Dr. Will B Explains How to Heal Your Gut and Prevent Disease | TUH #091

A lot of our problems, they start with the gut microbiome. And food and nutrition is the most powerful lever that we have that we could pull in order to revitalize and restore that microbiome and get it back to health. Because when we do that, these diseases wash away. A person who's born in 1990 is four times more likely to be diagnosed with rectal cancer and two times more likely to be diagnosed with colon cancer during their lifetime compared to their parents.

If they were born in 1950, no way.

95% of Americans, they are wildly deficient in fiber. The benefit of consuming, consuming fiber is that you get a healthier microbiome that's producing short chain fatty acids. If we want an effective immune system, we need a strong microbiome. The food choices that you make today will start to impact your microbiome by tomorrow.

So many mental disorders do in fact originate in the gut.

I can point you to the studies that show that if you look within the state of these mood disorders, the gut microbiome is disturbed. There's damage to the gut microbiome, which we call dysbiosis.

If I'm listening to this podcast, and yes, I'm concerned about my gut health, and yes, I'm concerned about my microbiome, where does somebody start? And what does a healthy microbiome diet look like?

The people with the healthiest guts.

Ultimate Human. Hey, guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human podcast. I'm your host, human biologist, Gary Brecker, where we go down the road of everything, anti aging, longevity, biohacking, and everything in between. And I am super, super pumped for today's guest. As heard in the, in the bio, he's a very, very accomplished physician. Moved from the dark side to the bright side now. And we just had, we did a pre podcast in my kitchen before we jumped on the podcast. And my staff kept saying, hey, you guys need to stop talking and get on the podcast so everybody can hear this. But we are going to go down the road of the gut, the gut microbiome. Some of the links to all kinds of conditions that you might not think are related to actually having a healthy gut microbiome. So I am so super, super excited to welcome Dr. Will be. Well, Dr. Will Bulitz to the podcast, which is why they call him doctor Will Be. Welcome to the podcast, brother.

Yeah, thank you, Gary. It's a pleasure to be here, man.

I am such a fan of your work. I went deep down the rabbit hole of looking into some of your work and even watching some of the Other podcasts that you've been on. So many fascinating topics about microbiomes and cancer, tumors and the link of between the gut microbiome and all kinds of conditions, some of which I've professed for a while about mental conditions that actually can originate from the gut. And so there's so many places that we can go. I want to just kind of start with the basics. You know, I. I always say that I feel like the most influential people that I have on my podcast are people that were on their way in life to doing something else. And there was an event, something in their life, light bulb went off, there was a tipping point. They met someone, they had a profound experience, they had a painful experience, an addiction, they conquered. Something happened in their life and they had this ta da moment and they went down a new path. And it seems like you being traditionally trained as a medical physician, but now your viewpoint seems to be so much more holistic, so much more dynamic, so much more about the whole organism. Can you just talk a little bit about your journey, how you got where you are?

Yeah, I think it's interesting that you say that because I think that profound things need to happen in our lives in order to inspire us to work towards greater things. And at my lowest moment, I was actually being tremendously blessed. So in conventional gastroenterology, the diet is not a part of the plan at all. Right, Right.

So conventional gastroenterology, astounding to me. I mean, the only reason why we eat is to feed our microbiome. Right. I mean, we don't really eat to feed ourselves. We eat to feed the intermediary in our gut, and then that feeds us. To oversimplify things.

Well, I 100% agree. And it's actually shocking to me how highly intelligent people don't see that. Right.

Because they will see, including a gastroenterologist. I mean, by the way, talking about.

The world's leaders who are standing at the podium at an inflammatory bowel disease conference and teaching on inflammatory bowel disease, and they don't believe that diet has anything to do with inflammatory bowel disease.

Yeah. You know what they say? You can't read the label from inside the jar. You know, it's like sometimes we're so buried and so mired inside of our own beliefs that we can't read the label in, you know, in the jar that we're stuck inside of. Somebody said that to me the other day. I'm like, it's a great analogy. You know, I. I really try not to allow myself to get too dogmatic or pigeonholed or religious about any one direction or philosoph, because I meet so many amazing people like yourself, and, you know, they bring forward evidence and you're like, wow, that really. But. But in your community or previous community, there's really not a whole lot of room for free thinking.

No, that's true. I think there's not a lot of room for free thinking. And, you know, and. And just to be totally clear, this is not. I'm not rejecting conventional medicine.

Right. If I. I don't either, by the way.

Yeah. If I need conventional medicine, then I would have it. I think that the issue that we have is an over reliance on pills and procedures and using that as our first line approach to problems where the root of the problem is not the absence of the pill or the procedure. Right. The root of the problem is something that's deeper inside of us. That I would make the argument, and I think that you would probably support this. I think that a lot of our problems, particularly in the gastroenterology space, they start with the gut microbiome. And food and nutrition is the most powerful lever that we have that we could pull in order to shape and change and revitalize and restore that microbiome and get it back to health. Because when we do that, when we successfully get the microbiome back to health, these diseases wash away. Right, right. So from my perspective, to me, the approach to people who need therapy for their health problem should not start with medication. It should start with addressing the root of the issue, which is diet and lifestyle.

Yeah, I totally agree with you. And. And if we just took a step back for a moment, let's talk about all of the incredible systems inside the body that are touched from the microbiome. Right. I mean, first of all, the. You know, I often remind people that a lot. You know, our intestinal tract is technically outside of our body. And what's. What's like our skin, but it's sort of folded inside. Right. You know, down the. Down the throat and. And out the rectum. But the barrier separating that external environment from our internal environment is only a single cell layer.

Yes.

Right. And what determines whether or not that layer is being assaulted or is benefiting has a lot to do with our microbiome.

Yes.

And it's a very delicate layer. I mean, you know, I remember when I first read Dr. Perlmutter's book Years ago, kind of ahead of its time. It was called Gut Brain Axis and the Gut Brain Connection. And I was really shocked as a human biologist, that the gut could have so many profound effects on mental illness, on autoimmune diseases, on immune competency. And we talk a little bit about, you know, the basis for, you know, our gut microbiome and why it's so important, what are the other systems that it's connected to. So listeners really tune in and say, I need to really pay attention to this.

Yeah, well, so first of all, we evolved with these microbes. So the very first human, whoever that was millions of years ago, they had a microbiome and we co evolved in a way where we grew to trust them. And it's very clear to me as a medical doctor that this is true because they have actually inserted themselves into human physiology in a way where we require them in order to properly function as humans. So if we. So in conventional gastroenterology, the diet is not a part of the plan at all.

Right, right.

So conventional gastroenterology, astounding to me.

I mean, the only reason why we eat is to feed our microbiome. Right. I mean, we don't really eat to feed ourselves. We eat to feed the intermediary in our gut and then that feeds us. To oversimplify things.

Well, I 100% agree. And it's actually shocking to me how highly intelligent people don't see that. Right.

Because they will see, including a gastroenterologist. I mean, by the way, talking about.

The world's leaders who are standing at the podium at an inflammatory bowel disease conference and teaching on inflammatory bowel disease, and they don't believe that diet has anything to do with inflammatory bowel disease.

Yeah, you know what they think you can't read the label from inside the jar. You know, it's like sometimes we're so buried and so mired inside of our own beliefs that we can't read the label in, you know, in the jar that we're stuck inside of. Somebody said that to me the other day. I'm like, it's a great analogy. You know, I. I really try not to allow myself to get too dogmatic or pigeonholed or religious about any one direction or philosophy because I meet so many amazing people like yourself and you know, they bring forward evidence and you're like, wow, that really. But. But in your community or previous community, there's really not a whole lot of room for free thinking.

No, that's true. I think there's not a lot of room for free thinking. And you know, and just to be totally clear, this is not. I'm not rejecting conventional Medicine. Right.

If I. I don't either, by the way.

Yeah. If I need. If I need conventional medicine, then I would have it. I think that the issue that we have is an over reliance on pills and procedures and using that as our first line approach to problems where the root of the problem is not the absence of the pill or the procedure. Right. The root of the problem is something that's deeper inside of us that I would make the argument, and I think that you would probably support this. I think that a lot of our problems, particularly in the gastroenterology space, they start with the gut microbiome. And food and nutrition is the most powerful lever that we have that we could pull in order to shape and change and revitalize and restore that microbiome and get it back to health. Because when we do that, when we successfully get the microbiome back to health, these diseases wash away. Right, Right. So from my perspective, to me, the approach to people who need therapy for their health problem should not start with medication. It should start with addressing the root of the issue, which is diet and lifestyle.

Yeah, I totally agree with you. And. And if we just took a step back for a moment, let's talk about all of the incredible systems inside the body that are touched from the microbiome. Right. I mean, first of all, the. You know, I often remind people that a lot. You know, our intestinal tract is technically outside of our body, and what's. What's like our skin, but it's sort of folded inside. Right. You know, down the. Down the throat and. And out the rectum. But the barrier separating that external environment from our internal environment is only a single cell layer.

Yes.

Right. And what determines whether or not that layer is being assaulted or is benefiting has a lot to do with our microbiome.

Yes.

And it's a very delicate layer. I mean, you know, I remember when I first read Dr. Perlmutter's book Years ago, kind of ahead of its time. It was called Gut Brain Axis and the Gut Brain Connection. And I was really shocked as a human biologist that the gut could have so many profound effects on mental illness, on autoimmune diseases, on immune competency. And we talk a little bit about the basis for our gut microbiome and why it's so important. What are the other systems that it's connected to? So listeners really tune in and say, I need to really pay attention to this.

Yeah, well, so first of all, we evolved with these microbes. So the very first human, whoever that was millions of years ago, they had a microbiome. And we co evolved in a way where we grew to trust them. And it's very clear to me as a medical doctor that this is true because they have actually inserted themselves into human physiology in a way where we require them in order to properly function as humans. So if we in theory, were sterile and did not have these microbiomes, did not have a microbiome, we would be in big trouble very quickly. So. And the gut is this place. So you just talked about how the gut is external to our body, which is true. It's weird to think about.

Yeah, it is.

But the gut is also the place where we interact with the environment, we interact with the outside world. The skin is a barrier, it's a wall. But the choices that we make when we put something into our mouth, chew it and swallow it, that's based upon trust. You trust that whatever it is that you put into your mouth is not toxic and in fact going to nourish your body and then you send it down and it will come into contact with these gut microbes. And inside, they're mostly concentrated, Gary, inside of our colonial.

All right, so it's at the very end.

At the very end, yeah. And there's 38 trillion microbes that exist in that specific location.

Wow.

Now, 38 trillion is a hard number for us to sort of comprehend. So let me try to put this into perspective. If we were to on the most clear, like we're. If we're way up north in Canada on the most clear night and we looked up and we saw all the stars in the sky, I would need to take 380, 380 galaxies full of stars, tighten them up, and insert them into your colon. And that's how many microbes you have living inside of you right now.

Wow.

They outnumber your human cells. You are less than 50% human. They make up 99.5% of your genetic code. Your genetic code is less than 1% human. It is 99.5% your microbiome. Wow. And they're connected to so much. It starts with their interactions with our food. So they help us to unpack our food, and they make nutrients available to us that otherwise wouldn't be available. So all food comes into contact with these microbes.

Right.

And this is, to me, like the essence of life.

Yeah.

Is like, you know, you're not alive unless you get access to nutrients.

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Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. Yeah. We were saying before the podcast, like you, you don't eat to feed yourself, you eat to feed your microbiome.

That's right.

And then they're going to feed you.

And then they're going to feed you.

You got to be kind to these guys.

And these nutrients that they create for us are bioactive and are able to actually exert effects, influences throughout our entire body. So it's more than just within our intestine. Now, if we were to zoom in with the microscope and look at the intestine itself, what we would discover is you would see, oh, there's these microbes, and they're as alive as you and I are. And they have personalities and they have cliques and circles of friends, and they have unique skill sets. Certain ones do certain things and they work in teams and they have food preferences. They don't all like the same food. So guess what? They sound a lot like us.

Right? Right.

And they're existing there inside of us, in an ecosystem. And surrounding them is the gut barrier. And as you said, it's a single layer of cells. On the other side of that gut barrier is 70% of your immune system.

Yeah. All right.

And the reason why your immune system is there is because this is where we're interacting with the outside world. So if there's a problem, that's where.

The action's going to be.

That's where the action is, right?

Yeah.

So they're. And. And they're communicating to one another. The microbes are talking to the immune system. The microbes are actually maintaining that gut barrier that protects the immune system and that protects our bloodstream so that we don't allow toxins or things into our blood that shouldn't be there. But then these bioactive molecules, which we'll talk about, some of them, like short chain fatty acids, for example, our microbes create these things. They enter into the bloodstream, and within seconds, they're circulating throughout our entire body and having healing effects, including our metabolism, including our insulin sensitivity, inflammation and inflammation, and our brain, and even, Gary, our brain, our blood brain barrier. So our blood brain barrier is actually conceptually the same as the gut barrier in that it's also a single layer of cells with the same tight junctions that hold the cells together. And so when people eat well, they may notice more energy. They may also notice that they're cognitively more focused. And that's the effects of your gut and these bioactive molecules, not only on your brain, but on your blood brain barrier.

We talked about it in the kitchen before the podcast, that so many mental disorders. I'm just going to sort of group them all together for a minute. ADD adhd, ocd, manic depression, bipolar, anxiety, anxiousness. All of these things that we might be labeling as a mental condition or mental disorder do in fact originate in the gut, meaning the neurotransmitters that provide those different moods and emotional states originate in the gut.

I think there's a highly compelling argument. And if we take a look at each of these, every single one of the ones that you just mentioned, I can point you to the studies that show that if you look within the state of these mood disorders, the gut microbiome is disturbed. There's damage to the gut microbiome, which we call dysbiosis. And we see that in each of these cases. Now, there are some who will make the argument, oh, well, these are associations, right. That they're true at the same time, but it's not necessarily proof of causality. But I actually think that as far as we can take it, there's evidence that would suggest that this is, in fact, legit. We have fecal transplant studies where they will take the fecal transplant of a person who is clinically depressed and transplant it into a mouse, and then the mouse will change its mood and start to demonstrate behavior consistent with the spectrum of how mice manifest depression.

Right, right. And the opposite I've read from fecal transplant studies as well, where they can improve mood and emotional state and even improve some of these conditions because through fecal transplant, by reinserting a new microbiome. So if we were to take a step back for a second and say, if I'm listening to this podcast, and yes, I'm concerned about my gut health, and yes, I'm concerned about my microbiome, where does somebody start? And do we just go and test it and then do we adjust our diet accordingly? Are there some things I could add to my daily routine that would help ensure that I'm putting healthy pre pro postbiotics into. Into this system and improving its function? Like, where does somebody start? And what is a. What is a healthy microbiome diet look like?

Yeah. Um, so the good news is that as powerful as this is, the microbiome is extremely forgiving. So we have research that shows us that the food choices that you make today will start to impact your microbiome by tomorrow.

Wow.

Now this is not to make the claim that you're completely overhauling your microbiome. That takes time. Right. That would be reshaping it. But, but what we do know is that those changes will start to take place immediately. And if you start to make changes with consistency, consistency is a very important concept within the microbiome. So that one meal or doing that quick five day thing, that's not going to get the job done. What we need is we need to identify sustainable habits, sustainable choices that you're actually willing to do and that will help you to reshape the microbiome. And there's multiple ways that we can shape this microbiome. These are things that you talk about and some of them are dietary and we can talk about those concepts, prebiotics, things like this. So some of them are dietary, but some of them also are through fitness, through exercise, through sleep, through aligning with our circadian rhythm, through meditation or breath work. So the interesting thing to me is that I enjoy seeing the way that people, like, for example, you address these issues because in all cases you say 30 minutes of exercise within 30 minutes of waking up. And I say, okay, I can show you how this affects the microbiome and why that makes sense.

Yeah, that's great. I would love to link some studies to that. And I think that there's so much confusion out there. There's so many product oriented approaches out there that, you know, I, I eat a lot of kefir vegetables, I post it on Instagram all the time, I talk about it, I, I can tell when I'm not eating fermented foods. And you know, when I was a kid I did, didn't like it. We were joking around before the podcast about my grand grandmother used to can everything and I swear to God I would, I walked into her basement, I was 10 years old, came back when I was 19 years old and same can of beets was on, you know, the jarred vegetables. But she, you know, fermented vegetables all the time. It was part of my life growing up. And then I got way away from that and in high school and college and only recently I've returned to that and the difference in how I feel and even just the diameter of my gut when I'm regularly eating fermented vegetables is night and day. And I see it in My kids, too, even in my staff, because I, you know, feed them when they're here. So talk a little bit about the. The kinds of foods. I think there's a lot of myths surrounding fiber. You know, is. Is fiber really as important as we. You know, it's. It's held out to be the difference between soluble and insoluble fibers. What are ways to increase soluble and insoluble fibers in. In my diet? So I can actually get more of these short chain fatty acids so I can get the internal benefits that I'm really after. Yeah, it really kind of starts with what we're putting in the front end.

Yeah. It 100% does. And if we want to touch on. If I were to offer up two main takeaways for the listeners at home. Let's start with what you just put on the table, which is fermented foods.

Okay. All right.

And then we can move on to other stuff, like fiber, but fermented foods. When I wrote my first book, Fiber Fueled, it came out in 2020, and I had an entire chapter dedicated to the power of fermented foods. Fermentation is transformation. Right. The food starts as one thing, and it ends as something different. And the transformation is taking place because of the microbes. They're using their specialized enzymes that they have to unlock the nutrition within the food.

Yeah.

So sauerkraut is a great example of this, where it starts off as salty cabbage, and it ends up as this tart, crunchy, acidic, delicious thing that has now different B vitamins.

B vitamins, yeah.

Unlocking the vitamin C, making the polyphenols more bioavailable, unique forms of fiber that we call exopolysaccharides. And then, of course, the part that we all focus on with fermentation, which is the live microbes. So the jar of sauerkraut has turned into an ecosystem. And that ecosystem exists much like the ecosystem inside of us, with a balance of microbes where the good guys outweigh the bad guys.

Yeah.

And I could take you to the store, Gary, and show you the probiotics that people pay a lot of money for that contain the exact same microbes that you would find in a jar of sauerkraut.

Right. And you're probably more likely to have them be live.

Oh, 100%.

Yeah.

To me, this was intuitive. This makes complete sense, that this is a gut health food. And there, of course, is the tradition. These are celebrated foods from across the planet. But it wasn't until much more recently that actually at Stanford University. Some of my friends who are there, Professor Christopher Gardner, Professor Justin Sonnenberg, his wife, Erica Sonnenberg. They combined and they did a randomized control trial. And in this randomized control trial, they were measuring people's gut microbiome. They were looking at measures of inflammation, and they had them dramatically increase their fermented food intake. Now, the baseline is basically zero. In America, people either don't consume fermented food at all, or maybe they do a little bit of kind of junky yogurt.

Right, right.

And so in this study, they ramped up their fermented food intake. And the exciting part about this was that in just eight weeks, they were able to increase the diversity within their gut microbiome, and they lowered measures of inflammation, which, by the way, does not come as a surprise to me, because when we increase the diversity in our microbiome, a hearty, healthy microbiome is a resilient microbiome, which results in a resilient, healthy immune system that's lower in inflammation.

Yeah, that is so. That is so powerful. You know, I. I heard you on a podcast, and I was. I was listening to you talk about a really fascinating concept, that there's now evidence that even cancer tumors have their own microbiome.

Yeah.

And the microbiome may be predictive of its susceptibility to chemotherapeutic treatments.

That's right.

That one blew me away.

Yeah.

Because, you know, I always think of the microbiome, not just microbes, but the microbiome as being just, you know, inside the gut, not inside of something like. Like a tumor. It made a lot of sense to me, what you said. But talk to me a little bit about that research and the promise that that might have for oncology treatments.

We're transitioning to a new phase with the microbiome. It used to be that the microbiome was this novel thing where you would kind of take a look at the test and you'd be like, oh, that's interesting, but you didn't really know how to use the information.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, I've even looked at some of these microbiome tests, and I'm like, well, I don't know how we repopulate that flora this, flora that, flora. I mean, take a bunch of probiotics, but I think that's what most people think, too, so.

Well, now we're entering into this new phase where we're actually starting to use this information or using what we know in terms of manipulating the microbiome. In order to help people achieve their health goals. And there's no better example of this than within cancer therapy, because these, of course, are desperate people. Right. They're like fighting for their lives. They're desperately hoping that the treatment they receive from their doctor, like chemotherapy or immunotherapy, which I'll explain in a moment, is going to help them to eliminate this tumor and the carcinogenic cells in their body. So the new phase is that you mentioned that we now see that a tumor has a microbiome and that increasingly you can predict response to therapy using the information that exists in the tumor microbiome. Now, that's not quite at. That concept is not quite out in prime time just yet. Right. This is early days in terms of that idea. But if we were to shift our focus to a different idea that is actually out in practice now, it's immunotherapy, and it started with melanoma, but now this is being applied to multiple different forms of cancer. The new way that we approach cancer, which, by the way, is proving to be more effective for most cancers, is rather than directly trying to crush and destroy the cancer cells, which is chemotherapy, we are now flipping to a new idea, which is why don't we just empower the immune system.

Yes.

And allow the immune system to do what it does.

Right.

Which is eliminate cancer cells.

Yeah. It's astounding. I actually just had a client of mine, I'm not licensed practice medicine, so this was not my doing, But a client of mine, very, very prominent woman, 80 years old, was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic colon cancer in February and had a DNA mismatch. So the immune system had recognized the cancer as a foreign body and was already beginning to create antibodies to it and did immunotherapy and in less than 7 months was completely cancer free at 80 years old immunotherapy. And you had thought that somebody like that would have gone into high dose radiation, chemotherapy, maybe exploratory surgery, and not likely at 80 years old to have. To have survived that. But she is alive right now. And it was, it was seven months from the time. And I'm not again saying that immunotherapy is the only thing that you can do for. For cancer. But what's really interesting is that you're now talking about the immune system and the strength of the immune system, and specifically using the microbiome as a way to target some of these therapies, maybe even decide how treatment resistant a tumor is going to be.

So the concept is Proof that our immune system requires a healthy microbiome in order to be healthy itself.

Okay.

Right. If we want an effective immune system, we need a strong microbiome. And it started really. This is research coming out of MD Anderson, looking at melanoma. Melanoma is the number one cause of skin cancer death in the United States. And they were treating people with immunotherapy, this idea that you empower the immune system to do the work for you. And they noticed that people who received antibiotics were not doing as well. And so now at first, they said, well, maybe they're just more sick. So they started to dig into this in more detail, and they discovered, oh, no, what's happening here is that the antibiotics are whacking out the microbiome, and without the microbiome intact, the immunotherapy doesn't work.

Wow.

So they followed this up with a study looking at fecal transplant. And they said, okay, so if antibiotics are bad, then maybe if we can restore the microbiome with a fecal transplant, we could get better results. They took a group of people who had failed immunotherapy. These are people who are desperate. They have no choice at this point. They failed the best therapy that we have, and they gave them a fecal transplant. Now, this was a series of patients, and they were shocked by the number of people that ended up responsive to immunotherapy after receiving a fecal transplant after previously failing the same treatment.

Wow.

Okay. So then they followed this up with an additional study. And I think this is where the exciting science is emerging for us, and it can lead us into our second sort of nutritional conversation. The second study, they took a look at what they were eating, and they specifically looked at fiber intake. Now, fiber, as we'll discuss, is the key to feeding and fueling the gut microbiome. And when you feed it and fuel it, fiber. The microbes break down the fiber, it stops being fiber, and they transform it into fat.

Short chain fatty acids.

Short chain fatty acids, butyrate, acetate and propionate. And these short chain fatty acids have effects throughout the entire body, including directly on the immune system and repairing and restoring the gut barrier.

Wow.

So now these are really important and powerful things for people who are sick. So anyway, they took a lot of.

You need to feed them the right things in order for them to produce the short chain fatty acids, Right?

That's right.

The right types of fiber you get.

The benefit of consuming fiber is that not only do you get a healthier microbiome, but you get a healthier microbiome that's producing short chain fatty acids. And you need the fiber in order to produce the short chain fatty acids. Right, right. They don't just, you know, operate out of nowhere.

Right.

So. And what they found in this study, again, getting back to melanoma with the immunotherapy, is that people who were consuming more fiber had a profound survival advantage. And for every five grams of fiber that they had in their diet. Five grams. This is not a lot.

That's not a lot at all.

For every 5 grams of fiber that they had in their diet, they had a 30 survival advantage for every five grams. Every five grams. Wow. Wow.

That is cancer.

Seeing findings like this, there's similar, there's similar research to suggest this with colon cancer.

Really? Because, you know, colon cancer is skyrocketing right now. I mean, you had job security in your, your career.

Yeah.

Did you do surgery as well?

Yeah, I did colonoscopy.

I've.

I'm actually very serious about colon cancer because I'm the guy who's diagnosed many people even at a young age, and it's. It breaks my heart. Like these, these were my patients.

Right. At a young age. So you're on the prevention bandwagon now.

Oh, I'm on the prevention bandwagon, but I'm also on a holistic bandwagon of saying, look, the solution is prevention, but a prevention strategy is not just colonoscopy.

Right, Right.

A prevention strategy starts with what we put into our mouth. Because this is colon cancer. Why is it shifting? Because it's shifting to younger people. And for those who haven't heard the headlines, a person who's born in 1990 is four times more likely to be diagnosed with rectal cancer and two times more likely to be diagnosed with colon cancer during their lifetime compared to their parents. If they were born in 1950, no way. So in 40 years time, we have four times the risk of rectal biome is disturbed in the development of colorectal cancer. On the flip side, if you want to prevent colorectal cancer, the way that we do this is with short chain fatty acids. Really there are multiple mechanisms, multiple mechanisms that short chain fatty acids are actually able to destroy tumor cells.

Short chain fatty acids are actually able to destroy.

Destroy tumor cells. Because we are constantly replicating our bodies, our body makes mistakes in replication. It's normal to create abnormal cells, but our body has to have the capacity to get rid of them. We have to be able to identify them and get rid of them. And if we don't, if we don't.

See it, the zombie cells, the senescent cells, those cells that are just not metabolically healthy.

Exactly. And it starts off as one cell. And if our body identifies it and eliminates it, then there's no problem. And this is what happens on a daily basis as we're sitting here talking to one another. But if our body misses it because the immune system is not healthy, and because we don't have things properly oriented, then that one cell becomes two cells, becomes four cells, becomes eight cells, and you give it enough time and it turns into a tumor.

Wow.

Right. So. And it starts on a microscopic level like that. So short chain fatty acids have the ability to directly destroy tumor cells through multiple different mechanisms. And this is important information because we're talking about the benefits of short chain fatty acids on a number of different levels. We get them from fiber.

Right.

95% of Americans are not, not just mildly deficient in fiber, they are wildly deficient in fiber.

Wow.

So to put numbers to this, men like you and I, we should be consuming at least 38 grams of fiber per day. The average man in the United states is getting 17. All right, not even half.

So not even half. Yeah.

The average woman in the United states is getting 15 grams of fiber and she should be getting 25. So about 60%. So we're nowhere close to where we need to be. And then we ask our question, why do we have such a colon cancer problem? And the solution that our government comes up with is things like colonoscopy programs, which I'm completely in favor of. We need to protect ourselves. But what they don't talk about at all, which makes no sense to me, is that what if we addressed the fiber deficiency that exists in the United States? This is more than just colon cancer. This is heart disease, esophageal cancer, breast cancer, strokes, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease. We could keep going.

Yeah. Type 3 diabetes. Yep. So you really think that having a high fiber diet is a non negotiable?

I think that, I think that we should start by addressing the fiber deficiency. Right. So getting 38 grams of fiber is not a high fiber diet.

Right.

That's just actually normalizing.

And I wonder how many people are actually getting to that, that point.

Getting the 38 grams of fiber among men, it's I think about 3%.

3%.

About 3% get to 38. So. And again, that's not a high fiber diet. We consider that a high fiber diet, Gary, because we have normalized something that's very abnormal. Right. We've put ourselves into a position where it's like, you know, if the gut were a muscle, then the collective muscle of the American gut is so weak right now.

Right. You know, I've been saying this for a long time too. You know, a lot of the big data points at these. These kinds of trends. So for, you know, somebody that wants to pay attention to this and wants to incorporate more fiber in their diet. Not all fibers created equally. You're a big fan of plant sources. What are some of the go to plant sources? Let's say, aside, aside from fermented vegetables, what are some of the go to plant sources that we could add to our diet to make sure that we're getting the right amount of soluble, insoluble fiber?

So I think that the key here is that. So first of all, fiber can be incredibly complicated.

I agree with you.

It is biochemical.

People think it's all the same thing.

No, no, it's like the word protein.

Right.

The protein in a fish is not the same as the protein in a bean.

Right, right.

And the word protein is a big word. There's a lot of different types. There's a lot of different types of fiber and. But yet that complexity can be distilled down to simple rules that everyone can take away from this podcast. Okay, all plants have fiber. Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, seeds, nuts, and legumes. By the way, mushrooms also have fiber. Technically, they're not plants, they're fungi. But, like, let's make them honorary plants.

Yeah, yeah, let's make them honorary plants.

So all that has fiber. Okay. They also all have both soluble and insoluble fiber. When we use these words soluble and insoluble, it's just describing a characteristic of the fiber. Right. And like, another word that we could use is viscosity, which is how thick it is, like how gelatinous it becomes. Or another word we could use is fermentable. How fermentable is it? These are just different ways to describe properties of fiber.

Right.

Now, soluble fiber and insoluble fiber, we do need to separate out a little bit because the way they function is different.

Right.

Insoluble fiber is the grit. That's the roughage. That's the traditional view of fiber. Like, I grew up. I'm sure you did too. Where the way that I saw fiber was my grandma stirring an orange drink so that she could have a dump.

Yeah, exactly. Right. Metamucil.

Yeah. She was having her metamucil so that she could have a poop. So true. We knew what grandma was up to there.

Yeah, yeah.

So now that's. That's the great thing.

Grew up with that grandma.

Yeah. And that's the grit. And that just runs right through us. It's the new science of fiber that I want to talk about, which is the soluble fiber. All right, the new science that's showing us that soluble fiber actually dissolves in our drink. It goes down into our intestines, passes through about 20ft of our intestines. We don't have the enzymes to break down soluble fiber, but our microbes.

Doctor.

So it passes through our small intestine, arrives into the colon completely intact, and then they get into a feeding frenzy because this is their preferred food. So they get to eat.

Wow.

Right? And then they, like, go to work in teams, unpacking that fiber and releasing the short chain fatty acids. All right, now you asked me, like, what, what are the foods that I recommend? Let me say, like, I, I'm, I'm more than happy to share some of my favorites. Like, I love avocados. Right? I've already had avocados twice today.

I think you said tacos.

I was like, okay, no, no, but, but I think that the. Actually, the key takeaway is this. I want to. I want to actually reshape the way that people think about fiber to stop thinking about it in grams. Okay, Right. We have been told, like, even me, I mean, during the show, I've said we need to get this many grams of fiber. Okay. Actually, when it comes to our microbiome, the key is variety, because different types of plants have different forms of fiber. So, yes, like beans and lentils, they are a wonderful source of fiber and resistant starches and polyphenols. So that, to me, those are concentrated sources. The reason why a lot of people struggle with them is because their gut microbiome is not ready to handle the amount of beans they just ate. All right, but if we were to take a step back, the American Gut Project was the largest study to date that allows us to draw connections between our gut microbiome and our lifestyle pattern, our diet. And in that study, it wasn't whether you called yourself vegan or keto or any of these different labels that we apply to a person, that didn't matter. What mattered was that the people with the healthiest guts were the people who were eating at least 30 plants per week.

Wow.

And that sounds like that's more than 30 servings, right?

You're saying 30 plants?

30 total plants, 30 plant varieties. And the key with that is, no matter who you are, if you're not hitting 30, don't feel bad, because 95% of America is not doing this. So start where you are. But just think about this. When you go to the supermarket, when you step into the kitchen and when you sit down at the dinner table, there's an opportunity where you can add more variety. Right. You're making tomato sauce. You could do tomato sauce and pasta. That's two plants. Or you could take that tomato sauce and turn it into a vehicle for throwing all kinds of different varieties of plants in there.

Yeah. And when you start putting a wide variety of plants in there and wide variety of soluble versus insoluble fiber, you start producing these short chain fatty acids. You see, what kind of markers could we watch for in. Because this is the other thing is how do I measure whether or not I'm doing a good job with, with my microbiome? Right. I mean, we're both big data guys. And so I test my microbiome, I see that it's off, I make some adjustments to my diet. What kind of biomarkers could I expect to see in my blood change?

Well, so I guess let me sort of frame this, which is to say that, I mean, yes, you could do a microbiome test. I work with a company called Zoe and we have an at home microbiome test that also includes a circle.

I've seen Zoe.

Yep. So our kid is combination of microbiome, continuous glucose monitor and a blood lipid test to basically create a personalized dietary plan. Okay. And we have a randomized controlled trial that we published in May in Nature Medicine, proving that our product works. All right, but put that to the side for a moment. And let's just start with something that's completely free and very basic, which is how do you feel and what do your bowel movements look like? Right. This is where I would start. Because people that have a damaged microbiome, they have low energy, they have tons of fatigue.

Yeah.

They have difficulty with concentration and focus.

Right.

They can't get a lot done. They're struggling in their exercise and their workouts. I noticed this myself. I'm curious if you notice this.

Yeah.

If I eat a junk food meal, which, like, I'm. I'm not perfect. Right. I do the best that I can. If I have a bad meal, my workouts are way worse on.

Oh, yeah, no question. And if I have a bad meal, I just finished a podcast on this. But if I have a bad meal, too Close to bedtime, it's even worse, 100%. And not only destroys the mood, but also destroys the sleep. And then you pay for it the next day. Right? Yeah.

So all of these things are the product of your microbiome. If you have gut symptoms when you eat regular amounts of food. Right. That's because your gut microbiome is struggling to help you to process and digest your food. Look at your bowel movements.

So you get byproducts that you don't want, gas, bloating, constipation, irritability, cramping, all of these things.

That's sloppy digestion.

Right. We think our food allergies or food sensitivities. And then I guess, in a sense, because we don't have the gut microbiome, they sort of are. But the exciting thing is that you're not stuck with the microbiome that you have today.

No. And there's common sense. There's a common sense approach that you can use to address this issue so that people who want to consume more fiber, but struggle to consume even normal amounts of fiber, like the numbers that we're talking about, they can accomplish this. And the way that I go about this is to use an exercise analogy. So, like, if you hurt your knee, you have two choices. You could go lay on a bed, not move. All right? And I promise you, you will not feel pain in your knee, but your health throughout your entire body will suffer because you are completely sedentary. You're not using the rest of your body at all. Eventually, this will manifest with disease, and it will actually create problems for you.

Right.

The alternative choice is that. And I know, Gary, I'm sure when I asked this question, it's a little more complicated with you because you got some other things you would do. But for the average person, the other choice is to go through a rehabilitation program. And in a rehabilitation program, you're actually working the knee. You're actually forcing it to move. It's controlled. Now, you may have some discomfort when you do this, but that's to be expected. And you're working through a process of restoring function to that knee so that by the time that you're done, you can get back to playing pickleball or playing basketball or whatever it is that you like. The gut is the same. So the problem with the conventional approach that we have these days is that people say, if you don't feel well, then just eliminate it.

Oh, yeah.

And people end up on a progressively more restricted diet. They're shaving away more and More different types of foods. And I just said 10 minutes ago that the number one predictor of a healthy gut microbiome is the variety. Abundance is the key, not restriction. Right. So. So how do we go about this? The way that we do this is we rehabilitate the same way you would with a knee, which is that you got to take these foods that you're struggling with and put it in an amount that you can actually tolerate. So start low and go slow. Reduce the amount that you consume at one meal.

That causes the reaction.

That causes the reaction.

Yeah.

Make it an amount that you actually can tolerate. There is an amount that you can actually tolerate. All right. Make it an amount that you can actually tolerate. Your gut will grow stronger.

Yeah.

Because it grows stronger, you can increase the amount that you can eat next time by a little bit. Yeah, it's just like exercise.

Yeah. So, and when we say we're gonna go slow, so, you know, back to the biomarkers that test. Because, again, I'm a huge, huge fan of data, and I like to measure and track things. You know, one of the things we do in our clinic environment is we'll pull a blood panel and pull a genetic profile, and then we will supplement for the genetic deficiencies and then watch the changes in the blood. So we're looking at things like C reactive protein, homocysteine, kidney EGFR filtration rates, alkaline phosphatase in the liver, the enzymes in the liver, ast, alt, seeing if the liver is getting more or less inflamed. So we in. In large pools of patients, you can see that things like, well, when I take glutathione and I support my healthy detox pathways, we actually see a reduction in alkaline phosphatase and usually reduction in enzyme activity. That looks that. That indicates inflammation and irritation. So if I'm. If I get a gut microbiome test and I want to go on a journey to fix my gut microbiome, or I'm listening to this podcast and I want to start incorporating things in my daily life that are actually going to have an impact. What sort of things should I be measuring? And I'm going to put some of these tests that you suggest. I'll put them in the show notes because I think there's so much out there on gut microbiome that's hard for people to figure out where they start.

Well, I think the reason why it's confusing is that the gut microbiome, it has functional abilities, and those functional abilities apply to all different aspects of who we are in our health, right? So it's not just this one measure. How is your gut microbiome doing for your digestion, for your metabolism, for your immune system? Like, these are separate, separate goals, and we need a microbiome that supports us in each of these goals, right? So where you have to start is you have to start by first saying, what are you hoping to accomplish? What do you want to go after? Right? Do you want to enhance your metabolism? Do you want to enhance your immune system? Do you want to be better at digestion?

Right.

Starting with a holistic. Before we get into blood web measures. Just real quick, and I kind of touched on this, but just to be totally clear, I start with, how does a person feel? Right? What is their health history? Do they have.

What are their symptoms?

What are their symptoms? What is their health history? Do they have a history of diagnoses that are associated with dysbiosis? Because when I would go to see patients, I would take a look at their health history, and you see, they're here to see me for irritable bowel syndrome. But they also have major depression, adhd, Right? They have obesity, they have high cholesterol, they have pre diabetes, they have polycystic ovary syndrome. Okay? Everything is out of whack, but yet the one thing that ties all that together is the microbiome.

Phenomenal, right?

And then the last thing is, like, what's going on with your bowel movements? Because if I were a cardiologist, I would listen to your heart. But I'm a gastroenterologist. And your poop is predicated on a healthy microbiome.

Right?

60% of the weight of your bowel movement comes from microbes.

Mean, the byproduct from microbes. The waste from microbes.

The waste from microbes, yes. So we think of our poop as being the excrement of our food. It's our food waste. But actually, the majority of the weight of our food is microbial in nature. And one of the ways that you know, and I can prove this to you, because if I. If I were to put some soluble fiber into a drink for you, you would have a vigorous large bowel movement. Not. Not while we're live and on the air here. Vi.

Vigorous large bell movement.

Yeah, I feel quite comfortable talking about these things. Gary.

You just let that fly, dude. I love it. Oh, I. I bet you there's some people watching this right now. They're like, hey, if I can have a vigorous large bowel movement, I am in. Tell me where I can get that, because, I mean, constipation is a massive issue with. I can't even tell you how many clients come into our clinic.

Oh, I'm convinced it's epidemic. Epidemic.

How many days?

Yeah.

One, two.

I mean, and there are people who poop every day.

Every morning. Like, I'm like a bear.

No, but there are people who poop every day, and they're still constipated. Oh, yeah. So it's not. It's not even just your. Your frequency. Like, there's. So. But I think that the key here, though, is that a healthy microbiome is reflected in good, healthy, large, satisfying bowel movements.

Yes.

All right, so we start with those things.

All right?

And then the question is, okay, so which. Which index, Which. Which direction do we want to look into? Because if what we want to look into is your digestive health, then to me, as a gastroenterologist, it's about symptoms. That's what I treat. As a gastroenterologist, I treat symptoms. That's the focus.

Right.

But if we were looking at your metabolic health, and we want to say, where's your metabolism at? Then I want to take a panel of labs that are going to show me where you're at in terms of your metabolic health. And if I have to start somewhere, I want to look at insulin sensitivity.

Insulin sensitivity, huge.

That's where I want to start. But we could also, of course, take a look at your lipids, take a look at your cholesterol. We could get a full panel. One of the things that I like with our Zoe program is that our triglyceride test is a postprandial triglyceride test after a meal. So it's. After a meal, it's a standardized meal. So that way everyone who does the Zoe kit, whether it's you or me or someone else, they get the same meal, and then we can see what the response is. Now, this is like, to me, conceptually.

Goes through the microbiome. What shows up in the blood is what you're. You're measuring that response.

So believe it or not, our. Our blood fat levels. This is something that we published in 2020 in Nature Medicine. Our blood sugar, our blood fat, specifically triglycerides, and our insulin levels can all be predicted by our gut microbiome. Wow. On different levels. On different levels. So the most powerful thing for blood sugar, for example, is what did you just eat? Right? So if you eat, like a high.

Sugar meal, but that's just glucose, right?

Right.

But hemoglobin A1C has sort of what you're eating over time, you know, much longer window, 90 days or, you know, three month window of your blood sugar.

That's right.

But you're saying that's highly predicted by your gut microbiome.

So I'm saying that your blood sugar is highly predicted by your gut microbiome. I'm saying that even more so your insulin. And the reason why insulin is important is because actually the amount of insulin that you require to process the exact same food is directly indicative of your insulin resistance or insulin sensitivity.

Wow. Right.

And that's very much predicted by your gut microbiome. And this aligns with the research that shows that if you take the microbiome of a person with diabetes and you transfer it to a mouse, that mouse will get diabetes. And yes, Gary, even in humans we have data where they took young men, gave them a fresh microbiome, they had pre diabetes, gave them a fresh microbiome, and they, they saw improvements in their, in their blood sugar.

And when you say fecal transplant or, or, or probiotics, prebiotics, what did they do to give them a microbiome?

So in that, in that particular study where they gave it to the young men, it was a fecal transplant. Okay, but if I were given the choice, what would I rather give a person? A fecal transplant or, or a prebiotic. I would rather give them the prebiotic. Right. And the reason why is because the fecal transplants. So let's pretend in theory. Like, if, if I were to give you a fecal transplant, what would happen? Well, the issue is that the new microbes that I've given you are not aligned with the food that you eat.

Right, Aligned with the food of the host.

Of the host. Right, right. So you may derive a benefit initially from having this fresh microbiome that maybe has functional abilities that you didn't previously have. And I don't mean to pick on you, Gary. Dr. It's just like in theory. Yeah, right. So you may derive a benefit from this. So like in this study, for example, these young men who had a blood sugar problem, they got a new microbiome and suddenly their blood sugar problem got a lot better.

That's phenomenal.

Right. But the issue though is that they never changed their diet. And because they never changed their diet over the course of four weeks, they shifted back to their old microbiome and they were right back to where they started. Right. So it's not a sustained benefit. So if you wanted to Sustain the benefit. What you would need is you would need the prebiotic, you would need to shift your diet. And by feeding the microbiome, then you would actually be able to maintain that benefit and perhaps even go beyond it.

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Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. Wow. So what are some like must haves, Some go to foods that you say, you know, basic healthy gut nutrition, basic healthy microbiome function is, is based upon maintaining this level of fiber, this level of soluble fiber. Here's the best sources of soluble fiber. And in your opinion, you don't.

I mean, if I, if I have to pick one, I'm going with legumes.

Right, Legumes.

And. Yeah, and the reason why. So lentils, peas and beans.

Okay.

And the reason that I'm going to go there is also part of a.

Lot of the longevity diets.

I mean all the longevity diets show this.

Yep. Valter Longo's research supports that.

There are research studies where they control for multiple different factors and then they spit out like what is the number one food and beans are the food that pops out. What is it about beans that's special? Well, they have a tremendous amount of fiber and also resistant starches and they're being wildly under consumed. So the average American, I laugh when people propose the Idea that the lectins and beans are the cause of all of our issues. Yeah, I mean, this makes zero sense.

You do hear that for sure.

Well, Gary, we, the average American eats 6 pounds of beans per year. Per year. Our parents, our parents generation ate eight pounds of beans. We've reduced our bean intake substantially. This is not the cause of our problems. Okay, okay, so. But it is an opportunity. It is an opportunity because these are foods that are non perishable, completely inexpensive. Right. Like there's very few foods that are less expensive than beans.

Yeah, yeah. Legumes are really cheap and they can.

Be worked into our.

Pretty versatile. Yeah, they're very versatile.

So they can be worked into our diet in a number of different ways. It doesn't need to be this thing where you're on an all bean diet. That's not what I'm proposing. Right. What I'm proposing is that you actually reintroduce these into your diet and just have them in there.

Right, right.

In addition to everything else that you're eating.

So legumes, fermented veggies, which is one of my favorites. I remember I hated them so much as a kid, I crave them now as an adult. They are, they, they go with just about anything. And sauerkraut can be really, really powerful. But some of the kimchis are delicious and they're crunchy and like, you know, if you have a hot meal on your plate, you can have them cold. You can actually make them hot too.

Yeah.

And so these kinds of things, but the soluble and insoluble fiber, Because I think when we talk about gut microbiome health, most people think they go straight to the shelf and grab a probiotic. And the way that, you know, most people would evaluate probiotics is they go, okay, how many colony forming units are here? Oh, 50 billion CFUs. That's good. And it has, this one has seven strains and this one has 11 strains. So more colony forming units, more strains, and it's more expensive. So it's probably the best probiotic. So kind of walk us through that. Because what's interesting about the probiotic research that I've looked at is it's seems to be almost black and white. Meaning there are those probiotic studies where had no impact on the hypothetical outcome. And then there were probiotic studies where it had a demonstrative impact, some of which were fecal transplant studies. And to me that meant it must have something to do with how the probiotics were getting in. Maybe they were getting destroyed by the stomach acid, maybe they weren't the cultures that they reported to have in. In the probiotics. So kind of walk us through that maze, because the probiotic section of the most nutritional stores right now is, you know, it's like going into a 711 and trying to find an energy drink. There's a lot of choices.

Yeah, Right. So there are definitely people who benefit from probiotics. I've taken care of these patients. I've had many patients that have recommended probiotics, too, and seen them have amazing results.

All right.

But it is not one size fits all. And you will not know until you actually try the probiotic and see what it does for you. Okay, so. And the reason why this is is because, Gary, you have a. You have a gut microbiome that's completely unique to you. There's no one on the planet. This is as. As much of a signature as your fingerprint. And if you had an identical twin, in theory, like, if you had an identical twin, you would only share about 30 or 35% of the same microbes. Wow. You would be more different than. You are the same.

Which could explain some of the differences between identical twins that are genetically 100% identical, right?

100%. So, yes, they're genetically identical, and yet they have, like. There can be wild discordance in terms of many different health measures, obesity or other things from health perspective. This is. This is actually how someone that I work with, Tim Spector, he got started in this space because he was looking at doing twin studies in the 90s and the 2000s. And what he discovered is, like, I can't explain it all with genetics. There's something else going on here.

Yes.

And so. And then that's what led him into.

The microbiome, is kind of epigenetics.

Right.

I mean, it' sit's gonna have an influence. Our genes predisposition. But to mean the microbiome, this is.

An important point, because I actually didn't mention this earlier, which is that this is an important point, which is that we have a genetic code. That genetic code is not the story of our life. And it is not whether or not we will or will not develop disease. It is a switchboard, and those switches can be turned on or turned off, which is epigenetics, is what you're talking about. And the question is, who's sitting at the switchboard? Because that's powerful. Right. And the answer is the microbiome. Wow. The microbiome has the ability through short chain fatty acids to actually modulate our genetic code and turn certain genes on or off.

That's so fascinating. I mean, what is in this field of the microbiome and gastroenterology? Like, what, what is inspiring you right now? Like, what's really captivated your intention? What roads do you really, really go down? What do you think the, the population needs to know? Because, I mean, you're, you know, this is, this is on the fringes of mainstream modern medicine for sure.

Yeah.

Right. I mean, in terms of mainstream adoption of modern medicine. Sorry.

Yeah, I mean, I think, I think that we, you know, I'm excited by these immunotherapy studies that we're talking about. Right.

I think that dendritics, vaccines, immunotherapy. I'm fascinated by this.

But I also pray, though, that people don't need this. Right. I also pray that people don't actually develop disease, that we could prevent it before it ever happens. Right. So to me, what's exciting about the microbiome is not what we do after a person has cancer, although I want that to be successful. To me, what's exciting is these. The opportunity that we have through common sense choices, simple choices, where we could add more varieties of plants to our plate, where we could add fermented food back into our diet, where we could get into a routine of regular exercise, where we could align our circadian rhythm, where we could get a good night's rest and suddenly nurture a healthier gut microbiome that prevents us from getting the melanoma in the first place. That, to me, is the great opportunity that we have.

Yeah, I, I love that too. I feel like we have a whole second podcast brewing here, which I'd love to invite you back to, to do. We're, we're. We're going to take a little detour and jump into what I call our rule brcas and answer some questions. But for my audience that's really interested in your topic, where can they find out more about you? Where can they. Where can they find some of the supplements that you've come up with your book? How do they find you?

Yeah. So you can follow me on social media. So I am the gut health MD on, on Instagram, Facebook, I'm on TikTok as the gut healthMD underscore, because some kid took my handle before me, so from you. And if you're out there and he's the Gut Health md, well, they're not, they're not posting anything. I don't know what they're expecting to.

Happen, but, yeah, you'll get a message that are holding you hostage.

Yeah.

For five grand you can get it back.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So you can find me on social media. I'm very proud. My favorite thing, honestly, Gary, is writing emails. Because I feel like writing is the ultimate form of communication. Most people who follow me follow me because of my books. My first book, Fiber Fueled, I don't even know how many it sold. It's certainly more than 300,000 copies. And I spent a year writing that book. And you could sit down in a weekend and like hang out with me and learn, right?

Yeah.

That to me is like what writing is about. So I enjoy, I enjoy writing emails to my community. I have a community of about 200,000 people on my list.

Awesome.

And we, you know, basically like, dig into these kind of nerdy topics that I love and we talk about poop and all this different stuff. Right. So I would encourage people. It's a completely free resource. You owe me nothing.

Right.

That you can come and sign up for my email list and learn with me.

Right.

With this community.

Give without the value.

And then, you know, my belief system is that I think that, you know, I believe in a food first approach. Like, I think that nutrition needs to come first.

Right.

I don't think that you can out supplement a bad diet.

I totally agree with that.

Nor should you try. But I do believe that when we do nutrition and when we engage with these lifestyle things like exercise and sleep, there are limits to how far it takes us. And oftentimes there's also opportunities for more where we could optimize or we could fill in the holes that haven't been properly filled by our diet, which exist in all major dietary patterns. You and I could sit here and poke the holes in all of them.

I tell people all the time, you have no idea how good normal feels until you really feel normal.

I totally agree.

It's amazing.

So I'm of the belief that there's a place for supplements. Supplements are not a replacement for food. Supplements are in addition to food. And I'm just speaking from my own personal experience. No one will ever be able to convince me otherwise of this. That I sat there for 10 years and I watched people as I put them on fiber supplements, many of them who were already eating a healthy diet, because this is what I became known for. Right. So they sought me out and they were already on a healthy diet trying to get better. And the fiber supplements had a radical effect in terms of their health. But the issue that I always saw, Gary, is That the supplements that currently exist. I'm not gonna name any names, but y' all know which ones I'm talking about. They've existed since I was a kid. We're talking about outdated 1980s formulas. Right. These are single. I'm saying that diversity of plants is the key. Yet this is a single source of fiber that's being sold to us by a pharmaceutical company that's not third party testing it or telling us anything with transparency. Right. So to me, there was this opportunity to do so much better for people who want to take a prebiotic supplement. So that's why I decided to create my own. And I launched it in January of this year for the first time. And it went so fast that we had to close the store after 24 hours. Yeah. Because I was gonna sell out of my stock. And it takes me about six months to restock. But now here we are, we've restocked.

And.

The brand is called 38 TERA. 38 T E R A 38 TERA stands for 38 trillion, the number of microbes that live in our gut. And basically I spent three years formulating the exact prebiotic supplement that I would want for myself or for my patients because it gives them fiber resistant starch and polyphenols. And these three things are unique forms of prebiotics. They're not the same and they synergize with one another. So basically, the polyphenols, you and I were talking about this beforehand. The polyphenols shape the microbiome to actually increase their ability to create short chain fatty acids from the fiber and the resistant starch.

Wow.

And it's been very satisfying to do this because the way that I see my career is that I'm trying to create change on mass scale.

Same. Absolutely.

And change comes in the form of a person reading my book and changing their diet or listening to this podcast and taking away some actionable tips, or adding this supplement and then writing a review. That's a five star review. And telling me how they cleared up their psoriasis or they improved their gut issues, or they've never been better in terms of their inflammatory balance. That's me. This is what it's about.

No better feeling in the world. Well, I end every podcast by asking every guest the same question. There's no right or wrong answer to this question. But what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human?

I'm going to go in a totally different direction than we've been.

Right.

I mean, we could go ahead, we could Talk about the ultimate human being, a human that embraces the whole person. That includes our microbiome. Right. We are a super organism. But actually, I want to talk. Get back to. The ultimate human is a person who's connected to others, because that actually is the source of our happiness. We are social creatures, and longevity, if you want, it's as powerful as what we eat. And if you want to torture a person, you isolate them.

Amen.

And so I think in today's world, I see a lot of sickness, a lot of despair, and a lot of people who are sad. And I think that part of the way that we heal is to put down the phone and look a person in the eye, connect to that person. Right. And feel loved. Right? That's what we need.

And feel connected and appreciated and. Yeah, that's fantastic. That's one of the best, if not the best explanation I've gotten so far.

It's good for our microbiotics people.

Yeah. Of course you had to bring it back to poop.

We can always bring it back.

Thank you so much for coming. I mean, I'm definitely going to invite you back. I think that your journey's just begun, and I think that people like you that have had so many profound experiences in their life, and they're actually turning that into tangible ways to touch more lives. You're the kind of person I really enjoy giving a voice to, and I'm going to follow your journey and bring you back in front of my audience, you know, again, very soon.

Appreciate you, Gary.

Appreciate you, too, Ben. And as always, guys, that's just science.