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

29:27Yeah. So that's a good marker. So, well, you know, it's, it's not, there's not many out there that actually are NSF certified for sport, but this is basically the marker that professionals, professional athletes use to know that something is safe because they could lose their contract if they fail a drug test. But it's far more than that. This is, this is knowing that like what's on the label is actually what's in there and nothing more. And it's the most rigorous testing program of over 300 things. And so, you know, so those are the things I would look for. I want, I want, I want variety. I want high quality ingredients.

30:03And I want to know that it's been not just like the claim third party tested. People manipulate that. I want to actually see the test results with my own eyes or know that it has this higher standard. So when they're looking at the back of a fiber supplement, they basically need to, aside from checking that it's got quality ingredients and they want to see diversity of different types of fiber. That's really, because a lot of fiber supplements might just have one type of fiber and you're saying, stay away from that for us to get clarity on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I want to have multiple forms of fiber and in a perfect world, what we have in our product is you have not just fiber you also have resistant starch and polyphenols because each of these in their own way so a quick little thing that i found to be very interesting that i've learned in the last few years fiber and resistant starch are both precursors to the short chain fatty acids that we ultimately want so short chain fatty acids are butyrate acetate and propionate these we discussed these in detail in our last podcast that we did together that was very popular yeah that was like our highest replayed moment by the way of that of that podcast, people were obsessed with understanding this part.

31:08Amazing. Just so you know. That's really cool. All right. So the short chain fatty acids that these are the most anti-inflammatory compounds that exist. This is the reason that you should be gravitating towards fiber and you can get them from resistant starch. Resistant starch is not fiber. It's actually a starch, but we call it resistant starch because it doesn't get digested. So it ends up in your colon where it feeds your microbes. But here's the part that's really interesting. there's research to show that fiber tends to get chewed up by your microbes on the right side of your intestines in your right colon so basically that's where they enter into the body and as soon as they enter or that's where they enter into the colon and as soon as they enter into the colon they basically get transformed into short-chain fatty acids the resistant starches actually drift further down and they get to the left side of the colon So between these two, they're actually complementary.

32:05So when you have both fiber and resistant starch, you are basically feeding the entire colon. And then the polyphenols are like primers for these microbes. The polyphenols don't become short-chain fatty acids. They have their own anti-inflammatory effects. But what the polyphenols do is they basically get the microbiome primed so that it's ready to produce the maximum amount of short-chain fatty acids. So an example of this real quick is that we did a 15 day microbiome study with our product with incredible results. And what we discovered that was really cool, there were two things that are like my top two most proud moments from the study.

32:43There were others as well. But number one, you give the same amount every single day, 5.6 grams of daily microbiome nutrition, but the short chain fatty acid levels were climbing across the 15 days. Why is that? You haven't increased the product. Why is that? Because the microbiome is adapting. The microbiome is becoming more efficient. It's producing more and more from the same amount. That's really cool. You could get three times the amount of short-chain fatty acids by day 15 that you do at day three. Wow. And then the other thing that was cool is acromantia. So acromantia is this gut bacteria that everyone is obsessed with.

33:25It protects our metabolism. It is anti-inflammatory. And many people are taking very expensive probiotics, trying to get more of it. And my argument has always been, we need to feed our own bacteria. And people have wanted to know, how can I get more acromantia? And we have shown in this study, if you take this product, by day 15, you have increased your acromantia levels. That's wild. Because Dr. William Lee came on the show and we actually, so much of the show was on acromantia because it's got so many beneficial um even with cancer and everything you know the the acromantia that microbe that you're speaking about but you can't he was mentioning that you can't eat enough in your diet to kind of get the beneficial results so that's why understanding how you can create more acromantia is really important but i didn't even realize that that was possible so that's incredible so first of all will is a friend of mine and i love that guy and anyone who's listening to this show should go and listen to that episode.

34:26I'm sure he does an incredible job as a science communicator. So the thing about it is that it's hard to say, hey, eat this because food is food and it's hard to target specific microbes. What's unique is this is where a supplement comes in. Supplements can be very targeted. and we know that this supplement is actually targeting the acromantia and helping to elevate it and the second thing that's really cool about this that i love this is my favorite part actually is this is actually not just an acromantia story so if you were to take a probiotic it would only be about the acromantia you're adding more you're sprinkling more acromantia in that's a good thing I mean, I appreciate that.

35:11But if you elevate your own acromantia, what we've discovered is that acromantia is what we call a keystone species. So in essence, the health of your microbiome is proportional to your acromantia. As your microbiome, the entire system, As the entire system becomes healthy, acromantia levels rise. So what we're actually seeing in this 15-day study is that the rise in acromantia is indicative of more than just this isolated species. It's indicative of the entire system healing. I want to talk about something important to you guys. People today are lonelier than ever. Most long-term relationships aren't happy ones, and a third of people under 30 haven't had sex in the past year.

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36:49Now, their AI personalizes everything to your specific situation so you can work through it privately, at home, and on your own time. Suffering in silence doesn't help anyone and I don't say this lightly because I've believed in Mojo so much that I've personally invested in the company. Now, if any of this resonates, go to mymojo.com forward slash livewellbewell and use the code livewell15 for 15 % off. Our sexual wellbeing matters and everyone deserves support. Well, I think what I've now just remembered from that conversation with Will, which is something that's going to connect to my next question with you, is that people that had higher levels of gut acromancy are the one that you're exactly talking about.

37:36The ones that had better levels of that responded better to their cancer treatment, the immune treatment than the ones that didn't. And he was like, that's so interesting when he looks at understanding cancer therapies way more and how important the gut microbiome is by actually making sure that you have good levels of acromancia that actually predicted a better outcome with cancer patients. And I thought that was really interesting when I'm kind of hearing what you're saying as well, like how important this is right now to understand. Well, and I think that that right there kind of tells you a very powerful story about how the gut is connected to our immune system and health throughout the entire body.

38:18Because what we're talking about is targeting a cancer that could be literally anywhere in your body. It could be in your brain, breast, could be in your colon, could be in many places. But it's not necessarily something that's sitting right there in your gut. And the point is that when you manipulate the gut microbiome, you actually make the immune system more powerful. And these new therapies that are being used that he's referring to, it's called immunotherapy. And immunotherapy is basically where you actually use, as opposed to trying to bomb the cancer or poison the cancer, which is what chemo is.

38:58Instead, what you're doing here is you're saying, hey, look, a healthy immune system eliminates cancer. So let me actually use this person's own immune system and allow that immune system to do what it does best. Go in, take it out. And so, but what we're saying is that it's not just the immunotherapy that matters. There's these other inputs that determine the result that you get from that immunotherapy. And there's now overwhelming evidence. It really started with melanoma and it's extending into new forms of cancer, but there's overwhelming evidence that if you make the gut microbiome more healthy, you actually improve the response to immunotherapy.

39:37And that's what he's referring to with the acromancy because when acromancy gets healthier the microbiome is healthier i think it's just so important right to understand how interconnected everything is um when it gets to this because i mentioned to you before and i mean this feels kind of a natural time to to bring this in because it's it's it's a hard topic to talk about you know the rise of colon cancer is increasing in in younger people and i found this kind of really interesting you know understanding that since 2005, there's a 1.1 % each year increase in colorectal cancer. So it was going from the fifth leading cause of cancer deaths in millennials and Gen Zs.

40:16Now it's the first. And that was recently shown in 2006. I'm sure you're quite familiar with the JAMA report on this. Why is it that younger people seem to be, now this is now the leading cause of death. Why is it that younger people seem to be suffering with this more than ever is it is it random is it is there a prediction here that we can try and understand like what do you think it is no it's definitely not random i think that the issue is that we have um shifted forward the the rate at which we are careening towards these dangerous health conditions and that's why things that used to affect 50 year 50 year olds and later because there is an age related element to colorectal cancer our risk goes up as we age it doesn't like go up and then go down it keeps going up but it used to be a disease of the elderly or at least people past age 50 i mean i'm almost 50 so are you but wow like another round of applause thank you for that uh it's sarah and as you as you know there's amazing things that you can do with lighting these days anyway i do know that Yeah.

41:27It used to be something that we really considered to be past age 50. I have diagnosed people in their 20s. I've diagnosed many in their 30s as well as in their 40s. And it is heartbreaking. So this has actually become a big part of my platform is to get out there and talk about this and bring awareness to this topic because there's ways that we can protect ourself. This is actually a preventable disease if we can approach this properly. But the question that you asked me is, why is this shifting towards younger populations? You have to understand that colorectal cancer has a powerful gut microbiome input.

42:06The gut microbiome changes. And this leads to the formation of what is originally a polyp. And that polyp will initially be microscopic, not even visible to the eye. And it will grow. and it will basically double and double and double and keep getting bigger until that polyp becomes something that turns into cancer. And it's just a question of like, when do you start forming polyps? Because we believe it takes at least 10 years to go from a small polyp that's visible during colonoscopy. We think it takes 10 years to go from a small polyp visible in colonoscopy to the actual formation of cancer.

42:46And if during that window, you were able to actually do a colonoscopy, see that polyp, you would remove it and it's gone. And the risk is now zero in that location. So, and what is contributing to that specifically? Part of this is diet for sure. There's many elements to that. I think our ultra processed foods are contributing. I am not of the belief that every person needs to be vegan in order to be healthy. That is not my platform at all. But we have a total lack of balance, a total lack of balance between the consumption of meat and the consumption of fiber. Fiber protects us. If you were to increase your fiber consumption, we would dramatically reduce any risks.

43:28We would really, really mitigate the risk associated with red meat consumption or the deli meats. We would really mitigate that risk if we increased our fiber consumption. The problem that we have is we're not eating fiber. And when you combine that with excessive, like, you know, in the US, 220 pounds of meat consumption per year, not to mention the, the deli meats and like the processed meats that are the most clearly associated with increased risk of colorectal cancer. Sprinkle in alcohol consumption. I'm excited to see the alcohol consumption is starting to cool off. I, myself, like I'm not, that's not casting any stone at any other person.

44:06Cause I, myself went through college went through my 20s definitely consumed more than I should have and but I'm trying to learn and the new studies are showing me that there's a better way and alcohol is contributing to that risk but there's also a lack of exercise we're much more sedentary people are not kids are not running around outside the way that they used to they're indoors they're with devices they're playing video games so a sedentary lifestyle is part of the problem so i think it's like when you take this complete picture that includes diet in a powerful way that includes our lifestyle that includes our gut microbiome you end up with this story of colorectal cancer doesn't need to wait until you're 50 anymore colorectal cancer could start showing up in your 30s or 40s now absolutely the one thing that you didn't mention there and i wonder if this is connected to colorectal cancer and you can tell me if i'm wrong is stress.

45:01Do you think stress plays a part in the increase in this, um, on why younger people are getting it or not? Do you think it's not a contributor? So I think that the, you mentioned a moment ago, the entire body is interconnected. I don't think that you can separate out things and say, well, that's over there and this is over here. And so stress through the brain gut connection. And this is something that now is like the idea of mind body used to be a woo woo thing. It's not. This is real. It's not. Oh, it's the foundation of my next book, Will. Trust me. So important. Excellent. Oh, I can't wait to read that.

45:41You have to remind me the name of your next book is? Healthy Shouldn't Be This Hard. Oh my gosh, it's going to be so good. I can't wait for that book. So through the brain gut connection, there's ways in which when we when we activate our stress response, we sacrifice our gut. When we sacrifice our gut, we increase inflammation and inflammation is contributory. Both gut microbiome and inflammation are contributory to the pathogenesis, the development of both colon polyps and ultimately colorectal cancer. so you know is um is stress worse today than it was 50 years ago i don't know if it is but what i do know is that we're much more vulnerable to stress our resilience is reduced because our gut microbiome is not as strong as it used to be and when your gut microbiome is struggling it does affect your mood it does affect your ability to be resilient to stress and then we ultimately at least compound that because we make the stress response gets amplified and that compounds with our gut gets even less healthy and then we have more inflammation i guess with all of this the thing that i think is really important to get people to understand because this is such an important topic and i'm going to tell you why it's close to my heart in a minute what are the signs and symptoms that someone should be looking out for when it comes to colorectal cancer i mean i mentioned stress because that feels like all-encompassing but what are the ones that people are missing that now they're getting diagnosed in their 30s or their 40s?

47:13You mentioned it was preventative. So what are those signs that we should be looking out for? Yeah. Well, so first of all, I believe that we should take advantage of whatever screening opportunities are offered to us by the system that we exist in. So the UK, the NHS is not the same as the way that we do things in the States. But in both cases, you should ask your doctor, when can I start? What's the earliest stage that I can start colorectal screening? And you should do it. And I strongly encourage you to do that because that's why screening exists. Screening allows you to catch something before the symptoms.

47:49That's the ideal time. And that's a lovely colonoscopy is a lovely probe that goes up your bum and looks all in to see if there's any polyps, just in case someone's like, what is a colonoscopy? Yeah, that's true. And to show you that my actions match my words, when I turned 40, because of a family history, I had a colonoscopy. And it was something I did not delay whatsoever because I've seen too much in my work as a gastroenterologist. I wanted to be sure that I was safe. So, okay. So number one, you should take advantage of the screening programs that are allowed for you. By the way, if you do have a family history, or if you have a health condition, like an ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease, then you would be offered opportunities to start earlier.

48:36Yeah. Please take them. The second thing is looking for symptoms. So the scary thing is that many times these symptoms, people will dismiss them and say, oh, it's just hemorrhoids. No big deal. and so if you see blood in your stool if you are anemic if you are iron deficient without a good explanation if you are having chronic abdominal pain if you have a change in your bowel habits that you can't explain where it came from and it's sticking you know whether it's constipation or diarrhea these types of symptoms are sufficient to basically go and talk to a doctor and preferably get checked. Yeah.

49:24So colonoscopy can be part of the diagnostic assessment. So like you're basically saying, okay, so you have pain or you have blood in your stool or you have iron deficiency. We want to understand why that is. Colonoscopy can be part of how we explain and answer that question. And in the process of answering that question, which allows us to make you healthier, we also are making sure that we're protecting you from colorectal cancer. So to me, there's a massive opportunity there. Over 10 colonoscopies in my lifetime. So someone who massively advocates for it. I haven't spoke about this ever, but it felt like a really important point because this is such a prominent topic, but I've got polyopsis syndrome.

50:03So my recent one, I'd had between 20 or 30 removed. And it's really important because I was diagnosed with not the full syndrome. I started having really bad bowel problems when I was young. And, you know, you kind of go into your 20s and you're like, oh, it's fine. I don't need to go to those appointments. And you don't. And then I had a full bowel obstruction. And in that bowel obstruction, they also found just a huge array of these polyps again. You know, and even though I still go every year, I still have so many. And so it's so important that now I feel incredibly thankful that, you know, I did change my diet 15 years ago because of this symptom.

50:48And I did the whole reduce the cut out red meat fully. And again, I'm not somebody who always advocates you shouldn't eat meat, but that's the reason why I don't. That's because I have a fully blown health condition that really exaggerates it. But it's also taken me 15 years to understand it. It's such an interesting avenue. It's such a new area. And actually, the importance of having these regular colonoscopies, which I think should be way earlier. I think it's over 50 now you get potentially called up in the UK. And I think it's 45 in America to go and have a colonoscopy. It's 45 in America.

51:25We moved it. Yeah, you moved it recently, didn't you? But I think it's one of those ones, which is why you mentioned preventable, which I connect to because I think if I wasn't having them, then i'm in this camp of this huge risk but actually when you can get on top of it and do these colonoscopies you can massively like reduce your risk because you're constantly again stopping those polyps becoming cancerous so i just think it's such an important topic to talk about i personally find it uh to be a beautiful thing when a person with a platform shares something about themselves that perhaps it's not easy to share no but you do it out of actually love for your community so i i appreciate that and the thing about that sarahann is that so with this with this condition of paliposis syndrome if you didn't have colonoscopy if you lived 100 years ago it's not a matter of whether you would develop colorectal cancer it's a matter of when yeah exactly and this is and the this exemplifies the opportunity that exists if we can get to it early because by by pruning those polyps right it's sure you have to go in and get checked but by going in and getting checked and removing those polyps every time they're going to keep you safe and my expectation is you don't get cancer and that's a beautiful thing if you think about that so that really exemplifies the opportunity that we all have but we must see like while most of us won't necessarily have a genetic predisposition of that order yeah mine is it mine is extreme i will put that out there yeah it's there's there's there's something going on there genetically that's that's quite powerful but while most of us don't have specifically that we must see that there are so sarah and You asked me earlier, like the first question was about people who look healthy and something is going on.

53:31This is such a prime example. That's why I asked you that question. Yeah, that's so interesting. I didn't realize that that was where you were going with that. And it makes so much sense because I, as an example, I have cared for so many young, fit, like basically soccer moms here in the States. It's people in their early 30s that you would never think. And then you discover these big polyps and you sit there as a doctor because I tried to explain to my patients, but I don't want to scare them too much. But it scares me. Yeah. And I sit there as a doctor and I'm just the biggest sigh of relief because when you remove that polyp, the risk is gone.

54:17and you sit there and you say, this wonderful person who has two kids, she would have had cancer if I didn't do this colonoscopy. And it started with symptoms. They chased the symptoms. They came to the doctor. They said, why am I having this abdominal pain? Why am I seeing blood in my stool? Why am I constipated? They got their colonoscopy, and because of that, they're safe. And I think that is the most important thing. I ignored my symptoms for a while, and then it ended up in a bit of a disaster situation. And I think that is something to really, to not hesitate is the one thing that I would say is to always go and get checked.

54:55And I think, you know, the reason why I think stress is so important is sometimes we can just go, oh, it's just because I'm stressed. Or we can kind of, I don't want to say the word poo-poo, but we can kind of push it aside. But it's interesting, you know, I will tell people and they're like, but you're one of the healthiest people I know. I mean, I've obviously changed my lifestyle because of my gut. I have to. But it still means that just because you look healthy, it doesn't mean that, and you do all the right things, it doesn't mean that these things can't happen. And I think that's something that's so important to be aware of.

55:26Yeah, there was a study, the Adventist 2 study, which is in Wilma Linda, California, looking at seven-day Adventists who have a very healthy lifestyle. And they showed that people who followed a 100 % plant-based diet had, I believe it was a 22 % reduction, 22 or 23 % reduction in colorectal cancer risk. So here's the key. This is what I want people to hear. Did that diet reduce their risk? Yes. Did it reduce their risk to zero? Not even close.

56:00So you still need these other elements because colonoscopy or protecting yourself is not just, hey, how am I eating right now? Like that, you have an entire lifetime of how you ate. You have your childhood. You have all these other factors that ultimately can be feeding into this one thing. So the most important thing is like having a strong strategy, which is what we've just laid out. Yeah. So let's get onto fiber because I feel like whenever I think of fiber now, I think of you, which I hope that you're happy about. because, you know. Oh, I'm very happy about that. That's a dream come true. You know, like, we'll be, it's like the fiber, the fiber guru.

56:37I'm interrupting for one moment to ask one small favor. Please subscribe to the show. This helps it grow more than you know, and I'm so bad at asking this from you. I'm so bad at thinking about this. But, you know, my goal is 100 ,000 to get to on YouTube, and I really want to bring you more content and bigger episodes and we can only do that with your help together so please do hit subscribe thank you and you talk about nutrition workhorses in your book like the four nutrition workhorses and people always love things that they have structure to right um and fiber is the first part of that now fiber is a word that has been spoken about a lot then the protein kind of phase has come in and again it's it's an important macronutrient but i don't think they should be going against one another.

57:23I think we need to talk about these, you know, together. They all constitute a healthy diet, a healthy plate. But when people like thinking about fiber, the thing that I have realized within my clinic and within the show and people that write in and, you know, people, the favorite part of this whole podcast is gut, the gut microbiome. Whenever we do an episode of the gut microbiome, our listeners absolutely love it, as you know. And fiber, But it's an interesting one because there's different forms of fiber. And then some people will write in the comments section. I looked at our last few videos that had such a high engagement.

57:58And people were like, but I'm adding in all this fiber and I'm still in pain. You know, like what's going on? So I thought, like, should we just dissect fiber a little bit to get people to understand it? You know, what does it really look like? What types of fiber should they be eating? And if they are eating a lot of fiber but still having pain, what do you suggest? Fiber is, to me, the longevity nutrient. It's been shown more than any other nutrient to reduce your risk of disease, including the most dangerous diseases that exist. Heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer's, chronic kidney disease.

58:38I can point you to the studies for fiber. So those studies don't exist with increasing your protein. I do think protein is important, but it shouldn't come at the expense of our fiber. And we have a fiber problem. We don't have a protein problem. We have a fiber problem. And so addressing this becomes, I think, quite essential. And these four nutrition workhorses that I describe in my book, the way that I landed on these four were that I basically said, okay, I want to know what are the foundations of an anti-inflammatory diet? It needs to be important and powerful, and it needs to be missing for the vast majority of people because those are the greatest opportunities that exist for our health from a nutrition perspective.

59:28If you can take the thing that's missing and also powerful and actually address that, that's how you radically transform your health. Fiber is one of them. So the thing about fiber is, first of all, all plant-based foods have fiber. Every single plant-based food has fiber, fruits vegetables whole grain seeds nuts legumes mushrooms are technically not plants fungi they're fungi but i am i am going to bestow upon mushrooms they are honorary plants because they have fiber and they also have polyphenols so that's kind of cool so and fiber is a nutrient that is kind of like protein uh so protein you would never say that the protein in fish is the same as the protein in beef or in a bean.

1:00:10They're unique. Different plants have different types of fiber. They have different types of protein too. That is technically correct as well. It's an important point actually that often gets lost is plants have protein too. But the only place that you're going to find fiber is actually in these plant-based foods and each has unique forms of fiber. We tend to break it into like two main categories, soluble and insoluble. Insoluble is the grit. Insoluble is the type that doesn't get digested at all. It's the kind that ultimately you're going to poop it out. Whereas soluble fiber is the kind that you and I have been talking about where I said like fiber feeds the right colon, fiber feeds the microbes, fiber becomes short chain fatty acids.

1:00:54That's soluble fiber. You don't need to worry too much about like what contains what in terms of these plant foods. You just need to eat a variety because when you eat a variety of foods, a variety of plant-based foods, they all have fiber. They all have different types. They all have a blend of soluble and insoluble. And ultimately that diversity is going to create harmony and balance within your gut. And that's exactly what you want. Now, some people, they struggle to add fiber. Why would that be? If it's so good, Dr. B, why is it hard? And it's like exercise. Is exercise good? Yes, of course it is.

1:01:31We 100 % agree that exercise is good. Is there such a thing as too much exercise for a person? Yes. Is exercise hard, especially to get started in the beginning, but eventually it becomes addictive? Yes. If you haven't been exercising, the first couple of weeks are challenging. So how do we exercise? We match our capabilities to the work that we do. So whatever it is that your body is capable of, and we have different muscle groups, and certain muscle groups might be stronger than others, but you eventually, if you go to the gym enough, you start to figure out, hey, this is what I'm able to do when I do a curl, when I do a tricep extension, when I do a bench press.

1:02:18And you have that number. And then you start to work on that number. and it starts to slowly increase over time because you're getting stronger. Your body is adapting. You are teaching your body what you want to do, which is to become more proficient at doing these particular exercises. The same is true with fiber. All of that is the way that this works. This is exactly the way that it works. Fiber is exercise for your gut. You should match your fiber intake to what your gut is capable of. Chances are for most people, you haven't really been consuming fiber. So that's kind of like starting from scratch at the gym.

1:02:50So when you go to the gym, you start really low. When you start adding fiber, you start really low. And then you slowly introduce it because your gut starts to adapt to it in the same way that we were talking about with the 15 day study. Your microbiome becomes adapted. It becomes more efficient. It becomes more capable. It will start producing even more short chain fatty acids from the same amount. But just like exercise, you can start to ratchet up. so you know if you want to like give a specific number to it i would say something along the lines of like adding three grams of fiber per week what does that look like in terms of food like trying to understand three grams for many people so like an extra three grams of fiber when i say three grams by the way this is like on a daily basis right so like so that most of us are starting around 15-ish grams.

1:03:40So you add an extra three. If you try to double that, that's like trying to go to the gym and lift the heaviest weights in the gym all at once. You're going to get an injury. You're going to get hurt. Yeah, that's not a good idea. You had three grams, that could be like an apple. Eating an extra apple once a day could be a handful of nuts. When it comes to beans, it's actually not that many beans. Beans are so densely packed with fiber. That's the reason why a lot of people struggle with beans because they're so packed that like you just get the four bean chili and next thing you know, it's like you've overwhelmed your system.

1:04:16Yeah. You are having farts every five minutes. That's right. So, well, you know what, to be honest with you, Sarah, and first of all, I did not realize I was going to come onto a podcast with Sarah and MacGlan and talk about farts, but that, that being said, um, you have to be prepared for anything these days. So So farts, actually, I did an entire hour long for people who are as bonkers as I am. I did an hour long podcast all about farts with my friend Chuck Carroll. You can find this on YouTube. And I will say like most likely I would expect Sarah and we can like do this as a collab post so people can click and find my YouTube channel.

1:04:58And the thing about farts is that actually they're indicative of fermentation. So in a way, in a way, it's good. Right. So the reason why we fart so much with beans is because we're actually feeding our gut microbiome so much fiber and resistant starch. It's cranking out the short chain fatty acids that are anti-inflammatory and good for your body. Wow. That being said, I'm not that doesn't mean I'm advocating for more farts, nor am I advocating for you to be suffering with gas pain. um you know i think that the point is once again getting back to some of the core concepts that we've discussed which i think are helpful to people if you're constipated get the things get the bowels moving right magnesium can do that and then after that that's when you start to actually add in the fiber whether it's from diet or a supplement you start to add in the fiber and you start to gently increase that fiber and what you'll find is just like with exercise it becomes easier you feel good you feel energized you feel light actually your bloating is less i've got one more question on farts before my next one because i didn't you know you've gone there smelly farts versus non-smelly farts okay this is a great question there's definitely a question there's definitely a difference there's definitely a difference so smelly farts tend to come from one of three major compounds and they're all sulfur based.

1:06:25They're all sulfur based. And part of them, some of them come from like hydrogen sulfide comes from the fermentation of protein. So when you are excessively consuming protein and inadequately consuming fiber, you actually shift the microbiome because the microbiome is going to adapt to whatever the, If you think of the body as a scale of balance in a way, like the microbiome as a scale of balance, if you are disproportionately shifted towards protein and insufficiently consuming fiber, you're overweighting that one side. The microbiome gets really good at processing protein, and it's going to produce more of this hydrogen sulfide.

1:07:08Methane gas has no smell. You can't smell methane gas. Hydrogen sulfide smells like rotten eggs. yeah we all know when we've sat next to someone and it's quiet one but you can really smell it silent but deadly it's not only deadly yeah yes and then there was the dog oh we know who did it we know who did it buddy all right yeah that dog that dog with that poor dog's nose it is suffering that hog dog that has to smell your farts get out of here exactly but anyway so the point is that when you, if you are consistently having stinky farts, if you are on a high protein diet, you should, you should try to rebalance with more fiber.

1:07:52I'm not telling you need to eliminate protein. I'm saying to you, you need to rebalance with fiber to get your microbiome adapted to fiber instead of protein. Um, and just be aware that this production actually of hydrogen sulfide, which you actually smell in your fart. Okay. That, that rotten egg smell, the production of hydrogen sulfide has actually been associated with carcinogenesis in the colon. So when we talk about risk factors for colorectal cancer, yeah. So the point being like, that's your body telling you that something is wrong. That is an exact sign, right? That is an actual sign because what you're smelling is a specific compound.

1:08:33It's hydrogen sulfide and hydrogen sulfide is an actual toxin to the lining of your colon. Wow. That's so interesting. I think people, you know, that everyone talks about protein so much. I mean, you'll know this recently from the food pyramid that came out in the new American guidelines. I know that they spoke about fiber in the actual document, but actually if you look at it on the illustration, yeah, barely, I'm trying to give a bit of credit, but maybe there was no credit to you. On the American fiber, literally there is no whole grains in there. And from, you know, at the very kind of main part of it is protein.

1:09:07And actually, you know, what I'm hearing from you in this conversation is this is just going to create really smelly farts, but also it is a risk factor for colon cancer because we're not actually having enough fiber to help with the fermentation. I mean, yeah, I think I don't want to overstate it. Like I'm not in the business of trying to scare people about their meat consumption. It's to me, I'm in the business of, I want you to like realize you could be so much healthier if you addressed your fiber deficiency. So that, so that to me is where my focus is. And the, the, the reason that the, the reverse pyramid made zero sense to me is that we don't have an issue with the consumption of meat in the United States.

1:09:50The average American consumes 220 pounds of meat per year. That's more than their body weight. The average American weighs 180 pounds. So that, you know, 220 pounds, the beauty of that number is that it's a very simple math, a hundred kilos. so and then the average american consumes over 500 pounds of dairy per year and i'm not like i don't think that these numbers need to be zero i just think that they need to be more balanced than they are the going so hard on those things and chasing more and more protein and it leads you towards these types of foods that the the protein content of this so 220 pounds of meat 500 we'll call it 550 pounds i forget the exact number 550 pounds of dairy what we're just saying right there is that's 770 pounds of food and zero fiber so that's you're eating that much food without actually helping your your fiber intake whatsoever so i i'm just looking to try to help people achieve balance and i don't think that the guidelines helped people to actually achieve that because basically what you're reinforcing is confirmation bias what people want to hear yeah well you're just also not showing that on a table at all.

1:11:00People find it hard enough to follow guidelines. I mean, we have guidelines here that it needs to be 30 grams of fiber a day, and we're consuming barely 18 grams a day. So we're not doing great, but at least we have an analogy of a plate which does show fibrous foods. The thing when I saw the American New Food Pyramid was that it's barely on there um and that's that's the worry yeah whole grains not represented legumes not represented those are actually the most fiber dense foods that exist why would you not unless you're trying to advocate for a paleo diet which is not science-based then why would you remove whole grains and legumes i'll just say one thing cheaper way cheaper you know we're thinking about cost of living like legumes whole grains some of the cheapest foods you could buy a hundred percent and and extremely nutrient dense and the most powerful microbiome foods that exist and highly versatile you just throw them in whatever sauce and they're gonna taste this honestly get me the spice straw with them it's one of my favorite things to cook a hundred percent so i had this really interesting thought i don't know if you i'd be interested to have your take on this because there is a whole evolution chapter in your diary.

1:12:18I've not read your diary, in your new book. And I was thinking, are we, were we once better at digesting fiber than we are today? Is that could be that one interesting explanation on why people are struggling? And then I obviously wanted to look a little bit online at research papers. And I saw a really interesting research paper from 2022, dietary fiber intake and gut microbiome in the human health. And it basically showed that the hunter gatherers who mainly ate fruit and wild grains versus the agricultural era, when crops began to be cultivated, the ancients consumed more than 100 grams of various digestible and indigestible fibers a day.

1:13:05I was like, wow, 100 grams. I mean, that, even for me, I was like, that is a lot. And then obviously I've just mentioned that we in the UK, and it's very similar in America, but I don't know the exact quote, 18 grams a day. Are we, have we kind of like pushed ourselves in evolution to be worse at even digesting our fiber? Because obviously we've just spoken about lots of different digestive discomforts that you can get with consuming fiber too quickly, too soon. It's really important to balance it with water and three grams a day extra, three grams a day extra, as you were saying. But if I look back to the hunter and gatherer era, 100 grams a day is a lot.

1:13:46So do you think we've culturally trained our microbiome to become less resilient in this area? Well, yeah. I mean, what we've done. Do you ever watch those shows where they go out into some remote place and they have to survive with limited resources i just think of bear grills when i think about that which is like a guy who goes and lives and survives in the wild right so yeah so he he's an example of that this type of person but like now they have these game shows where people like go and try to survive in the wild for a period of time and see who can do it the longest and they all starve they all starve they all start they all start like losing weight and getting emaciated.

1:14:31That's the way that we lived for 99.99 % of human history. There was no abundance of resources. And it's not like we were such efficient hunters that we had unlimited meat consumption and you had no way to preserve the meat. So you had to like basically go out and hunt every single day and get something new, but you didn't have guns, let alone bow and arrows for a long time like you had sticks and rocks that's what you had right good luck with that so this is what people ate they was available to them at that point they did way more manual labor i mean they didn't sit at a computer desk like we do now yeah they were moving they were they were moving constantly and um so that's that's where we came from that's the way that our body was conditioned and adapted.

1:15:21That's the biology that we have. So, and what has happened is that in a very quick period of time, we have rapidly changed our diet to something that is, didn't even exist. Cause when you eat, when you win 60 % of your calories for most adults or in the, in the UK, it's 50 % of calories in the UK are from ultra processed foods. Those foods didn't exist until very recently. And so that rapid change has impacted our microbiome because ultimately our microbiome is adapted to whatever our choices are, whatever that might be. So if you, if you basically remove the plant-based foods, crank up the high protein animal-based foods because they're more abundant and available, right?

1:16:07Cause we don't have to go out and go hunting. You just go to your supermarket and buy. And you also sprinkle in all these ultra-processed foods, which contain chemicals that are impacting our microbiome for sure. Like that's not to say they're all bad, but there's chemicals that exist within ultra-processed foods that are clearly impacting our microbiome in a negative way. And you end up in a place where the gut has been weak, become weak. But here's the beautiful thing about this entire story though, Sarah-Ann, is that we're talking about human evolution. We evolve very slowly, but you know who evolves very quickly?

1:16:41Our gut microbes. Every 20 minutes, they produce a new generation. In the course of one day, they're turning over new generations close to 75 times. 75 generations of microbes during the course of a 24-hour period. So they're like passing on genetic code very, very quickly. So they're capable of like very rapid evolution. So if you introduce fiber, they will rapidly evolve to meet you. So as long as you take whatever it is that you're currently eating and you just go a little bit above that, they'll adapt. They'll evolve. They'll meet you where you are and they'll continue to change with you. So that is the opportunity that we have is that if we're willing to change, if we're willing to address this issue, if we're willing to choose these foods, then ultimately your microbes, they want to meet you where you are and you would be selecting specific families of microbes.

1:17:44And they happen to be the microbes that consistently in studies are anti-inflammatory, consistently in studies show health benefits because ultimately what you're doing is you're choosing the types of microbes that love fiber. I mean, that was such a big part of our last episode of changing your gut microbiome in 24 hours. And you're literally saying from that, by choosing even just three grams of extra fiber a day, you are making that exact step to helping change your gut microbiome. And it can even just start taking a day. That's right. And it's been made totally clear from research that the choices that we make today will start to impact our microbiome by tomorrow.

1:18:23So like 24 hours actually can start to change. It's not that it's completely overhauled, but the change is underway. It's a detectable difference. It's a clearly detectable difference. And then the other thing that happens, Sarah Ann, is that we have a gut barrier. So our intestines are completely carpeted with cells. And it's a single layer of cells. And it separates the inside of our intestine from our body, including our bloodstream. and the surface area of what we're discussing is the size of like a decent sized apartment in London or New York. So think of an entire apartment and then think about what if you were to replace the carpet every three to five days?

1:19:11Because that's what happens. The entire inner lining of our intestines turns over every three to five days. We get a brand new gut barrier that gets installed. So not only do we have this opportunity to change our microbiome in the first 24 hours, we have the opportunity that our choices over the next three to five days can install a brand new, completely fresh, much healthier gut barrier that actually allows us to protect our immune system and our body. So something that I'm going to connect that with, which was really interesting in part of the book that I think is going to spike people's interest because this is connected to the gut lining, it's connected to lowering inflammation, all of the things.

1:19:50And I think this might get, I think people will comment on this part a lot because everyone's going to have their own view, is alcohol. Now you mentioned it earlier and I was like, I knew when we got to this part, it's going to be an interesting sector to pick up on. Now there's been many experts over the last five years that have come onto the show. And also when I've gone to the Royal College of Physicians and listen to different conversations, people have cited that, you know, one glass of red wine a day is fine for your gut microbiome. It's got, you know, polyphenols in it, so it's not actually that bad.

1:20:24And there's always been, you know, a bit of indiscrepancy on whether people believe that or they don't. I think one thing that we can all agree on is that social drinking, if it brings you a little bit of joint connection, that's undeniable. But when we're actually just isolating it now, taking all of that part out, just isolating it to like the gut lining and inflammation and exactly what's going on in the body. It was really interesting to hear that your own views have kind of changed a lot as well, understanding on alcohol. And you kind of mentioned that you don't believe alcohol to actually have any health benefit from a recent study that you, that you looked at whilst you were writing this book.

1:20:59Can you explain a little bit about how the conversation has shifted from the original 2011 systematic review, which, which is where this will really stand from showing that moderate drinkers had a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, which is why I think this whole conversation started, to now to what you've recently discovered and why your views on this are quite strong when it literally just comes directly to the gut microbiome. First of all, let me say I totally agree with you that when you are making the choice to go out and be social, if you choose to consume alcohol, I don't think you should feel horribly bad about that.

1:21:33I also don't think that you should make it a weekly pattern that every Friday and Saturday night, you're going to go and get smashed. Have you met anyone British? Yeah, I have. I know how y 'all like to enjoy your pub on a Friday after work. Do you know the pub is busy at 11 a.m.? Yeah. Yes. No, I understand. I understand. So, I mean, look, the social aspect, I think, is relevant because we do have a loneliness issue at the same time. so we need to find ways to be connected with one another so that being said really what we're discussing here is like if you if this was not for social purposes if you were sitting at home by yourself should you be consuming alcohol on a regular basis and this original study these are these are population-based studies they're epidemiology studies where you're trying to understand a risk factor for a specific condition.

1:22:30And when they examine alcohol, what they discover is that actually the people who consumed a moderate amount of alcohol, so like one to two drinks per day, they actually had lower risk than the people who were zero drinks. And they had lower risk than the people who were excessively consuming alcohol. So it sort of led to this idea that there's this sweet spot where you should be one to two drinks per day and that's what you should target and that was just for cardiovascular disease right nothing else it was just cardiovascular disease that's what he was showing i believe it was for cardiovascular disease but i i um i have it here i'd have to dig into more detail you do underlined perfect thank you thank you so anyway the the issue with this and i just to be clear i'm actually a big believer in epidemiology studies i i studied at the university in North Carolina, which is the number two school of public health in America on this particular topic.

1:23:27I have a master's of clinical investigation. But the problem that exists is that you can have confounding, which basically means that there's stuff that's impacting the result that has nothing to do with alcohol and heart disease. There's other factors. So do people who drink wine, do they tend to be more affluent? Yes. Do people who drink wine, do they tend to be people who live a healthier lifestyle and have a healthier diet? Yes. Do they also tend to be people who exercise more often? Yes. Could those things impact heart disease? A hundred percent. And can we account for all of that in a study?

1:24:02No, you can't. That's the problem. You can have this like leftover element that you haven't fully addressed. And so there've been more recent studies in the last five years that have called this entire discovery into question because when they do more thorough analysis of these confounding factors, they actually discover that there is no advantage relative to zero. So then it leads me to, okay, well, what is the impact on the gut microbiome? And what we know with 100 % total clarity is that heavy drinkers definitely don't have a healthy gut microbiome. In fact, what I've found is that in order to develop alcoholic liver disease, things like cirrhosis or alcoholic hepatitis, it's actually a required step that the microbiome basically collapses.

1:24:56So in order to get to the disease, you actually need to ruin your gut and then you will develop these alcoholic liver diseases. Okay. So, but what about like this idea of one to two drinks? What does that mean in the gut microbiome? Well, there was this study that sort of changed my perspective on it, where they took a group of people and they, they had them consume alcohol consumption to like the point of intoxication, where if they had a, in the States, at least if they had a sobriety test, they would fail. And like, you couldn't drive, you would, you would get pulled over and get a ticket. So, and they measured two things.

1:25:40Every 30 minutes, they would measure their blood alcohol level and they would measure what's called their lipopolysaccharide level. What's that? Now, lipopolysaccharide is a toxin that lives on the surface of bacteria like E. coli. And these are bacteria that are inside your intestines. They're in your gut. and the purpose of your gut barrier is to keep them in your gut. And when the gut barrier gets weak, we call that increased intestinal permeability, but many people call it leaky gut. I don't have a problem with that because the leaky gut allows these bacteria to sneak across, and then you can actually detect them in the blood.

1:26:29So these inflammatory bacteria are now present in your bloodstream. They weren't supposed to be there. And so what they discovered was that the, and for people who are not watching on YouTube, you may want to flip over because basically I'm going to show with my hands that they had this graph of like how the blood alcohol level went up after they started drinking. and you could have superimposed the lipopolysaccharide level because it was a mirror image. Like it was basically like you could just carbon copy it right over the top of it. Basically, the lipopolysaccharide levels matched what was happening with the blood alcohol.

1:27:18There was this weird moment and I can't explain why this happened, but the blood alcohol level went down and then it kind of blipped up a little bit. It kind of went back up. guess what the lipopolysaccharide did? It went down and then it blipped up, it copied. And then the last thing is that the lipopolysaccharide level didn't get back to zero, not zero, but it didn't get back to normal until the alcohol level was literally zero. Wow. So to be clear, the study wasn't on one or two drinks, but I think that the takeaway from the study for me, the fact that there was such one-to-one matching of alcohol level in the blood and lipopolysaccharide and that the lipopolysaccharide needed a zero alcohol level to get back to normal, that to me was sufficient evidence for me to say, I don't think there's any advantage to one to two drinks because even that small amount is enough to impact your blood alcohol level and potentially cause leaky gut.

1:28:24And that creates inflammation. wow how many people do you think are walking around with leaky gut that have no idea because i think we hear this terminology a lot and i'm guessing if we are a a nation full of drinkers i think you know we probably drink more than anyone else when i'm in america i don't tend to drink as much but that might be in certain places um what do you think kind of the relationship is between leaky gut and alcohol consumption the relationship between leaky gut and alcohol consumption i i you know based upon what i'm seeing it's it's leading me to believe that alcohol is directly responsible for creating leaky gut.

1:28:57And so, you know, if you have, if you have a half of a drink and you feel nothing, then I don't, it's hard for me to argue that that's a disastrous thing, but when you drink and then you feel it, and I would argue that most people, even one drink, you feel something. That's why you're having it. There's also a big connection to alcohol in the liver, obviously as well. And that is a big connection will deliver in the microbiome a hundred percent these things are completely interconnected and even even the ways in which we manifest a hangover we have blamed this one particular molecule called acid aldehyde but actually if you dig into this in more detail i'm totally convinced that hangovers are related to basically the damage that we have caused to our microbiome with alcohol.

1:29:51Wow. Because if you look at some of the acetaldehyde studies, what you discover is that the acetaldehyde could be like totally back to normal within a couple of hours. In fact, you could still have blood alcohol level. You could still have alcohol in your blood and the acetaldehyde could be back to normal because the body is basically metabolizing it. yet the hangover like i think we all know a hangover is a 24-hour thing like it's not going to be gone i feel like mine's three or four days sometimes yeah it just totally throws you off yeah that's the thing it's it's like travel it's like travel right like you travel you travel yeah you get jet lag and the jet lag lasts for three days i think that's a microbiome thing oh is it what jet lag oh yeah oh 100 yeah so uh yeah and then there's actually quite clear evidence on this so there was a study sarah and where they um they took people and flew them from the states to israel and they checked their microbiome before travel they checked their microbiome 24 hours upon arrival when they were jet lagged and they checked it again two weeks later when the jet lag was resolved.

1:31:07And what they discovered was that number one, there were clear cut differences in the microbiome in jet lag and that there were a huge number of microbes that were impacted in a negative way through this jet lag. You were basically like moving towards dysbiosis. And then they transferred these microbiomes into mice. So they have these germ free mice. So these are mice that are like grown in a laboratory, like basically raised in a laboratory, don't have a microbiome. And they basically take a human microbiome, put it into the mouse and then like run tests. Like a fecal transplant. A fecal transplant.

1:31:46That's right. Yeah. So they do this fecal transplant and basically what they showed is that the microbiome on the jet lag day, you could feed the exact same food. So remember there's three microbiomes before travel, jet lagged, and then after travel. You could feed the exact same foods to three different mice. And the one that got the jet lagged microbiome is going to spike its blood sugar way harder. And you could feed the exact same food, the exact same number of calories to these three mice. And the jet lagged one is also going to get obese. And it's not a coincidence when you start to put these, the pieces of the puzzle together, that when you look at shift workers, like I am so grateful for our shift workers, our nurses, our police officers, firefighters, et cetera.

1:32:37These people make sacrifices for us. And it's been very clearly shown jet laggers. I'm sorry, people who work shift workers, shift workers are at increased risk for obesity and diabetes. So I just showed you this mouse study, spiking blood sugar, increased obesity, it's basically mirroring, paralleling what we see in people who work the night shift. So what does one do? I mean, I obviously travel a lot. There's maybe a lot of people listening to this that might be traveling right now. There might also be lots of shift workers that are listening to this. So lots of people that are going, oh my God, okay, great.

1:33:16What does that mean for me? What can one do to protect themselves here? it's a little bit easier with with jet lag than it is with shift working because the shift working is um it's a little bit harder to avoid like the consequences of working through the night what i would say first of all to the shift workers is they've actually done studies that show that you're better off eating your food during daylight hours oh wow okay as opposed to eating while you're at work. What if it's like four o 'clock in the UK and it's dark or in New York and it's dark in the winter? Yeah. How does that work? So, well, uh, not so much like daylight in like, you know, uh, December style short days, more so like, um, you would be better off.

1:34:08Imagine that you work the night shift, right? So imagine that you, uh, work at a hospital and you work from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Okay. You would be better off eating your food during that 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. window, the daylight, the daytime window. You'd be better off eating then than you would be eating while you're actually working your shift. Even if you're hungry, you'd be better off eating during the day than you are when you're working your shift, even if the hunger signals are telling you you should be eating. And then with travel, there's a couple of things that you can do. So So chapter six of my book is entirely about circadian rhythm.

1:34:48And there's this approach that I call chronotherapy that I think we should be taking. Chronotherapy basically means that you are basically creating specific patterns during your day in order to align your body and optimize your health. So light becomes the number one lever that you can pull. so adapting your body to the light for the new place that you find yourself in is the key so when you land in a new place you want to as quickly as possible you know imagine that i fly to the uk and i'm coming to london all right i land on the red eye um so i'm totally exhausted but actually it's quite important for me to get outside and get sunlight and teach my body what the new time, like the new, what the new schedule is as soon as I land.

1:35:45Yeah. That's essential for me when I go away. If you were to fly to New York, right, you're coming from London to New York. All right. What you, what I would say to you in that context is that you're going to come, you're going to land and it's going to be like evening in New York. And, you know, basically what you want to do is you want to put yourself to sleep when it's time to go to bed and then get your sunlight the next morning. So, so the point being like, try to observe the morning and the evening routines, more light in the morning and less light in the evening. Yeah. And you said three things and you said morning light, less light in the evening, tight meal times only during the day, which you've touched upon and then sleep consistency.

1:36:33And you have here in the biggest capital letters, consistency is one of the most ultimate things that it boils down to, like making sure that you keep these three things in sync when it comes to your gut microbiome. But I guess this also connects to jet lag and shift work as well. So the key that you must understand is that your cells have a circadian rhythm. So they're like trying to keep time for themselves. Your genetic code, about 50 % of your genetic code is flipping on and off at specific times a day. And that's only possible to work the way it's supposed to if it knows what time of day it actually is.

1:37:17And your gut microbiome, that circadian study with the microbiome, they found that 60 % of our microbes are responsive to our circadian rhythm, 60%. So we have specific families that are rising and falling at specific time points to meet the day. So basically what I'm saying is if your body, including your cells, including your genetic code, including your gut microbiome, If your body knew what you were trying to do and when you're going to do it, it will meet you there and it will help you to do it better. But if your schedule is chaos, then your body is constantly trying to figure out, okay, what is going on right now?

1:37:58What are we doing? I don't even know. And you shouldn't expect within that context of like having a chaotic schedule, you shouldn't expect your body to optimally perform because it just is constantly trying to catch up. So this is why consistency becomes key, because if you can create those patterns, morning routine, mealtimes, evening routine, if you can create those patterns, then everything gets filled in around that and the body actually performs so well and you feel better. You feel the difference. So that kind of brings me to like the full kind of concept of this podcast, really. I mean, consistency feels like the biggest thing.

1:38:35Also, I feel like to me, it connects with sleep. You know, there's been lots of conversations about sleep debt and can you catch up with your sleep on the weekend if you're kind of reducing it in the middle of the week and they kind of say, actually, no, it's all about having the consistent time or going to bed and waking up is actually where you see the greatest health benefits. And it feels like it's really hard to use that word and balance in today's society because it feels that we really struggle with that word balance because everything is like a juggle act. We're all trying to ultimately survived.

1:39:05And also there's so much overwhelming information, but actually what it really comes down to is if we can try and keep some kind of consistent routine in all dimensions of our health, especially with our gut microbiome, that actually allows us to have a huge benefit, kind of the long-term benefits that we all really want to gain. That big kind of buzzword longevity is consistency is kind of key to that. Alongside consistency, you know, you talk a lot about a 30 day plan. You talk a lot about people being able to change their gut in the next 24 hours. There's been so much valuable information today, but what would you say are the three key points that people should go away and take actionable strategies that are consistent to getting that kind of bolstering gut health that you want everyone to have?

1:39:48I think that you can summarize the majority of the four nutrition workhorses with one simple statement that people have probably heard me say before, which is to eat a variety of different plant-based foods. If you quite simply focus on that, it takes care of the vast majority of what your body really needs in order to be healthy. The one caveat is the fourth workhorse, which are fermented foods. That's sort of a unique category that doesn't necessarily fit so easily into, hey, just eat a variety of plants. So make sure that you are adding the fermented foods, which are game changers for gut health.

1:40:24Like to me, plant-based food fermented food that's what you need explain the fermented foods just for anyone's going oh what is that so fermented foods are any food that is transformed like i think of transformation is my word with fermentation transformed by a combination of bacteria and yeasts so examples are sourdough bread many things that we eat on a daily consume on a daily basis chocolate is a fermented food no really yeah that's how we that's how you end up like going from cacao to ultimately the bitter right the bitterness of chocolate of dark chocolate that actually is the result of fermentation did you see how excited i was by that comment then yeah i did i think that you may be a chocolate lover i am well you know sarah and that actually tells us something about your microbiome because there's actually been studies where they found that people who love chocolate, and not everyone does.

1:41:21I love chocolate. Not everyone does, but some people react like you. They're like, whoa, you know, I'm that way with coffee, by the way. They actually found that the microbes produce this chemical that actually makes people crave chocolate. So there's this idea, yes, there's this idea that our microbes actually have the ability to impact our cravings for food. And that's been most well proven actually with chocolate above anything else. So you have specific microbes that are pulling those strings. Those microbes were talking to us a moment ago. Wow. I just had to handle a dark chocolate before I came on here.

1:41:59Now I'm feeling great. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think dark chocolate is filled with healthy polyphenols. It's actually good for focus, for energy. Magnesium. There we go. and chocolate to me is a gut health food. Like high quality, high quality dark chocolate is actually a gut health food and you shouldn't feel bad about that. We have another applause. So there we go. I'm very happy about this. So fermented foods, other fermented foods like classics. Classics are yogurt, kefir, cheese, sauerkraut, kimchi, miso, tempeh. These are all examples of fermented foods. So the key is that like most people are not getting any and we you need to figure out like what works for you so if you are to consume dairy let it be fermented that was that's by far the healthiest dairy food that exists um so and then i'm a big believer that like it is it's good to try to get into the routine of like having some of these fermented vegetables like like sauerkraut uh kombucha is also fermented for people who are curious and so on all the things that we want to add in what's the one thing that you think apart from ultra processed foods what's the one truth about gut health that you don't want people to hear with with regard to our food yeah or actually anything there's so many things that affect our gut health what do you think that we're not listening to or that we probably don't want to hear but we should here's what i honestly would say is that we kind of touched on this but I think I want to say this more emphatically and let it and let it be our number two is that the health isn't just what you eat so you could eat everything you could eat all the proper foods you could eat a dr.

1:43:59B recommended diet or a Mediterranean diet which is basically what's being recommended in my book and still not get to where you need to be why would that be because something is missing that's impacting your gut and that can be stress that can be trauma that can be your relationships that can be whether or not deep inside of the recesses of your soul you feel a sense of purpose and a comfort in what your life means and also what will happen when your life is over. And that to me is the spiritual needs that we have that are often overlooked. And I think missing quite heavily in the modern world.

1:44:52So the call to action is to bring awareness. I mentioned earlier that chapter eight is my favorite chapter in this book because this is where we talk about the brain gut connection that you and I have touched on today. but what you need to know is, and what I've learned in my own life, my best healing was not just changing my diet. My best healing was when I fixed my relationship with my dad, who I had a complex relationship with. And that's what I discuss in that chapter. But I think for each of us, there's a unique story there where healing is possible and it's not just what's on your plate.

1:45:37I think that's the biggest overlooked area of health. It's why I wrote the book Healthy Shouldn't Be This Hard, because I think there was a time where I was doing every single thing right and I still was hospitalized. I even had a bowel obstruction last year, and that is due to intense stress. And I think, you know, ultimately you can have the biggest checklist in the world. you can have your 30 plant-based foods a week you can not drink alcohol but actually you know for me and yours was the relationship to your dad which I can imagine was a huge healed trauma and we forget how much that can affect us and mine was heavy self-criticism of not feeling good enough and actually when I learned the power of self-compassion and the importance that that had on my health and to give myself a bit of a break and to let things go and to speak to myself as I would a best friend or you know people that are coming on the show when I could give that back to myself everything in my health started to be a bit easier and then all those other stepping stones that I had fell into place but I had the healthiest diet in the world but I was still hospitalized and so in my brain it becomes very disjointed but you're in that hospital bed and you have five different consultants a gastroenterologist a renal doctor a cardiovascular clear doctor or everyone there kind of diagnosing the separate parts but you forget the whole person at the center of it and actually it's not just because of that one bowel obstruction or that one thing it's it's a collation of exactly what you were saying the mind and the body and i do think you know it's important to understand these steps so we can start making the right decisions but ultimately i'm very similar that you have to kind of go to a place of of self-compassion and self-love and self-understanding to really be the healthiest version of yourself.

1:47:28I think it's just not looked about enough today. Yeah, I totally agree. And people would see you and imagine, like, how could you feel that way? And they don't understand what it's really like to walk in your shoes and what's going on on the inside. and you know there were times in my life where you would look at me from the outside and see my resume this guy is getting everything that he wants and i was miserable because i needed to heal and what you've just described the idea of self-love is a multi-faceted thing because it's not so simple as just loving yourself ultimately self-love it does like part of what feeds into this is our ability to resolve traumas our ability to build healthy relationships with others and be interconnected in a way that's necessary for us in order to feel safe right to feel loved by others and also to resolve our spiritual needs because self-love also comes when we know that we are loved by God and that we were born with that love.

1:48:51And it's unremitting the same way that I feel about my children. My children, they might piss me off, but I will always love them no matter what. And it was for me, like building upon what you just said, Sarah, and for me, I didn't love myself. I had low self-esteem. even though I was accomplishing all these great things. And what I really needed was to know that my dad loved me and ultimately also to open up into this sort of bigger conversation of like aligning myself spiritually and knowing that I'm loved by God. And when I discovered those things, I started to love myself. And that impacted so many facets of my life.

1:49:39And it allows me to be the man that I am today. I think it's such a missing part in the health conversation. I think we can have all these things that we want to accomplish and do, but we kind of forget ourselves in the process of it. And we're the ones that we're actually trying to do it for. I find, you know, I think until you really go through it, until you come out the other side, and mine was only during writing the book that I really understood just how much I needed to learn and understand in that area. even through everything that I learned it's it's been the biggest kind of eye-opening and I really hope that people feel that when they listen to this episode so thank you for sharing that thank you for sharing it in your book and being open because I know how hard it is you kind of put something out there and then you go oh my gosh this feels very vulnerable but actually the outcry of people who connect to that and connect to you and such a deeper level I think is amazing and it's life-changing um and so you know and it's people like you that come on and talk about these things it encourages me to talk about it and i think the more that we can have these conversations the more that people can listen to them and feel seen and be curious to understand what it is for them yeah and i think that these types of conversations they start they plant a seed and that seed could grow into something beautiful and it could be just the very very beginning of an evolution, a change for the individual listener who's with us right now.

1:51:11And they might find like next step is to connect with our books. And so like, you know, to take what we have discussed here today and to deep dive it and open it up and really understand it, you know, you could find that in my book, Plant Power Plus. And then I am so excited to check out your book. I think that everyone should be pre-ordering your book right now. And it really sounds like those are going to be complimentary pieces on a journey towards healing because healing comes in many forms. So, and that's what people need to know. A hundred percent. I mean, it all started with my gut. So that's the irony of all of this.

1:51:48Um, and yeah, I have to say once I figured that next part out, everything else improved. And so, you know, it is interesting. Um, sometimes it's conceptually hard to get your head around it until you've been through it but when you've been through it and you're like wow it's not just the foods I'm consuming they play a part but they're not the full picture is yeah it's life-changing for people so I hope that they read these books side by side I'm so privileged that we're being authored in the same year and published in the same year so that's that's great maybe we need to do something where we connect buy one and get the other half surprise.

1:52:22There we go. There we go. So, Will, I can't remember what you said in the last two podcasts. I'm going to have to go back and have a look, but I hope it's different because I think this question is like science. It's always evolving. It's always changing and it's deeply individual to where one is in their life. So what does live well, be well mean to you today? I think live well, be well, it means that you are being the most authentic, real version of yourself. And because you love yourself, you're able to be that person. And that leads you to thriving in all facets of your life, which includes your relationships with others, includes your own personal health, and also just being able to look in the mirror and see that person and know that's a wonderful person you see right there.

1:53:12and they deserve to be loved. Love that. It's like a line straight out of what I've written. I could not agree with you more. I hope everyone looks in the mirror and thinks that. And if they can't, then I hope that's one that they kind of put at the top of their checklist to do. Will, thank you. I know next time we do this, I'm going to try and make it in person. I'm dying to get us in person, but I'm so happy. I think this is such an important conversation to have right now you know the news with the american health dietary guidelines the rise of colon cancer and younger generations seems to be all over the news right now you know us only eating kind of half of what we're recommended to fire but all everything is so timely with your fantastic book plant power plus so i'm so glad that although we couldn't get in person i'm so glad that we could still get this out to people and and have this conversation so thank you so much for coming back on to live well be well for the third time um very thankful for that oh it's my pleasure i want to thank our audience for being here with us today and um definitely in in person would be great but you know what sarah and we're doing a great job having fun with these conversations anyway so thank you everyone we are amazing i'm going to link everything with your with your supplements probiotics the book everything will be in the show notes on all the platform so if everyone wants to gain more acromantia um or update their reading then uh head to the show notes and i'll pop all in there but will thank you so much for all of your insightful knowledge and um yeah i can't wait for us to have our round fourth conversation whenever that will be sounds great thanks everyone

1:55:04Thank you.