How Diet Influences Everything From Gut Health to Decision Making

Coming up on this week's episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy.

This whole idea that the gut microbiome participates in multiple facets of human health and disease, it's gonna, I think, be changing the way we think of medicine in the future and look at things more holistically.

Yeah, you absolutely are right. I mean, this is radically changing the paradigm of silos and medicine and specialties is all breaking down. And it's really what functional medicine is about.

It's systems thinking. How do these things connect? How do they relate? Hi, I'm Kaya Perowne, one of the producers of the Doctors Pharmacy podcast. Functional medicine puts a major focus on the gut, and there's a lot more happening in your gut than you might think. Dr. Hyman recently sat down with Dr. Stanley Hazen to discuss why the microbiome is an essential piece to the future of medicine. And he also spoke with Dr. David Perlmutter about how what we eat influences everything from our mood to the function of our microbes.

We were on a panel recently and you were saying that so many of our blood metabolites are not even human, they're microbial and they all have different effects on our biology. So the question is why if we've evolved for years with these microbes co-evolution, why is it that in the last 100 years we see this explosion of heart disease? Has our gut bacteria changed and how and why?

That is an excellent question and it's not totally figured out but what is for certain is that our gut bacteria are changing as we have changed not only our environment in terms of how we generate food and process food and the whole science of agriculture has changed as well as the prevalence of antibiotics use, which is like a nuclear bomb to the gut microbial community. And every time a person takes antibiotics, the whole community or a big portion of it gets replaced and often it doesn't come back the same way as where it was to start with. So there are different Most people might.

Not know what the microbiome is or why it's important or why it would even in the world be connected to heart disease or anything else if it's all in the gut. So can you just give us a 30,000 overview of what is the microbiome, what are the implications of this new science and how you got interested in it?

So we all have literally trillions of bacteria that live in our intestines and we call that the gut microbiome. It has to do with the fact that what we eat is actually our largest environmental exposure. It's a foreign object that we bring into our bodies.

It pounds every day.

And it's experienced through the filter of this gut microbiome. And that's because a significant portion of the calories that we ingest actually don't get absorbed and make it further down the intestines and gut microbes, which predominantly live in the colon, the distal part of the intestines, will actually use the food as nutrients also and generate waste products that then get absorbed into our bloodstream. And what we're now finding is that many of these compounds have effects on our bodies. They play a role in control of blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes risks, obesity. It's really astounding over the past decade, the enormous role that gut microbes play has now become appreciated.

Yeah, so it's not like what happens in the gut stays in the gut, right?

That's true. And this also helps to explain why two different people who both eat the same sort of diet, one may experience increased risk for or susceptibility for development of a disease like insulin resistance or diabetes or in this case atherosclerosis and heart attack and stroke. And it's because one individual has a different gut microbial community and therefore is making different levels of metabolites that are in their bloodstream and and that impacts our disease risk. And we have evolved always colonized with bugs for the past millions of years. And they have evolved inside of us and it's an interplay that is absolutely essential. Some of our vitamins like vitamin K require gut microbes to actually make them. And we evolved a need for vitamin K that can only come from bacteria. So they're not all bad. In fact, in majority they're necessary and good.

So what you're saying basically is that we've done a lot of things mess up our gut. We've eaten foods that are processed, we're not eating as much plant foods, we're having less fiber, we're taking antibiotics, we're born by C-sections we're taking other drugs that mess up our gut, like acid blockers and anti-inflammatories and all these things are driving this ecosystem to be out of balance. And that seems to be leading to.

More obesity, more disease, more chronic illness across the spectrum. That's one way to put it. I think it's hard. I don't like characterizing the gut as out of balance or good or bad, because it's never so easy as a single switch on and off good bad. Each particular pathway you look at is everything is different shades of gray. But yes, the shift is happening and we now are recognizing gut microbes are linking to various aspects of our health. Mostly in cardiovascular and metabolic is where this has been done. But actually what's interesting beyond that, even in cognition and behavior. There are connections to microbes and what's astounding is you can transplant the microbes and show a difference in how fast a mouse can solve a maze or whether or not it wants to bury marbles and save them for a rainy day. That kind of behavior, it's fascinating, has been linked to microbial transplants and showing shifts in behavior.

What you eat, leverage by or looked at through the lens of your microbes does affect your behavior and your choices. And at the same time, those choices that you make affect the health and vitality of your gut microbes. So what you set up is what we call a vicious cycle whereby eating the wrong foods changes the microbiome, it changes your brain and makes you less able moving forward to make the right choices. So you make further bad choices, further damaging your gut bacteria further changing your brain. And let me say that it's not just moment to moment changes in your brain that happens, you know, that you make the wrong decisions. But ultimately, as you continue to make these wrong decisions, you rewire your brain through a process called neuroplasticity. So you compromise your ability to tap into that part of your brain that lets you make good and appropriate decisions, and you connect more aggressively to the part of your brain that is much more impulsive and much more fear-based and much more narcissistic.

So basically we move from a place of love and connection to a place of fear and reactivity.

That's right. So it all starts with diet. Diet nurtures our 100 trillion microbial friends that live in the gut and want me to be healthy. They want you to be healthy. But we have to feed them right.

You know, the thing about like a rainforest is, you know, it got so many inputs of light and water and nutrients, whereas a monocrop cornfield.

Exactly. What you're getting at is, in a word, is diversity.

Yeah.

And just as we depend upon the diversity in the Amazon forest, which is being destroyed. It's an ecosystem in your gut.

You're right, it's an ecosystem in the gut. The gut is one of the most important systems to get working well because it is connected to everything that happens in the body. We can nurture our gut microbiome through diet by feeding ourselves real foods that are anti-inflammatory and rich in fiber. Additionally, getting quality sleep, reducing chronic stress, and incorporating daily movement into your life are all incredibly impactful when it comes to our gut health. The standard Western diet is lacking in the things our beneficial gut bacteria require. All of the chemicals from processed foods and the environmental toxins we take in only make the situation worse. Our guts become damaged when we eat a processed diet that's high in sugar and starch and don't eat enough of the right fiber and prebiotics. As Dr. Hyman says, think of your gut as an inner garden. When you let the weeds take over, you get into trouble. Our understanding of how the gut microbiome impacts our health is just beginning, and I'm excited to see what we'll find next. I hope you enjoyed this mini episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy. Thanks for tuning in. Hi everyone. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search their find a practitioner database. It's important that you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed.

Healthcare practitioner, and can help you make.

Changes, especially when it comes to your health.

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