Gut Check: Microbiome Mastery & Longevity with Dr. Jim LaValle

Foreigning us Today for his third time on the Synergy podcast is Dr. Jim Lavalle, a globally recognized clinical pharmacist, board certified nutritionist, and a pioneer in integrative and precision health. With over 35 years of experience, Jim has helped everyone from elite athletes to everyday individuals optimize their health through personalized metabolic solutions. He's an acclaimed author, educator, and a mastermind behind the Metabolic Code, a system that transforms how we understand and manage our health. Get ready for a deep dive into the cutting edge of gut health.

Welcome back, Synergy listeners. Lori and I are so excited to be back with you today. We're getting so much feedback from you guys. You guys are sharing, you're following the podcast and we so appreciate that. Keep that going. That's why we're here, is really to bring to the forefront all of your questions that you're asking us. And, and today we are super excited. A4M reached out to us and that's the Anti Aging and Regenerative Medicine Organization. They reached out to us and asked us to host a very special guest on our podcast, talking about some upcoming events that they're having. And of course we said yes. And then we found out our special guest is none other than Jim Laval. So we got really excited and I want to point you guys back because we've had Jim Laval on twice before. We had him on March of 2024. We dug into glucose and blood sugar, blood sugar regulation, all the things that that impacts in your overall health and wellness. And then we had him back in November of 2024. We talked about GLP1s. Are they a miracle or are they a menace? So if you have not watched them and even if you have go back and watch again because those are power packed conversations and we're going to build on that conversation today. Today we get to dig into the gut microbiome and longevity. And I would love to sequester this conversation to our 55 and over population, but honestly, what we know about the gut mic is it starts really in utero. And so we want to dig in with Jim and talk about like, how is our gut microbiome? Why is it important? What is it? How is it established? And then, you know, all is not lost. If we are over 55, like most of us on this podcast are, how do we, you know, rectify a gut microbiome that's gone bad? So, Jim, thank you, thank you, thank you for so much for being here and for your time with us today.

Well, you know, I love coming on Your guys show. So, I mean, this is fun. I mean now. And I have to say, I am, I am 65 in one month.

Oh, wow. We have to celebrate.

I'm like a 55 plus plus plus. You know the most exciting thing about turning 65 is what?

Tell us.

I get 40 calls a day from spam risk asking if I have funeral or cremation insurance.

So that's what we have to look forward to. Right?

I know we gotta get serious now, but I just had to start with that one because, honest to God, that is what's happening and there's no way to stop it. And I'm not planning on burning up anytime soon. I'm really, you know, thinking I'm still gonna be around for a while.

Right.

And what does that say about our country? What does that say about us? Right.

Honestly? Well, that gets back to the microbiome and this core concept of longevity. Right. It's like for some reason we hit this threshold and it's, oh, you should be thinking about dying now. Right, Right. And I'm not exaggerating. It is an unbelievable amount of calls that I'm getting over this. And you know, it's that thought of, oh, hey, everybody's sick now.

Yeah.

You know, you're, you're at this age now. You should be on 15 meds and you should be planning for your burial. And it's like, no, I'm planning for the next 30 years of, you know, kicking some butt.

Right.

You know? Yeah, right. Yeah, that's where we need to be.

But yeah, that's definitely where our mindset needs to be.

Yeah, you mentioned it. It starts in utero. You know, I've always tried to take histories on people that say, how far back can you remember?

Yeah.

You know, how far back do you remember your health? And what can your parents tell you about your health? Because they don't now, we know now. First thousand days of life. You set that microbiome and that dictates the tendency of pro inflammatory signaling that's coming out of your gut. How much histamine is going to be getting made? Do you have a nice balance of flora? What is the health of the flora the, of the, you know, of the mucosal barrier of the gut. And you know, I don't know, you'll. I remember back in practice, like in the 80s when I was, I started out in the 80s with this. I never even heard of eosinophilic esophagitis.

Right.

In infants.

No, you never even heard of it.

Like, if you said that word to me, eoe. I'd be like, what's that? A package that you get. You're getting your package delivered by eoe. Right. I mean, I just wouldn't have understood it. There's whole hospital wings devoted to this now. Wow. Right. And so for the people listening, eosinophilic esophagitis, inflammation, epithelial, you know. You know, you have this lymphocyte inflammation and histamine response in the esophagus, and it's due to food. You know, they're. They're focusing on food.

Right.

Is the issue. Right. I'm reacting to food, but that's happening in children coming out from the birth canal. It's amazing to me.

So what are they saying the reason for that is? Like, why are we seeing that show up so early today?

Well, I mean, you know, I think from our perspective, you know, it's. It's the fact that you have poor immune integrity at birth. Right. So you're the guts. The gut's not, you know, not good for us. So the one thing we know when you don't have Bifidobacterium infantis, because you didn't go through the birth canal.

Right.

Or the mom's microbiome has transferred that microbiome to that infant. But, you know, Bifidobacterium infantis, when you give probiotics in the third trimester for a woman, the circulating IGE in the infant is reduced by 40%, therefore reducing the risk of. Of creating that anaphylaxis or that. That kind of histamine response that occurs, you know, which creates eoe. Right. Because it's. Yeah. And so, you know, I think part of it is poor preconception care, for sure. I mean.

Yeah.

Part of it is, you know, starting infants on solid foods or. Or certain allergic proteins. So, you know, they don't realize they're giving them soy formula or they're giving them, you know, a dairy formula that's starting to mount that response.

Right.

And then there's 293 foreign chemicals in a baby's umbilical cord. Right, Right.

So that we know about that.

We know about that we know about.

Like, when was the last time that study was done? Wasn't that like 2010 or something? I mean, so today it's probably a lot more. With all the nanoparticles that we have in our environment, you would guess that.

It'S a lot more that plastics. You name it. Right. I mean, it's this whole thing of, you Know, I think we see children with a much more disrupted immune function at birth. And you can't really talk about immune dysfunction without microbiome disruption.

Well, say that again. That was good.

Oh, I know. I actually thought that when I said that myself, I was like, you cannot have immune dysfunction without microbiome disruption.

And that's for any age.

No, it starts, it's, that's when you're born. I mean, that first thousand days. And then, you know, we, we understand that, for example, the microbiome changes dramatically day to day based on what you're eating, the stre you're under. But there's this, you can almost think of it. Do you have a sturdy structure? Can you withstand a hurricane? Right. So when people get under very high demands on their gut, maybe they're infirm, maybe they got in an accident. Because we know that, for example, you get a tbi. You get a tbi and, and within an hour your gut is permeable.

And that's a traumatic brain injury.

Yeah, you get a traumatic brain injury, you hit your head.

So bump on the head. So even kids playing sports getting a concussion. Right.

Anything like that. Right. Any kind of concussive event, you literally end up making your gut permeable within the hour. That's pretty, I mean, we don't think of that though, that gut brain connection that occurs. And, and so when you, so when you start to look at, well, how, how does this permeability issue affect the microbiome and then the variability of the microbiome. You know, one of my really, I mean, I really respect him is, is Leo Grady with Jonah Health and because he, you know, developed the Stanford Heart flow model using AI to like put it, put a stent in and show the resultant blood flow. Then he went to Sloan Kettering and did the Page AI oncology program. But now he's done a microbiome large language model where, where he's got every, every article ever on the microbiome in a language. And then you test against it and then it starts to measure the, the relevance of the symptoms you're having to the microbiome that showed up. And I think that's where we're missing because it's a pretty complex model. And, and Leo is a PhD in artificial intelligence and medical technology. He's been like, 20 years ago, he got that degree right before. Once again, I didn't even know there was artificial intelligence. I was trying to find my own intelligence. It's like, well, there's something artificial out there. Maybe I could get that. So I think that that's really important to understand that first of all, the microbiome is complex and we got a lot of things working against it to your point. Nanoparticles, environmental burden, stress levels, all kinds of things that affect that. And then what does that mean to us downstream in terms of all the things that the microbiome touches on, everything from hormones, right. To blood sugar regulation to neuroinflammation in the brain. And so, I mean, there is just so much that gets impacted by it.

How do you foresee this technology changing the way we treat?

I think it's going to make a massive difference on the way we treat. Because you know what we look for, we always look for the bad bugs, right? Like, oh, there's a pathogen in there. I know there's a parasite, where, you know, where's the clostridium, you know, and the reality. And that happens, right? We know that bad things happen, you get a pathogen. But I think what we've underappreciated is the role of commensal, you know, microflora. So the, the role of dysbiotic flora that grows. Just like we make bad actor lipids when we're, we're insulin resistant, right. You know, we've got this huge population of bacteria that's overexpressed and fungus and you know, you know, you know, other components, you know. But the bottom line is that I think that's driving a lot of why people end up eroding their immune dysfunction. You know, their immune dysfunction starts to occur and they erode their immune integrity. Because think of how many people you're seeing now with autoimmune, thyroid, which is directly correlated to the gut, and lipopolysaccharide, which is the breakdown of these bugs. Then, you know, lipopolysaccharide gets released and other autoimmune situations. Right. Which gets strongly done. And I think it's a lot to do with, you know, these bugs are wrong and then you're feed, you're eating foods that aren't feeding the bugs we need.

Yes.

So I think the, so how we practice is going to be this, it's going to change the kind of foods we recommend because the one thing we know for sure, everybody needs to eat.

We do know this. This.

We know baseline, the more precise we can get on food, the better.

Yes.

So that part's important. And then I think it's going to influence the type of nutrients we give people. And if needed, it's going to influence the types of peptides we do as well. And I'll tell you where it really starts to make hits home for me is like the gelding theory. Right? The gelding theory is your, your body starts making the, you know, circulating endotoxin from your gut microbio, breaking down.

Okay.

And that endotoxin attaches to the Leydig cells if you're a man, and the ovaries if you're a woman, and shuts down your hormone production. But what do we do?

Right, we just give them the hormones, Right?

Right.

Yeah. Well, you don't think of the gut, so that. So to your point, I think it's going to influence every aspect of how we practice, because ground zero is the gut.

Yeah. So Jim, Lori and I, in our practices, you know, I think back to 10 years ago, we kind of pull and developed a gut protocol around restoring the gut microbiome prior to or in addition to using hormone replacement therapy. Because what we learned was the patients that were inflamed and had unhealthy guts did not do well on hormone replacement therapy. So we have worked together in creating a protocol that we have implemented for over 10, maybe, maybe 12 to 15 years. At this point, I don't even know. But it's been a beautiful thing. So it's going to be interesting to see what AI tells us that we've been doing wrong. Right. Where is there room for improvement?

You know, what's interesting is. But you saw big improvement when you did it.

Absolutely. Like life changing, like, unbelievable difference. Unbelievable.

Same thing.

And it wasn't well accepted. It wasn't well accepted because, you know, they come to the office with all these symptoms, treat me for hormones. Well, wait, before we do that, this is necessary groundwork that has to be done. Right. To not put you in harm's way. But better yet, anything we do after that is going to work better.

Yeah. I mean, I've been an advocate of that for forever. It's so important to understand that, because what I found is, is that because I had my, my OBGYN, Dr. Maureen Pelletieri was my partner back in the Cincinnati Institute. You know, it was real easy to see when people were inflamed and they wanted their hormones, and maybe they got their hormones. They were forever needing to be adjusted and they weren't getting the outcome they thought they were going to get. And, you know, in fact, they were getting more adverse events than, Than beneficial effects. Right, absolutely. And I, you know, I absolutely commend you. That was the whole reason for developing the Metabolic CO platform was getting People to understand it was always interesting. I'd be criticized by the kind of the, you know, from the hormone replacement side. And believe me, we've taught more people at the American Academy of Anti Aging Medicine how to use hormones and anyone in the world, we're huge advocates for the essentiality of hormones. So I'm not saying anything against hormone replacement. Fantastic. But a lot, most of the time, when you run like a metabolic code analytics, which is Bayesian modeled with AI overlay, it always usually is pointing to the gut or the gut, immune, brain, or adrenal, thyroid, pancreas is the principal area as it gets disrupted. And then after that you see this downstream effect into liver, lymph, kidney, or the production of sex hormones. And I mean, I can't make it up. It's like, look, here's what the data shows, right. Over and over again. And so when you think about how I still think people don't understand the gut microbiome, they think, oh, I take a probiotic and that's it.

And they're taking a genetically modified probiotic off the shelf at Walmart. Right. And they think they're doing something good.

And guaranteed that a date of expiration of all the strains that are in there. So they're not fighting each other, you know, like the crips in the bloods. And you got one or two strains left at the end of the expiration date. Right. It's that, it's that compatibility side that's so important for understanding a good probiotic. Right. And you know, I mean, I, I started working on my child's microbiome when, when he was born because, yeah, we needed to because, you know, he was my, my wife was a strep B positive.

Right. Carrier.

So. And she's a carrier. And so when that means for your listening is that, you know, you have this choice of a one in a million chance that your child might be blind going birth or you do prophylactic and antibiotic bag drift in during that process. Well, what. My son come out with a raging candida issue tongue super coated.

Wow.

And so we had a workout gut from birth, painting his tongue with gentian violet so it looked like he ate a smurf every day, you know, but, but I don't think people get well, how did, how did that happen?

Right.

Well, that happens a lot.

Yes.

And then the child gets their first ear infection and now they get five rounds of antibiotics, you know, in their first two years of life. Right.

Not to mention their vaccine.

That's another whole issue Right. I mean.

Right. So just layer on those things and then you land there.

Yeah. You know, it's so interesting on vaccines because, you know, when you look at other countries, one, they don't do as many. Two, they. There's countries that wait till the child's two years old. So they have an immune system that's developed before they do them and they do one at a time. And, and I'm not here to go against or for. I mean, I. I think what I do know is I think we overdo it.

Yeah, yeah.

And we overdo it too fast.

Yes.

There's no doubt about it. Right. I mean, the data is there. I mean, it's pretty obvious that it's created a problem. But you know what? The other thing I think about the microbiome that gets on is way underappreciated is its role in neuro inflammation. You know, when we, when we talked about. I hope you had at least three. Three people listen to my talks. The last couple talks we did, you.

Guys did get way more than that. Way more than that.

Okay, good, good. You know, I just want to make sure does it. Because I'm going to pull back on GLP once.

Okay.

So, you know, what we know is, you know, the higher the blood sugar, the more the disruption to the brain. Right. You get type 3 diabetes.

Right.

But the other piece to it is, is as your gut gets permeable, so goes your blood brain barrier. And when your blood brain barrier gets permeable now, all those nanoparticles. So when you read about Parkinson's, for example, and gee, how is it being so strongly associated with environmental burden? And then you'd start to tie together the fact that the gut is signaling the brain, the brain is signaling the gut. The microbiome is in charge of that signaling. And so what is the microbiome? It's all the beneficial bacteria that should help your body maintain homeostasis and vitality as you're aging. We know for a fact that centenarians have much lower levels of, you know, basically inflammatory compounds, but lower levels of lipopolysaccharide and galectin than people that are, you know, younger and have health problems already. Wow, that's crazy.

Crazy. Yeah, but that's awesome to know. I mean, that's a big clue of what we should be doing. Right. In decreasing inflammation and protecting that gut barrier.

Yeah. When you protect the gut, you protect the brain. There's no way to avoid it because as soon as lipopolysaccharide, that once again Lipopolysaccharide, your microbiome breaks down. You've got unfriendly flora that's killing off your good flora. So the bugs are dying. Lipopolysaccharide penetrates the blood brain barrier fairly easily. But when the blood brain barrier is opened up, it really gets in and that's the big thing that triggers neuroinflammation. So I know for a 4M and our big spring congress and talking about the gut microbiome, you can't separate the gut from the brain, Right. Because you can eat everything. Perfect. Like I already saw, you've got your 3 ounces of wheatgrass juice under the table there and you've got your grass fed collagen and you're probably wearing nebby Birkenstocks rocking back and forth to make sure you're breaking up your trigger points. But if you're. I don't know if that's happening. But my point being, I love it. I love the visual times. Yeah. We're doing all these things right. But if we're still under a lot of stress, stress triggers from the brain to the gut, a direct breakdown in that gut barrier and alters the microbiome.

Yes.

So you could do, you can, you can stress yourself out saying, hey, I'm only going to eat grass fed lamb that was in New Zealand on this particular acre of land, because I know it's the best land in the world. It's never ever, ever had anything sprayed on it. But I have to, I have to jump through 14 hoops, three delivery programs and five shaman to get to that.

Right.

But you do it because I gotta get it. And I think that's real important for people to understand is you've got to manage your stress response while you're working on your gut or you'll forever be working on your gut.

Right.

And that's. I wanted to go back to something I feel like has been super underappreciated too, in the whole gut microbiome. And I'd love to get your input in it. Is ph balance right? Is the acidity gut right? Because you can go to fixing all of these things, but at the end of the day, if the proper acidity is not there, you're not going to achieve anything either. So I just want to know, you know, what you think about that.

I think it's huge. Yeah. It's a brilliant thought that needs to be talked about more because all the people that are on PPIs and H2 blockers, right, they're swimming Upstream, automatically.

Yeah.

To have a good microbiome and not have a pro inflammatory gut.

Right.

I mean, we're seeing C Diff go through the roof. I don't know if you're seeing that. And a lot of the C. Diff cases we're seeing are people that have been on PPIs. And that's just one example.

You know, it's interesting. I mean, I. You guys have heard me talk. I mean, I'm huge on ph. I mean, I'm a big believer. Right. And I think ph. And it's funny, people are like, oh, drink alkaline water. Why? Why would you drink alkaline water? To alkalinize the stomach and the small intestine. That's the direct opposite of what you're supposed to have. So if you drink a little alkaline water because you're into the movement and you're convinced that it's something. Okay, read a little bit. And you should think differently. But. Okay. But there's people that are drinking pH10 water all the time.

Yes.

You may as well take a ppi.

Right.

It's the same effect. You know, it's more lasting when you're taking the drug, but it's the identical effect. And I think it's absolutely creating bad bugs. More. More C. Diff, more H. Pylori, more, you know, just more. More pathogenic behavior in people's chemistries. And I think PPIs wonderful drugs when used for 8 weeks or less for a peptic ulcer.

But they can keep you in the weeds if you stay on it long term. Absolutely.

Well, there's people on them for years. Right. And it breaks, you know, you lose protein digestion, you lose vitamin D absorption, MAG, CAL, B12, vitamin D, all lost on absorption. And then you have the PH shift.

Yeah.

Which then by default creates a terrain. Right. So we have a terrain in our gut. In an acidic terrain, friendly flora will flourish. And an alkaline terrain, bad bugs take over.

Yes.

So the terrain is influenced by ph, huge fiber intake. Are you eating a high fat diet or are you eating a high refined sugar and carb diet? Both of those diets alter the terrain. So it's really important.

Yeah. So for our listeners, when we talk about how to correct for PH in the gut, what I'm hearing you say is reduce or cut out the PPIs as soon as you can. Weaning is always recommended. Obviously talk to your provider about that before you do that. But definitely doing that. Not drinking alkaline water. Especially with your meals. Right, Your meals, you Want acidity. You don't want to be drinking alkaline water with your meals. You need acid to signal all of the things that happen downstream for digestion to occur. What else can we do to help with ph specifically?

I'm thinking a private meal time. Pretty calm, right? Don't want to have those heated conversations at meal time. Getting yells, stress.

Yeah. Don't get spun up during meals. How often do you have people. Well, you know, I'm from an Italian family, so, you know, why wouldn't you yell at meal time? You're yelling the rest of the time. But you know, I mean, but no, you're, I, I, well, let's put it this way. Let's start having meal time where you are sitting down with others.

Right.

I mean, you know, you look at centurions and part of the big social structure is they get together and they have a social dinner or lunch where they get together and you know, they discuss their day and you know, they can unload some of that stress, you know, in a non confrontational way. That's a huge point. Such a big point. Yeah. And I think fiber is incredibly important. Nobody hits their fiber targets. I know you guys do, we've talked about this. But no, no, nobody. Like I, I cannot tell you how many times I lecture on hormones or at a hormone. Bunch of people doing pellets, you know, a couple hundred people in a room doing pellets. Hey, let's get pellets. Which I love. It's good, it's fine. You want to do pellets? Do pellets track your patients? Whatever. I, I'm, I'm not, you know, here to judge. At the same time, they're not giving any fiber to anybody.

Right.

And if you don't give fiber, you can't keep the unfriendly flora down. They tend to make the enzymes that basically uncouple your metabolized hormones and so your hormones then because it's uncoupled, it's a, it's called free hormone again. And then that's the stuff that circulates and creates hormone dominance, especially in women's, with estrogens. But men too, on prostate health, they got to worry about estrogen. I get, you know, it's, it's so weird that we don't talk about how important it is that men, you know, control their estrogen, both of which happens in the gut. So fiber is really important. Resistant starch is really important resistant starch. And there's not a lot of resistant starches out there. That are called Class 2 resistant starches, which are the ones that actually really feed the microbiome. So you gotta have, you got to have a lifestyle.

Give us some examples of those class two.

I mean like the green banana powder is decent. You could get. There's a potato starch called Ms. Prebiotic that is the probably Solnol. S O L N U L is the Most studied class 2 resistant starch. And that's just a branded version of that potato starch Solnol. But they've done trials on it, so those are great examples. And I'll tell you the other hot tip. We're in the generation of people over training.

Now wait, that's been going on since the 80s? Tell me it's been going on since the 80s.

No, for you it has, baby. You've over trained for too long. No, I don't know. No, but yeah, but it's, I mean I know I overtrained most of my life. Just being honest. I mean I was an exercise addict because it's what, what blew off my cortisol and made me feel better than anything. Exercise.

Yep.

So it turns out the last two years there have been quite a few publications showing that when you train endurance like running, biking, you know, any of that type of endurance training for more than 30 minutes, you start to disrupt your microbiome.

Yeah.

And you're speaking at a time.

So if they did at a time.

Okay. If they did in a row morning and 30 minutes in the evening, is that less?

Look at you trying to over train. Look at this.

See, I'm just curious.

Yeah, no, I, you know, I, I don't think they've looked at. If you did splits, I would say if you did splits, typically your immune system will recover on a 30 minute event within a few hours versus say you train for an hour and 10 minutes straight. Your immune system makes more inflammatory compounds and it easies to recover. So I would say it would favor two 30 minute sessions. I, I still train about 45 minutes to an hour, you know, but I'm taking probiotics and I take fiber every day and so I'm really cognizant of that. And I'm just old and I need to work out more.

No, well, you know what I hear you saying is that having that delicate balance between. Right. Your recovery and it's not just what you're doing in that day. What you're saying here is that it's really how you develop your plan your week, full day.

That's correct. Well, there's A lot of people that are biking two and three and four hours a day and training for triathlons and training for marathons, half marathons, they absolutely need to be on fiber and probiotics. I'm telling you, the amount of information coming out on how permeable the gut gets, changes in serotonin production, more can urinic acid. So, you know, when you're. When your gut starts pushing out, when you start creating more inflammation systemically in the gut, when you're making more inflammatory signals, you stop making serotonin in the gut. And then you, you know, you end up making more of the phenolic compounds, right? Canurenic acid, quinolinic acid, which is associated with developing depression. And of course, you see that. And in particular, women with irritable bowel, right. Their bowel is off and they have anxiety. Right. And that's because, you know, serotonin production is not there. And so just in general, more and more people are exercising more hours. Obviously, as the chief science officer at Lifetime, I want people to train more, I want to exercise. But it's having that full thought of, well, my getting. Am I starting to feel like I'm not recovering? Is my belly starting to gurgle? What am I? Bowel movements, like, how's my mood? You know what? Because we don't think of the gut and mood. We don't think of the gut and not recovering or being sore longer. Right, Right. And I think it's a big miss.

So let's go back to the conversation of fiber, because you mentioned reaching fiber goals or meeting your fiber target. So what is the target? What do you recommend for grams a day of fiber? Is there a general rule?

I like people getting 40 grams a day, but if they can get 30, I'll take it.

So when I say that to my registered dietitians and my health coaches, their eyes get so big. Like, they think it's a massive amount of fiber.

If you look at traditional cultures and what we used to eat, it isn't that much. It's just in our modern world of refined foods and don't eat vegetables because vegetables contain things that harm you. I'm a carnivore now, right. It's like, give me a break. Tell that to the Sardinians and the folks in Icarus, Greece and Okinawa that are eating foods that have more people living to 100 than anyone in the world. Right. I mean, you know, vegetables aren't bad.

Right.

But the problem is you're only getting 2 grams per serving a lot of Grains get refined now, so you're not getting a lot of fiber. Say when you do eat a starch, there's a lot more refinement. So the biggest issue becomes how do I hit that target?

Yes.

And I'm a big, I'm a huge fan of sun fiber. Sun fiber is so easy. It's a guar gum fiber, so nobody reacts negatively to it. It soaks up the lipopolysaccharide. You, you know, you get great, you know, great effect from it. I know there's other great ones I'm not, you know, if you want to, you know, you can throw in a mix. If you want some psyllium with your sun fiber, great. But what's cool about some fiber is you can put it in your morning coffee, you can put it in water, you can get the. Like I do, I probably do 20 grams of fiber a day from sun fiber. Just because I know based on travel, I'm not always getting, I'm not always able to get exactly what I want to eat.

Sure.

And so, yeah, I mean, if people can get. And I know, you know, dietitians are like, oh my God, that means people would have to eat 20 servings of vegetables and fruit a day.

Well, there are people out there that don't tolerate fiber. Right. And so part of that is also a trained clinician walking alongside of our patients when we are implementing these recommendations and getting feedback. Because that's very telling too, if we're saying, you know, listen, number one, measure your fiber. Because I don't think most people even know what they're doing. Right. So then they measure it and then they're like, you're telling me to do.

This and I feel awful.

Share that with your clinician because that could be very telling and its own diagnostic test without the test necessarily. Right.

Yeah. It's information for sure if you're not tolerating the fiber. But I do say, if you're going from a low fiber diet, do it gradually. Increase your fiber intake gradually. Right. Don't, don't go out and do 40 grams your first day. Yeah, don't do that. So definitely go slow. But to your point, if you can't tolerate it at all, there's a bigger problem there that needs to be addressed.

Absolutely. Yeah. Usually start with 5 to 10 grams added into your diet in a day. Like, you got to start slow and build and drink water because guess what? Fiber plus water means a good healthy stool being formed. Right. Otherwise it's like, why do I feel more constipated? Well, did you drink any water today? Well, no, I'm not a big fan of water, you know, so that's, that's an issue too.

And then paying attention to your stool, right? It's us as clinicians getting people to look at their, their stool, right? Look at it.

Yeah, tell us about that, Lori. Yeah, I had this big conversation with.

My team yesterday because, you know, I think the assumption is being in the nurse. I've always talked about our bowels, right. And you know, it was so funny in the room. I'm like, y' all need to look at your bowel. Like you need to look at your poop every day. And they're like, what? And I'm like, yeah, it's also a story, you know, so look at your poop. Moral of the story. Look at your float.

Not float, color, choppy. You know, I mean, there's so much to that. You're absolutely like, people have bright yellow poops and don't even think about it.

Yeah. So, you know, and that's, that's honestly where we do have to start is obviously in things that are cheap and inexpensive. Look at your poop. Right? But then there is that question of how do we really know about the gut microbiome? What kind of testing can be done? What do you, does everybody need to have that done? What do you think about that?

Well, look, I think more and more of this generation, with all the drugs that people are on, you got 24% of the drugs on the market affect the microbiome. It's not just antibiotics and PPIs. Like everybody thinks, oh, it's antibiotics and BPIs. No, it's metformin, you know, you know, it's statins, it's antipsychotics, it's opioids. There's a whole, you know, there's a lot of, you know, things. So if people can afford to do a microbiome test prophylactically, I think it's great. But if you're having significant GI issues, I, I think the first step, because we're, you know, when you've been at this for a while, you know, I'm going to put you on, you know, I'm going to put you on a low allergen anti inflammatory diet. We're going to give you some things that's going to, you know, build up the flora, decrease the gut. Obviously, if they're having some really significant gut issues, it, it demands immediate testing, right. Or do you have a pathogen? You know, you, you gotta look, right? So let's Take that aside and just say, you know what? I'm kind of gassy. I'm kind of bloated. Yeah. I get constipated once in a while. Or maybe I have a loose stool three times a month. You know, I don't know, you know, that kind of thing. Or I've got unexplained inflammation. I've got skin rashes. Skin rashes in the microbiome are huge. One of the things I Talked for at a 4M actually was that, you know, skin gut connection. And so that's where doing a microbiome test, you know, is a good idea. I mean, why not do it? But I usually will do that second test in, like, I. I'm gonna start out with, let's correct lifestyle. Let's see if your poop gets better. Are you bloated? Are you gassy? Do you still have the issues? Is your skin rash going away? You know what? We're missing something. Okay, we got. We need to test that. And I like. I mean, I know it sounds weird, but I like microbiome tests that don't necessarily make their own probiotics. Like, oh, you need this customized probiotic.

Yes, we've seen those. We've seen those.

Yeah. And once again, not. I'm sure there's a lot of value in them. And I'm, you know, and I know we've got, you know, folks that come and, you know, have their booth at a 4M, and that's. That's just fine. But I do know that there are chaperone or parent probiotics or bacteria that your body should take in and needs. Like, so Bifidobacterium infantis. Really good. And that teenager that's getting cystic acne, man, they need some Bifidobacterium infantis. Right? Along with detox, you know, all the other things that we all look at. So there's those. There's those really good bugs that we know people need, and that's a great start. But I think more and more people's guts are very disordered in terms of their microbiome and what they're doing. So testing, I think, is kind of important. Yeah, And I. I wouldn't have said that 15 years ago, but I think now, I think it's becoming more and more critical. Just look at how many people are on PPIs. It tells you right there.

Right. And would you add to the list people that are having brain issues? Maybe they're not having digestive issues or skin issues, but brain issues. I Feel like they're top on the list. Yeah. Of people that I would want to.

Assess autoimmune, any autoimmunity. Think of gut brain, think of gut joints, think of gut. Right. Because it's at the middle of it, you know, it's at the middle of the immune cascade, you know, and so therefore, you gotta. Gotta respect it.

Yeah. And I do think that testing does validate. You know, there are some people that really need to see testing to change. You know, there are other people that'll come in and, you know, we say, looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Right. And. And they'll trust you on that. But I do know, and I'm sure, you know, Kelly and I have talked about this a lot. We have people that'll walk in the clinic and they are those. I need hard facts, you know, is layers and layers of complexity. And I, I like to go back to what you have said, and we have said, you know, forever. There's not one pill, whether that be a pill like prescription or a supplement that is going to heal a person. It is very complex. And as you said over and over again, and just reminding our listeners is that it is all of those other things, what you eat, what you drink, how you sleep, how you move, how you think, all of those factors are just as important. If not, I have seen even more important than the supplement and nutrient support stuff.

Yeah, no, I think it all. It all comes together. I think you've got folks that. And look, this is why. Why is things like spring Congress so important? Well, it's important because you gain an education of all those things that matter. Right. So whether it's looking at heart rate variability and the effect on your gut. Right. You know, all these types of tidbits of information need to come together. And sometimes, you know, I have people that, hey, I'm gonna. I'm gonna breathe better, I'm gonna eat better. Like, I had a case, literally had a case yesterday. She does infrared, she does red light therapy, she eats pristinely, she works out just the right amount of times. But she also got Covid twice. And Covid disrupted the microbiome on people. That's where they first were assessing Covid. Right. Were fecal samples.

Yes.

That was the very early testing that occurred with COVID was that it changed the microbiome and created a change and what's called dysbiotic. Right. The unfriendly flora and that. And that was part of the cytokine storm that occurred. Right. Because it was triggering all this inflammatory signaling in addition to the fact that, you know, it had a furine spike and it triggered, you know, NAD ratio changes in the cell. I mean, all that stuff, you know, was the obvious. People forgot about the fecal component. So this woman was a perfect example of that where she was losing her hair, getting neuropathy, you know, all these, all these symptoms that were going on. And it was because her immune system was out of kilter when we tested her and most likely because of her dysbiosis that occurred.

So you've talked about the things that will affect the gut microbiome, like over training, stress, what we're eating, chemicals that we're exposed to. How does sleep play into the gut microbiome? Is there a connection between either lack of sleep or quality sleep that affects the gut microbiome in any way?

Yeah, there's a direct connection because what happens is when we don't get enough sleep or we have disturbed circadian pattern of our sleep, right. We're not getting deep sleep. When you do not get deep sleep, you continue to make corticotropin releasing hormone in the periphery. So you make it in your gut. What does that do? That creates permeability changes and then it also creates the histamine issues so you make more leukotrienes and more histamine. So when you are not getting enough sleep and you've upgraded your brain to that fight or flight and now your. Because what happens is, is that melatonin is supposed to shut down corticotropin releasing hormone and when you're not signaling to get that, and the delta sleep inducing peptide and all the other peptides that are getting made to give your brain a rest and repair, right by default you, you're going to create more permeability because you're upregulating, you know, cortical releasing hormone and, and disrupting the circadian timing of, of your hormonal patterns, which then has a direct effect on your gut.

That is so interesting because I do see that histamine pattern in my people that don't sleep well. Like it's pervasive, but I've not really thought about it in that way. So that is super interesting.

Yeah, well, you know what, I always love it if I get on your show and I can one tidbit that you guys don't know. So that is great.

I always go back and re listen to your podcast because I'm amazed at the things that I didn't remember. And so I'm like Yes. That was another tidbit that I could take back to the clinical practice. It's just great.

Well, think, what's interesting is think about how many people go to the pharmacy to buy antihistamines in order to sleep.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, that's the connection. Right. But I mean, it's, it's really amazing that, that what I love about the wearables. Right. Love the wearables because of sleep. You know, the heart rate variability on the wearable devices aren't that great. You really do need to use a strap if you're going to do it. Straps are the only way to go on that. But, but the, but the beauty of what is affecting my sleep, Hey, I drank that glass of wine.

Yes.

I ate that piece of dessert.

Yes, Yes.

I got stressed out.

Yes.

Whatever that reason is, it definitely can.

Lead to change in behavior. I've heard that from more than one patient that, you know, I encouraged them to wear a wearable. They came back and we discussed their data and they're like, I had no idea how much wine was affecting me, how much eating late at night was affecting me. And then once they get that corrected and they can see it, they're much more likely to just make better decisions. It's all about decisions every day, right? We all get to make those decisions. And once you see it, you can't unsee it.

No, that's exactly right. Well, you know, what's really interesting is I love the fact that consumers are digging in this deep. So when you think about, I know we were going to talk, because you brought it out at the beginning of the talk, that like longevity fast and what we were doing with, with reaching out to consumers as well now, not just the healthcare providers, but also to have consumer based informations in education because people are just super interested in their longevity now. And I think we need to get. What I think is important is that right now everybody's push, push, push, right? Stay on stuff all the time. Push those mitochondria mush, right? Intrathecal stem cells for everyone, right? There's all these kind of, you know, kind of, I'd say more avant garde, more on over the leading edge kind of stuff, right? When we're not understanding it, your body needs to repair. And so I think that that thought of longevity is exactly what you outlined earlier that people lose, which is what is my lifestyle like? Yeah, you know, how am I sleeping, how am I eating, how much am I exercising? Am I getting my water, how much alcohol am I taking in? And then what It. And then there's what are the nutrients that help keep you in homeostasis so that you can age gracefully.

Right.

Because the bottom line is I, I live by this motto in my head and you know, it's like even da Vinci died.

Yeah, we don't get out of this alive, do we?

I, you know, I, I just know that, you know, look, we're, we're all moving towards, you know, an end point. Wouldn't it be great if we could move to that endpoint with grace?

Yes.

And, and beauty on the inside out and feeling good and you know, really taking every last chance of this opportunity of life and enjoying it. And that's why the gut microbiome is important and that's why understanding what do I do to keep my, you know, my immune system intact is important because that, that leads into that longevity quotient, which I think is, you know, really cool that we're starting to see this movement towards, at least through my association with a 4M and now, you know, them doing a consumer event. I think it's really cool.

Yeah, I have to second that. You know, I feel like we've got to create opportunities for people to get real information, quality information, validated information, because we live in an age now of a lot of information. And the challenge is sifting through that information to really understand what is useful, beneficial, healthy, good for us. So I'm glad they're doing that too. I also want to say I find a lot of value in our spring congress for us as providers too. Kelly and I forever, you know, we were, you know, repeat offenders, if you will. Like, we go and we go and we go, we keep showing up. And the reason why we keep showing up is because we go into each and every one of them with what do we want to get out of it, right? We go in with a plan. It's a collective group of like minded individuals who are out there practicing every day, often feeling very lonely, very isolated, semi burned out sometime because we pour heart and soul in and it's a place where we can go and we're not an island and we do learn from each other and there's a lot of exchange and we put down, you know, because there's a lot of, I mean there's no doctor or medical profession I know that has too much pride, right? Nobody, nobody we know, nobody we know.

So.

But it's a place we can all come together on level playing field and really exchange. And so I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful they continue to do that. I'm grateful for people like yourself that charge the way and present at these conferences and that they're also getting into direct to consumer. I think it's a great idea.

Oh, I appreciate that. And I know the, I think the energy there is almost kinetic. It's, it's like this addictive vibe that happens, you know, I mean, look, I've been with a 4M now for 25 years.

Oh, wow.

And yeah. I mean, literally from just about the start of it. Right. And. And it's just kinetic now.

Yeah.

You know, docs and providers are coming together and sharing and I think we provide a good curriculum. I love what you just said about go there thinking about what you want to learn. Because if you just show up on a bunch of random stuff.

Yeah. It's overwhelming.

Like a bunch of goo. And then you don't really know what you're applying on Monday. Right. But if you go in with a plan, it can really help. That is a, a wonderful pearl. So what's exciting you guys? What are the things that you're excited to come and see at the, at the spring congress?

I'm super excited about the Gut Microbiome pre conference. Right. Because that's what I've been really digging into. It's what I've been looking at. As you mentioned, AI is now on the forefront and understanding how that helps us. Right. Navigate these cases that we have. We're seeing more and more digestive disturbance like Sibo and histamine challenges. I mean it's like pervasive. It used to be a one off and now it's like everyone that walks in has that. And so I think it would be, you know, sad not to go. So I'm super excited about that. And then the Expo, you know, really digging into the Expo, connecting with our vendors. You know, we've built tremendous relationships over the years with all of our vendors and it's a good time for us to come together with them and kind of figure out what our plan is for the year for the clinic, what do we need support with? How can they help us make our dreams come true with the practice and bring back all the things that we're learning to our clinic and then how.

Can we help them?

No, I'm just saying I really honestly have to commend you both. I mean, I've known you for a long time and I just have to commend you on everything you're doing about your practice. You're just so thoughtful about every last thing you do to impart health to your patient. And I know that A4M played a role in molding that, and that's great. And then you took your other experiences and molded it in with it, which is really the art medicine. Right. You know, it's like what you learn and then mold it so it fits the way you're thinking to help people get well. And I just. Like I said, I know we, you know, we kid around a lot, and I love coming on your show because we talk and I get to geek out a little bit on chemistry and drop a couple bombs. I love all that. But I just got to tell you, it's. It's. It's super refreshing. And I know that you're. You're trying to change the way other practitioners think as well. So.

100.

And we thank you for that. It honestly means a lot to receive that. It's not easy to receive compliments, but it. It means a lot coming from you. You know, that. That you recognize that. And you're right. You know, that's what we try to pour into others too, because we're gonna get to the time that we are.

We're.

I'm gonna say aging out. We're gonna still continue to do what we love to do. Right. We get to the place.

An ugly word.

What?

Well, we need people to come behind us that are just as passionate about practicing and getting the word out. And, you know, it's been our mission, truly. We've really valued our relationship, Kelly and I, in holding ourselves to a standard and challenging each other to practice better and. And continue to dig into information and. And that. But pouring it out into other people and other practices because we can only help so many in ourselves. Right. But in helping others who can help others who can then help others, it's paying it forward. Right.

The reason I went to Lifetime was the fact that we're, you know, putting in longevity Centers. You know, they have two, almost 200 iconic facilities. I mean, they're chiropractic and dietitians and training and red light therapy, all this stuff. But it's the fact there's two and a half million lives that go through those doors every day and. And then training the next generation of practitioners that are going in there. Right. Because, you know, I'm. Yes, it. That. It's exactly that. How do we get more and more people exposed to actually being well.

Yep.

And then holding our practitioners to a standard. Right. As well. And I like that. I like that. That you're continuing to do that in this new role of Yours?

Yeah, well, yeah, and, and continuing to just build. We got the new fellowship that we just finished building, the new curriculum for it. So you guys are going to be hooked in for another round because when you see all the topics that, you know, I put together with Sahar, it's pretty cool.

That's awesome. You know, Lori and I repeated curriculum, what was it been, five years now we went back through the whole curriculum, like for the second time. So we probably will do a third round of curriculum with a 4M.

As long as they let us keep doing it, we're good. Yeah, we're in.

Well, we'll make sure of that.

Awesome. Awesome. Before we end, is there a word of wisdom related to the gut microbiome and longevity that you would kind of sum things up for people just if we had to give them something. Okay, so this is what you do. Like, what are the pearls that we would say? Are they going to be the most impactful for the average person just trying to get it together.

You guys go first and I'm going to finish after.

Okay. So it is not in any pill. It is so much more than that. So where you got to get it together is work on the food. Absolutely. Definitely control that environment of those incoming toxins. Don't try to do it all today. This is a lifelong journey, one thing at a time.

Awesome.

That was good. That was good. Okay, so diversity wins. We need a diverse gut microbiome. We need lots of different fruits, vegetables, polyphenols. Every single day. You have the power to shift your gut microbiome in one day. Let's get it done.

Both are so good. Like, what do I have left? I'm going to say make sure you reach for joy every day and limit your stress response so that the actions that you take every day, the food that you pick, the water you drink, the exercise you have actually ends up building on that baseline. That was the. Remember I told you I'm turning 65. You're getting spam risk. I forgot to turn my phone off. This is like five times right there. Cremated next week apparently. But honestly, it is. There's no kidding. It's like, it must be a time of day. It's unreal. So no, honestly, they've got to catch.

You before you take your afternoon nap, Dr. Laval.

Yes, you do. I have to get my cookie. But it's a green tea, high fiber cookie and it's gluten free. Oh, my gosh. So. So therefore I never eat them. So the point. So, no, I really believe that it's like, you know, get, get happy, right? Get happy. You know, work through if you need EMDR to unreleased it to release those subconscious triggers that you buried in there, get rid of them. And then yes, diet and yes, it's more than a pill. Sleep, exercise, all that. And then more than likely because of the drug therapies you've been on, learn about, well, what is a good probiotic that I should take? How can I get enough fiber in my diet? And if things aren't right, just don't let them. People tend to let their bowel habits to your point, because they don't look at their poop. They don't look at their poop and therefore they're not associating that something's wrong. And that's where some really big bad things can happen if you don't take care of your microbiome.

Good advice, good advice. Well, thanks again. Thank you so much. A million times. We could have you over back and back and back and back again. We just happen to have a special guest because we were asked today, but again we were surprised and happy all in one. But we're going to have to have you back because we've got some more stuff like this just actually for me, even kind of unbur some other ideas and concepts. So maybe after a 4m after we dig a little deeper in the microbiome, we can circle back to a deeper conversation on poop in the gut.

Well, you know what I've always told you guys, just ask. I'm on your show. As soon as you ask, we'll do it.

Thank you.

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