:01:55] We match our capabilities to the work that we do.
[1:02:01] So whatever it is that your body is capable of.
[1:02:04] And we have different muscle groups and certain muscle groups
[1:02:07] might be stronger than others, But you eventually, if you go to
[1:02:10] the gym enough, you start to figure out, hey, this is what
[1:02:12] I'm able to do with when I do a curl, when I do a tricep
[1:02:15] extension, when I do a bench press.
[1:02:18] And you have that number and then you start to work on that
[1:02:21] number and it starts to slowly increase over time because
[1:02:24] you're getting stronger. Your body is adapting.
[1:02:27] You have, you are teaching your body what you want to do, which
[1:02:30] is to become more proficient at doing these particular
[1:02:32] exercises. The same is true with fiber.
[1:02:35] All of that is the way that this works.
[1:02:37] This is exactly the way that it works.
[1:02:39] Fiber is exercise for your gut. You should match your fiber
[1:02:42] intake to what your gut is capable of.
[1:02:44] Chances are for most people, you haven't really been consuming
[1:02:47] fiber. So that's kind of like starting
[1:02:49] from scratch at the gym. So when you go to the gym, you
[1:02:52] start really low. When you start adding fiber, you
[1:02:54] start really low and then you slowly introduce it because your
[1:02:58] gut starts to adapt to it in the same way that we were talking
[1:03:00] about with the 15 day study. Your microbiome becomes adopted,
[1:03:04] it becomes more efficient, it becomes more capable, it will
[1:03:07] start producing even more short chain fatty acids from the same
[1:03:09] amount. But just like exercise, you can
[1:03:12] start to ratchet up. So you know, if you want to like
[1:03:16] give a specific number to it, I would say something along the
[1:03:20] lines of like adding 3 grams of fiber per week.
[1:03:23] What does that look like in terms of food?
[1:03:25] Like trying to understand 3 grams for many people.
[1:03:28] So like an extra 3 grams of fiber when I say 3G, by the way,
[1:03:32] this is like on a daily basis, right?
[1:03:34] So like so that most of us are starting around 15 ish, 15 ish
[1:03:39] grams. So you add an extra 3.
[1:03:41] If you try to double that, that's like trying to go to the
[1:03:44] gym and lift the heaviest weights in the gym all at once,
[1:03:47] right? You're going to get injury,
[1:03:49] you're going to get hurt. Yeah, that's not a good idea.
[1:03:53] You had three grams. That could be like an apple,
[1:03:58] right? Eating an eating an extra apple
[1:04:00] once a day could be a handful of nuts.
[1:04:03] When it comes to beans, it's actually not that many beans.
[1:04:05] Beans are so densely packed with fiber.
[1:04:06] That's the reason why a lot of people struggle with beans
[1:04:09] because they're so packed that like you just get the four bean
[1:04:12] chili and next thing you know, it's like you've overwhelmed
[1:04:15] your system. Yeah, you are having farts every
[1:04:18] 5 minutes. That's right.
[1:04:22] So well, you know what, to be honest with you, Sarah, and
[1:04:24] first of all, I did not realize I was going to come on to a
[1:04:26] podcast with Sarah and Macklin and talk about farts.
[1:04:29] But that that being said, you have to be prepared for anything
[1:04:33] these days. So farts actually, I did an
[1:04:37] entire hour long for people who are as bonkers as I am.
[1:04:42] I did an hour long podcast all about farts with my friends
[1:04:45] Chuck Carroll. You can find this on YouTube
[1:04:48] and, but I, I will say like most likely I would expect Saran, we
[1:04:53] can like do this as a collab post so people can click and
[1:04:56] find my YouTube channel. And the thing about farts is
[1:05:00] that actually they're indicative of fermentation.
[1:05:05] So in a way, in a way it's good, right?
[1:05:08] So the reason why we fart so much with beans is because we're
[1:05:12] actually feeding our gut microbiomes so much fibre and
[1:05:15] resistant starch. It's cranking out the short
[1:05:18] chain fatty acids that are anti-inflammatory and good for
[1:05:20] your body. That being said, I'm not, that
[1:05:23] doesn't mean I'm advocating for more farts, nor am I advocating
[1:05:27] for you to be suffering with gas pain.
[1:05:30] You know, I think that the point is once again, getting back to
[1:05:34] some of the core concepts that we've discussed, which I think
[1:05:36] are helpful to people. If you're constipated, get the
[1:05:39] things, get the bowels moving right, Magnesium can do that.
[1:05:43] And then after that, that's when you start to actually add in the
[1:05:45] fiber, whether it's from diet or a supplement, you start to add
[1:05:49] in the fibre and you start to gently increase that fibre.
[1:05:52] And what you'll find is just like with exercise, it becomes
[1:05:55] easier. You feel good, you feel
[1:05:57] energized, you feel light. Actually, your bloating is less.
[1:06:01] I've got one more question on farts before my next one because
[1:06:04] I didn't you know, we've gone there.
[1:06:06] Smelly farts versus non smelly farts.
[1:06:10] OK, this is a great question. There's definitely a question.
[1:06:13] There's definitely a difference. There's definitely a difference.
[1:06:17] So smelly farts tend to come from one of three major
[1:06:22] compounds and they're all sulfur based.
[1:06:26] They're all sulfur based. And part of them, some of them
[1:06:29] come from like hydrogen sulfide, comes from the fermentation of
[1:06:34] protein. So when you are excessively
[1:06:38] consuming protein and inadequately consuming fiber,
[1:06:43] you actually shift the microbiome because the
[1:06:45] microbiome is going to adapt to whatever the like.
[1:06:48] If you if you think of the the body as a scale of balance in a
[1:06:50] way like the microbiome is a scale of balance.
[1:06:53] If you are disproportionately shifted towards protein and
[1:06:57] insufficiently consuming fiber, you're overweighting that one
[1:07:00] side. The microbiome gets really good
[1:07:03] at processing protein and it's going to produce more of this
[1:07:06] hydrogen sulfide. Methane gas has no smell.
[1:07:11] You can't smell methane gas. Hydrogen sulfide smells like
[1:07:15] rotten eggs. Yeah, we all know when we've sat
[1:07:18] next to someone and it's quiet one, but you can really smell
[1:07:21] it. Silent but deadly.
[1:07:23] It's. Silent but deadly.
[1:07:25] Yeah, Yes. And then there was blame on the
[1:07:27] dog. Oh, we know who did it.
[1:07:31] We know who did it, buddy. All right.
[1:07:33] Yeah. That dog.
[1:07:34] That dog with that poor dog's nose.
[1:07:36] It is suffering. That hug dog that has to smell
[1:07:39] your farts, get out of here. But anyway, so the point is that
[1:07:45] when you if you are consistently having stinky farts, if you are
[1:07:49] on a high protein diet, you should you should try to
[1:07:51] rebalance with more fiber. I'm not telling you need to
[1:07:53] eliminate protein. I'm saying to you, you need to
[1:07:55] rebalance with fiber to get your microbiome adapted to fiber
[1:07:59] instead of protein. And just be aware that this
[1:08:02] production actually of hydrogen sulfide, which you actually
[1:08:04] smell in your fart. OK, that that rotten egg smell,
[1:08:09] the production of hydrogen sulfide has actually been
[1:08:11] associated with carcinogenesis in the colon.
[1:08:14] So when we talk about risk factors for colorectal cancer,
[1:08:18] yeah. So the point being like, that's
[1:08:22] your body telling you that something is wrong.
[1:08:24] That's an exact sign, right? That is an actual, that is an
[1:08:29] actual sign because you're what you're smelling is a specific
[1:08:33] compound. It's hydrogen sulfide, and
[1:08:35] hydrogen sulfide is an actual toxin to the lining of your
[1:08:39] colon. Wow, that's so interesting.
[1:08:42] I think people, you know, that everyone talks about protein so
[1:08:44] much. I mean, you'll know this
[1:08:45] recently from the food pyramid that came out and the new
[1:08:48] American guidelines. I know that they spoke about
[1:08:50] fibre in the actual document, but actually if you look at it
[1:08:53] on the illustration, yeah, barely.
[1:08:56] I'm trying to give a bit of credit, but maybe there is no
[1:08:58] credit due on the American vapour and literally there is no
[1:09:02] whole grains in there. And from, you know, at the very
[1:09:05] kind of main part of it is protein.
[1:09:08] And actually, you know, what I'm hearing from you in this
[1:09:10] conversation is this is just going to create really smelly
[1:09:12] farts. But also it is a risk factor for
[1:09:16] colon cancer because we're not actually having enough fibre to
[1:09:19] help with the fermentation. Yeah, yeah, I think I, I don't
[1:09:22] want to overstate it. Like I'm not in the business of
[1:09:24] trying to scare people about their meat consumption.
[1:09:27] It's to me, I'm in the business of, I want you to like realize
[1:09:31] you could be so much healthier if you addressed your fibre
[1:09:34] deficiency. So that, so that to me is where
[1:09:37] my focus is. And the, the, the reason that
[1:09:39] the, the reverse pyramid made zero sense to me is that we
[1:09:45] don't have an issue with the consumption of meat in the
[1:09:49] United States. The average American consumes
[1:09:51] 220 lbs of meat per year. That's more than their body
[1:09:55] weight. The average American weighs 180
[1:09:57] lbs. So that you know, 220 lbs.
[1:10:00] The beauty of that number is that it's a very simple math 100
[1:10:03] kilos. So and then the average American
[1:10:07] consumes over 500 lbs of dairy per year.
[1:10:09] And I'm not like, I don't think that these numbers need to be
[1:10:12] zero. I just think that they need to
[1:10:14] be more balanced than they are. The going so hard on those
[1:10:18] things and chasing more and more protein and it leads you towards
[1:10:23] these types of foods that the the protein content of this.
[1:10:26] So 220 lbs of meat, 500, we'll call it 550 lbs.
[1:10:31] I forget the exact #550 lbs of dairy.
[1:10:35] What we're just saying right there is that's 770 lbs of food
[1:10:39] and 0 fibre. So that's, you're eating that
[1:10:41] much food without actually helping your, your fibre intake
[1:10:44] whatsoever. So I, I, I'm just looking to try
[1:10:47] to help people achieve balance. And I don't think that the
[1:10:50] guidelines helped people to actually achieve that, because
[1:10:52] basically what you're reinforcing is confirmation
[1:10:54] bias, what people want to hear. Yeah, well, you're just also not
[1:10:57] showing showing that on a table at all.
[1:10:59] Like people, you know, find it hard enough to follow
[1:11:03] guidelines. I mean, we have guidelines here
[1:11:05] that it needs to be 30 grams of fibre a day and we're consuming
[1:11:09] barely 18 grams a day. So we're, we're, we're not doing
[1:11:12] great, but at least we have an analogy of a plate which does
[1:11:16] show fibrous foods. The thing when I saw the
[1:11:18] American New food pyramid was that it's just, there's, it's
[1:11:22] barely on there. And that's that's the worry.
[1:11:25] Yeah, whole grains not represented.
[1:11:27] Legumes not represented. Those are actually the most
[1:11:29] fibre dense foods that exist. Why would you not?
[1:11:33] Unless you're like trying to advocate for a paleo diet, which
[1:11:35] is not science based, then why would you remove whole grains
[1:11:39] and legumes? I'll just say one thing cheaper.
[1:11:43] Way cheaper. Yeah, we're thinking about cost
[1:11:46] of living, like legumes, whole grains, some of the cheapest
[1:11:50] foods you could buy. 100% and and extremely nutrient dense and
[1:11:56] the most powerful microbiome foods that exist and highly
[1:12:00] versatile. You just throw them in whatever
[1:12:02] sauce and they're going. To taste it honestly get me the
[1:12:06] spice straw with them. It's one of my favorite things
[1:12:08] to cook. 100%. So I had this really interesting
[1:12:13] thought and I don't know if you I'd be interested to have your
[1:12:15] take on this because there is a whole evolution chapter in your
[1:12:18] in your, in your diary. I've not read your diary in your
[1:12:20] new book and I was thinking, are we, were we once better at
[1:12:27] digesting fibre than we are today?
[1:12:30] Is that could be that one interesting explanation on why
[1:12:33] people are struggling. And then I obviously wanted to
[1:12:36] look a little bit online at research papers and I saw a
[1:12:39] really interesting research paper from 2022, Dietary Fibre
[1:12:42] intake and Gut microbiome in the Human Health.
[1:12:46] And it basically showed that the hunter gatherers who mainly ate
[1:12:50] fruit and wild grains versus the agricultural era when crops
[1:12:55] began to be cultivated, the ancients consumed more than 100
[1:12:59] grams of various digestible and indigestible fibers a day.
[1:13:06] I was like, wow, 100 grams. I mean that even for me, I was
[1:13:10] like, that is a lot. And then obviously I've just
[1:13:13] mentioned that we in the UK and it's very similar in in America,
[1:13:17] but I don't know the exact quote, 18 grams a day.
[1:13:21] Are we have we kind of like pushed ourselves at evolution to
[1:13:25] be worse at even digesting our fibre because obviously we've
[1:13:28] just spoken about lots of different digestive discomforts
[1:13:31] that you can get with consuming fibre too quickly, too soon.
[1:13:33] It's really important to balance it with water and 3 grams a day
[1:13:38] extra, 3 grams a day extra. As you were saying, if I look
[1:13:41] back to kind of the hunter and gatherer, 100 grams a day is a
[1:13:46] lot. So do you think we've become, do
[1:13:47] you think we've culturally trained our microbiome to become
[1:13:50] less resilient in this area? Well.
[1:13:52] Yeah, I mean, what what we what we've done.
[1:13:54] So if you do, you ever watch those shows, like where they go
[1:14:00] out into some remote place and they have to survive with
[1:14:04] limited resources? I just think of Bear Grylls when
[1:14:08] I think about that, which is like a yeah, he goes and lives
[1:14:11] in the, survives in the wild. Right.
[1:14:14] So, yeah, so he, he's an example of that, this type of person.
[1:14:17] But like now they have these game shows where people like, go
[1:14:20] and try to survive in the wild for a period of time and see who
[1:14:23] can do it the longest. And they all starve.
[1:14:27] They all starve. They all start, they all start
[1:14:28] like losing weight and getting emaciated.
[1:14:31] That's the way that we lived for 99.99% of human history.
[1:14:35] There was no abundance of resources.
[1:14:38] And it's not like we were such efficient hunters that we had
[1:14:41] unlimited meat consumption and you had no way to preserve the
[1:14:44] meat. So what you had to, like,
[1:14:46] basically go out and hunt every single day and get something
[1:14:48] new. But you didn't have guns, let
[1:14:51] alone bow and arrows for a long time.
[1:14:55] Like you had sticks and rocks. That's what you had, right?
[1:14:59] Good luck with that. So this is what people ate.
[1:15:03] They ate what was available to them.
[1:15:04] At that point they did way more manual labor.
[1:15:06] I mean, they didn't set a computer desk like we do now.
[1:15:10] Yeah, they were moving. They're they're moving
[1:15:12] constantly. And so that's that's where we
[1:15:17] came from. That's the way that our body was
[1:15:20] conditioned and adapted. That's the biology that we have.
[1:15:24] So, and what has happened is that in a very quick period of
[1:15:27] time, we have rapidly changed our diet to something that is
[1:15:32] didn't even exist, didn't because when you eat, when you
[1:15:35] when 60% of your calories for most adults or in the in the UK,
[1:15:39] it's 50% of calories in the UK are from ultra processed foods.
[1:15:43] Those foods didn't exist until very recently.
[1:15:47] And so that rapid change has impacted our microbiome because
[1:15:52] ultimately our microbiome is adapted to whatever our choices
[1:15:55] are, whatever that might be. So if you, if you basically
[1:15:59] remove the plant based foods, crank up the high protein animal
[1:16:04] based foods because they're more abundant and available, right?
[1:16:07] Because we don't have to go out and go hunting.
[1:16:08] You just go to your supermarket and buy and you also sprinkle in
[1:16:15] all these ultra processed foods which contain chemicals that are
[1:16:19] impacting our microbiome for sure.
[1:16:20] Like that's not to say they're all bad, but there's chemicals
[1:16:23] that exist within ultra processed foods that are clearly
[1:16:25] impacting our microbiome in a negative way.
[1:16:29] And you end up in a place where the gut has been weak, come
[1:16:32] weak. But here's the beautiful thing
[1:16:33] about this entire story, though, Sarah Anne, is that we're
[1:16:36] talking about human evolution. We evolve very slowly.
[1:16:40] But you know who evolves very quickly are gut microbes.
[1:16:45] Every 20 minutes they produce a new speed, a new generation in
[1:16:50] the course of, you know, one day they're, they're turning over
[1:16:55] new generations, you know, close to 75 * 75 generations of
[1:17:00] microbes during the course of a 24 hour period.
[1:17:03] So they're like passing on genetic code very, very quickly.
[1:17:06] So they're capable of like very rapid evolution.
[1:17:09] So if you introduce fiber, they will rapidly evolve to meet you.
[1:17:16] So as long as you take whatever it is that you're currently
[1:17:18] eating and you just go a little bit above that, they'll they'll
[1:17:21] adapt, they'll evolve, they'll meet you where you are and
[1:17:25] they'll continue to change with you.
[1:17:27] So that is the opportunity that we have is that if we're willing
[1:17:29] to change, if we're willing to address this issue, if we're
[1:17:32] willing to, to choose these foods, then ultimately your
[1:17:36] microbes, they want to meet you where you are and you would be,
[1:17:39] you would be selecting specific families of microbes.
[1:17:44] And they happen to be the microbes that consistently in
[1:17:47] studies are anti-inflammatory, consistently in studies show
[1:17:50] health benefits. Because ultimately what you're
[1:17:53] doing is you're choosing the types of microbes that love
[1:17:55] fiber. I mean, that was such a big part
[1:17:57] of our last episode of changing your gut microbiome in 24 hours.
[1:18:02] And you're literally saying from that by choosing even just a 3
[1:18:06] grams of extra fibre a day you are making that exact step to
[1:18:10] helping change your gut microbiome and it can even just
[1:18:13] start taking a day. That's right.
[1:18:15] And the, you know, it's been made totally clear from research
[1:18:19] that the choices that we make today will start to impact our
[1:18:21] microbiome by tomorrow. So like 24 hours actually can
[1:18:26] start to change. It's not, it's not that it's
[1:18:28] completely overhauled, but the change is underway.
[1:18:31] It's a detectable difference. It's a clearly detectable
[1:18:34] difference. And then the other thing that
[1:18:36] happens, Saran, is that we have a gut barrier.
[1:18:40] So our intestines are completely carpeted with cells.
[1:18:46] And it's a single layer of cells.
[1:18:48] And it separates the inside of our intestine from our body,
[1:18:52] including our bloodstream. And the the surface area of what
[1:18:57] we're discussing is the size of like a decent sized apartment in
[1:19:01] London or New York. So think of an entire apartment
[1:19:06] and then think about what if you were to replace the carpet every
[1:19:09] three to five days? Because that's what happens.
[1:19:13] The entire inner lining of our intestines turns over every
[1:19:17] three to five days. We get a brand new gut barrier
[1:19:20] that's gets installed. So not only do we have this
[1:19:23] opportunity to change our microbiome in the 1st 24 hours,
[1:19:26] we have the opportunity that our choices over the next three to
[1:19:28] five days can install a brand new, completely fresh, much
[1:19:33] healthier gut barrier that actually allows us to protect
[1:19:36] our immune system and our body. So something that I'm going to
[1:19:39] connect that with, which was really interesting in part of
[1:19:42] the book that I think is going to spike people's interest
[1:19:45] because this is connected to the gut lining, it's connected to
[1:19:48] lowering inflammation, all of the things.
[1:19:50] And I think this might get, I think people will comment on
[1:19:53] this part a lot because everyone's going to have their
[1:19:55] own view is alcohol. Now, you mentioned it earlier
[1:20:00] and I was like, I knew when we got to this part, it was going
[1:20:03] to be an interesting sector to to pick up on.
[1:20:06] Now, there's been many experts over the last five years that
[1:20:08] have come onto the show. And also when I've gone to the
[1:20:10] Royal College of Physicians and listened to different
[1:20:12] conversations, people have sighted that, you know, one
[1:20:16] glass of red wine a day is fine for your gut microbiome.
[1:20:20] It's got, you know, polyphenols in it.
[1:20:22] So it's not actually that bad. And there's always been, you
[1:20:25] know, a bit of indiscrepancy on whether people believe that or
[1:20:28] they don't. I think one thing that we can
[1:20:30] all agree on is that social drinking, if it brings you a
[1:20:33] little bit of joint connection, that's undeniable.
[1:20:36] But when we're actually just isolating it now, taking all of
[1:20:39] that part out, just isolating it to like the gut lining and
[1:20:42] inflammation and exactly what's going on in the body.
[1:20:45] It was really interesting to hear that your own views have
[1:20:48] kind of changed a lot as well understanding on alcohol and you
[1:20:51] kind of mentioned that you don't believe alcohol to actually have
[1:20:54] any health benefit from a recent study that you that you looked
[1:20:58] at whilst you were writing this book.
[1:20:59] Can you explain a little bit about how the conversation has
[1:21:02] shifted from the original 2011 systematic review, which which
[1:21:07] is where this will really stem from showing that moderate
[1:21:10] drinkers had a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, which is
[1:21:13] why I think this whole conversation started to now to
[1:21:16] what you've recently discovered and why your views on this are,
[1:21:20] are quite strong when it literally just comes directly to
[1:21:22] the gut microbiome. First of all, let me say I
[1:21:25] totally agree with you that when you are making the choice to go
[1:21:28] out and be social, if you choose to consume alcohol, like I don't
[1:21:31] think you should feel horribly bad about that.
[1:21:34] I also don't think that you should like make it a weekly
[1:21:36] pattern that every Friday and Saturday night you're going to
[1:21:38] go and get smashed. Have you met anyone British?
[1:21:42] Yeah I have. I know how y'all like to enjoy
[1:21:45] your pub on a Friday on a Friday after work.
[1:21:48] It's like busy at 11 AM. Yeah, yes, no, I understand.
[1:21:53] I understand. So I mean, look, the social, the
[1:21:56] social aspect I think is, is relevant because we do have a
[1:21:59] loneliness issue at the same time.
[1:22:02] So we need to find ways to be connected with one another.
[1:22:05] So that being said, really what we're discussing here is like,
[1:22:10] if you, if this was not for social purposes, if you were
[1:22:12] sitting at home by yourself, should you be consuming alcohol
[1:22:16] on a regular basis? And this original study, these
[1:22:20] are, these are population based studies.
[1:22:22] They're epidemiology studies where you're trying to like
[1:22:25] understand a risk factor for a specific condition.
[1:22:30] And when they examine alcohol, what they discover is that
[1:22:34] actually the people who consumed A moderate amount of alcohol, so
[1:22:36] like 1 to 2 drinks per day, they actually had lower risk than the
[1:22:41] people who were zero drinks, and they had lower risk than the
[1:22:46] people who were excessively consuming alcohol.
[1:22:49] So it sort of led to this idea that there's this sweet spot
[1:22:52] where you should be 1 to 2 drinks per day, and that's what
[1:22:55] you should target. And that was just for
[1:22:57] cardiovascular disease, right? Nothing else.
[1:22:59] It was just cardiovascular disease.
[1:23:01] That study was showing from my. Right.
[1:23:02] I believe it was for cardiovascular disease, but I I
[1:23:07] I have it here I have to dig into more detail you too
[1:23:09] underlined perfect. Thank you.
[1:23:13] Thank you. So anyway, the, the issue with
[1:23:18] this and I, just to be clear, I'm actually a big believer in
[1:23:21] epidemiology studies. I, I studied at the University
[1:23:23] of North Carolina, which is the #2 School of Public health in
[1:23:26] America on this particular topic.
[1:23:27] I have a master's of clinical investigation.
[1:23:30] But the, the problem that exists is that you can have
[1:23:34] confounding, which basically means that there's stuff that's
[1:23:37] impacting the result that has nothing to do with alcohol and
[1:23:41] heart disease. There's other factors.
[1:23:44] So do people who drink wine, do they tend to be more affluent?
[1:23:47] Yes. Do people who drink wine, do
[1:23:49] they tend to be people who live a healthier lifestyle and have a
[1:23:52] healthier diet? Yes.
[1:23:53] Do they also tend to be people who exercise more often?
[1:23:56] Yes. Could those things impact heart
[1:23:58] disease 100%, and can we account for all of that in a study?
[1:24:02] No, you can't. That's the problem.
[1:24:04] You can have this like leftover element that you haven't fully
[1:24:07] addressed. And so there have been more
[1:24:11] recent studies in the last five years that have called this
[1:24:15] entire discovery into question because when they do more
[1:24:18] thorough analysis of these confounding factors, they
[1:24:24] actually discovered that it goes that there is no advantage
[1:24:27] relative to 0. So then it leads me to, OK,
[1:24:33] well, what is the impact on the gut microbiome?
[1:24:36] And what we know with 100% total clarity is that heavy drinkers
[1:24:40] definitely don't have a healthy gut microbiome.
[1:24:43] In fact, what I've found is that in order to develop alcoholic
[1:24:47] liver disease, things like cirrhosis or alcoholic
[1:24:49] hepatitis, it's actually a required step that the
[1:24:53] microbiome basically collapses. So in order to get to the
[1:24:58] disease, you actually need to ruin your gut and then you will
[1:25:00] develop these alcoholic liver diseases.
[1:25:03] OK, so but what about like this idea of one to two drinks?
[1:25:08] What does that mean in the gut microbiome?
[1:25:10] Well, there was this study that sort of changed my perspective
[1:25:13] on it, where they took a group of people and they, they had
[1:25:18] them consume alcohol consumption to like at the point of
[1:25:23] intoxication, where if they had, in the States at least, if they
[1:25:28] had a sobriety test, they would fail.
[1:25:32] And like you couldn't drive, you would, you would get pulled over
[1:25:34] and get a ticket. So, and they measured 2 things
[1:25:41] every 30 minutes. They would measure their blood
[1:25:44] alcohol level and they would measure what's called their
[1:25:49] lipopolysaccharide level. What's that?
[1:25:52] Now, lipopolysaccharide is a toxin that lives on the surface
[1:25:58] of bacteria like E coli, and these are bacteria that are
[1:26:03] inside your intestines. They're in your gut, and the
[1:26:07] purpose of your gut barrier is to keep them in your gut.
[1:26:12] And when the gut barrier gets weak, we call that increase
[1:26:15] intestinal permeability, but many people call it leaky gut.
[1:26:18] I don't have a problem with that because the leaky gut allows
[1:26:23] these bacteria to sneak across and then you can actually detect
[1:26:27] them in the blood. So these inflammatory bacteria
[1:26:31] are now present in your bloodstream.
[1:26:32] They weren't supposed to be there.
[1:26:35] And So what they discovered was that the, and for people who are
[1:26:43] not watching on YouTube, you may want to flip over because
[1:26:48] basically I'm going to show with my hands that they had this
[1:26:51] graph of like how the blood alcohol level went up after they
[1:26:57] started drinking. And you could have superimposed
[1:27:04] the lipopolysaccharide level because it was a mirror image.
[1:27:07] Like it was basically like you could just carbon copy it right
[1:27:10] over the top of it. Basically, the
[1:27:14] lipopolysaccharide levels matched what was happening with
[1:27:17] the blood alcohol. There was this weird moment and
[1:27:20] I can't explain why this happened, but the blood alcohol
[1:27:24] level went down and then it kind of blipped up a little bit.
[1:27:26] It kind of went back up. Guess what the
[1:27:29] lipopolysaccharide did? It went down and then it blipped
[1:27:31] up, it copied and then the last thing is that the
[1:27:37] lipopolysaccharide level didn't get back to 0, not 0, but didn't
[1:27:41] get back to normal until the alcohol level was literally 0.
[1:27:47] So to be clear, the study wasn't on one or two drinks, but I
[1:27:54] think that the take away from the study for me the fact that
[1:27:57] there was such 1 to 1 matching of alcohol level in the blood
[1:28:03] and lipopolysaccharide and that the lipo and that the
[1:28:06] lipopolysaccharide needed a 0 alcohol level to get back to
[1:28:09] normal. That to me was sufficient
[1:28:12] evidence for me to say I don't think there's any advantage to 1
[1:28:16] to 2 drinks because even that small amount is enough to impact
[1:28:21] your blood alcohol level and potentially cause leaky gut and
[1:28:24] that creates inflammation. Wow, how many people do you
[1:28:26] think are walking around with leaky gut?
[1:28:28] I have no idea because I think we hear this terminology a lot.
[1:28:30] And I'm guessing if we are a, a nation full of drinkers, I
[1:28:34] think, you know, we probably drink more than anyone else.
[1:28:37] When I'm in America, I don't tend to drink as much, but that
[1:28:40] might be in certain places. What do you think kind of the
[1:28:45] relationship is between leaky gut and alcohol consumption?
[1:28:47] The relationship between leaky gut and alcohol consumption I,
[1:28:49] I, you know, based upon what I'm seeing, it's, it's leading me to
[1:28:52] believe that alcohol is directly responsible for creating leaky
[1:28:55] gut. And so, you know, you, if you
[1:28:59] have, if you have 1/2 of a drink and you feel nothing, then I
[1:29:06] don't, It's hard for me to argue that that's a disastrous thing.
[1:29:09] But when you drink and then you feel it, and I would argue that
[1:29:13] most people even 1 drink, you feel something.
[1:29:18] That's why you're having it. There's also a big connection to
[1:29:20] alcohol in the liver obviously as well, and that's a big
[1:29:23] connection with the liver and the microbiome. 100% these
[1:29:26] things are completely interconnected and even even the
[1:29:29] ways in which we manifest a hangover, we have blamed this
[1:29:37] one particular molecule called acetaldehyde.
[1:29:40] But actually if you dig into this in more detail, I'm totally
[1:29:45] convinced that hangovers are related to basically the damage
[1:29:48] that we have caused to our microbiome with alcohol.
[1:29:52] Because if you, if you look at some of the acetaldehyde
[1:29:55] studies, what you discover is that the acetaldehyde could be
[1:30:00] like totally back to normal within a couple of hours.
[1:30:04] In fact, you could still have blood alcohol level, you could
[1:30:08] still have alcohol in your blood and the acetaldehyde could be
[1:30:11] back to normal because the body is basically metabolizing it.
[1:30:15] Yet the hangover, like I think we all know a hangover is a 24
[1:30:19] hour thing. Like it's not going to be gone.
[1:30:21] I feel like mine's three or four days sometimes.
[1:30:23] Yeah, it just totally throws you off.
[1:30:25] Yeah, that's the thing. It's like travel.
[1:30:30] It's like travel, right? Like you travel, you travel,
[1:30:33] yeah, you get jet lag, and the jet lag lasts for three days.
[1:30:37] I think that's a microbiome thing.
[1:30:39] Oh, is that what jet lag? Oh, yeah.
[1:30:41] Oh, 100% yeah. So, yeah.
[1:30:43] And then there's actually quite clear evidence on this.
[1:30:45] So there was a study Saran, where they they took people and
[1:30:50] flew them from the states to Israel and they checked their
[1:30:54] microbiome before travel. They checked their microbiome 24
[1:30:59] hours upon arrival when they were jet lagged and they checked
[1:31:02] it again two weeks later when the jet lag was resolved.
[1:31:07] And what they discovered was that number one, there were
[1:31:11] clear cut differences in the microbiome in jet lag and that
[1:31:16] there were a huge number of microbes that were impacted in a
[1:31:19] negative way through this jet lag.
[1:31:21] You were basically like moving towards dysbiosis and then they
[1:31:27] transferred these microbiomes into mice.
[1:31:29] So they have these germ free mice.
[1:31:31] So these are mice that are like grown in a laboratory, like
[1:31:34] basically raised in a laboratory don't have a microbiome and they
[1:31:38] basically take a human microbiome, put it into the
[1:31:41] mouse and then like run like. A fecal transplant.
[1:31:45] A fecal transplant, That's right.
[1:31:47] Yeah. So they do this fecal transplant
[1:31:49] and basically what they showed is that the microbiome on the
[1:31:54] jet lag day, you could feed the exact same food.
[1:31:58] So remember, there's three microbiomes before travel, jet
[1:32:01] lagged. And then after travel, you could
[1:32:03] feed the exact same foods to three different mice.
[1:32:06] And the one that got the jet lagged microbiome is going to
[1:32:08] spike its blood sugar way harder.
[1:32:12] And you could feed the exact same food, the exact same number
[1:32:14] of calories to these three mice. And the jet lagged 1 is also
[1:32:18] going to get obese. And it's not a coincidence when
[1:32:21] you start to put these, the pieces of the puzzle together,
[1:32:25] that when you look at shift workers, like I am so grateful
[1:32:30] for our shift workers, our nurses are, you know, police,
[1:32:34] police officers, firefighters, etcetera.
[1:32:37] These people make sacrifices for us.
[1:32:40] And it's been very clearly shown jet laggers, I'm sorry, people
[1:32:44] who work shift shift workers, shift workers are at increased
[1:32:49] risk for obesity and diabetes. So I just showed you this mouse
[1:32:53] study, spiking blood sugar, increased obesity.
[1:32:55] It's basically mirroring, paralleling what we see in
[1:32:59] people who work the night shift. So what does one, I mean, I
[1:33:04] obviously travel a lot. There's maybe a lot of people
[1:33:07] listening to this that might be travelling right now.
[1:33:09] There might also be lots of shift workers that are listening
[1:33:12] to this. So lots of people that are
[1:33:13] going, Oh my God, OK, great. What does that mean for me?
[1:33:18] What can one do to protect themselves here?
[1:33:21] It's a little bit easier with with jet lag than it is with
[1:33:24] shift working because the shift working is it's a little bit
[1:33:31] harder to avoid, like the consequences of working through
[1:33:35] the night. What I would say first of all to
[1:33:36] the shift workers is they've actually done studies that show
[1:33:41] that you're better off eating your food during daylight hours.
[1:33:45] Oh, wow. OK.
[1:33:46] As opposed to eating while you're at work.
[1:33:49] What if it's like 4:00 in the UK and it's dark, or in New York
[1:33:54] and it's dark in the winter? How does that work?
[1:33:57] So, well, not so much like daylight in like, you know,
[1:34:02] December style short days more so like you would be better off
[1:34:08] imagine that you work the night shift right.
[1:34:10] So imagine that you work at a hospital and you work from 7:00
[1:34:15] PM to 7:00 AM OK, You would be better off eating your food
[1:34:20] during that 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM window, the daylight, the
[1:34:24] daytime window. You'd be better off eating then.
[1:34:28] Then you would be eating while you're actually working your
[1:34:30] shift, even if you're hungry. You'd be better off eating
[1:34:33] during the day than you are when you're working your shift, even
[1:34:35] if the hunger signals are telling you you should be
[1:34:37] eating. And then with travel, there's a
[1:34:42] couple of things that you can do.
[1:34:43] So chapter 6 of my book is entirely about circadian rhythm.
[1:34:48] And there's this approach that I call chronotherapy that I think
[1:34:54] we should be taking. Chronotherapy basically means
[1:34:56] that you are basically creating specific patterns during your
[1:34:59] day in order to align your body and optimize your health.
[1:35:04] So light becomes the number one lever that you can pull.
[1:35:09] So adapting your body to the light for the new place that you
[1:35:14] find yourself in is the key. So when you land in a new place,
[1:35:19] you want to as quickly as possible, you know, imagine that
[1:35:23] I fly to the UK and I'm coming to London.
[1:35:27] All right, I land on the red eye, so I'm totally exhausted.
[1:35:33] But actually it's quite important for me to get outside
[1:35:36] and get sunlight and teach my body what the new time like the
[1:35:40] new what the new schedule is as soon as I land.
[1:35:45] Yeah, that's the question for. Me when I go away.
[1:35:47] If you were to fly to New York, right, You're coming from London
[1:35:50] to New York, all right. What you, what I would say to
[1:35:54] you in that context is that you're going to come, you're
[1:35:57] going to land and it's going to be like evening in New York.
[1:36:03] And you know, basically what you want to do is you want to put
[1:36:09] yourself to sleep when it's time to go to bed and then get your
[1:36:14] sunlight the next morning. So so the point being like try
[1:36:19] to observe the morning and the evening routines.
[1:36:22] More light in the morning and less light in the evening.
[1:36:26] Yeah. And you said three things and
[1:36:27] you said morning light, less light in the evening, tight meal
[1:36:30] times only during the day, which you've touched upon and then
[1:36:32] sleep consistency. And you have here in like the
[1:36:34] biggest capital letters, consistency is one of the most
[1:36:38] ultimate things that it boils down to, like making sure that
[1:36:40] you keep these three things In Sync when it comes to a gut
[1:36:43] microbiome. But I guess it's also connects
[1:36:45] to jet lag and and shift work as well.
[1:36:49] So the the key that you must understand is that your cells
[1:36:53] have a circadian rhythm. So they're like trying to keep
[1:36:57] time for themselves. Your genetic code, about 50% of
[1:37:04] your genetic code is flipping on and off at specific times a day.
[1:37:10] And that's only possible to work the way it's supposed to if it
[1:37:14] knows what time of day it actually is.
[1:37:17] In your gut microbiome. That circadian study with the
[1:37:21] microbiome, they found that 60% of our microbes are responsive
[1:37:25] to our circadian rhythm, 60%. So we have specific families
[1:37:30] that are rising and falling at specific time points to meet the
[1:37:33] day. So basically what I'm saying is
[1:37:36] if your body including your cells, including your genetic
[1:37:38] code, including your gut microbiome, if your body knew
[1:37:42] what you were trying to do and when you're going to do it, it
[1:37:46] will meet you there and it will help you to do it better.
[1:37:50] But if your if your schedule is chaos, then your body is
[1:37:56] constantly trying to figure out, OK, what is going on right now,
[1:37:59] what are we doing? I don't even know.
[1:38:02] And you shouldn't expect within that context of like having a
[1:38:04] chaotic schedule, you shouldn't expect your body to optimally
[1:38:08] perform because it just is constantly trying to catch up.
[1:38:12] So This is why consistency becomes key because if you can
[1:38:15] create those patterns, morning routine, meal times, evening
[1:38:19] routine, if you can create those patterns, then everything gets
[1:38:23] filled in around that and the body actually performs so well
[1:38:25] and you feel better. You feel the difference?
[1:38:28] So that kind of brings me to like the full kind of concept of
[1:38:31] this podcast really. I mean, consistency feels like
[1:38:34] the biggest thing. It also, I feel like to me, it
[1:38:36] connects with sleep. You know, there's been lots of
[1:38:38] conversations about sleep debt and can you catch up with your
[1:38:40] sleep on the weekend if you're kind of reducing it in the
[1:38:44] middle of the week? And they kind of say, actually,
[1:38:45] no, it's all about having the consistent time or going to bed
[1:38:48] and waking up is actually where you see the greatest health
[1:38:51] benefits. And it feels like it's really
[1:38:53] hard to use that word and balance in today's society
[1:38:56] because it feels that we really struggle with that word balance
[1:39:00] because everything is like a juggle act.
[1:39:02] We're all trying to ultimately survive.
[1:39:05] And also there's so much overwhelming information.
[1:39:07] But actually what it really comes down to is if we can try
[1:39:09] and keep some kind of consistent routine in all dimensions of our
[1:39:13] health, especially with our gut microbiome, that actually allows
[1:39:17] us to have a huge benefit kind of the long term benefits that
[1:39:20] we all really want to gain. That big kind of buzzword
[1:39:22] longevity is consistency is kind of kind of key to that alongside
[1:39:27] consistency. You know, you talk a lot about a
[1:39:29] 30 day plan. You talk a lot about people
[1:39:31] being able to change their gut in the next 24 hours.
[1:39:34] There's been so much valuable information today.
[1:39:37] But what would you say like the three key points that people
[1:39:40] should go away and take actionable strategies that are
[1:39:43] consistent to getting that kind of bolstering gut health that
[1:39:47] you want everyone to have? I think that you can summarize
[1:39:50] the majority of the foreign nutrition workhorses with one
[1:39:53] simple statement that people have probably heard me say
[1:39:56] before, which is to eat a variety of different plant based
[1:39:59] foods. If you quite simply focus on
[1:40:02] that, it takes care of the vast majority of what your body
[1:40:07] really needs in order to be healthy.
[1:40:09] The one caveat is the 4th workhorse, which are fermented
[1:40:12] foods. That's sort of a unique category
[1:40:14] that doesn't necessarily fit so. Easily into hey just eat a
[1:40:19] variety of plants. So make sure that you are adding
[1:40:22] the fermented foods which are game changers for gut health.
[1:40:24] Like to me, plant based food, fermented food, that's what you
[1:40:28] need. Explain the fermented foods just
[1:40:30] for anyone's going Oh, what is that?
[1:40:33] So fermented foods are any food that is transformed like I think
[1:40:38] of. Transformation is my word, with
[1:40:40] fermentation transformed by a combination of bacteria and
[1:40:45] yeasts. So examples are sourdough bread.
[1:40:50] Many things that we eat on a daily consume on a daily basis.
[1:40:53] Chocolate is a fermented food. Technical.
[1:40:55] No, really. Yeah, that's how we, that's how
[1:40:58] you end up like going from cacao to ultimately the bitter, right,
[1:41:03] the bitterness of chocolate, of dark chocolate that actually is
[1:41:06] the result of fermentation. Did you see how excited I was by
[1:41:09] that comment then? Yeah, I did.
[1:41:11] I think that you may be a chocolate lover.
[1:41:14] Well, you know, Sarah, and that actually tells us something
[1:41:16] about your microbiome because there's actually been studies
[1:41:18] where they found that people who love chocolate, and not everyone
[1:41:20] does. I love chocolate, but everyone
[1:41:22] does. But some people react like you
[1:41:24] and they're like, you know, I'm that way with coffee, by the
[1:41:27] way, that they actually found that the the the microbes
[1:41:31] produce this chemical that actually makes people crave
[1:41:35] chocolate. So there's this idea, yes,
[1:41:40] there's this idea that our microbes actually have the
[1:41:45] ability to impact our cravings for food.
[1:41:47] And that's been most well proven actually with chocolate above
[1:41:50] anything else. So you have specific microbes
[1:41:52] that are pulling those strings. Those microbes were talking to
[1:41:55] us a moment ago. Wow, I just had to handle the
[1:41:58] dark chocolate before I came on here.
[1:41:59] Now I'm feeling great. Yeah, Yeah.
[1:42:01] Well, no, I mean, I think dark chocolate is filled with healthy
[1:42:06] polyphenols. It's it's actually good for
[1:42:11] focus, for energy. So magnesium, there we go.
[1:42:17] And chocolate to me is a gut health food.
[1:42:19] Like high quality, high quality dark chocolate is actually a gut
[1:42:22] health food. And you shouldn't feel bad about
[1:42:23] that. Yeah.
[1:42:24] We have another applause. So there we go.
[1:42:27] I'm very happy. About this.
[1:42:29] So fermented foods, other fermented foods like classics.
[1:42:31] Classics are yogurt, kefir, cheese, sauerkraut, kimchi,
[1:42:40] miso, tempeh. These are all examples of
[1:42:43] fermented foods. So the key is that like most
[1:42:46] people are not getting any and we, you need to figure out like
[1:42:51] what works for you. So if you are to consume dairy,
[1:42:56] let it be fermented. That was, that's by far the
[1:42:59] healthiest dairy food that exists.
[1:43:03] So and then I'm a big believer that like it is, it's good to
[1:43:06] try to get into the routine of like having some of these
[1:43:09] fermented vegetables like like sauerkraut, kombucha is also
[1:43:14] fermented for people who are curious.
[1:43:16] And so on all the things that we want to add in.
[1:43:18] What's the one thing that you think apart from ultra processed
[1:43:21] foods, What's the one truth about gut health that you don't
[1:43:25] want people to hear? With with regard to our food.
[1:43:29] Yeah. Oh, actually, anything.
[1:43:31] There's so many things that affect our gut health.
[1:43:33] What do you think that we're not listening to or that we probably
[1:43:37] don't want to hear that, but we should?
[1:43:39] Here's what I honestly would say is that we kind of touched on
[1:43:43] this, but I think I want to say this more emphatically and let
[1:43:46] it and let it be our number 2 is that the health isn't just what
[1:43:53] you eat. So you could eat everything.
[1:43:57] You could eat all the proper foods.
[1:43:59] You could eat a Doctor B recommended diet or a
[1:44:01] Mediterranean diet, which is basically what's being
[1:44:03] recommended in my book, and still not get to where you need
[1:44:07] to be. Why would that be?
[1:44:09] Because something is missing that's impacting your gut.
[1:44:12] And that can be stress, that can be trauma, that can be your
[1:44:18] relationships, that can be whether or not deep inside of
[1:44:24] the recesses of your soul, you feel a sense of purpose and a
[1:44:31] comfort in what your life means and also what will happen when
[1:44:37] your life is over. And that to me is the spiritual
[1:44:42] needs that we have that are often overlooked and I think
[1:44:48] missing quite heavily in the modern world.
[1:44:52] So the call to action is to bring awareness.
[1:44:56] This is this is I mentioned earlier that Chapter 8 is my
[1:44:59] favorite chapter in this book because this is where we talk
[1:45:03] about the brain gut connection that you and I have touched on
[1:45:05] today. But what you need to know is and
[1:45:11] what I've learned in my own life, my best healing was not
[1:45:14] just changing my diet. My best healing was when I fixed
[1:45:20] my relationship with my dad, who I had a complex relationship
[1:45:25] with, and that's what I discuss in that chapter.
[1:45:29] But I think for each of us, there's a unique story there
[1:45:34] where healing is possible and it's not just what's on your
[1:45:36] plate. I think that's the biggest
[1:45:39] overlooked area of health. It's why I wrote the book
[1:45:42] Healthy Shouldn't Be This Hard because I think there was a time
[1:45:45] where I was doing every single thing right and I still was
[1:45:48] hospitalized. I even got had a bowel
[1:45:51] obstruction last year and that is due to intense stress.
[1:45:56] And I think, you know, ultimately you can have the
[1:46:00] biggest checklist in the world. You can have your 30 plant based
[1:46:03] foods a week. You cannot drink alcohol.
[1:46:06] But actually, you know, for me and and yours was the
[1:46:08] relationship to your dad, which I can imagine was a huge hill
[1:46:11] trauma and we forget how much that can affect us.
[1:46:15] And mine was heavy self criticism of not feeling good
[1:46:18] enough. And actually, when I learned the
[1:46:20] power of self compassion and the importance that that had on my
[1:46:23] health and to give myself a bit of a break and to let things go
[1:46:27] and to speak to myself as I would a best friend or, you
[1:46:31] know, people that are coming on the show, When I give that back
[1:46:33] to myself, everything in my health started to be a bit
[1:46:36] easier. And then all those other
[1:46:37] stepping stones that I had fell into place.
[1:46:40] But I had the healthiest diet in the world, but I was still
[1:46:44] hospitalized. And so in my brain becomes very
[1:46:48] disjointed. But you're in the hospital bed
[1:46:49] and you have 5 different consultants, A
[1:46:52] gastroenterologist, A renal Dr. a cardiovascular Dr. everyone
[1:46:56] there kind of diagnosing the separate parts.
[1:46:58] But you forget the whole person at the centre of it.
[1:47:01] And actually, it's not just because of that one bowel
[1:47:04] obstruction or that one thing, it's, it's a collation of
[1:47:08] exactly what you were saying, the mind and the body.
[1:47:10] And I do think, you know, it's important to understand these
[1:47:13] steps so we can start making the right decisions.
[1:47:15] But ultimately I'm very similar that you have to kind of go to a
[1:47:20] place of, of self compassion and self love and self understanding
[1:47:24] to really be the healthiest version of of yourself.
[1:47:28] I think it's just not looked about enough today.
[1:47:31] Yeah, I totally agree. And people would see you and
[1:47:38] imagine, like, how could you feel that way?
[1:47:41] And they don't understand what it's really like to walk in your
[1:47:45] shoes and how you and what's going on on the inside.
[1:47:49] And, you know, there were times in my life where you would look
[1:47:54] at me from the outside and see my resume.
[1:47:57] This guy is getting everything that he wants.
[1:48:01] And I was miserable because I needed to heal.
[1:48:06] And what you've just described, the idea of self love is a multi
[1:48:12] faceted thing because it's not so simple.
[1:48:14] It's just loving yourself. Ultimately self love, it does.
[1:48:19] Like part of what feeds into this is our ability to resolve
[1:48:24] traumas, our ability to build healthy relationships with
[1:48:29] others and be interconnected in a way that's necessary for us in
[1:48:32] order to feel safe, right? To feel loved by others and also
[1:48:38] to resolve our spiritual needs. Because self love also comes
[1:48:43] when we know that we are loved by God and that we were born
[1:48:50] with that love. And it's unremitting the same
[1:48:53] way that I feel about my children.
[1:48:54] My children, they might piss me off, but I will always love them
[1:48:59] no matter what. And it was for me, like building
[1:49:05] upon what you just said, Sarah Ann, for me, I didn't love
[1:49:09] myself. I had low self esteem, even
[1:49:13] though I was accomplishing all these great things.
[1:49:15] And what I really needed was to know that my dad loved me.
[1:49:22] And ultimately also to open up into this sort of bigger
[1:49:25] conversation of like aligning myself spiritually and knowing
[1:49:31] that I'm loved by God. And when I discovered those
[1:49:34] things, I started to love myself and that impacted so many facets
[1:49:38] in my life. And it allows me to be the man
[1:49:40] that I am today. I think it's such a missing part
[1:49:43] in the health conversation. You know, I think we can have
[1:49:47] all these things that we want to accomplish and do, but we kind
[1:49:51] of forget ourselves in the process of it and we're the ones
[1:49:54] that we're actually trying to do it for.
[1:49:56] I find. Do you know, I think until you
[1:49:59] really go through it, until you come out the other side, and
[1:50:01] mine was only during writing the book that I really understood
[1:50:05] just how much I needed to learn and understand in that area.
[1:50:08] Even through everything that I learned.
[1:50:10] It's it's been the biggest kind of eye opening.
[1:50:13] And I really hope that people feel that when they listen to
[1:50:15] this episode. So thank you for sharing that.
[1:50:18] Thank you for sharing it in your book and being open, because I
[1:50:22] know how hard it is. You kind of put something out
[1:50:24] there and then you go, Oh my gosh, this feels very
[1:50:27] vulnerable. But actually the outcry of
[1:50:29] people who connect to that and connect to you and such a deeper
[1:50:32] level, I think is amazing. And it's life changing.
[1:50:37] And so, you know, when it's people like you that come on and
[1:50:39] talk about these things, encourage me, encourages me to
[1:50:42] talk about it. And I think the more that we can
[1:50:44] have these conversations, the more that people can listen to
[1:50:47] them and feel seen and be curious to understand what it is
[1:50:51] for them. Yeah.
[1:50:53] And I think that these types of conversations, they start, they
[1:50:56] plant a seed, and that seed could grow into something
[1:50:59] beautiful. And it could be just the very,
[1:51:02] very beginning of an evolution, a change for the individual
[1:51:08] listener who's with us right now.
[1:51:11] And they might find like the next step is to connect with our
[1:51:16] books. And so like, you know, to take
[1:51:20] what we have discussed here today and to deep dive it and
[1:51:22] open it up and really understand it.
[1:51:25] You know, you could find that in my book Plant Power Plus.
[1:51:27] And then I am so excited to check out your book.
[1:51:29] I think that everyone should be pre ordering your book right
[1:51:32] now. And it really sounds like those
[1:51:34] are going to be complementary pieces on a journey towards
[1:51:37] healing because healing comes in many forms.
[1:51:39] So, and that's what people need to know A. 100% I mean, it all
[1:51:43] started with my gut. So that's the the irony of all
[1:51:46] of this. And yeah, I have to say, once
[1:51:50] I've figured that next part out, everything else improved.
[1:51:54] And so, you know, it is interesting.
[1:51:57] Sometimes it's conceptually hard to get your head around it until
[1:51:59] you've been through it. But when you've been through it
[1:52:01] and you're like, wow, it's not just the foods I'm consuming.
[1:52:04] They play a part, but they're not the full picture is yeah,
[1:52:08] it's life changing for people. So I hope that they read these
[1:52:11] books side by side. I'm so privileged that we're
[1:52:13] being authored in the same year and published in the same year.
[1:52:16] So that's that's great. Maybe we need to do something
[1:52:18] where we connect by 1 and get the other half price.
[1:52:22] There we go, There we go. So, well, I can't remember what
[1:52:26] you said in the last two podcasts.
[1:52:28] I'm going to have to go back and have a look.
[1:52:30] But I will hope it's different because I think this question is
[1:52:34] like science, it's always evolving, it's always changing,
[1:52:36] and it's deeply individual to where one is in their life.
[1:52:40] So what does Live Well be Well mean to you today?
[1:52:43] Think live well, be well. It means that you are being the
[1:52:49] most authentic, real version of yourself.
[1:52:53] And because you love yourself, you're able to be that person.
[1:52:57] And that leads you to thriving in all facets of your life,
[1:53:00] which includes your relationships with others,
[1:53:02] includes your own personal health, and also just being able
[1:53:07] to look in the mirror and see that person and know that's a
[1:53:11] wonderful person you see right there and they deserve to be
[1:53:14] loved. Love that it's like a line
[1:53:17] straight out of what I've written.
[1:53:18] I could not agree with you more. I hope everyone looks in the
[1:53:21] mirror and thinks that, and if they can't, then I hope that's
[1:53:25] one that they kind of put at the top of their chat list to do.
[1:53:29] Well, thank you. I know next time we do this, I'm
[1:53:32] going to try and make it in person.
[1:53:36] I'm dying to get us in person, but I'm so happy.
[1:53:39] I think this is such a important conversation to have right now.
[1:53:43] You know, the news with the American health dietary
[1:53:46] guidelines, the rise of colon cancer and younger generations
[1:53:50] seems to be all over the news right now.
[1:53:52] You know, us only eating kind of half of what we're recommended
[1:53:55] are 5. But all everything is so timely
[1:53:58] with your fantastic book Plant Power plus.
[1:54:00] So I'm so glad that although we couldn't get in person, I'm so
[1:54:04] glad that we could still get this out to people and have this
[1:54:07] conversation. So thank you so much for coming
[1:54:09] back on to live well, be well for the third time.
[1:54:12] I'm very thankful for that. Oh, it's my pleasure.
[1:54:15] I want to thank our audience for being here with us today and
[1:54:19] definitely in in person would be great.
[1:54:21] But you know what, Sarah? And we're doing a great job
[1:54:23] having fun with these conversations anyway, So thank
[1:54:25] you everyone. Yeah, amazing.
[1:54:27] I'm going to link everything with your with your supplements,
[1:54:31] probiotics, the book. Everything will be in the show
[1:54:33] notes on all the platforms, so if everyone wants to gain more
[1:54:38] Acromancia or update their reading, then head to the show
[1:54:42] notes and I'll pop all in there. But will thank you so much for
[1:54:46] all of your insightful knowledge.
[1:54:47] And yeah, I can't wait for us to have a round 4th of
[1:54:51] conversation, whenever that will be.
[1:54:55] Sounds great. Thanks everyone.

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