Top Gut Scientist: Stop Avoiding Gluten, Eat Dairy & Skip Expensive Supplements: Jordan Haworth

36:54We're the only mammals that drink other mammals milk. So let's just set the record straight because you do talk about dairy in this book. So should we as adults be drinking cow's milk? Can I change this to make dairy great again? No, because then you will look like, especially with that colour on them. yeah goodbye um yeah so dairy in itself is a very affordable nutritious food source you're talking protein calcium b12 selenium so very nutritious iodine iodine deficiency right now in the uk which by the way is normally a third world country problem i don't say that laughing i'm just like because they're malnourished in third world countries, right?

37:43That's the reason why they have iodine problems. And that's why they have thyroid problems. Yeah. We're now doing this to ourselves. Great, great shout. And even in places like China now, so we know the food pyramid. In China, they have the food pagoda. And they recently added milk to that because they realized how nutritious milk was. because China is an interesting place in that they are naturally lactose intolerant. So around two thirds of the world population have lactase deficiency. Lactase is the enzyme that breaks down the lactose sugar in milk. And as we age, we naturally lose levels of this unless you're lactase persistent, which is usually people from European descent, because our ancestors probably at some point started eating milk and developed that gene to keep lactase persistence.

38:42And if you don't have that and you have lactose intolerance, essentially what's happening is the lactose sugar in the dairy is not being broken down in your small intestine. It travels all the way to your large intestine where you've got microbiomes. They feed on it. They produce gas. That huge influx in gas is going to cause that bloating and that wind you get with lactose intolerance. but it also has an osmotic effect, which draws water into the bowel, makes you diarrhea. So what I always tell people is you can still eat dairy, even if you're lactose intolerant, because fermented dairy like yogurt and kefir, aged cheeses, mature cheddar, parmesan, anything aged for longer than two months is naturally lactose free.

39:25Because during that fermentation process, the bacteria are breaking down the lactose sugar. so you can still eat some forms of dairy even if you're lactose intolerant but people this blows people's minds and when i tell them this is actually you can reverse lactose intolerance by eating more fermented dairy and it's a statement actually approved by the european food safety authority so essentially the more cheap the more well the more yogurt and kefir you eat the more of those microbes make their way into your gut and because they produce lactase they help you break it down so they've done studies where they took people and they gave them a load of live yogurt for like two weeks and the way that we test for lactose intolerance is we do a breath test so if we give you lactose and that lactose isn't digested and it goes to your gut microbiome in your large intestine they produce gas that gas gets absorbed from your gut into your blood into your lungs expelled in your breath so we can measure that gas so if you get an increase in gas after lactose you might be lactose intolerant but what they found is actually eating more of that live yogurt and then they retested them two weeks later those gas levels dropped because they were now absorbing more of that that lactose sugar so because the only thing i feel like people are going to say oh i cut out dairy and my skin improved like there is connections with acne yeah so lactose is a sugar um that doesn't necessarily cause immune symptoms it's going to cause gastrointestinal symptoms the immune symptoms that are often related to skin and respiratory tract are caused by usually the cow milk protein and one if there's typically two there's uh well there's a beta casein right so there's a1 and a2 this is my next question right you're lining yourself up so well thank you my questions and actually lactose intolerance can be confused for an A1 beta-catein intolerance.

41:28So they did a randomized study where they gave people either A1 milk or A2 milk. So A2 milk naturally comes from cows that produce A2 milk, including Jersey cows. But it's also found more abundant in things like sheep and goats. And what they found was that these, again, they took people who had diagnosed lactose intolerance, So we know they had lactose intolerance because they did one of those breath tests. So they were proven to be lactose intolerant. But what happened is they gave them A2 milk and A1. And actually now they could eat the A2 milk even though it contained lactose. So actually it wasn't the lactose causing the symptoms for them.

42:11It was the A1 beta casein protein. So if you want to give it a go yourself or see if you can tolerate, you could try A2 milk, Jersey cow milk. you could try cheese made from sheeps goats milk you know halloumi feta manchego and if you can tolerate them better then it might actually be the the protein rather than lactose well i'm glad you brought it up because there's a lot of stuff online right now by saying that and you can tell me if this is wrong or right you know a1 milk which is probably what most of us really drink that it releases more of the peptide bcm7 not saying the full one because my dyslexic brain will break down um but it's been proposed that that bcm7 may affect gut movement or contribute to discomfort in people in some people but some people are saying like we should just not be drinking it it's not healthy for us um and we should be looking more at a2 milk which is what you just spoke um but i tried to look at the evidence and it said that the results are mixed and the evidence is not strong enough to conclude that A1 milk is genuinely inflammatory or harmful.

43:16I mean, I looked at a randomized crossover study, but also it was the EFSA. Gosh, my brain with dissection and words sometimes. So I'm different with you. That's kind of what it said too. And it kind of said, yeah, goats and sheep milk predominantly contains A2 beta casein, which may be one reason that people tolerate it better. But we shouldn't be scared of A1 milk, right? Because when I try to research this looking on social media, because obviously you look at the literature, but then I also go, but then what's social media saying? Because people aren't reading the literature, people are reading social media.

43:47And people are putting up reels by saying that A1 is very inflammatory and we shouldn't be having it and it's big cattle. The how cows are looked after is very important to me. But obviously if we're looking at just pure health, so it's not inflammatory. We shouldn't be worried about it. No. That was a very long description from me. No, no. In the general population, again, it's not inflammatory. And if I go back to that study I referenced where they looked at people consuming more fermented dairy, have lower levels of inflammation, and the majority of that fermented dairy was likely A1, based on the countries that they studied.

44:26So it's not inflammatory, it's just that, again, all of us, well, a few of us, have our sensitivities and intolerances, and it's just like the sort of the gluten point that actually probably about you know I don't know the actual I'm not going to say it because I don't know the actual prevalence but there will be a small percentage of people who are intolerant to that a a1 protein and the resultant bcm so that those are the people that might need to have a2 but for the majority of us we shouldn't all be rushing out to buy a2 milk I don't why a2 milk costs more why would I spend more money well that's what i worry about is this just a marketing thing definitely because yeah even i'm confused actually this is the job yeah so i say if if you think you might have an intolerance to dairy which is quite obvious because you can just could we be telling ourselves that though this is what i mean because we've just figured out the nocebo effect yeah we can but there's alternatives so what i'm saying is you don't need to give it up like any food there's always alternatives so with gluten there's a sourdough alternative with um if you are intolerant to lactose or dairy there's the aged cheeses and the milk the fermented milk the kefir and the yogurt which you can have and so you're not going to be eating ice cream but you can eat the yogurt and etc and then when it comes to this we could potentially try the a2 but what i'm saying is you probably don't need to it's a very very small percentage of people the other listeners to this podcast carry on having a one if you you know you're not having any issues at present because we don't want you to now start thinking a one is giving you issues and that nocebo effect is going to kick in um so the brain fascinates yeah yeah fascinates me okay so we i'm glad we cleared that up yeah me too so drum roll if people aren't watching this on YouTube or Spotify video they have not seen that I have delightful products sat in front of me Jordan um so I have prescribed you to bring things in today so thank you for traveling all the way down from is it Manchester um to come here to London to bring them first off the biggest reel I think that was on your social media was this jelly and so I asked if you would kindly make some for me because I want I wanted to try it but two I want to know why this went so viral and why we all need to know about this so this is my sorry I can I so this is my psyllium jelly to help you poo phenomenally okay wait say that again my psyllium jelly to help you poo phenomenally it is the secret to a one wipe guarantee right i have never taken something that works so instantaneously and the benefits are so obvious and if i go even two days without this now i notice in the amount of toilet roll i'm using really yeah so it's kind of it increases your expenses on the roll it feels like koba do you remember when everyone ran to the supermarket

47:44so you you save money on toilet roll because it's a relatively cheap supplement so psyllium is psyllium husk yeah so psyllium husk is basically a fiber a type of flower that grows in india and also the mediterranean region and it's almost pure soluble fiber so soluble fiber is the best kind of fiber for your gut it's the kind of fiber that you got microbes love it's the kind of fiber that lowers cholesterol that helps to balance blood sugar so slows gastrokemptia and it also detoxifies and you know we know the liver and kidneys do a good job of that but also your gut is a detoxifier every time you go for a poo you're technically detoxing and it's a soluble viscous fiber viscous means it's basically gel forming so what happens is if you add liquid to the psyllium, it forms a gel.

48:38A bit like chia seeds? A bit like chia seeds, but even better. So more viscous than chia seeds. And they've done studies to show that it's like a sponge and it soaks up toxins, heavy metals, lead, arsenic. It can even soak up microplastics and forever chemicals. So they're becoming a bit of a potential problem at the minute. We don't know the long-term consequences of these. we know that our bodies probably contain quite a bit of them and they're difficult to escape we've done a whole episode on this yeah but one of the easiest things you can do is eat more soluble viscous fiber your chia seeds and they contain mucilage pectin apples and pears beta-glucan in oats and my favorite is psyllium so the psyllium jelly i'll see if i can get a little oh yeah let's get this in matches the hat yeah wow so that is gonna move through your gut balance, blood sugar, low cholesterol.

49:35Can I try some? Or is it not being refrigerated? No, you can still try it, it's fine. Can I? I feel like, do you know when you're on a cooking show? Yeah, so the way I make it is free heaped teas. I'm surprised you didn't eat this on the train. I know, I should have. I've got another one, just in case. And it doesn't need to be refrigerated? No, I made it this morning, so it's fine. Oh, it smells great. See what's in it? Try and guess the flavour of definitely berries no have a go have a go what do you think there's there's two things in there should be quite sour so grape i use grape juice grape juice and let and lime bit of lime to get like a sour grape flavor because i love you know when you have sweets like a sour grape sweet but that's like a dessert yeah so in there is roughly three heaped teaspoons which is just under 10 about about 10 grams of psyllium and that's where you get the big benefits that was a good shot nice so should i be eating this whole thing then in the morning or is that too much no if you if you want the one wipe guarantee you eat the whole jar but i would say build up to it so what's unique about psyllium and why i love it is it's not a fermentable fiber so it's not like inulin which is found in these have you seen the prebiotic sodas yes inulin's great like feeds your good bacteria but it's super fermentable so if you if you've ever had more than one of them in a day you'll know about it i know it i'm so the person sat next to you yeah so psyllium is non-fermentable but because it's super viscous it needs a lot of liquid thank you for that if you don't hydrate enough alongside it can make you slightly more so it works both for constipation and diarrhea right but it can make you more constipated if you don't hydrate alongside so whilst i've put some liquid with this so it's about 150 ml of your favorite juice i've used grape juice which is high in those polyphenols but also i like the sour grape flavor and then the free teaspoons let it sit for at least 10 to 15 minutes to get the jelly but I made that this morning it's still perfect consistency I thought you'd have crossed like berries in there yeah yeah no so 100 % fruit juice I use not the concentrated stuff but like you know um cranberry juice people use pomegranate juice I've used pineapple juice and actually it's not going to raise your blood sugar well I was thinking is it very high sugar no because it's bound to the psyllium so the psyllium is actually going to block that sugar absorption is that a bit like kombucha uh a little bit so kombucha works in that it slows gastrokemptian so you get less of a sugar spike because of the acidic vinegar type ph there this works a it slows gastrokemptian so it's as sugar is released more slowly into the small intestine you get less of a blood sugar spike but also because the juice is bound to the psyllium you're not absorbing as much of that sugar because if you recall it's like a sponge i love this i love this stuff um my you know i don't take supplements i get all of what i need from my diet but that is the only thing i technically supplement and it's about 10 grams of fiber there and most of us could do with that the average fiber in the uk i think is about 60 and 18 grams a day but we need to be hitting 30 so even just that jelly alone could pretty much it's a third of a day so love that stuff uh i think I was responsible for like everyone taking it it went viral and then my friend in Australia Chelsea the IBS dietitian did like a her take on it as well and I think between the two of us like we got everyone obsessed with psyllium and it's not expensive is it psyllium husk because there's a lot of these like supplements that can say oh it can help reduce your glucose spike and all of these things but is that just an expensive psyllium husk exactly what that costs pennies i mean i think i get a one kilogram bag for about less than 15 pounds and that lasts me two three months so you know almost five pound a month i'm spending and just a tip for anyone if they want to make the jelly to get the psyllium whole husk not the powder because that gives you a better texture the powder's fine but you won't get the jelly texture and another tip is don't get the capsule because to get those big benefits on metabolic health, on gut health, you need to have around 10, even 15 grams a day.

54:11And one capsule only has about half a gram to one gram. So you'd be taking 20 to 30 capsules to get that amount of psyllium. So you're simply not going to get enough. Yeah. Okay. So while we're on the subject of poo and bowel transitions, how, it's really hard to say like what's normal because I don't think normal can be understood. but what's the range in how often someone should be getting? Because you said that can help with constipation and diarrhea. So where on the spectrum should we be sitting? So the normal range is anywhere from three times a week to three times a day. It's kind of what's normal for you.

54:49Three times a week? Yeah, which for me, I feel like it shouldn't be. I think if you think of it as every other day, then it sounds a bit more plausible. So every other day to three times a day. but it's what's normal for you, right? If you've always been like that and you're consistent, that's fine. If there's any sudden changes where you're going a lot more than usual or a lot less than usual and that persists for more than a couple of weeks, that's a sign to go and speak to your doctor. But what I have there is the trifecta for pooing like a champ. So we've got the psyllium, got the kiwis, which are goated, and then to prevent bum grapes, we've got the toilet still.

55:31Oh my gosh, your language is hilarious. If this is going to end up as that new word in the old dictionary or something. Oh, I love it. So talk to me about the kiwis. I mean, someone who I love who's on this show all the time, he's now a very dear friend of mine, Dr. William Lee. He told me that kiwis help repair your DNA, which now I actually have a kiwi every day for that exact reason. Nice. But tell me why they're good for our vows. So I brought yellow and green. So kiwis are amazing for bowel movements. Two reasons. Firstly, quite high in fiber. So one kiwi's got, you know, two to three grams of a great balance of soluble and insoluble.

56:15Fiber. Fiber, yeah. And people might not know where that is. Yeah, so the soluble is usually on the inside of the fruit. It's the gel forming stuff that helps to basically, it's like the glue that holds your poo together. and then the insoluble is the outer. It's usually the peel, the skin, the stalk. That acts more like a brush to sweep things along. So you can eat like that? You can eat the skin, but to get the benefits... So the main reason why they're good for bowel movements is they contain an enzyme called actinidine. And actinidine stimulates the bowel to contract, so it stimulates bowel movements to get things going.

56:51Actually, I've got a yellow and a green, so the green is higher in actinidine, so might be better for constipation. But you don't need to eat the skin to get the benefits. All the studies are in people with most, like they can eat it without the peel. So they're eating unpeeled kiwis to get that benefit. But there's extra benefits by eating the skin. So there's extra fiber. There's vitamin C, vitamin E. The yellow one, I don't know if you can see, has a smoother skin, so it's easier to eat. But, you know, I don't mind a little bit of fur. So I can eat them. and then the yellow kiwi the benefit of this over the green is the vitamin c content so it contains twice more vitamin c than the green take that with iron then yeah and they did a really interesting study published this year where they gave people two of these a day for eight weeks and then they did biopsies of the skin and showed that the skin was thicker more elastic so more collagen and they found more vitamin c in the skin and what we think is because the vitamin c from the kiwi is being absorbed transported to the skin and vitamin c is like so when we think of collagen production you've got the amino acids like proline hydroxy proline glycine which are the building blocks but vitamin c is what gets the job done right it's like the construction site manager without that the collagen is not going to get built uh so actually they found that eating the vitamin c had led to more vitamin C than what you would expect from a vitamin C cream, for example, because it's much more difficult for it to be absorbed through the skin.

58:29So you've got the constipation benefit, the skin benefit, and then the third benefit, which is really interesting, is sleep. Yeah, so they've done several studies in athletes, in students, in children, in adults with sleeping issues like insomnia, that having two of these before bed can help improve sleep quality. deficiency a couple of reasons why we think one is they contain melatonin the sleep hormone and melatonin that you eat can actually cross the blood-brain barrier as well yeah unlike serotonin which we spoke about it can actually cross the blood-brain barrier it's not as high as melatonin supplements but it's high compared to other foods and the second reason is because it's got that perfect balance of soluble and insoluble fiber having them before bed can prevent blood sugar drops.

59:22And we know from research in healthy volunteers, so not diabetics, but in healthy volunteers, that if you have a blood sugar hypo during the night, then you're more likely to wake up. So it's helping to stabilize that during sleep. Interesting. So I wonder if these would be helpful for, I'm just thinking about pre - and menopausal women that struggle with sleep to try and have a couple of kiwis before they go to bed. Yeah. Give it a go. It can't be harmful, right? I mean, it's good for you. Okay, so we're going to have to move these off now because I think people are like, people might just think this is a table.

59:57It does look like it's a little table. Oh my gosh, look, I can see your footprints on here. No. I did give it a cleave. Love this. You can tell it's well used. It's actually well used. It's not just a prop. Okay, so people might be familiar with this. People might not. So if people are like, why has it got footprints on and are not watching this on YouTube or Spotify. We have got a poo stool here. Is that the camera there? Yeah, there's the camera. I wonder what happens... Maybe we can turn the screen on so we can see if we can see George. Should I put my feet on it? Yeah, I'm wondering if, like, you can...

1:00:32Yeah, like, please turn your stool around. Use your stool, not your stool, your chair, as the loo. Right, so... I might need to go as well because it's so good. Really? Yeah. Well, it already makes you start feeling like you need to go to the bathroom. Yeah. So the science behind it is you have a sling of muscle between your rectum and anus called the puborectalis. How do I spell that? Let's see if we can get it up. P-U-B-O. P-U-B-O. R-E-C-T-A-L-I-S. So puborectalis. this and it's it's a sling that actually helps prevent us from having accidents right um so there's also something called the recto anal inhibitory reflex or rare which is how we distinguish between a fart and a poo is this the good one to show that's a good one to show yeah Yeah, I'm sure that'll...

1:01:38Oh, security check. Here we go. So...

1:01:45This is me trying. Here we go. So after the rare, so the rare is this, how we distinguish between a fart and a poo, right? So we're usually pretty good at that, but sometimes we're not. So the puborectalis is like, you know, plan B, the second barrier. And basically, when you squat, the puborectalis opens to allow smooth sailing ships, right? Yeah, I'm loving this language. Knees above hips for smooth sailing ships. So modern toilets are not designed well for pooing. This is quite a good image. At a 90 degree angle. This is what's happening to you right now. Yeah, so you can see it's like an elastic band, like a sling.

1:02:33and only when your knees are above your hips will that sling, that puborectilus release. So yeah, modern toilets are so poorly designed but if you've ever been to... Why have we designed them like that though? Well, if you've been to India, you've been to the Middle East, even rural France. Oh, so when you have to squat on the floor? Squat on the floor. That reminds me of Glastonbury. Yeah, don't talk to me about Glastonbury. My gut health was not good. I think we need to have a little booth at Glastonbury next year and take the kiwis, the psyllium jelly and the squatting parties. Yeah, so it's the way our ancestors have always gone, right?

1:03:10It's the way we've evolved to poo. But modern toilets, I don't know why they were designed like that. I think it was probably some sort of Victorian aesthetic sort of this, you know, to sit down. But that 90 degree angle does not do wonders. so best investment you can make i think is a toilet stool but there's some places you know where you're caught off without one when you're on holiday or in a hotel room so you can use the toilet bin put your feet on that i actually did the announcement the announcement video for my book i did alternatives you know if you're stuck and you've not got one you could use the one use my book use your book yeah stack the books on top of each other once you finish reading them of course you could use a washing basket you know a laundry basket upside down you could use a shoe box you could use your mum's high heels but don't do this don't no don't squat on the toilet sorry don't squat on the toilet but there is things that you shouldn't be doing underneath and this one just absolutely cracked me up do not sit on the loo and squat yeah there's also another tip you could do so whilst you are in this position with your knees above hips.

1:04:26If you lean forward slightly, you're going to put sort of your elbows on just the inside of your knees. And we're going to do some diaphragmatic breathing, which is also going to help to release that pelvic floor and help the smooth sailing ships. So a diaphragmatic breathing, what you do is you take a breath in and as you inhale, you're allowing the abdomen to come out. So inhale, abdomen out. and then as we exhale the abdomen comes back in and what's happening is as that abdomen is coming out the the diaphragm muscle is contracting down to force the abdominal wall muscles out but also relaxing the pelvic floor muscles as well so the abdominal wall and the pelvic floor relax in response to your diaphragm contracting when you inhale so combine the toilet stool with the diaphragmatic breathing and you will not be getting any bum grapes anytime soon bum grapes can you explain bum grapes just hemorrhoids but it's not a nice word so i tried to make it a bit more i don't know if it's worse sorry sorry if anyone's eating grapes right now oh my gosh i'm glad if someone's eating i'm doing the rest of the pod now so i feel like i feel like this is a good i think you should only sit there like this for the entire rest of the conversation i feel like the more you sit here though the more it makes you want to go interesting right yeah because i can imagine how much does a mental effect have on us going to the bathroom yeah huge um there's there's the key in the lock syndrome so a real big factor playing a role in bowel movements is like a circadian rhythm type response so a lot of us will find out we actually go at a similar time every day um so the key in lock syndrome is we have this when we know we're going to our home for example as soon as you put the key in the door all of a sudden you need to go because your brain is is relaxed and telling you um and then yeah uh the other things are to bear in mind is what i find myself doing and it's i'm not a great example of a gut health you know expert when i do this but i'll scroll on the toilet or you know i'll watch tiktoks and i get stuck in a hole and actually if you spend more than five minutes on the toilet increases your risk of developing things like bun grapes so really yeah yeah so try not to take your phone into the bathroom if you want to read our books you can but set a timer for five minutes and uh make sure it's done then don't force don't strain if you're struggling with constipation the worst thing you can do is strain so do the diaphragmatic breathing that can help but straining is not good um well i guess that would end up causing prolapses and stuff yeah exactly exactly but doing this should help quite a lot.

1:07:09Yeah, getting comfortable with it. Wow, it's so interesting. And they're not expensive, are they? No, I think this one cost me 10 to 20 quid max. I've just seen on Instagram actually, I can't remember the name of the company but they brought out some ridiculous shoes that you can wear. It's an American product but I might message them if they can send me some. That's hilarious. So you're like, what, seven foot tall? Yeah. that's amazing i feel like the drag queens are going to be wearing them and they're going out and they just go to the bathroom okay so something else i think is really interesting so we spoke about kiwis we spoke about psyllium houses spoke about a poo stall what about coffee i love coffee so coffee i'm gonna love you now by the way you just won the nation's hearts coffee is so underrated like we'll get on to the gut health benefits in a second but they're actually showing now that i have some kiwi in my in my drink so uh the the study showing now two to three cups of coffee a day might be uh you know a cognitive enhancer and reduce the risk of things like dementia but it's that sweet spot of two to three cups you know once you start going four or five or above does it's like a u-shaped curve so yeah but two to three cups good for brain health but also gut health so first of all a lot of people don't realize that coffee is actually a source of fiber so two cups of coffee has about the same amount of fiber as a banana which is how much which is about three three and a half grams almost four grams depending on the kind so if you have instant coffee that's actually the highest in fiber about 1.8 almost two grams a cup um there's uh brewed coffee as well so obviously this is coming from the coffee bean right so it's soluble fiber as well um and even uh drip coffee is the least because you know it's really filtered you still get about a gram per cup so you get a couple of grams if you have two three grams three cups so yeah coffee source of fiber source of polyphenols and these are those bitter compounds that are great for your gut microbiome they love to feed on them actually now we're seeing you can identify a coffee drinker just by looking at their microbiome because they have a specific bacteria called larcinobacter eight times more than people who don't drink coffee that makes me feel so good about myself yeah and yeah again this bacteria might be linked to better metabolic health too um and then the the main question people have for me about coffee is can i drink it on an empty stomach yeah um so yes you can as long as you know it doesn't give you any issues i know some people report things like acid reflux but the majority of us can handle coffee and actually it's a real it does make you go to the loo though yeah it's a strong stimulator of the gastrocolic reflex right so the gastrocolic reflex is this physiological response in your body where your stomach basically bells your colon it's like hey mate we've got stuff on the way you need to make room so the gastrocolic reflex is stimulated by large meals so when your stomach distends and stretches the gastrocholic reflex kicks in so you ever need to run to the toilet after a free course meal that's normal but coffee is a strong stimulator of it and it's not caffeine because they've done studies with both decaffeinated and caffeinated coffee showing that it both it has this effect so it's it's probably some of these other polyphenols or acids or phytochemicals in the coffee itself but i'm pro coffee i think matcha as well is great so if you can choose your well not poison, but your medicine.

1:10:50So your coffee or your matcha, two to three cups a day. Matcha doesn't have... Have you told them, or have you seen some stuff? Matcha, too much matcha is actually not great for us though. Especially for women. The potential caveat is because of the tannins in the green tea, it might bind to things like iron and other minerals to block absorption. So as long as you're not having your matcha with your meals, you're having it a couple of hours outside, absolutely fine. But also, shout out green tea, like there's nothing wrong because it's cheaper and it has pretty much Matcha is not cheap No, matcha is so expensive It's just a well marketed green tea Matcha latte is like£5 Yeah So yeah, choose like coffee is great and so again another make coffee great again we could do so much merchandise So much merch Okay, I'm going to the things that we should avoid and I think people are going to be really surprised by this I'm also a little bit sad by it Do you know what I'm going to say?

1:11:51I don't know. The only things, what food-wise are... No. Go on. Well, it's in your book. I know, but... Mouthwash. Mouthwash. Yes, big one. Yeah, so I was thinking of foods, but mouthwash. So the data is really, really interesting. So if we go back to gut health, gut health begins in the mouth, right? Your gut is one long tract. It starts in the mouth. it's about 20-25 feet all the way to the anus and we think about our gut microbiome but you also have your oral microbiome as well which has gone mad we've actually done a whole episode on the I have your I need to listen to that because yeah I am as fascinated with that as the gut such a big link with heart attacks big link with heart attacks and alzheimer's yes massive so if you have gum disease you are sick when you so basically if you have gum disease you're more likely to develop alzheimer's they followed people over 25 years and found that but also if you have alzheimer's if you have gum disease at the time of alzheimer's you're six times more likely to decline in memory and they found actually toxins from p gingivalis in the brain of alzheimer's patients so this toxin can travel through the blood-brain barrier and cause neuroinflammation which is is crazy so we need to look at it's mad but it's actually not because i think about close that is yeah you know yes and it's going to lead me onto the mouthwash in that you know we we've been told these mouthwashes kill 99.9 percent of germs but i don't i don't like the term germs not we know now not all bacteria are bad for us and in the what was the brand that said that aqua something oh yeah like yeah yeah listerine listerine yeah so yeah i remember They used to literally like, shh.

1:13:34I remember the adverts where it would kill. You'd see the mouth and it would literally contaminate and be like, it's all gone. It's actually bad. It's bad because we know we need a balance of microbes. There might be some bad ones, but in the gut microbiome, the skin microbiome, the oral microbiome, there's an overall balance and there's more good guys than bad usually. And if we're using mouthwash, we're decimating the good guys. and what they're seeing is that we have bacteria in our mouth that produce nitrites which get swallowed so when we eat food thai knees as well like spinach and beetroot we get more of them but basically we swallow those nitrites from the bacteria it gets nitrites yeah nitrites so nitrites we swallow them from bacteria and they enter our stomach they get converted to nitric oxide which is a vasodilator so helps to lower blood pressure increase blood flow so if you lose those bacteria from mouthwash what we're seeing is that actually mouthwash raises blood pressure to levels that are seen in people with heightened risk of cardiovascular disease there's no long-term data yet to show if you use mouthwash for like 20-30 years you have a higher risk but that that marker of cardiovascular disease gets raised just by using mouthwash so So that's what I'm interested in.

1:14:56And I've seen some data on, so there's coconut oil, so oil pulling, which I, yeah. So I thought that was a bit of BS, bad science. But actually there's a couple of studies now. There was one randomized study which compared it to antiseptic mouthwash. And it showed that the oil, the coconut oil, didn't disrupt the oral microbiome in the same way that the mouthwash did, but was able to lower some inflammatory markers in the mouth. So coconut oil pulling could be one. It's just the study was like 10 minutes a day of doing it, which is quite... 10 minutes? Yeah, so traditionally they say 10 minutes.

1:15:36Whereas a mouthwash is like maybe 30 seconds, one minute. So actually if you did it for one minute, it might not have any effect at all. We don't know that yet. I'm very interested actually. So our clinic, we do gut microbiome testing, But the lab that we partner with do oral microbiome. So now I've just got braces. I'm very interested in how I can look after my oral microbiome without decimating it with mouthwash. So I'm going to do a bit of a self-experiment, look at my oral microbiome and see actually if I can just do it for a couple of minutes, you know, like an oil rinse instead of 10 minutes, I'll still get a benefit.

1:16:13So we'll see. So fascinating. i mean this makes me just want to floss as i'm talking to you um i mean i do find that absolutely fascinating and i do think like what about toothpaste i mean i can't leave that without saying there's so much fear around toothpaste but should i just feel like natural toothpaste doesn't clean my teeth but is other toothpaste detrimental for my oral microbiome like what yeah so i should prerequisite i'm not dentists or a dental hygienist i use fluoride toothpaste because I'm friends with a lot of good dentists and dental hygienists. And if they're saying to use fluoride, then I am going to listen to them.

1:16:52And I haven't seen any literature to say that actually fluoride toothpaste is bad for the microbiome. There is a specific toothpaste called Zendium, which has a prebiotic, it has prebiotic proteins in, in addition to fluoride. So it contains the fluoride, but also the prebiotics. and they've done quite a lot of research showing that it improves oral microbiome it's quite difficult to get hold of though you don't see it in any high street shops yeah and it's quite expensive online when i just worry when it's them doing the trial yeah this is this is the thing with scientific research a lot of studies won't get done unless the company pay for it i think as long as the research is good quality but this is where you need you know you look at the more reputable journals where they're getting peer-reviewed by more experienced scientists rather than looking at the research that's in you know less reputable journals where those who peer-reviewed it might not be able to spot those discrepancies yeah interesting so is there anything else that we should be avoiding genuine generally yeah the only thing i say to avoid in terms of foods especially is our home stuff um i don't i don't think so i'd just avoid anything that gives you food poisoning as i said food poisoning is the number one yeah that's the record of gut health that's actually how you store food by the way a lot of people don't realize that storage of food is such a big thing making sure that it's cool before you put it in the fridge freezer cooking as well by investing a food thermometer one of the cheapest things you can do make sure your your meat is well cooked 75 degrees centigrade for 30 seconds or I think 80 degrees for six seconds and then obviously when you travel there's a there's an outbreak at the minute in the US that cyclospora I don't know if you've seen that it's like a parasite and they're tracing the outbreak back to like a lettuce I think some sort of lettuce greens it's actually the number one cause of foodborne illness outbreaks is lettuce because it's not washed properly it's not washed properly or if it's washed it's a moist environment for bacteria to grow especially you know the one thing I never buy is you know those bagged salads with like different leaves in because they're coming from different farms there's more chance of cross-contamination so I buy my lettuce whole so I like a not an iceberg because it's actually not that nutritious you know romaine lettuce has like 16 times more vitamin k for example and more fiber so you take the two outer leaves off use the inside leaves because the crunch yeah and also the studies showing actually if you just most of the stuff's on the outside leave anyway um so yeah try if you're making a salad who knew mixed leaves don't buy big part that's what i'm gonna take away oh my gosh okay so before we finish i have to talk about the vagus nerve because it's my favorite thing in the entire world um this connects our gut to our kind of back of our brain um how important is it to kind of look after the health of our vagus nerve with our with our gut because when we spoke about mental health as we were walking because we just had a psychiatrist on oh my gosh it was one of the most mind-blowing episodes i've ever done on antidepressants um so much stuff that's misinformed and you know it was interesting that when he said you know if we're not looking at antidepressants nice guidelines have 18 different things that you can do and i mentioned oh diet and diet wasn't even on there which for you and i obviously blows our brains um but diet is so important for mental health and mental health is important for our gut microbiome and chicken and egg it's big conversation like which one goes first but the vagus nerve is basically what connects the two so talk to me about the vagus nerve health for our gut microbiome so yeah the vagus nerve is the highway between the gut and the brain longest cranial nerve um which connects to the brain not the longest nerve that's the sciatic nerve in the leg just for all you pub quizzes don't blame me so yeah the vagus nerve is this highway of communication and it controls digestion it controls many functions digestion being one of them and what happens is if we are mostly in sympathetic mode, so fight or flight, yeah, then we're not in the mode for digestion.

1:21:25And that's what happens with a lot of people who have things like irritable bowel syndrome, IBS, so stress, previous trauma, huge risk factors. If your body's constantly in fight or flight, your digestion is not going to be functioning normally. We can hack the vagus nerve to tip us into parasympathetic state so that's rest and digest mode the vagus nerve actually makes up most of that that nervous system and if we can utilize that then we can improve digestive processes and there's a few hacks we can do for that for that so one of them is just deep breathing and what you want to do is make sure that exhale is longer than inhale so in for four and then out for eight seconds is great studies showing that humming can help as well so humming the vibrations stimulate the vagus nerve so maybe do your in for four out for eight and add a hum onto that exhale and just by doing that even 10 times so two minutes before a meal can help get prime your body for digestion and they've done research to show just how strong that you know that that connection is um so they they took people and they gave them a meal but whilst they were doing the meal, they did an EGG, electro gastrography.

1:22:44It's like an ECG, but for the stomach. All right. And they then made them watch either a horror movie or a guided meditation. They watched a horror movie. The stomach function on the EGG was significantly disrupted. And then the, we're watching the calming meditation perfect normal function right and that's just you know just showing how how strong that gut brain connection is how utilizing the vagus nerve can be helpful there's new things we were chatting before about vagal nerve stimulators so devices our clinic is doing a study at the minute of one in irritable bowel syndrome um so you know watch this space that they could potentially be helpful but yeah it's just I think if you've got IBS or some other disorder of gut-brain interaction there's quite a few of those functional dyspepsia is another one which is more stomach related symptoms if you have been diagnosed with one of these then do not neglect the vagus nerve your nervous system your autonomic response and people first they want to turn to probiotics they want to turn to diet removing gluten dairy without addressing that nervous system so if you don't do that you're never gonna you're never gonna get that that's my journey i'm so like for me the nervous system is the biggest thing before food like i obviously went into studying nutritional science because i thought that's where i should go and it's actually my nervous system that i fully needed to retrain then i figured out i had adhd which is a big part about understanding my nervous system but you know i i think the vagus nerve devices are really interesting because if you're more of a somatic person we don't know what that word is but more of a sensory touch person they can be really really helpful but i just think you know even like um eft tapping is also really good um which is basically like tapping on your like different parts around like near the vagus even pressing on it is really helpful as well but yeah i mean if you're someone who loves tech and devices i definitely think like all of these things are worth a shot anything thing that can get you into a more regulated nervous system and the biggest one that we haven't spoke about is nature like getting out into nature grounding putting your feet on the floor um i mean personally i have everything in my house trained to calm my nervous system because i live in london so it's the most unregulated place but um i do think like that is the first step because once you're then calm you do digest your nutrients better you actually make better choices because you're in a more rational logical as opposed to emotional reactive mindset and plus like who just doesn't want to feel like karma I think it's like everything I feel like it's quite like a Buddhist term but we're all kind of searching for that more regulated state in a very dysregulated world and you know our environment is completely key to making us into dysregulation so I think looking at your Vegas now I know that you said you listened to one of our episodes on the Vegas nerve we've got loads of them but I think like it's all about kind of like putting these things together right it's like never one answer um I do think the vagus nerve is going to be like one of the next kind of big next I don't want to say trends because trends makes it feel like it's short but the next kind of thing that everyone's going to be connecting to I think in the next coming year um so Jordan I want you to finish the sentence for me because I'm not about perfection on this show.

1:26:09I'm about, you know, imperfections and championing them because I think perfection will kill you more quickly than your imperfections ever will. So your gut doesn't need perfection. It needs... Consistency. I don't know why I thought you were going to say constipation. I just... You were like, consistency? I was like... That's true. Consistency. Tell me more. Little wins over time. Like Oasis little by little, right? That's what you need to do. It's like Manchester. Yeah. So people overcomplicate it. We started off the chat with trying to take these supplements. Just actually recycling what I said before in terms of you get the foundations right consistently.

1:26:57The fermented foods, the fibre, the flavonoids, polyphenols, the 3Fs, the sleep, the movement. And we haven't even spoke about doing too much because you can, like the high rocks and the marathons and stuff, but maybe another time. But on you doing a marathon? I did a marathon and I don't think I'd do another one. I'm a hypocrite. I literally wrote a book saying how endurance, high-intensity exercise can wreak havoc on your gut, causes increased intestinal permeability, leaky gut. It's not good for your nervous system, but then I went and did a marathon. Anyway, back to just fart walks for me.

1:27:33That's hilarious. And then managing stress. if you do these things consistently over time you can get your gut health even if you have got health issues to like 70 80 percent better um so you don't need any fancy supplements you don't need expensive probiotics like it says on the book some little wins consistency build those foundations over time amazing um jordan i have to leave with the last question which is what does live well be well mean to you um it's a great question because i think i probably just answered it in the last one um but as someone who struggled in the past with eating disorders um and just how how i live now in terms of having a great social network having a balanced diet with less food fear and anxiety being able to move daily you know not taking these things for granted so I think as long as I continue to to follow that and not be you know not be drawn it sucked into by these companies and marketing which is why we do what we do you do the podcast that's why I do the social media the book um so yeah that yeah that I think that's I like that yeah yeah I try I didn't want to like waffle on too much but I feel like we've answered most of it people go in all directions with this answer which is why I love it because basically live well be well is an individual understanding of like basically what I think the answer to success is like yeah ultimately that's what we all want to be right and health is so individual.

1:29:19And so very rarely do we ever get the same answer to that question, which is why I absolutely love it because it's like, it basically shows you the individual way of how everyone sees health. So it's great. Yeah. Well, I can't wait to see you with our next slogan on your hat. I know. I've got so many to make now. I'll put the link to your book, How to Get Gut Health. I love the line. It is what it says on the tin, how to gut health. Mr. Gut Health. Maybe that's what you should have on your hat. I know. Mr. Gut Health. Mr. Gut Health. I actually bought an England shirt, We've Got Health, on the back, and we obviously didn't make it to the final song.

1:29:55I know. I know that puts you in a depressive state. Anyway, thank you for coming on. Thank you for running the book. Thank you for sharing your story and doing all the work that you do. My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

1:30:16Thank you.