Hi, I'm Fred Jeska Rudkin and I'm Louise Area.
And this is season four of our New Zealand Herald podcast The Little Thing.
So good to have you with us. In this podcast, we talk to experts and find out all the little things you need to know to improve all areas of your life. And look. In series one, we spoke to Tim Spector. You may remember this about food our guts, expanding our consumption of plants, and how our accessibility to real food has diminished over the decades, at least in Western society. And it keeps coming up.
Isn't it ye gut house the gut as the second brain or is it the first brain? The gut's relationship with our mental health, longevity, disease resistance, and it goes on. It isn't our intention to blind people with science and have us too scared to have a French fine at bee once in a while, because that would be a bit sad.
It would make me sad to Louise. Yeah.
So look, as with everything we look at, we just want to have a closer look at the health information that keeps coming up over and over again. And this is just one of those things.
So we're going to talk gut health, and in preparation, wheez, I did the blue Pooh test again because I'm really keen to know try and get sort of a feeling for the state of what my gut is in. And this is something that we did when we spoke to Tim Spector. You had good success. I didn't the first time I did it, And can I just say the second time around, it doesn't look this. Look I thing's improved at all. One of the only tests ever failed.
I can't even I don't think I can even execute this test properly because nothing ever seems to go blue. It's like my body absorbs blue food coloring and it just doesn't. So I'm seventy two days in ideally around this between what is it but twenty hours hours? Oh god, two days, Well, I think it will be seventy two days, seventy two hours, and there is no change. I do not have blue after eating my two blue muffins. And there were a lot of dye in those things, was there?
Yeah?
I think they were okay. And it's really concerning me as well, because twenty nine hours is sort of around a good time after eating the muffins where you're sorry to talk about those folks. Your poo to turn blue and nothing, and I'm really sick of looking at my poop. And I'm like, and I was like twenty one hours again, so were you? Yeah?
And I told you, I told you I would be. Nothing much has changed there. I don't know whether that's good or bad.
I thought, because I've taken a lot of advice from Lara Brydon, who was in our first episode this season, and I've been sheltering from ultra processed food and alcohol and sugar. Not entirely. I haven't cut these things out. I'm trying to be really realistic and create sort of something which is sustainable. But I really did feel I feel like I've been doing a lot of work on my gut, and does your gut feel better? My gut
does feel better, and I do feel better. So but really wouldn't worry too much.
I think we all know what sets us off and when we've upset the natural rhythm of our tummies. You know, for some people it's dairy, for other people it's coffee, could just be a rich meal. Yeah, that's right. And I've probably been sheltering from those a little bit too.
I'm quite intrigued to also know whether there's any impact. You know, there's a lot of challenges middle age. I'm interested to know whether there's you know, how that how the gut might be reacting to things. I mean, when the estudents left the body that was yeah, all sorts of things. Just is your aging Are there any changes in there so we can sort of talk about the I'm in an aging stage way too.
I do want to know that this is an area where they are looking at women as a separate thing to men. You know, we've talked a lot about a lot of the research that's been done. It's been done and meant so I'm interested to talk about that. And we wanted to just touch on the other lovely thing that comes up from time gas, whether you're.
Bare pin or farting. I mean, if you have a really.
Really, really good diet filled with pulses and stuff, do you start to just accept that you have to fart. I know a family who did it, and they just were like, yes, we all fart all the time, but we were already healthy.
I know that this is just a personal interest of Yoursise You're just asking for a friend, right, definitely those early morning runs that we go on. I'm also really intrigued by the idea that we're all completely different and all our guts and you know, like it's not a one size fits all and we're not all the same and things. I think that's really interesting.
I think it's actually super important because we could accidentally all of these fads or diets of way of eating apply to the population, right and actually when we are all individuals. And as far as I'm a fan of pop pulation health, I think gets a lot done, but we do kind of need to see if there are little tweaks and things we can do for ourselves.
But also, just because your mate feels better not eating dairy or not eating gluten doesn't mean you will. Absolutely that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So we're delighted to be joined by doctor Will Bolschwitz. He is a guest rentroler, just a passionate researcher and an expert in digestive diseases and the gut, and he works alongside to inspector at nutrition company Zoe as the US medical director. Welcome, doctor, Well, thanks so much for joining us today.
Oh it's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here.
Well, I think most people are familiar with the gut microbiome, but can you just start by giving us a quick explanation as to what it is.
Well, you know, Francesco, it's amazing to consider the statement most people are familiar with the gut microbiome, because not many years ago there was zero awareness even among the medical community to what we're about to talk about. We've come a long way to where now this is bordering on a mainstream conversation that you may be having with other people.
I love that. I'm very excited about that.
So it's important for everyone to understand that there has been this huge discovery that's taken place during the last twenty years in science, and it's transforming the way that we think about our own body as humans, and that is the microbiome. So it turns out that we are completely covered from the top of our head to the tip of our toes with invisible microorganisms, bacteria, yeasts, these things called our KaiA that are kind of my favorite. We can talk about that more if you want to.
Sometimes parasites and it turns out believe it or not many parasites are good for us. It sort of defies our expectations. And so they're there all of those places our skin, our nose, our mouth, but they're most concentrated inside of the large intestine, which is the colon. And in that place, just that place alone, your large intestine, you will find approximately thirty eight trillion micro organisms. Thirty eight trillion.
That's hard to get your hid around, Ryan.
Oh, it's it's a you know, it's like trying to understand the numbers from World War Two. It's like there's just no way to sort of put that framework into your brain. But let's break this down in a couple of ways. First of all, let's imagine it's a beautiful night and you look out up to the sky. You
see every single star that's in our galaxy. Okay, And if I were to take all those stars and pull them in and form them into a ball and insert them into your margin, Testine, not you personally, Francesca, Please don't feel weird about this.
Or you either, at lease. This is just theory. It theory, all right.
So I insert this ball full of stars, the entire galaxy full of stars, into your rgin. Testine, I would have to do this three hundred and eighty times to call the number of microbes. Yeah, so you have three hundred and eighty galaxies full of stars. And perhaps even more shocking to me is that we only have about thirty trillion human cells. So with total clarity, I can say you are less than fifty percent human.
That is so bond becerus.
Wait though, so in amongst that number, are they viruses, bacteria, and parasites and they're all getting along.
Well, they're not necessarily all getting along. But we're not all getting along either, are we.
We're not doing so well.
Yeah, well so, and that's you know, it's kind of interesting because it's a microcosm on what we see happening on planet and Earth. It's a microcosm for other ecosystems. So what is happening inside of us is appropriate A biologist would define this as an ecosystem them in the same way that a person might look at, you know, a forest or the Great Barrier reef as an ecosystem.
So, and within an ecosystem.
There are there are you know, sort of the ones that are friendly that we love as humans.
There are the ones that are a.
Bit malicious and we don't like so much. And what ends up happening is they all fall into a balance. And when that balance is healthy, you see the same balance that you might see in a healthy ecosystem. I like, imagine, imagine a city, and we want a city that is low on crime and people who are getting along and not too much traffic, right, and like, that's that would
be our ideal existence. But alternatively, when a city is failing, then these problems start to emerge, and there's more crime, and there's gridlock and bad traffic, and there's pollution and you know, and it's not kept clean and all these types of things. Right, So, so we want to keep it on the side of like thriving as opposed to the side of failing. And there's terms that we use for this. So a thriving gut microbiome we would describe as u biosis,
which means in balance. Or a failing microbiome, the term that we would use is dys biosis. But you might hear people characterize this on the internet as leaky gout or something like this.
Oh okay, yeah, I have heard that.
Yeah, I'm a little bit concerned that the wellbeing of our microbiome is in stat contrast to the human condition.
Welliz, it's an interesting question because they cohabitate with us, and when we think, you know, we love to tell stories about evolution. Where did we come from? How did we get here? What makes us human?
Right?
These are questions that we wrestle with all of us and and they inform our biology. But there's something that's been missing, which is the understanding that it was always co evolution. We were never alone. We always had our partners. They might be invisible, we may not have been able to see them, but they were there. They were outnumbering us. They were thirty eight trillion, And as we evolved through these years to become the version of ourselves today, they
were there a part of it with us. So and what ended up happening as a result of this is I can tell you with total clarity as a medical doctor that we grew to trust them because we gave
them very important responsibilities. We allowed them to be gatekeepers for our nutrition that's our source of life, to interact directly with our immune system that's inflammation, to have quite a bit of control over our metabolism, to actually play a role in the balance of our hormones, both men and women, and to even communicate from the gut all the way up to the brain and effect the way we think our memory. So you take a step back and you say, like, wow, in medical school, I separated
these things. I saw them all as separate. The metabolism is different from inflammation, is different from our digestion, is different from our brain and neurology or psychiatry. And now what we see is there's this common thread, this command center in the middle that is operated by these gut microbes that's playing a central role in all of these pieces.
They're not different, They're connected.
It's so fascinating what you're describing here. Your term speak to has said that this is the most exciting and fast moving area of science today because we have been making these big knowledge leaps. What you're talking about there, would that be the biggest thing that we've kind of discovered in this field.
I think so.
But I think that in science, when a new field emerges, you have to have the patience to allow it to mature. Allowed the science to mature, and so where we have been for the first fifteen years. I mean, just to put a historical context to what we're discussing here. Prior to two thousand and five, we were using just culture plates. So culture plate for the listeners at home is like, hey, if you were to take a bacteria and watch the ecal I grow, that's how you see what kind of
bacteria are there. All right, that's an old technique.
I mean, I don't know how old it is, but that is an old technique.
And what we were missing was some sort of technique that would allow us access to these microbes inside of us that do not grow on a culture plate. And we discovered that around two thousand and five. Okay, And the other thing that happened around that time is our computers started to get more advanced. So people that are our age, you know, because I'm in my mid forties, so.
We're sep joining us in your in your right.
You're yeah, you are to your late thirties, right, sure, yeah, yeah, right. But compared to these Gen Z kids who are growing up, they grew they're growing up with powerful computers. We didn't grow up with powerful computers. We grew up before computers. I grew up before computers. In nineteen eighties, we didn't really use computers. And so we needed the computers to progress to a point that they could handle massive data.
So the microbiome is massive data. And now we have grown where our computers are able to keep up with this. Our computers can now handle multiple amounts of massive data, meaning like big data sets of lots of people. And the first fifteen years, Francesca, we spent just kind of describing what we were seeing, What is this, what are we seeing here? What happens if you have a disease ease? What do we find in the microbiome? But now it's an exciting time because we're moving past describing it and
we're moving into manipulating it for our advantage. And there's many examples of where this is emerging. And it could be the person who's listening to us or right now who just wants to be healthier. Okay, we're going to get into that. But it can also be the person who's undergoing cancer therapy and they're now using something called immunotherapy, which takes advantage of our own immune system to fight
the cancer. It's a different approach than chemo. Chemo has attacked the cancer directly, and like all the other cells kind of suffer too. Immunotherapy is empowered the immune system and let the immune system attack it. And what we've discovered is the gut microbiome plays a very important role in that process and there's ways that you can use that to your advantage.
I read, and I don't know if this is correct, Will, but I read that seventy percent of our immune system lives in our gut microbiome.
That is absolutely correct, and it's fascinating because you ask a person where does your immune system live and they probably would say your bone, marrow.
I don't know, might say I don't know where I thought it.
Was then no, yeah, and Michael, lymph node, yeah right, You might say a lymph node or your spleen. You might say your spleen, right, And the answer is no,
none of those. The correct answer is your gut. Seventy percent of your immune system resides within the wall your gut, and in fact, so close to these microbes that just let me pretend for a moment that we pick up our microscope and we take a look and we're zooming in on this very very minute part of what's happening inside of you, and what you would see is you would see these microbes and then there's a single layer
of cells. We call it the epithelial layer, and it's thinner than a fraction of a hair off the top of your head. And the epithelial layer, single layer separates those microbes from the immune system on the other side. Seventy percent of the immune system is on the other side.
That is crazy.
Do you mind keeping that balances the part that's protecting your immune system or.
Yeah, these things end up released, These things end up being completely intertwined. You can't separate them. Because let's go back to the term I used, wiki gut. We could
do an entire hour on wiki gut. There's certainly there are things that exist and the lore of the Internet that I would not come on board and agree with, right, But here's what I do, like with clarity, agree with is that this single layer of cells that I was describing a moment ago, it's held together together by like think of it like cement, all right, And that cement is a protein called tight junction. And if you disrupt that protein, then you create a hole between those cells.
It's like having a hole in the wall of a castle, and now things can sneak through. And that's what leaky gut is and when things start to sneak through, that could be the stuff from inside your intestine, it could be pathogenic bacteria, and they start to go across this barrier that was put in place to keep them out. They start to go across. That's not the end of the world. But what that is is that is inflammation because your immune system is forced to now step up
to protect you. So, Louise, if I were to describe the layers of defense that we have, the first is actually our gut microbes. The second is our gut barrier, and you have to get past those two. But when you get past those two, you get to the third, which is the immune system. And this process that we're
describing creates chronic low grade inflammation. And that chronic low grade inflammation is at the root of so many of the epidemic diseases and health conditions that the Western world, including New Zealand and Australia and US in the United States, we are struggling with these things right now.
They're creating a real burden on the health system as well. And I find it really interesting. So people who say, oh, I've got a grade immune system, I never get a cold. I never get the flu, but my raging arthritis, for example, So the immune system is still not functioning optimally.
Would you say the immune system within arthritis is clearly being activated. And it depends on what we're talking about, which type of arthritis, because there's a few types. So one is rhumatoid arthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis is actually an autoimmune health condition. That means that the immune system is actually confused, right, and it's attacking your own body. Alternatively,
there's osteoarthritis, and that's inflammatory too, but it's different. It's not autoimmune, but it's still activation of the immune system in the joint that's creating inflammation and then you feel.
It when you walk or whatever.
It may be, okay, So these things are clear cut manifestations of inflammation. And if a person has an autoimmune disease like rheumatoid arthritis, without question, their immune system is
confused and it is struggling. So we know that with clarity and wise, if you lift up the hood to take a look at the engine, meaning the gut microbiome, if you were to take a look at what's happening in the gut microbiome, but then the context of these diseases, you would see that there's a damaged gut microbiome, there is dys biosis. So, as I said before, the immune system, in our microbiome, they're interconnected.
It's hard to separate them.
So in inflammatory health conditions, it is expected that if you look at the gut microbiome you will find dys biosis. They're running in parallel and in tandem. Now, this concept of like never getting sick and this kind of thing, it's a little bit hard for me to totally you know, understand exactly what's going on with this. Certainly you could try to avoid being sick, right then, this is something
that we dealt with during the pandemic. And I would make the argument that our immune system actually, like I'm going to paint with a broadstroke, So I have to be a little bit careful here, because like if I were talking to an individual person, I might frame this slightly different. But our immune system needs to be trained. Our immune system needs to the opportunity to practice and be strong. So in a way, getting sick is good for us because it allows our immune system to get
used to dealing with this, you know, infection. Clear it, and now because it cleared it, your immune system actually is stronger than when it started. And if we totally avoid it, you know, if we live in a sterile world, that's actually quite dangerous.
Coming back to if we wanted to be preventing of long term diseases and things we hear so much about information these days as well, it comes back to drevention of disease or managing disease right now comes back to gut health.
I would argue, yes, Now, I want to be clear on this because you have a reputable show, and I don't want to make it sound like I'm being hyperbolic in my promises here. Yeah, I'm not making the claim this is the only thing. But let me paint this picture. Here's this thing that we have been ignoring, and because we've been ignoring it, we've made choices with our culture, with the way that we live, with what we consider normal, We've made choices that actually are causing harm to it.
Let's address that we all want.
To take some control and some responsibility for our health, and this is I suppose the way that we can do that.
This is the way that we can do that. Because if you repair and restore the gut. From my perspective, there is a tremendous opportunity to elevate and enhance your health throughout your entire party.
And I would argue, even if you were well, I went through chemotherapy about I don't know, eight years ago. Yeah, I went absolutely full noise on the rainbow and healthy
food throughout it. And I did my own research because I don't expect my own colleges, and I didn't expect my own colag just to give me a diet, although I hear that some centers do now actually, and I would put my success of staying really well through the chemotherapy down to what I was putting my body, despite the fact that the chemo was knocking every other cell out of the water. But it definitely helped.
You know.
It's interesting because the way in which we respond to these treatments in many cases chemotherapy or aminotherapy is a more profound and obvious example because we're doing something so extreme all at once. The way in which we respond to these streaments quite clearly is associated with what's going on in our gut microbiome. So in melanoma research, melanomas is the number one cause of death related to skin cancer and in melanoma research, for many years, they've been
using sort of amminotherapy based approaches. There's some research out of MD Anderson, which is in Texas and the United States, where what they noticed was that when they gave people antibiotics prior to the immunotherapy, they didn't do as well. And they said, huh, well, maybe they're just sick, because if you need antibiotics, you're sick, so maybe it's just that that's the case. So they did a randomized control trial and actually when they randomized people, it wasn't that
they were just sick. They still did worse. So the theory was maybe the antibiotics are wiping out the gut microbio and that's affecting their immune system, that's affecting their response to immunotherapy. So they said, well, let's try the opposite direction. Instead of wiping it out, let's rebuild it.
So they gave a fecal transplant to a series of patients who had failed They had failed immunotherapy, so these are people that are sort of like at a point of desperation, and they gave them a fecal transplant, which, in other words, means they gave a healthy microbiomeframe from another person to these individuals repeated the immunotherapy, and many of them, not all of them, but many of them had an amazing response to a treatment that they had
previously failed. And so then they asked one more question is the last one where they said, okay, interesting, what about fiber because fiber is the fuel for the gut. And so they looked at fiber intake and response to immunotherapy and they saw amazing things where for every ten grams of fiber that a person consumes, they had a thirty five percent increased.
Risk of life as a result. That's incredible.
Fiber is really an interesting If twenty twenty four was the year of protein and us all being told to eat the right amount of protein, I feel like twenty twenty five is all about fiber. I'm hearing. I'm hearing this so much more focusing on this. Look, you mentioned antibiotics, and let's just quickly touch on that because a lot of time, if you're at the doctor and you are prescribed in antibiotic I can't remember the last time I was on antibiotics. It will be over a decade ago.
I think but these days, if you are then the chemistore, someone will immediately say to you, oh, you're going to need a probiotic or a probiotic or a post you know, biotic in things. Do we need to do that if we have an antibiotic? And what role does the probiotic have. I was under the impression that a supplement like that can't actually colonize you'll get my home your microbiome, but it might help things as it passes through.
There's a bit of to be on this question, to be honest with you, so I'm going to I'm going to lay this out for you. And there's some aspects of like what do you do you have to take antibiotics? Okay, because that's the question that everyone wants to know.
So much faster and more so saycty, thank you, Yeah, no.
That's okay.
The answer is, in a perfect world, if I had my way, and it's a perfect world, you would already be eating a very healthful diet that's rich in plant based foods. You would already be doing that because that's going to put you in a position of strength going into the antibiotics. And I would supplement with a fiber
supplement in addition to that while you're on the antibiotics. Actually, I'm a big fan of pre bodic supplements, that means fiber supplements for the most part, because that helps you to feed and fuel the good guys and you can be lifting them up even though the antibiotics are pulling them down. You can still be lifting them up, and you would continue to do that after the antibiotics for
two to four weeks at least. You want to avoid during this period of time things that make it worse, So that to me means sugar and excessive amounts of saturated fat and alcohol. Now you don't have to be a teetotal or, but like, now is not the time to be flogging your body.
Now is the time to be protecting it.
So optimal diet, sleep, exercise, time outdoors, fiber supplement, avoiding the stuff that hurts your body. This is the way that you would approach this. Now, the probotic question, this is where the debate exists. Do you take a probotic or not? And I could impact this for many minutes. The short of it is that there was a study out of Israel that called into question whether or not probotics are appropriate I don't think that they're necessary for everyone.
If you were to take a probotic, the one that I recommend is called Sacrimices Billardie.
It's actually a yeast.
What I like about it is that the yeast will not be killed by the antibotics, so you can take it. And it's actually been shown with clarity to reduce antibotic associated diarrhea and to reduce the risk of developing an infection called Chaostridioides difficile. So, and those are the main things that we worry about. So that's why you would do that. It's not actually required though, Okay for.
Most interesting interesting we're really good at taking pills and or capsules or what supplements and telling ourselves that we're doing something for our body, but really we could just eat better.
Well, I think that's where it needs to start. You can't you can't out supplement a bad diet. So you can't, seriously, you can't. You can't take a A C minus diet and then supplement yourself all the way to an eplus of health.
Yeah, we've learned that about exercise. Perhaps we need to expand that.
I like that you're listening to the little things in. Our guest on the podcast today is doctor Will Bullschwitz, a gas stratontologist and US medical director at nutrition company. Zoe will be back in just a moment. Okay, well, let's talk about what the best things are that we can do to improve our gut health and let's start with our nutrition.
Okay, great, so nutrition, Let's take a zoom out for a moment. The way that I approach nutrition is to say, what are the things that are missing that if we add them, could radically transform our health. That's the right place for us to start. We don't need more of the stuff that we already have a lot of, So what is missing? Well, a big part of what's missing is fiber. Francesca, you said that twenty five would be the year of fiber. Oh my gosh, would I dance
a dance a joy? If that is the case, I would be doing an Irish jig all over the town.
And I'm a quite tall person.
I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like we're hearing it all of a sudden. That's kind of the thing to focus on. Well, is there you go? It's good.
I wrote a New York Times bestselling book called fiber fuel. You can see it behind my head if anyone can see the video. And it's sold over three hundred and fifty thousand copies in the United States. And people told me you can never write a successful book about fiber. It's too boring, and I said, I'm gonna try. And so if people are into fiber, that would be a beautiful thing. Fiber is what's missing. Okay, Fiber's what's missing.
If we take a look out, whether it's the United States, Australia or New Zealand, the vast majority of people are below the mark of the amount of fiber that they would actually need.
Now.
Guidelines and the recommended amount are slightly different in different places, so depending on where you look, you may see slightly different numbers. But in general, I'm just going to throw out the numbers that we use in the United States, and I think they're slightly different than they are in Australia and New Zealand. In general, women should be getting about twenty five grams per day and men should be getting about thirty eight and we're below that.
Tell us what that looks like in terms of actual food.
Well, if you if you were to you know, some things like whole foods tend to be higher in fiber. I guess I'll start with this. All plant based foods contain fiber. So for the listeners who are saying, okay, well, doctor B what has fiber? All fruits, vegetables, whole grains, seeds, nuts, legomes, spices, and herbs, they all contain fiber. Mushrooms technically are not plants, but to me they're honorary plants because they also have fiber.
So all of these things what are great sources. Well, legomes really are like jam packed and you yeah, you know, they're a beautiful thing because like basically this is nature has provided us with microbiom food, Like it's fertilizer for our gut. So it has fiber and resistant starch and polyphenols, which are all the things that are gut microbes gobble up and they love. And the one caveat to this is that I don't want to make it sound that you need as much fiber as possible at every moment
of every day. Think of your gut like a muscle. It needs to be trained, it needs to be made stronger. If you go to the gym, I certainly would not tell you to put the heaviest weights on the bar and lift that on the first day. You would start with what you can do, and then you would build and you would do more over time. When we approach legomes. These are the ultimate gut foods and the reason why they make people bloated is because they eat more than
their gut can handle all at once. So I say start low and go slow, and that's how we introduce these foods.
Would you like to discuss farting now? The way I am going to throw under the mass. So we're running partners, and we early in the morning will hit out and and I do fat. I'm fat.
She loose and she has been concerned about the lagume. But but I don't feel bloated though. So can you have a lot of high fiber diet and not do you just have to expel some gas at some point?
Well, okay, so a few things.
Number One, Louise, the good news is you are definitely not abnormal. Everyone farts except for my wife, but everyone else farts.
Okay, so including me.
Number two, Uh, that gas is in some ways a beautiful thing.
Because I want to tell you why. Okay, yeah, here's why.
So I ignore for a moment that the stigma that we've associated with the smell and things like this. Consider this that when we get the true benefit from fiber, what's happening is the fiber is being transformed and it's no longer fiber. It becomes what are called short chain fatty acids. So these short chain fatty acids are the result of our gut microbes metabolize and consuming the fiber, but rate acetate and appropriate. That's what we get, and
they have healing effects. These short chain fatty acids have healing effects throughout the entire body, including our gut microbiome, including our gut barrier, including our immune system. All Right, so we want more. And when you produce short chain fatty acids, you also produce gas. So fermentation, which is what we're describing. Fermentation produces both gas and short chain fatty acids. You have to produce some gas if you
want to get the short chain fatty acids. That are the most anti inflammatory thing that I've ever come across. So that's that's number two.
It's a good thing.
One more, that's a great thing. It's a great thing. All right, here's the one thing that I do want to point out though, for and I think this will perhaps Lise, we can get as into this as you want to. I'm an open book, I'm an astrologist. This is what I do for a living, Okay, But I think this also is applicable to your listeners. You might notice that you start passing gas before you got a poop.
You might notice this, ye right, Oftentimes our poop is associated with the production of extra gas, and when you relieve the bow movement when you defecate, the gas drops off dramatically, right that much, so it can be an indicator. So for example, if you're going early in the morning for a run and you haven't had your morning bower movement yet, this is just your body saying, hey, Louise, like we got an appointment I expect to see in the restroom in a couple.
We have no idea, Well with this could go, but we're going to We're not going to put our listeners that. But yeah, you've pretty much now that I.
Know that if either of us seems to taxt sake, I'm just running a couple of minutes late.
It's exactly. The reason is, like, oh, I just have to do one more Okay.
I'm making I'm making you all blush a little bit.
As you know, we're just our poor listeners. They know far too much about us. But it's not it cannot be just us. Oh no, and we should be talking about it. It's a perfectly normal natural thing. It's all good. Hey, you're talking about us fomenting. But fermented foods.
Good for the gut, massively good for the guy.
Yeah.
So if I were to mine up, like, what are the top things that doctor B recommends? All right, Number one, add more variety of plant based foods to your diet. That's number one. So plant blessed foods all have the fiber, but we also want the different colors. Variety becomes key. When we have a diverse diet, it creates a diverse microbiome. That's a healthy microbiome. So so my first rule is try to get at least thirty unique plant based foods
per week. That's number one. Number two is fermented food. The fast majority of people are not consuming fermented food in the industrialized world.
Yet this is where we came from. Look at it, look at look out.
Across the globe, at all of the beautiful food traditions that exist, and every single one of these food traditions. Whether you're in the Mediterranean or you're in East Asia or wherever you might be, you're going to find that fermented food is at the heart and soul of the of what they celebrate the most in.
Their food tradition.
All right, but we abandoned this because we had canning and preservatives and all this stuff. We need to get back to living food. So fermented food they come in many varieties. It could be sauer krau, kim chi, miso, tempe, sour dough, bread, yogurt, kafir, kombucha, there's many more.
Pickles.
Pickles are one, so but no matter which What we know is that there was a study out of Stanford University in the United States. Is there actually some of my friends who did the study and over eight weeks, by increasing the fermented food intake, they actually had more diversity in their got microbial again that's a measure of health.
And number two, they reduced inflammation in their body. So where I'm at is okay, if we want to do the things that we're not doing, let's add more plant based foods in variety, and let's add more fermented foods and then you're going to feel the difference. You should feel the difference.
Yeah, the one is the one that falls off for me. I've been oh, I love it, I love it, I do love it, but I just it's I forget it.
So let's eight weeks.
Frenchisca, I'm going to increase my fermented It's not just about nutrition, though, is it.
When it comes to our gat house. I mean, there's a lot of other things that we can be doing, and it comes down to sleep and stress and exercise, you know, not smoking. I use the term. At the moment, I'm sheltering from ultra processed food and alcohol and sugar. So there's a lot more that we can do than jest nutrition.
Yeah, there really is. And you know, if you're the type of person, these people do exist where your gut is struggling.
Right.
I think about my patients that have all sort of clients or Crohn's disease, and if I were to say, increase your fiber, and that's the only thing I say, it would be really hard for them. Right, So let's take a step back. There's things that you can do without lifting a fork. And Francesca did a beautiful job there of introducing these concepts sleep. So sleep, to me, eight hours is the ideal where we want to be
consistent bedtime. Don't underrate that consistency is really important. There's a difference between going to bed at ten every night versus ten one night and one the other night. Even if you get eight hours, it's not the same. So sleep is free, it's an opportunity for us to take advantage. Let's build a schedule around the clock that's based on consistency and that supports our health. So one of the things that we can do in the morning is get
outdoors and bring in some morning sunlight. And that morning sunlight you will find I promise you try it. If you haven't been going outdoors in the morning, you will feel energized, you will have more focus, you will get more done during the day, and then that night you will sleep like a sweet little baby. Yeah, okay, because morning sunlight.
You know.
It takes a minute for me to fully unpack this, But the bottom line is there's ways in which our morning sunlight sets the rhythm in our body so that we can enjoy sleep in the evening much better. So I recommend that exercise there's different types of exercise. Obviously, right running and cardio biking, swimming are not the same as strength based training, and they're both beneficial in their own way for our got microbes. So much as I encourage diversity when it comes to our diet, I also
recommend diversity in terms of your exercise. Don't just always do the same thing, switch it up, try new things. Make sure you're doing both cardio and strength based training. It's important for all of us. We want to build healthy muscle and cardiovasque fitness, make our hearts strong. And then, lastly, in terms of stress, I feel like people might be a little stressed out there these days. I live in the United States. I'm pretty sure you've read the news. Okay, yeah,
neither can we. So and look, it is what it is with regard to that, and I think that that affects people more if that's what their world is, whereas it affects me less when I spend more time with my children off of the internet. So I think finding time to reconnect with other humans, being aware that human connection is actually deeply ingrained in who we are and it's necessary. This is like, this is what we need
in order to thrive. I also believe that there's a place where spirituality needs to be openly acknowledged, and that can come in different forms. I'm not it doesn't have to be the same thing for you as it is for me. But I do believe that if you look out through human history, every single culture they were looking for a connection. They were asking the question, what is my purpose?
Right? Why am I here? We're still grappling with us.
We need that last, but not least, the acknowledgement that when you're constantly stressed on the go in what I would describe as sympathetic overdrive, it's actually very bad for our gut and we pay the price. And for some people that does manifest literally with gut symptoms. For many people that we had nauseated or have pain or diarrhea. Just understand that, like your body is actually providing you feedback, the stress has gone a little too far, and so
we need to create. We need to basically build in ways in which we take our foot off the gas and ideally we push the brakes a little bit, we unwind, we relax, We create time with one another, create time for human connection.
Things like this.
Well, can we just have a quick talk about gut health and perimenopause and menopause and things and the dropping off of estrogen. What happens to the gat at this sort of period of time, this age and stage.
Well, many people may not realize or it may surprise people that our gut actually plays a quite active role in the balance of women's hormones.
And we actually have a term.
This is a specialized part of the gut microbiome that we called the astrobolome, helping to maintain hormonal balance through the many different phases of a woman's life. And when the gut is in an unhealthy place, then it can result in estrogen levels getting drained much more quickly from the body, and that's what leads us into perimenopause and into menopause. So as women age, it's really important, Like I want my wife, my three daughters, I want them
to be thriving at all stages of life. And so it's the acknowledgment that no matter where you are, today is the day to start focusing on your gut because it's going to help to propel your health and there's many different ways that it can. At Zoe, we did some research Francesca where we took a look. We're very curious and interested in menopause because the vast majority of people who use Zoe in the UK are women and so and many of them were reaching out saying, hey,
this is what I'm dealing with. I want to feel better, and we want to help, and we wanted to help them, and so we asked the question, like, what are some of the things that can help, and we discovered a quite strong connection between diet and menopausal symptoms, and that in essence, as people improve the quality of their diet, which means more plant based food, which means less sugar, less unhealthy fat, more healthy fat, it's not the fat ist, bad healthy fat.
When people make those.
Kinds of choices, then actually we found that those particular people were less likely to suffer from the symptoms of menopause, or at least had a reduction in the burden of symptoms.
It's just so nice to hear that you're actually looking at it from a female perspective, because so much of research that has done has been done on college aged males, you know, like healthy, healthy male, healthy males. It's really good to hear.
Is there anything else you want to I just want to ask one question because this is my biggest, biggest, bad bad thing. Salt is salt? What a salt? Quickly, sorry, that was just my quick thing.
Well, so salt. Let's uh picture this for a moment. Why are canned foods so salty? Because salt is a preservative, and to preserve something means to keep the bacteria out. So if you have enough salt, then it does impact the bacteria. And there is some evidence that high salt in the diet does have consequences within the gut, including increasing some risk of autoimmune disease.
Is the thought. Okay, so.
Now yours a sugar minus salt, you're the sweet salty one.
Yeah, saltym Anyways, you know the.
Interesting thing about that is there may actually be some gut microbiom origins for why that would be. Yeah, So those those taste preferences, those dietary preferences, they actually found that here's a quick example. They found that some people love chocolate and some people don't really.
Care that much.
And they actually found that there was a gut microbe that was producing a specific chemical and that chemical was kind of manipulating the brain of the person to crave chocolate, so it's interesting to consider that it's possible our cravings may be connected back to our microbes.
I've been manipulated. I like that, and then she let's finish on that. Will because I think it's a really important thing for everybody to note, because a lot of the time, you know, women will hear other women say, oh, this worked for me, or I stopped eating gluten, or I stopped eating dairy, and it's worked wonders for me. But actually, we're all our microbiomes all unique.
Aren't they completely unique?
Francesca, if you had an literally identical twin, you would only share thirty or thirty five percent of the same microbes. Right, your got microbiome on a planet of eight billion people.
It is our belief.
We don't have a study, it's impossible to prove this, but it is our belief that this is completely unique to you, as unique as your fingerprint. And I do think that there's this element of there is no one size fits all. Now that doesn't mean that it's the wild West. There is clearly biology and there are rules to nature. But I do believe that ultimately part of what we each need to do is become advocates for ourselves to find what works. And as a medical doctor,
I am driven by results. So what I care about is that you're better. That's what I care about, and how we get there, that's what we're working on together.
It's fantastic. Thank you so much for your knowledge and the way you deliver it. It's just amazing.
I know, I think I feel like we could talk to you for another hour, but let's just keep going. We just go on and on and on about it. It is just so fascinating. So thank you so much for talking us through it and pointing us in the right direction. We really appreciate it. Well, thank you so much.
Oh, thank you so much. And thank you to everyone else for hanging out and listening to us tonight.
Just that one last christ you had to ask one more question, didn't you about yourself?
I know it's bad for other things, so you're not gonna they might have been an upside.
It's like me and Sugar, but I finally accepted the fact I know now that I'm not going to get that someone's going to tell me it's okay. I mean, it's okay. Obviously you know you got you know guys and fruit and things like that. But you know, ill that added sugar. But I love the way I feel like with the salt, you're still just hoping that someone's going to try and to go.
And an actual fact, it's the reverse of that too. I needed him to tell me, you know, yeah, yeah, I know.
I love the way he describes our microbiome. I love the way he communicates what's going on. I love the way he communicates this thing which has been part of humans forever and it's evolved and developed, and I don't know, it just kind of makes me more interested in taking care of my own. Oh.
Absolutely, you need to have a connection to something to to look after it. Maybe I don't know. It's a little bit like us doing our weight stuff. When you pick something up and you go, gosh, that feels lighter than it used to because we've grown some muscles there. You start to appreciate the muscle more, you know, and then, like you said, treat it like a little bit like a muscle. Even though from what remember what Tim said, Tim Spector said, we lose it in our bowel movements.
We lose millions and millions in their replace so that there are Friends, Team Ferraily Justine, and then they come back again a couple of things.
Fiber. I just think we're going to hear more and more about this. You heard it here first, get your fiber in. But I do think that's important. I'll take you. It's a really interesting message that we seem to have forgotten about while we've been more interested in sugars and fats and protein and everything else like that. The second thing that struck me, and it seems to be a little bit of a theme maybe in this season, was
the consistency that he mentioned. So that consistency around not just nutrition, but your daily routine and in the time you go to bed and the time you wake up, you know.
And I think it's really time to stop thinking of consistency as boring, because feeling good is not boring.
No.
You know, with every little thing that I have been doing, I feel better, you know, And I know when I stop doing it too, I feel worse. So consistency isn't something to be kind of. Oh god, this sounds so boring.
It's great, But I suppose too that don't need to be a big deal. It make something happen. It's not like you're having to think about it, like I have to go to bed now, because I have to go to bed it, you know, in my case, nine thirty.
Oh yeah, bring on the daylight saving seven thirty and I can just go it's.
Bed.
But I love the morning and and I was thinking about this as I came in this morning. It's I wish that my kids in some ways, well, my younger self understood how gorgeous the morning is and how beautiful that morning light is.
I can remember being I've turned into my mother. I can remember being a teenager and I would hear my mum gardening summer. It's six am in the morning. I'm like, watch doing it. She was having a moment to herself outside. The sun had come up, It's quiet, it was lovely, and she just really loved that time. And I've turned unto that person, you know, since you have kids, you got I'm just gonna go up to my own go for my walk, over my run, watch the sun come up,
just have a moment to myself. No, it's good that daylight savings flecked, because you and I have been running stumbling around on the dark fly too long now.
But one thing I will say, is that I know listeners and myself, Well, nobody's immune to this. It feels that we're getting things piled on top of piled on top of pilt. But just let's just remember it is the little things down little thing and so you know, you hear the means and stuff. Oh, I'm gotta eat my protein. Oh now they're gonna tell me to eat five. Oh now they're going to tell me to sleep eight hours. And I just pick one or two and work on it slowly.
Wellre's well said. You don't change your entire diet all of a sudden and shovels for a minute. You just need to build on it. So the thirty foods a week, isn't it a week? No, it's a week a week. It's actually not as hard as you think. If you just grab a really good seed mix from the supermarket and throw it on your salad, you can knock five or six things off in one go. Like, there's lots of little tricks you can do there to throw those in,
So that too shouldn't be a big deal. But you're right, and he said, just just slowly, just add one one little thing a day maybe or a week. Just all these things you just take your time on. Each of us will have one thing we're not so good at, So don't worry about stuff you're okay at. Yeah, just pick that one thing you're missing. As well said, what's the one thing you know is missing? Is it your sleep that you're not great? Is it your stress? Is
it your fermented foods? Is it your fermented foods? Is it your salt or your sugarhol you need to shelter from something, just I'm sheltering. Thanks for joining us on our new Zealand Heild podcast series, The Little Things. We hope you share this podcast with the women in your life so we can all have trillions of bacteria working their magic in our guns.
You can follow this podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and for more on this and other topics, get to inzidherld dot co dot zed and we'll catch you next time on the Little Things