Why 70% of Your Immune System Lives in Your Gut | Dr. Will Bulsiewicz

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation show.

0:11Okay, so there's acute and low-grade chronic inflammation, correct? Yes, yeah. And the low-grade chronic inflammation mostly comes from the foods we eat, or is it also our environment, our sleep patterns, you know, and other things that we do? Okay, so one of the core ideas that I present in this book, and I will defend this position, is that your gut and your immune system are completely intertwined and inseparable. So just to frame this, our first episode, if you haven't listened to it, go back and take a listen. But just to quickly frame, we have a gut microbiome, mostly in our large intestine or colon, with 38 trillion microorganisms.

0:57microscopic we can't see them but they actually outnumber us that's more than we have human cells so there's more gut microbiome than we have human cells 100 % you're definitely less than 50 % human and if we were to line you up as your genetic code if we were to basically have a football field and every single yard represented where does your genetic code come from one yard would be the genetic code that you inherited from your parents and 99 yards actually 99 and a half yards would be the genetic code that you have from your microbiome really yes 99.5 percent of your genetic code comes from these microbes and where do these microbes come from our environment so our environment and um and they're manipulated by our choices so there's an entire story inside of you we're getting to the point we're getting to the point where we could take a snapshot of these microbes and start to basically say, hey, I know how Lewis has been living his life.

2:01Here's the food choices. Here's the sleep. Here's the circadian rhythm. Here's the exercise, right? Here is his connection to his partner. Here is his trauma or history of things from the past that we discussed during the first episode. That like basically your life is a story and that story is actually reflected it's told through your gut microbiome so it's entirely unique to you so how do we if we're feeling exhausted if we're feeling inflamed if we're feeling in fight or flight due to what's happening within our gut how do we start to heal our gut to get rid of inflammation okay so these two pieces they're so interconnected and and i just want to add real quick that between the 38 trillion microbes and the fact that 70 % of your immune system is in your gut lining.

3:01Wow. Okay. So like the bone marrow is like basic training. They get trained up there and then they get deployed and they go and take up and do their service in the lining of your intestines. Interesting. 70 % of our immune system is in our gut lining? Is in our gut mining. Wow. Yes. So if our gut is unhealthy, we are unhealthy. Because basically what happens is that there's a cascade where these microbes and those immune cells, they're right next to each other. And the only thing that's separating them is a single layer of cells, which we call the gut barrier. Right? And if that starts to break down, which happens when the gut microbes are weak and not able to do their job.

3:50So they are the stewards. The gut microbes are the stewards of the gut barrier. They build it for us. They repair it for us. That gut barrier, that single layer of cells, it protects the immune system. So when it's fortified, the immune cells are at ease because there's no one to fight. But if it's weak. But if it's weak, which I call increased intestinal permeability, but you will hear it referred to as leaky gut. And I have no problem with that terminology because it's actually correct. When that happens, it's a weak gut barrier. Things can sneak across that are not supposed to be there. And so then your immune system is like, yo, the bloodstream is right behind me.

4:34and I got my like literally age old like like this villain that I've been fighting since before humans existed right the immune cells recognize their enemy that they've been fighting for literally a billion years that's my estimate and they go okay cool you want to come over here we're gonna fight you really yeah so then they get activated the immune system gets activated in response to something that got across the gut barrier that's not supposed to be there and there's a there's a term for this by the way for the people who are nerdy like me it's called lipopolysaccharide lipopolysaccharide is the armor that surrounds like e coli or salmonella or shigella these nasty bacteria this armor they developed to protect themselves and the armor became the way that your immune system identifies the enemy like oh you're wearing the armor cool i gotta take you out interesting you're not allowed to be here wow so but that process of i gotta take you out is the activation not in a strong powerful you're having a fever way right like that's not acute this is the 24 hours a day battle on the inside where your immune system gets activated and that's chronic low-grade inflammation and the problem is that you know i mean like to be totally honest with you i don't love the war analogy but i feel like i have to do it because it's like it's the only thing that really makes so much sense right but like when we look at images of war in the modern world you can't have a war without total destruction right right you're destroying everything around right so when you are activating your when you're activating your immune system to fight an enemy that just like, if you just repaired the gut barrier, the enemy would have never got in in the first place.

6:29Right. If you, if you were to address that, then we wouldn't need to like have these bodily, basically the immune system is causing bodily injury. Right. And so then this inflammation in the writing of my book, there's a specific table that I tell the reader, you know, go to this page. You got to check this out because I asked this basic question, How many health conditions are there that are associated with inflammation where I could come on your show and tell you this, but I could also talk to a colleague who's a medical doctor and pull the paper. And I found over 130.

7:09I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. and if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you wanna make it easier, you wanna make it flow, you wanna feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is gonna help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward. We have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following. And thank you for listening to this episode of The Daily Motivation Show.

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8:42Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.