Sarah Brandow: The Microbiome Revolution—Why Your Gut Controls Your Hormones, Cravings & Long-Term Health

30:37Darin Olien:But there's a vulnerability to people when things aren't working well, right? And that's an easy target. It's an easy sensitivity to exploit, I know. And I don't also want to say that it's always intentional. We talked about the end one. So for somebody, they might have got a really good result from doing a certain thing. Sure. and it comes down to individuality changes in the microbiome and diversity between one individual to another and so they take this anecdote and nothing is more powerful than a strong before and after right for a for an instagram coach or something like that they're going to go to the person who has that before and after that transformation story even if they're only one person with a personal anecdote and they're more likely to lean towards that because they feel seen by that person they're seeing a checklist of all their symptoms and they're going to maybe ignore someone who's a researcher when they're like, well, you're just doing that, that corrupt science.

31:30You don't know what's happening to me. And so this is also part of, of that gap where people also sometimes don't see researchers as in the work, whereas they see people who are working more clinical as face to face with the patient. And so I want to close that gap and tell people that the people behind the scenes doing research, they really, really do care. They're very, very passionate. It's part of the reason I wanted to go back and do this as well. I have an exemplary supervisor team. And so when somebody is feeling, like you said, very vulnerable and things are not going well, what they tend to do is they lean towards an example of someone who solved it really, really quickly.

32:08What you might not see is somebody who built a whole platform off of doing that extreme thing. And later down the line, it doesn't work for them, but they can't start to take, you know, brick by brick, unbuild the wall they built.

32:18Darin Olien:Right, right. You've already put yourself all in i'm i'm this carnivore i mean i don't mean to just you know this is an easy target i'll go on to other examples if you want yeah perfect so another one parasite cleansing detoxing detox herbs um so people go oh my problem must be parasites but you know we talked about the example of the microbiome as a rainforest and so a rainforest if it's functioning effectively is in a symbiotic relationship. So, you know, you don't drop a nuclear bomb on a rainforest because one patch has too many weeds. And some of these super aggressive detoxes, that's what they're doing.

32:55And people see stuff coming out. They're like, oh, I had worms come out. A lot of it is actually just what went in from the cleanse, sticking to the mucosa. And some of it is things that maybe you shouldn't have flushed out that quick. But people, and sometimes temporarily feel better because they might have been a bit backed up, a bit constipated. They flushed things out. but there's no discriminating with these harsh harsh detoxes between the good and the bad bacteria you're flushing it all out you can't choose what stays and what goes and so what happens is then people start to feel crappy again and they're like oh i need another detox i need another parasite cleanse and so they end up in this cycle of thinking that they need to repeat these things or worse um gut microbiome testing can send people astray as well i'll talk

33:39Darin Olien:about right i love that and i want to i want to get into that part because it's really important and it's it's it's a lens into an area that we really need to understand and really get to understand more and more every day so like i mean i've done i've done parasite cleanses not i mean maybe from the lay person i've done you know not a lot but more than your average person I think your average person probably doesn't probably zero yeah but but that said um culturally there has been you know from herbology to you know certain things and listen the thing that got my attention the most was 2003 coming back from India oh parasites are real yeah I do not want to be dismissing that at all no no no that's what I'm setting up no no yeah and I know and I know i i assumed that that was true yes but but you're talking to this important nuance yes which is why i want to just create these distinctions because because i knew that it was real yeah i was like i was like oh it's real pregnant it can be life-altering what the hell is going on and in my good friend josh mancine he definitely has extreme parts of of of parasite cleanses and he He was messed up for a long time.

35:07Darin Olien:So yes, there are certainly imbalanced parasites. And my current point of view is you can't get, quote unquote, rid of all of them. You don't want to get rid of all of them. You want to be in symbiosis. Right. Keeping things in check. Exactly. So let's just talk a little bit about that. Yeah. Because I know that I've had powerful shifts in that. But I also don't routine, like, I don't have a, okay, I could do a parasite cleanse. I don't get, I've been in this so long, I don't get obsessed over things anymore. Because I've worked to balance my lifestyle. Yeah, good. Because I realize. Exactly. You don't want to have obsession.

35:57Right. And you also do something that's really effective that most people, from what I've seen, didn't do. So people take these harsh... First of all, they don't go for a test to see if they actually have parasites. They just are using parasites as... I'm not talking about someone who went on a trip, contracted a parasite, and needs treatment for that parasite. When I say parasite cleanses, what I mean is people are using these as kind of a scapegoat for all of their health issues. There are certain people, and I know parasitologists who kind of laugh at this, where parasites are the root of everything.

36:27And so my hormones, my sleepless nights, my whatever, itching skin, it's all parasites. And so without knowing what's really going on, they just basically take really, really, really harsh, harsh herbals. And then they don't rebuild after. So if you look at what you do on a day-to-day basis, your lifestyle, you live in nature, you eat a varied diet, nuts and seeds. You're hitting your 30 different plants a week, which is the benchmark for good biome health. and so you can drop a bomb on the gut microbiome and then rebuild it really intelligently with the prebiotics and the probiotic foods.

36:59Darin Olien:Because my lifestyle is already around it supporting it. Exactly but what happens is some people do these cleanses and they go I'm free I'm cleansed time to you know and then they go back to their old way of living and so they wiped out a lot of these good bacteria and they're not making a conscious effort to repopulate. Same thing with Ozempic and a lot of these drugs. These are life-saving tools for some people, but they can also be microbiome destructive because now all of a sudden someone's eating very few calories in a day and they're not choosing those calories with intention. They could be using that time when these cravings and all that noise is gone to be rebuilding a microbiome that supports them, that makes them less likely to succumb to all different things from hormones to excess parasites.

37:41And instead they're like, oh, I'm not that hungry. I'll have my one burger a day. And so they're focused on calories and and they're not focused on the nutrient density. So they end up in a worse spot than before, and they go, oh, I guess I'll just be on this for life.

37:52Darin Olien:Right. I mean, that's the thing that if I were to imbue people with something that I feel is so deep in my awareness that I don't think about it, there's several things. But one is, I mean, I spent 15 years running around the world looking for herbs and plants and then crazy cultures and and if it's one thing that i fully feel i'm embodied and that is the the the way i look at food is i i have i number one i enjoy the shit out of it because i think whole food is incredible and like and right in season you name it i'll pound a watermelon like eat the whole damn thing in one sitting so i i celebrate food so it's not without celebration but the thing that i always go back to is i i truly believe in the in the diversity aspect for sure but the the quality like the quality of food and it's not something I need that people need to intellectualize maybe when they're creating a habit or something like that or but it's like literally what am I eating is it a sprouted broccoli you know is it is it is it you know is it that watermelon is it that thing and so that that there's a gap in our world because clearly there and I'd love to hear your point of view about you know processed food and I talked to a microbiologist maybe.

39:34Darin Olien:I went on a trip with him in 2007 to Cambodia and we got in some crazy conversations about microbiome and microbes and everything else and he told me about this, what's it called? There's a term, biophilic? No, it's not biophilic. it's it's it's what he was starting to kind of get was that the the microbes were able to communicate in a very unique way body-wide and and the the cravings and i would love to hear your point of view so if if things what you feed them then creates whatever new environment right and then that those actually have their own craving yep they sure do right so i want to speak to that a little bit because there is a responsibility we live in a victim culture i believe that there's so many ways to give ourselves an out and to not take responsibility and this is a weird way of stepping into it but i believe it in that we we have given our environment input right we have chosen to eat certain things and a certain point now that our microbiome wants to have more of that same thing because we've trained it speak to that a little bit because if i am eating processed food every day or if i'm eating sugary muffins or whatever that is i've i've created a different environment than say right and now it wants more of that and you've pushed out good bacteria and you've pushed out other and your ecosystem is now adapted to choices you've made before and then it just keeps going and going and going and then all and then you could be a victim of choices that you've been making it's hard to undo at that point but it's possible it's very possible right and it yeah and i think you're aware of the obviously you're aware of this and it can happen quicker than we think oh really quick right so speak to that a little bit because i want to speak to like the cravings and they're like i can't get over this i really need my whatever it is.

41:51Darin Olien:I really need my thing. And I believe that that is so deep that if you're able to disrupt that a little bit, it can change kind of fast. It changes really fast. So, for example, if you decide to take one day off food, you're just going to drink water that whole day, you've got your grocery cart, and you're rolling down the aisles in the grocery store, you're going to go past the cucumbers, the veggies, and you're going to go, yeah, all right, and then you're going to look at the muffins, things that maybe you don't even normally eat and they're going to look really, really, really good. And the reason why is because actually these not so good bacteria, the pathogenic and negative bacteria, as far as their function in our body goes, they're very delicate.

42:30People tend to think that your good bacteria are delicate and the bad bacteria are resilient, but it's the opposite. And so they need to be fed constantly. These bacteria are suffering majorly when you cut off their supply really, really, really quickly. And so because of that, they're going to be sending signals for you to eat that food because they don't want to die. And you're going to feel like you're going to die if you don't eat that food.

42:52Darin Olien:Those are my craving. Yeah. It's not entirely true. Well, they're within you. I mean, your gut microbes, there's trillions of them. They weigh about five pounds in the average person. So they've got some power to drive what you want. And then through that gut-brain axis I mentioned, the gut-brain axis now is that's your signaling. And so you're getting those messages and you're getting that. Now all of a sudden, you really think you need those foods. But in reality, it's these little species that are not ready to die, and they're not ready to be weakened. And so when you're making changes to the gut microbiome, the best way to do it is a stealth attack to change things little by little.

43:28It's the most effective way. It's not fast. It's not quick. There's no cleanse. There's no detox. There's no pill. But if you do a stealth attack, sooner or later, this opposing army that you've grown within you will be outnumbered by your beneficial bacteria army that you have grown over time. and it won't even realize till it's on the way out. But some people want to go about it as an all-out assault and a really, really quick attack. And so when they do it that way, they feel worse. Maybe they feel better temporarily and they get excited and then they go a little bit too fast. Too many fermented foods, too much fiber, and they feel terrible.

44:00And then they pull it back and they go, oh, those foods aren't meant for me. It didn't work for me. Didn't work, yes. And also, too, what I mentioned before about the fiber fermenters. So we've got prebiotic foods. Prebiotics are things like onions, garlic, Jerusalem artichokes, chicory roots, which makes a really good coffee substitute, apples, but you got to eat the skin, seaweed. These prebiotics are food for your probiotics. So instead of buying a probiotic, which a lot of them might not even be right for the person taking it, could make things worse, you can feed your probiotics with prebiotic foods.

44:34So you put these in and then they feed your workers. So you've got your little workers in the factory. They're doing their job. they're eating their food, and then what are they making for you at the end? The postbiotics, the short-chain fatty acids, which then produce the beauty rate, which then is the best food for the cells in your colon to stay intact. So when someone's missing a lot of these fiber fermenters in the probiotic range, then what happens is you've got the input, you're putting food into the factory, your lectins, they're going into the factory, you're getting the workers all ready to process them, and you've got about 10 % of your necessary workforce.

45:07So now what happens is, all of a sudden you have 90 % too much of this for what your body can handle. Now you're gassy, you're bloated, you have brain fog, your clothes don't fit. You feel like crap and you go, oh no, these plant foods, this is not for me. And then you start to restrict more and more and more. And then what happens is you're starving your workforce in the middle more and more until they get weaker and weaker and weaker. And you've limited yourself even more.

45:30Darin Olien:So then it's so far away that if you bring back in fruit or bring back, you just like, it still doesn't work for me. and that it further supports this whole idea and it's heartbreaking and it's not their fault because you can't blame people who don't have this information and are confused and overwhelmed what what is what is i'm like an all-or-none person most of my life but what is going like what does it look like going step by step so if someone's going yeah i don't i eat too much processed food i don't cook enough i don't eat a lot of whole stuff like what is a way from a of course from a micro perspective but from a let's win this game perspective like let's do it powerfully clearly what's an easy way to kind of look at this in terms of making these habits and making them stick?

46:31So, for example, starting with, let's say, a teaspoon of someone's ultra-sensitive or a tablespoon of something like chickpeas or lentils or beans is a good way to start introducing these foods. And people don't normally eat them that way, right? Someone's like, oh, I started eating chickpea. I discovered chickpea pasta. And then they're like, I can't eat it. It makes me sick. You wouldn't eat a giant bowl of chickpeas, but when it's put into a noodle, all of a sudden people are packing it down in a quantity that is not natural and isn't actually supportive for their factory workers. They're over, they're overrun.

47:03And so it's easier to just, you know, prep a bit. Don't eat it out of a can. If you're new to this, you're missing a lot of fiber fermenters. And so that's now going to have more of those lectins, right? Because you skip the soaking step and it's going to be a bit harder to digest. So just start with really, really small little portions and you have to be patient with yourself and go really, really, really tiny. eat. And you have to start trying to have a bigger variety. So to hit, you know, that golden evidence-based number of 30 plants per week, start experimenting with spices. Can we add some parsley?

47:34Can we add some oregano, some basil? This gets that number up. Nuts and seeds, different types of grains. But if you know a good way to evaluate, write down in a week without trying to be perfect or exaggerate. Realistically, write down how many different plants you eat in a week. And if someone's at five, don't jump to 30 tomorrow. You know, just say, all right, tomorrow I'm going to be six. A few days later, I'm going to be seven. And the portion can be tiny. The idea is to build up to this. And I wish I could say there's a shortcut. Depending on someone's individual biome, there's certain supplements and there's things that can help that are evidence-based.

48:07But really, the most evidence-based way is to go really, really slow. Tiny amounts of spinach. You know, if they're missing oxalobacter to break down oxalates, then you have to start introducing tiny, tiny, tiny amounts. It doesn't mean the oxalates are bad for you. You're missing the bacteria that are going to eat them for you.

48:24Darin Olien:Exactly. There's so much nuance in some of these things. There is. It's super important. Same with beta glucuronidase. That's something that I'm looking at. And beta glucuronidase can be described as scissors, right? So this is something that it cuts these molecules. And when you have too much of it, it starts doing what I'm looking at, cutting estrogen. So your liver's packaged up this estrogen. It's ready to leave the body, but you have too much beta-glucuronidase from low diversity, low fiber diet, low plants, maybe antibiotics, too much alcohol. And so it's cutting open this estrogen that was nicely packaged and ready to get kicked out.

49:00And now it's recirculating back in your system again. And now you're potentially, I'm oversimplifying here, going to end up with estrogen dominance. That's one mechanism. But you don't want to have none because we also need it to cut open polyphenols, green tea, cacao, berries. And then we get antioxidants. antioxidants. That's what it's called deconjugation. Cuts it open, deconjugates it, and turns it into something we can use. So that's why you never want to think in terms of binary, this is good, this is bad, good for the microbiome, bad, because you do want to challenge your microbiome. This is an example.

49:31You don't use it, you lose it. So you need to actually be strengthening those microbes and you need to have the balance so that things like beta-glucuronidase can do what they're supposed to do. You've got enough to cut open those polyphenols, get the antioxidants, but you don't have so much that now you're cutting open things you should be cutting open and recirculating

49:49Darin Olien:estrogen yeah yeah it's just there's so much nuance and all of this stuff and and you know that's that's where this this algorithmic world we live in i know it's just kind of hard it's so hard for someone like yourself to create enough space for that even the explanation so that people can kind of grok this kind of understanding is that also part of your passion and desire to continue because it clearly shows in in what you're posting but the clearly you're passionate about it but the educated leading into being an educator yes i mean i think at this point you're the first one but i have to lean more into long-form content because the way the algorithms are designed, you don't get the message across quickly.

50:42My science communication posts don't really reach that many people, but I know that if someone's interested, it's going to reach them, but it's really hard to package something so complex into a quick little message. And so everyone, even me, we make mistakes sometimes trying to oversimplify something to make it bite-sized for the population so that you can communicate this and you can try and steer them in the right direction. So the misinformation on social media, which is actually something I'm writing a review on right now. It's not always intentional. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's just gross negligence to sell some weird product.

51:15But sometimes it's not intentional. It's just, this is how the algorithm prioritizes things. And this is how we get in front of people where hopefully then we can communicate the science a little bit deeper once they've come into the ecosystem. But it's very, very challenging. And I think as individuals, we have to take some responsibility for our algorithms. If you see something that you know is just brain rot, Swipe that away and start actually training your attention span. If you're going to be on Instagram, I advise having a timer on there, getting one of those apps that boots you off after 15 minutes or whatever.

51:44Darin Olien:Does that exist? Oh, it exists. I have one on my phone. Yeah, there's so many of them. It won't let you access it. It kicks you out. I got to do that. I find myself like, what am I doing? I hate that when I'm like, what? But it's designed to do that, right? It's working with our physiology against us. Right. So ways that I've taken back control is sitting and watching things that are informative, that are educational, that are interesting. Train your own algorithm. Exactly. Yeah. And also sitting through it. You know, maybe it's a topic I'm really interested in. And the person I like when probably everyone knows by now I'm a fast talker.

52:20So I like when people can communicate kind of quickly. And if someone's speaking really slow.

52:25Darin Olien:Your brain is like. Yeah, I tap out really quick. But I've trained myself. Hurry up. Yeah, I know. today no but you can't be like that right and also some of the most brilliant researchers who I really want to learn from they're not they're not yappers they're going really slow and so it's an exercise in training your own brain and your neuroplasticity building these new dendrites to create new information new neural pathways that allow you first and foremost to pay attention better to remember information and to also prioritize looking for certain information because our brain will also prioritize what we tell it to so we need to start feeding it what we want being intentional about the accounts we follow and engaging with people and watching that minute video even if at first we're bored because eventually we're learning stuff and we're not going to have that two-second goldfish memory from swiping that's funny um goldfish memory um let's talk about testing yeah quickly because i love talking about this yeah so like Like, so now, you know, we know more about the microbiome, but how we test and how we get access to information.

53:32Darin Olien:And again, like, the microbiome is informing something. Blood tests are informing something. There's all these different inputs. And I think the more inputs we get, the better and better and better. We can see what is actually going on, right? Even a blood test telling your hormones doesn't say much at all. Nope, but it's a starting point. But it's a starting point. There's indicators. One of the most important things on a blood test, actually, that is really overlooked in the population of women I'm looking at, is ferritin. So I don't want to, yeah. So your iron is your iron levels in your blood, but your ferritin is your storage.

54:12That's your fuel tank that you're pulling from. And a lot of women I meet who are really struggling with hormonal issues, they don't realize it's actually coming down to low ferritin. Their tank is low. And some of them are on really high meats, really high iron-rich diets, and yet they're not absorbing it. So now we've got to start looking at ketomic acid, the microbiome. And this is where testing to figure out, okay, if you're eating the ferritin, but you're not absorbing the ferritin, what is the missing piece here? And that's where I really like microbiome testing because it can tell me what's going on.

54:41yeah because it's like you know you can do a simple thing where if i'm eating this plate of food and someone else is eating the same food like it seems as though we're getting the same

54:58Darin Olien:thing we may be eating the same thing right but we're absorbing completely different things Completely. I've trained my microbiome to thrive on a plant-based diet. Yeah. So that's possible if someone trains it. 17 years, my friend. Nice. Yeah, 17 years. You know, everyone was like, don't talk about your plant-based diet on the podcast. What year was it? 2009? It would have been 2010. I was 2009. No way. Okay, you beat me. So people told me not to talk about it because I was like, if they find out you don't eat meat, they're not going to take you seriously. Which is wild. Wild thing to say to a microbiome researcher.

55:39But that is kind of the construct we're living in right now where this is, you know, we had a little peak there where it was pretty cool to not eat meat. We were, I was cool for a few years and now I'm extremely uncool. But, you know, I'm going to make it cool again at the microbial level. Right. I'm bringing it back.

55:55Darin Olien:100%. And like, listen, evidence is what evidence is. It is. Right. And we're already seeing the wheels come off of many people doing extreme things. And, you know, it's, again, I don't, I haven't, maybe one day I will, I haven't taken the position that I'm trying to convince people to. But at the end of the day, if I just walk away with people saying, add more diversity of plants to your life there is no downside and to your point do it if you're if you're starved of that do it in a way that to your point so you don't validate the wrong experience of like overdoing it exactly do it all the time again if your your factory workers aren't there to do the work you can't send them a huge workload um and what you do as well is you inspire people.

56:53No one can be forced to do anything. And also the way our brains work is we develop a little bit of resistance. So we want people to arrive at their own conclusions. And I hope to inspire people to live a plant predominant lifestyle and to choose more of these foods. I really believe, you know, our inner world reflects our outer world. You get the benefits of this. You get to be happier. Your brain gets to be sharper. Not a lot of people want to go back at 36, when I started 37 years old to do a PhD. And I feel like I'm sharper than ever. I feel like I'm only getting sharper the more I learn and the more I read and understand the science.

57:30But at the same time, I understand that everyone has these preconceptions and food is so emotional. It's tied to our early life, our childhood, our family, happy moments. And so you don't want to take that away from people. And you don't want to say, you know, everything is black and white, either or and I think everyone will arrive at what they want to arrive but one of the the saddest things going on right now is that people think that that my way of life that my plant-based diet is unhealthy because of a lot of propaganda but ironically they think that I've fallen for propaganda so it's very very interesting yeah I think you know there was an extreme on the other end too of people making really exaggerated claims about that plant-based diet will cure everything if you go vegan everything will go away and it'll be perfect and a lot of people didn't have the microbiome set up to even be doing that, right?

58:17So they went the other way. Or they weren't careful. If you're on a plant-based diet, you have to be careful. You need to make sure that you're getting your iron, you're getting your omegas. It's not more complicated than any other diet, but for some reason, most people on an omnivore diet don't bother either. And most of the unfortunate health outcomes are in the omnivorous population. But there's a lot of fear that's been created. And I want to dispel that, that if this is something somebody wants to do, it is evidence-based to do

58:43Darin Olien:it and you can thrive yeah yeah and and you know again i you know we're not the evidence is there and we're not just sitting here going you know because so many people look at me and they're like well it's just because you and it's like your blood type and that shit has been like i don't know how many i don't know how that has happened all these years that people still think blood typing. Talk a little bit about that. The blood type diet? Oh gosh, I love the blood type diet. So I love talking about it. So dogs and cats have different blood types and no one's like, oh, you got to find out your dog's blood type.

59:21You better be testing your dog's blood.

59:24Darin Olien:Your cat needs watermelon. Yeah. Blood type. This particular cat. No. So, but why some, like carnivore diets, like these extreme diets, why people get benefit from these things is because when you're given a very strict little window of the things that you can eat, then what happens is you go, oh, well, I feel better. I cut out the processed foods. I cut out, they removed all these things that were maybe irritating their not so great gut. And then they were adding in foods that were quite beneficial because everything on that list was a whole food. They weren't telling anyone to, you know, type B, go get some Doritos.

59:59So there's obvious benefit there but on the biochemical level looking at different physiology this did not hold up i mean it was university of toronto that really went and did the deep dive and just totally totally debunked this um and so we're what we're seeing now is people who did something and they felt a little bit better and they go oh that must have worked and it's like a tool that they go back to and it's not all bad having you know a time when you're eating entirely whole foods it's pretty good for most people. So not everything is entirely bad. Carnivore diet, for some people, it gives them their life back temporarily, but they need to have an exit plan.

1:00:36And so again, we don't want to categorize anything as all good or all bad. For someone like me, a carnivore diet would be all bad because my microbes have been, they've been armed and that would not be good. But for some people, it's a stepping stone. The blood type diet is a stepping stone, but this has been thoroughly, thoroughly debunked. I mean, I have an O blood type,

1:00:54Darin Olien:uh so i should be i should be dead yeah yeah yeah you should not be able to absorb any plants no i should be long gone so um and actually i think that book came out uh long yeah it was it was early on actually in the days when i was late 90s maybe yeah i was mid 90s but it had this surge where it got really popular again like maybe 15 years ago or something i was like pretty new-ish in my plant-based journey and people were saying like oh no you've got this blood type and even physicians and stuff were kind of getting a few a few fringe ones not most we're getting caught up in this and then people get really confused as well so um the blood type diet is it doesn't there's absolutely no real reason why your lineage as far as your blood goes would determine things however we tend to eat the diets that our parents ate and they learn that from their parents and they so your microbiome is created through your familiar yeah and then also too what your mom ate while she was pregnant what uh pharmaceuticals she may have been exposed to were you a c-section baby or were you vaginal birth and if someone is a c-section baby something you can do to try and give all those beneficial microbes that they're missing out not passing through the vaginal canal is go down wipe them out of the woman's vaginal canal and rub them all over the baby and give the baby that start so there's things we can do instead of just saying if you didn't breastfeed, you know, if you can get donor milk, there's things that people can do where, again, it's not all black and white, where you can't have a C-section.

1:02:27It's a harder recovery for the mother, but most women don't choose that. And so, yeah, the, the, again, black and white thinking, right? But yes, all these things do add up to a microbiome that by the time we reach adulthood, someone had processed food diet as a child. Um, a lot of people, maybe their parents grew up or one parent stayed home and then for their generation both parents were working so now we have more processed foods and their childhood didn't really set up their microbiome really well maybe they had a lot of penicillin as a child before it was really known that antibiotic resistance builds um and that if you take too many antibiotics they're effectively ineffective so that became something that people know more now but in the past a lot of children didn't get the best start and so by the time you reached adulthood your microbiome wasn't really set up

1:03:12Darin Olien:for success right and also like like just because that to your point just because it occurred doesn't mean that's that's that's the way it is no that's what i that's what i want to talk to you about that's why we're here because we can change it you can change it and it happens pretty quick it does what is this like because some adapt quicker than others within 24 hours you start to see micro changes in the gut microbiome and those micro changes if you are on a really really healthy diet for one day, a health-promoting, nutrient-dense, fiber-rich, plant-predominant diet for one day, you are going to make changes.

1:03:46It's going to take about 21 days probably for you to feel the effects of those changes, unless, of course, you made a drastic change and you might feel a little bit worse before you feel better. But that can happen really quick. And I'm a big advocate. We talked about microbiome testing, but I want to make sure that I differentiate because there's a lot of trendy microbiome tests right now. So like GI map, and there's a lot out there that use PCR testing. And I'm not a fan. PCR testing is, we're going to get controversial here. Oh no, I told my mom I wouldn't say anything controversial on your podcast.

1:04:18Darin Olien:Well, I believe I know where you're going to go. So it's a very sensitive test. Yeah. And you can dial it. It tells you that something is there. So it tells it. So a PCR test says this is present. The more cycles you run, the more likely you are to find it. But it doesn't tell me what quantity it's there in. So someone might have something show up on their gut biome test, but it's such a minute amount that it would never actually affect the bigger picture of their health. It happens to be present in this tiny little amount, or it could be a large amount. PCR testing in the gut microbiome just tells me that something is there.

1:04:54That's it.

1:04:55Darin Olien:Right. So if I were to do a – I'm going to use an example so people can understand. Hopefully this lands. So if I were to go in my woods at home, and I would test that area, and if I test enough, I'm going to test for poison oak. And it's there, but it's balanced within the ecosystem. It's not all poison oak. It's not all poison oak. So it's like if it was all poison oak, I couldn't even be on my property. I'd turn into a blister and I'd probably die. It would be so intense. But you can find it. And going any further, you can also find a mouse, whatever. Maybe a special rare plant. Yeah, for sure.

1:05:38Darin Olien:Or a hawk dropping. Whatever it is, you can find it. That's what you're saying. And day to day, it can change as well based on what else is going on around it. So I just want to set that. So PCR, you can find it. So continue on that line of thinking around the testing. around the it just tells me hey that that thing is present that we're looking for and so sometimes this causes a panic in people where they're like oh my gosh i need detox parasite cleanse etc but it hasn't been properly quantified and it it's really great if you want to prescribe supplements after if you want someone to have a whole you know a whole list where you're getting a kickback of all these 20 things you got e coli you got all right you've got everything not at all and so it can create a lot of unnecessary fear.

1:06:25I prefer 16S RNA microbiome sequencing. So it's 16S ribosomal RNA. The way to explain that is that every living thing has DNA and our little microbes in our gut are not exempt from it. And so their genetic signature can be picked up on these tests, but not just is it present? It can tell me how much, what quantity, is it in balance? How much diversity is there. It still has limitations. 16S RNA is a snapshot. So you want to be taking this test at a time when your life is balanced, basically. If you just had food poisoning or you contracted a parasite while traveling, that's maybe not the best time to do it unless you're looking for a roadmap forward.

1:07:06But it's not going to tell you the bigger picture of your health. So you don't want to be alarmist. But it does give, even if you're not feeling your best, unless you've just taken antibiotics, it gives us a good idea of your diversity levels at any stage. But it's something that is good to repeat down the line. But it gives a researcher a really good starting point to say, okay, you have got a pretty good microbiome score. You've got a lot of diversity here. It looks like your probiotic bacteria are going to be producing these prebiotics for you, for your colon, for your gut lining, for your mood, your skin, your hair, your nose, your immune system.

1:07:39It looks pretty good. Or on the flip side, okay, it doesn't look very good. You do have E. coli and you've got enough of it that it's a problem. This is something that now needs to be addressed, but it avoids the guesswork. It avoids dumping random probiotics in a system that might get worse from them, might already have too much, or it might be a synthetic strain, or most of them are just expensive foods. They're just going out anyway, not being utilized and absorbed. So you're just kind of wasting your money. But even there are some that can work, but again, it's better to know what you need than to just be guessing.

1:08:09And if someone doesn't want to do, I'm not saying everyone needs to go do a microbiome test. You can skip all of this if you want and just go back to the basics. That's a good tool for somebody who's trying to dig deeper. Maybe they're not quite getting results. They thought they were doing a slow introduction and they're struggling a bit. But for the average person, you can get very, very, very far following the principles that we talked about, the principles in your book, the principles of using nutrition as the baseline for all these other processes.

1:08:34Darin Olien:Yeah. And you can start building right now today. They're building your forest inside and your diversity inside. And that's the thing. And it It doesn't require an expensive supplement that may or may not even do anything. Exactly. It could make it worse. I love this. I'm so grateful that you're... This is going to sound weird. I'm proud of you for diving into something that you saw that you didn't feel was being addressed, and you just took it on yourself. It says a lot of who you are and your character. And the thing that I'm aware of is our society complains a lot. Us as individuals, we easily can complain and be a victim instead of actually being a source for change.

1:09:34Darin Olien:And so I see you as, yeah, you're doing a PhD, but you're actually sourcing a different way. and a possibility, and you're doing it because you saw a gap. And that's an amazing quality that you said yes to. Thank you. Yeah, and that's a beautiful thing. So I can't wait for you to continue to share your knowledge, and please share it with us as you continue your PhD. You will. And I'm so stoked that you're able to come. Thank you so much for having me. This was a great time. Yeah, thank you. My first podcast. First one. First one. Yes. First one. Hopefully not the last. No. See how this is received.

1:10:15Darin Olien:No, no. You're awesome. Natural. Thank you so much. Thank you.