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What if the secret to alleviating chronic conditions lies in your gut? Join us as we explore this compelling idea with David Bruce Robinson, one of the visionaries behind Supergut Australia. Inspired by his family's struggles with Crohn’s disease and other ailments, David shares the incredible journey that led him to discover the transformative power of the gut microbiome. Hear about how fecal transplants changed the life of a child suffering from Clostridium difficile and ignited David's passion for gut health.
Ever wondered how conditions like IBS, colitis, and Crohn's disease are connected to your mental health? This episode breaks down the diagnostic challenges and the debilitating impact these conditions can have on daily life. We dive into the concept of leaky gut and its association with chronic inflammation, potentially affecting conditions like arthritis. Learn how diet and professional medical advice can play a crucial role in managing these health issues, and discover the vital role of butyrate in maintaining a healthy gut lining.
Embark on a fascinating exploration of the gut-brain axis and its implications for aging, stress response, and neurodivergence. Discover groundbreaking research by Professor John Cryan that reveals how your microbiome influences not just physical health but also bravery and sociability. From the importance of probiotics and prebiotics to the potential of fecal transplants, this episode offers deep insights into how nurturing your gut can enhance your overall well-being. Join us in uncovering the profound connection between your gut and your quality of life.
Get your Super Gut Products here and use code LIFEHEALTH20 for a listener discount on your order!
Speaker 1: Hello, it's Nadine here, and I'm here with this
00:00:03
week's episode of Life, health and the Universe, and today I am
00:00:08
joined by David Bruce Robinson.
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I'm using your middle name because everything.
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I've read has your middle name on it, so I'm going with that.
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Welcome, david.
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Speaker 2: Thank you, nadine, nice to meet you.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, great to meet you too.
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So you're founder and director of Supergut Australia, so we're
00:00:29
going to be talking all things gut health today, which I'm
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really looking forward to.
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I'm just reading off my notes Supergut is a plant-based fiber
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supplement that's been designed to support and repair gut
00:00:44
function.
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You can correct me on any of this.
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You're part of a super passionate team who are all
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dedicated to helping us people out here improve our gut health,
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and that your team comprises of gut health advocates, medical
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experts and experienced food manufacturers, and you're gonna
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help us sort of get to the get to the bottom of gut health.
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Oh dear, that was a terrible pun.
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It's a trendy.
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It's a kind of one of those buzzwords that we've got
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happening out there right now.
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But what does it all mean?
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And you're the man that's gonna help to help us to learn more
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about gut health, so welcome.
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Thank you for joining us.
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Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
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I appreciate the time and look forward to talking to you about
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all things related to the gut and hopefully trying to explain
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some of our ideas and what we're trying to do yeah, great, and
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do you want to give us any any more than that right now?
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Speaker 1: you don't have to, we can just.
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Oh, did I kind of intro you well enough, do you?
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Speaker 2: want to.
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No, that sounds good, cool.
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I think that gives us a good idea as to where we're going.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, great, I'd love to know like obviously you've
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become the front man.
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Speaker 2: Yes.
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Speaker 1: Is that your specific role or do you have a personal?
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Have you had a personal experience or do you have, you
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know, a personal?
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What's your story?
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Why did you?
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How did you get involved in this particular area?
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Are you a naturopath or?
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Speaker 2: No actually I'm not, and so it's really, really
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important for us to establish up front that I'm not a doctor.
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I'm not a medical professional.
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I am I suppose the best way to think about me is a brother and
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son who was worried about his family and who learned something
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a little bit about the gut microbiome.
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I picked it up initially by watching Insight, which is a
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current affairs show on SBS.
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There was an interview with Michael Mosley, who's a high
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profile British doctor who started focusing on gut health.
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He was one who really popularized the 5-2 diet fasting
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diet and has now become very prominent in the gut health
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space.
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He was being interviewed on this TV show and he was talking
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about the gut microbiome, explaining about the bacteria,
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about their function, how to support them, the Mediterranean
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diet, etc.
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And as a guest on the show they interviewed a lady whose child
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had suffered from a really dreadful disease as a very young
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baby, a disease called clostridium difficile infection.
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If you are an adult and you suffer from recurrent
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clostridium difficile infection, one of the last courses of
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treatment that's available to you after you've gone through
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all of the antibiotics is a treatment that sounds kind of
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radical, but it's called faecal transplant.
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Speaker 1: I've heard of it.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's becoming a little bit more well
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known.
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But what they do basically in fecal transplant is they take
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the stool of a healthy donor and then they transplant it through
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a colonoscopy into the large intestine of the patient.
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It's only approved in australia for adults, and even then in
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only fairly rare circumstances.
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But this poor child, who was literally two years old, had
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suffered from Clostridium difficile infection for his
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whole life and he was dying.
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And so it's lobbied Children's Hospital to have this treatment,
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which they were very reluctant to approve because it was still
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fairly novel and especially for pediatric use.
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But eventually they managed to convince the hospital that this
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was really his only chance of survival.
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So they took a stool from his father, they processed it, they
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transplanted it into young Darcy and within I can't remember the
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exact numbers, but they're fairly indicative Within 24
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hours his primary symptoms of clostridium difficile infection
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had subsided.
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Within a few days he had his first solid bowel movement of
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his entire life, and weeks later he had a function, a gut
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function, that resembled a child of his age who was healthy, and
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so it really was a miraculous saviour for this poor child, and
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it really got me thinking about the gut microbiome and faecal
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transplant and how it might help other people suffering from
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chronic diseases.
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I thought about my parents.
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I thought about my brother, who had been diagnosed with Crohn's
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disease, and so I wanted to try to help them somehow.
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It wasn't something I needed for myself, but my dad had been
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medicated for depression for the last 30 years and he had
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hypertension and a list of other issues cardiovascular disease.
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My mother had suffered from arthritis for most of her life.
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She had very fragile bones.
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Plus she had some pretty nasty gut function, explosive and
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unpredictable diarrhea, which is a very difficult thing to live
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with, and I just thought maybe this treatment could help them.
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I wonder if it's available.
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And so I went about trying to find a local gastroenterologist
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in Melbourne who could offer the treatment, and I found one, and
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I went and talked to him and I said this is what my brother's
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got, this is what my dad's got, this is what my mom's got.
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Do you think this treatment can help?
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And he said yes, it might be able to, and there was no
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guarantees.
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So we ended up getting the treatment organized for my
00:06:15
parents and for my brother.
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Very sadly, six months later my dad passed away from a stroke,
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so we were really too late for him.
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But my mom's still alive and she's doing much better.
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Her bowel function is much more reliable, much more predictable
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.
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Her brain function seems to be improving slightly as well.
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And my brother, michael, who actually was subsequently
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diagnosed with sorry, it's not Crohn's disease, it's a
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different gut-related disease he's virtually symptom-free as a
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result of the treatment that he's had.
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It's not just the faecal transplant that's helped him.
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He's been doing faecal transplants, he's been on all
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the steroids and all that sort of stuff, but he's also doing
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probiotics and prebiotics and now he's much, much better works
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and now he's much, much better.
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And so it's really been a journey of trying to find
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solutions for my family and then trying to figure out how to
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maybe make those more widely available for our community.
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Speaker 1: Wow.
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Speaker 2: That's how we got there.
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Speaker 1: You've given us like several topics and little kind
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of like yeah, you're fishing hook.
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Which one will we go for?
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so obviously a fecal transplant can sound like
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a very well, for for most people that would be like bit out
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there and also like just feels or sounds a bit extreme.
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But obviously you've come together with a group of people
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um to help develop this product.
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Um, that's not going to necessarily um do the same well
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does it do the same thing as fecal transplant or no, no, no,
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it certainly doesn't.
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Speaker 2: No, and actually one of the early discussions with
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our gastro was to see if we could make fecal transplant more
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widely available, and we realized pretty quickly that
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that was going to be quite difficult.
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It is still, and will be for a long time, a radical procedure,
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and so one of the other things that the gastro was doing was he
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was using probiotics, which is basically like bacteria
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encapsulated, but he was supporting the probiotics with
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plant fibers prebiotics and so we started talking about this
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prebiotic product and what it was doing for his patients and
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the way he explained it to us and it was reiterated through
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subsequent looking at medical research is that the prebiotics
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actually support the bacteria that live inside us, and we can
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talk about many aspects of this over the conversation, as I look
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forward to doing.
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But we pivoted away from fecal transplant towards prebiotics
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because it was much more accessible.
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It's a much easier product to blend and to build and to market
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, and so that's where we've placed our emphasis to build and
00:09:06
to market, and so that's where we've placed our emphasis.
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Rather than trying to rebuild the microbiome using a donor
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stool, we're trying to rebuild it and support it using
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prebiotics.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, great, amazing, okay.
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Well, let's start right at the beginning, because I could go
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down a whole bunch of different avenues.
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Okay, just reading through my questions.
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So, gut health, what is the role?
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Let's just talk about what is the role of gut health?
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Like, obviously, we know when we feel well, right and if we've
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got, like what you described with your mom, those experiences
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, we know that that's not right.
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Um, but like, when it comes to gut health, what is the role of
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it?
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And, um, yeah, are there any secrets to good gut health?
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Speaker 2: oh yes, that's it's.
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It's a really important question, and the answer is
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absolutely so.
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What medical science has discovered over the last 20,?
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Well, if you take it back to the, I think it's 1200 years BC
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or something.
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Hippocrates, who's considered the forefather of modern
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medicine, wrote.
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All disease is named after him.
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He was the one who created the basic principles of modern
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medicine, and even when he was alive, so long ago, he knew that
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if you had a disease or if you had a health issue, the chances
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are that there was something happening inside your gut.
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Nobody in those days really understood why, and we know a
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lot more about what gut health means now than we did back then,
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for various different reasons that we can talk about.
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But basically, if the human gut is not healthy, then the human
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being is not healthy.
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It really is the foundation of health and well-being for a
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human being, and there's a couple of really important
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reasons for that.
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Number one is that our primary immune function resides within
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the gut, and that's where our immune response emanates from.
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So if our immune function is working properly, then it helps
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the human being to combat viruses and other pathogens and
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to stay healthy.
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But also the integrity of the gut lining is so important as
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well, and the gut is basically a tube.
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As you can imagine, the gastrointestinal tract runs from
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your mouth to all the way down to the back end.
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It's a single tube that runs through your body, and it has to
00:11:34
have cellular integrity Because , basically, if you can imagine
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without being too graphic, imagine what's in your toilet
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today was in your gut yesterday, and what you don't want is you
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want anything that's inside your gut to be passing through into
00:11:50
your circulation.
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It's full of nasty stuff, right?
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And so the integrity of the gut lining is absolutely essential
00:11:57
to your health and wellbeing as well.
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And so if you've got a healthy gut, then you've got good immune
00:12:03
function and your body can operate properly.
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It gets all the nutrients that it needs out of the food, and
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there's ways of supporting gut health, and we can talk about
00:12:15
the prebiotics as we need to, but basically, you've got a
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population of bacteria that live inside your gut.
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Those bacteria perform a number of different functions, most of
00:12:25
which are still unidentified, by the way, but those that are
00:12:30
there are bacteria that are known to have a health benefit
00:12:32
or provide a health benefit to the host, and there are those
00:12:35
bacteria that are known to provide a health deficit.
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Let's say, if you can support the bacteria that provides you
00:12:41
with a health benefit, then your gut, your gut stays healthier
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and and you stay healthier as a result.
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Speaker 1: The result so it's it's about promoting and
00:12:51
maintaining healthy bacteria inside the gut to maintain that
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gut function wow, yeah, okay, so I wrote a few notes then just
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to add to the other notes that I already had.
00:13:04
So let's talk.
00:13:08
Can you talk us through some of the types of gut issues that
00:13:14
people experience and then maybe about some of the causes?
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I know that you've sort of said that.
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Was it Hippocrates?
00:13:27
Yes, yeah, so, like I think you suggested, we don't know all of
00:13:30
the answers, but we know that the gut plays a massive role and
00:13:34
I recall actually, I think it was about 12-ish years ago, that
00:13:40
was kind of when it started to come out about that you know the
00:13:41
importance of the gut, like the gut is the centre of your
00:13:43
universe, kind of when it started to come out about that.
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You know the importance of the gut, like the gut is the center
00:13:47
of your universe, kind of thing.
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Yeah, that's really true, but we don't know all of the ins and
00:13:53
outs of why, as you suggested.
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But we do, we're getting to the root cause of what some of
00:14:04
those things are.
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Can you talk us through some of the some of the things that we
00:14:08
might experience like I've written a whole bunch of things
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down and you've already suggested some things with the
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health of your brother and your parents and what those causes
00:14:16
might be yeah, well, I'll do my very best.
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Speaker 2: So so there are some pretty obvious ones.
00:14:22
So, um, there's things like irritable bowel syndrome and
00:14:27
inflammatory bowel diseases like colitis, which is what my
00:14:30
brother was redyed with, and Crohn's disease, um, and, and
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those are, those are when, um, the the gut becomes inflamed so
00:14:39
it's damaged somehow, it becomes inflamed, um, and there is a
00:14:43
chronic injury to the gut.
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But things like irritable bowel syndrome, where there may not
00:14:49
necessarily be any specific injury to the gut, but there's
00:14:52
disrupted bowel function.
00:14:53
So there's different types of irritable bowel syndrome.
00:14:56
There's one that's irritable bowel syndrome diarrhea which,
00:15:02
of course, as it's described, is when you have considerable
00:15:06
discomfort throughout your bowel , your large intestine.
00:15:09
It's painful, it's bloating, you get cramping and you also
00:15:12
suffer from diarrhea.
00:15:13
That's a little bit like what my mum has or had.
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And then there's also a constipation version of that,
00:15:20
which is the opposite, obviously , when, rather than having
00:15:22
diarrhea, you have constipation.
00:15:24
But it's one of those diseases that is really.
00:15:27
It's really tricky because there really is no specific diagnosis
00:15:32
for it.
00:15:32
You can go to the gastro and they'll say if this is what
00:15:35
you're experiencing.
00:15:36
It's basically they diagnose through a survey.
00:15:39
They say how often are you having a bowel movement, how
00:15:43
painful is your bowel movement?
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How much pain are you experiencing at any given point
00:15:46
in time?
00:15:47
And when you answer a series of questions, these are questions
00:15:51
that the gastro will ask you.
00:15:52
Depending on what your answers are, they get to the bottom of
00:15:57
the list and say well, you've got irritable bowel syndrome.
00:15:59
And then the question, of course is well, what can I do
00:16:02
about it?
00:16:02
And the answer is we're not sure yet.
00:16:06
And that's really one of the big problems with irritable bowel
00:16:08
syndrome.
00:16:08
It's a debilitating condition because, number one, it's
00:16:11
painful, but, number two, it also affects your mental health.
00:16:14
People get very anxious and depressed when they've got
00:16:17
irritable bowel syndrome.
00:16:18
They go hand in hand and it's very difficult to treat, even
00:16:26
with modern medicine.
00:16:27
So those are two examples.
00:16:29
There's also obviously you know , there's colorectal cancer,
00:16:33
which is a huge problem, especially in the developed
00:16:36
world, and that you know that is obviously specific to the bowel
00:16:43
.
00:16:43
And then there's other things like depression is also now
00:16:48
being connected to disruptive bowel function.
00:16:50
And then there's a whole list of inflammatory-based diseases
00:16:53
as well, which are also the chronic diseases that are
00:16:57
unfortunately the biggest leading causes of death for all
00:17:00
of us, are now also being connected to disruptive bowel
00:17:04
function and inflammation, which we can talk about as well if
00:17:07
you'd like to.
00:17:07
Speaker 1: Wow, so there's a long list.
00:17:10
Speaker 2: There is a long list, yeah, a problem that can happen
00:17:12
if you don't have a healthy gut .
00:17:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, you touched on it before, your mum having
00:17:20
arthritis and you also talked about leaky gut.
00:17:23
I'm just going to share a little anecdote from a while ago
00:17:29
when my husband and I had a gym in Sydney and we did a
00:17:33
nutrition program and there was one client who had very bad.
00:17:38
Um, what's the?
00:17:40
There's two different arthritis one's rheumatoid, it wasn't
00:17:43
that one, it the other one I can't remember the name of it.
00:17:47
She anyway, she was only in her thirties.
00:17:49
She had really bad arthritis, but she changed her diet and
00:17:53
therefore her gut health, so she removed a whole bunch of stuff
00:17:57
that wasn't favorable for her gut and her symptoms basically
00:18:01
went away.
00:18:02
Yeah, and her symptoms basically went away.
00:18:06
So can you sort of explain to us that idea of leaky gut, like
00:18:11
what is happening with leaky gut , because you kind of suggested
00:18:13
that there's stuff that's going into our system that shouldn't
00:18:15
be and the problems and that can cause?
00:18:18
How does that happen?
00:18:21
Like what, yeah, what happens with leaky gut?
00:18:25
Speaker 2: So the thing about leaky gut is basically your
00:18:27
large intestine is kind of like a sieve, if you can imagine that
00:18:31
.
00:18:31
Well, I mean, my dad was a lecturer at Melbourne University
00:18:36
for most of his career and he used to teach about anatomy and
00:18:38
biology and what he would teach his medical students is that the
00:18:41
whole purpose of the large intestine is to create a stool.
00:18:44
And so basically, if you can imagine that you eat some food,
00:18:49
it gets broken down and mashed up in your stomach, it turns
00:18:52
into a slurry of sorts.
00:18:54
There's very liquid, and so then, as it's liquid, it passes
00:18:57
through the small intestine and then that liquid then passes
00:19:01
into the large intestine where it's turned into a stool.
00:19:03
Most of the function of a large intestine, as regards to the
00:19:08
food or the liquid that comes in , is to absorb the liquid out of
00:19:12
that slurry and form a stool, um and so, so that you can pass
00:19:17
a stool which is has a sort of a structure to it, um, rather
00:19:21
than passing liquid, which is um , which is very dehydrating,
00:19:24
very dangerous for you.
00:19:25
So the original function of the gut was thought to be as a sort
00:19:29
of a way of absorbing liquid out of the slurry that passes
00:19:34
into it, and this is a very important function.
00:19:36
So so that liquid absorption happens through the lining of
00:19:40
the gut, but the thing about that lining is that you want you
00:19:43
want the the right things to pass through, but you want the
00:19:46
wrong things to stay where they are, and so any of the large
00:19:49
particles that are inside your large intestine, you want them
00:19:52
to stay inside the tube, whereas you want the micro particles
00:19:56
and the liquids to be absorbed through the gut wall into the
00:19:59
circulation.
00:20:00
So, if you can imagine that there's the sieve has a certain
00:20:05
size to it, so it allows certain particles to pass through, but
00:20:09
not others.
00:20:10
In the case of leaky gut, the, the integrity of the lining
00:20:14
starts to deteriorate and larger particles start to pass through
00:20:18
the lining of the gut into circulation.
00:20:21
And this is a really big problem , because what's happening is
00:20:23
that you, as you can imagine, the contents of your large
00:20:26
intestine start to pass into your circulation, and that
00:20:34
causes a couple of different problems, and the number one
00:20:36
being is that it sets off an immune response, and so your
00:20:37
immune system recognizes that it's got foreign particles
00:20:39
inside circulation, and so it triggers a response and it
00:20:43
starts to try to fight those particles.
00:20:45
And so and the problem with this, of course, is that if
00:20:49
there's continuous particulate matter passing into circulation,
00:20:52
then the immune system is constantly firing.
00:20:55
It never turns off, never resolves, is what they call it.
00:20:58
And so this is so leaky gut where the particle, the this,
00:21:04
the integrity of the barrier is being, has been compromised, can
00:21:08
lead to low-grade inflammation, which is then unresolved.
00:21:11
And this is where many, over over decades, many of the
00:21:15
chronic diseases that we're seeing, um, that are, the, the
00:21:18
big inflammatory based diseases, are being caused by this
00:21:21
condition right okay, does that help?
00:21:24
Speaker 1: yeah, definitely, definitely, um, yes, so
00:21:28
basically, stuff that's going into your system that's supposed
00:21:31
to be not supposed to be coming out the other side.
00:21:34
Speaker 2: The tube passes through the gut wall into your
00:21:38
body and then your body responds so you've talked about those,
00:21:41
um inflammatory, um diseases.
00:21:46
Speaker 1: Can you give us some examples of like you said?
00:21:48
Your mom had arthritis yes um, and that was one that, like I
00:21:54
think, even joint pain right can , can uh be experienced with?
00:21:59
Speaker 2: yeah, that's right, yeah yeah, that's right, the
00:22:02
science is still, and I should be, I should be clear that much
00:22:07
of this science is still being figured out.
00:22:08
Yeah, and so, especially in the case of arthritis, um, it's a,
00:22:12
it's considered an autoimmune disease, um, and what that means
00:22:16
is that the body starts to attack itself, and so the actual
00:22:20
arthritis itself can cause the inflammation rather than
00:22:23
necessarily being caused by the inflammation, and so it's a
00:22:26
chicken and egg thing with many of the diseases and um and so.
00:22:31
So it's really, it's really important for us to be really
00:22:34
clear, to say yeah sure these things are still being examined
00:22:37
and still being understood, and so, in the case of arthritis,
00:22:41
it's not.
00:22:41
It's it's quite possible that dietary changes, especially
00:22:45
towards a more prebiotic, gut, healthy diet, is going to reduce
00:22:49
that inflammation and therefore reduce the pain, but it's not,
00:22:53
it's definitely not a cure-all and um, and you would never, one
00:22:57
, would never suggest that that one should change one's diet as
00:23:01
opposed to seeking professional medical help with these
00:23:04
conditions.
00:23:05
Okay, but diet can certainly help in certain circumstances,
00:23:08
and so yeah, yeah, in, in most circumstances yeah, no, it's
00:23:13
true and let's quickly talk about the causes of leaky gut.
00:23:21
Speaker 1: um, is it?
00:23:22
And sorry, sorry if I missed this and you've kind of already
00:23:27
touched on it but is it like because of the types of food
00:23:30
that we're eating?
00:23:31
You know, we hear about people with celiac disease, gluten
00:23:36
intolerances, but also there's, you know, a whole bunch more
00:23:41
information coming out about the negative effects of pesticides
00:23:45
and that sort of thing in our foods.
00:23:47
Are they the causes of leaky gut?
00:23:51
Those kind of things is it like directly linked to what the the
00:23:55
quality of our food?
00:23:57
Speaker 2: it can be.
00:23:58
Yes, um, there's also often a, an infection, which, um, which
00:24:04
happens in the gut, which can cause disruption of the gut
00:24:06
barrier function and an inflammatory response.
00:24:08
Um, but one of the things, one of the things that we're really
00:24:13
interested in at at super gut is this is this metabolite called
00:24:19
butyrate.
00:24:20
So, um, butyrate is a, and I'll and I'll give you a little bit
00:24:24
of background.
00:24:24
I'll be right, we'll talk more about it later, I'm sure, but
00:24:27
butyrate is a, is a molecule, it's a form of energy called a
00:24:30
short chain fatty acid, and this form of energy is the preferred
00:24:34
energy source for the cells that line the gut wall, the gut
00:24:38
cells, the.
00:24:39
This, the gut is an extremely active organ in the sense that
00:24:44
the apparently, from what I understand, the lining of the
00:24:46
gut turns over every seven days or so, so your cells are dying
00:24:51
and being absorbed and then regenerating all the time.
00:24:55
It's an extremely hungry organ 25% of our oxygenated blood goes
00:25:00
to the large intestine, so it's using a huge amount of energy
00:25:03
and it requires a huge amount of nutrients for it to be able to
00:25:07
regenerate itself effectively, and it requires a huge amount of
00:25:09
nutrients for it to be able to regenerate itself effectively.
00:25:10
Um, what?
00:25:10
What some of the research is indicating is that if you don't
00:25:14
have sufficient of the right types of energy, that you're not
00:25:17
consuming the right types of food, then the energy required
00:25:21
for the gut to regenerate itself is is insufficient, and so the
00:25:25
lining of the gut can start to break down and expand.
00:25:27
As a result of that, the cell wall can't regenerate itself
00:25:30
effectively, and if you combine that with things like
00:25:35
consumption of pesticides through diet and other potential
00:25:39
aggravators like an infection, then all of a sudden the gut
00:25:42
lining is under a considerable amount of stress.
00:25:44
And so this is one of the unfortunate byproducts of what
00:26:06
would be a typical diet in a developed nation or developed
00:26:07
world insufficient in the right types of dietary fiber and
00:26:08
focusing on easily consumable things like simple carbohydrates
00:26:10
and fats and starches and those sorts of things.
00:26:10
So yeah, so it's basically a function of maintaining the gut
00:26:12
lining through nutrition, and if you're unable to do that, then
00:26:16
it becomes vulnerable and susceptible to things like leaky
00:26:20
gut.
00:26:20
Speaker 1: Right, that's quite interesting, isn't it?
00:26:23
Because it's like you get the well.
00:26:25
You ideally absorb the nutrients from the quality of
00:26:29
food that you're eating.
00:26:30
But they say that the nutrient value of a lot of even fresh
00:26:33
fruits and vegetables has decreased significantly.
00:26:36
So it might not just be the quality has changed from the
00:26:42
food that we get off the shelf you know the fresh foods that we
00:26:46
get off the shelf because of the use of pesticides and that
00:26:51
stuff but also, yeah, the actual quality of the food is
00:26:57
decreased because yeah because of the quality of soil and that
00:27:00
sort of thing.
00:27:03
So it's like a yeah, double whammy, isn't it?
00:27:07
Speaker 2: It's a perfect storm.
00:27:07
Yeah, yeah, double whammy, isn't it?
00:27:13
It's a perfect storm?
00:27:13
Yeah, yeah, it is, and that's why, um, so many of us,
00:27:14
especially as we enter our 40s and beyond, are starting to
00:27:16
suffer from the side effects of this poor diet yeah you know
00:27:21
there's this.
00:27:21
there's probably a few 40 to 50 year olds that you know that
00:27:24
aren't on some sort of regular medication, whether that's for
00:27:28
blood pressure or for cholesterol, are the sort of the
00:27:30
ones you get when you're young, and then you, if you're like my
00:27:35
parents, unfortunately end up with a list of pharmaceuticals
00:27:37
that you have to take every day, and it's.
00:27:41
It seems to be that one of the primary drivers of these of this
00:27:45
breakdown is poor nutrients and poor gut health and an
00:27:52
inability for us to be able to maintain our gut health
00:27:55
throughout our lifetime.
00:27:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've talked about infection that can cause a
00:28:04
leaky gut, but one of the ways that we treat infection in the
00:28:10
western world is with antibiotics yeah um, what
00:28:15
happens then?
00:28:17
It's like, oh because doesn't it just like basically kill off
00:28:24
everything?
00:28:26
Speaker 2: it can.
00:28:26
Yes, actually ironically, um the case of um clostridium
00:28:31
difficile infection that I was talking about earlier is one of
00:28:33
the main, uh, the main the.
00:28:35
The best place to catch that is the hospital, after you've had
00:28:39
a course of broad spectrum antibiotics, right?
00:28:43
oh, wow it's an antibiotic resistant strain, um, and so
00:28:47
that's.
00:28:47
That's.
00:28:47
One of the leading causes of that infection is taking lots of
00:28:51
antibiotics leading up to it.
00:28:52
Um, of course.
00:28:54
Um, when recommended by a doctor, one should always take
00:28:58
antibiotics if that's, if that's the right treatment for you.
00:29:01
You never want, you never want to second guess that that is the
00:29:04
right thing to do.
00:29:05
The good thing is, and of course , it kills off many, and if not
00:29:10
most, of the bad pathogens that are living inside you.
00:29:13
That's what it's, that's what it's designed to do.
00:29:15
It also does harm your beneficial bacteria, of course,
00:29:18
in inside the microbiome, but you can build it back up and, if
00:29:22
you think, the best way to think about the microbiome is
00:29:25
that it's a hundred trillion of your best friends living inside
00:29:29
your large intestine.
00:29:30
These bacteria can provide you with a profound health benefit
00:29:34
when you treat them well, and the beauty of the microbiome is
00:29:37
it's like a garden, and that is to say that you can fertilize
00:29:42
the beneficial bacteria and when you do, they produce
00:29:46
metabolites and vitamins and neurotransmitters which make you
00:29:49
healthier, and they multiply, so they divide and they be where
00:29:53
one cell became becomes two, and then you know, as you, as
00:29:57
you continue to feed them, you get more of the right types of
00:30:01
bacteria.
00:30:01
So even if you have unfortunately, you have an
00:30:05
antibiotic, you've wiped out a lot of beneficial and
00:30:07
detrimental bacteria at the same time by by supporting the
00:30:11
bacteria, the beneficial bacteria, through your diet,
00:30:14
which is a prebiotic heavy diet, then you can build that
00:30:17
population back up and it can out resource the detrimental
00:30:21
bacteria.
00:30:21
You can be healthier as a result.
00:30:23
So it's not always a bad thing to have antibiotics.
00:30:26
So, for example, as a preparation for faecal
00:30:30
transplant, you will have a broad spectrum antibiotic.
00:30:35
It's a scorched earth approach, and so the idea is to kill off
00:30:39
all the bacteria that live inside your large intestinal
00:30:42
most of them and then replace them with beneficial bacteria
00:30:46
through a faecal transplant.
00:30:47
So if you can't have a fecal transplant, you can still
00:30:51
promote beneficial bacteria through your diet and by doing
00:30:55
so you'll end up with a with a better condition.
00:30:58
You'll end up with a healthier gut right, cool, that sounds
00:31:01
good I should also add that that taking a broad spectrum
00:31:05
probiotic which could be prescribed or is available
00:31:08
through your chemist is also a very good way of rebuilding,
00:31:12
reseeding the gut microbiome as well.
00:31:16
Speaker 1: So we recommend doing all of those things great, I
00:31:21
was gonna ask, okay, yes, I know .
00:31:23
So I want to get back.
00:31:24
I want to get on to the prebiotic.
00:31:27
Probiotic and I and uh, there's a mention of postbiotic as well
00:31:31
what those three things are and how they support our gut health
00:31:34
.
00:31:34
But before we do, I'd love for you to share, like because we
00:31:41
can see pretty much from day to day how our digestion is
00:31:45
depending on how we go to the toilet.
00:31:47
Right, something's upset our stomach.
00:31:49
If we've got a bellyache or whatever what would so like, and
00:31:54
there's certain foods that disagree with people, you know,
00:31:57
I'm thinking peas and corn.
00:31:59
That's always a dead giveaway, isn't it?
00:32:03
Oh yeah, that's what that was, but so that can kind of
00:32:10
fluctuate a bit, or shouldn't it ?
00:32:16
Speaker 2: No, no, it certainly should.
00:32:17
Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely it should.
00:32:19
The microbiome is a very changing organ.
00:32:26
Let's consider it to be its own thing.
00:32:28
Changing organ, let's consider it to be its own thing.
00:32:34
Um, and, and how your bowel functions at any given point in
00:32:35
time is really a response to what you've eaten and other
00:32:37
environmental conditions and other environmental factors.
00:32:40
So, uh, for example, as a dedicated prebiotic supplement
00:32:45
taker myself, I I'm, as you can imagine, quite diligent about
00:32:49
taking my prebiotics, but my bowel function is not always
00:32:51
exactly the same.
00:32:52
I know, when you know if you pick up an infection from one of
00:32:55
your kids, then that's going to disrupt your bowel function and
00:32:58
your body will cope with that.
00:33:00
It will change its function and change its performance to
00:33:04
accommodate what's happening inside it and then it will
00:33:07
readjust and it'll normalize and everything will get back to you
00:33:09
.
00:33:09
That's exactly what it's supposed to do.
00:33:11
That's exactly where it's supposed to be.
00:33:12
If you've got long-term disrupted bowel function, like,
00:33:16
for example, um, if you've got constipation and you're you're
00:33:20
passing stool, you know, less than three times a week, let's
00:33:24
say and that's a long-term condition for you, then that's
00:33:28
indicative of an issue inside your gut, and same with loose
00:33:33
stools as well.
00:33:34
So if you're passing stool more than, let's say, three times a
00:33:38
day, and that's a long-term condition and it's very loose
00:33:42
and watery, then that's indicative of a more systemic
00:33:46
problem inside your gut.
00:33:47
But if your gut function's fairly reliable, you're passing
00:33:51
stools at about the same time every day, whether that's one or
00:33:55
two a day, and that's your typical pattern of behaviour for
00:33:59
your gut function.
00:34:00
Occasionally you might become constipated, occasionally you
00:34:04
might become a bit looser, but if everything sort of returns to
00:34:07
normal, then that's indicative of a good, healthy bowel
00:34:10
function.
00:34:11
Having said that, though, it doesn't mean that everything's
00:34:14
perfect, and so a lot of people that we talk to who have what
00:34:20
they classify as fairly healthy bowel function and I would agree
00:34:23
based on the descriptions are still potentially suffering from
00:34:27
inflammation at a very low grade, and if that inflammation
00:34:31
is untreated, it's really sinister.
00:34:34
And so there's lots of problems that happen down the track if
00:34:38
you've got constant, recurrent low-grade inflammation.
00:34:40
Chronic low-grade inflammation is what we call it, and so it's
00:34:44
really important to keep an eye on not just bowel function but
00:34:48
other functions of the human body as well which can be
00:34:51
indicative of low-grade inflammation, and I'm sure
00:34:55
you're curious about what those are so my mind yeah um, so
00:35:02
disrupted sleep, um, uh, disrupt , um altered brain function.
00:35:07
So if you, if you're starting to feel foggy, um in your brain,
00:35:11
your brain's not working quite as well as it used to.
00:35:13
You're not quite sure why.
00:35:14
Sleep and brain function are very closely um, and sleep is
00:35:17
incredibly important, um, but also things like, um persistent
00:35:22
weight gain or inability to lose weight, um, it's not that it's
00:35:28
really important to recognize that dietary fiber can be used
00:35:33
as considered an appetite suppressant, but it's not
00:35:36
necessarily something that's going to help you lose weight,
00:35:39
and that, if you're, if you're, looking to lose weight and
00:35:41
you're finding it difficult to do so, that may be indicative of
00:35:46
disrupted bowel function, and getting your gut right will help
00:35:50
that process.
00:35:51
It will not.
00:35:52
It will not make you lose weight, but it'll mean that the
00:35:55
things that you're doing to try and lose weight will be more
00:35:57
effective, and so this is really important, especially for,
00:36:02
again, we you know we're talking late 30s, 40s and beyond it's
00:36:05
very difficult for some of us to lose weight.
00:36:08
We've gained weight consistently over the last 10 or 15 years as
00:36:11
we've aged, and then we say, right, I'm going to start
00:36:14
exercising.
00:36:15
You've owned a gym.
00:36:16
You would have seen countless of your customers come in, your
00:36:20
patrons come in.
00:36:20
They're on a new health kick.
00:36:22
They want to lose some weight.
00:36:23
They jump on the treadmill, they work very hard and very
00:36:26
consistently with their exercise and with their diet and nothing
00:36:29
happens, and that's indicative of disruptive bowel function.
00:36:33
Get your gut right and the things that you're doing to lose
00:36:36
weight will start to work better.
00:36:37
Um so things also, like you know, aches and pains, um,
00:36:43
especially in the joints.
00:36:46
It doesn't necessarily mean you've got arthritis, but it
00:36:48
just means that your body's not healing itself as well as it
00:36:50
used to yeah and this is really one of the most important
00:36:53
factors of uh and important components of low-grade
00:36:57
information is the idea that your body needs to be
00:36:59
consistently can continuously healing itself.
00:37:01
Um, and and making sure that your gut's functioning properly
00:37:06
ensures that your body's got the best chance of healing itself
00:37:09
in the most natural way.
00:37:10
And if your body can't heal itself, then eventually, like
00:37:14
any machine, it will start to break down.
00:37:16
And so what else is there?
00:37:19
Those are really the big ones in terms of inflammation.
00:37:23
It's really something that you feel, and I suppose one way to
00:37:26
think about it would be an exercise that one might take
00:37:30
would be to grab some photos from 20 years ago and have a
00:37:33
look at yourself and try to remember how you felt, remember
00:37:37
how much energy you had, remember how you thought about
00:37:42
the world, remember how your brain was working 20 years ago,
00:37:45
and then recognize that the difference between how you were
00:37:49
and how you felt 20 years ago and how you are and how you feel
00:37:52
today is a function purely of how you've treated your body,
00:37:57
and that treatment comes from diet, it comes from sleep, it
00:37:59
comes from exercise, it comes from hydration, and it's the
00:38:03
things that we do every day that lead to the change between who
00:38:07
we were 20 years ago and who we are today, and it's really I
00:38:10
think that's a really interesting way of thinking
00:38:12
about what age is.
00:38:13
Everyone has always just assumed that that's what aging is, but
00:38:17
if you've had a chance to travel , especially to indigenous
00:38:20
cultures, um, and you know, especially in Southeast Asia,
00:38:25
you look at old people and they look virtually no different to
00:38:29
the young.
00:38:29
Yeah, you're right, they don't look different.
00:38:31
They've got the same size bodies, they've got the same
00:38:33
mental capacities, they've got the same level of energy.
00:38:36
They're living in a much more natural way.
00:38:39
They've got a much more functional diet.
00:38:41
They're living in much more community types of settings.
00:38:45
You go to the Mediterranean.
00:38:46
You look at the old people.
00:38:47
They're incredibly active.
00:38:49
They're out gardening, they're walking, they're socializing,
00:38:52
but they're eating well, they're sleeping well and there's no
00:38:55
reason why the human beings of the West can't age the way that
00:39:00
the human beings of the East do.
00:39:02
Let's say, for example, it's just because of how we, it's the
00:39:06
choices we make every day, it's how we treat ourselves that
00:39:09
make the biggest difference in terms of how we age.
00:39:11
And this is what now medical science is figuring out why
00:39:15
these things happen.
00:39:16
Science focuses on function.
00:39:18
It wants to understand the why, not just the what, not just the
00:39:22
what's happening, but the why it's happening.
00:39:27
But you can see what's happening and now we're starting
00:39:29
to understand why, and we can start every one of us can start
00:39:30
to make choices every day that are going to lead to a slower
00:39:34
aging process and then a reversal of many of the symptoms
00:39:38
of aging, and that's why this is such an exciting field and
00:39:43
why we feel it's so important to talk about it?
00:39:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, and we're obviously going to talk
00:39:50
more about the product that you've developed Because I think
00:39:57
for many of us now that are becoming more conscious of our
00:40:02
health and the foods that we eat and you know where our food
00:40:06
comes from, and that sort of thing I'm conscious of my gut
00:40:10
health, even though I don't seemingly have any gut issues,
00:40:16
because I'm aware that it's a really important aspect of the
00:40:19
whole yeah um, and I yeah.
00:40:22
So I think that, um, yeah, we're making choices around that and,
00:40:27
and that that all of those choices can help to, um, keep us
00:40:32
like we were 20 years ago.
00:40:34
If only you I was when you were talking about that.
00:40:39
I was was like, oh yeah, I didn't have any kids.
00:40:41
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know.
00:40:44
No, no, I don't know, look, I get it.
00:40:47
Look, you know, life gets difficult.
00:40:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, we call.
00:40:51
What do we say?
00:40:53
It's like health span versus lifespan right, yeah.
00:40:59
It's like how healthy you can stay for how long compared to
00:41:02
just how long you live.
00:41:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like how healthy you can stay for how
00:41:04
long, compared to just how long you live?
00:41:04
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
00:41:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and it's obvious.
00:41:06
It's becoming obvious that the foundation for healthy aging is
00:41:12
how we treat ourselves in middle age.
00:41:14
So middle age is really you know to anyone that's listening
00:41:18
and who's in middle age, who's curious about this the choices
00:41:22
that you start to make now and it's actually actually it's
00:41:24
really important to realize it's the things that you do every
00:41:27
day that make the biggest difference.
00:41:28
So if the snacks that you eat every day, that you probably
00:41:32
maybe shouldn't be, while you're waiting for your soup to warm
00:41:36
up on the stove, or whatever it might be, or it's the, you know,
00:41:40
it's the less half an hour you go to bed half an hour later.
00:41:45
All of these little things make a huge difference over the long
00:41:48
term.
00:41:48
If you think about it, it's like investing in your health,
00:41:50
right?
00:41:50
So you make little, incremental changes to your lifestyle every
00:41:53
day and they start to make a huge difference as we get older.
00:41:56
And if you look at an ageing population, if you look at 60
00:42:01
and 70 and 80-year-olds today, they really are many of them,
00:42:04
most of them, are really struggling and they're really
00:42:07
struggling with chronic diseases that were classified as
00:42:11
environmental, which basically means that a chronic disease is
00:42:13
avoidable.
00:42:13
And it's about the choices that we make every day which make
00:42:18
that biggest difference.
00:42:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, amen, amen.
00:42:22
Biggest difference yeah, yeah, amen, amen.
00:42:30
Um, I was going to ask you one more thing about the?
00:42:31
Um, the gut brain axis, because you kind of, you know, covered
00:42:33
off on that when you were saying about how we can feel mentally
00:42:36
foggy and not sleep as well, and that sort of thing and I know
00:42:39
you've um well, from from what you've said about you know, with
00:42:44
us people slap bang in the middle of that middle-aged
00:42:50
bracket.
00:42:52
That's probably who this product is targeted at.
00:42:56
However, I just want to ask about I'm sure you'll know
00:43:01
behavioral stuff with kids and the gut.
00:43:05
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, look, it's a really exciting emerging
00:43:09
field and I think it's one of those topics which I think is
00:43:17
really important but also really sensitive.
00:43:19
So, um, neurodivergence is, is becoming a recognized
00:43:27
classification, um, for, and it's becoming, and it may have,
00:43:33
it may be something that's always been there.
00:43:35
Um was just unclassified before , and I imagine that if we think
00:43:40
back onto our own childhoods, there's all we can all remember
00:43:42
kids who were a little bit different.
00:43:43
Um, and and that if we think back onto our own childhoods, we
00:43:43
can all remember kids who were a little bit different.
00:43:44
And as I think back on my own personal experience, I would
00:43:49
never suggest that there's anything wrong with any of those
00:43:52
differences, and I think it's really important to recognize
00:43:54
that is that neurodivergence, I think, is providing us with an
00:44:01
enriched community and a different way of thinking about
00:44:05
what our priorities are and a different way of thinking about
00:44:08
our own lives, and so there is a .
00:44:11
So that's a really important thing to think about to start
00:44:14
with.
00:44:14
But number one.
00:44:15
But number two is that there's also a number of people with
00:44:19
neurodivergence who are really struggling and that they're
00:44:22
really suffering with their condition, and so if there is a
00:44:27
way of helping neurodivergent kids, especially, and adults,
00:44:32
young adults, to live high quality lives for their own
00:44:36
benefit, because they're struggling, then I think that
00:44:39
that's worth exploring and worth looking into, and that there's
00:44:42
very promising work being done within the field of the
00:44:46
microbiome, probiotic bacteria and gut disruption and gut
00:44:52
function, which is indicating that it's a really promising
00:44:55
area for neurodivergence, especially for those that are
00:44:59
suffering from I don't know how you classify it painful let's
00:45:05
say painful neurodivergence, and there's lots of scientists
00:45:12
around the world who are looking into this topic to try to
00:45:15
figure out if there's ways of easing some of that burden for
00:45:17
the individuals and for their families, and I think it's
00:45:21
really important work and I'm very excited about the
00:45:25
possibilities for the future.
00:45:26
What I expect is that treatments for those that want
00:45:33
them and for those that are suitable will be a combination
00:45:35
of therapies which include potentially faecal transplant,
00:45:38
probiotics and prebiotics.
00:45:39
It's going to be one of those things like depression where
00:45:43
it's a sensitive topic and there's really the mechanisms of
00:45:48
certain types of depression and their relationship with the gut
00:45:53
are becoming clearer and there is an accepted body of research
00:46:01
which indicates that some people have certain types of
00:46:04
depression, have disrupted bowel function and they've got a
00:46:09
certain profile of microbiome, and this was one of the reasons
00:46:13
that I was so keen to get my dad to try, because he'd been
00:46:16
medicated for depression for 30 years, and I was really happy
00:46:22
even though it's a little bit of a moot point now I was really
00:46:24
happy that he started to feel much better after his treatment
00:46:27
and he realized what what the treatment had done for him.
00:46:30
And, of course, you know we were too late for dad and he was.
00:46:33
He had cardiovascular disease and he had a heart attack when
00:46:35
he was younger than me, and you know and you know he was sick.
00:46:41
He was a very sick man and he was treated with the highest
00:46:45
duty of care and with the best possible knowledge of
00:46:49
pharmaceuticals and medical and psychiatric treatment that was
00:46:53
possible.
00:46:53
He got everything that he needed, and you know the family
00:46:57
is incredibly grateful for all of the treatments that he had.
00:46:59
But he stayed sick, though, and that was the thing was.
00:47:03
One of the things that really drove us to start this business
00:47:05
was to say look, if there's a way that sick people can get
00:47:08
healthier they may not ever be completely healthy, but they
00:47:13
could be healthier through these types of treatments then let's
00:47:15
explore it and let's see what can happen, but in terms of
00:47:18
neurodivergence, it's extremely promising.
00:47:20
There's lots of really interesting work being done
00:47:23
because it's a big area, and so the future is very bright for
00:47:30
this particular field, I think, as it is for many of these
00:47:34
chronic diseases which we're dealing with right now.
00:47:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, actually, when you talked about faecal
00:47:41
transplant, that was something I read about it and it was to do
00:47:47
with children's behavioural stuff.
00:47:49
But I think I'm curious.
00:47:53
I've got a nine-year-old and he's forever had unstable gut.
00:47:56
I would say like unstable gut, I would say like um, and he can.
00:48:06
He.
00:48:08
He's not um, well, he hasn't been um considered for like
00:48:15
neurodivergence or anything like that, but like just his
00:48:19
behavior and his gut, like I definitely see a correlation.
00:48:23
He's not naughty but he can be a little, a bit erratic and I
00:48:29
definitely think that there could be a link.
00:48:31
And especially if we look at, you know, the quality of food
00:48:38
that a lot of our kids are getting and the environment, as
00:48:39
you said, is a massive contributing factor for gut
00:48:42
health, a massive contributing factor for gut health.
00:48:46
And we see, you know more behavioural issues, even if
00:48:47
they're not kind of classified in any way in the classroom,
00:48:52
then it's kind of like it makes sense that there's something
00:48:56
going on.
00:48:57
Speaker 2: Oh, there, definitely is.
00:48:58
There definitely is, if you think about it.
00:48:59
So they say the gut is, they call it the second brain.
00:49:04
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:49:07
Speaker 2: But I would argue that it's actually the first
00:49:08
brain, and I'll explain my thinking on that.
00:49:12
So the lining of the gut wall, it's got as many.
00:49:15
There's as many neurons in the enteric nervous system, which is
00:49:18
the gut and the vagus nerve, which connects to the brain and
00:49:22
other organs.
00:49:22
There's as many neurons, if not more, in that system than there
00:49:26
is in your spinal cord.
00:49:27
So, if you can try and get your head around that now, there's
00:49:31
more neurons in your brain, but the second most neuron-dense
00:49:36
system in the body is not the spinal cord, it's the enteric
00:49:40
nervous system.
00:49:41
And so what we're seeing, what science is revealing, is that
00:49:46
when gut bacteria consume bioactive compounds like
00:49:49
prebiotics, they produce metabolites like short-chain
00:49:52
fatty acids, like butyrate.
00:49:54
They also produce certain types of vitamins that are unable to
00:49:57
be produced in any other way.
00:49:58
But they also produce things called neurotransmitters other
00:50:03
way, but they also produce things called neurotransmitters.
00:50:05
Neurotransmitters are like signaling molecules that come
00:50:06
from this fermentation process and then they pass into the
00:50:09
lining of the gut, into the enteric nervous system, and they
00:50:12
send signals up to the brain, and so, if you can imagine so,
00:50:16
there's a really simple way to get your head around this
00:50:19
concept.
00:50:20
Okay, so you're walking into your favorite local deli and
00:50:24
there's two bain maries there's the salad bain marie and there's
00:50:28
the fast food bain marie, which has got the schnitzel burger in
00:50:30
it.
00:50:30
Okay, um, and so you walk in the door and you've got the best
00:50:35
intentions.
00:50:36
You're like I'm going to have a salad today, I'm going to be
00:50:37
really healthy, I'm going to make sure that I eat all my
00:50:40
nutrients.
00:50:40
And then you walk towards the salad bay, Marie, and you catch
00:50:44
a whiff of the schnitzel burger and you just go on autopilot
00:50:49
over this way.
00:50:49
And so the point is that the bacteria that live within us are
00:50:55
sending us signals to our brain and they're saying, when you
00:50:59
ask yourself oh, I wonder what I feel like eating today, you're
00:51:02
asking the bacteria and the bacteria are telling you what
00:51:04
they would like you to eat.
00:51:05
Speaker 1: Schnitzel Guiding us towards the schnitzel.
00:51:09
Speaker 2: I know it sounds a little bit science fiction, but
00:51:12
this is what seems to be happening, and the bacteria
00:51:15
actually have a profound influence over many of our
00:51:18
functions, many of our choices.
00:51:20
And there's a really fantastic researcher, researcher, he's uh,
00:51:24
his name's john crime, he's an irishman, and and he he runs a
00:51:28
lab at university college, cork, and one of one of the things
00:51:31
that he discovered is that, if you can imagine that, there's a
00:51:35
connection between how, uh, between a stress response and
00:51:39
gut function.
00:51:40
So when we get really stressed, then we tend to have disrupted
00:51:44
bowel function.
00:51:45
So we we get, we get, you know, butterflies in the stomach, and
00:51:49
it tends to affect everything that happened down here.
00:51:52
And so he and his colleagues wanted to try to figure out what
00:51:55
was causing the disruption and the perturbation of the butt of
00:51:59
the gut function during a stressful episode.
00:52:02
And so what they figured out was that, what they assumed, the
00:52:06
hypothesis was that when you experience stress, then through
00:52:12
the vagus nerve, the brain signals to the gut that it's
00:52:14
experiencing some stress and that signal then disrupts bowel
00:52:19
function.
00:52:19
And that was their working hypothesis.
00:52:22
But what they discovered was, in fact, quite the opposite.
00:52:25
What they realised was that, as you can imagine, some people
00:52:30
are really cool under pressure.
00:52:31
They don't experience stress the same way other people do it
00:52:35
doesn't affect them Whereas others are natural stress heads
00:52:38
and they find everything potentially disruptive and quite
00:52:41
stressful.
00:52:42
What they've discovered, what this team discovered, was that
00:52:46
there's something happening in the microbiome which is
00:52:50
influencing the way you respond to stress, and the way they
00:52:53
discovered this was by taking bacteria and putting it into
00:52:57
sterile mice.
00:52:58
So they grow these mice in the lab and they have no gut
00:53:01
bacteria at all and they behave in a certain way in the lab, and
00:53:06
they have no gut bacteria at all and they behave in a certain
00:53:07
way.
00:53:08
And what they found was that they could take the bacteria, a
00:53:09
stool transplant from different types of people, and the same
00:53:12
way that that person responded to stress would be the way that
00:53:15
the mouse responded to stress, and this was groundbreaking
00:53:19
discovery.
00:53:20
That happened 15 years ago or so.
00:53:22
Professor crying's built a whole lab on on this work and
00:53:26
and much other work that he's doing, um, and so what they're
00:53:30
trying to do is they're trying to identify which species of
00:53:32
bacteria influence this type of stress response.
00:53:35
But the thing that's so profound in my mind is is the idea that
00:53:41
the composition of your microbiome influences how you
00:53:45
react in certain circumstances, and what they've gone on to
00:53:48
discover is that also, it impacts your stress response, it
00:53:53
impacts your bravery, it impacts your sociability, and so
00:53:59
all of these things are starting to be revealed about
00:54:02
the bacteria that live inside us , and it really gives us a
00:54:05
really interesting way to think about who we are and why we are
00:54:10
the way we are, because a part of that, a part of who you are,
00:54:15
is what's living inside you and how.
00:54:19
What's living inside you is influencing the choices that you
00:54:22
make, but also, most importantly, the way that you
00:54:24
feel.
00:54:24
You is influencing the choices that you make, but also, most
00:54:28
importantly, the way that you feel, and I think this is
00:54:33
incredibly exciting, because the beauty of the gut microbiome is
00:54:35
that you can change it.
00:54:35
You can influence and you can promote certain types of
00:54:36
bacteria living inside you, and you can out-resource bacteria
00:54:40
that you don't want, and so this is why diet is so important.
00:54:43
This is why life is so important, because you can
00:54:45
profoundly change the way that you don't want, and so this is
00:54:46
why diet is so important.
00:54:46
This is why life is so important, because it can you
00:54:47
can profoundly change the way that you think and the way that
00:54:51
you feel, by, over time, changing the way that your body
00:54:56
works through this microbiome, this amazing system that lives
00:55:01
inside you.
00:55:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes complete sense.
00:55:04
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:55:04
So going back to your child, um , do you find that?
00:55:07
Is it sorry?
00:55:08
Is it a male or female?
00:55:09
Speaker 1: non-binary uh male male.
00:55:12
Speaker 2: Okay so louis.
00:55:13
Okay so louis.
00:55:14
Do you find that louis has certain um fixations on certain
00:55:18
different types of food?
00:55:19
Are the things that he absolutely won't eat, or is he
00:55:21
happy to eat everything?
00:55:22
Speaker 1: he'll eat everything pretty much.
00:55:23
Well, that's great okay, so that.
00:55:25
Speaker 2: so that's a really important thing.
00:55:27
So the more obviously the more fruits and vegetables, nuts,
00:55:30
legumes you can get into him, the better.
00:55:32
Same goes for everybody, by the way, but you might just find
00:55:37
that, you know, if you see a connection between his gut
00:55:42
function and his behaviour, it doesn't sound like it's really
00:55:45
much to worry about.
00:55:46
I mean, kids are just going to be themselves, right, and you
00:55:49
know, as long as he's happy and, you know, probably never
00:55:53
happier than when he's being disruptive if he's anything like
00:55:55
my kids, then you know you've just got to keep feeding him
00:56:00
good stuff and let kids be kids.
00:56:03
Yeah, yeah, and maybe give him some of your gut supplements.
00:56:10
Speaker 1: I mean it's let's talk about that.
00:56:13
We're gonna we're heading towards the end of our hour, so,
00:56:16
um, conscious of our time, but obviously we want to know about
00:56:21
all about the um supplement that you've got and that you've
00:56:25
developed.
00:56:25
And also we were going to touch on the pre-, pro and
00:56:31
postbiotics.
00:56:32
You've kind of touched on them a little bit, yeah, but I'm
00:56:35
assuming that your wonderful product has these things in it.
00:56:42
Speaker 2: It does Okay in it.
00:56:51
It does okay um.
00:56:51
So the the probiotic which we know.
00:56:52
Most people have heard of a pro .
00:56:53
Many people have heard of a probiotic common term now.
00:56:55
So probiotic foods are foods that contain live bacteria.
00:56:58
So the most, the one that we've all had in our fridge since the
00:57:00
time we were kids is yogurt which has got lactobacillus as
00:57:03
the life compound within it.
00:57:04
But also it turns out that cheese is a fermented product
00:57:10
that has live bacteria in it as well.
00:57:12
It's probiotic.
00:57:12
Things like supplements, like Yakult, which is a little shaky
00:57:16
give it a shake, it's like a supercharged yogurt.
00:57:19
Many cultural foods from the Middle East and from Asia have
00:57:25
probiotics in them.
00:57:26
So things like sauerkraut, kefir, which is a fermented milk
00:57:34
product, are all probiotic.
00:57:36
And what else is there?
00:57:40
Kombucha is a popular probiotic drink.
00:57:42
So these foods all contain probiotic bacteria.
00:57:46
What lives inside your microbiome is a combination of
00:57:49
mainly bacteria.
00:57:51
They are classified as probiotic bacteria.
00:57:54
So that's a live organism is probiotic.
00:57:56
A prebiotic is the thing that feeds the bacteria.
00:58:01
So a prebiotic.
00:58:03
If you were to take fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, legumes
00:58:06
, starches, there is certain most of that food is digested
00:58:13
through your gastrointestinal tract before it gets to your
00:58:16
large intestine.
00:58:17
But there is a microscopic component of all of those foods
00:58:20
which is undigestible, and that is the prebiotic fibre and
00:58:26
resistant starch, and these things are complex carbohydrates
00:58:28
and what's called resistant starch.
00:58:31
So complex carbohydrates and resistant starch are the part of
00:58:34
these foods that don't get digested by us.
00:58:37
It's the leftovers, okay, and the leftovers are then arrive in
00:58:43
your large intestine and they are met with a huge population
00:58:48
of bacteria that are just sitting there waiting for them
00:58:50
to arrive.
00:58:50
And when these fibres and these starches arrive, the bacteria
00:58:54
start to break them down.
00:58:55
Okay, the breaking down of the.
00:58:58
They ferment them.
00:59:00
The bacteria ferment the starches and they ferment the
00:59:03
carbohydrates, and they're doing that to nourish themselves,
00:59:06
that's, they're just looking after themselves.
00:59:08
That is their resource and they want to survive.
00:59:11
You need to feed them.
00:59:13
Now what happens is as a byproduct of this fermentation
00:59:16
process, there's three different compounds that are created.
00:59:19
Well, there's more, but the ones that the main ones that
00:59:22
we're interested in are these little molecules of energy
00:59:24
called short-chain fatty acids.
00:59:26
I was talking about butyrate earlier.
00:59:28
That's a really important one.
00:59:29
That's a big one that's produced through this
00:59:31
fermentation process.
00:59:32
There's also one called propionate.
00:59:34
Those are the two big ones, and there's a number of other
00:59:37
smaller acetate and a few others as well that come through this
00:59:40
fermentation process.
00:59:46
That's like the pharmaceutical component of the gut microbiome
00:59:48
is the short chain fatty acids.
00:59:48
They provide the body with essential nutrients that it
00:59:52
can't get any other way.
00:59:53
Okay, so you can't get butyrate any other way than through this
00:59:57
fermentation process.
00:59:58
There are pharmaceutical companies that are trying to
01:00:01
synthesize butyrate.
01:00:02
It's not working because you can't take it as a tablet, you
01:00:05
can't take it as a liquid.
01:00:06
You have to ferment your own butyrate, and you do it by
01:00:09
eating plant fiber.
01:00:10
And the butyrate and the neurotransmitters and the
01:00:14
vitamins that are produced as a result of this fermentation
01:00:16
process are the postbiotics, and so it's the postbiotics which
01:00:21
provide the human being with the benefit okay and the prebiotics
01:00:25
ferment are fermented by the probiotics.
01:00:28
Does that make sense?
01:00:30
Speaker 1: it's really yes, it makes absolute sense, it makes
01:00:32
perfect sense, right?
01:00:34
Speaker 2: so, if you can imagine, okay, think about it
01:00:36
like on a global scale.
01:00:37
Okay, so when we our defec, our stool can be used as fertilizer
01:00:42
, right?
01:00:42
Yeah, well, the stool of animals is a form of fertilizer.
01:00:46
Yeah, let's just say, okay, so the food that we eat, let's
01:00:50
let's say that's our nourishment .
01:00:52
Our body processes that food, and the byproduct of that
01:00:55
processing is a stool.
01:00:56
That stool then fertilizes plants and and and fertilizes
01:01:02
the garden, or, or you know, it goes into nature and fertilizes
01:01:05
it.
01:01:06
It's exactly the same idea.
01:01:07
It's like the prebiotics are fermented by the bacteria.
01:01:11
In doing so, they provide the bacteria with nourishment which
01:01:13
allows it to multiply and thrive , and the byproduct of that
01:01:17
process is then used by the body to create wellness, and so it's
01:01:23
really.
01:01:24
It's elegantly and beautifully simple, okay, so if you've got
01:01:27
the right types of bacteria and you feed them the right types of
01:01:31
fiber and this is where our product comes in, of course you
01:01:34
you feed the right bacteria, the right fiber, they produce the
01:01:37
post biotics that our body needs to be healthy yeah that's this
01:01:43
is our business.
01:01:44
This is our product.
01:01:44
Yeah, and that's this is our business.
01:01:47
This is our product narrative.
01:01:48
This is the whole idea behind our product.
01:01:49
Our product is pure fiber.
01:01:49
It's a combination of different fibers that we've selected
01:01:52
based on medical research which shows that they can provide a
01:01:56
health benefit.
01:01:56
They promote certain types of bacteria, and so we picked all
01:02:00
of those fibers that are known to be the most beneficial for
01:02:03
the human body and we put them into two products.
01:02:05
One product promotes and maintains healthy bowel function
01:02:09
.
01:02:09
That's the everyday fiber and which we encourage people to
01:02:13
take every day to to create healthy, functional bowel
01:02:16
function.
01:02:16
And then there's the other product, which is our butyrate
01:02:19
producer.
01:02:20
We've got, we've selected our fibers because they are known to
01:02:23
promote butyrate production in the gut, and so we can all
01:02:30
produce butyrate at various different levels, depending on
01:02:32
how many of the butyrate-producing bacteria we
01:02:34
have.
01:02:34
So you want more.
01:02:36
You always want more butyrate-producing bacteria,
01:02:38
because the side benefit of butyrate is profound it's
01:02:41
anti-inflammatory, it helps the gut regenerate itself when it
01:02:44
passes into circulation.
01:02:46
It reduces inflammation in the brain, in the joints, in
01:02:48
arteries.
01:02:49
It's really this incredible metabolite and we need more of
01:02:53
it.
01:02:53
We don't get enough.
01:02:54
And our hypothesis let's say it's a working hypothesis is
01:02:58
that one of the main reasons so many people are suffering from
01:03:01
degenerative inflammatory diseases is because we just
01:03:04
don't produce enough butyrate, and that.
01:03:06
I know that's overly simplistic and that's still.
01:03:08
It's just an idea, but it's an idea that's supported by lots of
01:03:12
different types of research.
01:03:13
None that are specifically saying um, butyrate is the, is
01:03:18
the golden metabolite, but that's what we believe.
01:03:20
Based on everything that we've seen.
01:03:21
Looking at all the wealth of knowledge that that's out there
01:03:24
about butyrate, we think that it's the, that it's the golden
01:03:27
child of postbiotics, and the more butyrate you have, the
01:03:30
healthier you can be.
01:03:31
And the beauty of butyrate is that you can make it yourself in
01:03:35
your gut by taking a combination of the right types
01:03:39
of fibres and starches, and that's what's in our SuperGut
01:03:42
Repair product.
01:03:43
Speaker 1: Amazing.
01:03:43
Speaker 2: So everyday fibre normalises bowel function.
01:03:46
Super Gut Repair helps to promote butyrate production in
01:03:48
your gut.
01:03:49
Speaker 1: That's what they do.
01:03:50
They sound amazing.
01:03:51
Speaker 2: Our prebiotics to promote postbiotics in your gut.
01:03:55
They are, they're amazing.
01:03:56
They are amazing, oh, and they're unique.
01:03:58
Yeah, totally.
01:03:59
There's a lot of products on the market that are quite like
01:04:04
them.
01:04:04
The products on the market that are quite like them?
01:04:07
Um, we've, we.
01:04:07
The products are manufactured and blended by a food grade
01:04:09
local blender who's part of our business um resource the fibers
01:04:11
from various different parts of the world, bring them in, blend
01:04:14
them together and and put them into our, into our products.
01:04:17
Um, they're, they don't taste bad.
01:04:21
A lot of these, you know nutritional compounds, these,
01:04:23
you know these um functional foods and and um complementary
01:04:29
medical products, really taste quite bad.
01:04:31
They've got all sorts of funky stuff in them.
01:04:32
Ours are just, it's just fiber, and so you can sprinkle it on
01:04:36
your cereal, you can mix it in with your porridge, you can put
01:04:38
it in your bolognese sauce, you can bake it into cookies.
01:04:40
You can do all sorts of stuff with it.
01:04:42
I just shake it in cold water and drink it every day that's
01:04:45
how I do it, but by doing so and we would never suggest that
01:04:49
this is a replacement for a healthy diet it augments, it's
01:04:52
complementary right yeah to a healthy diet yeah you should be
01:04:55
getting up to 80 grams of fiber a day.
01:04:58
Up to 20 to 30 of that of that grams of fiber should be soluble
01:05:02
fiber rather than insoluble fiber.
01:05:04
It's important distinction soluble fiber is is still
01:05:07
bulking.
01:05:07
It makes sure everything moves through your body.
01:05:09
Insoluble fiber is the prebiotic that feeds the
01:05:13
bacteria.
01:05:13
So so we recommend so it is recommended that you have up to
01:05:17
80 grams of fiber a day.
01:05:18
Typically, any australian on any given day would get about 20
01:05:21
.
01:05:22
wow and so we don't eat nearly enough fibre.
01:05:25
30% of that fibre should be soluble fibre and you can get a
01:05:30
lot of that.
01:05:31
You can achieve a lot of that by just taking our supplements,
01:05:34
and we try to make it as easy as possible for you to support
01:05:37
your microbiome, support the rest of your body with a healthy
01:05:43
diet, but really take care of it.
01:05:45
Speaker 1: You can really boost your microbiome with our
01:05:47
prebiotics.
01:05:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, Wow, diet, but really take care of it.
01:05:57
You can really boost your microbiome with our, with our
01:05:58
prebiotics yeah, wow, and um, they're good for everyone.
01:05:59
Yes, kids, yeah, absolutely.
01:06:00
So what we're, what we're recommending, is that the
01:06:01
everyday fiber looks like it does, the performs a really
01:06:02
helpful function for everybody.
01:06:03
Um, the.
01:06:04
The caveat on the repair product is that is, that you need to,
01:06:08
you need to start taking it slowly.
01:06:10
So it's a specific type of fiber which, unless you've got a
01:06:13
really abundant population of butyrate producing bacteria in
01:06:16
your gut already it can it can cause some disruption.
01:06:20
So our recommendation is to start very slowly.
01:06:23
Yeah, it's not necessary for kids unless they've got some
01:06:27
sort of um, if they've had a, if they've had a, an antibiotic,
01:06:31
and they need to rebuild their um, their gut microbiome.
01:06:35
We're not, we're not recommending the repair product
01:06:37
for kids.
01:06:37
It's really not.
01:06:38
It's not aimed at them.
01:06:39
It's really for us middle-aged folks who are starting to
01:06:42
experience long-term, long-term, low-grade inflammation, because
01:06:45
it's anti-inflammatory and so that's really who it's suited
01:06:50
for.
01:06:50
I think is probably the best way to think about it Start at
01:06:53
middle age.
01:06:53
If you've got elderly parents, you can absolutely start them on
01:06:57
these products and it will make a big difference to their gut
01:07:01
function and it can help to provide them with a long-term
01:07:04
health benefit.
01:07:05
But we're but we're especially targeting sort of the you know,
01:07:09
35 to 55, 65 year olds to say, look, if you start taking care
01:07:13
of your gut now, then you will age much more healthily than you
01:07:16
might otherwise, and that's why it's so exciting but great,
01:07:22
fantastic.
01:07:23
Speaker 1: Well, um, we're going to share links to your website
01:07:27
in the notes and get your message out there.
01:07:30
It's been a really insightful conversation.
01:07:33
I've been kind of aware of the gut health stuff for a while and
01:07:39
definitely think it's a super important part of overall health
01:07:43
and well-being, and so it's and you're the the first person
01:07:47
I've had on the show to talk about this particular topic, so
01:07:51
I really appreciate your time and it's been yeah, as I said,
01:07:54
it's been really insightful.
01:07:55
Speaker 2: You clearly know your stuff and you've got um driven
01:07:59
by your passion, so thank you so much for joining us it's been
01:08:03
my pleasure, um, and if I'm not sure if it's appropriate, I
01:08:06
should have asked you this before, but I've got a code set
01:08:09
up for your listeners if they'd like to use it.
01:08:11
Speaker 1: Oh, that would be great, yeah, so.
01:08:13
Speaker 2: I've done it and we'll put it in the show notes,
01:08:17
but the discount code is life health 20, li fe h e aT-H 20,
01:08:24
and that'll give your listeners 20% discount and free shipping.
01:08:28
Speaker 1: Thank you, that's great.
01:08:30
Speaker 2: I'd like to encourage everyone to try it yeah,
01:08:32
absolutely, I'll be trying it, for sure love to see you soon
01:08:36
thank you so much it's lovely to meet you yeah, you too bye for
01:08:40
now.