# Bowel Cancer Expert: Why are so many young Australians getting diagnosed?

An episode of [Project 100 with Mark Bouris](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1767053714), 9 Nov 2025, 1 h 18 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/05ac4e52-79fb-46b8-849c-b305000bd6d0/c022ae70-2853-4c61-be1b-b38e002c9c49/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=ef13e652-7a19-41fd-9d0f-b305000bd6dc

All content and media by Project 100 is created and published online for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice and should not be relied on as health or personal advice. **** Dr. Oliver Cronin joins me to unpack the truth about gut health, cancer prevention, and longevity. A gastroenterologist with a Fulbright scholarship from NYU Langone and fellowship training at Westmead Hospital, Oliver has seen firsthand how lifestyle and environment are reshaping Australia’s health. We talk reflux, the rise in bowel cancer among young Australians, and why colonoscopies remain one of the most powerful tools for early detection. He explains how AI is transforming endoscopy, detecting pre-cancerous cells with remarkable accuracy, and how preventative health programs like Everlab are changing the game. We also discuss what’s in your control: diet, fibre, exercise, and the tough conversations around alcohol and lifestyle. This is an unfiltered look at what’s really going on inside your body and how small, consistent changes can make the biggest difference to how long and how well you live. One product I’ve recently added to my routine from the Bulk Nutrients range is their NMN Extend. It’s a science-backed blend of 10 powerful ingredients, including NMN, Resveratrol, and Hyaluronic Acid, designed to support everything from energy and muscle recovery, to skin hydration, joint health, and event mental clarity. Check out their NMN extend product here: https://www.bulknutrients.com.au/products/nmn-capsules Eight Sleep’s newest generation, Pod 5. isn’t just another bed-frame add-on; it’s a high-tech mattress cover that actively adjusts to your body temperature throughout the night, cooling, warming, and even elevating your body when needed, all based on real-time data. The new Pod 5 introduces for the first time, a hydro-powered blanket system, utilising the same technology as the cover to extend temperature regulation across your entire body, not just the mattress surface. Clinically proven to increase quality sleep by up to one hour each night, it’s basically like having an AI-powered sleep coach, personal thermostat, and advanced health tracker working for you while you rest. Head on over to eightsleep.com/project100 and use the code PROJECT100 (that’s Project one-zero-zero) and get up to $550 off your very own Pod 5. Trust me, your body will thank you for this investment in better sleep. The all-new WHOOP is here — now 7% smaller with 14+ days of battery life. New features like Healthspan show how your daily habits are affecting your rate of aging — and now you can check your blood pressure straight from your wrist. If you’re serious about performance, longevity, and actual progress — this is it. Sign up for a one-month free trial at WHOOP.com — or visit join.whoop.com/mentored for one month off your annual membership fee. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Doctor Olivan Cronan. Welcome to probably one hundred mate.
[0:03] Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you for having me.
[0:04] Speaker 1: Man. It's quite timely because I had a colin oskmin
[0:07] Speaker 1: and endoscopy last week and you are a advance ind oscopus,
[0:11] Speaker 1: which is I guess as someone who knows how to
[0:13] Speaker 1: use the robotic camera system down my throat into my
[0:16] Speaker 1: gut and a gastronologists at the same time, so you
[0:20] Speaker 1: look up both directions. And I had that last week
[0:23] Speaker 1: literally one week HEO Friday wikio so and I was
[0:27] Speaker 1: all good, no dramas, but and we're here to talk
[0:30] Speaker 1: about today gut health and all things around gastronology, which
[0:34] Speaker 1: covers a lot of here is and I wouldn't mind
[0:38] Speaker 1: you first, so if you don't mind ol of it,
[0:41] Speaker 1: just give me a bit of a sort of a
[0:43] Speaker 1: thumbnail thumbnail sketch about your qualifications, where you worked and
[0:48] Speaker 1: what you're specializing.
[0:49] Speaker 2: Of course, you know, thank you for having me. I'm
[0:51] Speaker 2: a big fan of your podcast. Thank you. Enjoy listening
[0:54] Speaker 2: to straight Talk as well, so it's a real honor
[0:56] Speaker 2: to be here with you chatting about the shastrology, which
[0:59] Speaker 2: is something that I enjoy and it sounds like perfect time,
[1:02] Speaker 2: we could have gone through results today as well. I
[1:04] Speaker 2: had as got myself about four weeks ago, so yeah,
[1:08] Speaker 2: so I've looked at it from the other side as well.
[1:10] Speaker 2: But my qualifications, so I'm a medical doctor. I did
[1:13] Speaker 2: my specialty training in Victoria and then as a gastrondrologist. Yeah,
[1:19] Speaker 2: so did the training there and then I guess I
[1:21] Speaker 2: could have started to work as a specialist from there on,
[1:25] Speaker 2: and some people do. But in gastriondrology a lot of
[1:28] Speaker 2: people do some sub specialty training, whether that be in
[1:31] Speaker 2: hepatology so that's liver related stuff, whether that be in
[1:34] Speaker 2: inflammatory bow disease so IBD like Crohn's disease, ulster of cliitis.
[1:39] Speaker 2: I wanted to learn more about endoscopy and you guys
[1:43] Speaker 2: actually here in Sydney have one of the world leaders
[1:45] Speaker 2: in doscopy, Michael Burke. So he works at a Westmeat hospital.
[1:48] Speaker 2: So I was really fortunate enough to spend two years
[1:51] Speaker 2: with him at Westmead doing an advance in dospy fellowship.
[1:54] Speaker 2: I did a PhD with him at the same time,
[1:57] Speaker 2: and then I was really fortunate enough to be offered
[1:59] Speaker 2: a position at through a Fulbright scholarship.
[2:02] Speaker 1: To n yu Lang going scholarship. Wow.
[2:06] Speaker 2: Yeah, so that was got very lucky and spent a night.
[2:09] Speaker 1: I wouldn't say lucky, it would deserve that because it's
[2:11] Speaker 1: not something you win by luck.
[2:12] Speaker 2: So I spent some time in New York, which is amazing.
[2:14] Speaker 2: You know, a work was great, lived opposite Central Park,
[2:17] Speaker 2: but I took my wife and three daughters over there
[2:20] Speaker 2: as well and did the New York Marathon and all
[2:21] Speaker 2: that stuff. So that was excellent. And then working back
[2:24] Speaker 2: in Melbourne now and next year going to do a
[2:26] Speaker 2: little bit of time. I've been awarded a Churchill Fellowship,
[2:29] Speaker 2: so going to spend some time in France skilling next year,
[2:32] Speaker 2: so would be amazing. So that's kind of me in
[2:33] Speaker 2: a nutshell.
[2:34] Speaker 1: So would you say you're more on the tools, or
[2:36] Speaker 1: you're more into research, or you do sort of equal
[2:40] Speaker 1: amounts of each yees.
[2:42] Speaker 2: So I love love my work, love the clinical work,
[2:45] Speaker 2: love the tools, and I think that research allows us
[2:48] Speaker 2: to advance what we can do to help patients. So
[2:53] Speaker 2: I see the research as enjoyable but a kind of
[2:55] Speaker 2: a necessary mechanism to advance what we do.
[2:58] Speaker 1: So I did read something that you think think you've
[3:01] Speaker 1: published like seventy papers or something, be right.
[3:04] Speaker 2: Yeah, mainly through a lot. It's yeah, it's.
[3:07] Speaker 1: Actually is a lot. It's a scientist wise, it's a
[3:10] Speaker 1: lot of publications to get I presume it peer reviewed.
[3:14] Speaker 1: It's to get that many articles that many publications put
[3:18] Speaker 1: together and have them. Except because I'm fairly familiar with
[3:21] Speaker 1: the process, it's a big deal, a big deal.
[3:26] Speaker 2: It's well, it's definitely not me, not just me. So
[3:29] Speaker 2: you know, I'm first author on some of those papers.
[3:31] Speaker 1: But that work explain that. That's important.
[3:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, So the in the science community, that's a big deal.
[3:37] Speaker 2: Where your name appears as authorship. So the first author
[3:41] Speaker 2: is the person that's done the majority of the work,
[3:43] Speaker 2: or the last author, and the last author is critical. Okay,
[3:46] Speaker 2: so the last author is the person who kind of
[3:49] Speaker 2: the mentor or the overseer.
[3:51] Speaker 1: Of the work, like a supervisor.
[3:52] Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, yeah, So a lot of my work
[3:55] Speaker 2: you'll see has Mark or Burke as the last author.
[3:57] Speaker 2: So he's this guy I talked about.
[3:58] Speaker 1: This, I know it. Actually he's actually done an endosco
[4:01] Speaker 1: beyond me.
[4:02] Speaker 2: Well, I think that you should feel privileged because he's amazing.
[4:05] Speaker 2: He's really like a world leader and should be probably
[4:08] Speaker 2: recognized more than he is in Australia because because globally
[4:13] Speaker 2: he's like a pop star in the endoscopy community. Really,
[4:15] Speaker 2: he's well known, spends a lot of his time at
[4:18] Speaker 2: West May but the other probably thirty percent of his
[4:21] Speaker 2: time as overseas teaching life cases around the world. So
[4:26] Speaker 2: he's someone that Australia would be really proud of.
[4:28] Speaker 1: Because my gas knowlogist who did my industry couple a
[4:31] Speaker 1: few years ago, found some thickening in my tummy and
[4:34] Speaker 1: he said, I'm going to send you to this guy.
[4:36] Speaker 1: He said, he's the leader in this field. I went
[4:39] Speaker 1: along he did, you know, knock me out and had
[4:42] Speaker 1: to look and he said, look, I can't see him.
[4:43] Speaker 1: So it's all good. But so you made me feel
[4:45] Speaker 1: good now because I'm glad that you've told me that
[4:47] Speaker 1: this guy I had no idea.
[4:49] Speaker 2: He's probably, you know, top three in the world in
[4:51] Speaker 2: my opinion, the best, but you know, you never quite
[4:53] Speaker 2: know who the best is. But he incredible and a
[4:56] Speaker 2: really great, great teacher. So anyway, you'll see that he
[4:59] Speaker 2: has advanced stendoscopy globally and a lot of a lot
[5:02] Speaker 2: of the papers that I'm on. He's the last author,
[5:05] Speaker 2: So really kind of the brainchild of Michael and his drive.
[5:09] Speaker 1: That's very good. But nonetheless, you know, like being in
[5:12] Speaker 1: either first last or in the middle as one of
[5:15] Speaker 1: the participants of seventy publications. That's that's pretty impressive and
[5:19] Speaker 1: well done. So maybe you could explained to me, so,
[5:24] Speaker 1: gastroentrologies as a profession what does that encompass I mean,
[5:31] Speaker 1: not necessarily in surgery sense, or not even necessarily, but
[5:35] Speaker 1: just a consulting gastroondrologist. What does gastro entrology cover? Which
[5:40] Speaker 1: parts from where to where?
[5:41] Speaker 2: Well, it's kind of annoying. We've got such a long
[5:43] Speaker 2: name to start with, gastro enterrology, I struggle to say it.
[5:47] Speaker 2: So it's really anything in the gastri intestinal tracks. So
[5:50] Speaker 2: it is, you know, anything from the esophagus stomach.
[5:53] Speaker 1: Does it include this ophigus?
[5:55] Speaker 2: Yeah, includes the esophagus.
[5:56] Speaker 1: So where from where does esophagus start?
[5:58] Speaker 2: It starts from about eighteen cent meters from your teeth, right. So,
[6:02] Speaker 2: and if you're going if you've got the scope, if
[6:04] Speaker 2: you can imagine you've got a camera.
[6:05] Speaker 1: Scopes, camera or their scopes, that thing the camera's on, that's.
[6:08] Speaker 2: Right, and it's about say a centimeter white, so it's
[6:11] Speaker 2: pretty narrow tube, okay, and it's a flexible tube. These
[6:14] Speaker 2: things are amazing. Actually, they're handmade. They're worth about fifty
[6:18] Speaker 2: grand each, handmade, most of them in Japan. It's incredible craftsmanship.
[6:22] Speaker 2: But anyway, that's another story for another time. But if
[6:25] Speaker 2: you can imagine, you've got a camera, a flexible tube
[6:27] Speaker 2: looking down through the mouth and then about eighteen centimeters
[6:30] Speaker 2: from the teeth, there's a division between the breathing pipe,
[6:34] Speaker 2: so the trachea or the esophagus, and so gastrine enterology
[6:38] Speaker 2: starts from the top of the esophagus and goes all
[6:41] Speaker 2: the way down kind of to the rectum to the anus,
[6:43] Speaker 2: so everything in between.
[6:45] Speaker 1: The esophagus and a gastroentrology goes all the way down.
[6:47] Speaker 2: Sorry, gastroentrology. Yeah, and the liver is also included. So
[6:51] Speaker 2: that's obviously not part of the lumen, not part of
[6:54] Speaker 2: the small bowl or large bow or stomach ruesophagus, but
[6:57] Speaker 2: the liver is also included.
[6:59] Speaker 1: Why do they include liver.
[7:00] Speaker 2: It's a historic thing. So technically i'm a I'm a
[7:03] Speaker 2: gas trainsologist and hepatologist. The hepatology bit is the liver
[7:07] Speaker 2: I haven't done any subspecialty training in that, but just
[7:10] Speaker 2: historically that's been included.
[7:12] Speaker 1: Because the liver does a lot of other stuff.
[7:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, heaps of stuff.
[7:15] Speaker 1: There's a lot of stuff.
[7:16] Speaker 2: So it makes stuff and also destroys stuff too, so
[7:19] Speaker 2: it's critical to our well being. The liver really amazing,
[7:23] Speaker 2: amazing organ.
[7:25] Speaker 1: So so then so I now and now sort of
[7:28] Speaker 1: what real estate you're covering in the body. And I
[7:32] Speaker 1: didn't realize you covered the esophagus. Maybe we just start
[7:36] Speaker 1: from the top a little bit here. So the esophagus
[7:39] Speaker 1: is that tube our food runs down from once we
[7:42] Speaker 1: start to ingest it, but goes down to a valve
[7:45] Speaker 1: and then there's a little valve it sort of opens
[7:47] Speaker 1: up somehow and drops the food into our stomach. Maybe
[7:51] Speaker 1: you just go back though before the valve that esophagus.
[7:55] Speaker 1: Bit what what what could go wrong in those environments?
[7:59] Speaker 1: So that's like it's a muscle or some sort is it.
[8:02] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's way more complex than just you know,
[8:05] Speaker 2: swallowing food and it kind of drops drops down. So
[8:08] Speaker 2: it's this amazing organ the esophagus that when you swallow,
[8:12] Speaker 2: it kind of rhythmically contracts and helps kind of push
[8:15] Speaker 2: the food down into the stomach. And you're right. You
[8:17] Speaker 2: talk about this valve or the gastroesophagel junction, and that's
[8:21] Speaker 2: at the join between the esophagus and the stomach.
[8:24] Speaker 1: The bottom of the esophagus.
[8:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's meant to stop kind of acid leaking
[8:27] Speaker 2: up because you've got this really concentrated acid in the
[8:31] Speaker 2: stomach that's meant to help digest food. But that acid
[8:35] Speaker 2: in the stomach's not really meant to get up into
[8:38] Speaker 2: the esophagus because it can damage the stomach lining, can
[8:41] Speaker 2: damage the esophagus lining, and you put you at risk
[8:44] Speaker 2: of stuff like a soophageal cancer. And so that's a
[8:47] Speaker 2: really important valve and just swallowing it. As I said,
[8:51] Speaker 2: it's it's not such a simple thing and there's so
[8:53] Speaker 2: much that can go wrong with it, aside from cancer,
[8:56] Speaker 2: which we can talk about. But you know, reflux is
[8:59] Speaker 2: a really common ish you. Hernias are also really common.
[9:02] Speaker 2: You can get a highus hernia, which is where the
[9:04] Speaker 2: bottom of the esophagus it's not pinching as tightly as
[9:08] Speaker 2: what it's meant to, and that can mean that you've
[9:10] Speaker 2: always got a bit of.
[9:11] Speaker 1: A finer style or is it just actually a valve
[9:13] Speaker 1: and it feels pressure opens up.
[9:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a muscle, so yeah, and so it
[9:18] Speaker 2: contracts and then we'll by the muscle relaxing. That kind
[9:22] Speaker 2: of opens things up.
[9:23] Speaker 1: And then what is it the signals for the muscle
[9:26] Speaker 1: to relax, Uh don't know, not sure, not sure. But
[9:31] Speaker 1: so when the food goes there, when the food goes
[9:34] Speaker 1: down there and the valve is up and food drops
[9:37] Speaker 1: into the acid, will talk where the stomach gas for second,
[9:42] Speaker 1: it's essentially it's clear. But if the valve doesn't close
[9:47] Speaker 1: back up, if the acid starts to this is what
[9:51] Speaker 1: I guess. We're commonly called reflex if the acid and
[9:53] Speaker 1: as we get older for some reason, I don't know
[9:55] Speaker 1: what it is, but everyone I know is at a
[9:57] Speaker 1: certain age tells me they got reflex. I mean, has
[10:00] Speaker 1: that become more common than ever before or is it
[10:02] Speaker 1: for some reason or is it just become something more
[10:06] Speaker 1: more aware of? And then I want to talk to
[10:07] Speaker 1: you about the solution for reflex. What is the solution? Like,
[10:12] Speaker 1: I mean, I have it, I have it, and I
[10:15] Speaker 1: take pariod ten milligrams. But then because I want to
[10:18] Speaker 1: talk about it, because I read somewhere that pariot. Some
[10:21] Speaker 1: studies say pariod can cause dementia, which is when you
[10:25] Speaker 1: and I can't say gastriondrologist properly. I started to worry
[10:27] Speaker 1: about that. Okay, So yeah, so maybe just explain what
[10:33] Speaker 1: the what what is the danger of the little valve
[10:37] Speaker 1: not closing properly? What can ass to do? Because I mean,
[10:40] Speaker 1: I guess as it's going to I presume what's happening
[10:42] Speaker 1: is it's going to chew away at the lining of eurosophagus,
[10:46] Speaker 1: which is not meant to be due to weigh.
[10:47] Speaker 2: At That's exactly right. So so we know, any chronic
[10:50] Speaker 2: inflammation increases your risk of cancers. And so if you've
[10:54] Speaker 2: got and chronic means you know, exposure over a long period.
[10:59] Speaker 2: So if you've got acid leaking up from the stomach
[11:02] Speaker 2: into the bottom of the esophagus causing inflammation over many years,
[11:05] Speaker 2: it can definitely predispose you to to cancer because is.
[11:09] Speaker 1: It because it changes it changes the because something that's
[11:14] Speaker 1: being exposed to something, and it changes the makeup of
[11:16] Speaker 1: the cells.
[11:17] Speaker 2: That's exactly right. Yeah, so put them under stress. And
[11:20] Speaker 2: you know, I'm not saying everyone with reflux is going
[11:23] Speaker 2: to get cancer, like absolutely not. It's far more complex
[11:26] Speaker 2: than that, and not everyone needs needs a proton pump
[11:29] Speaker 2: inhibitor either, as you're like, I think when proteon pumping
[11:32] Speaker 2: hibitors first we're introduced, I feel like everyone just was
[11:36] Speaker 2: put onto a prot everyone and the drug companies would
[11:40] Speaker 2: have absolutely loved it, because you know, everyone went on them.
[11:43] Speaker 2: But yeah, you're right, there are some studies, some big,
[11:46] Speaker 2: big population studies coming out just maybe there's there's a
[11:50] Speaker 2: few signals saying that potentially they've been linked to dementia
[11:54] Speaker 2: and being linked to a few other things.
[11:56] Speaker 1: Maybe correlation as opposed to causation.
[11:58] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, So so I always say to
[12:01] Speaker 2: my patients, so the ones that have bad reflux, they
[12:04] Speaker 2: should continue taking a medication because they're risk of developing
[12:09] Speaker 2: something like Barrett's esophagus or cancer. Is at far higher
[12:14] Speaker 2: risk than potentially like developing something like dementia, because the
[12:19] Speaker 2: risk of dementia is extremely low, so they're very safe medications. However,
[12:24] Speaker 2: the patients that don't have reflux, I say, just stop it.
[12:27] Speaker 2: You don't need it. So again, you know, if you've
[12:29] Speaker 2: got reflex in yeah, well generally generally you're you're symptomatic.
[12:34] Speaker 2: So you've got like a burning sensation. You might taste
[12:37] Speaker 2: like an acidy kind of bitter taste in the back
[12:39] Speaker 2: of your mouth. Not everyone knows they have reflux, and
[12:43] Speaker 2: you know, sometimes you can get a thing called asymptomatic reflux,
[12:47] Speaker 2: which we could also talk about. But generally speaking, most
[12:51] Speaker 2: people who have reflux are symptomatic with it.
[12:53] Speaker 1: They know so, and normally it seems to happen when
[12:58] Speaker 1: I before I saw taking the pariot tablets, but or
[13:01] Speaker 1: the protein pump inhibitor. We might explain what that does
[13:05] Speaker 1: in a second, because I do want to talk to
[13:07] Speaker 1: you about, you know, the problems that resolve from one
[13:11] Speaker 1: of the other problems, not to mention, but the B
[13:13] Speaker 1: twelve calcium absorption through the stomach as a result of
[13:17] Speaker 1: taking not having enough acid. Maybe you can explain how
[13:20] Speaker 1: protein pump inhibitors will work. But before just in terms
[13:28] Speaker 1: of someone sort of maybe listening to this. I mean
[13:30] Speaker 1: one of my things I used to I used to
[13:32] Speaker 1: feel like I go to bed, especially if I ate
[13:35] Speaker 1: before I went to bed close to that time. I
[13:40] Speaker 1: would sometimes I feel like I needed to cough in
[13:42] Speaker 1: the middle, and I felt like I had an irritation
[13:45] Speaker 1: in my throat. And the doctor told me that. He
[13:49] Speaker 1: said that could be acid coming up and irritating your
[13:52] Speaker 1: throat a bit. That's said, that's one symptom. And as
[13:54] Speaker 1: soon as I start taking I felt okay. So what
[13:58] Speaker 1: are people looking for if they're in all to work
[14:00] Speaker 1: out whether or not they think they might have some reflex.
[14:03] Speaker 2: It's exactly as you said, So they might have this
[14:05] Speaker 2: burning sensation, they might have a bit of kind of
[14:07] Speaker 2: a bit of a cough at nighttime. Sometimes their dentists
[14:10] Speaker 2: actually pick it up. If you go and get a
[14:12] Speaker 2: dental check up, the dentists can someone say, hey, you've
[14:14] Speaker 2: got a bit of decay and your teeth. I think
[14:16] Speaker 2: this potentially a bit of acid leaking up at nighttime,
[14:18] Speaker 2: So some people know that way. The way to kind
[14:21] Speaker 2: of the easiest, most most straightforward way to diagnose it
[14:24] Speaker 2: is with a gastroscopy. So gastroscpy is looking down into
[14:26] Speaker 2: the stomach with a camera in Australia under sedation for
[14:29] Speaker 2: that and it's a really really straightforward, safe procedure. Helicobacter,
[14:35] Speaker 2: which is a common stomach infection, is also a really
[14:38] Speaker 2: common cause of reflux type symptoms.
[14:41] Speaker 1: And that's pretty pretty famous because its West Australians who
[14:45] Speaker 1: discovered that.
[14:45] Speaker 2: That's right, Yeah, because I remember when.
[14:47] Speaker 1: I was a younger person, Oliver, that people used to
[14:49] Speaker 1: say stress causes ulcers. I'm talking fifty year odd years ago.
[14:57] Speaker 1: Then a couple of West Australians discovered it was a bacteria.
[15:00] Speaker 1: And did they discovered it by as I remember as
[15:02] Speaker 1: I record reading, is that they actually applied to themselves
[15:06] Speaker 1: the actual battery. Is that right? And more I'm making it.
[15:08] Speaker 2: Up, that's right. Yeah, it's kind of gone into folklore,
[15:11] Speaker 2: but yeah, these are two great Australians that discovered helicobacter,
[15:16] Speaker 2: which is a big risk factor for stomach cancer. It's
[15:20] Speaker 2: very common in Australia. It's very mostly pretty easy to treat.
[15:25] Speaker 2: There are some strains that are becoming a bit more
[15:27] Speaker 2: resistant now and it's so definitely Helicobacter is something that's
[15:31] Speaker 2: pretty easy to diagnose and very generally very easy to treat.
[15:35] Speaker 1: You diagnose you have to take sample or something.
[15:36] Speaker 2: Yeah, so the two best ways of doing it are
[15:39] Speaker 2: either a urea breath test, which is where you go
[15:41] Speaker 2: to the pathology lab and instead of getting a blood
[15:43] Speaker 2: test to look for helicobacter, they get you to blow
[15:46] Speaker 2: up a balloon and they can actually detect the helicobacter.
[15:48] Speaker 2: It's a really neat kind of test by blowing up
[15:51] Speaker 2: this balloon. It's sent away to the pathology lab and
[15:54] Speaker 2: they say yes or no, and it's actually a really
[15:56] Speaker 2: accurate test. Another really accurate way is to take a
[15:59] Speaker 2: bipsy you said, so, to do a gastroscopy and to
[16:02] Speaker 2: take a really small sample of the stomach lining to
[16:05] Speaker 2: look for helico Back to there as well, And there's
[16:07] Speaker 2: a fecal sample that's also a very accurate test as well,
[16:10] Speaker 2: but that patients find it a lot just easier, more
[16:14] Speaker 2: palatable to do a breath test or the gastroscy than
[16:17] Speaker 2: the fecal sample. But the fecal sample is also very
[16:19] Speaker 2: good too.
[16:19] Speaker 1: And how it's to know if they got We've now
[16:21] Speaker 1: moved past this off because how would someone know that
[16:23] Speaker 1: they've got helio helia back to it's got pylori or
[16:28] Speaker 1: something is back to pylori. How would they know that?
[16:31] Speaker 2: So generally reflux symptoms so very similar and so, but
[16:36] Speaker 2: they may not know as well and so. But most
[16:41] Speaker 2: commonly are all diagnosed and impatients that come to me
[16:44] Speaker 2: with reflux type symptoms and we might do a urear
[16:46] Speaker 2: breath test or a gastroskman. It's diagnosed that way and
[16:50] Speaker 2: generally pretty straightforward to treat. But as I said, there
[16:53] Speaker 2: are some strains in Australia. Yeah, with generally a week
[16:58] Speaker 2: of antibiotics, right, there are some strains now in Australia
[17:01] Speaker 2: that need a kind of a second or third line regiment.
[17:04] Speaker 1: True because of resistance I presum.
[17:06] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
[17:06] Speaker 1: Yeah, And if someone told me that, yeah, probably folklore,
[17:11] Speaker 1: but someone told me that you get this, you can
[17:14] Speaker 1: get this HELI back to bacteria in your tummy from
[17:18] Speaker 1: a very young age from your parents.
[17:21] Speaker 2: Yep, yep. There definitely might be some vertical transmission. It's
[17:24] Speaker 2: really hard to know where where people pick it up from.
[17:27] Speaker 2: And in fact, in Australia and globally, there's no guidelines
[17:30] Speaker 2: safe if you know, if one person in the households
[17:33] Speaker 2: diagnosed with helicobactor, should you test their husband or wife
[17:37] Speaker 2: and maybe eradicate it in them too, because it does
[17:40] Speaker 2: increase your risk of stomach cancer if you've got it,
[17:43] Speaker 2: and so there's actually no guidelines. I mean my clinical
[17:45] Speaker 2: practice personally is for adults in the family, I will
[17:49] Speaker 2: test them as well, if there's one family member with
[17:52] Speaker 2: Helico bacter, just because you can pick it up environmentally,
[17:55] Speaker 2: you can pick it up from you know, not people
[17:58] Speaker 2: generally don't share toothbrushes in the family, but you know,
[18:01] Speaker 2: there's a lot of sharing of different utenses equipment in
[18:03] Speaker 2: the family.
[18:04] Speaker 1: That makes sense. And so and then if we could
[18:08] Speaker 1: just move something, and I've had some experience with unfortunately
[18:11] Speaker 1: is my doctors says. It was actually an older doctor,
[18:19] Speaker 1: but he told me I thought to stress my cause
[18:23] Speaker 1: stomach calls. Because it turnout I had three stomach alls.
[18:25] Speaker 1: I had two of my stomach and one of my
[18:27] Speaker 1: jun and and and it wasn't any of those other things.
[18:31] Speaker 1: When he sat down with me, and because I had this,
[18:34] Speaker 1: I was I was actually filming a TV show and
[18:37] Speaker 1: I was getting saw back all the time because you're
[18:40] Speaker 1: basically sitting there for about nine or ten hours, don't move,
[18:42] Speaker 1: you know, you see in one seat, and I was
[18:43] Speaker 1: getting it back. So what I started doing they don't
[18:45] Speaker 1: you don't know, you don't eat properly and all that
[18:47] Speaker 1: sort of stuff. So what I started doing is started
[18:50] Speaker 1: chewing up voltaireans like they were lollies. Like this is
[18:53] Speaker 1: many years ago fifteen years ago, and I just take
[18:57] Speaker 1: them no food. I know it says in the box
[19:00] Speaker 1: take for trying with food, and all those sorts of
[19:02] Speaker 1: inflammatory you got to take with food or some of
[19:03] Speaker 1: the more reasons. Not necessarily, but and apparently those sorts
[19:09] Speaker 1: of things can actually cause them stomach goals. Is that right?
[19:12] Speaker 2: Big risk factor? So these non soroidal anti inflammatories that
[19:15] Speaker 2: you're talking about, but hey, I mean you were busy.
[19:17] Speaker 2: You read like this is such a common thing where
[19:20] Speaker 2: everyone's busy in their daily lives. You know, you've got
[19:22] Speaker 2: some pain, you're taking a painkiller because you want to
[19:25] Speaker 2: get on with whatever you're trying to do, and you're
[19:27] Speaker 2: sure you're meant to eat it with food, And definitely
[19:28] Speaker 2: I recommend taking them with food. But yeah, stomach olses
[19:32] Speaker 2: are very commonly caused by non suroidal anti inflammatories.
[19:36] Speaker 1: And is that because? Is it because the nase as
[19:41] Speaker 1: they turn something off in your stomach. As well as
[19:44] Speaker 1: helping you get rid of your information, they turn something
[19:47] Speaker 1: off which helps produce mucous in the light being lining
[19:50] Speaker 1: your stomach. And then because you know the mucus the
[19:53] Speaker 1: house is attacking the stomach straight up.
[19:56] Speaker 2: It alters that protective mechanism. And yeah, therefore stomach old
[20:00] Speaker 2: something causes are very easy to treat. So we go
[20:02] Speaker 2: back to our proto pump hibitters that we're talking about before.
[20:06] Speaker 2: They're very effective at managing stomach holses. And in fact,
[20:10] Speaker 2: we see a lot less stomach culsers now than what
[20:13] Speaker 2: we used to before proton pumpe hibitters were invented, and
[20:16] Speaker 2: we used to see a lot more perforated stomach culser.
[20:19] Speaker 2: So that's where the stomach cultser becomes so big and
[20:22] Speaker 2: so deep that it puts a hole in the stomach.
[20:24] Speaker 2: That's incredibly rare now with the advent of protea pumpit hibitters.
[20:27] Speaker 2: So these medications are really important, but only take them
[20:31] Speaker 2: when you need them.
[20:32] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting. And because I remember, you know what
[20:36] Speaker 1: the doctor told me to do that were the gastrodrologists.
[20:38] Speaker 1: He told me to be said dumb for the next
[20:40] Speaker 1: three months. He said, I don't have any spicy food,
[20:42] Speaker 1: no coffee was going to kill me, no booze, no
[20:49] Speaker 1: fatting foods. Basically really clean effectively and need lots of
[20:55] Speaker 1: small meals. Don't need like one big meal or three
[20:57] Speaker 1: big meals. And I had actually lot end up losing
[21:00] Speaker 1: a bit of weight. But but it went with it.
[21:03] Speaker 1: It was gone within maybe six weeks, seven weeks. But
[21:06] Speaker 1: the pain when I when I it was crippling. I
[21:11] Speaker 1: remember the last last show I was doing the last
[21:13] Speaker 1: sitting for the show I had to I was. I
[21:16] Speaker 1: felt like buckling over. It was getting that bad, and
[21:20] Speaker 1: I had no idea what it was. I of course
[21:22] Speaker 1: thought I had cancer or something, you know, because you
[21:24] Speaker 1: were seeing the worst thing.
[21:25] Speaker 2: But it was out.
[21:26] Speaker 1: Bloody ball and I'm ready at a bag Voltaire and Volktaurre,
[21:29] Speaker 1: you know, drug the works, you know. You know there's
[21:32] Speaker 1: lots of equivalents, you know. And it did actually take
[21:34] Speaker 1: away my information in my back. It helped, but it's
[21:39] Speaker 1: not meant and it does say in the box, just
[21:40] Speaker 1: what you're supposed to take this stuff. With food, I
[21:42] Speaker 1: was not doing what I was, you know, I wasn't
[21:44] Speaker 1: reading instructions.
[21:46] Speaker 2: I don't think I'd survive with that coffee. I'd never
[21:49] Speaker 2: tell any of my patients to stop coffee.
[21:50] Speaker 1: I think the doctor said I'd be a good patient.
[21:54] Speaker 2: I do it. I would do it.
[21:55] Speaker 1: My doc says, maybe not so much. These says, but
[21:58] Speaker 1: then I was much younger. This is like fifteen years
[22:00] Speaker 1: ago or so. But yeah, and so now we're in
[22:03] Speaker 1: the stomach, okay, and just on protein pump inhibitors or PPIs,
[22:10] Speaker 1: those things that allow you to control acid. Is it
[22:16] Speaker 1: true that what it does basically means you produce less acid?
[22:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
[22:20] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, still produce acid, but you produce less acid.
[22:24] Speaker 2: That's right, exactly right. And you can you can kind
[22:27] Speaker 2: of become addicted to the wrong word, it can kind
[22:31] Speaker 2: of become tolerant to a protemphib And so if you try,
[22:35] Speaker 2: and if you've been for a long time and you
[22:37] Speaker 2: try and stop it, you get this kind of rebound
[22:39] Speaker 2: acid effect where you get even more acid produced after
[22:44] Speaker 2: stopping immediately abruptly stopping the PPI. And so some of
[22:47] Speaker 2: my patients that are on, you know, they come to me,
[22:50] Speaker 2: they read the studies that you've just mentioned and they say, hey,
[22:53] Speaker 2: you know, I want to try not taking my PPI.
[22:56] Speaker 2: And you know, for a lot of patients, if they
[22:59] Speaker 2: don't have a good reason, I don't think it's a
[23:00] Speaker 2: really fair thing to do. But I a would say
[23:02] Speaker 2: to ween it really slowly, you know, maybe it maybe.
[23:05] Speaker 1: Take one a day, one or two days or not.
[23:07] Speaker 1: If you just reduce the amount.
[23:10] Speaker 2: Just take it maybe every second day, yeah, for a while,
[23:12] Speaker 2: and then maybe every third day, and then then eventually
[23:14] Speaker 2: just take it just when you need it. And some
[23:16] Speaker 2: of my patients do really well with that, and they
[23:18] Speaker 2: find that they actually don't need to take it every day.
[23:21] Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's sort of what I've been doing more recently.
[23:23] Speaker 1: I've gone down. I went I was on twenty one
[23:25] Speaker 1: to ten. I just and I tea it every second
[23:27] Speaker 1: day or something like that. But I do find though
[23:30] Speaker 1: that you can if for some reason, you know, you
[23:34] Speaker 1: start to feel a bit sick, a bit nauseous, and
[23:38] Speaker 1: take when you feel better. But like it is that
[23:40] Speaker 1: nausiest feeling, What is that?
[23:42] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's probably like a multi factorial like the naise
[23:46] Speaker 2: is probably a lot of different things. Potentially it's something
[23:49] Speaker 2: to do with the acid, but not sure. You know.
[23:52] Speaker 2: And as you were saying before, gastronurology also covers the
[23:56] Speaker 2: brain as well, and so you know, we've got physic
[23:59] Speaker 2: physical nerve that connects the brain and the gut, and
[24:02] Speaker 2: so we perceive all these things in different ways, and
[24:05] Speaker 2: so you know, I think there's interesting into play.
[24:07] Speaker 1: So just on we just look at the tummy stomach
[24:12] Speaker 1: for the moment. When you say gut, you mean everything
[24:15] Speaker 1: that's associated with the stomach right down to the rectum
[24:17] Speaker 1: or do you mean just the stomach?
[24:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I mean just the stomach, right, I
[24:21] Speaker 2: think that's a good distinction.
[24:23] Speaker 1: Okay, So gut being stomach, So we're talking about now
[24:26] Speaker 1: we're talking about the same thing. One thing that probably
[24:29] Speaker 1: people should be aware of is because you have less acid.
[24:31] Speaker 1: Why is it important to have a certain amount Everyone's
[24:34] Speaker 1: going to be different, of course, but why is it
[24:36] Speaker 1: important to have a certain amount of acid in your
[24:37] Speaker 1: stomach relative to digestion?
[24:40] Speaker 2: Really important because that is one of the first first
[24:43] Speaker 2: lines of defense to stop us from getting sick. Okay,
[24:47] Speaker 2: the things that we eat. So it's important to have
[24:49] Speaker 2: a low acidity in the stomach for that. But also
[24:52] Speaker 2: really importantly, that's where we start breaking the food down
[24:56] Speaker 2: so that we can absorb it, absorb the nutrients, absorb
[24:59] Speaker 2: you know, and calcium, magnesium, all those great things that
[25:03] Speaker 2: we need to maintain our healthy bodies.
[25:07] Speaker 1: Actually critical stuff.
[25:08] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so very important, and so that's why there's
[25:11] Speaker 2: some studies showing that rece you absorb less calcium when
[25:16] Speaker 2: you're on a proto pump in hire.
[25:18] Speaker 1: Generally not because of that, but because you don't have
[25:20] Speaker 1: as much asset.
[25:20] Speaker 2: That's right, Yeah, exactly right. So generally those things don't
[25:24] Speaker 2: cause any issues. If you're having a well balanced, sort
[25:26] Speaker 2: of healthy diet, then generally generally those changes are not
[25:31] Speaker 2: noticed clinically not noticed in you.
[25:34] Speaker 1: But people worried about they can always get a bone
[25:36] Speaker 1: density test anyway, totally, and if you're worried about it.
[25:39] Speaker 1: And as I understand, bottom B twelve is another one
[25:41] Speaker 1: that can be affected and not having enough but bottom
[25:44] Speaker 1: B twelve is an issue in relation to your nervous
[25:46] Speaker 1: system and other things yep, particularly your energy systems. So
[25:52] Speaker 1: how do you test that?
[25:53] Speaker 2: Yeah, so you can test it with a blood test,
[25:55] Speaker 2: blood test, But you do need to be careful that
[25:57] Speaker 2: some of these studies will show that there's a reduction,
[26:00] Speaker 2: say in absorption of iron for example, or other macro nutrients.
[26:05] Speaker 2: But you need to see you know, there might be
[26:07] Speaker 2: a reduction. I'm going to make this up now, but
[26:08] Speaker 2: there might be a reduction of say zero point one percent, right,
[26:11] Speaker 2: And so is that going to be noticed by your body,
[26:16] Speaker 2: you know, by the immune system. Sure, it's really important
[26:18] Speaker 2: in the science world with basic science. But does that
[26:22] Speaker 2: translate to any long term effects in you right? And
[26:26] Speaker 2: generally generally it doesn't. So generally these are really small
[26:29] Speaker 2: changes in absorption. Definite changes, but small changes. So I
[26:32] Speaker 2: guess we heart back to the point before that you
[26:34] Speaker 2: just take medications if there's a really good need to.
[26:37] Speaker 1: Take it, and if people worry about it, these are
[26:40] Speaker 1: just normal Beatward was a normal blood penal test? Anyways?
[26:43] Speaker 1: Is it? It's your GP. They're normally really straightforward to
[26:46] Speaker 1: test and you have specific glass but that's normally that's
[26:49] Speaker 1: usually the blood penal.
[26:51] Speaker 2: Generally would be you know, a full blood count. The
[26:53] Speaker 2: name is a bit deceptive, but that looks for you know,
[26:55] Speaker 2: hemoglobin and white cell count and a few other things,
[26:57] Speaker 2: and yeah, B twelve and four. That would be something
[26:59] Speaker 2: that would be really commonly tested along with iron and
[27:02] Speaker 2: kelcya and magnesium phosphates. So really easy to test and
[27:05] Speaker 2: really easy to monitor, perhaps with an annual annual blood
[27:09] Speaker 2: test with the GP specialist, so.
[27:11] Speaker 1: People worry about they can get that thing done. So
[27:13] Speaker 1: now in the tummy, is not just acid? Where's all
[27:18] Speaker 1: this stuff we're talking about microbiom and bacteria, and is
[27:22] Speaker 1: it in your gut or where is.
[27:23] Speaker 2: It is everywhere and we're learning Yeah, so it kind
[27:26] Speaker 2: of it's in the large bow of the small bow
[27:28] Speaker 2: the stomach, and it's this amazing, amazing like we'retween about
[27:36] Speaker 2: trillions and trillions of bugs that live with us in
[27:40] Speaker 2: an ecosystem that we actually don't know a lot about,
[27:42] Speaker 2: and we're learning more and more about it every day.
[27:46] Speaker 2: There's some great research going into it, but it's going
[27:48] Speaker 2: to be so important. We definitely know how to fect
[27:50] Speaker 2: your immune system. It can be involved with some cancers
[27:54] Speaker 2: as well. And just to give you an example of
[27:57] Speaker 2: how critical it is and how little we know about it,
[28:01] Speaker 2: there's been several studies now where they have have you
[28:04] Speaker 2: heard of fecal transplants? Yeah, yeah, so scary, but yeah,
[28:08] Speaker 2: you know, actually, my wife used to be involved in
[28:11] Speaker 2: actually preparing the poop because she's an infectious disease doctor
[28:14] Speaker 2: and microbiologist, and they would use it. They would ironically, ironically,
[28:20] Speaker 2: they would they would test the donor pooh make sure
[28:22] Speaker 2: that there's no infections in the poo like shigala or
[28:25] Speaker 2: Campello bacter, so ironically they can kind of tell you
[28:29] Speaker 2: that they're not giving you anything bad, but we kind
[28:32] Speaker 2: of still don't know what we're giving what we're giving
[28:34] Speaker 2: the patient, right, we know that we're giving them something good,
[28:37] Speaker 2: and it definitely works at treating bad stomach about bad
[28:41] Speaker 2: GI infections like cholesteroidies difficy, all that's a bad infection,
[28:47] Speaker 2: but I kind of ironically we actually don't know what's
[28:51] Speaker 2: actually working, what's the good bit. But anyway, what they
[28:56] Speaker 2: did in some of these mouse studies is that they
[28:58] Speaker 2: took some took twins. And there was one famous study
[29:03] Speaker 2: where they had an obese twin.
[29:05] Speaker 1: A a mouse as in a mouse.
[29:07] Speaker 2: A person, a human human okay, so an obese human twin,
[29:12] Speaker 2: and there was a normal body mass index twin, and
[29:15] Speaker 2: they took the stool from the obese twin and also
[29:19] Speaker 2: the normal bem I twin and transplanted that stool into
[29:23] Speaker 2: mice and the obese twins. The mouse that received the
[29:29] Speaker 2: twin stool became obese, well okay, and the mouse that
[29:35] Speaker 2: and then they switched it around and they were able
[29:37] Speaker 2: to replicate it. And we still don't really understand why
[29:41] Speaker 2: all that is. And there's so much that we need
[29:43] Speaker 2: to learn about the microbiome, so much because it's going
[29:46] Speaker 2: to you know, I think in the next five to
[29:48] Speaker 2: ten years things are going to explode. There's no real
[29:50] Speaker 2: way of testing your microbiome. Sure there are.
[29:53] Speaker 1: Really if they can't do when they go down and
[29:55] Speaker 1: take a sample.
[29:56] Speaker 2: Out, they can't. So there's labs out there that will
[29:58] Speaker 2: there's labs out there that will read your microbio and
[30:01] Speaker 2: you know, you pay some you do it poo, send
[30:03] Speaker 2: it away, pay some money, and they send you some
[30:05] Speaker 2: data back. But we don't really know what to do
[30:08] Speaker 2: with that data. Like we know, we do know what
[30:10] Speaker 2: shouldn't be what shouldn't be there. Yeah, we're very good
[30:13] Speaker 2: at working out what shouldn't be there and treating it.
[30:16] Speaker 2: But say you'll get you'll get a mix of you know,
[30:18] Speaker 2: there's there's eight percent of this and one percent of
[30:20] Speaker 2: this and four percent of that, Like what does that mean?
[30:23] Speaker 2: We actually don't know what that means. And I think,
[30:26] Speaker 2: you know, in the next short while that's going to
[30:28] Speaker 2: be really important because I think it's going to be
[30:31] Speaker 2: about then personalizing medicine and saying, hey, you know you're
[30:35] Speaker 2: at increased risk of this or potentially we need a
[30:38] Speaker 2: top up of this and that. And I think that's
[30:40] Speaker 2: just really just going to be just around the corner.
[30:42] Speaker 2: I think that's really exciting.
[30:43] Speaker 1: Maybe maybe we just deal a little bit more into
[30:46] Speaker 1: this micro vime. So what does it mean microbiome? It
[30:49] Speaker 1: is something very small, is it? We're talking about micro
[30:52] Speaker 1: I don't know what is it?
[30:53] Speaker 2: Yeah? So they generally organisms bacteria that live live in
[30:57] Speaker 2: our stomach, but generally more in our small bow and
[31:02] Speaker 2: our large bolt. Okay, And they they're involved in the
[31:06] Speaker 2: immune responses keeping as healthy. They're involved in breaking down,
[31:11] Speaker 2: breaking down things that we eat as well so that
[31:13] Speaker 2: we're able to absorb it better. And the microbiome itself
[31:16] Speaker 2: actually needs feeding like it. You know, we're a human,
[31:20] Speaker 2: but we're made up of so many different organisms inside
[31:23] Speaker 2: us that also need need different They've got different needs,
[31:27] Speaker 2: and I guess, without knowing a lot about it, yet,
[31:32] Speaker 2: we need to keep a good, really healthy balance of
[31:34] Speaker 2: different bugs so that we're able to break down different
[31:38] Speaker 2: nutrients to keep our immune system and other things functioning
[31:42] Speaker 2: as good as they can be. And so that's why
[31:44] Speaker 2: you might have heard some people talk about eating maybe
[31:47] Speaker 2: different colors of vegetables. There's something in that and we
[31:51] Speaker 2: don't quite know. For mod foods, formented they're kind of
[31:54] Speaker 2: like the original probiotic actually, like fermented foods have been
[31:57] Speaker 2: around for so long, and you know, will pay so
[32:00] Speaker 2: much money for probiotics. But but anyone can actually for
[32:04] Speaker 2: men like you just need some some salt and whatever
[32:06] Speaker 2: you want it for men's and that's that's so good
[32:10] Speaker 2: for the gut, for the for the GI tract, for
[32:12] Speaker 2: the gut.
[32:13] Speaker 1: So you would say to your patients or to anyone listening,
[32:16] Speaker 1: have for mental.
[32:17] Speaker 2: Foods, They're so good, absolutely, and for.
[32:19] Speaker 1: Mental food is sort of meaning I guess we would
[32:21] Speaker 1: expand on that a little bit. Pickle food or for example,
[32:26] Speaker 1: what's the one the Koreans have kim chi. Kim chi
[32:28] Speaker 1: kim chi is great. And the Germans they have in
[32:31] Speaker 1: Germany they have sour crowd.
[32:33] Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, they do. They have it with process meats,
[32:36] Speaker 2: though they often have it with some frankfort or something
[32:39] Speaker 2: that we should we ideally rather not have, ideally shouldn't
[32:42] Speaker 2: be eating. Yeah, but the sour crawt's good, yeah, and
[32:44] Speaker 2: it does taste, it's pretty good.
[32:46] Speaker 1: So because you know, you go to the stores now
[32:49] Speaker 1: and you know the health move is going on pretty hard,
[32:52] Speaker 1: and a microbiome is getting talked about it because everyone's
[32:55] Speaker 1: on Instagram, everyone's interested in living longer, longevity, blah blah blah.
[32:58] Speaker 1: They keep we caep Gett talked about it. My people
[33:00] Speaker 1: keep talking us about microbums, but we don't even know
[33:02] Speaker 1: what they're talking about. And maybe some of the people
[33:04] Speaker 1: are talking to us on those mediums don't know what
[33:06] Speaker 1: they're talking about either. But nonetheless, you are saying, and
[33:10] Speaker 1: they do talk about for mended foods, irrespective of whether
[33:15] Speaker 1: they're correct or completely accurate or partly accurate or not,
[33:21] Speaker 1: for mended foods are good for us.
[33:22] Speaker 2: They're so good for us. Yeah, And there's always to like,
[33:25] Speaker 2: just do it yourself at home, and.
[33:26] Speaker 1: Really you do it?
[33:27] Speaker 2: Yeah, done it. I've done it. Yeah, I've done it.
[33:29] Speaker 1: So true it has to be cold. Is it true
[33:33] Speaker 1: that the only ones that are effective are the ones
[33:35] Speaker 1: you have to keep in the fridge? For example, like
[33:38] Speaker 1: pickles you don't keep in the fridge, So maybe they
[33:40] Speaker 1: don't work.
[33:41] Speaker 2: Probably, I'm not I'm not across that data. Maybe maybe not.
[33:45] Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
[33:46] Speaker 1: Yeah, but the stuff when you make yours you put
[33:48] Speaker 1: in a fridge, that's right, It has like a I
[33:51] Speaker 1: use these things cross I like the taste of chymmetry.
[33:54] Speaker 1: But sometimes when I open it up the jar, it's
[33:56] Speaker 1: sort of like it's a bit I don't know what
[33:59] Speaker 1: you call it. It's like a bit buzzy in my mouth.
[34:01] Speaker 1: Like it's like it's like a live.
[34:03] Speaker 2: Maybe that's like the vinegar in it or something. I
[34:05] Speaker 2: don't know what that is that, but I know what
[34:06] Speaker 2: I know, you alive.
[34:08] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like the first time it tastes them. Just
[34:10] Speaker 1: open the jar. It feels like, actually something I just
[34:13] Speaker 1: put something live in math. Because what seems to me,
[34:16] Speaker 1: you know when you say this sort of stuff, it
[34:17] Speaker 1: seems like we coexist, our human body, our human biology
[34:23] Speaker 1: coexists with some of these little other things in there
[34:26] Speaker 1: which are helping us get through our day, and at
[34:29] Speaker 1: the same time we're helping them. So it was like
[34:30] Speaker 1: a symbiotic relationship. Or is that part of the human body?
[34:34] Speaker 1: Those back to you? Are they actually do you consider
[34:36] Speaker 1: them as part of the human body or are they
[34:37] Speaker 1: something else?
[34:38] Speaker 2: I think that they're part of us that can be tweaked,
[34:42] Speaker 2: you know, in our favor. Well, I mean to harp
[34:46] Speaker 2: back to to keeping it all healthy. I think we
[34:49] Speaker 2: really the simplest way to put it is that we
[34:51] Speaker 2: need to think about what our grandparents used to eat
[34:54] Speaker 2: when they were kids, because it's like most of us,
[34:58] Speaker 2: including me, I don't like that, and we all should
[35:01] Speaker 2: be eating that kind of it's pretty boring, but that
[35:03] Speaker 2: unprocessed stuff, you know, we should be when we're at
[35:06] Speaker 2: the supermarket, shopping around the edge of the supermarket, buying
[35:09] Speaker 2: the stuff that's probably not that eye level, buying the
[35:11] Speaker 2: stuff that's not in the glossy packages, spending more time
[35:14] Speaker 2: in the front and veggie section. I don't know, if
[35:16] Speaker 2: you like in Japan, it's pretty amazing. You go to
[35:19] Speaker 2: the meat section and the red meat section is is
[35:23] Speaker 2: tiny and the fish section is huge, and I feel
[35:27] Speaker 2: like we've got thunders on.
[35:28] Speaker 1: I don't know. They just think that fish is better
[35:31] Speaker 1: for us than red meat.
[35:32] Speaker 2: I don't know, it is better for us, like it
[35:34] Speaker 2: is we.
[35:34] Speaker 1: Talk about that. I mean it is because it's like
[35:38] Speaker 1: it's funny. I don't need a lot of red meat,
[35:40] Speaker 1: not because I'm not a vegetari anytho that, but I
[35:42] Speaker 1: just prefer white meat and or fish. Chicken or fish
[35:46] Speaker 1: is my two things, Earli. But I know some people
[35:51] Speaker 1: say to me, you should eat like a bit of
[35:54] Speaker 1: red meat every at least every second day for all
[35:56] Speaker 1: the you know, the nutrition you get out of it,
[35:59] Speaker 1: like it's got all the you know, amino acids that
[36:02] Speaker 1: you need to get, you know, out of a bit
[36:06] Speaker 1: of food whatever. But what's the issue room me? Because
[36:09] Speaker 1: I come from a family Greek right and farmers. There
[36:15] Speaker 1: is no red meat in my dad's village. Where my
[36:17] Speaker 1: dad village you come from, none because they don't have
[36:20] Speaker 1: cows because all mountains very rare. You see cows in
[36:23] Speaker 1: Greece and there's some passion of grease, mostly mountains. So
[36:26] Speaker 1: the only animals you've got his goat, chickens, pigeons, and
[36:31] Speaker 1: if you're on an island, you got fish and of
[36:33] Speaker 1: course pork, but they don't need a lot of it,
[36:37] Speaker 1: so chicken and fish. And therefore when those people come
[36:42] Speaker 1: to Australia, I remember the doctor saying to my dad
[36:44] Speaker 1: and his brothers, you're eating too much for met because
[36:47] Speaker 1: all of a sudden comes straight and the red meat
[36:48] Speaker 1: is available, and again the supermarket there's rump. Statelers have
[36:51] Speaker 1: rump every night. And it turns out it was the
[36:54] Speaker 1: worst possible thing for my family because of my dad's
[36:57] Speaker 1: six brothers, three four, died at the same age und
[37:02] Speaker 1: seventy two, seventy three, seventy four, oh by the bow
[37:04] Speaker 1: or something counts including his mum okay so and I
[37:08] Speaker 1: often wonder whether it was something to do with their diet.
[37:10] Speaker 2: What sounds like, you've got a you've got a pretty
[37:12] Speaker 2: strong maybe genetic history, but definitely diet comes into it,
[37:16] Speaker 2: and red meat particularly and it's actually you know, so
[37:19] Speaker 2: the counts, the Cancer Counts of Australia recommends if you
[37:23] Speaker 2: choose to eat red meat, which you don't have to
[37:25] Speaker 2: eat red meat, but if you choose to eat red meat,
[37:27] Speaker 2: it should be a maximum of five hundred grams per
[37:30] Speaker 2: week of cooked meat. And importantly it's kind of dependent
[37:33] Speaker 2: on how he cook it too, actually, so don't char
[37:37] Speaker 2: it for example. Yeah, growing up as a get we
[37:39] Speaker 2: took my dad off barbecue duties when I was six
[37:42] Speaker 2: and I took over it because he's to chart just
[37:44] Speaker 2: everything to a tea And you're right, So there's this
[37:47] Speaker 2: thing called heterocyclic amines HCAs, and that's what is given
[37:54] Speaker 2: off when muscle, so meat is cooked at high, high temperature,
[37:59] Speaker 2: and that's really bad along with you know, when you're
[38:02] Speaker 2: cooking say lamb chops, and you get the fat that
[38:04] Speaker 2: drips onto the barbecue and then it tastes good. The
[38:07] Speaker 2: flame kind of comes up and the.
[38:09] Speaker 1: For the so fat that's yeah.
[38:10] Speaker 2: So that's that process that coats the stuff that coats
[38:15] Speaker 2: the meat. There's a little bit of this thing called
[38:17] Speaker 2: the crust. Yeah, the crust is good, and I always
[38:19] Speaker 2: aim for the crust. However, you get this thing called
[38:22] Speaker 2: polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Let's try and think of a short
[38:28] Speaker 2: name for that. These things have such long names. But
[38:31] Speaker 2: you know, both of those things by having the crust
[38:36] Speaker 2: is actually pretty bad for us. Both of those byproducts
[38:40] Speaker 2: have been shown to alter DNA and increase your risk
[38:43] Speaker 2: of stuff like bow cancer.
[38:44] Speaker 1: Wow, and it's that orders in the stomach. Words.
[38:47] Speaker 2: But yeah, and so if you want to if you
[38:50] Speaker 2: want to eat red meat, there are ways of slide cook, yeah,
[38:53] Speaker 2: slow cook it maybe a reverse reverse yere yeah yeah,
[38:56] Speaker 2: put in the oven and then maybe finish it off
[38:58] Speaker 2: on the bark. But it's about yeah, slow, slow, looking
[39:00] Speaker 2: reducing the amount of time that the meat is exposed
[39:04] Speaker 2: to open flame. Marinades are good, you know, maybe try
[39:07] Speaker 2: to avoid the marinades that have a high sugar content
[39:10] Speaker 2: because that increases the risk of charring. But there's been
[39:13] Speaker 2: a bit of evidence showing that, you know, marinades with vinegar,
[39:16] Speaker 2: the red red wine, vinegar, citrus, that kind of stuff.
[39:19] Speaker 2: Rosemary reduces the amount of these byproducts that are made.
[39:24] Speaker 2: You know, we can get into the nitty gritty of it,
[39:26] Speaker 2: but ideally reduce the amount of red meat that you
[39:30] Speaker 2: eat and slow cook it.
[39:32] Speaker 1: Yes, And actually that's funny you should say, because if
[39:35] Speaker 1: my father would have been eating meat when he was
[39:38] Speaker 1: in his village, they would have been slow cooking it
[39:40] Speaker 1: because they didn't have barbecues. They put it in a
[39:42] Speaker 1: think or a funa and they put it then over
[39:44] Speaker 1: not they heat the fauna up to four un degrees.
[39:47] Speaker 1: They put the food inside overnight, they close the it's
[39:50] Speaker 1: like like a pizza of it. They close the front
[39:53] Speaker 1: of it and they eat it the next day, lunched
[39:55] Speaker 1: on and they'd cook it very very slowly for fourteen
[39:59] Speaker 1: to fifteen hours. And that's on the few occasions that
[40:02] Speaker 1: they had lamb or goat, or on occasional big beefers,
[40:06] Speaker 1: I guess. But yeah, that's funny that it was always
[40:08] Speaker 1: slow called. It was a barbecue based it's it's very interesting.
[40:11] Speaker 1: So so there are in terms of our tummy health,
[40:15] Speaker 1: our stomach health. How important if you just look at
[40:20] Speaker 1: one of the big killers of Australians this cancer is
[40:23] Speaker 1: the second number one, number two killer, one of the
[40:25] Speaker 1: big cancer killers, the stomach cancer, vowel cancer generally, how
[40:30] Speaker 1: important is well, where where does it? Where does your
[40:34] Speaker 1: risk analysis line? Not yours, but how do you risk
[40:37] Speaker 1: and analyze somebody? You say, is it? Is it more
[40:40] Speaker 1: weight on what we put in our gut versus or
[40:45] Speaker 1: is it more weight on our family history?
[40:48] Speaker 2: So agent genetics definitely number one, number two biggest risk
[40:53] Speaker 2: factors for cancer in the in the gut. We're twenty
[40:57] Speaker 2: about generally about stomach about cancer.
[41:02] Speaker 1: Can you just do stomach first and then yeah, so
[41:05] Speaker 1: stomach YEP, so it's age.
[41:07] Speaker 2: Yeah, so so genetics, age and genetics really important. Yeah, sure, definitely,
[41:12] Speaker 2: it's important like what you're eating. And as we were
[41:15] Speaker 2: talking about before with helicobacter, that's also critical that if
[41:19] Speaker 2: if there's helico back to detected that we get rid
[41:21] Speaker 2: of it. It's really important to make sure that you
[41:24] Speaker 2: get rid of it and you have got rid of it.
[41:25] Speaker 2: So usually six weeks or so after you've had the
[41:29] Speaker 2: eradication therapy, you check with that breath test I was
[41:32] Speaker 2: talking about to make sure that there's no more helicobacter.
[41:36] Speaker 1: But because you're going to get all of it, Yeah,
[41:38] Speaker 1: because it will grow back.
[41:39] Speaker 2: Yeah that's right.
[41:40] Speaker 1: But if you don't eliminate it, yeah, you need to get.
[41:42] Speaker 2: Rid of it. But yeah, definitely, Like at a first consultation,
[41:47] Speaker 2: like with a patient, I always talk to them about
[41:48] Speaker 2: their family history because that's that's critical, you know, especially
[41:51] Speaker 2: first decree relatives if they've had a cancer, like a
[41:55] Speaker 2: stomach cancer, about cancer like less than the age sixty,
[41:59] Speaker 2: that's really important. The number of second degree relatives as
[42:02] Speaker 2: well with a cancer is also really key, so that always.
[42:07] Speaker 2: You know, we talk about guidelines, and guidelines are important
[42:10] Speaker 2: as a basis as a framework, but I think we've
[42:14] Speaker 2: we've kind of gone beyond that, and we should be
[42:17] Speaker 2: really providing individualized medicine to the patient in front of us,
[42:21] Speaker 2: you know, accounting for their personal risks, and that's up
[42:25] Speaker 2: to us. I suppose that's the skill of the clinician.
[42:28] Speaker 2: What they should be doing is is not you know,
[42:30] Speaker 2: anyone can just look at guidelines and say, yeah, I
[42:32] Speaker 2: tick this box. That box. Whatever. You know, we should
[42:35] Speaker 2: be really individualizing our care to the patient in front
[42:37] Speaker 2: of us.
[42:38] Speaker 1: But that's once they get to you.
[42:40] Speaker 2: Yep.
[42:40] Speaker 1: So let's say somebody's look, I can't believe the number
[42:44] Speaker 1: of people I've met over fifty I've never had a colonosby,
[42:47] Speaker 1: never menaged in any gastroentrologist. I just can't believe it.
[42:52] Speaker 1: Like it doesn't mean you have to have a good
[42:56] Speaker 1: but least issues. Go and see a specialist and go
[42:58] Speaker 1: through the questionnaires. If if you're if someone will come
[43:03] Speaker 1: in to see you and you've never seen it before,
[43:05] Speaker 1: they're just routine, you know, their GP sent them off
[43:08] Speaker 1: to see you. What would you what would you first
[43:11] Speaker 1: say them? Would you say, I, look look at you
[43:13] Speaker 1: mom side, on your dad's side. Let's say they've got
[43:17] Speaker 1: two people in their family of on both sides. Do
[43:20] Speaker 1: you do a probability analysis?
[43:22] Speaker 2: Yeah, so so we would say, I mean that's all.
[43:25] Speaker 2: That's all that that is in the guidelines already. Actually,
[43:28] Speaker 2: so so.
[43:29] Speaker 1: Where can they see these guidelines? Where can the Consumer guardline?
[43:32] Speaker 2: They can find that on the the for example, the
[43:35] Speaker 2: bow cancer astray our website, and there's other there's other
[43:37] Speaker 2: government websites where they can look and they can see,
[43:40] Speaker 2: you know, the relative risk of a cancer is maybe
[43:43] Speaker 2: double that of the rest of the population or whatever.
[43:45] Speaker 2: But you know, not everyone needs to see a gasrindrolagist.
[43:49] Speaker 2: Like the GP specialists are really good at at taking
[43:52] Speaker 2: your family history and managing risk as well. I mean,
[43:55] Speaker 2: I know that they they're under a lot of time
[43:57] Speaker 2: pressures and a lot of the framework needs to change.
[44:01] Speaker 2: I think around that so that GP specialists are given
[44:04] Speaker 2: more time, allowed more time, I had more money to
[44:06] Speaker 2: do it, I think, so, yeah, there's got to be
[44:08] Speaker 2: some big changes that it's not I just think it's wrong.
[44:10] Speaker 1: I mean, I know people carry on about the costcount
[44:12] Speaker 1: and se GP, but these people have been in the
[44:15] Speaker 1: university five six years. I mean, if you're going to
[44:17] Speaker 1: this equivalent lawyer, you're going to after ten years of
[44:19] Speaker 1: practicing round twelve hundred bucks an hour. These poor fellows
[44:22] Speaker 1: and women are getting like two hundred bucks an hour.
[44:25] Speaker 1: That makes sense. And I wanted this sort of better
[44:28] Speaker 1: get through a few of these to make make worth
[44:30] Speaker 1: my while. And there's this conflict. It's a shitty trade
[44:33] Speaker 1: off in terms of you know, our national health. From
[44:37] Speaker 1: my point of view. So you're saying, when you talk
[44:39] Speaker 1: to GP, you might have gone to the website and
[44:41] Speaker 1: just noticed something. Maybe a GP hasn't answered the question.
[44:44] Speaker 1: You go to see a GP and you say, look, Doc,
[44:47] Speaker 1: both on my mum and dad's side, I've got someone's
[44:49] Speaker 1: die from bell cancer, whatever the case, in which case
[44:53] Speaker 1: the doctor will note that and will sort of do
[44:55] Speaker 1: it a like it's a statistical analysis. It's not like,
[45:00] Speaker 1: but based on statistics, we know you guys know that.
[45:04] Speaker 1: You know if your mum and dad both got cancer
[45:06] Speaker 1: on there, both sides are bow cancer, you've got a
[45:09] Speaker 1: fifty percent of those people who are in that category
[45:11] Speaker 1: get cancer.
[45:12] Speaker 2: Yeah, so you've got along those lines. With that example,
[45:14] Speaker 2: we'd say, yeah, you're moderate risk of bow cancer. What
[45:17] Speaker 2: that means is that your risk, your relative risk, is
[45:21] Speaker 2: double that of the rest of the population. That's right,
[45:24] Speaker 2: so we always compare.
[45:25] Speaker 1: Doesn't mean you're going to get it.
[45:26] Speaker 2: No way, No, it definitely doesn't mean you're going to
[45:28] Speaker 2: get it. But with patients like that, part of the
[45:31] Speaker 2: guidelines where there's an increased risk is to offer a
[45:34] Speaker 2: colonoscopy from the age of fifty or ten years younger
[45:38] Speaker 2: than when your relative was diagnosed with the cancer.
[45:42] Speaker 1: Right, that's interesting ten years young. So if your relative
[45:44] Speaker 1: was diagnosed with cancer fifty they say at forty.
[45:46] Speaker 2: Yeah, because these generally like and I know we're talking
[45:49] Speaker 2: about stomach stuff, but if we moved to the bow
[45:51] Speaker 2: for a second, and no bow cancers, really it's actually
[45:53] Speaker 2: we're lucky that it's actually really slow growing. So generally
[45:56] Speaker 2: bow cancers develop over ten plus years and it's one
[46:00] Speaker 2: of the few cancers that we can prevent by removing polyps.
[46:04] Speaker 2: So polyps are these pre cancer as things. So by
[46:09] Speaker 2: starting to screen patients that are at increase risk ten
[46:12] Speaker 2: years beforehand, the idea is to prevent cancer. So fine,
[46:16] Speaker 2: if there's any pollups, just remove them. It's really straightforward.
[46:19] Speaker 2: It's you know, a day procedure, a half day procedure,
[46:22] Speaker 2: and they go home. And generally, if there's been pollups found,
[46:26] Speaker 2: patients come back every five years, sometimes more frequently if
[46:29] Speaker 2: there were bigger polyps or you know, a high number
[46:31] Speaker 2: of pollups, but generally once every five years. So it's
[46:33] Speaker 2: really straightforward. But not everyone ever, not every Australian needs
[46:37] Speaker 2: a colonos could be every Australian should participate though in
[46:40] Speaker 2: the have you heard of the National Bower Cancer Screening program.
[46:43] Speaker 1: Yeah, with advertising on radio in all times.
[46:44] Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's been broadened now to include people from
[46:47] Speaker 2: the age of forty five because we're seeing a lot
[46:50] Speaker 2: more bower cancer in young strands.
[46:52] Speaker 1: And what do you Is there any sense of why
[46:54] Speaker 1: that's the case.
[46:55] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a real worry. Like the incidents.
[47:00] Speaker 2: So Australia is now unfortunately leading the world in the
[47:03] Speaker 2: incidents of bow cancer in young Australians.
[47:05] Speaker 1: Really, yeah, as a proportion of our total population. You mean,
[47:09] Speaker 1: not in absolute times, but in relative terms.
[47:11] Speaker 2: So it's actually it's still a rare thing. It's a
[47:13] Speaker 2: rare thing, but you know Australia we have sort of
[47:16] Speaker 2: twelve cases per one hundred thousand people. That's the way
[47:19] Speaker 2: they look at the incidents. So it's still it's a
[47:21] Speaker 2: rare thing, but it's becoming more common. We know that
[47:25] Speaker 2: the incidents of bow cancer, and I mean they're not
[47:28] Speaker 2: older Australians, but the australian's over fifty. The incidence of
[47:31] Speaker 2: bow cancer is actually reducing because we've got this really
[47:33] Speaker 2: robust screening program now, but unfortunately we're seeing that increase
[47:38] Speaker 2: in younger Australians. So if you were born in nineteen ninety,
[47:41] Speaker 2: you're after your risk of rectal cancer is four times
[47:45] Speaker 2: that of someone born in nineteen fifty. Well, and you've
[47:48] Speaker 2: got double risk of colon cancer. So the rectum and
[47:51] Speaker 2: colon they're joined. The yeah, they're kind of joined, you
[47:55] Speaker 2: could say col erectum. So the colon is the large
[47:58] Speaker 2: bout yep and the rectum is the bit like right
[48:01] Speaker 2: down the bottom, like just before like just just before
[48:04] Speaker 2: the opening exactly. Yeah. So that's really really concerning. And
[48:09] Speaker 2: there's there's seventeen hundred new cases of bow cancering young
[48:13] Speaker 2: astrains each year. I was doing a talk about it yesterday. Yeah,
[48:19] Speaker 2: they have a sense of why. It's got to be
[48:21] Speaker 2: something to do So we don't know, but I mean
[48:24] Speaker 2: a lot of people are saying that it's got to
[48:26] Speaker 2: be to do with our environment, something that we are
[48:29] Speaker 2: being exposed to that we don't know about. And surely
[48:32] Speaker 2: it's going to be to do with microplastics. And you know,
[48:37] Speaker 2: I mean in our house, for example, we've got rid
[48:38] Speaker 2: of some of those you know, those microwave save plastic containers.
[48:41] Speaker 2: We've kind of change the ever to glass because it
[48:43] Speaker 2: just I mean, that's not an evidence based and I'm
[48:45] Speaker 2: not trying to fear monger either, Yeah, but it just
[48:47] Speaker 2: kind of it's intuitive. It makes sense that probably in
[48:50] Speaker 2: ten years time we're going to see all these great
[48:52] Speaker 2: studies coming out just saying that, hey, microplastics are causing
[48:56] Speaker 2: chronic inflammation and an increase in the risk of cancer.
[49:00] Speaker 2: So there's something probably in our environment. And there's probably
[49:03] Speaker 2: other things too, maybe antibiotic use as well, and maybe
[49:06] Speaker 2: to do with our diets that are increasing our risk
[49:08] Speaker 2: of bow cancer and young astrands. And the big problem,
[49:12] Speaker 2: the big problem I think with bow cancering young A
[49:15] Speaker 2: strands is that it's usually diagnosed later, and it's usually
[49:18] Speaker 2: at a more advanced stage. So you know, say if
[49:22] Speaker 2: you've got if you're a thirty year old with rectal bleeding,
[49:25] Speaker 2: like there used to be this this misconception that you'd say, well,
[49:29] Speaker 2: that's that's hemorrhoids, henoids, Yeah, yeah.
[49:32] Speaker 1: Exactly, camus and vibe yeah and your soul.
[49:35] Speaker 2: Treat yourself. And it's this funny thing that when you
[49:38] Speaker 2: turn fifty, everyone starts worrying about cancer. Everyone. You know,
[49:42] Speaker 2: the twinge in your back, it's cancer, or you know,
[49:43] Speaker 2: a bit of rectal bleeding, it's cancer. But under the
[49:46] Speaker 2: age of fifty, oh, it's piles. As you said, diet
[49:49] Speaker 2: and you're coming out of toilet probably that's right. So
[49:52] Speaker 2: unfortunately patients are presenting later to their GP specialists, and
[49:56] Speaker 2: then then there used to be this age bias as well,
[49:59] Speaker 2: where sometimes the GP specialists would say, well, you know,
[50:03] Speaker 2: it should resolve with you know, some cream or something,
[50:06] Speaker 2: come back in three months if it doesn't. But we're
[50:09] Speaker 2: seeing a change now, a good change where patients are
[50:13] Speaker 2: becoming or the population is becoming more aware of this.
[50:16] Speaker 2: This bow cancer youngestrains and we really should be we
[50:19] Speaker 2: should be treating people the same. I mean, there's a reason,
[50:22] Speaker 2: there is a reason why a sixty five year old
[50:24] Speaker 2: with rector bleeding, you know, they're more likely to have
[50:27] Speaker 2: bow cancer than a thirty year old with rectal bleeding.
[50:30] Speaker 2: Like definitely, of course, But I think that we just
[50:32] Speaker 2: need to get it.
[50:33] Speaker 1: Doesn't mean you treat one less than the other, No,
[50:35] Speaker 1: we just.
[50:35] Speaker 2: Need to care for it. Just there's this funny thing
[50:37] Speaker 2: in our minds where if you're over fifty, it's cancer
[50:40] Speaker 2: until proven otherwise. Yeah, it's funny, isn't it. Yeah, and
[50:42] Speaker 2: I've got there's so many patient stories that I've seen
[50:46] Speaker 2: just like that in young Australians. So it's a rare
[50:49] Speaker 2: thing but unfortunately diagnosed in any heaps.
[50:53] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean people are around forty that type of
[50:57] Speaker 1: age group.
[50:58] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I can share. I I saw a
[51:02] Speaker 2: like I'm sharing this with with permission, but I saw
[51:04] Speaker 2: a patient who she was twenty eight. She had a
[51:08] Speaker 2: bit of bleeding during her second pregnancy. She was from
[51:12] Speaker 2: Country Victoria and yeah, and then then the bleeding continued
[51:17] Speaker 2: after having the baby, and continued for another six months
[51:20] Speaker 2: after and she was busy, you know, with her kids
[51:23] Speaker 2: at home, and eventually you know, went to the GP
[51:26] Speaker 2: specialists and had a colon oskby and unfortunately there was
[51:30] Speaker 2: a big cancer which has now been treated she needed.
[51:35] Speaker 2: Unfortunately it was too late a stage to have it
[51:38] Speaker 2: removed with a colonosky, which you can do for early
[51:41] Speaker 2: cancers that's been treated now. But I guess this is
[51:44] Speaker 2: what we're seeing. We're seeing delays in care kind of
[51:48] Speaker 2: biased by age. I think so.
[51:52] Speaker 1: And some againdal a bowel cancer. Is it the same
[51:56] Speaker 1: for men and women? Like into the stats or is
[51:59] Speaker 1: there a but does it sort of prefer one or
[52:01] Speaker 1: the other.
[52:02] Speaker 2: Yeah, So I mean there is a there, there is
[52:06] Speaker 2: a preference. But I think I just think that we
[52:08] Speaker 2: need to be we need to be better at getting
[52:14] Speaker 2: the getting these patients colonosky is quickly like this, this
[52:18] Speaker 2: poor lady. You know, really, I think should have had
[52:19] Speaker 2: a colonosky earlier than what she did. And people who
[52:22] Speaker 2: are pregnant, I think sometimes don't get the work up,
[52:26] Speaker 2: don't get the medical work up that they deserve and
[52:29] Speaker 2: need because they're pregnant as well. So I think we
[52:32] Speaker 2: need to get we need to get better at that
[52:34] Speaker 2: in the medical community.
[52:35] Speaker 1: So maybe you could just explain something about you mentioned
[52:39] Speaker 1: polyps in the bow or in the rectomand or in
[52:43] Speaker 1: the colon that area, but I think you said two
[52:45] Speaker 1: areas corect Maybe you can explain you might get some bleeding,
[52:51] Speaker 1: but you might not have bleeding. So when you're first
[52:53] Speaker 1: when the polyps are first appearing, you don't know. It's
[52:56] Speaker 1: a bit of a silent thing, like you don't feel
[52:58] Speaker 1: anything you're going to feeling in those parts of body,
[53:01] Speaker 1: have you because is it because there's no nerves in
[53:02] Speaker 1: there or something?
[53:03] Speaker 2: We don't know the nerves are different the nerves, like
[53:05] Speaker 2: we our nerves in our in our in our sort
[53:08] Speaker 2: of inside us work really differently to the nerves in
[53:11] Speaker 2: our skin. Like if someone puts a pin prick onto
[53:15] Speaker 2: your skin, you can you could close your eyes and
[53:17] Speaker 2: you would know within millimeters where that where that pin
[53:20] Speaker 2: is pokeon. S really different on the inside, So our
[53:23] Speaker 2: nerves work differently. That's why things like appendicitis sometimes present.
[53:27] Speaker 2: So the appendix is on the right side of your belly,
[53:29] Speaker 2: but sometimes it presents with left sided pain, you know,
[53:31] Speaker 2: central pain, and takes a while for the nerves to
[53:34] Speaker 2: work out where things are. So to answer your question, yeah,
[53:37] Speaker 2: polyps pre cancerous lesions in the large bow. We don't
[53:43] Speaker 2: know that they're there, and when they start bleeding generally
[53:46] Speaker 2: that's you know, some of the pre cancerous ones will bleed,
[53:49] Speaker 2: but generally that's when it's become a cancer. And that's
[53:52] Speaker 2: that's when it starts to bleed. So we need to
[53:54] Speaker 2: we need to detect these things before they become before
[53:58] Speaker 2: they become cancers. I get indications for a colonosky Why
[54:01] Speaker 2: would why would a patient come for a colonoscity that
[54:04] Speaker 2: might be like abdominal pain, so pain in their belly
[54:07] Speaker 2: that's kind of unexplained. Iron deficiencies are really common. Or bleeding, Yeah, yeah,
[54:12] Speaker 2: because they're bleeding or as we talked about before, rectal
[54:15] Speaker 2: bleeding and a change in bowel habits also really important.
[54:18] Speaker 1: What does it mean? Because that's one that my guest
[54:20] Speaker 1: fromdologists ask me every time, what do you mean by
[54:23] Speaker 1: change of bowl habits? So as I understand it, maybe
[54:26] Speaker 1: I'll just test it on it. Like if I, let's
[54:28] Speaker 1: say I'm using on the toilet every day at six am.
[54:30] Speaker 1: If all of sudden as I go into the toilet
[54:32] Speaker 1: at eleven pm, is that what you mean by be habits?
[54:35] Speaker 2: Oh, it's more so that like say, if you're everyone,
[54:37] Speaker 2: everyone's a bit different. So some people might open the
[54:39] Speaker 2: bows once a day, some people might do it once
[54:42] Speaker 2: every three days. Right, but if there's a change, so
[54:44] Speaker 2: like if you're opening your burs you know, normally you're
[54:46] Speaker 2: a once a day person, and it changes and so
[54:48] Speaker 2: now it's three or four times a day. You know,
[54:50] Speaker 2: you might have lost a bit of weight, or maybe
[54:52] Speaker 2: the other way. You're a bit more constipated than what
[54:54] Speaker 2: you normally are, so you normally open your bars once
[54:56] Speaker 2: a day, but now it's once every three or four
[54:59] Speaker 2: or five days.
[55:00] Speaker 1: You know, so sounds scary.
[55:02] Speaker 2: Yeah, And so you know, these are the kind of
[55:04] Speaker 2: patients that that are not not suited to the National
[55:08] Speaker 2: Bowercant Screening Program because they've got symptoms. So that's really
[55:12] Speaker 2: really important distinction. Patients who have no symptoms at all,
[55:17] Speaker 2: they're the pa or they're the people. They're not patients,
[55:20] Speaker 2: they're the people that should be undertaking the National Bowercant
[55:23] Speaker 2: Screening program. Anyone with symptoms, it kind of doesn't cut
[55:26] Speaker 2: it to do the fee color cop blood test. The
[55:29] Speaker 2: stool test adoted those ones. Yeah, that's right, because you know,
[55:33] Speaker 2: even if that tests were negative, you've still got symptoms
[55:36] Speaker 2: that need investigating. And things that things that are in
[55:40] Speaker 2: the and the bow are not always bleeding. They might
[55:42] Speaker 2: bleed off and on and so you might have a
[55:45] Speaker 2: reassuring normal test, but how you've still got symptoms. So
[55:49] Speaker 2: you need you need to see a doctor.
[55:50] Speaker 1: And so should we look at our when we got
[55:52] Speaker 1: to talk it? Should we at any certain age, but
[55:55] Speaker 1: should we be looking at what we've left midh there's
[55:59] Speaker 1: people that look and people that don't look.
[56:00] Speaker 2: I think I'm an advocated for looking I think that
[56:03] Speaker 2: it's a very and how.
[56:04] Speaker 1: Would you just see blood? Is it because it'll be
[56:07] Speaker 1: bright red or is it dark? I mean, like how
[56:09] Speaker 1: would jump for his blood there or not?
[56:10] Speaker 2: So you won't always see it. And that's the benefit
[56:13] Speaker 2: of that fecal cop blood test that it detects microscopic blood.
[56:16] Speaker 2: But you can sometimes see blood. You might see bright
[56:18] Speaker 2: red blood if the blood has come from higher up.
[56:21] Speaker 2: So if the bloods come from the stomach area, or
[56:24] Speaker 2: if the blood's been mixed with acid, it becomes this
[56:27] Speaker 2: blackie color becomes denatured, and so sometimes blood can look
[56:31] Speaker 2: pitch black, but more likely in the if it's come
[56:34] Speaker 2: from the bowl, it might look like streaks of red.
[56:38] Speaker 2: But yeah, I think I think the summary is to
[56:40] Speaker 2: be in tune with your bow habit, and I think
[56:42] Speaker 2: looking is good.
[56:43] Speaker 1: Yeah, No, that makes sense to me because we've got
[56:46] Speaker 1: to take control of these things ourselves, because the doctors
[56:49] Speaker 1: usually aren't consultant unless we've got something wrong with us,
[56:53] Speaker 1: and they're not. They're sort of you know, hey, Mark
[56:55] Speaker 1: and just thinks. So I'm just going to look into
[56:58] Speaker 1: the bowl there after a minute of the toil and
[56:59] Speaker 1: just check on that's up to me. So if I
[57:02] Speaker 1: could just talk to you about surgery for a second,
[57:05] Speaker 1: if you don't mind, I'll come back to something in
[57:08] Speaker 1: a sec. But just in terms of out bowel cancer,
[57:12] Speaker 1: no matter where it is, if you get to it
[57:14] Speaker 1: quick enough, it's usually fairly successful, isn't It has a
[57:17] Speaker 1: fairly high success or. I had a couple of mates
[57:19] Speaker 1: of bow cancer, and they'll find after when they got
[57:22] Speaker 1: the all clear after three four years or something like that,
[57:24] Speaker 1: because they cut what do they do? They cut out
[57:26] Speaker 1: and rejoin it? What it's the deal?
[57:27] Speaker 2: Yeah, So I don't so colerectal. I work in kind
[57:30] Speaker 2: of tandem with colerectal surgeons, so I don't do the
[57:34] Speaker 2: cutting bit. But yeah, it's if you find bow cancer
[57:36] Speaker 2: early enough. And we all, I think almost everyone knows
[57:39] Speaker 2: someone who's had bow cancer, whether that be a family
[57:42] Speaker 2: member like a mate or whatever. But if you find
[57:45] Speaker 2: if you find a bow cancer early enough, you can
[57:47] Speaker 2: actually Now there's been great advances in endoscopy, so that's
[57:51] Speaker 2: colonoscopy for example, and you can now actually remove effectively
[57:55] Speaker 2: remove these cancers with a colonoscopy.
[57:58] Speaker 1: Without cutting bits off.
[58:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, which I reckon. I mean, that's part of the
[58:01] Speaker 2: reason why I went into this sort of advance in
[58:04] Speaker 2: dospy because its igon it's really exciting. It's so good
[58:07] Speaker 2: for patients if you can, if you can remove a
[58:10] Speaker 2: cancer just with a colon oskby it's.
[58:13] Speaker 1: The words with with with the instruments as opposed to
[58:16] Speaker 1: cutting someone open.
[58:17] Speaker 2: That's right. You might have a like a like an
[58:19] Speaker 2: electroquartery knife, so like a knife that you can put
[58:22] Speaker 2: down through the through the camera, through the kolonoscope.
[58:26] Speaker 1: Must be small.
[58:27] Speaker 2: It's very small. It's kind of like it's like microsurgery.
[58:30] Speaker 2: It's it's really small. It's not a sharp knife. The
[58:32] Speaker 2: way it cuts is using like an electrocutery, so so
[58:36] Speaker 2: a current exactly like a heat. And and these procedures
[58:39] Speaker 2: for cancers they can take they can take hours, they
[58:42] Speaker 2: can take three four hours to do. So we need
[58:45] Speaker 2: to be selective. We need to make sure that we're
[58:47] Speaker 2: doing these procedes for the right patients.
[58:49] Speaker 1: Hibotic, I guess it's all done by robotics.
[58:51] Speaker 2: I presume I'd love it to be done. So there
[58:53] Speaker 2: is coloratal cancer treatment. Is it can be done by robotics.
[58:57] Speaker 2: This is all done kind of by hand.
[58:59] Speaker 1: Wow.
[59:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, So it takes a long time, but it's pretty
[59:02] Speaker 2: awesome for patients because they can instead of So I
[59:05] Speaker 2: had another example. I had a patient who had a
[59:09] Speaker 2: he had an early cancer in his sort of left
[59:12] Speaker 2: side of his bow, and and we managed to remove
[59:16] Speaker 2: that for him with a good, big, wide margin, And
[59:20] Speaker 2: it took about three four hours. And I did that with
[59:23] Speaker 2: a colleague of mine working together. But if he had
[59:27] Speaker 2: have had colorectal surgery, he would have needed what's called
[59:31] Speaker 2: a left hemi collectomy. So that's removing part of the
[59:34] Speaker 2: left side of the bow. That's a minimum of kind
[59:37] Speaker 2: of three to five days in hospital with you know,
[59:40] Speaker 2: not insignificant morbid immortality, huge health care costs, not to
[59:45] Speaker 2: mention lots of days off work. You know, If you
[59:47] Speaker 2: can come in and potentially have a day procedure or
[59:50] Speaker 2: just staying overnight and go home the next day, I
[59:52] Speaker 2: think it's amazing.
[59:55] Speaker 1: From the inside. Yeah, they're not cutting you open. And
[59:59] Speaker 1: because has risks in itself.
[1:00:01] Speaker 2: So many risks, I mean, you know, definitely, I think
[1:00:03] Speaker 2: in our lifetime we're always going to need that. As
[1:00:06] Speaker 2: you're talking about the conventional surgical approach, so removing things
[1:00:10] Speaker 2: endoscopically or it's only appropriate for early cancers and ideally
[1:00:14] Speaker 2: with bow cancer, trying to prevent cancer actually to begin with,
[1:00:18] Speaker 2: so we're always going to need our surgeons. Our surgeons
[1:00:20] Speaker 2: are so skilled. Yeah, they some operations are done by
[1:00:23] Speaker 2: robotics now, which is which is really cool, really great.
[1:00:27] Speaker 2: But I mean, I guess my job is to try
[1:00:29] Speaker 2: to detect well, firstly prevent bow cancer and also detect
[1:00:34] Speaker 2: it really early so that hopefully we can remove it. Yeah,
[1:00:37] Speaker 2: with a day procedure. Yeah.
[1:00:38] Speaker 1: So and then when you, let's say not you, but
[1:00:42] Speaker 1: the surgeon re moves a polyp. It's just so the
[1:00:47] Speaker 1: audience understands. Generally speaking, they send it off for testing.
[1:00:51] Speaker 2: Is that what happens always? Yeah? So, I mean my
[1:00:54] Speaker 2: day to day is removing these pre cancer as polyps,
[1:00:57] Speaker 2: and we always send everything for testing. We're pretty good,
[1:01:00] Speaker 2: like the optics. The optics are pretty good. It's all
[1:01:02] Speaker 2: high definition, so we we have a pretty good sense
[1:01:04] Speaker 2: of what we're looking at. We always send everything away
[1:01:07] Speaker 2: to triple check. But it's very accurate. And I suppose
[1:01:11] Speaker 2: AI I just going to ask you to a help
[1:01:13] Speaker 2: out here totally. Yeah, it's not it's not very good yet,
[1:01:16] Speaker 2: but it's getting way better, and it's getting better at
[1:01:20] Speaker 2: a scary pace. So there's things now that we're using. Say,
[1:01:23] Speaker 2: for example, when I'm doing a gastroscopy or a colonoscopy,
[1:01:27] Speaker 2: you can turn on this function that I always use
[1:01:29] Speaker 2: where it puts a little box you know, you know,
[1:01:31] Speaker 2: like on the you know, smartphones, how it'll put a
[1:01:33] Speaker 2: box around a face when you're taking a photo. Same
[1:01:36] Speaker 2: with when you're doing a kolonoscopy for example, it'll put
[1:01:38] Speaker 2: a little box around something that it thinks shouldn't be that,
[1:01:40] Speaker 2: like it thinks as a pop.
[1:01:41] Speaker 1: This, AI does this, Yeah, yep, and so it's more
[1:01:44] Speaker 1: than an alert to you. Did you notice this, Oliver? Yeah, yeah,
[1:01:48] Speaker 1: that's fine, but if you didn't, yes, please notice it. Yeah.
[1:01:50] Speaker 2: And you know, I feel like people are people will
[1:01:53] Speaker 2: always say they'll say, oh, I would have seen that anyway.
[1:01:56] Speaker 2: But you know, I think I think.
[1:01:57] Speaker 1: It's company to know that you did see it and
[1:01:59] Speaker 1: you've been reminded of it as well.
[1:02:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know, I think for me it's definitely
[1:02:02] Speaker 2: it's seen things before I've seen them, and I see
[1:02:05] Speaker 2: it as like a like a safety net. So I
[1:02:09] Speaker 2: don't think AI, well, not an hour lifetimes is ever
[1:02:12] Speaker 2: going to be making the decisions because you know we
[1:02:16] Speaker 2: I think AI is going to help augment what we do,
[1:02:19] Speaker 2: and it's going to make us better and more efficient
[1:02:21] Speaker 2: what we do. But I think at the end of
[1:02:23] Speaker 2: the day, we still need to make that human decision.
[1:02:26] Speaker 2: Like I don't think I mean, I won't feel comfortable
[1:02:28] Speaker 2: with with with an AI pilot flying a plane, but
[1:02:33] Speaker 2: you know, maybe maybe our kid's kids will feel very
[1:02:36] Speaker 2: comfortable with that. I wouldn't, but maybe that's showing my age.
[1:02:39] Speaker 2: But I think with saying with medicine and definitely with gastronology,
[1:02:42] Speaker 2: we're going to have all these advances in AI, so
[1:02:45] Speaker 2: many more and and in fact, it's got to the
[1:02:47] Speaker 2: stage where it can say, if I can see a pollop,
[1:02:50] Speaker 2: it'll put what it thinks the polyp is, whether it's
[1:02:52] Speaker 2: an early cancer or whether it thinks it's what we
[1:02:55] Speaker 2: call a serrated pollop or something else. So it'll put
[1:02:57] Speaker 2: that on the screen and it will tell me what
[1:02:59] Speaker 2: it thinks it is, and and it's it's usually right.
[1:03:03] Speaker 2: It's definitely not perfect any generally any polyps we remove anyway.
[1:03:07] Speaker 2: But but anyway, I think watched the Space, it's exciting,
[1:03:10] Speaker 2: it's going to be well.
[1:03:10] Speaker 1: That mob called Harris and AI that they they're been
[1:03:14] Speaker 1: pushing I mean, the raise a lot of money, but
[1:03:15] Speaker 1: they've been pushing AI to assist practitioners confirm the diagnosis
[1:03:24] Speaker 1: and or system when they may not have had a diagnosis,
[1:03:27] Speaker 1: and sort of bring them back into the game. That's
[1:03:29] Speaker 1: I think it's quite brilliant. And I don't know if
[1:03:31] Speaker 1: you've dealt with Harris and AO at this stage, but
[1:03:34] Speaker 1: I know that they've been doing. I think a lot
[1:03:35] Speaker 1: of it's more about ameris not not not necessarily your territory,
[1:03:39] Speaker 1: but more AMRI type stuff, especially for memory the body
[1:03:42] Speaker 1: of the brain. Yeah, and can I just just sort
[1:03:46] Speaker 1: of turn the page a little bit and just going
[1:03:48] Speaker 1: back to I don't want to call it preventity, but
[1:03:51] Speaker 1: like just health concerns when we when we what we
[1:03:55] Speaker 1: consume and or exercise. I just want to talk about
[1:03:58] Speaker 1: those two parts before we wrap. Just on food. I
[1:04:03] Speaker 1: remember once a doctor told me and against entroologist told
[1:04:06] Speaker 1: me that you can get this thing called diverticulitis or
[1:04:11] Speaker 1: something like that from not eating enough ruffige. It's called
[1:04:16] Speaker 1: ruffige or Yeah, where does that stuff fit in? Because
[1:04:21] Speaker 1: you know you have these other people now talking about no,
[1:04:23] Speaker 1: you're gonna have the carnival diet. You should never read
[1:04:25] Speaker 1: that stuff. It's it's going to last rate your stomach.
[1:04:27] Speaker 1: You know, only kale or lacrate something or other. I
[1:04:30] Speaker 1: don't I don't buy any of that. But anyway, where
[1:04:34] Speaker 1: where does let's call it ruffige, vegetables, fruit, those things
[1:04:39] Speaker 1: fit into the health of your complete gut from top
[1:04:42] Speaker 1: to bottom.
[1:04:43] Speaker 2: We've got to change our diets. And it's not and
[1:04:45] Speaker 2: it's not it's not as simple as that. It's definitely
[1:04:47] Speaker 2: as simple as that. We need more ruffage, more fiber. So,
[1:04:49] Speaker 2: so fiber is key and.
[1:04:51] Speaker 1: What why is it key? What's so important about it?
[1:04:52] Speaker 2: Yeah? So, so it's it feeds in again to this microbiome,
[1:04:57] Speaker 2: which is really important. Kiwa fruit if it's awesome, it's
[1:05:01] Speaker 2: a great source of fiber. But but fiber is really
[1:05:04] Speaker 2: good for this thing you're talking about called diverticulosis.
[1:05:08] Speaker 1: It's just close.
[1:05:09] Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, you're right, Like diverticulitis is when.
[1:05:12] Speaker 1: There's another word called, there's another one.
[1:05:14] Speaker 2: There's always like nuances that they probably just need to
[1:05:16] Speaker 2: be almost different names. But the diveticulitis, the itis means inflammation,
[1:05:21] Speaker 2: So diverticulosis is just these little pockets in the mouth. Yeah,
[1:05:24] Speaker 2: he told the little pockets, but are really they're really
[1:05:26] Speaker 2: really common and for most people, they they don't even
[1:05:29] Speaker 2: know that they've got them unless they've had a colonoscopy.
[1:05:31] Speaker 2: For some people though, they can get inflamed infected, and
[1:05:34] Speaker 2: that's where what we talk about diverticulitis. So so fiber
[1:05:38] Speaker 2: is very important in those patients. But but if if
[1:05:42] Speaker 2: you want to talk more broadly about preventative things diet wise,
[1:05:47] Speaker 2: that we all need to be doing better and exercise too.
[1:05:52] Speaker 2: I mean, I suppose there's there's like five five simple
[1:05:56] Speaker 2: things that we could all do to reduce our risk
[1:05:58] Speaker 2: of cancer. Definitely for bowel cancer and many other cancers.
[1:06:04] Speaker 2: I guess step one is exercise.
[1:06:06] Speaker 1: Does help help your tummy.
[1:06:08] Speaker 2: Yeah, so exercise generally acts almost like a natural anti inflammatory,
[1:06:13] Speaker 2: and so it's but it's also really important for other things.
[1:06:17] Speaker 2: If we don't talk about cancer for a second, if
[1:06:18] Speaker 2: we talk about our mental health as well. We know
[1:06:21] Speaker 2: that we know that we get all these brilliant chemicals
[1:06:24] Speaker 2: released when we exercise, and we don't need to we
[1:06:27] Speaker 2: don't have to run like twenty k's a day, Like
[1:06:29] Speaker 2: we're just like just thirty minutes a day, and I
[1:06:31] Speaker 2: know it's like it that's actually really hard for a
[1:06:33] Speaker 2: lot of people to find thirty minutes. And it doesn't
[1:06:35] Speaker 2: need to be this really vigorous exercise. It just needs
[1:06:38] Speaker 2: to be so that we're we're unable to hold like
[1:06:41] Speaker 2: a full length of full sentence conversation, so we need
[1:06:44] Speaker 2: to be puffing a.
[1:06:45] Speaker 1: Bit what they call zone two or three.
[1:06:47] Speaker 2: So whether that be you know, boxing, you box, you've
[1:06:50] Speaker 2: bot your boxing, I'll still but yeah, boxing, yeah, So
[1:06:52] Speaker 2: whether that be boxing or running or I would I
[1:06:55] Speaker 2: would advocate for something where it's it's relaxing for you
[1:06:57] Speaker 2: as well. So for me that's running, yep, maybe few
[1:07:00] Speaker 2: it's boxing, but you know, exercise thirty minutes a day
[1:07:03] Speaker 2: is really really helpful. We talked about red meat before
[1:07:07] Speaker 2: and kind of if we can like limit the amount
[1:07:10] Speaker 2: of bread meat that we're eating, reducing the risk of
[1:07:14] Speaker 2: like cancers, just if there's a screening program participating in that.
[1:07:20] Speaker 2: Alcohol is a big one. So most, I mean a
[1:07:23] Speaker 2: lot of a lot of Australians drink alcohol. There's actually
[1:07:26] Speaker 2: no there's no safe level of alcohol to consume, but
[1:07:29] Speaker 2: we really should be drinking less than ten Sanda drinks
[1:07:33] Speaker 2: per week is coind of guidelines, so less so less
[1:07:37] Speaker 2: than that. So I mean, I think that the Australian guidelines,
[1:07:39] Speaker 2: so you can drink up to two Santa drinks five
[1:07:44] Speaker 2: days a week, with definitely two alcohol free days, the
[1:07:47] Speaker 2: caveat being that there's kind of no safe level of
[1:07:49] Speaker 2: alcohol at all. Yeah, but you know, a stand a
[1:07:52] Speaker 2: drink is you know, a beer is usually one point
[1:07:54] Speaker 2: four Santa drinks, right, So it doesn't mean you can
[1:07:57] Speaker 2: like it doesn't translate, Yeah, it doesn't kind of translate
[1:07:59] Speaker 2: to yeah, it translates to less less beers than that,
[1:08:02] Speaker 2: maybe the mid strength ones that may be easy to
[1:08:04] Speaker 2: keep a track off. But you know, limiting, limiting our
[1:08:07] Speaker 2: alcohol is really important at reducing cancer risk but also
[1:08:10] Speaker 2: improving our overall health. And obviously smoking, like smoking is
[1:08:14] Speaker 2: not good. Don't smoke. I think we're going to see
[1:08:16] Speaker 2: a huge problem with vaping. Actually we've already got a
[1:08:18] Speaker 2: big problem with vaping, but that's probably another another podcast.
[1:08:21] Speaker 1: Again, I'm looking forward to getting someone to talk about
[1:08:22] Speaker 1: vaping just just trying alcohol that can I ask you
[1:08:24] Speaker 1: a quick quick question about that. Is beer for the
[1:08:30] Speaker 1: gut more dangerous than say, red wine.
[1:08:34] Speaker 2: I don't know. I think just this is not evidence,
[1:08:38] Speaker 2: but this is just my opinion. I think that probably
[1:08:40] Speaker 2: red wine is better. There are some studies showing, you know,
[1:08:45] Speaker 2: the elk, I mean, generally alcohol is not good. Yeah,
[1:08:48] Speaker 2: maybe red wine's a bit better than beer, but yeah,
[1:08:52] Speaker 2: not sure.
[1:08:52] Speaker 1: Yeah. So, but because I have heard that beer is
[1:08:57] Speaker 1: a lot. Drinking a lot of beer is not good
[1:08:59] Speaker 1: for you, and if you drink anything, you better drinking
[1:09:01] Speaker 1: red wine. I mean, I've heard that come back to
[1:09:04] Speaker 1: me through actually one of my family members who told
[1:09:07] Speaker 1: me that that his gas entrologists that actually told me
[1:09:10] Speaker 1: you drinks too much beer. Maybe just trying to stop
[1:09:12] Speaker 1: it from drinking altogether. But because you can't drink as
[1:09:14] Speaker 1: much of redone as you can beer, I guess in
[1:09:16] Speaker 1: my in my particular Membi's case.
[1:09:19] Speaker 2: But you know, the non the non alcoholic beers taste
[1:09:21] Speaker 2: pretty good too. Yeah, like you can buy. I mean,
[1:09:22] Speaker 2: they probably should be cheaper in the supermarkets than what
[1:09:25] Speaker 2: they are because they cost the same as a regular beer.
[1:09:28] Speaker 2: But they're a pretty good alternative and they're making I
[1:09:32] Speaker 2: probably can't say brand those. But when we're living in
[1:09:34] Speaker 2: the States, we used to drink these these great non
[1:09:36] Speaker 2: alcoholic beers that you can now get in Australia and
[1:09:39] Speaker 2: this taste just like a regular beer, but they've got
[1:09:41] Speaker 2: no alcohol. So so definitely advocate if you can, if
[1:09:45] Speaker 2: you're okay with that, having a beer without without alcohol
[1:09:48] Speaker 2: is by far better.
[1:09:50] Speaker 1: And I think that and the point you're just making
[1:09:52] Speaker 1: there is an important one, because you can still have
[1:09:54] Speaker 1: a beer. It's the alcohol it's a problem. So you
[1:09:56] Speaker 1: can have a beer that tastes like beer, it doesn't
[1:09:58] Speaker 1: have the alcohol.
[1:09:59] Speaker 2: And so like I think it's becoming it's definitely it's good.
[1:10:02] Speaker 2: It's becoming socially normal, like not to have a drink
[1:10:04] Speaker 2: or to have a mineral order or whatever. But you know,
[1:10:07] Speaker 2: but still like you know, yeah, if you like, no
[1:10:10] Speaker 2: alcohol is better than alcohol, so no alcoholic beer is better.
[1:10:13] Speaker 1: It's interesting young people between twenty and thirty do not
[1:10:17] Speaker 1: drink anywhere near I know from beer sales and wine
[1:10:19] Speaker 1: sales and whiskey sales because I owned some businesses and
[1:10:22] Speaker 1: those environments that we are selling less to twenty to
[1:10:26] Speaker 1: thirty year olds than we ever did in the past.
[1:10:28] Speaker 2: Yep, it's not good from a business point of view,
[1:10:30] Speaker 2: but it's good from a health point of view.
[1:10:31] Speaker 1: Unfortunately, a lot of those individuals taking drugs, so that
[1:10:34] Speaker 1: could make it worse. I don't know the answer to that.
[1:10:36] Speaker 1: And so in terms of just you know, because this
[1:10:40] Speaker 1: is a longevity not so much longevity, hate the word,
[1:10:42] Speaker 1: but it's more about because health technology the stype of
[1:10:45] Speaker 1: stuff that you guys do from all the research you're doing,
[1:10:48] Speaker 1: all the learnings you do and then you put into
[1:10:49] Speaker 1: practice and through your clinics and through your diagnostics, that
[1:10:53] Speaker 1: will make us live longer, you know, if you get
[1:10:55] Speaker 1: to us at the right time. But optimizing your life
[1:10:59] Speaker 1: in other words, he span like living a longer, healthier life,
[1:11:03] Speaker 1: more healthy in other words, you know, you're not sort
[1:11:05] Speaker 1: of walking around with a colonos could be bag what
[1:11:07] Speaker 1: do you call those bags after you've had the thin
[1:11:09] Speaker 1: ston whatever those things are. I mean, that's that's a
[1:11:13] Speaker 1: shitty way of living. So really, you know, like the
[1:11:16] Speaker 1: things you're just talking about, like in terms of the
[1:11:18] Speaker 1: preventative stuff, especially around diet, just be more conscious of
[1:11:23] Speaker 1: your diet. I mean, I'm a citizen scientist. I got
[1:11:27] Speaker 1: no idea. I just what i'd read and probably have
[1:11:29] Speaker 1: stuff is really wrong anyway, But nonetheless it's pretty clear
[1:11:33] Speaker 1: talking to you and talking to other people I've had
[1:11:34] Speaker 1: in the same seat and reading my rest there is
[1:11:37] Speaker 1: there are some clear common denominators, and that is exercise,
[1:11:42] Speaker 1: be aware of what could go wrong. In other words,
[1:11:45] Speaker 1: check your poop. That's there's nothing wrong that's been be
[1:11:48] Speaker 1: on top of stuff in control, a good diet, sleep, rest,
[1:11:53] Speaker 1: exercise like that. That's pretty simple stuff.
[1:11:56] Speaker 2: And it's not it's not glossy. It's not like it
[1:11:59] Speaker 2: doesn't it doesn't doesn't sell things. But that's the and
[1:12:02] Speaker 2: it's not a secret. Everyone likes to have a secret
[1:12:05] Speaker 2: fad diet, but it's really straightforwards, boring, but it's really
[1:12:09] Speaker 2: straightforward and we know that it works really well. So yeah,
[1:12:13] Speaker 2: I mean, I think our health is probably our It
[1:12:16] Speaker 2: is our greatest asset, isn't it.
[1:12:17] Speaker 1: Yeah. And by the way, you know, some of you
[1:12:19] Speaker 1: guys I know are billionaires, couldn't buy one extra day.
[1:12:24] Speaker 1: My good friend Gerry Packer, when he was ready to die,
[1:12:27] Speaker 1: and he died at my age now, the same age
[1:12:30] Speaker 1: as I am now, and when I think about it,
[1:12:32] Speaker 1: that's tragic. And he was a wealthiest guy in the country.
[1:12:36] Speaker 1: He couldn't buy one more day. So it doesn't matter
[1:12:38] Speaker 1: how much money you got. So the only thing that
[1:12:41] Speaker 1: gets you there is every single day of your life.
[1:12:44] Speaker 1: And the earlier start, the better adhere to some sort
[1:12:48] Speaker 1: of protocols and you know, listen to this sort of stuff,
[1:12:51] Speaker 1: read stuff, you know, read stuff where you can read it.
[1:12:54] Speaker 1: And if you get a little bit nervous, go to
[1:12:55] Speaker 1: your doctor. Get a checked. Gouty doctor, get a checked
[1:12:58] Speaker 1: because the doctor's not going to ring obviously. Hey, Ollie, mate,
[1:13:03] Speaker 1: I haven't seen you for a month. You better come
[1:13:06] Speaker 1: and make it a pointment.
[1:13:07] Speaker 2: That's very rare and that's why you know, I know
[1:13:09] Speaker 2: you interviewed like Stephen Lou Yeah, from Everlab. Yep, were
[1:13:13] Speaker 2: a few weeks ago, a month ago.
[1:13:14] Speaker 1: I'm madam, and I've signed up to that now and
[1:13:16] Speaker 1: step just putting through the bloods last week.
[1:13:17] Speaker 2: Actually I'm going to sign up to Actually Yah. It's
[1:13:19] Speaker 2: a good it's a great program that they run. And
[1:13:22] Speaker 2: I think I'm hoping that we see, you know, more
[1:13:25] Speaker 2: evlabs cropping up because we need that preventative stuff. You know,
[1:13:30] Speaker 2: it's really.
[1:13:30] Speaker 1: They're prompting you.
[1:13:31] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I feel I mean, my wife's signed
[1:13:33] Speaker 2: up to evlab and she she's like they do like
[1:13:35] Speaker 2: a thing where it's like a six six month check in,
[1:13:38] Speaker 2: so like they do all your baseline stuff and then
[1:13:40] Speaker 2: they kind of hold you to account. It's not like, hey,
[1:13:43] Speaker 2: that was interesting, I've been you know, checked over. Once
[1:13:45] Speaker 2: you come back and they check in again and they
[1:13:47] Speaker 2: make sure you've made some of those changes. And I
[1:13:49] Speaker 2: think a lot of us, including me, need that because.
[1:13:53] Speaker 1: That's crazy because here you are doctor, you know, I
[1:13:56] Speaker 1: mean like a bit of it. It's crazy, like because
[1:13:58] Speaker 1: you know, you're more aware of the signs around everything.
[1:14:01] Speaker 1: You know, you can go read a whole lot of
[1:14:03] Speaker 1: stuff that you know any one of us, any one
[1:14:06] Speaker 1: of us might read, but you'll be able to make
[1:14:07] Speaker 1: sense of it and it will probably stick inside your mind.
[1:14:11] Speaker 1: Yet you still think someone like Eva Lab is a
[1:14:14] Speaker 1: bloody great resource, a bit like Functions in the US.
[1:14:16] Speaker 1: It's a similar sort of concept and super Superpower which
[1:14:21] Speaker 1: hasn't gut launch yet, but it's sort of coming our way,
[1:14:24] Speaker 1: which is another US thing. So and just you Aldays
[1:14:29] Speaker 1: don't remember, I'm glad to raise it and I'm lucky
[1:14:32] Speaker 1: Stephen rang me from ever lablake. I've got to go
[1:14:35] Speaker 1: through the process with him. But like the questions, he
[1:14:39] Speaker 1: asked me, prompt me, yep, market family history things that,
[1:14:45] Speaker 1: and he's and what he's done. They put it on
[1:14:47] Speaker 1: a dashboard for it, so it's all in one place.
[1:14:50] Speaker 1: Right now, I got this test and that test and all.
[1:14:53] Speaker 1: Now I've got a Manila folder full of all these
[1:14:56] Speaker 1: bloody tests. And they go and get all your blood
[1:14:58] Speaker 1: tests and they compile it all and put in one place.
[1:15:01] Speaker 1: So there's one source of truth about you. You know,
[1:15:06] Speaker 1: you're not one of a million or a cohort of
[1:15:08] Speaker 1: you know, miles between this age and that age. You're
[1:15:12] Speaker 1: that's just your stuff. And I think ev labs of
[1:15:14] Speaker 1: the world. You know, you know, it's going to evolve.
[1:15:17] Speaker 1: But I think they're extremely important because you're you know, like,
[1:15:20] Speaker 1: I mean, that's great to hear a doctor say that
[1:15:22] Speaker 1: to me.
[1:15:22] Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's so important to like, I mean,
[1:15:25] Speaker 2: I feel good now, So I mean, like I'm busy,
[1:15:28] Speaker 2: like you run out of time, you don't get you know,
[1:15:30] Speaker 2: this and that. But I think ever lab and companies
[1:15:33] Speaker 2: like them, it's good because they've as I said, they
[1:15:35] Speaker 2: you almost need like a it's not like a boss,
[1:15:37] Speaker 2: but you need someone to say, hey, hang on a
[1:15:39] Speaker 2: secon are you doing that stuff that you were meant
[1:15:41] Speaker 2: to be doing and if you you know, say, follow
[1:15:43] Speaker 2: up every six months, every twelve months something like that.
[1:15:46] Speaker 2: So hey, how you're meant to implement this and that?
[1:15:49] Speaker 2: Because I know you're feeling good now. But it's about
[1:15:51] Speaker 2: preventing things because you know, like some like a lot
[1:15:55] Speaker 2: of a lot of cancers are or some cancers are
[1:15:59] Speaker 2: preventable totally, but you can kind of turn the luck
[1:16:03] Speaker 2: in your favor, you know, when people have a cancer,
[1:16:05] Speaker 2: like some people will say it was really bad luck,
[1:16:07] Speaker 2: and often is, and it's often around age and genetics.
[1:16:12] Speaker 2: But sometimes you can tweak that dial a bit so
[1:16:14] Speaker 2: that at least you can detect things really.
[1:16:16] Speaker 1: Early and yourself a fighting chance.
[1:16:19] Speaker 2: That's exactly right, and that's so critical. And that's why
[1:16:21] Speaker 2: you know, companies like Evil love a good I think.
[1:16:23] Speaker 1: Well, I really appreciate.
[1:16:26] Speaker 2: It.
[1:16:26] Speaker 1: Sounds ridiculous. I love talking about this stuff, but we're
[1:16:28] Speaker 1: talking about, you know, gastrioneology. It's probably often people sending
[1:16:33] Speaker 1: me why would someone become gaston geologists? May as you
[1:16:37] Speaker 1: have to do that every day of the week, but
[1:16:39] Speaker 1: it covers off so many things. It's just as you said,
[1:16:41] Speaker 1: your stomach, your liver, your esophagus, you know, your call on,
[1:16:44] Speaker 1: but it's it also there's a lot of stuff like
[1:16:49] Speaker 1: your tummy in your brain related what your health, your microbiams.
[1:16:53] Speaker 1: It's broad.
[1:16:54] Speaker 2: I think it's awesome. I mean, I'm lucky and maybe
[1:16:57] Speaker 2: you're the same as well. Like I love my mondays,
[1:16:59] Speaker 2: Like I I feel so lucky that I love my job.
[1:17:03] Speaker 2: Like people talk about work life balance, and I know
[1:17:05] Speaker 2: that's really important, but like I genuinely enjoy my job
[1:17:10] Speaker 2: and I don't see it as a job. I see
[1:17:12] Speaker 2: it as like my life. That's what I do. So
[1:17:15] Speaker 2: I just love it as good.
[1:17:16] Speaker 1: That's what you do.
[1:17:17] Speaker 2: That's the point. Yeah, And so you're right, you can.
[1:17:19] Speaker 2: You can. You can choose something. So I kind of
[1:17:22] Speaker 2: enjoy doing some procedures and so you can choose something
[1:17:24] Speaker 2: in gasrinentitrology that interests you and just go for it.
[1:17:28] Speaker 2: And that's what I love about gas erondrology. It's good.
[1:17:32] Speaker 2: So that's why that's why I do it.
[1:17:33] Speaker 1: You know what I enjoy, man, I enjoy my project
[1:17:35] Speaker 1: one hundred and get the opportunity to talk to people
[1:17:37] Speaker 1: like you, experts in your field. I really appreciate you
[1:17:39] Speaker 1: coming in all of it like It's been fantastic and
[1:17:43] Speaker 1: as usual, I've learned a lot more than i'd expected
[1:17:46] Speaker 1: to and hopefully it'll help me share with our audiences.
[1:17:52] Speaker 1: Experts like you share the audience's opportunity for them to
[1:17:56] Speaker 1: live longer and better.
[1:17:57] Speaker 2: Thanks so much, thank you, thanks for the opportunity. Thank you
[1:18:00] Speaker 2: Nice

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.