The Shocking Truth About Microplastics, Microbes, & Pollution: Why Colon Cancer Is on the Rise - With Dr. Emeran Mayer

32:10So you have like this intrinsic health that our body generates. And we're basically an elaborate machine that evolution has taken millions of years, billions of years to come up with. And it's programmed for health and survival. And one way does it is by creating, being in a state of balance, of homeostasis. That's the ultimate goal of evolution that we are in this. And we've pushed this so far away from that state in many situations by different forces. So diet is obviously an important one, but many other lifestyle factors and mind states, exercise, basically all the major influences that we are exposed to in our society have an influence.

33:14And there's obviously the genetic vulnerability underlying this. So the intrinsic health is something that's determined by our genetic background. Some people are super healthy. We see this with longevity, for example, healthy longevity. Some people live very unhealthy lifestyles and live into their hundreds. um and but it's influenced to varying degrees by these other factors so one person let's say has the good genes but um you know diet contributes like 60 of what we call the variance 60 influence on on but then they're still you know if they're depressed or chronically anxious if they exercise what um um air they're exposed to you know some for each individual they contribute a significant amount but it differs nobody has the same it's not like everybody has 60 diet influence and you almost have to say to ultimately to you know estimate the risk of somebody to develop diseases, we'll have to use AI to enter all these variables and then calculate a risk score for that person.

34:42If you have a very low risk score, you probably don't need to do many of these tests throughout their lifetime. But there's going to be a lot of people that are pretty high in these categories. But this system's biological view of health and wellness and disease, I think, is a key concept. We don't learn this in medical school. You go for one cause and it drills down to one receptor that's overstimulated.

35:17And, you know, talking about the one receptor, so GLP-1 obviously comes up. and we were lucky every once in a while a compound like this comes up that covers many of these factors that contribute to the we still don't know exactly how it works on so many different disease processes could all be a consequence of affecting body weight and metabolism but could also be that it affects many of these other you know what we call the exposome the influences from the environment on our genetic, on our intrinsic homeostasis. But every once in a while that happens. I think it's the exception. It's much more, you know, just looking at food, for example, food is not just one thing.

36:11It's not just the calories, it's not just the fat, it's the different types of fibers, it's the different types of um and there's a tremendous variety of on on each of these there's thousands of fiber molecules hundreds of polyphenol molecules um so to come up with what's still invoked today you know a lot of the influencers they come up with this one magic thing you know if you do this um and generalize it everybody will get benefit from it that's not the case you know So you may be somebody where that plays a big role, but in somebody else, it has not the same effect. I often think about this.

36:54We've done a lot of research on this early life trauma, and that's one of the big risk factors, you know, that predisposes people to chronic illness throughout life.

37:09and you know there's a good example like holocaust survivors who went through undescribable trauma and or war survivors now we have these several wars going on I mean you would think if what we study in the laboratory in the university setting is generalizable everybody who was involved in these war situations or was in a concentration camp would be affected. But there's a lot of Holocaust survivors that live into their 90s and 100s. That's always, and there definitely have not been people that went to the gym every day and, you know, paid attention to their diet. They lived a regular lifestyle, you know.

37:51So, yeah, I think for me personally, this is one of the most important insights and and lessons that i've learned is to look at this truly yeah we call it holistic view of of health and and disease that's not one thing and it's not one remedy and it's not the same for

38:16Shawn Stevenson:everybody yeah yeah thank you for that and it's a as you just mentioned it's a kind of an overall stress load that it's your own blueprint everybody has their unique blueprint and it's going to be different pieces or puzzle pieces that are going to be effective or harmful to different people. And you mentioned earlier, you even said the mind state. With this being said, what is the connection between our thoughts, stress, you know, as you called it, your mind state when it comes to our gut and our microbiome? Yeah, so I want to start with one example where we know a lot about this and this is the increased risk of colon cancer that patients with inflammatory bowel disease also with colitis have and so that's well established what's less well established and you know we've gotten involved in this kind of research over the last yeah 10 years or so how mind states affect the activity of the colitis.

39:27So most gastroenterologists would say, it has nothing to do with stress. It's a gut disease. It's an immunological disease. It has to do with T-cell, with T lymphocytes. But there's pretty good evidence that, for example, an increased stress reactivity that some people have influences how many recurrences of the ulcerative colitis have once they've gone into remission. So a big factor that influences the inflammatory activity in the gut of these people comes from the mind. And so that's pretty clear cut. So we have one. Now, not all these increases, certainly not in young people, even though inflammatory bowel disease is also increasing in younger patients.

40:18So there's some connection. But the low-grade inflammation, that's harder to measure, you know, is asymptomatic. But from animal studies, we know that low-grade inflammation of the colon is a risk factor for colon cancer. So it's quite plausible, given the importance of the brain-gut microbiome interaction. and the role, the prominent role of low-grade inflammation that we have seen in animal models of IBD, you know, I would say there's a definite link between. If this affects, you know, not everybody who is stressed will develop these inflammatory changes in their colon. A lot of people will never know it because they're not going to have colitis symptoms, you know, but it is inflamed.

41:16But we do know from many studies that stress, chronic stress, acute stress, changes the microbiome and engages the immune system through that, you know. It's a good example how mainstream gastroenterology, just like it has happened in IBS before, is kind of very conservative. This idea that if you are chronically stressed, that this affects your colon, and if you also have genetic risk genes, this would increase your risk of developing colon cancer and a bad diet. I think that it's, again, this multifactorial influence on the system, but the mind state definitely plays a role in this, you know?

42:09Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Because again, we tend to put all of our eggs in one basket or we just throw up our hands and, you know, we're just complete victims to the different circumstances that might manifest. And so we know there's a relationship with stress and this kind of inflammatory cascade and also the influence that stress has potentially on our overall gut health, our microbiome. And this is where some of your most recent work is at, looking at the influence that our microbiome has on the production of different hormones and neurotransmitters and the influence that this can have on our cells, on our DNA.

42:46Shawn Stevenson:And so this is what I want to talk about next. I want to ask you about this emerging work with the astrobilone. Yeah, I mean, the reason that this conversation has only started recently reflects another thing of our society that, you know, that women's health has not been viewed equally important as men's health. You know, many of the clinical trials have always been done to males, also in animal studies, because it's easier. You have to have twice the sample size, more expensive to do males and females. so it's kind of amazing that you know half of the population undergoes menopause and perimenstrual symptoms and that it's taken us so long before this has become and it's still not mainstream you know it's not so this strobilom it's it's a group of microbes that is involved in the in the reactivation and recycling of of estrogen i should also say testosterone and many other substances that the liver excretes so you know the liver is our main cleaning organ in the body together with the kidneys but in the liver a lot of processes this happens that molecules that are no longer needed, that have performed their purpose, are modified on a molecular basis, which allows them to be excreted through with the bile.

44:22And the bile empties into the small intestine and then goes down, you know, and then ultimately you would think a simple like if an engineer had designed this they would just say okay all this is targeted for excretion but but not not in the body you know in the body you have this group of of microbes that have a specific enzyme called beta glucuronidase which takes off that molecule that the liver added to make it excretable so it's it's kind of going against what the liver wanted to do, you know. And then these molecules, once you remove that sugar component, becomes water soluble and can be reabsorbed in the end of the small intestine and in the colon back into the circulation.

45:15So this is a significant source of estrogen molecules and testosterone molecules in the body that was already scheduled for excretion, but then the microbes saved it, and it's being reabsorbed. In general, this process is a beneficial process both for us. you know it as long as the ovaries are the main producers of estrogen or

45:52estradiol the main you know the main estrogen molecule it's not that important makes up about 10 but once the ovaries shut down and nobody can change that or wants to change it then it becomes the only, the main source of estrogen in a woman's body. And it's variable. Shutting it down is a universal biological process that affects all women, but the amount that's being recycled depends on what kind of microbial ecosystem or composition each woman has. So some have a very powerful system, So they have higher estrogen levels after menopause. And in others, it's almost non-functioning. And so they have a lot more symptoms.

46:47And so a colleague that I'm working with at UCLA, Dr. Meriwether, very smart guy, which you can tell because he did his undergraduate work in philosophy as a philosophy major. so for the very few physicians or researchers that has that background but I love to talk to him because he always has these amazing ideas that we could actually engineer microbes that have the special capacity that have more of this beta-glucuronidase so they will be more efficient in doing this recycling and you it would be personalized you would give this to women they have a lot of symptoms so instead of hormone replacement therapy you would basically just give them a probiotic that would stimulate the recycling of the estrogen i mean it's an amazing idea i think but it also you know it has a benefit potential benefit for men because obviously so many people take you know testosterone supplements um because you could manipulate that level as well, you know, with a different type of, so it had to be a different microbe that is specialized on.

48:06So what I said about this enzyme, this beta-glucuronidase, there's hundreds of different subforms of it. Some specialized for estrogen, some specialized for testosterone, some specialized for other chemicals that we're excreting. So you could But ultimately, David has that future plan, which I think is one of the most exciting things that I've heard to create specialized bioengineered probiotics that will allow you to improve your hormone metabolism. You know, I mean, it's and I think this approach, I mentioned this to you earlier.

48:56I think the estrobilom is an exception to this, but when it goes about diet, I always say we wouldn't need to do any more research because we know all the answers already. what would be the optimal healthy lifestyle for health and wellness and prevention of disease, even in our contaminated modern world. But science will not be happy with that. And you can't make that much money with just recommending how many apples you have to eat per day and how much fiber.

49:39but there are developments going on that I think are going to revolutionize the healthcare system how long they will take some of them are already here give you two other examples so one is the strobilom and being able to influence these reactivation and recycling of hormones the other one would be bioengineered fibers you know there's thousands of fiber molecules so when we talk about fiber we think this is one one molecule that you have to and so a lot of people do this you know they most of these commercial products that say you know you increase your fiber intake take it's it's one fiber type but the microbes are specialized in all these different fibers so when you eat a healthy plant-based diet you you deliver these thousands of different molecules and it forces your microbial ecosystem to add more and more specialists that can handle these different fibers so the more diverse your plant-based diet is the more diverse your microbiome will become because you need all these guys to to break down the fiber into you know often it's the same end result is short-chain fatty acids it's health promoting molecules you know butyrate is sort of most well known but that's another so there's a company called OneBio that has just launched their first product.

51:17So they take natural fibers and slightly modify them and make them water-soluble. And they've created what they call a glycopedia, which is a collection of hundreds of different fiber molecules that are all slightly manipulated. it so they can all so you can take a teaspoon put it in in your water and you won't even notice that you're now adding 20 grams of of one type of fiber to it you can add four teaspoons of different types of fibers and then you have this variety as you would get by eating you know 30 different vegetables a week um so this also has a revolutionary potential you know because I doubt that people will really dramatically change their dietary habits, the majority, to go to that what's currently, you know, considered the gold standard, 35 vegetables, fruits and vegetables a week, different types.

52:24It's feasible. So we are actually practicing this in our own family, but not everybody can do it. May not be affordable for many people. But so I would say, and then there's a third examples of this modifying existing probiotics or microbes. And that's probiotics. Generally, probiotics have been used for treatment of inflammatory bowel disease. And what people have noticed, the minute you stop taking them, they're basically gone from your gut. you know they they're not able to colonize your your gut particularly inflamed areas if you have ulcerative colitis they won't stay there so a company and startup company in in vancouver that i've been affiliated with they have developed um you know bioengineered probiotic taking a very commonly used probiotic made a small genetic change in that so now it's actually thriving from these inflammatory mediators it it feeds on these inflammatory meters so it's it goes if you swallow one of those probiotics it homes into that area of inflammation will only live there as long as there's inflammation because that's when it gets its nutrients, and it will die off once the inflammation is gone.

54:01So also a completely revolutionary way of treating inflammatory bowel disease, for example. These are just like three examples I gave you, and I think right now, I consider myself a big fan of probiotics. Not sure. You know, I think if you like them, if you feel good, take them. But it's not a dramatic effect, you know. But these new things that are coming down the pipeline really revolutionize, you know, what we can do with fairly natural means. You know, it's not like taking a new chemical. It's taking an organism that lives in your gut and slightly modifying, you know, its properties.

54:47Shawn Stevenson:Have you noticed that a lot of skincare products are now adding green tea extract to their ingredients? And for good reason. A review of 20 studies published in the journal SkinMed revealed that green tea is effective in reducing acne, dermatitis, warts, keloids, rosacea, and many other skin issues. This is incredible. But the biggest benefits were seen when green tea is consumed versus being utilized topically. And the very best source of green tea is matcha green tea. Now, matcha is out here heavy in the streets. People are becoming matcha girlies, matcha boys. All right. But the traditional matcha is being distorted a little bit.

55:34Shawn Stevenson:It's being Frankensteined up a little bit. But the traditional matcha is absolutely overflowing with unique benefits, including benefits for our skin health. Now, here's the rub. There's a ton of different pseudo matchas out there, low quality matchas. And for myself personally, there's only one matcha that I drink and it's quadruple toxin screened for purity. and is 35 % higher in L-theanine, which is clinically proven to help to reduce stress-induced skin irritation. Absolutely amazing. The only matcha that I drink is the Sun Goddess Matcha from Peak Life. Head over to peaklife.com forward slash model and you're going to receive up to 20 % off their phenomenal Sun Goddess Matcha plus all their other award-winning tees.

56:31Shawn Stevenson:And in addition to up to 20 % off, you're also gonna get access to a free starter kit that includes an electric frother. Now, I'm about that froth life. I use my frother every single day. And to top it all off, you get to try Peak Tees risk-free with their 90-day money-back guarantee. So again, head over there, check them out, peaklife.com forward slash model. That's P-I-Q-U-E-L-I-F-E.com forward slash model for up to 20 % off plus some other amazing bonuses. This is the real matcha. This is what matcha was always meant to be. Nothing added, no preservatives, no funky sugars, no artificial sweeteners, just the very best matcha green tea in the world.

57:19Shawn Stevenson:Head over there, check them out, peaklife.com forward slash model for up to 20 % off. And now back to the show. Yeah. You told me years ago about your skepticism about the probiotics out there, supplemental on the market. And again, it just makes sense just not being able to have the capacity to really colonize and really change things in a notable way. And you got to keep taking them. And also some people, again, it could be an end of one experiment where they do find relief or whatever the case might be. But this is one of the reasons we don't have really conclusive data about like supplemental probiotics.

57:54Shawn Stevenson:We've got far more data on prebiotics, right? And being able to provide the fiber types for our bacteria to do what they are designed to do, which is to create these chemicals in us for us. And this speaks to the benefit when we are talking about the astrobilone as well, just to step back to that really quickly. This is revolutionary. Like this is one of those things that should really grab our attention because we have been kind of programmed or maybe undereducated about estrogen, not maybe, definitely. And also just seeing it strictly as this is just an ovary related thing where we know that estrogen is being produced.

58:39Shawn Stevenson:Men don't have ovaries, but we have estrogen. All right? Estrogen is being produced by other cells and tissues and organs as well. And the relationship with the microbiome and the gut should really make us all stand at attention. Like, whoa, wait a minute, hold on. And there are things that we can target with the microbiome that could potentially help to provide relief from estrogen-related decline in the case of perimenopause and menopause. and also in the domain with men with testosterone, the same thing. So how can we keep more of these beneficial compounds around? Because what we don't get educated about is our gut is heavily related to the processing, the removal, digestion, I would say, of these hormones and also recycling of these hormones.

59:32Shawn Stevenson:And so why are we not paying attention to this? I think it's a new it's a new philosophy in medicine quite honestly and if you talk to many of my colleagues about this they would have never heard about it you know it's become a very hard thing in the startup phase because startup scene you know where a lot of people are now realizing wow just this has the potential is huge you know and there's a lot of investment money that goes into it but the mainstream medicine and science has not really embraced that yet. Yeah. Well, again, thank you because you're changing this and, you know, conversations like this reach a lot of people and a lot of practitioners as well, just to start to investigate this more.

1:00:21Shawn Stevenson:And, you know, obviously there's a incredible domain available for bioidentical hormone therapies. What if this, this is beyond bioidentical when your body can produce it in you for you by addressing your microbiome and addressing your gut so it's pretty cool and there's one there's one advantage you know understanding this there's very little research so far on the testosterone part of this recycling but you know it's it's well known taking testosterone in injections or in any supplementary form it will affect your own system so it will compromise it's hard to get off them i mean not that i'm taking them but i've heard people talk about it it's hard to get off it if you generate these with your natural mechanisms you probably won't have that withdrawal effect you could always stop it you know because it's not like adding a boost that's unphysiological so that's another advantage i think of using the body's own wisdom and the microbial wisdom combined to come up with these new therapies.

1:01:33Shawn Stevenson:Amazing. Well, we've already covered a lot of ground. And we started off this conversation with addressing, again, this highlighted conversation of colon cancer. And the very best form of treatment is prevention, you know, and just doing what we can, stacking conditions in our favor. And obviously diet is a big component of that. It's not everything, just to be clear again, but this is one of those things that we know has a big influence and we can influence it. And having you here, what would be three dietary targets or dietary principles for us to follow to help to reduce our risk of developing chronic illness like that?

1:02:25You would have to go back to really to the microbiome. So right now, I think, you know, we talked about this earlier, sort of a commonly discussed theory is that it's a low-grade inflammation that microbial interaction with the immune system in the gut creates. And so the standard American diet is prone to create this low-grade inflammation. So I think it's not one simple thing. It's definitely, you know, eliminating the ultra-processed foods with the sugar. And for a lot of people, this would be number one for things that we know. You know, we can't do much about the chemicals. Well, you can, if you have access to regenerative organic agriculture products, you know, on farmers markets, it's definitely another way of doing it.

1:03:29because there's so much in the soil. You may think about, you know, if you eat these vegetables that are, you know, that are grown in a natural environment, well, they are exposed to their own microbiome, you know, which the chemicals that we put in the soil, I mean, it's a little sort of a diversion. chemicals that we put in the soil and the chemical fertilizer is suppressing the microbiome of the soil, which is a major source of stimulation for plants that produces health-promoting molecules. So if you buy from plant-based food sources from areas that are only grown with chemical fertilizer and never are exposed to this soil microbial communication with the root system, you may be fooling yourself.

1:04:33You know, it tastes good, it looks good, but it's devoid of all the benefits that you normally would get from it. So I think if you can do it, you know, go organic, ideally go sustainable organic and regenerative organic.

1:04:55Certainly, you know, red meat always comes up and it's an ongoing battle. we see it now with the new food guidelines you know that has been both the the the fat the animal fat and the just the red meat has been um you know trivialized as as an important factor so now you know people are being encouraged to increase their red meat intake protein intake and and beef tallow and you know stuff like and butter but there's an extensive literature that's shown that there is an increased risk um you know of of of colon cancer with with with these animal-based meat and dairy products you know it's not um I mean if you have your your steak once a week it's not an issue but if you have your two hamburgers every day and that's your main and your french fries deep fried french fries you are exposed to something that's not healthy for you and that increases your studies that have shown um you know it increases the risk it's amazing I mean coming back to these new food guidelines you know this was a commission that came up of highly qualified people that were invited to contribute to these new guidelines but then the report to the commission was not publicized it was overworked by politicians under the influence of lobbying groups by the the American Beef Council and, you know, the dairy industry and all this.

1:06:43And so they added this component to it, which was not part of the original proposal.

1:06:51So coming back to this, you know, society obviously has many influences on our food quality. But coming back to the simplest thing, what would you do besides going to a largely plant-based diet, ideally coming from organically grown food, eliminating ultra-processed foods as much as possible? I would consider those two the two main factors you know that I would the others play probably not as important roles but yeah like I mean you can't avoid the exposure to plastics you know living in our society just but I think these two things avoiding the ultra-processed diet and going to a largely plant-based diet, which I now call the, it's an ancestral diet.

1:07:54It's not just the Mediterranean diet, even though I have a lot of positive memories and associations about eating this diet in Italy. So for me, it tastes better just because of that. But you go to traditional Asian diets, very similar. You know, you go to the remnants of hunter-gatherers on the Amazon, on the Orinoco River, same thing, two-thirds or more plant-based, even though they're surrounded by animals, they've learned it's not good for them to just live off all the animals around them. So they eat berries and roots and tubers and nuts. So, yeah, I think this ancestral, largely plant-based diet, neither vegan nor vegetarian, understood for ethical reasons, you know, which I totally understand, is pretty the advice that I would give.

1:08:56Shawn Stevenson:Okay, great, great, great. You know, thank you for that. Because again, this isn't pointing to the exclusion of anything, it's pointing to the focus on the things that we know to be most influential for our gut microbiome, which is having those inputs, those data points of different fiber types, right? And again, when I was in school, it was like soluble, insoluble, but there are all these different, every single food has its own unique fiber that it's providing, unique data, right? And we're taking on basically the microbiome, even if you want to think about it like that, of the blueberry or a microbiome of the avocado.

1:09:36Shawn Stevenson:It's like data points to communicate with our own microbes and getting a diversity. And so you mentioned again, we wouldn't have a need for these supplements if we were all kind of living in accordance with how we evolved, which is having, the reason we have all these different microbes is because we had traditionally had all these exposures to different things. But over time, and you see this with hunter gatherers, their diversity of their microbes versus the average American is dramatically different because we are no longer providing those inputs. And so making it a mandate, as you mentioned, one other thing you want to throw in here that you talked about briefly is the exposure to chemicals in our food as well.

1:10:17Shawn Stevenson:And if we can do what we can to, again, if the accessibility is a priority for us to find accessibility, organic, regenerative farming, these are all things that we can check off. We can start to normalize, but there's controversy around that. Well, organic doesn't really make a difference. it just depends on where you look, because one of the most, we're talking billions of tons has been utilized, chlorpyrifos, a pesticide. We know that it creates havoc with the microbiome. It's related to all these different birth defects and chronic diseases, and it's been caught up in red tape, you know, because also our food system can become reliant on some of these compounds as well to grow our food.

1:11:10Shawn Stevenson:And it's just like, well, what if we, okay, it's banned. Now we lose all these crops. And so it's not to villainize one particular thing. It's to know better and to work towards that. And that's one of the things that I admire about you as well is like you advocate for us to do that. And so with all this said, where is a good place for people to connect with you, to follow you, to just get into your universe? You've got some great stuff that's coming very soon for everybody as well. Yeah. So since we last talked, you know, gotten into a lot of exciting projects. So the best way to connect to, you know, my world of information and products is go to my website, emronmayer.com.

1:11:57And then it gives you all these channels that you can go, you know, from hundreds of podcasts, hundreds of newsletter posts. There's a lot of information there. We've also created something in the last year together with our son Dylan, this brand, Mayo Nutrition, where we selectively have identified certain areas that are missing in the diet, like polyphenols, so these molecules that plants make to protect themselves against disease and against UV light, against pesticides. and these compounds not as popular in the lay press as fiber. They've been studied in very large-scale NIH, well-controlled studies like flavanol and other polyphenols.

1:13:09So that's one exciting thing. This also, like, you know, one thing that we picked, a natural product, this extra virgin olive oil from 800-year-old trees. I find that so attractive because, so it's unusual for a tree to survive 800 years. They're exposed to extreme heat and UV light and, you know, pests and all kinds of things. So these trees must have had a selective advantage, which are these polyphenols. They have the highest concentration of polyphenols, not just in their leaves, but also in the olives. And so we've identified a product that is third-party tested for high polyphenol content.

1:14:04And our vision of this is to have a whole, you know, store of similar kind of polyphenol-related products that nobody talks about, you know, but that we know has probably the same beneficial effects as fiber does. So that's, you know, in terms of this mayor nutrition branch.

1:14:29Shawn Stevenson:And where can people get this olive oil? They can go to the website. It's mayernutrition.com. That's M-A-Y-E-R. M-A-Y-E-R, nutrition.com. And yeah, so that's, I mean, there's always a limited supply. You can imagine. Of course, right. This is not a mega product, you know, it's... With these, speaking of which, you know, centuries old, these are adaptogenic compounds. these are adaptogenic trees yeah you know they've really found a way to be resilient and so again it's just passing on these traits and picking up these and the polyphenols in particular like you mentioned there's so we there's so much data on this and in particular the impact it has on our microbiome yeah and then so the other two things that you mentioned so because you know my first book the mind god connection has done so well continues to do so well my publisher harper Collins asked me if I would write a 10 year anniversary edition, which I've just completed, it will come out in October.

1:15:38And we've also created a something for the lay public and easily digestible and practical guides to optimal health and wellness, which has both the science but also lots of recipes and and dietary recommendations not just dietary dishes and uh i've done this with a with a um with a co-author because i'm obviously not a not a chef and you know had to consult somebody who who knows this as well so really excited about these two book projects um yeah and back in my mind i i still have this this um this idea that at some point i would like to do a documentary on this concept of the interconnected planet you know which would summarize many of the things the topics we talked about today because this holistic view of the world and our health and diseases affects everything, you know.

1:16:49And we as a society have been very successful with our Western approach of scientific, rational, but limited approach to identify new things. But we've also missed out on a lot of opportunities. Like we talked about taking advantage of this holistic intelligence and wisdom of the system. So if that film ever is going to happen, we have a teaser made of it. But so that's down the line. Dr.

1:17:23Shawn Stevenson:Mayer, thank you so much for coming to hang out with us today. It's always enlightening talking to you. And I appreciate you being a pioneer and pushing these ideas into culture. Because it's not just everyday people that you're impacting. you're also impacting physicians and practitioners and people who are impacting the lives of other people and so the work that you're doing is it's invaluable so i appreciate yeah thanks and uh you know for me also personally the mission that i see for myself at this stage of my career i don't need to publish any more papers you know and i i also don't really necessarily need to lecture to my colleagues in gastroenterology because i mean they're more interested in doing endoscopies and some of these topics that we talked about.

1:18:10But this education of a large segment of the population is definitely becoming my main mission, you know, and whatever I can do to enhance that with, you know, with the media, social media, book publications, and hopefully the documentary film as well. Yeah, that creates my passion at the moment.

1:18:36Shawn Stevenson:Yeah, well, you are appreciated. I thank you so much. The one and only Dr. Emmerin Mayer, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today. I hope that you got a lot of value out of this. Keep this conversation going. Please share this with somebody that you care about. Send this directly from the podcast app that you're listening on. Or of course, you could take a screenshot of the episode, share it on social media, tag me. I'm at Sean Model. Tag Dr. Mayer as well. I know that he would love to see the love. This is such an important conversation. We covered a lot of ground today, but again, we need to help to shift our system towards prevention, towards, of course, early detection with non-invasive and minimally invasive testing that we now have available just to get more buy-in from people, to get people in the door, to make sure that our health is on point.

1:19:33Shawn Stevenson:But with this being said, restructuring our current healthcare system is going to be a mighty task to say the least because it is so focused on monetization just to keep everything running as is. And disease prevention is not a very good business model for the way that things are currently constructed. And so we're advocating for change in multiple aspects of this. And also, again, this powerful conversation around the astrobilome and the impact that targeting our gut and our microbiome and the health of our gut and microbiome and influencing symptoms of perimenopause and menopause and also andropause as well when it comes to men's health.

1:20:20Shawn Stevenson:This is incredible and something for us to now, again, you heard it here first, to be able to have our eyes out for coming down in the next couple of years, more information about this. And again, more ways for us to take back control of our health, take back control of our minds and stat conditions in our favor. I appreciate you so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, please, if you're listening on Spotify, leave a comment, make sure to like this episode and if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, please pop over and leave a review for the Model Health Show. It really does mean a lot.

1:20:58Shawn Stevenson:And of course, you could pop over to the YouTube channel and get to hang out in the studio with me and my guests and share your voice there as well. We've got some incredible masterclasses and world-leading experts coming your way very, very soon. So make sure to stay tuned. Take care, have an amazing day and I'll talk with you soon.