Dr Amine Zorgani on Achieving Optimal Skin and Mental Health

This episode is brought to you by Nourish Me Organics, your gut health superstore. Nourish Me Organics is the premier online store for all things gut health, including probiotics, prebiotics, natural health supplements and home fermentation kits. So head to www.nourishmeorganics.com and use the code Happy Gut for 10% off. Join Kruban Govinda, a seasoned food scientist and gut health exper. In this episode we continue our conversation with Dr. Amin Zorghani discussing optimal skin and mental health.

So Amine, let's continue the conversation. Something that's really piquing my interest at the moment is the connection between the microbiome, microbiota, if you want to say it that way, and also that connection with skin health because I think a lot of the audience perhaps, you know, trying to optimize the way they look in terms of anti aging benefits, aging gracefully. So what's the connection between the skin and the skin microbiome and how can we optimize this? Because from reading your your bio, you do have some expertise when it comes to acne, skin disease and the skin microbiota. So I'll leave it up to you where you to take that, that sort of question.

Yeah, no, totally. Thank you for asking. So my time at a biotech and more of a startup was basically leading a team of several scientists and just taking some ideas that probably for some people, let's say seven years ago were a little bit wild. Well now they're actually not that wild. So looking into the skin microbiomes or skin bacteria that we have and how we could use that to actually modulate some skin diseases or skin conditions to say skin diseases. You're looking at acne, for instance, when it's severe acne or psoriasis or atopic dermatitis, when you look into skin condition, you look into this, the so called condition of sensitive skin or aging or aging spots and so on, so forth. So how can you actually look into this using skin microbiome? So when you look into some correlation studies, more of intervention, sorry, observational. So we don't have any intervention on the subjects. We just observe what happens. And when we look into acne, psoriasis or atopic dermatitis, we found that there is one bacterium that is usually correlated inversely with the increase of the disease severity. This bacterium is named, was named Propunibacterium acnes and now is named Cutibacterium acnes. So a lot of people would recognize the last name of this bacterium Acnes, it actually is the bacterium that causes acne. So it's a little bit sometimes. How is it controversial? A lot of people say, okay, how can you use Cutibacterium acnes to cure acne? Doesn't make sense because that's the same bacteria that causes acne in the first place. Actually, this bacterium represents 90% of the microbiota that lives in our face, mostly in our face, but you can find it in most of the areas where we do secrete sebum. Right. Because they, they feed on sebum. But in the face it represents 90% and most of the people. And you can, when, sorry, when you look into the, how to say, the increase of the abundance, the increase of population of this cutie bacterium acnes, on our face, it correlates very well with the change of the age. So when we are born, we have little of it and it starts going up, going up until it reaches the maximum at puberty and adulthood and then start going down. It happens as well that not all Cutibacterium acnes are the same. So there are different families, or different clades as we call them, of this same bacterium. So when we're trying to study this, in my previous company that has now been acquired by the giant cosmetic company Beiersdorp, a German company, we were trying to understand, okay, are all these Cutibacterium acnes harmful and causing acne or are some of them which actually can reverse acne? So luckily we find some of the mechanisms where some of these circular acnes could not cause acne, but rather reverse acne, meaning they would out compete on some food sources with the harmful CO2 bacterium acnes and block them from using that food source and hence reducing acne. Similarly, the same bacterium is actually producing one of the most potent antioxidants called. It's a bacteria, it's. Sorry, it's a protein called roxp. It's actually, this is. The protein is ranked number three on the, on the level of the whole existing antioxidants in the world. And number one being dragon fruit, which is the most potent antioxidants you could find on the planet. And this Roxby is number three in terms of potency. So it's really potent. So one of the study was done by Rol Fluid, who's the first one actually, who studied this protein, Roxby in Sweden, and he looked into the quantities of this antioxidant on our skin, right. And he would find that they would have higher quantities on the face and lower in the other body sites, it also correlates with the presence of magnesium. So you would have higher levels in the face and lower in the other body sites. It also correlates with the abundance of the magnes over time. Meaning that if you are younger you would have less of ROXP or, and less of acnes. And with time it goes up and then it goes down. So when it comes to aging, aging is also correlated with lower antioxidant potential of the skin itself. So your skin has obviously when you're exposed to ultraviolet or like this, you know, solar rays and so on. This what affects the skin elasticity, the skin moisture, the skin humidity, the skin barrier function, which is basically how the skin is reacting to all these pollutants that we get outside. And antioxidant potential or responding to this oxidative stress is number one on the list of what you should be taking care of. Right. So because you have a reduction of ROXP with age, you have a reduced resistance to oxidative stress and you get all the wrinkles and all the agents parts that you would imagine. Right. So harnessing or using this that specifically because not all of them produce it only could it, it's funny enough actually only Cutibacterium acnes, the only bacterium at least we know that produces this specific protein or this specific antioxidant. So it just makes sense why do we have it on the face and why it reduces with age and how can you actually use it to reverse that? You know, so it's a quite a puzzling and a very interesting way how nature is made actually.

That's fascinating. So with, there's so many different questions we could explore. So with rockspeas, a particular protein that exhibits some sort of anti oxidant effect, very high potency from what you're telling me, Dragon fruit being number one. What's number two?

Just out of interest, I honestly I, I don't remember. But I remember chocolate was like way down the list. I'm not speaking about chocolate like the regular chocolate, I'm speaking about like 80 of cacao for instance. But number two, I will find it and I'll let you know, but I don't.

Very very interesting. So I, I'd imagine they're using some sort of Orac scale to, to measure the potential. So with this Rox P protein, this, this P. Acus bacteria produces or certain strains or, or clades as, as you mentioned produce this certain type of protein. Now what's your thoughts on how do we potentially increase the, that particular strain of piacnis on the skin or is it more a case that the technology is going down the path of synthesizing the ROXP protein? So which, which pathway is the most effective, do you think?

No, it's. It's a very good question. So number one, I think if you don't want to put anything on your face and because you don't have access to that, you better start removing things than actually putting things. For instance, not using or using some natural dried, you know, face wash or things that aren't chemical. Because when you're born, theoretically you're colonized with some good bacteria that you get from your mother's skin and so on. So some, some and actually not some, many do get some C Acnes that are pro inflammatory and that causes acne and that's where you have this really high amount of it and they have flares and inflammation and so on and so forth. So if you want to fix that, there are different ways how you can do it. So there is the easy ways that the cost you literally no money. And there are some of the hard ways or the technological ways. So let me start with the technological ways because they're easier, we get them out of the way. So number one is isolating that specific strain that is known to reduce acne or experimentally validate it. So my previous company and now this part of Buyersdorf, they're using that technology which is proprietary. So they have now used that. There are several clinical trials. Well this strain is isolated, validated, safety wise and efficacy wise. And now they're using it into other clinical trials to obviously develop it into product that goes into cream or an oil and what so but people can apply it and it reduces acne per se. So simple you would find the bacteria that actually can reverse acne, whether that's the acnes or any other bacteria. So there are other approaches that also been used. One company in France actually, they actually signed a very big deal with gsk, several hundred millions into in terms of milestone payment where they're using precision phage therapy. So they really take some phages using CRISPR Cas9, which is this molecular scissors to tweak those phages and to specifically target the C Acnes that causes acne on skin. So meaning they're not using antibiotics or corticoids or whatsoever, they just literally targeting some specific strains on the face. I mean for this to get to market you need to wait a little bit. Obviously this is will come as a therapy. However, the first approach I told as Isolating some natural curing strains that are known validated to stop acne. This can go into a cosmetic application. So you don't have that long path of clinical approval. So, you know, maybe in the next two years you will have that product in the market. As to producing ROXP as a protein, it's a very heavy protein. So it's like 15 kilo Daltons. So it's kind of a big protein. So synthetically producing it will cost you a fortune to actually do it. However, this protein by itself is naturally over expressed by the bacterium itself. So if you produce it by the bacterium itself, you would have tons of quantities of it. Because when you measure it on the skin, you will always have high quantities. Like on the phase for 1cm2 square, you would have, if I remember correctly, around 25 micromolars of it. So it's quite abundant in terms of it has to do something. So the bacteria produce it in a significant quantities. So this is from a technological point of view, you can either use the bacterium itself or. Which is actually better. So if you use the bacterium itself, you give you a continuous supply of that, that proba. Sorry, of that metabolite, which is this protein. However, this cannot be, let's say, useful by itself if you do destroy the other part of the equation, which is your gut microbiome, right? So a lot of people that actually suffer from acne, you see it in puberty, you do have some older age that do have acne, but not that much. But puberty is where you actually start abusing junk food, you start drinking soda and you start, you know, all that stuff. And there is a gut skin axis which already know. So a lot of people do use a lot of treatments and therapies even for treating acne because it's severe in some cases. But they completely ignore the other facet of it of improving their diet and eating healthy diet to improve their gut microbiome that will eventually show up on their face. We say that the concept of beauty from within for a sin, you know, for some reason, right? So because it's beauty from within. And funny enough, last time it's. I don't usually watch this often, but I found it for once influencers could be interesting and, or seriously. And, and there was one influencer, she was a model and she, she was fired from her job. So she said, okay, I'm gonna reveal to you all the secrets about this field of modeling, right? And she was saying that when she was actually doing this, it was forbidden in the agency to Use any chemical products on the face or the hair. Mainly they will use like natural soap for instance. For the diet was extremely controlled. They don't, they don't drink soda at all and what so and it just tells you. Okay. I mean their skin is beautiful, right. Because of that really, if you use chemicals on your face day on and day out, you would imagine that you really destroy that protective layer which you don't see these skin microbes and eventually leading some skin diseases, as I said, correlation with some, most of the skin diseases, atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, acne, or aging as a condition. It correlates with reduction with some beneficial bacteria, not just C Acnes, but including staphylococcus epidermides and many others. So a reduction of these bacteria, it's an increase of diseases and conditions up to you, you choose whether you want to stop using those chemicals which are, you know, some of them, you don't even use them in petrol production and so on. Right. So it just makes sense that reducing that could protect that protective layer which is the skin microbiota.

I love that there's so many interesting side notes there. The first thing that comes to mind is just to highlight to the audience or just to explain so a phage or phage or however you want to say it is basically a virus that can infect bacteria and kill them. So that's the first thing that you talked about earlier. So using a phage to target specific types of bacteria that could reduce the prevalence of acne is the first thing. And then the second point that you made was that it's very important to also nurture the, the good gut health. So, you know, making sure that your diet's optimized to then have those skin health benefits due to that sort of gut. Gut, skin axis. And then my third sort of takeaway from what you said was that the skin with the skin less is more. So absolutely taking away the chemicals from overdoing it with skincare products, going back to natural soaps, natural treatment treatments for the skin. So that kind of summarizes what, what you spoke about, is that fair to say?

100%. And I think if I would add another thing that I didn't mention is also we're living into this built environment where we are not exposed to nature. We are mostly in the inside as opposed to the outside. And we don't meet those microbes, their nature, nature by itself. And they offer. You just need to go outside and nurture those microbes. I mean you don't So I remember I've seen as well and actually it was on the main news in France where they've seen one monkey, I don't remember which one of that was in the Amazonia. And for the first time ever, scientists had observed that that monkey cured itself. It had a really severe skin injury on the right eye, like really bad. So what this monkey started doing, they, it took some leaves from some trees, they didn't mention the name of those trees and over the day start like chewing that leaves and putting them on this injury on the skin. And when they showed the last picture of that monkey, it 100% healed. It's just amazing to see that. So nature by itself, it's actually offering some of the remedies that we could benefit from. You just need to go outside, play, you know, go under the trees and immerse yourself with those microbes. Not just for, for your skin microbiota, but it's just beyond. There is one of my interviewee when I did the microbiome mavericks. His name is Marco Van S. He's the founder of the Back to Nature Foundation. So he's, he had spent more than 20 years working in the probiotic industry but at some point he said, listen, probiotics are good and I'm not denying their benefits, but I think there is other ways that we could improve human health and microbiota specifically by actually going to nature. There are many studies showing that you going back to nature, meaning that playing outside with your kids, playing with dogs outside increases the diversity of your gut microbiota. We already know that fruits and vegetables microbes contribute by up to 2% of the gut microbiota ecosystem. So if you just consume fruit and vegetables, I mean you don't wash them with soap and say they contribute, they wouldn't. You just need to consume them naturally, probably wash them with just some water and then just eat them as they are. So it just gives you some diversity additional to what you already have. So going back to nature to say can definitely increase your diversity and keep it healthy for skin and gut and beyond even.

That's a wonderful summation. And before we move on to the next topic, I know we, we're sort of recommending going down that natural path. Some people might be interested in particular brands of skincare products that are coming into the market. And you mentioned a few sort of top line companies that are involved in the research. But is that translating to any commercial products that people can get a hold of now?

Absolutely, there are, there are quite a few, not too Many though, but quite a few companies actually leveraging the science that exists and turned into products. And to be honest, the gut microbiome, let's say research translated into one product, which we already know, or two, probiotics and prebiotics. So they're mostly used for improving gut microbiome diversity and so on. While in the skin microbiota perspective, although the science still premature or didn't advance as much as the gut microbiota did. But those companies harnessed that science way quickly compared to the gut science. So they're actually using many products, many applications, either that for shampoos or creams or for many applications, acne, skin sensitivity, skin hydration and so on, so forth, using prebiotics or probiotics. So quite a few companies spread, let's say over the globe, states, Europe or even Australia or South Africa, for instance.

Any particular strains aside from the p acne that people should be looking for?

So C acnes I believe is not yet on the market because I think it's still in development. Other strains that you would find in the, let's say into this cosmetic brands, because they're mostly cosmetic, rarely you would find one therapeutic, although there is just one. I think in Italy they used dead C acnes for treatment of atopic dermatitis in children. So it's medical device because the minute you put a bacterium into a cream to either have it as a therapeutic medical device or a cosmetic, and because they're dead bacterium and they could not get them to therapy, they put them into medical device, but they cannot be cosmetics in that sense. So the strains you would find Lactobacillus mostly actually as a probiotic. Just be careful. It's very difficult to keep bacteria alive in a formulation for cosmetic application because bacteria hate water or probiotics in general hate water. So you have to be innovative. So one way of doing it is to encapsulate them. So there is one company in Belgium actually do use such method which put bacteria into very, let's say microscopic spares which when you apply them on the skin, you have to crack them with your fingers and then you can apply them. So yeah, I mean some people would say it's, it's not that good feeling, but again, it's up to people to judge. Um, although for me it's more of a therapy than cosmetic product in that sense. Right. The other way you can do it is to use two compartment system, so where the formulation is separated from your actual bacterial powder so it stays in completely different, different compartments when you Want to use it, you squeeze it in, you mix it and then you apply it. Yeah. And the third way of doing it is to put the bacteria into an oil formulation or what we call an anhydrous gel formulation. So there is no water. So it keeps the bacteria alive for a longer time. So all these methods are being used now to format bacteria into cosmetic formulations or therapeutic applications as well.

Fantastic, wonderful insights for consumers to navigate that space and look for those particular applications to ensure that the, the probiotics that they're getting for their skin are optimized. Because I'm guessing there's probably a lot of products on the market that don't get the application process right, using more sort of marketing terminology to get people onto the products, but not being effective from a probiotic perspective. So, so thank you for sharing that information. We'll move on to the next topic. Next topic that I wanted to explore because you tend to have a bit of experience on this, this field as well is the microbiome microbiota and the gut brain access. So what can you tell us about how the microbiome microbiota influences our mental health?

It's how to say it's the hottest topic on, on the, on the, on the streets of microbiome research. And let's say the one who's leading the field is by far John Krein from the apc. Microbiome is also the co author of the Psychobiotic Revolution. Psychobiotics is a combination of psycho therapy and, or psychobiology and biotech. So obviously these are probiotics, they're designed to improve mental health and we call them by definition next generation probiotics. So the first generation probiotic is what you know as Bifidobacterium, lactobacillus and Thermophilus and all that stuff. Well, these next generation probiotics are completely new strains that are isolated from specific healthy volunteers and we knew that to have a potential to modulate. So one of the papers that had actually showed explicitly that the gut is definitely connected to the brain is when they took some mice and they literally cut the vagus nerve. Literally. So they cut the vagus nerve of those mice. And they've seen that these mice, they didn't, I mean it was just like their behavior completely changed compared to mice where the vagus nerve were still intact. And we already know that many of the metabolites produced in the gut microbiome are actually trans, looking translocated into the brain. Now using that highway, as you call it, the vagus nerve to get to the brain. We also seen that if you give some specific, let's say molecules like tryptophan, where the microbiota is intact, tryptophan is converted into other metabolites like indole derivatives as we call them, and then you could see an improvement in mice behavior. The only problem we do still have in this space is that we don't have human models to try on because it's not, I mean, you cannot just take a human being and cut their baggage nerve. It doesn't work like that. So we're only working on mice models. But the, at least some of the, let's say, observational trials, one of them was in actually in Belgium, in Ghent. It was called the Flemish Cohort or the Flemish Gut Microbiome study. And then he looked into some people, they have suffered from depression. There was a significant reduction into specific bacterium called coprococcus. And these was also found into other studies later or previously in smaller cohort, but now was really confirmed. So you could imagine that if you have some people with a depressive symptom with reduced coptorcoccus, if you would take this train, isolated from healthy volunteers, and then you develop it into a next generation probiotic, someone would imagine to reverse. Actually they did it in a mice model and it showed that there is an improvement into, how to say, psychological behavior of those mice after you put them in a cage and they're not happy and then you just add them to that specific strain and then you would see an improvement into cognition as well. And I'm sorry to cite again, but Belgium is actually on the forefront in terms of research recently enough, probably not more than two to three months ago. There was another study again in Belgium, in Ghent, where they actually this time looked into Parkinson's disease. So Parkinson's disease is also one of the mental health related issues which are related to the brain and accumulation of these white plaques in the brain. What they did this time, they didn't use next generation probiotics, but they rather used fecal microbiota transplantation. Not sure whether we exposed this earlier, but fecal microbiota transplantation is basically taking poop from healthy people and transferring that to diseased patients three different ways. It could be just with a syringe through an enema, or it could be just because this poop was, let's say, industrialized and put into pills that you could swallow and then you can colonize your colon and so on. So what they did, I think was around 84 patients with moderate Parkinson's disease symptoms. And they looked into the motor score, like how, how effectively did these people regain their, let's say, movement and motor because Parkinson's disease, they do suffer from that. And they look into other secondary outcomes like constipations and transit, colon transit and so on. And funnily enough, when these patients received FMT from these healthy volunteers, they did improve for some, for some parameters, including the motor and the transit that come along with. So we are now in, let's say in the beginning of the S curve of modulating the gut microbiome to improve mental health through different modalities and next generation probiotics or this approach of fmt and it appears to work, honestly, it appears to show really significant improvement. So I think there is still research to be done, but it's quite how to say, as the book says it and from John Cryan, it's the psychobiotic revolution, because I think it will be a revolution soon.

Well, that's amazing. I should mention to the audience as well, I interviewed Professor Ted Dinan, the co author of probably about seven years ago and it was a fascinating conversation. So if you want to go back and listen to that older episode and where this signs kind of started, I'd love to have the other author that you mentioned on because he seems to be very active in that space certainly. But I haven't been so blessed to get him on yet. But I do hope one day. Have you had it?

Not yet, not yet. But I, I definitely, I preach here on this microphone to get him that you get him first and then I get him second.

I'm sure he's a very busy man for sure. That was Professor John crying. John Cryan, Yeah, he's one of the, the OGs as well in the psychobotic space for sure. So fascinating. So you mentioned a couple of probiotic strains. There's no ones like the bifida bacteria, the Lactobacillus and also the, I think you mentioned the copococcus strains. So is there any idea from your research looking into the data as to what mechanism of action elucidates this mental health benefit?

I think the problem is that there are multiple factors that could influence. So you would never pinpoint it. And honestly I never tried to pinpoint a specific mechanism of action in the space of the microbiome because there are so many variables. If you go click into the gut microbiome, there are, I don't know, like first a person lambda, you would have between 250 to 350 different strains that that person would have. This is not to mention the host genetics and the host immunity, the state of mind, the diet, where you live, and so on. So many. But when it comes to the gut brain axis, there is one particular pathway that it seems to have a very interesting influence that is now used into other applications such as longevity and so on and so forth, which is the one that I mentioned earlier, the tryptophan metabolism pathway. So all these, what we call them, endol derivatives like indole propionic acid, seem to have a significant impact into different connections that lead to eventually improving cognitive, let's say, function, and also to improve other conditions related to gut barrier function, and so on and so forth. So the gut barrier function, you have to think of it as a barrier to all the harmful molecules that would transfer from the gut lumen to the bloodstream and then eventually spread over your body, but eventually reach the brain. So the more toxins you would have crossing this gut barrier function to the bloodstream, the worse your situation becomes. So improving gut body function is priority, similarly to improving skin barrier function is a priority because reducing, let's say, the loss of water we call trans epidermal water loss. I'm going back to the skin now. It's also a way of improving skin moisture and skin elasticity and so on and so forth. And it works the same way in the gut. Improving gut body function is a priority and having this indole derivatives like indole propionic acid. Some studies show that the increase of indole propionic acid in the intestine correlates in some mice studies to increase of lifespan, sorry, health span, which is different than lifespan. So health span is basically how healthy you would live and lifespan how long you would live. So increasing these Indo derivatives seem to increase that. And some studies also show that if you include tryptophan into the diet, you would improve also cognition for the mice. Again, so it's not in humans. So I would put my money that harnessing that specific tryptophan pathway could eventually lead to some interesting therapies. I would not imagine that someone would come up with just one bacterium that fix it all. Honestly, I would also imagine this, that you would use some symbiotics, like meaning taking some next generation probiotics like Coprococcus or others, where you would supplement it with other key metabolites or key substrate like tryptophane to allow the metabolism to kick off and to actually translate that pathway to something meaningful that the brain can benefit from. So the brain, it Appears to be sterile. I mean, there is contradictory here of the research that some people say it's sterile, some say not. But in total honesty with the accumulative, I would see more research into the sterility of the brain than not. If the brain is sterile. So it only receives information or molecules that you get them from other locations, such as the gut, through the vagus nerve, meaning that anything you want to influence on the brain it has to pass through the gut. So meaning that these gut microbiome would play significant role into the process. If you want them to play a role in the process, you want to give them the best diet possible for them to produce the right metabolites to reach the brain. So a probiotic supplementation is good, but if they don't find what they can feed on to produce those metabolites, there is no reason. Right, so why I. I'm more in favor into symbiotic approach where you supplement probably with tryptophan or other metabol or other substrates, plus the right probiotics or next generation probiotics that eventually would have an impact.

So there's a couple of questions there that I want to get some clarity on. So firstly you mentioned Indo. Is it endo propionate, is that the endopropionic acid? Yeah, indio propion propionic acid. So endo, is that meaning that the body produces it or is it the bacteria that produce it?

So the bacteria produce it by conversion. So they take the tryptophan, they run through different cascade of reactions and it end up by having the IPA at the end. But they don't produce it by themselves. Right. So they have to have a substrate which goes through a different cascade of reactions and then you end up by having the ipa.

Right, I gotcha. So I. Yes, you're right. So IPA is. I always. I didn't connect the IPA to the full, the full chemical name, but this is a, a known metabolite to. That could, could potentially impact or benefit mental health. I think I've seen some data around chestnuts as well and some other sort of foods that can. Orai is another one that can help the bacteria produce more of this particular metabolite. So that's really interesting. So in terms of this tryptophan. So are you saying that tryptophan is one of the earlier sort of substrates and then it gets kind of converted into ipa mostly.

So the tryptophan is the start of the chain of reaction and then there are multiple. I believe there are at least Two different reactions in the process that leads you to finally reaching the level of IPA. At least one reaction is 100% controlled by bacteria and the second one I don't remember exactly. What you need to know is that getting food rich with tryptophan can only benefit your mental health. I mean the science needs still to prove it and all the research behind from mice needs to translate to humans. But tryptophan should be in your priority list in terms of amino acids that you should be taking from different sources. I'm not sure whether you could find tryptophan like as a standalone amino acid because that's usually pharma grade. But at least there are, if I correct some product that contain tryptophan as an amino acid into like, as a food supplement.

Certainly I, from what I've seen in the, in the research, there's a fermented milk product called milk kefir that's quite high in, in tryptophan. So that could be a nice one for people to explore.

Totally, totally. I mean in general as a fermented food is very good product that like generally honestly I do highly recommend to people, I do take probiotics myself because I found the equilibrium of the strains I need to do to use and, and I also rotate them because I don't want to always to the same just to diversify. But I highly recommend to people using let's say low tech products like fermented foods, kefir yogurt that you would make yourself at home, fruits and vegetable that you can tolerate because some people in IBD or IBS they cannot tolerate or fruits and vegetables. But like increasing the diversity of your microbiota cannot just come with probiotics or prebiotics can come with a variety of approaches. If you want a high, high boost of it, obviously just take a concentrated pill with probiotics and, and you could potentially increase that. But irregularity and consistency can only come from using variety of foods and fruits and vegetables. And fermented foods as well.

Certainly. And just one final question before we finish that loop. So with tryptophan there is a conversion pathway into serotonin and melatonin. So is there, is there some benefit as part of that pathway? Because I know serotonin at the moment is a little bit up for debate whether it actually does contribute to mental health or not, especially around that sort of SSRI space around the Prozacs and the medications. So what's your summation on that field? Do you think serotonin still impacts mental Health or is there still more research to be had?

I would say, to be honest, I'm not the best equipped to answer that question because it's more of a neuroscience. But I only know that 90% of serotonin is produced in the guts. That could be for a reason. Right. So why is that? So it makes sense that what I would be interested in, let's say it's more of a question than actually an answer to your question is looking into beyond serotonin, what are the other molecules that would influence, and this is particularly interested into the gaba. For instance, gamma butyric acid or whatever that abbreviation is. And this is, it comes from specific microbial metabolites, which is butyric acid. We know that specific bacteria produce butyrate as a short chain fatty acid that is eventually converted into gaba. And looking into, let's say if we take a cohort of people that are healthy and other they have mental issues and analyzing their school and assessing the concentrations of GABA compared to the dose, it's very likely that you found that GABA is reduced in the people that are suffering from mental health. So, meaning that serotonin is probably is one factor, but I don't think it's the only factor, although, because GABA is an important neurotransmitter that is eventually produced in the gut and only by the bacteria that lives in the gut.

Yeah, no, I agree with you. I think GABA is, is definitely high on the, the chain with ipa. And I, I still think there's something, there's something with serotonin. So we need a little bit more understanding because, you know, these SSRI drugs have been around for many decades. So you know this, there's obviously something happening there in terms of improving mental health in people who are suffering from anxiety and depression. So one final loop before we close. So you're another expert in this type of field. So what's your thoughts on, on microbiome, microbiota for disease prevention? So is there a path forward where you see microbiome data, microbiota data, metabolite data being used in that sort of personalized medicine space?

It's again the hottest question on the street in terms of the research and commercialization. So that that actually leads to another aspect of using microbiome data as an insight where we're looking more into this microbiome or gut microbiome testing commercial kits, where you receive a kit at home, you poo, you send it back, we analyze your microbiome and then we tell you okay, you do this, you do that. We're actually not quite there yet in terms of what we could use these kits for or this microbiome testing, because most of them, they just analyze your microbiota and they don't give you any actionable recommendations on what you can do with the data. Some of them do, but still far away from what you can actually do with comes with the notion of personalization, meaning that, okay, we analyze your microbiota and stand, okay, whether the composition and what you can do with it. And a lot of people think that I'm pessimistic on this subject, but I think biology is complex and you have to treat it with respect, so you should not disrespect biology. So if we assume that microbiome alone could give us personalization to some specific, let's say, health issues, I think we are totally wrong, because human beings aren't just microbes, although microbes do represent, let's say, equal numbers of cells and 130 times more in terms of genes and so on. But human beings don't have genetics and they have immune system and they have, you know, a lot of other things that microbes do not bring. So if we would like to use actionably microbiome data, in my opinion, it has to be coupled with blood data, for instance, or genetic data that allows you to see from both sides, okay, this microbe, what they are doing, and this is the host, which is us, how are we reacting, what's the immune status, what's the blood, what's the genetics, and so on. And this can eventually, if you, let's say, corroborate these two aspects of data, microbes and humans or host, you could eventually indeed have personalized approach to therapy or to prevention. Taking the microbes alone, you could get to some level of personalization, but I'm not sure that it will be meaningful impacts that you will get to. Most of those who succeeded so far are the ones who used microbiome and other parameters that comes from humans, like monitoring glucose levels or human genetics and so on. Microbiome alone, it remains, to many experts, eyes, a wellness test, just looking to know, okay, what's in there and trying to probably, you know, reduce this or add that. But yeah, it wouldn't have a significant impact in your life anyway.

That's fascinating insights. I highly appreciate all this wonderful information that you're sharing. And is there anything that's really exciting you in the world of the microbiome because you're so active in that space and you've really got your finger on the pulse and what's happening, especially with all the information you share. So is there anything in particular that's exciting you at the moment?

Vaginal microbiome. So without no doubt, it's my number one, let's say topic this women's health and the vaginal microbiome. And how can we leverage it now? I think it's very, very exciting simply because not simply, it's more of a complex thing than it's simple. Women's health had suffered from ignorance and from lack of innovation for decades. Therapies don't work. Bacterial vaginosis, candidases, infertility and so many other issues, endometriosis and so on. And now we think that there is a hope into monitoring this very low diverse microbiota dominated by Lactobacillus species taking vaginal fluids from a healthy woman and into a woman that had five miscarriages. This woman got pregnant after just five months. It's published in the Lancet and there is now a company working on it or other companies working into translating into this idea of transferring this vaginal microbiota from a healthy to an unhealthy woman and successfully getting women to be pregnant or successfully reducing their elements. For me is should be on the list of many biotechs and startups and pharmaceutical companies to look into it from close perspective because it's an environment where you can modulate easily compared to the gut accessible and monitored and you can actually see the differences quickly compared to what you would see them in the guts. Yeah, if there is something that I would believe it reached the market in terms of therapy or wellness or prevention, it very likely would be that one wonderful Dr. Amy.

I'm sure there's going to be many of our listeners that are going to be fascinated to follow up with you and learn more about you and learn more about your work. And I should mention Amy has a wonderful podcast called the Is it the the Microbiome Mavericks. So highly recommend people check that out and if people want to reach out to you, how do they find you?

Dr. Amy they they listened to this podcast and thank you Private for having me. It was definitely a pleasure and it's I'm back anytime. Feel free to call me for the yeah, obviously just listen to the microbiomeverics podcast or find me on LinkedIn. I'm as you said, active. So just Type My name Dr. Amin Zorgani and you land only on my name.

So wonderful. I'm sure your your LinkedIn is going to be swamped hopefully after this podcast. So thank you for and and obviously, obviously your your podcast as well. So if there's one thing you could do for your gut health today, I love to end on this. On this note, what would it be?

Dr. Amine prepare my fruit smoothie that rich with blueberries, strawberries and that's the thing that I take every morning. So that's what keeps me energized during the day.

Wonderful. Thank you so much to Dr. Amin Zorghani.

Thank you Greven. Take care. Thanks.

We hope you enjoyed part two of our conversation with Dr. Amin Zorghani. If you found this podcast valuable, leave us a kind review and five stars on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube or your favorite podcasting app. If you want to connect with our host, Chris Ribbon Govenda, please follow him on Instagram, Facebook and Tick Tock at Gut healthgurus. Also check out our Gut Health Gurus Facebook group. With 17,000 plus members ready to help you on your journey to amazing gut health. This episode is sponsored by Nourish Me Organics. Head to www.nourishmeorganics.com and use the code Happy Gut for 10% off. Make sure to check out their range of gut health supplements. Until next time.