Podcast appearances and mentions of justin sonnenburg

If you want to improve your digestion, your immune system, and your overall health, one might begin with a focus on a healthy gut microbiome. Today we're talking with Stanford University professor of microbiology and immunology Dr. Justin Sonnenburg, co-author of the book entitled, "The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, your Mood, and Your Long-Term Health." He and his wife, research scientists Dr. Erica Sonnenburg, argue that our typical modern diet has caused the microbial diversity or intestine to shrink substantially. Turns out that's a big problem. Interview Summary My impression is that this field of work on the microbiome is just exploding. It seems like every day something new comes out, something exciting, some kind of major breakthrough. It's wonderful to have a leading scientist like you to join us to help explain this. Let me begin with this question. I recently read something very interesting in the article that discussed your work, namely that you've hypothesized, and this is a quote from this article, "Humans may merely be elaborate vessels "designed for the propagation of bacterial colonies." Now that's pretty interesting. Tell us more if you would? Yes, absolutely. I should note that this is an idea that has been propagated, just as microbes are propagated over time. I did say that, but I'm now attributing it to the great scientists that came before me. I will say that the microbes in our gut have been for a long time a curiosity. For hundreds of years we've known that they live there. Over time we've learned that they're affected by what we eat. We know that they're involved in digestion and gut health. But what is really phenomenal is, as you alluded to in the introduction just the ability of these microbes to impact so many dimensions of our health. Everything from our immune system, to metabolism, to things like moods, behavior, and neurodegeneration. When you start to think about microbes getting passed from generation to generation - because as a new baby is born, their gut is sterile in the womb, and then they're rapidly colonized when they come to this world largely by microbes from their mother and other adults around them - you start to realize that these microbes may actually be the ones calling the shots and dictating aspects of our biology to promote their growth through evolutionary time. It does change the way you think about this relationship in some ways. One might jump to the conclusion that microbes are a bad thing, and you'd like to have fewer of them. That's in fact what antibiotics do, they get rid of them. But we need more rather than less, and it sounds like the shrinking diversity of the microbiome is really a problem. How do our diet and lifestyles damage the vitality of the human microbiome? I'm imagining this is a 'let me count the ways question,' but what are the leading concerns in your mind? Yes, completely. I think you're right in that it's very hard to single out one particular factor, because as populations become more industrialized and embrace all of the technologies and medical practices that go along with the industrialized lifestyle, we have so many factors that can impact our microbiome. Certainly, diet is a major factor, and we can come back to this. But we know that most of the microbes in our gut reside at the far reaches of our digestive tract - at the very end of the line down in our colon in our large intestine. That means that if we're eating simple nutrients, like most of the things in a western diet - sugars, starch, fat, protein - a lot of those things get digested and absorbed in our small intestine, which leaves nothing remaining for the microbiota. It's really complex carbohydrates and dietary fiber, that serve as the major fuel for the microbiota because we can't digest those complex carbohydrates. The western diet has greatly reduced dietary fiber content, which has left a lot of our gut microbes starving. But there are other aspects of diet, certainly artificial sweeteners, emulsifiers, and probably the high fat content of the western diet are not great for our microbiome. Then beyond diet, antibiotics as you mentioned known to be great for fighting infectious diseases, but not so great for maintaining all of the friendly microbes that we harbor in our body. A variety of other factors like C-sections, baby formula, the incredible sanitation in our environment, again, a lot of these things are a trade-off because we have reaped a lot of benefits from a lot of the lifestyle medical practices technologies. But at the same time, we've implemented these in the absence of understanding the importance of our gut commensals, and the other commensals on our body for our health. Now we really need to start thinking about do we need to restore diversity to this community? Certainly, we need to start thinking about taking care of the community more diligently. You mentioned in some detail how diet affects the gut, but how does it happen in the reverse? Is there a reciprocal relationship going on? Yes, it's a great question, and there are some papers that have been published looking at how gut microbes can affect food choice in model organisms like fruit flies and other organisms that are studied in the lab. We know that microbes in the gut as they metabolize things are producing a lot of interesting chemicals, little metabolites that get absorbed into our bloodstream can circulate through our body. Certainly, some of them cross the blood-brain barrier and can interact with our central nervous system. Now, whether some of those molecules can actually impact our food choice, I think is an interesting topic, we don't know a lot about that. You can imagine a microbe that's really good at, for instance, degrading pectin and it might grow very well. We know there are many microbes that grow well when we, for instance, eat an apple. If that microbe happens to produce a molecule just by chance that then can go in and increase our craving for an apple, that microbe has hit the jackpot for proliferating, it can guide our actions to choose an apple and then it actually profits from the pectin that comes in when we eat the apple. While this would be a very rare quirky event to happen, when you think about the trillions of microbes that exist in every person and have existed in every person across the planet throughout time. It's possible that things like this have happened, and it's a matter of us as scientists trying to track down those stories. There's at least some optimism that there could be virtuous cycles that gets set up rather than these destructive cycles potentially. Help us place this in some sort of a context. You talked about a myriad of dietary things that could affect the microbiome, and probably other things out there in the world too. How serious is the impact? Yes, and this brings up kind of the question of what is a healthy microbiome? Has lifestyle impact that our microbiome? What would be ideal would be to have a time machine to go back, and actually survey what the microbiome looked like thousands of years ago before industrialization, and maybe even going back greater than 10,000 years to what our gut microbiome looked like when we were hunter-gatherers even before we started farming. Just to get a sense of what are the microbes that humans harbored over long periods of time during our evolution with the idea that perhaps our human genome was shaped over evolutionary time in some way by these microbes, that we have adapted our human biology to deal with the specific set of microbiome features or species. We don't have a time machine, but there have been groups that have surveyed paleo feces for instance - the fossilized stool from humans from 1 to 2000 years ago. These data indicate that the microbiome has changed drastically. As we have industrialized, we have totally departed from this more ancestral microbiome. The other way that we can gain insight into this is by looking at modern humans that live lifestyles similar to our ancestors. Hunter-gatherer populations and rural agriculturalists, and we've done a lot of work studying the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania looking at their gut microbiome. That exactly supports what the paleo feces have told us. That there were features in the microbiome from before industrialization that have changed drastically. We've lost species, they've gone extinct. Hunter-gatherers and many rural populations still harbor these microbes. We expect that there's probably around 500 to 1000 different species of bacteria in an individual's gut microbiome. We've lost hundreds of these species over the course of industrialization. Then, the flip side of that is hundreds of other species have come in and replaced them. We've actually had this kind of wholesale change in configuration in our gut microbiome, and what this means to our biology, we're trying to figure out right now, but it is a really marked change. I have to say I admire the breadth of your work all the way from basic laboratory studies to in the field studies with hunter-gatherers. I could see how your big picture view of this is really pretty unique. Let's talk about how the gut communicates with the brain, and does the health of the microbiome affect things like eating regulation? We've talked about that a little bit already, but also things like mental health. I just want to start by saying that this is a field of research that is in very early days still, we have a lot of work to do to really figure out the connections. You can imagine then the gut microbiome composed of hundreds of species, and then trillions of cells and changing over time within an individual, and different between individuals, and then secreting thousands of chemicals that go into the bloodstream. Then put on top of that the complexity of the central nervous system and brain, and then try to map the interactions between the microbiome and the central nervous system is exceedingly complex.  I think that one of the really important things to note here is that if you look at a lot of the anxiety, and depression, Alzheimer's disease, neurodegeneration in general at this center of a lot of these diseases much like other diseases of the industrialized world lies inflammation. The immune system actually becoming too inflammatory, and that leading to, you know, in some cases autoimmune diseases, but in other cases Alzheimer's disease, and/or anxiety and depression. One of the things that our lab is focused on is really trying to understand how when you change the gut microbiome, how does the immune system change? How does the inflammatory status change of the system? Because we really think that this is the key mediator of many of the things that have gone wrong including things like diabetes and metabolic syndrome.  We're now at the point of understanding that certainly if you go into an animal model and you change the gut microbiome in a major way like industrialization has changed the microbiome of people living in the United States, you completely change how the immune system functions. You can really change how an individual would react to a respiratory infection, how well they would respond to an immunotherapy if they were battling cancer, you can just completely change immune system functionality. In trying to understand this better we've started to do dietary interventions in people to see if we change the gut microbiome in beneficial ways with diet, can we make the immune system less inflammatory? We've done this so far in healthy adults, and now we're really interested in extending this into all sorts of populations that are suffering from different inflammatory diseases, including things like anxiety, and depression, and neurodegenerative diseases. We'll have more information about this. There's some beautiful fundamental research out there that shows unequivocally that the gut microbiome is regulating behaviors, and cognition, and fundamental aspects of what happens in our brain. But a lot of this has been done in animal models, and it's very hard to extend to humans in a detailed way. I can't wait to see these studies, they're just absolutely fascinating and so important. You know, something occurred to me as I was thinking about this, and this may be outside the area of work that you're focused on, but there's a lot of interest out there in the world and the impact of endocrine disrupting chemicals, or things that leach from plastics and things known as forever chemicals, and their impacts on a whole host of things like cancers, and obesity, diabetes and more. Is there any reason to worry about the microbiome in this context? Yes, completely. I think everything that we come in contact with, particularly things that we ingest, but even things that are absorbed through our skin or we inhale, the microbes that live in and on us are just incredibly sensitive detectors of everything going on in the environment. I mean, their survival depends upon it. One of the, in fact, key features of one of the first species from the gut microbiome to have its genome sequenced, Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron this is a bacterial species that was sequenced in the lab of Jeffrey Gordon, it was published in 2003. One of the key interesting features of that genome was the expansion of environmental sensors that were encoded by that genome. It was very clear that this bacterium was living in a dynamic environment, and having to sense and respond to minute to minute variations in the chemical cues that were coming in. That means that when you start to change those chemical cues, you start to change the function of the microbiome because those sensors that those bacterial encode are wired into their function and how they behave. This is again, hypothesis, but I think your question is a a great one because there are these realms of inquiry where we are just right at the beginning of understanding that major things that are going on in our environment could be impacting this really essential component of our biology. And we really have no specific idea of how the perturbations may cascade through our microbiome and our biology. A lot to look at there, but I have no doubt that those chemicals are having an impact on this community filled with environmental sensors. It's going to be so interesting to see that work take shape. It would be great if community of people working on the microbiome could come together with the people in interested in the impact of these forever chemicals on health so that a full picture of their impact can get painted. So what do you think are the most pressing scientific questions that need to get addressed? I think that we're still really searching for the definition of a healthy microbiome. And this is something that dates back to a wonderful project that was started by the National Institutes of Health, the Human Microbiome Project. That was an effort from sequencing centers that had sequenced the human genome to turn these sequencing technologies to this uncharted aspect of our human biology, our microbiome. One of the goals of that sequencing project was to determine what a healthy gut microbiome is. And our assumption at the time was, well, we should sequence a bunch of healthy Americans, and kind of look at what's common between them. We now understand that the healthy American most likely harbors a microbiome that is not really optimal for health, it's actually probably a microbiome that's predisposing us to a number of inflammatory conditions.   Our human genome probably dictates whether you as a person will get an autoimmune disease, or cancer or you know, a different inflammatory disease. But it's really a microbiome that appears to be pro-inflammatory, and so that doesn't mean that it's terrible and that we need to scrap the whole thing. But it means that it probably can be improved. A big part of that improvement probably can come through feeding it better food and getting better functionality out of the microbes we have. But it also probably means that we need to bring back certain functions or certain species that we've lost over the course of industrialization, to bring back some of that biodiversity.  You know, I think of the microbiome as similar to this complex rainforest, just hundreds of species interacting in this really dynamic way, and as you start to degrade that ecosystem it's really hard to maintain its full functionality. You start to lose functions, and it starts to operate suboptimally. And so thinking about ways to bring back the health and biodiversity of this ecosystem, I think is super important. One of the key things that we have to do as a field, and I want to just reflect back on the work that we're doing with hunter-gatherers and implications for what might be a healthy microbiome. It is not at all clear that all of the microbes that we've lost are healthy and need to be reinstalled in our gut. I think that we've probably lost species that we, you know, just as soon not have. But mapping which ones are health-promoting, and in which context, because you know, what's health-promoting for one person may not necessarily be health promoting for someone else that's going through something very different in their life in a different life phase. So we need to understand all that complexity, and really crystallize how can we optimize a microbiome for an individual in a given context.  This sounds like a really complex problem, and it is, but I think that one of the really exciting things that's happening in the field right now is this combination of what we call omics data, the ability to measure so many different aspects of the microbiome at one time so we can get a really detailed picture. Then all the great computational approaches for bringing all that data together, using things like machine learning and artificial intelligence on big data sets to really distill out meaningful signals that give us a better idea of some of these complex questions. It is a complex thing to go after, but I think it's not out of reach and that's I think the big frontier for the gut microbiome. Well, speaking of the big frontier, let's end with a big picture question. What can be done to make things better? You mentioned improving diet would be one thing, but how do you look at those big picture questions? One of the incredible things about the gut microbiome and its relationship to its human host, is this like feedback system. For instance, if you are in a slightly inflammatory state, it can be hard to get out of that inflammatory state because the inflammation is reinforcing microbes that are then reinforcing the inflammation. You end up with these feedback loops that are very hard to break, so even if you were to do something like a fecal transplant in some instances of inflammation where you try to reinstall healthy microbes, those may not engraft and take up residence because the host inflammation will get rid of the good microbes and select in the microbes that feed the inflammation. There are these feedback loops that are very hard to break, and we know the gut microbiome is very resilient, so you can perturb it and it will by and large return to a starting state, not exactly what the starting state was, but there is this great resilience and recalcitrant to change over short time periods. This is why industrialization has been so powerful because it's happened over multiple generations across an entire population, and it's driven our microbiome in one direction.  I think if we want to bring back a more diverse healthy microbiome, it requires changes in our habits, changes in what we eat day after day for years on end to really change the species that are in our microbiome and what those species are doing. We got a little bit of insight into this, but I'll finish with one specific example. One of the dietary interventions that we did, we compared a high fiber diet, so this is eating things like legumes, whole grains, vegetables, fruits, thinking that that would be kind of optimal food for a healthy gut microbiome. We compared that diet with a high fermented food diet, so another cohort of individuals, we gave kombucha, kefir, yogurt, kimchi sauerkraut, food with living microbes in it that had been transformed by fermentation. Basically, so these were just healthy adults we let them eat those foods, they ramped up on the foods for four weeks, and then for six weeks they maintained high levels of those foods. We actually saw that the high fiber diet had very different effects on individuals depending upon their starting microbiome. If you had a very diverse microbiome to start with, you actually improved your inflammatory status, you got less inflammatory over the course of the intervention. But if you start with a low diversity microbiome, the high fiber diet doesn't do much for you. The fermented foods actually had a really amazing effect, they increased microbiome diversity and they also decreased over two dozen inflammatory markers that we were able to survey through these great technologies that give us comprehensive immune profiling. We really saw a signature of exactly what we'd want to see to counter the industrialized deterioration of the gut microbiome with the fermented food diet, increased microbiome diversity, decreased inflammation, and this was just over the course of a 6 to 10 week intervention. We're really curious to pursue these findings in more detail, and see if now we can go into diseases that are pro-inflammatory, and counter those diseases to actually treat them in some way with the fermented food diet.  If I were to tell people what to do to counter all the negative impact of industrialization on our microbiome, I would say consume some fermented foods every day, and then start to integrate dietary fiber. As you eat the fermented foods, you'll increase your microbiome diversity. And our hope is that will allow you to harness the benefit of the high fiber diet as your microbiome diversity increases. Bio Justin Sonnenburg is a professor of microbiology and immunology at Sanford University. His research focuses on the basic principles that govern interactions within the intestinal microbiota and between the microbiota and the host. He is the coauthor of The Good Gut: Taking Control of your Weight, Your mood, and Your Long-Term Health.  

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Justin Sonnenburg, Professor of Microbiology & Immunology at Stanford University. He is a leading expert in the field of gut microbiota and has made significant contributions to understanding how they impact human health. We will discuss the structure of the gut microbiome and microbiota variability and how these can change in response to diet and environment. We will explore the early establishment of your microbiome and how your mode of delivery into the world (C-section or not) shapes your gut. Our discussion also includes lifestyle factors that can alter your microbiome and the integral role the gut microbiome plays in communicating to other organs, including your brain. Read Transcript CME Information: https://stanford.cloud-cme.com/medcastepisode62 Claim CE: https://stanford.cloud-cme.com/Form.aspx?FormID=1509  

To bring in the new year I thought it would be good to take a moment and consolidate some of the memorable moments, and key takeaways, from 2022.  In Episode #241, part 1 of a 2 part year in review, we traverse how to think about nutrition, so we can better make sense of claims online, diet, and cardiometabolic health, how you can flip the switch on your microbiome so the trillions of gut bugs in your large intestine reward you with better health, and the benefits up for grabs through consuming our food over less hours - otherwise known as time restricted eating or fasting. Guests featured include Dr Gil Carvhalo, Dr Richard Johnson, Dr Alan Flanagan, Danny Lennon, Dr David Jenkins, Dr Justin Sonnenburg, Dr Erica Sonnenburg, Dr Christopher Gardner, Dr Tim Spector, Dr Don Layman, Dr Valter Longo, Dr Stuart Phillips, Dr Satchin Panda and Dr Courtney Peterson. Specifically, we cover: Intro (00:00) Circadian Disruption is a Problem with Dr. Satchin Panda (01:59) Fasting & weight loss with Dr. Courtney Peterson (08:26) Optimal fasting window with Dr. Satchin Panda (15:49) Nutrition science claims with Dr Gil Carvalho (36:49) Diet & metabolic health with Dr. Richard Johnson (51:32) Cholesterol & CVD with Dr Alan Flanagan and Danny Lennon (57:22) Lowering cholesterol with Dr. David Jenkins (1:14:06) Gut microbiome with Drs. Erica and Justin Sonnenburg (1:24:44) Fibre & inflammation with Dr. Sonnenburg and Dr. Gardner (1:32:43) Fermented foods (1:49:35) Building microbiome diversity with Drs. Erica and Justin Sonnenburg (1:50:26) Simple dietary advice with Dr Tim Spector (1:55:57) Muscle & metabolic health with Dr. Donald Layman (1:58:34) Aging pathways with Dr. Valter Longo (2:07:24) Muscle & aging with Drs. Stuart Phillips and Christopher Gardner (2:14:48) Outro (2:20:11) Episodes featured: Episode #221 with Dr Satchin Panda Episode #232 with Dr Courtney Peterson Episode #207 with Dr Gil Carvhalo Episode #233 with Dr Richard Johhson Episode #231 with Dr Alan Flanagan & Danny Lennon Episode #216 with Dr David Jenkins Episode #202 with Dr Erica Sonnenburg & Dr Justin Sonnenburg Episode #191 with Dr Justin Sonnenburg & Dr Christopher Gardner Episode #224 with Dr Tim Spector Episode #236 with Dr Don Layman Episode #237 with Dr Valter Longo Episode #228 with Dr Stuart Phillips & Dr Christopher Gardner I hope you find this episode helpful for consolidating some of the key learnings from 2022. Part 2 of the year in review will be released next week with a focus on exercise, planetary health and more. Happy new year. Enjoy, friends. Simon Want to support the show? The best way to support the show is to use the products and services offered by our sponsors. To check them out, and enjoy great savings, visit theproof.com/friends. You can also show your support by leaving a review on the Apple Podcast app and/or sharing your favourite episodes with your friends and family. Simon Hill, MSc, BSc (Hons) Creator of theproof.com and host of The Proof with Simon Hill Author of The Proof is in the Plants Watch the episodes on YouTube or listen on Apple/Spotify Connect with me on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook Nourish your gut with my Plant-Based Ferments Guide Download my complimentary two-week meal plan and high protein Plant Performance recipe book

Justin Sonnenburg, co-authhor of The Good Gut. Topic: Taking control of your weight, your mood, and your long-term health Issues: The relationship between our bodies and the trillions of organsms that live in our gut; the ways those organisms (called “microbiota”) determine whether we’re sick or healthy, fit or obese, sunny or moody; why our […] The post You and Your Microbiome + Fighting the War on Fat appeared first on Mr. Dad.

In Episode #202, I'm joined by Drs Erica and Justin Sonnenburg to learn more about microbes and the gut microbiome.This episode, we recap (or introduce for new listeners) what microbes are and what the microbiome is. Then we dive into a more in-depth conversation about evolution and the microbiome, the impacts of industrialisation on the gut, and what inflammation really means for human health. You'll learn about probiotics; microbiome diversity; the relationship between microbiota and disease; how low-fibre, animal-based diets effect the gut; and more.Specifically, we cover:Intro [0:00]Fasting & Gut Health [2:42]What the Microbiome is [7:06]Studying the Microbiome [14:47]Healthy vs Industrialized Microbiome [19:00]Inflammation [28:55]Food & Restoring Diversity [46:39]Animal-based elimination diets [1:04:25]Healing your own Microbiome [1:15:39]Gluten & Lectins [1:36:04]Lifestyle Changes [1:42:13]Conclusion [1:45:42]To learn more from the Drs Sonnenburg, you can access the Sonnenburg Lab website, read their book, The Good Gut, and connect with Justin on Twitter. You can also listen to Dr Justin in Episode #191, and see the full show notes for more resources.I'm thankful for Eimele Essential 8 for making this episode possible. Eimele Essential 8 is a multi-nutrient designed to cover all bases for plant-predominant eaters; it is a product I helped formulate and take every day. For 5% off, head to theproof.com/friends.Make sure to head to The Proof website for the full show notes.Enjoy, friends.SimonWant to support the show?If you are enjoying The Proof a great way to support the show is by leaving a review on the Apple Podcasts or a comment on YouTube . It only takes a few minutes and helps more people find the episodes.Simon Hill, Msc, Bsc (Hons)Creator of Theproof.com and host of The Proof with Simon HillAuthor of The Proof is in the PlantsWatch the episodes on YouTube, or Listen on Apple/SpotifyConnect with me on Instagram, Twitter and FacebookDownload my complimentary two week meal plan

In Episode #202, I'm joined by Drs Erica and Justin Sonnenburg to learn more about microbes and the gut microbiome. This episode, we recap (or introduce for new listeners) what microbes are and what the microbiome is. Then we dive into a more in-depth conversation about evolution and the microbiome, the impacts of industrialisation on the gut, and what inflammation really means for human health. You'll learn about probiotics; microbiome diversity; the relationship between microbiota and disease; how low-fibre, animal-based diets effect the gut; and more. Specifically, we cover: Intro [0:00] Fasting & Gut Health [2:42] What the Microbiome is [7:06] Studying the Microbiome [14:47] Healthy vs Industrialized Microbiome [19:00] Inflammation [28:55] Food & Restoring Diversity [46:39] Animal-based elimination diets [1:04:25] Healing your own Microbiome [1:15:39] Gluten & Lectins [1:36:04] Lifestyle Changes [1:42:13] Outro[1:45:42] To learn more from the Drs Sonnenburg, you can access the Sonnenburg Lab website, read their book, The Good Gut, and connect with Justin on Twitter. You can also listen to Dr Justin in Episode #191, and see the full show notes for more resources. I'm thankful for Eimele Essential 8 for making this episode possible. Eimele Essential 8 is a multi-nutrient designed to cover all bases for plant-predominant eaters; it is a product I helped formulate and take every day. For 5% off, head to theproof.com/friends. Make sure to head to The Proof website for the full show notes. Enjoy, friends. Simon Want to support the show? If you are enjoying The Proof a great way to support the show is by leaving a review on the Apple Podcasts or a comment on YouTube . It only takes a few minutes and helps more people find the episodes. Simon Hill, Msc, Bsc (Hons) Creator of Theproof.com and host of The Proof with Simon Hill Author of The Proof is in the Plants Watch the episodes on YouTube, or Listen on Apple/Spotify Connect with me on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook Download my complimentary two week meal plan

My guest this episode is Dr. Justin Sonnenburg, Professor of Microbiology & Immunology at Stanford University. Dr. Sonnenburg's research focuses on how microbes in our gut impact our mental and physical health and how diet and your environment shape your gut microbiome. We discuss the architecture of the gut microbiome and microbiota variability in different regions of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract and how these can change in response to diet, environment or genetics. We explore the early establishment of your microbiome and how your mode of delivery into the world (C-section or not) shapes your gut. We also discuss lifestyle factors that can alter your microbiome and the integral role the gut microbiome plays in communicating to other organs, including your brain. Dr. Sonnenburg details his recent clinical study, which found that diets rich in fermented foods (but not fiber) increase microbiota diversity and reduce signals of inflammation. Additionally, we examine how foods typical in Western Diets (e.g., high fat, low fiber, processed foods) can negatively impact the gut microbiome. Throughout the episode, we discuss actionable tools from peer-reviewed clinical findings that anyone can implement, regardless of budget, in order to optimize their gut microbiome and health. Thank you to our sponsors AG1 (Athletic Greens): https://athleticgreens.com/huberman ROKA: https://roka.com - code "huberman" Helix Sleep: https://helixsleep.com/huberman See Andrew Huberman Live: The Brain Body Contract Tuesday, May 17th: Seattle, WA Wednesday, May 18th: Portland, OR https://hubermanlab.com/tour - code: ‘huberman' Pre-sale tickets go on sale on Tuesday, March 8th at 10 AM PT Our Patreon page https://www.patreon.com/andrewhuberman Supplements from Thorne https://www.thorne.com/u/huberman For the full show notes, visit hubermanlab.com. Timestamps (00:00:00) Dr. Justin Sonnenburg, Gut Microbiome (00:02:55) The Brain Body Contract (00:04:16) AG1 (Athletic Greens), ROKA, Helix Sleep (00:08:30) What is the Gut Microbiome? (00:12:49) Gastrointestinal (GI) Tract & Microbiota Variability (00:16:00) Breast Feeding, C-Sections & Pets (00:21:56) The Human Microbiome Project at Stanford (00:26:30) Traditional vs. Industrialized Populations (00:28:58) Resilience of the Microbiome (00:35:10) Regional Differences Along Your GI Tract (00:42:04) Fasting, Cleanses & Gut Health (00:51:19) Dietary Differences (01:01:24) Simple vs. Complex Carbohydrates, Processed Foods (01:07:03) Artificial & Plant-based Sweeteners (01:12:44) Cleanses: Useful? Harmful? (01:14:50) Your Microbiome & Your Immune System (01:20:17) Dietary Fiber & Fermented Foods (01:32:13) High-Fiber vs. High-Fermented Diet; Inflammation (01:41:33) Ripple Effects of a Healthy Diet (01:45:00) Does a High-Fiber Diet Make Inflammation Worse? (01:47:22) Over Sterilized Environments (01:50:15) The Gut Microbiome's Effect on Physiology (01:56:45) Gut-Brain Connection (01:59:30) Probiotics: Benefits & Risks (02:04:20) Prebiotics: Essential? (02:07:00) Tools for Enhancing Your Gut Microbiota (02:11:12) Dr. Sonnenburg's Research, Zero-Cost Support, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Reviews, Sponsors, Patreon, Thorne, Instagram, Twitter, Neural Network Newsletter Title Card Photo Credit: Mike Blabac Disclaimer

In Episode #191 I sit down with Stanford University Professor's Dr Christopher Gardner and Dr Justin Sonnenburg to talk about fermented foods, fibre, gut health and immunity. This conversation was organised following the results of their latest randomised controlled trial 'Gut-microbiota-targeted diets modulate human immune status' which was published in Cell Press in 2021. In this conversation we cover: Dr Sonnenburg's background and journey into studying the microbiome Defining the terms ‘microbiome' and ‘microbiota The development of technology in learning more about the microbiome What defines a healthy microbiome and dysbiosis Studying the microbiomes of traditional populations such as the Hadza tribe The benefits of microbiome diversity Lack of microbiome diversity Intestinal permeability How Justin and Christopher came to working together The mission behind their study of fibre and fermented foods The methodology of the study The definition of fermented foods Microbes being added to packaged fermented foods What the study found in terms of fermented food Conducting studies with humans vs animals What can the study tell us about the effectiveness of probiotics Sodium in fermented foods What the study found in terms of fibre intake Accuracy of stool/microbiome testing Key takeaways from the study and plenty more Justin Sonnenburg, PhD bio: Dr Sonnenburg is an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, where he studies the gut microbiota in health and disease and co-directs the Center for Human Microbiome Studies. He and his wife Erica, are the authors of the book The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long-Term Health. Their laboratory at Stanford develops and employs diverse technologies to understand basic principles that govern interactions within the intestinal microbiota and between the microbiota and the host. An ongoing objective of the research program is to devise and implement innovative strategies to prevent and treat disease in humans via the gut microbiota. Current pursuits include genetic engineering commensal bacteria to enable therapeutic delivery within the gut, as well as understanding the health impact of microbiome change that has occurred during industrialization. Justin conducted his Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences at the University of California, San Diego in the laboratory of Ajit Varki. His postdoctoral work was conducted at Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri in the laboratory of Jeffrey Gordon. He has received an NIH Director's New Innovator Award and Pioneer Award. He serves on several scientific advisory boards and is a co-founder of Novome Biotechnologies. Christopher Gardner, PhD bio: Dr Gardner is the Rehnborg Farquhar professor of medicine at Stanford, the director of Stanford Prevention Research Center's (SPRC) Nutrition Studies Group, and the director of the SPRC postdoctoral research fellow training program. His primary research focus for the past decade has been randomized controlled nutrition intervention trials (soy, garlic, antioxidants, ginkgo, omega-3 fats, vegetarian diets, weight loss diets), testing the effects of these on chronic disease risk factors that have included blood cholesterol, weight, inflammatory markers, and the microbiome. His research interests have recently shifted to two new areas. The first is to approach helping individuals make healthful improvements in diet through motivators beyond health, linking to ongoing social

In Episode #191 I sit down with Stanford University Professor's Dr Christopher Gardner and Dr Justin Sonnenburg to talk about fermented foods, fibre, gut health and immunity. This conversation was organised following the results of their latest randomised controlled trial 'Gut-microbiota-targeted diets modulate human immune status' which was published in Cell Press in 2021.In this conversation we cover:Dr Sonnenburg's background and journey into studying the microbiomeDefining the terms ‘microbiome' and ‘microbiotaThe development of technology in learning more about the microbiomeWhat defines a healthy microbiome and dysbiosisStudying the microbiomes of traditional populations such as the Hadza tribeThe benefits of microbiome diversityLack of microbiome diversityIntestinal permeabilityHow Justin and Christopher came to working togetherThe mission behind their study of fibre and fermented foodsThe methodology of the studyThe definition of fermented foodsMicrobes being added to packaged fermented foodsWhat the study found in terms of fermented foodConducting studies with humans vs animalsWhat can the study tell us about the effectiveness of probioticsSodium in fermented foodsWhat the study found in terms of fibre intakeAccuracy of stool/microbiome testingKey takeaways from the studyand plenty moreJustin Sonnenburg, PhD bio:Dr Sonnenburg is an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, where he studies the gut microbiota in health and disease and co-directs the Center for Human Microbiome Studies. He and his wife Erica, are the authors of the book The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long-Term Health. Their laboratory at Stanford develops and employs diverse technologies to understand basic principles that govern interactions within the intestinal microbiota and between the microbiota and the host. An ongoing objective of the research program is to devise and implement innovative strategies to prevent and treat disease in humans via the gut microbiota. Current pursuits include genetic engineering commensal bacteria to enable therapeutic delivery within the gut, as well as understanding the health impact of microbiome change that has occurred during industrialization. Justin conducted his Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences at the University of California, San Diego in the laboratory of Ajit Varki. His postdoctoral work was conducted at Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri in the laboratory of Jeffrey Gordon. He has received an NIH Director's New Innovator Award and Pioneer Award. He serves on several scientific advisory boards and is a co-founder of Novome Biotechnologies.Christopher Gardner, PhD bio:Dr Gardner is the Rehnborg Farquhar professor of medicine at Stanford, the director of Stanford Prevention Research Center's (SPRC) Nutrition Studies Group, and the director of the SPRC postdoctoral research fellow training program. His primary research focus for the past decade has been randomized controlled nutrition intervention trials (soy, garlic, antioxidants, ginkgo, omega-3 fats, vegetarian diets, weight loss diets), testing the effects of these on chronic disease risk factors that have included blood cholesterol, weight, inflammatory markers, and the microbiome. His research interests have recently shifted to two new areas. The first is to approach helping individuals make healthful improvements in diet through motivators beyond health, linking to ongoing social movements around animal rights and welfare, climate change, and social justice, and their relationships to food. The second is to focus less on trying to improve individual behaviors around food, and more on a food systems approach that addresses the quality of food provided by universities, worksites, hospitals, schools, etc., using a community-based participatory research approach and taking advantage of the many complementary disciplines represented on the Stanford campus, such as medicine, business, education, law, and earth sciences.Resources:The new study on fermented foods, fibre and the immune systemDr Gardner on TwitterThe Sonnenburg lab on TwitterSonnenburg Lab websiteThe Good Gut by Drs Justin & Erica SonnenburgPrevious episodes with Dr Christopher Gardner on plant-based meat and low versus high carb diets and weight loss.Want to support the show?If you are enjoying the Plant Proof podcast a great way to support the show is by leaving a review on the Apple podcast app. It only takes a few minutes and helps more people find the episodes.Simon Hill, Nutritionist, Sports PhysiotherapistCreator of Plantproof.com and host of the Plant Proof PodcastAuthor of The Proof is in the PlantsConnect with me on Instagram and TwitterDownload my two week meal plan

Whether you're talking kombucha or kimchi, fermented foods are all the rage. They're taking over grocery store aisles—and being featured in some important clinical trials. Recently, Stanford scientists Dr. Christopher Gardner and Dr. Justin Sonnenburg established that eating a diet high in fermented foods promotes a healthier, more diverse gut microbiome, and lowers inflammation. What does that mean? Why does it matter? In this episode, they chat with Medcan Director of Food and Nutrition Leslie Beck about their groundbreaking new study, the fermentation process, the microbial friends living in our digestive tracts, and how to make sure you're buying the right fermented foods. Episode 87 webpage LINKS Study published in Cell: Gut-microbiota-targeted diets modulate human immune status Article from Stanford Medicine about the study results  Justin Sonnenburg's bio and his Sonnenburg lab Christopher Gardner's bio  NYT article by Anahad O'Connor: “How Fermented Foods May Alter Your Microbiome and Improve Your Health” NYT article by Tara Parker-Pope: “The Dos and Don'ts of Fermented Foods” NYT article by Anahad O'Connor: “A Changing Gut Microbiome May Predict How Well You Age” Read Justin & Erica Sonnenburg's book: The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood and Your Long-Term Health Want to make your own fermented foods? It's easy! Check out this recipe packet by Justin and Erica Sonnenburg from the 2021 Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives conference    INSIGHTS   Food becomes fermented over time when controlled amounts of yeast and bacteria are added to it. “The live bacteria has to sit around long enough to enzymatically convert some of the carbohydrates in the food to alcohol or organic acids,” explains Dr. Christopher Gardner. Those alcohols or acids are what give fermented food its sour, tangy taste. They also promote a healthy gut microbiome, which is the community of microbial cells in our digestive tract. “We often think of humans as a single species. We actually are walking ecosystems. We have hundreds to 1000s of species that make up the human body. We harbour so many microbial cells that by cell number, we're actually more microbial than we are human,” says Dr. Justin Sonnenburg. [8:45][1:59]  Eating fermented foods leads to a healthier gut microbiome because the more diverse your microbiome is, the more anti-inflammatory compounds your gut produces. This makes your body less likely to develop inflammatory diseases. “The converse of that is, if you're not eating fermented foods, you may be depressing your microbiota diversity,” says Dr. Justin Sonnenburg. High fat diets, artificial sweeteners and the emulsifiers in processed foods contribute to a less diverse gut microbiome, making you more susceptible to inflammation. [10:43] During Dr. Christopher Gardner and Dr. Justin Sonnenburg's 10-week study, they fed one group of participants a high-fibre diet, and fed the other group of participants a high-fermented food diet. “What we saw with fermented foods was mind blowing,” says Dr. Sonnenburg. “We saw this increase in gut microbiota diversity across the entire cohort... as this was happening, many of their inflammatory markers were decreasing.” Participants ate six servings of fermented food a day, up from the zero to half a serving a day they were eating before the study. That might sound like a lot of fermented food, but “different combinations of six servings tended to be about 300 calories. It's not like you were eating fermented food all day long!” says Dr. Gardner. [25:33]  So how does our gut microbiota protect against inflammation? Dr. Justin Sonnenburg says there are many different pathways in the relationship between gut microbial diversity and inflammation. But a major one involves the byproducts that result from microbes interacting with the food in our gut. “We think the metabolites that the microbes are producing can help to degrade foods that we're eating,” says Dr. Justin Sonnenburg. “This is why diet is such an important component of determining how our microbiome connects to our health and our immune status.” He and Dr. Gardner hope that their research will lead to a deeper understanding of how we can feed our own communities of microbes in a way that enables them to produce molecules that are leading to a healthier immune system. [40:30] Not all fermented foods will increase the diversity of your gut microbiome. So how to make sure you're buying the right fermented foods? “You have to be careful,” warns Dr. Justin Sonnenburg. “Many things that claim to be fermented foods are just pickled with something like vinegar.” Look for fermented food products in the refrigerated section, with labels that read  “contains live microbes,” “contains probiotics” or “contains live cultures.” Look out for high sugar content as well. Since fermented food is naturally sour, many products have lots of added sugar to mask their taste. Finally, although wine and beer have been fermented, they won't promote a more diverse microbiome! They've gone through a heating process that kills all their bacteria. [44:53]

A fermented-food diet increases microbiome diversity and lowers inflammation, study finds Stanford University, July 13, 2021 A diet rich in fermented foods enhances the diversity of gut microbes and decreases molecular signs of inflammation, according to researchers at the Stanford School of Medicine.  In a clinical trial, 36 healthy adults were randomly assigned to a 10-week diet that included either fermented or high-fiber foods. The two diets resulted in different effects on the gut microbiome and the immune system. Eating foods such as yogurt, kefir, fermented cottage cheese, kimchi and other fermented vegetables, vegetable brine drinks, and kombucha tea led to an increase in overall microbial diversity, with stronger effects from larger servings. "This is a stunning finding," said Justin Sonnenburg, PhD, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology. "It provides one of the first examples of how a simple change in diet can reproducibly remodel the microbiota across a cohort of healthy adults." In addition, four types of immune cells showed less activation in the fermented-food group. The levels of 19 inflammatory proteins measured in blood samples also decreased. One of these proteins, interleukin 6, has been linked to conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, Type 2 diabetes and chronic stress.  "Microbiota-targeted diets can change immune status, providing a promising avenue for decreasing inflammation in healthy adults," said Christopher Gardner, PhD, the Rehnborg Farquhar Professor and director of nutrition studies at the Stanford Prevention Research Center. "This finding was consistent across all participants in the study who were assigned to the higher fermented food group." Microbe diversity stable in fiber-rich diet By contrast, none of these 19 inflammatory proteins decreased in participants assigned to a high-fiber diet rich in legumes, seeds, whole grains, nuts, vegetables and fruits. On average, the diversity of their gut microbes also remained stable. "We expected high fiber to have a more universally beneficial effect and increase microbiota diversity," said Erica Sonnenburg, PhD, a senior research scientist in basic life sciences, microbiology and immunology. "The data suggest that increased fiber intake alone over a short time period is insufficient to increase microbiota diversity."  The study will be published online July 12 in Cell. Justin and Erica Sonnenburg and Christopher Gardner are co-senior authors. The lead authors are Hannah Wastyk, a PhD student in bioengineering, and former postdoctoral scholar Gabriela Fragiadakis, PhD, who is now an assistant professor of medicine at UC-San Francisco. A wide body of evidence has demonstrated that diet shapes the gut microbiome, which can affect the immune system and overall health. According to Gardner, low microbiome diversity has been linked to obesity and diabetes.  "We wanted to conduct a proof-of-concept study that could test whether microbiota-targeted food could be an avenue for combatting the overwhelming rise in chronic inflammatory diseases," Gardner said.  The researchers focused on fiber and fermented foods due to previous reports of their potential health benefits. While high-fiber diets have been associated with lower rates of mortality, the consumption of fermented foods can help with weight maintenance and may decrease the risk of diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease. The researchers analyzed blood and stool samples collected during a three-week pre-trial period, the 10 weeks of the diet, and a four-week period after the diet when the participants ate as they chose.  The findings paint a nuanced picture of the influence of diet on gut microbes and immune status. On one hand, those who increased their consumption of fermented foods showed similar effects on their microbiome diversity and inflammatory markers, consistent with prior research showing that short-term changes in diet can rapidly alter the gut microbiome. On the other hand, the limited change in the microbiome within the high-fiber group dovetails with the researchers' previous reports of a general resilience of the human microbiome over short time periods.  Designing a suite of dietary and microbial strategies The results also showed that greater fiber intake led to more carbohydrates in stool samples, pointing to incomplete fiber degradation by gut microbes. These findings are consistent with other research suggesting that the microbiome of people living in the industrialized world is depleted of fiber-degrading microbes.  "It is possible that a longer intervention would have allowed for the microbiota to adequately adapt to the increase in fiber consumption," Erica Sonnenburg said. "Alternatively, the deliberate introduction of fiber-consuming microbes may be required to increase the microbiota's capacity to break down the carbohydrates." In addition to exploring these possibilities, the researchers plan to conduct studies in mice to investigate the molecular mechanisms by which diets alter the microbiome and reduce inflammatory proteins. They also aim to test whether high-fiber and fermented foods synergize to influence the microbiome and immune system of humans. Another goal is to examine whether the consumption of fermented food decreases inflammation or improves other health markers in patients with immunological and metabolic diseases, and in pregnant women and older individuals.  "There are many more ways to target the microbiome with food and supplements, and we hope to continue to investigate how different diets, probiotics and prebiotics impact the microbiome and health in different groups," Justin Sonnenburg said.   Effect of resveratrol intervention on renal pathological injury in type 2 diabetes Capital Medical University (China), July 11, 2021 According to news reporting from Beijing, People's Republic of China, research stated, “Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a clinically common cardiovascular disease that can lead to kidney damage and adversely affect male fertility and sperm quality. Resveratrol (Res) is a natural product that has a wide range of effects in animals and cell models.” The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from Capital Medical University, “This research is designed to observe the effect of resveratrol (Res) intervention on renal pathologic injury and spermatogenesis in mice with type 2 diabetes (T2D). Sixty healthy male SD mice without specific pathogens (SPF grade) were selected, and numbered by statistical software to randomize into control group (CG; n=20), model group (MG; n=20) and research group (RG; n=20). Mice in CG were given regular diet, while those in MG and RG were fed with high fat diet. Subsequently, RG was given Res intervention while MG received no treatment. Biochemical indexes [triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC), fasting blood glucose (FBG), 24-hour urinary albumin excretion rate (24h-UAER)] of mice in the three groups before and after intervention were observed and recorded. The effect of Res on oxidative stress, kidney histopathological structure, spermatogenic function, sperm density and viability of mice, as well as spermatogenic cell cycle of testis were determined. Res reduced hyperlipidemia and hyperglycemia in T2D mice. By reducing malondialdehyde (MDA) and increasing superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), Res relieved oxidative stress and alleviated kidney tissue damage. In addition, Res improved the spermatogenic function of T2D mice by increasing the sperm density and survival rate and restoring the percentage of spermatogenic cells at all levels.” According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “Res intervention in T2D mice can reduce kidney tissue damage, lower blood glucose (BG), and improve spermatogenic function by increasing sperm density and restoring the percentage of spermatogenic cells at all levels.” This research has been peer-reviewed.     Eating whole grains linked to smaller increases in waist size, blood pressure, blood sugar Study in middle- to older-aged adults suggests whole grains may protect against heart disease Tufts University, July 13, 2021 Middle- to older-aged adults who ate at least three servings of whole grains daily had smaller increases in waist size, blood pressure, and blood sugar levels over time compared to those who ate less than one-half serving per day, according to new research. Published July 13, 2021, in the Journal of Nutrition, the study by researchers at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University examined how whole- and refined-grain intake over time impacted five risk factors of heart disease: Waist size, blood pressure, blood sugar, triglyceride, and HDL ("good") cholesterol. Using data from the Framingham Heart Study Offspring Cohort, which began in the 1970s to assess long-term risk factors of heart disease, the new research examined health outcomes associated with whole- and refined-grain consumption over a median of 18 years. The 3,100 participants from the cohort were mostly white and, on average, in their mid-50s at the start of data collection. The research team compared changes in the five risk factors, over four-year intervals, across four categories of reported whole grain intake, ranging from less than a half serving per day to three or more servings per day. According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020-2025, the recommended amount of whole grains is three or more servings daily. An example of a serving is one slice of whole-grain bread, a half cup of rolled oats cereal, or a half cup of brown rice. The results showed that for each four-year interval:   Waist size increased by an average of over 1 inch in the low intake participants, versus about ½ inch in the high intake participants. Even after accounting for changes in waist size, average increases in blood sugar levels and systolic blood pressure were greater in low intake participants compared to high intake participants. The researchers also studied the five risk factors across four categories of refined-grain intake, ranging from less than two servings per day to more than four servings per day. Lower refined-grain intake led to a lower average increase in waist size and a greater mean decline in triglyceride levels for each four-year period. "Our findings suggest that eating whole-grain foods as part of a healthy diet delivers health benefits beyond just helping us lose or maintain weight as we age. In fact, these data suggest that people who eat more whole grains are better able to maintain their blood sugar and blood pressure over time. Managing these risk factors as we age may help to protect against heart disease," said Nicola McKeown, senior and corresponding author and a scientist on the Nutritional Epidemiology Team at the USDA HNRCA. "There are several reasons that whole grains may work to help people maintain waist size and reduce increases in the other risk factors. The presence of dietary fiber in whole grains can have a satiating effect, and the magnesium, potassium, and antioxidants may contribute to lowering blood pressure. Soluble fiber in particular may have a beneficial effect on post-meal blood sugar spikes," said Caleigh Sawicki. Sawicki did this work as part of her doctoral dissertation while a student at the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and while working with the Nutritional Epidemiology Team at the USDA HNRCA. The greatest contributor to whole-grain intake among participants was whole-wheat breads and ready-to-eat whole-grain breakfast cereals. The refined grains came mostly from pasta and white bread. The difference in health benefits between whole and refined grains may stem from the fact that whole grains are less processed than refined grains. Whole grains have a fiber-rich outer layer and an inner germ layer packed with B vitamins, antioxidants, and small amounts of healthy fats. Milling whole grains removes these nutrient-dense components, leaving only the starch-packed refined grain behind. "The average American consumes about five servings of refined grains daily, much more than is recommended, so it's important to think about ways to replace refined grains with whole grains throughout your day. For example, you might consider a bowl of whole-grain cereal instead of a white flour bagel for breakfast and replacing refined-grain snacks, entrees, and side dishes with whole-grain options. Small incremental changes in your diet to increase whole-grain intake will make a difference over time," McKeown said. Methodology To measure daily grain intake, the researchers used diet questionnaires that participants completed every four years from 1991 to 2014, resulting in a median of 18 years of data. Dietary assessment data came from five study examinations, and observations were only included if participants attended at least two consecutive examinations with accurate dietary data. Participants with diabetes at baseline were excluded. The statistical analysis was adjusted for factors that might influence the results, including other aspects of a healthy diet. Limitations of the study include the fact that food consumption is self-reported, and participants may over- or under-estimate intake of certain foods based on perceived social desirability. Due to its observational design, the study does not reflect a causal relationship.   Antibiotics in early life could affect brain development Exposure to antibiotics in utero or after birth could lead to brain disorders in later childhood Rutgers University, July 14, 2021 Antibiotic exposure early in life could alter human brain development in areas responsible for cognitive and emotional functions, according to a Rutgers researcher. The laboratory study, published in the journal iScience, suggests that penicillin changes the microbiome - the trillions of beneficial microorganisms that live in and on our bodies - as well as gene expression, which allows cells to respond to its changing environment, in key areas of the developing brain. The findings suggest reducing widespread antibiotic use or using alternatives when possible to prevent neurodevelopment problems.  Penicillin and related medicines (like ampicillin and amoxicillin) are the most widely used antibiotics in children worldwide. In the United States, the average child receives nearly three courses of antibiotics before the age of 2. Similar or greater exposure rates occur in many other countries.  "Our previous work has shown that exposing young animals to antibiotics changes their metabolism and immunity. The third important development in early life involves the brain. This study is preliminary but shows a correlation between altering the microbiome and changes in the brain that should be further explored," said lead author Martin Blaser, director of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine at Rutgers. The study compared mice that were exposed to low-dose penicillin in utero or immediately after birth to those that were not exposed. They found that mice given penicillin experienced substantial changes in their intestinal microbiota and had altered gene expression in the frontal cortex and amygdala, two key areas in the brain responsible for the development of memory as well as fear and stress responses.  A growing body of evidence links phenomena in the intestinal tract with signaling to the brain, a field of study known as the "gut-brain-axis." If this pathway is disturbed, it can lead to permanent altering of the brain's structure and function and possibly lead to neuropsychiatric or neurodegenerative disorders in later childhood or adulthood. "Early life is a critical period for neurodevelopment," Blaser said. "In recent decades, there has been a rise in the incidence of childhood neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and learning disabilities. Although increased awareness and diagnosis are likely contributing factors, disruptions in cerebral gene expression early in development also could be responsible." Future studies are needed to determine whether antibiotics directly effect brain development or if molecules from the microbiome that travel to the brain disturb gene activity and cause cognitive deficits.  The study was conducted along with Zhan Gao at Rutgers and Blaser's former graduate student Anjelique Schulfer, as well as Angelina Volkova, Kelly Ruggles, and Stephen Ginsberg at New York University, who all played important roles in this joint Rutgers-New York University project.   Taking the brain out for a walk A recent study shows that spending time outdoors has a positive effect on our brains Max Planck Institute for Human Development, July 15, 2021 If you're regularly out in the fresh air, you're doing something good for both your brain and your well-being. This is the conclusion reached by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and the Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE). The longitudinal study recently appeared in The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry. During the Corona pandemic, walks became a popular and regular pastime. A neuroscientific study suggests that this habit has a good effect not only on our general well-being but also on our brain structure. It shows that the human brain benefits from even short stays outdoors. Until now, it was assumed that environments affect us only over longer periods of time. The researchers regularly examined six healthy, middle-aged city dwellers for six months. In total, more than 280 scans were taken of their brains using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The focus of the study was on self-reported behavior during the last 24 hours and in particular on the hours that participants spent outdoors prior to imaging. In addition, they were asked about their fluid intake, consumption of caffeinated beverages, the amount of time spent outside, and physical activity, in order to see if these factors altered the association between time spent outside and the brain. In order to be able to include seasonal differences, the duration of sunshine in the study period was also taken into account. Brain scans show that the time spent outdoors by the participants was positively related to gray matter in the right dorsolateral-prefrontal cortex, which is the superior (dorsal) and lateral part of the frontal lobe in the cerebral cortex. This part of the cortex is involved in the planning and regulation of actions as well as what is referred to as cognitive control. In addition, many psychiatric disorders are known to be associated with a reduction in gray matter in the prefrontal area of the brain. The results persisted even when the other factors that could also explain the relationship between time spent outdoors and brain structure were kept constant. The researchers performed statistical calculations in order to examine the influence of sunshine duration, number of hours of free time, physical activity, and fluid intake on the results. The calculations revealed that time spent outdoors had a positive effect on the brain regardless of the other influencing factors. "Our results show that our brain structure and mood improve when we spend time outdoors. This most likely also affects concentration, working memory, and the psyche as a whole. We are investigating this in an ongoing study. The subjects are asked to also solve cognitively challenging tasks and wear numerous sensors that measure the amount of light they are exposed to during the day, among other environmental indicators," says Simone Kühn, head of the Lise Meitner Group for Environmental Neuroscience at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and lead author of the study. The results therefore, support the previously assumed positive effects of walking on health and extend them by the concrete positive effects on the brain. Because most psychiatric disorders are associated with deficits in the prefrontal cortex, this is of particular importance to the field of psychiatry. "These findings provide neuroscientific support for the treatment of mental disorders. Doctors could prescribe a walk in the fresh air as part of the therapy - similar to what is customary for health cures," says Anna Mascherek, post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) and co-author of the study. In the ongoing studies, the researchers also want to directly compare the effects of green environments vs urban spaces on the brain. In order to understand where exactly the study participants spend their time outdoors, the researchers plan to use GPS (Global Positioning System) data and include other factors that may play a role such as traffic noise and air pollution.     Vitamin C found to block growth of cancer stem cells, says peer reviewed study University of Salford (UK),  July 8, 2021   Increasingly, researchers are discovering the role played by cancer stem cells in the growth and spread of the disease. In groundbreaking new research, vitamin C showed its ability to target cancer stem cells and stop their growth – preventing the recurrence of tumors. Although mainstream medicine has been slow to accept the cancer-fighting properties of vitamin C, the exciting results of this study could help to change that. It's official: Vitamin C interferes with cancer stem cell metabolism In a newly-published study conducted at the University of Salford in Manchester, vitamin C demonstrated its power to stop tumors in their tracks by interfering with cancer stem cell metabolism – suppressing their ability to process energy for survival and growth. Cancer stem cells are responsible for triggering tumor recurrence, and promoting their growth and metastasis. Researchers believe that cancer stem cells give cancer its ability to resist chemotherapy and radiation – the reason for treatment failure in advanced cancer patients. The study, helmed by researchers Michael P. Lisanti and Gloria Bonucelli, was published last month in Oncotarget, a peer-reviewed journal. Peer-reviewed studies are considered the gold standard of scientific research. The study was the first to explore the effects of vitamin C on cancer stem cells – and provided the first evidence that vitamin C, in the form of ascorbic acid, can target and kill them. In a side-by-side comparison of seven different substances, vitamin C even outperformed an experimental cancer drug. Vitamin C works ten times better than the experimental cancer drug 2-DG The team investigated the impact on cancer stem cells of seven different substances. Three were natural substances, three were experimental drugs, and one was an FDA-approved clinical drug that is widely used. The natural products studied, along with vitamin C, were silibinin – derived from milk thistle seeds – and caffeic acid phenyl ester – or CAPE – derived from honeybee propolis. The experimental drugs were actinonin, FK866 and 2-DG, and the clinical drug was stiripentol. Researchers noted that vitamin C destroyed cancer stem cells by inducing oxidative stress. And, the vitamin performed this process ten times more effectively than 2-DG. Vitamin C used two different mechanisms of action to attack cancer stem cells. It worked as a pro-oxidant in cancer cells, depleting them of the antioxidant glutathione and causing oxidative stress and apoptosis – or cell death. It also inhibited glycolysis, which is the process that creates energy production in cell mitochondria. By inhibiting glycolysis, vitamin C inhibited mitrochondrial protein synthesis in cancer stem cells – while leaving healthy cells unaffected. Non-toxic vitamin C lacks the serious side effects of many pharmaceutical drugs Both experimental and approved cancer drugs can feature serious adverse effects, including thrombocytopenia – a deficiency of platelets in the blood that can cause bruising and slow blood clotting. They can also induce lymphopenia – a decrease in the body's infection-fighting white blood cells – and anemia, or low red blood cells. And the clinically-approved drug used in the study, stiripentol, can cause severe nausea, vomiting and fatigue. On the other hand, the National Cancer Center reports that high-dose vitamin C has caused very few side effects when used in clinical studies. Scientifically speaking, the future looks bright for vitamin C All seven of the substances tested inhibited the growth of cancer cells to varying degrees – including the non-toxic natural substances. But researchers said the most “exciting” results were with vitamin C. The research team concluded that vitamin C was a “promising new agent,” and called for more study to explore its use as an adjunct to conventional cancer therapies to prevent tumor recurrence and growth. “Vitamin C is cheap, natural, non-toxic and readily available, so to have it as a potential weapon in the fight against cancer would be a significant step,” observed Dr. Lisanti. As in most of the successful studies showing vitamin C's cancer-fighting properties, researchers used high doses of vitamin C, administered intravenously. IV vitamin C therapy is available in some alternative and holistic cancer treatment clinics worldwide. The real reason why vitamin C is ignored by conventional medicine and the mainstream media Again, vitamin C was 1,000 percent more effective than 2-DG, an experimental pharmaceutical drug – in targeting cancer stem cells. If vitamin C were developed by big pharma, these results would be shouted from the rooftops and featured in newspaper headlines. Yet, as always, “the powers that be” in mainstream medicine respond with…crickets. The reason; say natural health experts, is all too obvious. As a natural nutrient and vitamin, vitamin C can't be patented, and is inexpensive and easy to obtain. Therefore, there is no incentive for cancer clinics to promote it – when they can instead rake in the profits from chemotherapy. The indifference of conventional medicine to vitamin C is all the more frustrating because the nutrient has been shown to be an effective and non-toxic anti-cancer agent in previous studies, including many conducted by Nobel prize-winning scientist Linus Pauling. Vitamin C has been shown in a Japanese study to cut mortality in cancer patients by 25 percent. In addition, it has inhibited tumors in animal studies, and been shown to kill cancer cells in a wide variety of cancer cell lines. How much longer will the potential of this safe and powerful cancer-fighting nutrient be overlooked?     Mothers' high-fat diet affects clotting response in sons, mice study finds University of Reading (UK), July 13, 2021 Mothers who follow a high fat diet may be affecting the cardiovascular health of their sons, according to a new study in mice. In a paper published in Scientific Reports, a team of scientists found that the male children of mice mothers who were fed on a high fat diet during pregnancy had unhealthy platelets, which are responsible for clotting, when fed on a high fat diet themselves. Although both male and female children of the mothers fed on a high fat diet showed a variety of risks associated with cardiovascular disease, it was only the platelets of male mice which were considered hyperactive. These platelets were larger, more volatile and showed signs of stress compared to offspring fed on a normal diet. Dr. Dyan Sellayah, lecturer in cellular and organismal metabolism at the University of Reading said: "Heart disease is one of the UK's biggest killers and mounting evidence suggests that the risk of developing it may be increased during early development, particularly during the gestation period where mothers have a high-fat diet/are obese. The underlying mechanisms by which an unhealthy maternal diet may impact heart disease risk remains largely unknown. "This study used a mouse model of maternal obesity to understand how specialist blood cells known as platelets may be programmed during pregnancy. Platelets are important for blood clotting but are also the cause of heart attacks and strokes if they are activated at the wrong time and place." Children of the mothers fed on a high fat diet who followed a control diet however did not show the same concerning heart disease risks. The offspring from the group given a control diet had very similar levels of fat mass, cholesterol and other markets of cardiovascular health as the children of mothers fed a standard diet. In addition, where mothers had been fed a standard diet and their offspring fed a high fat diet, those children had higher levels of fat mass and other cardiovascular markers, but their platelets were statistically similar to the other groups apart from where both mum and child were fed high fat diet.  Dr. Craig Hughes, lecturer in cardiovascular biology at the University of Reading said: "This study revealed that maternal obesity during pregnancy causes offspring platelets to become hyperactive in response to a high-fat diet in adulthood. These results raise the possibility that the risk of unwanted blood clotting (aka thrombosis) in adulthood could be altered during pregnancy by diet of the mother. "The specific mechanisms for why high fat diets affect male offspring are still being investigated but we can see that there's likely to be a double-hit where both mums and sons diets together were required to see these bigger, more hyperactive platelets."

In this episode I: - How your gut and mental health are so interconnected? - What foods and lifestyle changes can you make to ensure optimal gut health. - What should you absolutely avoid and why.  Have you joined my community yet? Follow me IG @gpatelcounseling and here is a free gift for you- Free Self- Compassion Guide I have created to help you get unstuck. Join my private Facebook Community - Traumatic Transformations - Emotionally Intelligence & Conscious Living.  Other resources mentioned in this episode -  - I'm So effing Tired - Dr. Amy Shah - The Good Gut - Dr. Justin Sonnenburg

Justin Sonnenburg, co-authhor of The Good Gut. Topic: Taking control of your weight, your mood, and your long-term health Issues: The relationship between our bodies and the trillions of organsms that live in our gut; the ways those organisms (called “microbiota”) determine whether we’re sick or healthy, fit or obese, sunny or moody; why our […] The post You and Your Microbiome + Fighting the War on Fat appeared first on Mr. Dad.

There’s more than one way to measure how fast you’re ageing. There’s chronological age - the number of years you’ve been alive - and then there’s biological age, which you can think of as the total damage your body has accumulated over the years. Your chronological age may differ from your biological age, in which case it’s interesting to understand why. The good news is you can reduce your biological age by improving your lifestyle, which in turn can lengthen lifespan and healthspan. The question is, then, how to quantify biological age? On this podcast, NBT Scientific Director Megan Hall talks about PhenoAge: a measure of biological age that can be determined by analyzing a shortlist of common blood markers. We talk about why PhenoAge is important and valid as a reliable measure of biological status, and how you can get your PhenoAge score. Megan also offers tips for improving your PhenoAge once you’ve got your baseline. This episode has a ton of information, so be sure to follow along with Megan’s outline. Here’s the outline of this interview with Megan Hall: [00:00:25] Arden Pope, PhD; Studies on the effects of air pollution on human health. [00:01:15] Puppy update. [00:05:54] Is ageing a disease? Article: Bulterijs, Sven, et al. "It is time to classify biological aging as a disease." Frontiers in genetics 6 (2015): 205.   [00:06:35] Primary vs secondary ageing. [00:08:02] Book: Lifespan: Why We Age - and Why We Don't Have To, by David A. Sinclair PhD. [00:08:16] Ken Ford; STEM-Talk Podcast. Ken Ford on the NBT Podcast: Optimal Diet and Movement for Healthspan, Amplified Intelligence and More. [00:09:19] Measuring ageing. [00:13:09] Theories of ageing - more than 300 theories; Articles: Tosato, Matteo, et al. "The aging process and potential interventions to extend life expectancy." Clinical interventions in aging 2.3 (2007): 401. 2. da Costa, Joao Pinto, et al. "A synopsis on aging—Theories, mechanisms and future prospects." Ageing research reviews 29 (2016): 90-112. 3. Jin, Kunlin. "Modern biological theories of aging." Aging and disease 1.2 (2010): 72.  [00:13:34] Grandmother hypothesis; Podcast: The Postmenopausal Longevity Paradox and the Evolutionary Advantage of Our Grandmothering Life History, with Kristen Hawkes, PhD. [00:14:48] Program Theories and Damage Theories. [00:17:45] Epigenetic clock theory of aging; Steven Horvath; Study: Horvath, Steve, and Kenneth Raj. "DNA methylation-based biomarkers and the epigenetic clock theory of ageing." Nature Reviews Genetics 19.6 (2018): 371.  [00:19:02] Steven Horvath's TEDx talk: Epigenetic Clocks Help to Find Anti-Aging Treatments. [00:20:47] Book: Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture, by David Kushner. [00:21:43] DNA methylation; Article: Horvath, Steve. "DNA methylation age of human tissues and cell types." Genome biology 14.10 (2013): 3156. [00:23:13] Offspring of semi-supercentenarians have lower epigenetic age; Study: Horvath, Steve, et al. "Decreased epigenetic age of PBMCs from Italian semi-supercentenarians and their offspring." Aging (Albany NY) 7.12 (2015): 1159.  [00:23:36] Methylation based biological age associated with: 1.  breast cancer risk: Kresovich, Jacob K., et al. "Methylation-based biological age and breast cancer risk." JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute 111.10 (2019): 1051-1058. 2. Frailty: Breitling, Lutz Philipp, et al. "Frailty is associated with the epigenetic clock but not with telomere length in a German cohort." Clinical epigenetics 8.1 (2016): 21; 3. All-cause mortality: Marioni, Riccardo E., et al. "DNA methylation age of blood predicts all-cause mortality in later life." Genome biology 16.1 (2015): 1-12 and Christiansen, Lene, et al. "DNA methylation age is associated with mortality in a longitudinal Danish twin study." Aging cell 15.1 (2016): 149-154. [00:24:46] PhenoAge as a biomarker of ageing for lifespan and healthspan; Study: Levine, Morgan E., et al. "An epigenetic biomarker of aging for lifespan and healthspan." Aging (Albany NY) 10.4 (2018): 573. [00:29:06] Nine blood markers that make up PhenoAge. [00:29:57] PhenoAge related to COVID-19; Study: Kuo, Chia-Ling, et al. "COVID-19 severity is predicted by earlier evidence of accelerated aging." medRxiv (2020).  [00:30:34] Combining PhenoAge with DNA methylation data as a predictor of mortality. [00:33:28] Episode 59 of HumanOS podcast: Are You Biologically Older or Younger Than Your Chronological Age? [00:33:58] Dr. Josh Turkett’s 4-quadrant model. [00:34:00] Lifestyle factors that accelerate ageing: Sleep: Li, Xiaoyu, et al. "Association between sleep disordered breathing and epigenetic age acceleration: Evidence from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis." EBioMedicine 50 (2019): 387-394; Socioeconimic status, childhood and adult adversity: Liu, Zuyun, et al. "Associations of genetics, behaviors, and life course circumstances with a novel aging and healthspan measure: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study." PLoS medicine 16.6 (2019): e1002827; Education: Zhao, Wei, et al. "Education and lifestyle factors are associated with DNA methylation clocks in older African Americans." International journal of environmental research and public health 16.17 (2019): 3141. [00:35:59] Protein; Podcast: Why You’re Probably Not Eating Enough Protein (How to Know for Sure), with Megan Hall. [00:36:50] Book: The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long-term Health, by Justin Sonnenburg and Erica Sonnenburg. [00:37:23] Bloodsmart.ai. [00:38:35] Patreon: nbt.link [00:39:33] Age reversal possible in humans? Study: Fahy, Gregory M., et al. "Reversal of epigenetic aging and immunosenescent trends in humans." Aging cell 18.6 (2019): e13028.  [00:40:15] Simon Marshall, PhD. [00:41:00] Interpreting your blood markers to understand PhenoAge. [00:46:11] PhenoAge vs Predicted Age.

These days, we hear a lot about gut health. And many people want to know about the effects of probiotics, antibiotics, gut inflammation, and modern digestive issues. You are a walking ecosystem home to a microbial community made up of bacteria, fungi, and viruses. You may be surprised to learn that you are more bacteria DNA than you are human DNA. Many of these inhabitants are found in your gut, and they also exist on your skin and in other parts of your body. Together these trillions of organisms form your microbiome. Today we ask our experts, what does this complex community do for us? On this episode, Victoria Maizes and Andrew Weil are joined by guests, Erica and Justin Sonnenburg, to discuss the human microbiome. Erica is a senior research scientist in the department of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine and Justin is an associate professor in the same department at Stanford. Together, they wrote, The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long-Term Health. Erica says until recently the microbiome was a relatively understudied area, and that research is just beginning to uncover the major role it plays in our health. She discusses how the overuse of antibiotics, soaps, and chemical sanitizers may be destroying the crucial diversity of our microbiomes. We discuss how the Western diet may be starving the microbiome of essential food sources and damaging the intestines leading to inflammation. Dr. Weil shares a strategy that he finds more effective than probiotics supplements - and less expensive. Justin explains how precision medicine will use microbiome testing to harness one's unique microbiome population to treat diseases. We also discuss the research surrounding fecal transplants and how this novel treatment may be used to address illnesses like irritable bowel syndrome, allergies, and asthma in the future. Learn how you can take steps to benefit your microbiome and why the right bacteria is a good thing.

Brian Sanders is the filmmaker behind the documentary, Food Lies, and the host of the Peak Human Podcast. Brian’s background is in mechanical engineering and technology, and he’s driven to help others reverse chronic disease using ancestral health and wellness principles. Brian has recently partnered with a physician as a health coach and is building technology to help people communicate with their doctors, track their health, and implement a healthy diet.  In this podcast, Brian and I talk about his film, which touts the benefits of a nutrient-dense whole food diet and debunks myths about eating meat and saturated fat. We discuss the many aspects of his ancestral-health outreach, including his Nose to Tail farm that ships 100% grass-fed meat and the SAPIEN diet plan he makes freely available to everyone. Here’s the outline of this interview with Brian Sanders: [00:00:19] Documentary: Food Lies (still being crowdfunded). [00:00:28] Brian's background; family health problems. [00:02:17] Mark Sisson. [00:03:21] Documentary: What the Health. [00:03:55] Food in Hawaii. [00:05:48] Weston A Price. [00:11:03] Veganism in LA. [00:12:48] Vinnie Tortorich; FAT: A Documentary. [00:15:26] Carnivore vs vegan as a business model. [00:16:45] SAPIEN Diet. [00:20:38] Denise Minger; Kitavans, Tsimane in Bolivia. [00:24:30] Calories do matter. [00:26:35] Ted Naiman. [00:26:59] Amber O'Hearn; Podcast: A Carnivore Diet for Physical and Mental Health. [00:27:09] Bioavailability of zinc from oysters when eating corn tortillas and beans: Solomons, Noel W., et al. "Studies on the bioavailability of zinc in man. II. Absorption of zinc from organic and inorganic sources." Journal of laboratory and clinical medicine (1979). [00:31:35] Paul Saladino. [00:32:15] Book: The Good Gut: Taking Control of your Weight, Your mood, and Your Long-Term Health, by Justin Sonnenburg. [00:32:49] Gary Taubes. [00:33:07] Bill Lagakos on animal fibre.  Podcast with Bill: Why You Should Eat Breakfast (and Other Secrets of Circadian Biology). [00:34:59] Top priority: Get yourself fat adapted. [00:36:54] Mike T Nelson; Podcasts: 1. High Ketones and Carbs at the Same Time? Great Performance Tip or Horrible Idea…, 2. The Importance of Strength Training for Endurance Athletes, 3. How to Assess an Athlete: The Best Principles, Methods, and Devices to Use. [00:41:00] Dr. Gary Shlifer.  [00:41:25] Virta Health. [00:42:48] Nose to Tail; US Wellness Meats. [00:44:48] Dr. Frank Mitloehner. [00:45:29] Diana Rodgers, RD, Sacred Cow film; Podcast with Diana Rodgers: Kale vs Cow: The Case for Better Meat. [00:45:45] Savory Institute; Robb Wolf on sustainable meat farming. [00:45:55] Book: War on Carbs, by Mark Bell. [00:48:45] Peak Human Podcast guests: Prof. Tim Noakes, Jeff Volek, Mark Sisson, Paul Saladino. USDA scientist Dr. David Klurfeld.

Hipócrates, médico griego padre de la medicina moderna, dijo en el siglo 3 a. C. que “toda enfermedad comienza en el intestino”. Algunos lo llaman segundo cerebro, pero quizás deberíamos empezar a llamarlo primer cerebro, puesto que de su correcto funcionamiento dependen la salud de todo nuestro organismo.El tema de este episodio del podcast es la microbiota. Nuestro cuerpo alberga más vida microbiana que células. Se encuentran principalmente en la piel, las membranas, las mucosas y, sobre todo, en el tracto gastrointestinal. Y es precisamente ahí, en el interior del intestino, donde la microbiota es capaz de llegar a determinar la salud y la enfermedad de cada individuo. Unapoblación que puede llegar a pesar dos kilos, más que nuestro propio cerebro.Siempre se nos ha dicho que las bacterias son agentes mortíferos, pero ya es hora de reconocer el otro papel que desempeñan en nuestras vidas, ya que algunas de ellas no solo no son dañinas, sino que son fundamentales para el buen funcionamiento de nuestro organismo.Tal y como apuntan Justin Sonnenburg y su mujer Erica Sonnenburg, en su libro El intestino feliz, “a medida que los científicos tratan de desvelar las causas de enfermedades predominantemente occidentales, como el cáncer, la diabetes, las alergias, el asma, el autismo o las enfermedades intestinales inflamatorias, cada vez está más claro que la microbiota desempeña un papel relevante en la aparición de todas esas dolencias, así como en muchas otras facetas de nuestra salud”.Para desvelarnos algunos de los misterios de ese segundo cerebro que tanto afecta a todo lo que nos pasa, cuento con el Doctor José Vigaray, médico especialista en Alergología e Inmunología y Director de Inmunomet, nuevo servicio de inmunometabolismo, disbiosis intestinal, y enfermedad funcional e inflamatoria crónica del Hospital Beata María Ana, de Madrid. Notas de este episodio: https://janafernandez.es/todo-sobre-la-microbiota-nuestro-segundo-cerebro-episodio-12-del-podcast-de-jana-fernandez-con-el-doctor-jose-vigaray/

Dr. Jason Hawrelak, PhD. is a researcher, educator, and clinician, specializing in gastrointestinal health, the gut microbiota and the use of probiotics to improve health outcomes. Jason has written extensively in the medical literature on these topics and has been in clinical practice for almost 20 years. He also coordinates and teaches the Evidence-based Complementary Medicine Program at the University of Tasmania in Australia. In this podcast, Jason and I discuss probiotics: what they are, what they do, and how to use them to improve your health. Jason talks about assessing the gut microbiota, some common misconceptions about probiotics, and specific strains to look for that are backed by research. He also discusses his industry-independent, evidence-based online courses and database, created to help guide clinical practice. Here’s the outline of this interview with Jason Hawrelak: [00:00:53] Jason’s background. [00:01:48] Studying people with IBS; learning about FODMAPs the hard way. [00:06:15] Jason's Probiotic Advisor courses. [00:06:36] Jason’s scientific publications. [00:09:39] Manipulating the microbiota to improve health outcomes. [00:12:20] Tools for assessing the gut microbiota: breath and stool testing. [00:12:55] The limits of lactulose testing for SIBO. [00:14:20] Interconnectedness amongst organisms in the microbiome; Mouse study: Qiu, Xinyun, et al. "Changes in the composition of intestinal fungi and their role in mice with dextran sulfate sodium-induced colitis." Scientific reports 5 (2015): 10416. [00:15:11] Apex predators in the gut ecosystem. [00:15:36] Course: Advanced Probiotic Prescribing. [00:15:40] Probiotics: live microbes that when administered in adequate amounts produces therapeutic effects. [00:16:51] Current applications for probiotics. [00:20:02] Debunking myths about probiotics regarding colonization and quick fixes. [00:21:34] Fermented foods and drinks. [00:24:12] The characteristics of a species is strain-specific. [00:25:01] What to look for in a probiotic product (and red flags for what to avoid). [00:26:08] Minimum therapeutic dose: one billion colony forming units (CFU). [00:28:40] The Probiotic Advisor database. [00:32:31] Promising probiotic strains that aren't yet available on the market. [00:35:35] Justin Sonnenburg. [00:35:50] Improving diversity of the gut ecosystem. [00:36:30] 40 plant foods per week. [00:39:06] uBiome. [00:39:24] Genova GI Effects Comprehensive Stool Profile. [00:42:07] Using uBiome results. [00:43:33] Connection between the microbiome and mood. Course: Depression, Anxiety, and the Gastrointestinal Tract Microbiota. [00:44:32] Transmitting depression from one organism to another via fecal transplant; Study: Kelly, John R., et al. "Transferring the blues: depression-associated gut microbiota induces neurobehavioural changes in the rat." Journal of psychiatric research 82 (2016): 109-118. [00:46:53] Jason’s clinic. [00:48:00] Join the Gut Microbiota Explorer Challenge when you support us on Patreon.

The Stanford Medicine Community Council hosted its Stanford Medicine Women's Health Lunch on February 7. This annual event provides relevant health information for members of the community, and introduces them to the many resources that Stanford Medicine has to offer. This year Stanford University PhD’s Erica and Justin Sonnenburg, authors of “The Good Gut”, spoke about the trillions of organisms, from bacteria to viruses that make up our microbiome and why the microbiome is essential to our weight, our mood and our long-term health.

Hoy tenemos de nuevo como invitado en el podcast de running en español a Juan Carlos Gutierrez. Con más de 12 años de experiencia en el campo de pensiones y retiros, Juan Carlos ahora se dedica a investigar la relación entre la salud cerebral y la toma de decisiones a nivel biológico. En esta detallada conversación podrás ver la importante relación entre tu estilo de vida, microbioma intestinal y tu salud cerebral. Esta es la continuación del episodio # 20, donde se habló de la importancia de la salud cerebral y algunos de los suplementos importantes para facilitar la misma. Hoy, nos enfocamos en la importancia de las bacterias en el microbioma.   Da clic para reproducir el episodio entero…       El objetivo de esta densa conversación es dar a conocer las herramientas que contribuyen a maximizar tu salud cerebral, aumente tu energía mitocondrial y alargue tus telómeros. Todo esto con los objetivos de retrasar el reloj biológico, tener una periodo de producción de capital excepcional libre de enfermedades y poder disfrutar del retiro con recursos financieros, lucidez y salud. En palabras muy sencillas, todo esto se logra con una buena nutrición, actividad física y buenas relaciones interpersonales. Estos fueron los temas que Juan Carlos compartió con nosotros:   Suplementarse inteligentemente. Retomando el tema de nutrición inteligente, recordamos esta lista de nutrientes esenciales: Vitamina D: Aunque no es normal que habitantes en las zonas tropicales cercanas al meridiano del Ecuador sufran déficit de vitamina D, es muy importante mantener estos niveles en orden. Cuando atletas o personas sufren de dolor en las articulaciones o debilidad en el sistema óseo por deficiencia de calcio, generalmente no es ausencia de calcio el problema, sino fijación de calcio. Vitamina D, ayuda a fijar el calcio. Quince minutos de exposición a los rayos del sol producen 15 UI (unidades internacionales) de vitamina D. Taurina: De suma importancia para personas con dietas veganas o que no consumen pescado. La taurina ayuda a regular la presión arterial y el balance electrolítico. Personas con deficiencia de taurina suelen experimentar problemas de equilibrio. Magnesio: El 75% de la población mundial tiene deficiencias de magnesio. Una razón es que el magnesio que se consume normalmente es óxido de magnesio, el cual 80% se pierde en el proceso de digestión. Sin embargo, treonato de magnesio se absorbe en más de un 90%. Semillas de calabaza, salmón, almendras y espinaca son alimentos ricos en magnesio. El magnesio regula 300 funciones en el cuerpo y es un co-factor de producción de energia en la mitocondria. Óxido nítrico: Es el responsable de mejorar el fluido sanguíneo en el cerebro. A mayor fluido, más producción de BDNF y menor riesgos de derrames cerebrales. Lechuga rugula, remolacha y pistachos son alimentos ricos en óxido nítrico. De la misma manera, es importante consumir agua para facilitar el flujo sanguíneo. Ãcido málico: También contribuye a mejorar el flujo sanguíneo en el cerebro y aumentar la producción de energía en las mitocondrias. Se encuentra en frutas ácidas y tipos de moras salvajes como el maqui berry.       Microbioma Intestinal. Considerado por muchos científicos como el área de mayor importancia para la investigación en este siglo. El microbioma intestinal es un cultivo de bacterias que afecta poderosamente toda la salud de tu organismo. Dentro de este ecosistema existen unos 100 trillones de bacterias y se han identificado más de 50 bacterias saludables que ayudan a descomponer los nutrientes, disminuir la inflación y combatir patógenos. Seis de las más importantes son: Lactobacillus acidophilus. Plantarum. Reuteri. Lactobacillus brevis. Bifidobacterium lactis. Bifidobacterium longum. Muchos alimentos fermentados son muy buenos para el microbioma intestinal y ayudan a mantener estas bacterias presentes. Productos como el kéfir, kimchi y chucrut son algunos de los más ricos en estas bacterias. Otros alimentos como los garbanzos y el azafrán resultan de mucha importancia para el tracto gastrointestinal. Según Juan Carlos, estos aumentan la producción de neurotransmisores y ayudan a aliviar los déficits de serotonina y la recaptación de serotonina. Comparada a la dieta del paleolítico, el hombre occidental consume menos de 20% de la fibra que el hombre solía consumir. Esto es un problema adicional para el microbioma intestinal ya que las bacterias florecen con disponibilidad de fibra en el organismo.       Herencia del código intestinal. Debido a que el 75% de partos en el mundo por cesárea hoy en día no son necesarios, muchos recién nacidos están naciendo con un sistema inmunológico suprimido. Esto debido a que no pasan por el canal vaginal y no reciben la herencia bacterial de la madre. Esto causa un daño a nivel neurológico e inmunológico difícil de reparar. Esto ha llevado a científicos a experimentar con trasplantes de materia fecal para poblar nuevamente al individuo con las bacterias necesarias para evitar enfermedades crónicas. Incluso, se están encontrado relaciones entre asma y autismo a la falta de algunas bacterias. Autores del libro The Good Gut Erica y Justin Sonnenburg hablan de la importancia de este código del microbioma intestinal. Emociones afectan al telómero. Existen toxinas ambientales, nutricionales, pero también mentales. Pensamientos tóxicos inciden poderosamente en la energía mitocondrial y en el alargamiento de los telómeros. Después de un estudio propuesto por Dalái Lama al Doctor Richard Davidson de la Universidad de Wisconsin, se vio que sentimientos como la compasión, agradecimiento y empatía disminuyen la inflamación en el cuerpo. Por el contrario, angustia, ansiedad y depresión aumentan los nivel de cortisol. Cortisol es reconocido como un agente que deteriora el sistema inmunológico. Adicionalmente, pensamientos negativos que se solidifican y se vuelven reales son culpables del robo de energía y causan depresión. Cuando se han estudiado individuos con pensamientos negativos bajo una tomografía axial computarizada (TAC) del giro cingulado, esta zona se ve sobre activada. Estas personas están expuestas a más riesgos de salud. Debido a la depresión, generalmente no hacen ejercicio y consumen más benzodiacepinas y estatinas; las cuales son toxinas para el cerebro.     Alzheimer y dementigens. Dave Bredesen, autor del libro el Final del Alzheimer,  acuñó un término llamado dementigens. Ejemplos de agentes que contribuyen a la demencia y enfermedades cerebrales son ver televisión y uso excesivo del celular. Existen tres tipos de Alzheimer Alzheimer producido por causas tróficas. Bajo nivel de BDNF por inactividad física, y desequilibrios hormonales. Alzheimer producido por resistencia a la insulina cerebral. O diabetes cerebral. Alzheimer producido por toxinas ambientales y alimentación tóxica. Los tres generan inflamación y los tres tipos tienen en común la inflamación. Como se menciona en la entrevista, hay muchas cosas que podemos hacer para controlar el nivel de inflamación en nuestro organismo y evitar que está alcance niveles crónicos. ¿Es muy tarde? No. Ejemplos como los expuestos en el libro Change Your Brain. Change Your Life de Daniel Amen demuestran que un entrenamiento cerebral de 12 semanas puede recuperar la salud cerebral y positivamente afectar el microbioma intestinal en solo tres días. Esta mejoría se mide con un examen cerebral llamado SPECT que mide el flujo sanguíneo. En este examen se ven las interrupciones presentes en el flujo sanguíneo antes y después de la terapia. Este tipo de imágenes son comunes verlas en personas que han consumido drogas, tabaco o alcohol por mucho tiempo para comprobar los efectos negativos de estas substancias. Primera parte de la entrevista No te pierdas la primera parte de esta informativa entrevista. La encuentras en iTunes bajo el episodio TP020: Nutrición, running y salud cerebral. ¿Cómo se relacionan y qué hacer? y aquí te damos un enlace directo a un reproductor. Hemos escuchado de personas en Europa y América Latina que aseguran ha sido uno de nuestros mejores episodios.   Enlaces interesantes: Video: Medicina funcional. Te recuerdo nuevamente algunos de los libros mencionados: Change your brain. Change your life.  La solución de los telomeros, The Good Gut   Juan Carlos Gutiérrez Betancur Administrador de Empresas de la Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana y Magíster en Finanzas del Tecnológico de Monterrey. Trabajó durante 12 años en el sector financiero en el área de Inversiones y Pensiones, en Protección S.A. Desde hace 10 años se desempeña como profesor e investigador en la Escuela de Economía & Finanzas de la Universidad EAFIT. Miembro activo del Grupo de Investigación en Finanzas & Banca (GIFyB) categoría A1 de Conciencias. Coordinador del Ãrea de Finanzas Corporativas en el Departamento de Finanzas. Premio Carlos Lleras Restrepo, 1999 en Evaluación de Proyectos de Inversión. Intereses de Investigación: Longevidad y Finanzas Pensionales Biología Evolutiva en Finanzas Neurociencias de la Decisión Financiera Puedes seguir a Juan Carlos en facebook.       No te pierdas el próximo episodio. Te invitamos a escuchar el episodio completo. Suscribirte gratuitamente para que no te pierdas ningún episodio. Aquí están ambos enlaces para Android y iOS Apple. Sin embargo, si prefieres utilizar los reproductores integrados a la página, ponemos a tu disposición el de iVoxx en la parte superior y otro en la parte inferior. Aquí está el calendario completo de todos los episodios que tenemos al aire hasta el momento.             The post TP024: Microbioma intestinal y salud cerebral. ¿Cómo se relacionan con el running? appeared first on Trotadores.

Justin Sonnenburg, co-authhor of The Good Gut. Topic: Taking control of your weight, your mood, and your long-term health Issues: The relationship between our bodies and the trillions of organsms that live in our gut; the ways those organisms (called “microbiota”) determine whether we’re sick or healthy, fit or obese, sunny or moody; why our […] The post The Trillions of Organisms That Live in Our Gut + The Politics and Culture of Fat appeared first on Mr. Dad.

As Scientific Director at Nourish Balance Thrive, Megan is a research scientist who helps keep the program state of the art. She received her BS in Exercise Biology and MSc in Nutritional Biology at UC Davis where her research focused on the effects of low carbohydrate and ketogenic diets on longevity and healthspan in mice. In her free time Megan enjoys reading, long walks in the sunshine, weight lifting, martial arts, and hiking in the Colorado mountains. You could listen to this interview to learn: How Megan recovered her gut health. The best diet to gain lean mass (for the underweight). About allostatic load. Here’s the outline of this interview with Megan Roberts: [00:01:14] IHH-UCSF Symposium on Functional Medicine and the Paleo Approach. [00:01:30] Presentations: Robb Wolf, Dr Stephan Guyenet, Dr Justin Sonnenburg. [00:02:55] The road to medical school. [00:03:14] Blog post: Why Your Ketogenic Diet Isn’t Working Part One: Underfueling and Overtraining. [00:04:34] Integrating all the information. [00:04:59] Dr Ron Rosedale, Dr Dominic D'Agostino. [00:06:43] Allostatic load aka, "the stress bucket". [00:07:40] Gluten and dairy sensitivities. [00:08:01] Presentation: Dr Tommy Wood at Icelandic Health Symposium. [00:08:39] White blood cell counts and getting sick. [00:10:03] Book: Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers by Dr Robert Sapolsky. [00:12:33] Favouring micronutrients over macronutrients. [00:14:05] Learning to be mindful. [00:14:51] Interview: How to Think Yourself Younger, Healthier, Faster with Dr Ellen Langer. [00:15:52] Presentation: The Way to the Man's Heart Is Through the Stomach, Dr Tommy Wood. [00:16:16] Blog post: How to Prevent Weight Loss (or Gain Muscle) on a Therapeutic Ketogenic Diet. [00:16:52] Sumo wrestlers. [00:17:12] Interview: Keto Summit with Dr Chris Masterjohn. [00:18:22] Interview: How to Achieve High Intensity Health with Mike Mutzel. [00:19:07] Interview: Social Isolation: The Most Important Topic Nobody is Talking About with Dr Bryan Walsh. [00:20:46] Headspace. [00:23:59] Critical thinking and seeing shades of grey. [00:25:05] Timing carb intake. [00:26:34] Adapting to altitude in Colorado. [00:28:01] Will the ketogenic diet extend longevity? [00:28:25] The limitations of rodent studies. [00:29:30] Gender differences for the ketogenic diet. [00:29:59] Blog Post: The IRONMAN Guide to Ketosis. [00:32:50] Ben Greenfield's experience on a ketogenic diet. [00:33:06] Dr Mark Cucuzzella, Zach Bitter. [00:34:56] Interview: How to Use Biomedical Testing for IRONMAN Performance with Bob McRae. [00:35:10] Blog post: How to Use MCT Oil to Fuel an IRONMAN Triathlon, and, How Endurance Training Affects Carbohydrate Tolerance. [00:36:12] PHAT FIBRE v2. [00:37:39] Blog post: Why Your Ketogenic Diet Isn’t Working Part One: Underfueling and Overtraining.

Dr. Justin Sonnenburg Dr. Justin Sonnenburg is an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford and Dr. Erica Sonnenburg is a senior research scientist in the Sonnenburg lab where they research many aspects the interaction between diet with the 100 trillion or so bacteria in the gut (specifically the colon) and how this impacts the health of the host (which in this case is a laboratory research mouse).   In this episode we discuss the pivotal role fiber plays in fueling good bacteria in the gut to produce compounds that regulate the immune system including increasing the number of T regulatory cells, which are specialized types of immune cells that keep the immune system in check and prevent autoimmune responses, and how these compounds also increase other types of blood cells in the body in a process known as hematopoiesis. We also talk about how the lack of fiber in the typical American diet actually starves these good bacteria of their food. This has an effect not only on the immune system and autoimmune diseases but also results in the breakdown of the gut barrier, which leads to widespread inflammation and inflammatory diseases. Lastly, in this podcast, Dr. Erica Sonnenburg talks about how C-sections, have a negative effect on the infant's gut due to the lack of exposure to bacteria present in the mother's vaginal canal, and how the use of formula deprives the infant not only from the good bacteria present in Mom's gut but also from special carbohydrates in breast milk that are good for the infant gut flora known as HMOs or human milk oligosaccharides.   If you're interested in learning more, you can read the full show notes here: https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/the-sonnenburgs Join over 300,000 people and get the latest distilled information straight to your inbox weekly: https://www.foundmyfitness.com/newsletter Become a FoundMyFitness premium member to get access to exclusive episodes, emails, live Q+A's with Rhonda and more: https://www.foundmyfitness.com/crowdsponsor

Show Summary In this episode, Dr. Marc Wagner of BioFlourish answers a few questions from listeners about Functional Medicine and Human Flourishing. He offers info on how to find someone like him in your area, and discusses Leslie’s progress a bit more with him. Show Notes Find a Functional Medicine Doctor Find a Nutritional Therapist Read more from Marc on his website, BioFlourish.com Spark, by JohnRatey (Amazon affiliate link) Note from Leslie: “I’ve started reading Spark and so far it is excellent.” The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long-term Health by Justin Sonnenburg & Erica Sonnenburg (Amazon affiliate link) Show Transcript Download the transcript here. (Thanks, Siobhan!) Support Glimmering Podcast

In this episode of The Microbiome Podcast we talked with Erica and Justin Sonnenburg from Stanford University about the effects of diet and specifically dietary fiber on our microbiota and its impact on health. Erica and Justin recently authored a book called The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long-term Health. To ask any quesitons for future episodes of the podcast, call 518-945-8583 and leave a voicemail with your question. We highly recommend their book and check it out on Amazon!