Doctor Explains: Healing Your Gut Won't Work Until You Heal This

Ah.

As I step into 2026, one of my big wellness goals is consistency showing up from my body, my mindset, my help every single day, even when life feels overwhelming. And that is why I love simple habits that support the bigger picture for my life. And starting off the new year strong with protein beverages at Starbucks is a big thing because. Because Starbucks now offers a whole lineup of delicious protein beverages, including the brand new caramel protein latte, caramel protein Matcha, and new protein drinks with no sugar added.

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It is so good at Starbucks. Ooh.

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70% of your immune system is in your gut. Binding that gut barrier, that single layer of cells, it protects the immune system but if it's weak, things can sneak across that are not supposed to be there. Your immune system gets activated and that's chronic, low grade inflammation. You can't have a war without total destruction.

Right?

Right. You're destroying everything around when you're activating your immune system to fight an enemy. Like if you just repaired the gut barrier, the enemy would have never got in in the first place.

Board certified gastroenterologist, internationally recognized gut health expert, and best selling author of many books, Dr. Will Bolshowitz.

There's absolutely 100% clear physiology that explains how our stress and our traumas ultimately will impact our gut. And when they impact our gut, they will impact our immune system and create inflammation.

You could be eating all the right things and doing everything you can in your control to eat healthier. But if you haven't healed the trauma of the past, you still might have a weaker gut microbiome, a weaker immune system.

Because of that, you could sleep, you could meditate, you could try to do things. But if you'll heal the trauma, then you're not actually going to be well.

A lot of people are sick. A lot of people are sick and I think they're sick and tired of feeling sick. And the gut health is usually one of the main reasons why people are sick and they're not even aware of it. You might think there's some other symptoms that's causing them to be sick. But based on my conversation with you the last time, some of the stuff that you talk about in your book as well, that a lot of the root causes of inflammation come from the gut, from my understanding. Is that correct?

100%.

Really?

Yeah. We could fully unpack that. But suffice it to say that in the three years that I spent preparing this book, and a big part of that was me diving into thousands of studies, the book has over 1400 citations that I will happily give to you. All you gotta do is click and take a look and you'll see that I'm backing up my words. But I reviewed thousands of papers to basically try to understand what I see as the biggest health related issue of our time, which is in one word, inflammation. Right. Because the problem is, Luis, you could go to five different doctors for five different medical problems that you don't necessarily think they're connected. You see them as separate issues and they give you a symptoms based approach which is basically like, here's five different medicines. And what they don't do is they don't take a moment to step back and tell you like, hey, there's a story here. There's a story because all of these issues are originating actually from the same place, which is chronic low grade inflammation. So inflammation by itself, I mean, we can dig into this inflammation by itself. I don't want to make it sound like inflammation is inherently bad. Inflammation is life saving when you actually need it. But what we don't need is a forever war inside of our body, which is what's happening with chronic low grade inflammation, which is what's happening in America right now.

So what is the difference between good inflammation and bad inflammation?

Okay, so let me install some specific terms. So acute versus chronic. So acute inflammation, you get sick, right? You get exposed to some sort of bacteria or some virus. Guess what? Your immune system is going to step up to defend your body. That is the entire purpose of having an immune system, which is basically, that's your little military and they're going to take care of you and they're going to clear out that infection. It might take them a couple of days, but they'll get the job done and you move on with your life and you're nice and safe.

That's acute inflammation.

That's acute inflammation. So you get your fever, right? You get your fever, you have extreme fatigue, you might have other symptoms. Sometimes people like you get the flu, you get joint issues, right? You get muscle aches, right? You're experiencing acute inflammation. Or alternatively, another example is like you injure yourself, you're playing handball or right, you injure yourself. Well, guess what? The repair process to restore function to your body is inflammation.

You sprain your ankle, it swells up or something. And that's acute inflammation to protect that area, Correct?

Red, swollen, tender, right? These are classic symptoms of inflammation. But it's acute inflammation, it's time limited. The immune system will get the job done and then it will go back to basically being at rest, being at ease, not fighting. Okay? Now that is a totally different thing than basically an immune system that is being triggered 24 hours a day. And it's not actually fighting anything real. Like it's not fighting a virus, it's not helping you to repair your body. Instead it's just feeling threatened. It's a little bit like a dude who's so hammered and he's just swinging and he doesn't even know who he's swinging at.

Right?

Like this is basically, this is basically. And then how does that manifest? So you manifest with these symptoms that you go to your doctor and you say these things and you don't necessarily Get a clear answer or a clear response. So you're experiencing like number one is fatigue. Fatigue is clearly the number one symptom associated with inflammation. It always is there. And just to be clear, I'm not saying that the only cause of fatigue is inflammation. I'm saying that when you ever inflamed, you will feel fatigue, right? So but going top, you know, from like from your head to your toes, could be a headache, could be migraines. When your nose gets congested, whether it's during a sickness or that's seasonal allergies, or you go to bed at night and your nose gets clogged up, that's inflammation.

That's pretty clear right now. That's good.

But we could talk about why that would be because there's actually a circadian rhythm element to why we get congested at night and why it clears up in the morning.

Really?

Why is that?

Well, I don't want to fully divert the conversation into that, but basically it has to do, it has to do with. Here's a quick little teaser. Your immune system is nocturnal. Your immune system is nocturnal. And then when you wake up in the morning and you get that glorious morning sunlight, right, you actually are triggering the release of cortisol. Cortisol is your body's prednisone, it's an anti inflammatory. So you wake up in the morning. This is why also you go and you get a good workout and you go to bed and you're not sore and you wake up and you are sore, right? You feel that.

Why is that?

Because your immune system is active at night. So our body was actually very beautifully designed because if your immune system was doing its maintenance work during the day, it would cripple you, it would affect your energy levels, your focus, your ability to think. By the way, now I'm starting to describe some of the symptoms that I was going to get at. It would affect those things and you wouldn't be able to really be optimally functioning as a human. So the way that our biology was designed, which is to me awe inspiring, beautiful, is that when we're asleep during that time where we're not really moving around, that's when the immune system steps up to basically take care of its maintenance work, which includes if you exercise, it's helping to basically build the muscle mass and restore those muscles. Because exercise is actually a form of micro injury to build it and make it stronger.

And so when you're working out, you're causing acute inflammation as well.

So like not necessarily acute, you're not going to get a fever from your workout. Right. So you're not necessarily causing that. But in a way, there is an inflammatory element to a lot of the aspects of our life that we totally sit here and we say they're healthy. Right.

So exercise is clearly healthy, but it's creating inflammation.

It's creating a healthy inflammation. And that's like hormesis. Right, so hormesis is when you sort of like take the step of pain for the purpose of future strength gain.

Yeah, no pain, no gain.

Exactly.

But the acute inflammation or the other, what's the other inflammation?

So the chronic low grade inflammation. Yeah, yeah. So you could have a headache, you could have a stuffy nose, you could have a sore throat, you get that cough at night. Right, that's inflammation. You could have skin issues. So like you're breaking out acne, eczema, eczema, psoriasis, rosacea. Right. All inflammatory for women. So hormones are important. Right. So for women, female fertility, perimenopause, menopause 100%, there is inflammation there. Really? Yes. For men, hormonal issues. So, like some of the, some of the statistics around men are wildly disturbing. The drop in testosterone levels over the last 40 years, the drop in sperm counts over the last 40 years, I mean, Viagra, Cialis, all these things wouldn't exist if there wasn't a market because of erectile dysfunction. So not to mention energy drinks. So I'm not bashing them, sometimes I take them myself. But I'm just saying that these things, or muscle soreness, joint issues, joint discomfort, difficulty recovering from exercise, difficulty performing exercise. Right. Like when you're more inflamed, go and eat a fast food meal and then go try to work out and tell me that you can have a good workout.

Yeah, you can't. Wow. Okay, so there's acute and low grade chronic inflammation, correct?

Yeah.

And the low grade chronic inflammation mostly comes from the foods we eat, or is it also our environment, our sleep patterns, you know, and other and other things that we do.

Okay, so one of the, one of the core ideas that I present in this book, and I will defend this position, is that your gut and your immune system are completely intertwined and inseparable. So just to frame this, our first episode, if you haven't listened to it, go back and take a listen. But just to quickly frame. We have a gut microbiome, mostly in our large intestine, our colon with 38 trillion microorganisms. Okay, microscopic. We can't see them, but they actually outnumber Us. That's more than we have human cells. Wow. Yeah.

There's more gut microbiome than we have human cells.

100%. You're definitely less than 50% human. And if we were to line you up as your genetic code, like, if we were to basically have a football field and every single yard represented, where does your genetic code come from? All right. One yard would be the genetic code that you inherited from your parents. And 99 yards, actually, 99 and a half yards would be the genetic code that you have from your microbiome.

Really?

Yes. 99.5% of your genetic code comes from these microbes.

And where do these microbes come from?

Our environment. So our environment. And they're manipulated by our choices. So there's an entire story inside of you. We are getting to the point. We are getting to the point where we could take a snapshot of these microbes and start to basically say, hey, I know how Lewis has been living his life. Here's the food choices. Here's the sleep. Here's the circadian rhythm. Here's the exercise. Here is his connection to his partner. Here is his trauma or history of things from the past that we discussed during the first episode that, like, basically your life is a story, and that story is actually reflected. It's told through your gut microbiome. So it's entirely unique to you.

So how do we.

If we're feeling exhausted, if we're feeling inflamed, if we're feeling in fight or flight due to what's happened within our gut, how do we start to heal our gut to get rid of inflammation?

Okay, so these two pieces, they're so interconnected. And I just want to add real quick that between the 38 trillion microbes and the fact that 70% of your immune system is in your gut lining.

Wow.

Okay, so the bone marrow is basic training. They get trained up there, and then they get deployed, and they go and take up and do their service in the lining of your intestines.

Interesting. 70% of our immune system is in our gut lining.

Is in our gut lining.

Wow.

Yes.

So if our gut is unhealthy, we.

Are unhealthy, because basically what happens is that there's a cascade where these microbes and those immune cells, they're right next to each other, and the only thing that's separating them is a single layer of cells, which we call the gut barrier. Right. And if that starts to break down, which happens when the gut microbes are weak and not able to do their job, so they are the stewards, the gut microbes are the stewards of the gut barrier. They build it for us, they repair it for us. That gut barrier, that single layer of cells, it protects the immune system. So when it's fortified, the immune cells are at ease because there's no one to fight.

But if it's weak, but if it's.

Weak, which I call increased intestinal permeability, but you will hear it referred to as leaky gut. And I have no problem with that terminology because it's actually correct when that happens, it's a weak gut barrier. Things can sneak across that are not supposed to be there. And so then your immune system is like, yo, the bloodstream is right behind me. And I got my, like, literally age old, like this villain that I have been fighting since before humans existed. Right. The immune cells recognize their enemy that they have been fighting for literally a billion years, that's my estimate. And they go, okay, cool, you want to come over here? We're going to fight you.

Really?

Yeah. So then they get activated. The immune system gets activated in response to something that got across the gut barrier that's not supposed to be there. And there's, there's a term for this, by the way, for the people who are nerdy like me. It's called lipopolysaccharide. Lipopolysaccharide is the armor that surrounds like E. Coli or salmonella or shigella, these nasty bacteria. This armor, they developed to protect themselves. And the armor became the way that your immune system identifies the enemy. Like, oh, you're wearing the armor. Cool, I gotta take you out.

Interesting.

You're not allowed to be here.

Wow.

So, but that process of I gotta take you out is the activation not in a strong, powerful, you're having a fever way. Right. Like that's not acute. This is the 24 hours a day battle on the inside where your immune system gets activated. And that's chronic low grade inflammation. And the problem is that, I mean, to be totally honest with you, I don't love the war analogy, but I feel like I have to do it because it's the only thing that really makes so much sense. Right. But when we look at images of war in the modern world, you can't have a war without total destruction.

Right?

Right. You're destroying everything around. Right. So when you are activating your, when you're activating your immune system to fight an enemy that just like if you just repaired the gut barrier, the enemy would have never got in in the first Place. Right. If you. If you were to address that, then we wouldn't need to, like, have these bodily. Basically, the immune system is causing bodily injury. Right. And so then this inflammation. In the writing of my book, there's a specific table that I tell the reader, yo, go to this page. You gotta check this out. Because I asked this basic question. How many health conditions are there that are associated with inflammation? Where I could come on your show and tell you this, but I could also talk to a colleague who's a medical doctor and pull the paper. And I found over 130.

Wow.

And then I turned to the secondary question, Louis, which is, okay, so if I believe that the gut and the immune system are rising and falling together. Right. Then there should be 130 studies that also show that the gut is unwell within the context of these diseases. And the answer is yes. Categorically. Categorically.

So if someone is inflamed in their gut and they have a weakened immune system, what are the main symptoms that they will have or. Or they'll feel or their experience on their body with this weakened immune system and leaky gut?

Yeah. Well, so it goes back to. And, you know, again, like, what I'm describing are common symptoms. And sometimes we take those common symptoms and we turn them into a diagnosis, and that's completely appropriate. That's the way I practice medicine. Right. But. But what I'm saying is that the place that it's coming from is inflammation. And so it goes back to what we had discussed a moment ago, where it's like, it could be headaches, it could be brain fog, difficulty focusing, lack of cognitive endurance, you can't get a lot done, easily distracted, like, sort of add. Right. It can affect your mood. So, like, with clarity, depression. Major depression is inflammation in the brain.

Wow.

Total clarity. Right. By the way, so is Alzheimer's. So is Parkinson's disease. So these are ways in which the inflammation can affect your brain. But like we discussed, you could have a congested nose, you could have sore throat, you could have a cough, you could have skin outbreaks, you could have joint issues, you could have muscle issues, you could have difficulty recovering. But of course, in the gut. Of course, in the gut, there's symptoms. Right. So bloating was the number one gut symptoms that you could experience. Could be abdominal discomfort, could be a change in your bowels, diarrhea, constipation. Both. Right. The manifestation of virile bowel syndrome. This is inflammation.

Wow. Now I'm curious about, like, someone getting eczema or Breakouts in their skin.

Yeah.

Is there a way, if you have a extremely healthy gut and a healthy immune system, can you get outbreaks like, can you get eczema or these other kind of rashy outbreaks, or is that all linked to a weakened immune system and a leaky gu.

That? So I don't want to go so far as to make it sound like the root, the only cause of all of these health issues is exclusively your gut being basically impaired. Right. What I'm saying is, with Clarity, for all 130 health conditions, this is a contributory factor. And I'm saying that we have an opportunity because what we're seeing is the gut is unwell. And what I'm offering is that we can make it well. And if we make the gut well, then the immune system falls in line.

With it, and then other symptoms start to fade away, hopefully.

So these skin issues, whether it's eczema or acne or psoriasis, they're all inflammatory. There's inflammation on the surface of the skin, and the skin has a microbiome, too. So it's not just the gut microbiome that's contributing, but there is this element where basically in that specific area, it's not necessarily your whole body in that specific area, something is off, and it's created inflammation that results in the manifestation of that specific skin issue.

Eliminate inflammation. It seems like you eliminate a lot of your issues.

I mean, we can't totally eliminate inflammation, but what we can do is we can. It's like having your sound system on and it's pounding so hard that it's giving you a splitting headache. Right. And you're not really enjoying yourself in that moment and taking the dial and being like, yeah, we can turn this down to the point where even the same song, actually, you can start to enjoy it.

Enjoy it. What would you say, then, are the five foods that people should be eating on a daily basis to optimize their gut microbiome and their immune system?

Okay, so I'm going to give you the five foods, and then I want to break down for you the specific levers that I'm seeing behind the curtain. What are the things behind the curtain that make me choose these five foods? Okay, so let me go with. Okay, I have to start with my classic. It may be controversial, by the way, so my apologies. I'm going straight to beans.

Beans.

Any type of beans.

Basically, any type of beans. I will accept any of them. Okay. Because to me, beans, these are microbiome foods. They are microbiome foods. The reason that people feel like they don't tolerate beans is not because there's something crazy that's happening inside of their body. What's happening is that their gut microbiome can't handle the beans. Really? Yeah.

Why can't they handle.

Can't handle the truth.

Why can't they handle it? Yeah, because it's good for you. Why can't your gut handle it?

Okay, so this brings us to like a basic concept within gut health and it's like very slightly nuanced. Not crazy, but it is a little nuanced. It's like exercise. All right, so think of your gut as being a muscle, right? That muscle can be trained, it can be made stronger, but it also has a quite specific capacity for work. So you can't take a muscle, go to the gym and just like, of course I want to go and bench press £450 and be literally the strongest person in the gym. But I'm sorry, can't handle it. I can't handle that.

You haven't trained to get there.

Yeah, no, I'm working on it.

Yeah.

I'm actually quite, I'm quite happy with where I am at 45 years old, like I'm lifting the heaviest weight of my life.

That's great.

Right? But to get to that level, it's going to take some time.

Right.

So the same is true with your gut. If your gut is impaired because it's not doing so hot. Right. If your gut is impaired, that's conceptually similar to going to the gym with some sort of injury. Right. Like you hurt your shoulder. Okay. You're not going to go to the gym and lift the heaviest weight. You're going to go to the gym and honestly, it might be the 2.5 pound dumbbell.

Sure.

Or it might be just body weight and you're just trying to basically restore function to that shoulder. And then once you restore function, you're back on track and now you're growing and building. Right. So this is what's happening in the gut is like you take basically microbiome food, Right. So let me break that down real quick. So beans, they have fiber, they have polyphenols, they have resistant starches. These three things, none of them are digested by the human body. They are the most clear evidence of a shared lifelong symbiotic relationship that we have with our microbiome. We have third party sourced it. We have basically said, look, we as humans, we're not able to evolve fast enough to keep up with the food supply across the globe. Interesting. You move from one place to the other. Your evolution is not able to keep up with that. So we basically said, well, if we could get the microbes from the environment that know how to break down the foods that are here locally, then we would actually be able to process and digest those foods.

Okay.

So what happens is the microbiome breaks down the fiber, the resistant starches, and the polyphenols for us.

Interesting. So our body and our stomach can't break down the nutrients in beans.

Is that so?

Beans are not just these three things, but what I'm saying is I'm calling beans microbiome foods because they're the most densely packed of these things. Go look at the fiber content of beans, right? And you're gonna be like, yo, there's a lot of fiber in there.

Right?

Right. Well, so what I'm saying is that you are 100% dependent on your microbiome to digest that fiber.

Interesting.

So if the microbiome is not ready for that, that's conceptually similar to going to the gym and just, like, grabbing way more weight than your body. You hurt yourself.

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As I step into 2026, one of my big wellness goals is consistency showing up from my body, my mindset, my help every single day, even when life feels overwhelming. And that is why I love simple habits that support the bigger picture for my life. And starting off the new year strong with protein beverages at Starbucks is a big thing. Because Starbucks now offers a whole lineup of delicious protein beverages, including the brand new caramel protein latte, Caramel protein Matcha, and new protein drinks with no sugar added.

This is huge.

You can even add protein cold foam or protein boosted milk to your favorite drink. So getting extra protein, it's naturally into your routine. My go to is the iced vanilla protein latte.

It is so good at Starbucks.

Ooh. That first sip feeling is amazing. Bold signature espresso with protein boosted milk and sweet vanilla flavor.

This is amazing.

And what's so crazy is a grande has 29 grams of protein. I mean, talk about staying consistent with your wellness goals. Now my morning iced latte can make it feel effortless to hit my protein target. For me, this is just one of those small moments every day that starts it off right, a little bit stronger and knowing I've gotten protein in my drink as well. So make sure to level up and add protein to your favorite drink at Starbucks.

So have a few beans, not a whole plate of beans.

Maybe to start work your way towards it like I am. I'm in a place now today where I can smash beans as hard as I want to with no issues. No gas, no farting like crazy. Yeah, no, no. But not in a bad way. Because basically, you know, okay, there are some benefits to farting. Really? Yeah. 100%.

What's the. Besides releasing gas and feeling better, what is the benefit to far harder, the.

Gas that is being produced for that kind of fart? A bean fart?

Yes.

Okay. The gas that is being produced is the product of fermentation from these microbes. So you have to understand that the reason why you get that gas is because they are simultaneously fermenting your fiber to produce short chain fatty acids, which are. So we're here to talk about inflammation. And short chain fatty acids, which are acetate, propionate and butyrate, are the hands down with total clarity, the most anti inflammatory nutrients that I've ever come across.

Wow. Like, and those are in beans.

Well, you get that from fiber.

Okay.

You get that from fiber. So fibers and beans. And fibers and beans. Yeah, yeah. So. So beans are like so jam packed.

Wow.

Yeah.

If you could only choose one bean, what would you choose? What type of.

Give it the chickpea.

Chickpea.

Chickpea. Here's why. The best bean for you is the one you're actually going to eat. All right, Right, right. So like, I love chickpeas.

Okay.

Do you have a favorite bean?

Pinto. I don't know if that's good though, or not.

All right, Pinto. You live in la, so it's like in the food supply here.

Exactly, yeah. Yeah.

So I'm not gonna. But if you're.

If you're doing chickpea, pinto or black bean, all are fine.

Oh, 100%. Go. Give me all three.

Okay, gotcha.

What my wife does, for what it's worth, is because I'm gonna have to teach you some of these tricks now that you're growing your family.

Exactly.

Yeah. We get an instant pot and we will basically create a batch. Batch of chickpeas and then separately batch of black beans and create a big pot to start the week.

Bean soup or just.

Well, no, like throw in garlic and onions. Right. Tastes good. Like actually the flavors are great.

Yes.

Salt it, spice it, and then you put it into the fridge. And here's the cool part. When you take these starchy foods like beans, and you put them into the fridge and you cool them down, you create what's called retrograde starch.

Okay.

Which is basically you have enhanced the quality of the food, so you have created more microbiome food.

Interesting.

And that's incredibly healthy. So you get the same thing if you cool off your mashed potatoes, but.

Then you can reheat it.

You can reheat it.

Okay, interesting.

But there will be new resistant starches that were formed. Right. Or if you take your bread and you throw it into the fridge or throw it into the freezer also is a trick that you can increase the value and the glycemic index drops. So if you were to take the exact same loaf of bread from room temperature, throw it in your fridge and then eat it, the glycemic index has improved.

Why?

Because some of the stuff that was basically a simple carbohydrate, you turned into a resistant starch that's going to feed the microbiome.

Interesting.

Yeah. On this topic of great fiber sources, and also a great source of polyphenols, which are the colors in our food. I love berries.

Okay.

And so you choose, like, do you like blueberries? Do you like raspberries? I'm a raspberry guy. So if you could give me unlimited supply of organic raspberries for the rest of my life, I would take that over, like, many other opportunities for the. You know, just give me that. I'll be very happy. Okay, so. All right, number three, I'm going. I'm going with avocados. All right, so avocados. I've met, like, I think one person, maybe two in my whole life that don't actually like avocados.

I didn't like them until two years ago.

You were the guy.

I was the guy. I was the guy. I literally didn't eat them until two years ago.

Scared of them or what was the deal?

It's more of a texture thing for me. I don't know why. Yeah, I'm a. I'm a weird. I'm a weird eater.

You don't like guac?

I don't eat guac, no. It's the texture. I'll have an avocado now. If I put salt on it, it's like, tastes great. I can manage it.

Yeah.

And I'm actually enjoying it now. But guac, I don't know what it is. It's like, I don't know, too slimy or something.

You know, I have a rule that you don't go into someone's house and insult them.

And I just did.

So I apologize.

All good?

Yeah. Okay. I'm a weird eater.

I'm a very picky eater. But someone once told me that if you're a picky eater, the pickier the eater you are, the more of a genius you are. So I try to just take that for what it is.

Interesting.

I don't know.

We kind of hear what we want to hear sometimes.

Exactly.

I'm like, I'll take that.

Yeah, exactly. All right, so. But avocado is the key here, actually. The fiber content of avocados is wildly high.

Okay.

More than anyone would expect.

Okay.

So, like, a nice medium sized avocado might have 8 to 10 grams of fiber. That's a lot.

That's a lot.

Yeah. But it also has healthy fats. So fat is good for us. We just want it to be good fat. Right. So we can get that from an avocado. All right, Number four, I would go with. Let's go with chia seeds. So chia seeds, super high in fiber, but they also have healthy fats because they have omega 3s. Right. And most of us, omega 3 fats are what we call essential, which means you have to get them from your diet. And most of us are not getting enough. So that's why everyone's taking fish oil supplements, which is fine. I don't have a problem with that. But you could also eat the food that is the native source of these fats. And chia seeds are one of the ways among many to accomplish that goal. All right, and last but not least, I'm going to go with kimchi. All right, so here's the deal. Fermented food is uniquely beneficial.

Gosh, it's another thing I don't like.

But okay, all of them. You don't like yogurt or kefir?

I like yogurt, but what's the chem. What did you say it was?

Kimchi.

Kimchi.

Nah, it's not for you. That's fine.

But yogurt, I do.

You gotta find what you like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You gotta find what you like. But like, yogurt, Kefir, Greek yogurt is.

It's good. Super good. Okay, that's good to know.

So it's a fermented food. And the fermentation process, it of course involves live bacteria. So, like, I want the listeners to see this the way that I see it. They just hear probiotic. I get that. But I see, like a living ecosystem. Right. There's like this community that's there a part of the food. They've transformed the food. And then you have your ecosystem inside of you, and you're going to introduce them.

Interesting.

And actually, there's now several studies to suggest that by regularly consuming fermented food, they can actually integrate themselves into your gut microbiome.

Interesting.

So that, like, actually last night I was at an event, and someone very nice woman came up to me and she says to me, how can I add more microbes back? My microbiome count is low. My diversity is low. And I told her that one of the ways that you can do this is by adding. Increasing your fermented food intake.

Okay.

And we have clear research to show that out of Stanford.

Oh, wow, that's good.

Yeah.

So if I do a. A little thing of yogurt every day, if I have an avocado and I've had. I have chia seeds in some almond milk for breakfast, is that a good thing? If I do three of the five, but I don't do berries, and I don't do.

Why are you rejecting the berries? I'm a bit insulted again.

I'm like a palate of a seven year old, so I'm like, okay. It's like, I don't know the texture, the taste, I don't know what it is about it, dude. The.

Because the thing is mulberries I like.

But I love that. Mulberries.

Very specific.

Yeah. I used to have a mulberry tree in Ohio growing up, so I would like I could find the right ones that weren't too juicy, that were like okay for me.

Oh, that's interesting.

And what about dried berries, dried mulberries, dried things? Are those as good or no?

Yeah. Like you like dried fruit in general? Yeah, yeah. So there is still some retained nutritional value there for sure. But also there's some things that also are enhanced. So for example, they're very high in histamine. So if you start eating like dried out fruit, you might notice your nose gets congested and that can actually be the histamine content of your food.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I mean, it's not like a horribly bad thing, but there are some people out there who have histamine issues that are not just a once in a while thing. It's more of a chronic problem for them.

Okay.

And so for them, they have to be careful.

Okay.

So, yeah, I mean, look, if I had my way, I would figure out a way to get you to love adding berries to your yogurt. Right.

And I have to get over it my mind somehow. It's a mental thing for me.

Yeah.

What would be an additional one then? We got beans, berries, we got avocados, we got yogurts. And what was the last one?

Fermented food.

Fermented foods.

Yeah.

And so for me, what would be one other. If someone didn't like one of those things and there was an additional one.

I'm going to try to throw you a while up here, make it easy for you.

Chia seeds was one of them.

Yeah. I think you're kind of digging the chia seeds. I'm going to play off of that and we're going to go. I'm going to go with walnuts.

All right. Okay.

It's actually kind of interesting. Like a walnut. Looks like a brain.

Yes.

And then it's like it's high in omega 3s. It's BR. God is playing a joke, you know.

It's great, right?

It's kind of cool.

I'm down for all those. I could do all those every day.

So in the book I basically discuss that, because here's an important point, and I want everyone to hear this, that you can call diets different things, right? Mediterranean, pescatarian, flexitarian, vegetarian, vegan. And what I actually wrote in the book is it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you call it. What matters is the quality of your diet. So there's a lot of flexibility here. So the diet that you're going to eat is not the same as the one that I'm going to eat. But what I'm saying to you, Louis, is that if you focus on four main nutrients, you will have an anti inflammatory diet that will support your gut microbiome and make your immune system strong and healthy. And the four nutrients, and we found those in the six foods that we just discussed.

Okay, what are those?

Are fiber polyphenols, healthy fats and fermented food. And so if you focus on those four things, fiber polyphenols. Polyphenols are the colors. So eat different colors. They say eat the rainbow, right? Eat the rainbow is the same thing as saying what I'm saying right now.

We're not talking about Skittles.

Don't eat the rainbow.

Skittles. Taste the rainbow. No, not that.

That was a taste. That was a taste. Just a taste. So, yeah, but like the healthy fats, you know, like you could throw extra virgin olive oil into the mix. Right? If you're going to do oil, let it be that. Let it be extra virgin olive oil.

Okay? So if you do those four things, I mean, if you eat those four things on a daily basis or you add more of those to your, your intake.

Yeah.

You're doing a lot of good for your gut.

100. And the key from my perspective, is that you should feel the difference. So this is not just like, hey, I trust that guy. And so I'm going to do it. What I'm saying to you is take a chance. Yeah.

Do it for a week.

Take a chance, try something different and then see how you feel.

Interesting.

And if your energy levels pick up and your focus is better and you notice that your exercise is improving and there's different, different things for different people. Right. But like you're, you're going to experience the benefits. And when you experience them, then it reinforces, oh my gosh, I'm onto something here.

Yes.

Then you want more.

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So those are the four pillars.

Yeah, I call them the four workhorses because I have this mental image of. Imagine that you are. Imagine that it's 1870. You and I are heading west. We're coming here.

There's gold here.

Yeah, we're going to get rich. And so we got this wagon, right? But in order for us to get across the plains, you don't want just one horse. You don't want just two horses. At some point, you're going to have to climb a mountain. Climbing a mountain is like fighting a disease, right? Fighting that battle against this chronic illness. So you're going to climb that mountain. You want to have three or four workhorses powering you to your goal, because one or two would not be enough. So I call them the four workhorses because in my mind, I have this image of that wagon that you're trying to power up the hill for the person who's sick. Whereas when you're healthy and you're feeling really well, you could say, hey, I only want one or two horses. But that would be kind of stupid because why wouldn't you have all four Clydesdales rocking and Be a total beast.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Go for eight and give me eight of them, you know, let's go.

I'll have to come up with four.

Exactly. Double it up.

I have to go back to the drawing board there.

Stress seems to be like one of the biggest things, one of the biggest killers for a lot of people. It just holds them back from accomplishing what they truly want. And I'm curious, does bad gut health make us more reactive and cause more stress for high performers or high achievers? If so, what's a science backed way that we can start to calm our nervous system with food that you like.

Okay, so first of all, stress 100% is connected to our gut microbiome without a shadow of a doubt. And basically what you've led us into is a conversation around the gut brain connection. So they are basically best friends. This is, by the way, chapter eight of my new book. And I have to tell you, Louis, this is the chapter that would resonate with a person like you, but I think it's going to resonate with the readers the most too. Like, this is literally the best chapter that I've ever written. So out of all my three books. Yeah, because there's a lot for us to unpack here.

It's about the brain gut connection.

The brain gut connection, which is the nerdy way of actually getting into the concept of mind body. Right. Because like the mind body concepts, allopathic medicine has rejected that as being woo woo. But there's absolutely 100% clear physiology that explains how our stress, our emotions, our connections to other people, our life of spiritual purpose, and our traumas ultimately will impact our gut. And when they impact our gut, they will impact our immune system and create inflammation, really 100%. So to lay this out, because it kind of is a two way street. I mean, you asked me about the role of the gut in stress and I'm kind of starting with the role of stress in gut health. Okay, imagine that you are in traffic and you have a near miss. You almost got into an accident, you barely missed it, and zing. Your eyeballs bug out, your heart rate's pumping, your blood pressure's up. There's a certain feeling that you get. Imagine that you are about to go on stage and while you are very comfortable with this because you've done it many times for many people, that's extremely anxiety inducing. And so they get this feeling of butterflies in the stomach. They might feel a little nausea, they might actually start to feel bloated, and then cramps and then waves of cramps. And then it's intense and it's crippling and folding them over. These are all manifestations of very clear physiology connecting the brain to our gut. So what's happening is that our environmental experience, basically our brain was hardwired to react quickly to things that are happening around us. That way we don't have to even process. We can just react. This is why you have a near miss in the car. Instantly, boom. You get that feeling, right? You don't think about it before. You even process that you almost got into an accident, Right? So that's your sympathetic nervous system.

You know, it's interesting when you say that. I used to, when I was in high school, before basketball games or football games, it's like I had to go to the bathroom, you know, almost like 10, 20 minutes before. I was like. Even though I was doing well and I was a good athlete and things like that, and I was, you know, succeeding. It's almost like every time there was a game I had to use, and I was, like, almost running late. It's like, warm ups are happening and I gotta go run to the bathroom.

Yep.

And how is that connected to the brain and the gut when you feel like, oh, I gotta go to the bath.

Well, so this is your sympathetic nervous system. Okay. So this was. This is what was happening with you. And it's parallel. It's the same as when I was in medical school. And you take, you know, basically 200 people that were at the top of their class in college, you put them all into one class, and half of them are. Are less than average at Georgetown. Right. So there was a lot of stress. So there was a line out the bathroom door. 100%. 100%. You had to wait in line to get a stall, man.

So what is the connection between stress and needing to go to the bathroom?

Yeah. Okay, so let's play this out. So within the context of stress, which is basically leading to the activation of your sympathetic nervous system, this is one of two, like, yin and yang, parts of your autonomic nervous system, which means that your body just reacts. You don't necessarily get to choose. It just happens. Right? So when your sympathetic gets activated, your brain will release a hormone called corticotropin releasing hormone or crh. CRH comes from the brain and basically enters the pituitary gland and then sets off an entire storm throughout the body. Now, this was designed, if we go back to 99.99% of human history, which predates modern times, Right. This was designed where if there was something that was going to attack you, if there was some sort of serious threat, right, you instantly had the force that you need. Between your heart pumping, circulating blood, you're breathing heavy, circulating oxygen, your blood pressure is clamped down, so you're getting the blood to your tissues, right? And you're ready to go. And whether it's fighting another tribe or some animal that's attacking you or whatever it might be, that adrenaline saves your life potentially. So it's an evolved mechanism. But the problem is everything comes with a price. So you are accepting all these benefits, but you're sacrificing your gut. That's what happens. You sacrifice your gut. And so that surge of adrenaline, that surge of cortisol, that's out of synchrony, out of context, of I said the cortisol is good in the morning, but what I'm saying is cortisol is not good when it's some random time of day. And you don't need sacrifices, your gut health. And then ultimately what that results in is when you sacrifice the gut health, the gut microbiome number one, you feel it here, so you might have to go to the bathroom or you might get the cramps or the bloating or whatever it might be, right? So you feel that that's your gut microbes, that's also your gut motility. That has been adjusted by the surgery stress, but then it ultimately parlays into. Okay, so if the gut microbes are weak, then that affects the gut barrier. When the gut barrier gets weak, then that affects the immune system. Now you've just created inflammation. Interesting. Okay, so that's the way that it works with the sympathetic nervous system. All right, so, and then the gut gets weak and then that the gut actually sends signals back up to the brain, right? Through a number of different ways. But when the gut is unwell, our brain can't be fully well, huh? Right. So if you want to be sharp, if you're a high performer and you want to be sharp, focus, have intense cognitive endurance, you have to nurture your gut, right? That's a required step in order to get there. Now you can try to power yourself through using modern tools like energy drinks, right? Or like Ritalin or something like this. But you're not actually, you're treating the symptoms, you're not treating the source of your problem.

Interesting. So it sounds like your brain also influences your gut in these, these times when you're feeling anxious or stressed or there's a pressure filled moment, whether it be a test or a Sports game. It's almost like how you think about what's about to happen is influencing the gut or releasing these hormones or whatever to make you either want to go to the bathroom or have bloating or gas or whatever it is. Right.

So these people that have chronic gut issues and it's important. So what we just described was the impact of stress, which could be once in a while we all have that. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Your body will adapt and adjust, you're okay. But there's also the people that are having it 24 hours a day. That's a lot. Right. And in many cases, these are the people who have dealt with something that's trauma. So where the trauma basically creates a wound in the non conscious mind. So you are not thinking about these things. Right. Because you're trying to push it to the side because it hurts. That's the thing I don't want to deal with.

Don't think about it.

But it still exists. You don't get to escape that, unfortunately. So that trauma exists in the non conscious mind. And what we have found is that basically this leads to, number one, your brain activity is different. So people that have been exposed to trauma, they have hyperactivation of their amygdala, which is the fear center of their brain. So it's like this life of perpetual fear. And then this leads to. If the sympathetic nervous system and what I just described as stress is putting your foot on the gas, then what I'm saying is within the context of trauma, the foot never comes off the gas. You got a lead foot, it's like Keanu in speed and just blast and speed blasting down the highway. And you're trying to figure out how are we going to stop this runaway bus? Right. So the way that you stop it is by ultimately healing the trauma.

This is fascinating. Now, this is something I'm curious about. If someone has experienced trauma in their life, in their past and or they've interpreted an event as traumatic, whether it actually was or wasn't, but they've interpreted meaning that it was for them and it happened 10, 20, 30 years ago. And in their subconscious mind, they either try to stuff it or put it away or they haven't addressed that trauma, that wound.

Yep.

The mind is not in the body. Right. The mind is like an energy around the brain, but it's not in the brain. Is that correct? I don't even know. But the brain is different than the mind. And if you're thinking something, then it's connecting to the Brain signals, and it's driving down into the gut. I'm trying to see where I'm going with this. But how much of trauma of the past that is interpreted as trauma that you have not healed, how much of that will impact your gut and really kind of consume your body?

We know with total clarity that people that have been exposed to trauma are more likely to have specific gut related issues. Right. So actually it's my mentor, Dr. Douglas Drossman at the University of North Carolina, who's the one who discovered this. He was a professor of both medicine and psychiatry. Unique intersection for being 1980s if you think about it. Right. That's very progressive. And he studied where are these people with these gut issues, what is basically there from before? And he found a disproportionate association with prior trauma, including abuse, but not exclusively abuse.

Sure.

So the 1, 1, 1 point that I kind of see as being a little bit important, I hope you don't mind, is that so you use the word interpret. I actually don't think that you get to interpret. It either is or it isn't. So to me, trauma is something that has occurred in your life that overwhelms your ability to cope.

Yes.

Right. So whether you think it's trauma or it's not trauma. Yeah. If there is something that has occurred in your life that overwhelms your ability to cope, you don't have the tools.

To cope with it.

Right. So in children, this is why children are much more vulnerable to these kinds of things, because they just aren't yet developed in a sophisticated way in terms of their cognitive capacity, their cognitive abilities, their abilities to cope with stress, things like this.

Right. Yes.

So there's a higher vulnerability there. So if you overwhelm the ability to cope, then you've created a trauma. And that trauma may be something that you know it happened, but you don't necessarily want to acknowledge it. In fact, the mind is quite powerful at repressing those ideas and thoughts. The other thing that I would argue, Louis, is that there's some fascinating research. I would love to share a quick study with you to prove that the book. I don't mean to plug this book, but I can't help the fact that the title of this book is Perfect, the Body Keeps the Score.

Great. Yeah. I love it.

It's the perfect title for a book. I don't know if I even read it. I don't even know if it's a good book. It's good.

Yeah, it's good. I mean, it's more academic, but it's.

Yeah, it's like New York Times.

It's crushing. Yeah.

For like 10 years. But it's the perfect title. The Body Keeps the Score is so true. So there was a study that they did with children where they looked at kids who were adopted before age two. Okay. They have no recollection of these events. None of us can remember before age 2. So I used to believe that if you can't remember it, it doesn't count.

Unless you've suppressed it. Yeah.

Well. And I've now learned both in my own life and in this particular study to prove it. I was wrong. Really. I was definitely wrong. The body keeps the score. So they looked at children who were adopted before age two and they looked at kids that came from like a normal family and non adopted, not adopted. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. And they tracked out years later and they took a look and the kids who were adopted before age two and again, they're like in a comfortable home. Like, there's not good families. Yeah, yeah, good families. Like there's not some other explanation for this. They look at the gut microbiome. Clear changes in the gut microbiome.

Really?

Yeah. More inflammatory bacteria, less protective bacteria, and a loss of gut diversity.

Really?

Yeah. So these kids, again, this is years later, they have lost diversity in their gut. That's basically moving towards a unwell. What we call dysbiosis is what is occurring there. And they were more likely to suffer with digestive symptoms. They were more likely to feel anxious. And they actually did a functional MRI to look at brain activity. And they found that brain activity in these people who were adopted at before age 2 was different. And their emotional processing and emotional regulation was out of whack.

Wow.

So they have like, these are people, they've done nothing wrong. They don't deserve what they've received.

They don't remember it.

They don't even remember it. Right. But here are these things that continue to sort of echo into adulthood that they can't even remember.

Okay.

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So it sounds to me like, correct me if I'm wrong, you could be eating all the right things and doing everything you can in your control to eat healthier. But if you haven't healed the trauma of the past, whether it was in your control or out of your control, you still might have a weaker gut microbiome, a weaker immune system because of that. Is that correct?

This is 100% correct. And I would even extend it beyond the food, beyond the plate, because there's other elements of our life that are really important to our health, to the health of our gut microbiome. Exercise, right? You and I both love exercise. I could break down for you why exercise is good for the gut microbiome. But the point is, you could do that. You could sleep, you could meditate, you could try to do things.

But if you don't heal the trauma.

But if you don't heal the trauma, then you're not actually going to be well. And I've seen this. Yeah. So this is. And you know, if you look too, trauma is disproportionately also associated with autoimmune disease. Right. So because basically that chronic activation of the immune system, that's what it is, gets that immune system to the point that it's just like totally confused.

Because I guess in your mind, if you've experienced trauma, you know, and for me, I experienced different parts of trauma growing up. If you experience some type of psychological, sexual, emotional trauma, physical trauma, and you don't learn how to heal that psychologically or emotionally or spiritually, there's some type of underlying, like guilt, like resentment, anger, sadness, loss that you are just living with, that you haven't figured out how to process, particularly if you're 5, 7 12, and you don't have the tools on how to process, whether it be some type of therapy or something else that allows you to grieve, to rediscover your identity, to mend that emotional wound. And so when you live with this feeling that you are not enough for decades of your life, or that you're unworthy, or that you're unlovable, or that you're bad or that you're wrong, or something's off with you, if that is your unconscious mind ruminating 24 7, that is building this, I guess, inflammation in your mind and your body, it's weakening you in some ways, which, again, is in weakening your gut, is what I'm hearing you say.

Yeah. And so a few things. Number one, I have seen this in many patients. Right. That the greatest moments of my career as a medical doctor, and I was trying to figure out how many patients have I taken care of, and I landed on. It's somewhere in the range of 75 to 100,000.

Wow.

Right. And in all of that, the greatest moments were the moments where I took a person and discovered that there was this thing, right. Like a trauma that they were trying to ignore. Because it hurts, of course. So you don't want to deal with it. You'd rather not talk about it. Right. And so you have to get to a trusting place where you open up and you have that conversation. But the other thing, too, Louis, is part of what to me makes chapter eight my greatest chapter that I've ever written is that actually the chapter plays out and shares my personal journey of self discovery where I have shared in the past that I changed my diet and therefore I got my health back. And the truth is, I wasn't fully telling you everything that was going on in my life. Really, I wasn't ready.

Wow.

There was too much shame. I had a complex relationship with my dad that unfolded from the time that I was 7 years old when my parents got divorced. And unfortunately, the divorce of my parents was not amicable.

It's traumatic.

Well, I was the oldest of three boys. I have two younger brothers, and basically I was in second grade, and one day didn't know this was going to happen. My mom shows up and the car is packed fully, and there's like a little spot basically earmarked for me that I slide into. And we drive seven hours away.

With your younger brothers, too?

With my younger brothers. And the only person that wasn't there was my dad.

Wow. You're seven.

I was seven. And so we moved seven hours away. But eventually the court system says you got to come back to Syracuse, New York. So we go back, and the way this is in the 1980s, the way that the court system back then, I don't know what they do now. I have no clue. But the way that they dealt with it back then was to basically say, well, the oldest son, he's old enough to be able to kind of give us answers. Oh, My gosh, seven oh, seven. And so then what basically unfolded from there was a series of psychologists and court appointed counselors. And I would do these sessions where you're sitting there with a psychologist and they're like, draw me a picture of this or. And so. And this was like an ongoing. Like, this is not like a short term thing. This was like an ongoing thing. Yeah. Like maybe a year and a half of this kind of stuff. And during this period of time, I know obviously that my parents are not together. Right. And I know that, like, they're not getting along. And I also know that this is court related. So basically, like, the words that I provide are ultimately going to dictate what happens with these parents. So within that context, for me, I think. I mean, I may be wrong, but I think that there's this natural psychology that takes over. At least it did for me. There's this natural psychology that took over me of basically being like, well, you got to pick the winner.

Wow.

Right? Who's the good one and who's the bad one? Because one of them is good and the other is bad. It's the way it has to be. So I chose my mom and my dad. I turned to. And I was the oldest boy. Right. So I think you can appreciate this. I think on some level that you're the defender, you're the one who stands up for the younger brothers, you're the one who protects. And so I basically psychologically turned towards my dad. I never actually said this to him, but this is the conversation that was in my mind as like 7, 8 years old is, how did you allow this to happen, dad? How could you allow this to happen? You were supposed to be the man of this house. You were supposed to be the one that takes care of us, that makes sure that everything is okay. Look at our family now. We were poor, right? We were poor. All the money was going to the attorneys. Look at what we're going through. Look at how horrible this is for us. You allowed this to happen. Why didn't you fix it? Why didn't you take care of us? Right. I held him accountable for the whole thing. So this led to a rift between me and my dad.

I'm sure your whole life probably.

Well, yeah, basically. So I was. I was a good athlete. So I played three sports in high school. I was the captain of two teams. And for those of you who can't tell on camera, Lewis has me by one inch. And he's very tall. He's six foot five. All right, so anyway, I was a good athlete. And so the issue though is that because my parents were divorced and we lived two and a half hours away, like on the weekend I had to go to see my dad. But, like, that was tearing me away from my sports teams. That was tearing me away from my friends. So, like, the level of resentment just escalates.

Frustration. Yeah.

And you get to a point where I just cut him off. Like, I was basically like, I don't want to talk to that guy.

Wow.

And we didn't talk from the time that I was in college until. If it's okay, I'll share the story. Okay. That we didn't talk until I was in my early 30s.

Wow. Like 10 years.

Maybe a little more than 10 years.

Wow.

I mean, that'll cause some gut issues.

So what you described a moment ago of shame, sadness, that's how I felt. And so then the way that I dealt with it, I think other people handled these things in different ways. So for me, it was like, I'm going to show you achieve. I'm going to show you with such ridiculous achievements that you won't be able to deny.

Wow.

Right. So, I mean, anger fueled. Yeah, kind of.

Yeah.

So I accomplished everything and more that I could have possibly accomplished. I went to the number one, my number one choice for residency for internal medicine, Northwestern. I. Out of 60 brilliant doctors that I would beg to be my own doctor if I needed someone, I actually won the highest award out of all of them. And then I went on a grant with the NIH at arguably the number one school of public health in the country at the University of North Carolina. So I was like working at the School of Public Health on this grant from the nih. Right. So all these things are happening. Well, you know what?

While you're not talking to your dad.

Yeah, well, I'm not talking to my dad. But you know what? None of it made me happy. I was sad. I had extremely low self esteem. And then simultaneously, the work of the hospital, it caught up to me. I was working 80 to 100 hours a week, sometimes 30 hours in a row. And when I did have free time, I ate junk food because it tasted good quick. And it was quick and it was cheap and I liked it. And when I had a day off, I got drunk and I look back on it and I didn't even understand. It's so obvious how sad I was. So anyway, what changed? So I wasn't comfortable with sharing the story in Fiberfueled, my first book, which came out in 2020 it was super easy for me to be like, yeah, I changed my diet.

Everything's good.

Everything's good. Right. Okay. Don't get me wrong. Changing my diet was a lot. Helped a lot.

Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

But there's still something that's underlying that, you know, that you haven't addressed.

I had a lot that needed to be dealt with. Wow.

And so when did you start dealing with it?

Not by my own choice. And if I did, if I didn't, if I wasn't blessed with a person that truly loved me, I don't know if it ever would have been dealt with.

Wow.

So my wife, now, here we are, you know, 12 years later, and got to get that right? My wife, she comes into my life, and she is an angel, and she's exactly the person that I needed to come into my life at that moment. And she says to me, you gotta call your dad.

When was this?

This was like, probably like early fall of 2013.

Okay.

Yeah. So it had been more than 10 years.

Wow.

Graduated college in 2002. She says to me, you gotta call your dad. You gotta. You gotta reconnect with him. So I pick up the phone and I call my dad. And Louis, he accepted me back instantly.

Wow.

He was so happy to hear from me, I'm sure. Totally caught off guard. Yeah. I hadn't heard his voice in more than 10 years.

Holy cow. That's.

And so the first time that I saw him was actually at my wedding. Wow. The first time I saw him in 10 years. Holy. All right, so we reconnect. I need to mention this. My dad was always a great dad.

Yeah.

There are things that I didn't understand, of course, until I had children of my own, of course, that, like, he would take two younger brothers, as I mentioned, he would take the three of us. Like, every time there's a vacation from school, you get some sort of break. We're hopping in the car. We're either driving into Canada, because I lived in Syracuse, New York, or we're driving down the Eastern seaboard and we're going out. We're exploring the world. We're doing stuff together. Right? Three boys, just him. That's cool, right? Weekends, we lived 45 minutes from the Adirondack Mountains. Okay. Friday. Friday evening, cars packed. Hop in the car, into the mountains. Enjoy the weekend camping together. Doing all kinds of fun stuff with him. Right. But by himself. Right. No one to support him, no one to help him. Right. And the other thing that I never really picked up on until I started to go back and revisit experiences from my childhood. The other thing I never picked up on is he never actually said anything bad about my mom. Well, not even once.

Not everything's so black and white, you know?

And I remember one time that my grandmother, my dad's mom, she started to say something and he squashed it.

Wow.

He said, you don't talk like that.

Oh, wow.

And so anyway, so you reconnect. I reconnect. And we had a couple of great years together. So you have to understand, like, part of our connection is through sports. So I grew up in Syracuse, New York. Sports town, Syracuse, Orange. So we reconnected on that and different things. And in the summer of 2019, I don't know if you've ever had this feeling. All I can say is what I experienced, which is that I felt compelled to go and see my dad.

I had the same thing in 2019. Yeah.

So in the summer of 2019, I can't understand why this came over me, but it did. It came over me in a very powerful way where it's like your dad's getting old, you just don't know how much longer he's going to be here. Why don't you go see him? And so In September of 2019, I hop on a plane, go up to Syracuse, and we had this really amazing weekend together. So we first went to a Syracuse football game. They played the number one team in the country, and they almost beat him. And then we hopped in the car and we drove up into the mountains and we went to all of our favorite places.

That's cool.

Favorite places that we had been to. And then it's Sunday and we're coming back down from the mountains and he's supposed to take me to the airport. And he diverts the car and we go to Rome, New York, which is about an hour outside of Syracuse. And this is where my grandparents lived. And he takes me to this road and he shows me this 600 square foot house, right? He takes me around a couple blocks away, he shows me another 600 square foot house and he tells me, this is where your great grandparents lived. This is where your grandparents were kids playing in the yard. This is where our family, Polish immigrants. This is where we started. He takes me to the airport. That's the last time I saw my dad. In January of 2020, I get a phone call from the police department. He didn't show up to work, and he had passed away over the weekend. And so the thing about it is, and I share this partially for the People who are at home, because I think that coming out and discussing these things is important for other people to hear, because I think for some of them, it may impact them. But I also share this for you on a personal level because you're a new dad, and I've been through the time that you and I have gotten to know each other, I've been pretty vocal about my love for being a dad and my children. And there was a moment in my life when everything changed, and it was the birth of my oldest daughter, who is 11 now. And there were a few things that happened in that moment for me. So part of it was to feel the love that I had instantly that was unlike any love that had ever experienced in my life. It was so natural. It was so authentic. And I don't know that there's anything that she could do that would make me not love her. And you feel that instantly. It's a very special feeling. And that allowed me to realize that that was the way that my dad felt about me.

Right.

And the other side to this is I think that there are aspects of our life that mature at a different pace. So, like, for nutrition, it was like a super quick and easy for me, you know, 2012 to, like, 2015. I was like a new man.

Yeah. Right.

Had, like, really drilled down and figured out what works for. For me, at least. Right. But, like, being willing to realize my own mistakes as part of the personal development, that was necessary to accept that maybe part of this issue here was actually me. Right. But also, I'm holding this child and, like, I don't know where she came from, but she came from somewhere. There's a breath of life that came into this child that is completely undeniable, and science will never actually be able to explain that.

That's true. That's true.

And so that sort of experience leads you into some bigger questions of understanding who I am within this broader story of everything that's unfolding and what is my purpose, why am I here, and what does it all mean, and what will happen after I'm gone. And so this led me on what was a very slow spiritual journey where I was against it and closed off for a very long time.

You're in your head, not in your heart.

Yeah. And also. Yes, that's actually a beautiful way to describe it, but also, I wasn't open to the possibility. No, like, no way.

You're based on science and facts. And show me a paper on this. And this is what you knew.

Problem?

Well, and I was raised. I Was raised Catholic and we went to church and it was just sort of the obligatory hour, of course. And it was completely uninspired.

Sure.

And.

And also, if your parents, who will took you there, they weren't able to figure things out, and they kind of ruined your family dynamic. You're like, well, this didn't work for them, so why am I going to do this?

Yeah. And I had a thing happen where, because my parents were divorced, so we would. We would drive, you know, and this is upstate New York where, like, snow can drop hard and fast all at once.

Yeah.

And because you can get lake effect snow and things like this.

One foot and a couple hours.

Exactly. So it can be next level. So. So my parents were two and a half hours apart. So on Sunday evening, I would come back, but if there was a bad snowstorm, instead of taking two and a half hours, it might take four hours. Right. To get home. And so I was going to be confirmed. And there was a rehearsal for the confirmation, for the ceremony, and I showed up late because no one did anything wrong. But, like, because my parents are divorced. Right. So I show up late, and apparently the priest, I'm not going to name his name, but he had given instructions of, like, this is what I need you to say when you come to the altar. And it was very explicitly said, like, you better know this.

And you didn't know it because you got.

I didn't know it. I wasn't there. Yeah. So I go up to the altar and he says, what do you have to say?

And you're like, ugh, I have no clue.

Whack.

No way. Oh, man.

I mean, honestly, that's rough. I've never had an adult hit me, oh, my gosh. This hard.

How old were you?

Probably 16, 15.

Oh, man, that's unfortunate. That's sad.

Boom.

That is unfortunate.

So.

So for me, trauma there, for sure. Huge drama there.

Well, I mean, I don't. I don't know if.

If, like, where's an embarrassment? There's a.

There definitely was embarrassment.

Everyone's wrong with me. There's a shame. Yeah. All that stuff.

I mean. But at a minimum. At a minimum, it set me so far back spiritually because it was basically like, yo, I'm not, like, not dealing with this. I'm good.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm good. Right.

So where are you at now?

So, yeah. So for me, I think, like, between the birth of my child, between building this family and then these bigger questions, and then having to process and resolve the death of my father. Right. So where did my daughter's soul come from? But where did my dad's soul go? Where is he and why am I here? Right.

Yeah.

So that actually has led me to actually a wonderful place. And yes. And I. I share this because in the chapter, I do talk about trauma. I do talk about human connection and our need for human connection, which is really exemplified in the story of me and my dad. Right. Like, there was. It was a broken connection that I, in order to be healthy and happy and my best version of myself, I needed to re. Establish that. But the other. But the other. The other factor here is that I actually think that for me, I'm just speaking for myself, that I haven't really felt fully like myself until I started to lean in and open up my heart. And as I've done that. And I'm not telling people what to believe, because the truth is that outward organized religion is not actually what I'm talking about right now. What I'm talking about is an intimate conversation between you and something bigger that occurs during the quiet times by yourself.

Yeah.

Right.

Wow.

Because that's what really matters. That's what really matters. And then all of the other stuff you can use to support that relationship.

Of course.

Right. So for me, it has just been this beautiful healing season. And so for me. So, like Louis, as a medical doctor, I mean, I acknowledge that there's absolute barriers to some of these conversations, right. Where it's like, people see it as a big risk, Rich rolls, like, whoa, I did not expect that. Right. You're taking a risk there. But what I said to him and what I'm saying to you and the listeners is, I am a medical doctor. I am here to heal. That is my mission. That is my purpose. I'm completely aligned on my purpose. It's a beautiful thing for me.

Me.

Right. But if I'm going to fulfill that purpose, then I have to follow through on these things, even when it's hard to say 100%. And so this honest conversation is really about helping people to heal. And the acknowledgment that healing comes in many places. And it can be the four workhorses, or it could be circadian rhythm, or it could be supplement stacks. These are all chapters in the book. But what I'm saying is there's also healing that comes for your soul from your. From your connections to other people, the ones you love. Right. And to lean into that.

What is the chapter in the book called?

So great. So it's chapter eight, and basically it's called Mind body healing.

Mind body healing.

Mind body healing.

Now where's your relationship with the Catholic faith or your faith now?

It's an amazing.

Like you've healed that moment, that trauma from that priest that did that and you feel like you've reconnected to that faith or is it.

I've connected to it. I don't consider myself Catholic, but I actually don't have any problem whatsoever with the Catholic Church. Where I have come to is that organized religion. We have to be willing to see that on both a micro level like this getting slapped by a priest or on a macro level like cover ups and things like this. There's history, there's tons of history in every religion. Yes. We have to be willing to see that these are the flaws of humans. Yes. Right. That humans that are trying, they may think that they're right or whatever, but they can make mistakes. Of course. But that has nothing to do. Nor should you allow that to stand in the way of something that's so beautiful, special, that you absolutely need in your life. And I'm of the belief that people are starving for this, which is a relationship with a higher power. You should not allow those outward things. So then once you cultivate that inside of you, there's going to be a natural desire to express it outwardly and that comes through these forms of like, you know, spiritual practice.

Yes.

Right. So for me, I don't, I don't, I don't consider myself Catholic, but I do consider myself Christian. Yes, I do. There's. That's a whole different conversation that like, is not really what I came to talk about.

Sure.

Of like my belief in the Bible. Right. My belief in Jesus. Right. So I have my feelings there.

Do you feel like your immune system and your gut microbiome are healthier because you have a strong belief in Jesus and God?

I know. It's not, I think I know. And it's completely backed by science, Lewis. 100%. Yeah. So let me be clear. I am not proposing a health hack where you find God for help.

No, no, no.

This is not a transactional thing.

Of course.

Right. This is so much more beautiful, special and powerful. But if you look at people who are more faithful, they are less depressed, they are more optimistic for the future, they have better emotional processing, they're able to deal, they're more resilient, they live longer, and there's many different forms of disease that are associated with lower risk. And to bring it full circle and not to turn this into a science lesson, because I actually love where we went with this, but there still is, like the faith and the science, they're both there. And that's okay because they can both exist.

Yes.

And the science says that what's happening, whether it's through our spiritual practices, reading the Bible, attending a service, singing in synchrony with other people. Right. Spiritual music, dancing, chanting, things like that, all these things, they're activations of the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the rest digest and I feel safe.

Yes.

Part that is the counterpoint to the sympathetic. So we talked about the sympathetic being activation. Now I'm saying safety exists. Safety and healing exists in your parasympathetic. So those are examples. But then in our human connection, holding hands, hugging, feeling bonded to your partner, intimacy with a partner that you actually love. It's not sport. These things actually are also activations of our parasympathetic nervous system. And then the question that you asked me, that has taken me an hour, this is the most divergent answer of all time. You asked me what is the thing that you can do? And you asked me about food, but I'm actually going to divert away from food. And what I'm going to say is, in the moment of stress where your sympathetic nervous system is firing, you can breathe. So all of these different forms of breath work that you hear people talk about, whether it's Wim Hof or you hear Andrew Huberman talk about techniques, or in my space as a gastroenterologist, we use techniques called diaphragmatic breathing, which are basically meant to really force your diaphragm to pull air into your lungs with deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the lips. Breath by itself has the ability to activate our vagus nerve, which can take the foot off of the gas and put it on the brake and allow you to get into rest and digest and safety mode.

To recap and acknowledge, what I'm hearing you say is that we can apply all the strategies in your book Plant Powered plus, to activate the power of your gut to tame inflammation and reclaim your health. There's lots of supplements, foods, and strategies that we can't implement. But it sounds like if you're looking for ultimate health, ultimate freedom and healing, then revisiting and healing the traumas of.

The past.

And integrating them in a healthy way in your life so that you feel you've resolved them and they don't hurt you anymore, along with connecting to God or a higher power and having a beautiful relationship and faith in God or a higher power, those two things are just as powerful, if not more powerful than any type of food, hack, sleep, sunlight that you can get in your life.

For a lot of people, that's the healing that they so desperately need.

100%. I know what your next book is about. It's about that whole chapter and going deeper on science and faith. I feel like that is what you said people are starving for. Obviously they're starving to eat healthier foods because people are sick. But there is an underlying root cause of that sickness, that disease that I feel like, which is a lack of faith, a lack of spiritual connection, and a lack of healing. The emotional, psychological, sexual traumas that people have faced in their past. And when we can heal the past and when we can find meaning of our faith and find a relationship with our faith, I feel like that's when true freedom comes in people's mind, body connection. That's when the immune system relaxes, like you said. That's when you aren't on fight or flight mode constantly. It doesn't mean everything's gonna be perfect, but you can have more tools to address life's challenges. And so I hope that is the next book you talk about and research, because that is the thing that people need the most. So I'm gonna. I'm gonna count on you in three years to have.

Don't be mad at me if I don't.

But it's funny because I had Andrew Huberman on my show a couple months ago, and most of the conversation was around his spiritual practice and how it's actually helped him heal and feel better.

I think it's a game changer. I think it's a game changer. I didn't expect it. I did not expect it. But it has changed my life and it allows me to be actually a far more resilient person and the best version of myself show up every day.

I hope more medical practitioners listen to this and start applying this to their practice for themselves so that they can also just communicate better and see people differently and connect with people on a spiritual level and also bring the science and medicine to it as well. Hopefully, hopefully people listen to this and watch it and start doing that. Your book, Plant Powered plus, is a powerful reminder on how to activate the power of your gut to tame inflammation and reclaim your health. I hope everyone gets a copy of this book because a lot of people in the world are sick and we need people to get healthier. And there's tools that they can do here that'll support them.

All of the tools are laid out. They are evidence based on and they're available so that you get to choose. Right? It's on the table. You pick and choose. What are the things that you're going to pick up off that table and introduce it to your life. And if you do that, if you have the audacity to try something different and you do that, you will feel, I promise you, you will feel the difference. And when you do, you will know you're onto something and you're going to want more and there will be even more for you.

You can keep doing it. Yes, they can get the book everywhere books are sold. Your YouTube channel, the Gut Health MD, also the Gut Health MD on social media and the guthealthmd.com you've got a great newsletter, you have recommendations for. You've got a great supplement company that supports people that can help them with their gut as well. And so much great content that you have online. What else, can we, where else can we follow or support you with this journey?

Well, you've quite thoroughly laid it out, so I do appreciate that. Look, to me, this is about an opportunity to continue the conversation beyond the show. Right. So I would encourage people, completely free tools come to my website, sign up for my newsletter, grab the book. If you borrow it from the library and you read it, trust me, I'm not upset at all. Because what I want is I want your time. I want your time, I want your attention. I want the opportunity. I just want that chance that I could change your life. Right. Because that's what, like, that's what I'm trying to do here.

Yeah.

So. And then once you do that, then just know, like, I'm here for you and I want to keep working. And I got. There's many years in front of me. I'm 45 years old. So let's keep rolling.

I'm telling you, that next book before you're 50, that's got to be on somewhere in your journey. I'm telling you, it's got to be. If you're saying that's what people are starving the most for, then you're perfectly positioned to serve people with that journey, with your own personal experiences. Maybe it's a couple articles to start or something like that, but before you.

Know, what's interesting is that all of the conversations that as I've been leading into this book are leading into this. Right? Because this is what ultimately, like, what are you waiting for? It's what people want to talk about.

That's what they need, man. That's what they need. Well, I asked you this the last time. I'm curious what it is now, after this book is out and after this conversation. But what would you say if you get to live as long as you want, but at the end of the day, you only get to share three lessons with the world, and we don't have access to your books or your work or your newsletters anymore. But it's many years in the future, last day on earth for you, and you get to leave behind three truths. What would those truths be for you to me?

Number one, you need to figure out who you are and what your purpose is. And once you identify that, you should never stop, never stop in the pursuit of that purpose. That's who you are. That's what you were meant to do. So that's number one. Number two, don't forget where you came from. Right? The people who have supported you, right? The people who made you who you are today. There's an entire story there. It's not just this moment. There's a build. Generations of people before you who led up to who you are. Never forget those connections. Never forget the importance of the other people in your life, because honestly, all the other bull. Sorry for the profanity, all of that, the money, the fame, the power, it will never bring you the joy that you get from those people that brought you to where you are today. And last but not least, know. Know with absolute clarity that you are a part of something bigger, better. And it is gorgeous. It is beautiful. So even the idea, Louis, I mean, I don't want. We're at the end, so I don't want to, like, introduce a new topic for debate or discussion, but even the idea of living forever, Look, I get it. But at the same time, where my dad is right now, one day I'll be with him. I'll be able to say the things that I need to say to him. And you know what else? He'll meet his grandchildren.

Wow. That's beautiful. That's beautiful, man. Why would I nod? You will. For opening up the way you have been. And I think, again, I hope you keep sharing like this, because I think this is what people are starving for, to hear these types of conversations and stories, specifically from a medical professional like yourself at the highest level, who is used to research and, you know, studies and data and science, to hear spirituality come from you and how this is the ultimate level of healing based on what I'm hearing you say for you, and the ultimate level of joy and fulfillment and love. That's what we want sure we want to be healthy and happy, but it's like the ultimate levels of joy come from what you just talked about because I think it's where we get ultimate peace, freedom and healing from is that connection. So I appreciate you. I'm grateful for you. And my final question, Will, is what is your definition of greatness?

I think I go back to this idea of living your life with purpose, right? If you are aligned with your purpose, anything that you do, anything is greatness.

There you go. Well, thank you man. Appreciate it.

Powerful.

Okay. It's awesome.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness.

Make sure to check out the show.

Notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive exclusive bonus episodes with me personally as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness+channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you of no has told you lately that you.

Are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

And now it's time to go out.

There and do something great.

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