Jeffrey Bland, PhD (speaker) links the historical emergence of microbiology and genetics to modern understanding of the gut microbiome and its intimate connection with the immune system. He emphasizes that the intestinal tract contains a large, diverse microbial community (noted as over a pound and a half) that communicates with mucosal immune cells, shaping both local and systemic immunity (he states ~70% of the immune system is concentrated in the gut). Bland frames gut health as central to personalized immune-health strategies and introduces Big Bold Health's plan to explore interventions (fiber, pre/probiotics, L‑glutamine, micronutrients, phytochemicals) and create individualized "immuno identities."
Chapters
Immunity plus gut health. Let me take you back just for a second to the turn of the last century. Not the 20th going to the 21st, but the 19th going to the 20th. What was happening back then? An amazing paradigm shift was occurring, really two shifts that were combined. One was the understanding of these little critters that you now could see with the development of the microscope called bacteria. And so the birthing of the field of microbiology was starting to happen. And simultaneously was the revisiting of a concept that came from a Gregorian monk, Gregor Mindel, called evolution and genetics. Right. So we had Mendel, we had Darwin with evolution, and we had Pasteur with infectious disease and microbes. And who took over the Pasteur Institute once Louis Pasteur was moving into this next phase? It was Eli Metchnikov, who wrote an incredible book at the turn of the last century called the Prolongation of Life. And what did he talk about in that book from his experiences at the Pasteur Institute in becoming its director? He talked about the prolongation of life and improved health started in the gut, started in the intestinal tract. From what they had learned through the discoveries about the microbiome, they didn't call it back then, the microbiome, that's what we call it today, this community of organisms that live in our intestinal tract. In fact, in the average human, there is over a pound and a half of these microbes that are living in our intestinal tract. There are many more of those microbes living in our intestinal crack than there are cells in our human body. Each one of that has their own personality. And each one of those signals, through its activity to the rest of the body, how it feels, how it's behaving, and what picks up that information, what picks up that information from the gut microbiome happens to be the cells that line the intestinal tract, which are our mucosal immune cells. Yes, our immune system is sitting right there waiting to get information from our gut microbiome so we can tell the rest of the body whether there's good stuff going on there or bad stuff, whether it's going to be a bad day or a good day, whether it should be a day that they're going to have to do battle against foreigners or a day that they're going to have smiles on their face. That is the interface between the microbiome in the gut and the immune system in the gut, the so called mucosal immune system, which then signals to the rest of the body the status of that relationship and what is the gut microbiome relate to it relates to all the things it's exposed to. And what is it exposed to? Well, every time we eat or drink that washes through there and it's going to give the personality of that diet to those microbiota that exist within our microbiome that are then going to say oh boy, here comes a good meal or no, here comes something I really don't like or here comes a toxic chemical that I have to deal with. All of those interrelationships then kind of frame the aspect of not only our regional immune system in the gut, but our whole body systemic immune system. So as we at Big Bold Health start talking about individualizing the approach towards immune health and we talk about immuno identities, clearly a big focus will be where 70% of the immune system is concentrated resides which is right there in the gut in contact with that microbiome in and that gut health is directly related to our systemic health. So as we move forward, we'll talk about things like non digestible carbohydrate which are insoluble and soluble fibers. We'll talk about pre and probiotics, we'll talk about the relationship of certain amino acids like L glutamine, we'll talk about certain minerals and vitamins. We'll talk about phytochemicals and how they interrelate to gut health. We will then start identifying in individuals how to personally start improving immunity starting at the gut level. So gut health and immunity exquisitely interconnected and Big Bold Health will do a lot to explore and understand how to personalize that relationship. So be part of our community. We're all walking together in our enlightenment as to how to personalize our health objectives.
