August 12, 2025 • 40 mins
In this episode of Checking In, Michelle sits down with Dr. Sabine Hazan—gastroenterologist, researcher, and author of Let’s Talk Sht*—to explore how gut health shapes not just our digestion, but our immunity, mental wellness, and even longevity. From the truth about probiotics and processed foods to the science of fecal transplants, Dr. Hazan explains the microbiome’s role in fighting disease, recovering from stress, and maintaining balance in the body. CHECK IN to this episode if you need to change the way you look at what’s on your plate—and in your gut.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of
iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. Hey, everybody, welcome to another
episode of Checking In. The reason why I get so
excited about my podcast is because the amazing people that
(00:25):
we discover along the way for various topics, mental health, finance,
just your overall physical health, your mental health, and so
I'm just really.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Excited about today's episode. Doctor Sabine Hazen.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Now, I don't think Now I'm not saying y'all I'm perfect,
but I don't think y'all have ever y'all might have
heard me say a curse word once or twice throughout
the four to five seasons of this podcast. I'm so
excited because she is one of the authors of Let's
Talk Shit, Disease, Digestion and Fecal Transplant, one of the
(01:06):
first gastro entrology fellows at University of Florida.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
We're gonna get into all of.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
That, but I'm really honored and humble to have with
us today, doctor Sabine Hazen.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Thank you, Thank you for having me. Michelle. I'm excited. Absolutely.
How are you doing today, I'm doing good. It's a
beautiful day in California. So I'm doing good. I love
that for you.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I am in New York City and we seem to
have been having some of y'all's elemental situations going on
earthquakes within the past couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I'm so sorry. I've gone through enough in California to know. Yes.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
So I'm sitting here like, wait a minute, I thought
I'm in New York, not in the state of California.
But I'm really excited about our time today. I have
definitely been curious about the topic of gut health, especially
you know, when you're getting older, you're feeling like you
can't digest certain things that maybe you didn't care about
(02:10):
as a teenager. You had eight ice cream sandwiches in
a row. You didn't care that you were bloated, flatulence,
you didn't care about any of that. But those that
are listening, I definitely want you to let's start talking
about our gut health. I'm excited because I was reading
(02:30):
that you you were born in Morocco.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Let's moved to Canada. Yes, your whole.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Family are doctors. Correct, what are the holidays like?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Well, you know, it's funny because my parents are our
accountants and so we grew up hearing about you know,
accounts receivable and taxes and all that. So it kind
of became funny that we all ended up in the
medical field because now we're all talking about health and
they don't want to hear about it. You know, my
parents don't want to hear like, you know, this food
(03:06):
is bad for you and this food is good for you.
And I'm like, well, it's payback. You guys talked about
accounting our whole lives. We're talking health now.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yeah, well you got to tell them, hey, mom, in
order for us to you know, be able to live
a great quality of life and do things with this money.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
That we have, we got to eat right, be right. Well,
you know what eus is funny is the foods that
your parents thought were good for you as a kid.
You can kind of say, I'm sorry, show me the
data that this is good for me, because it's so
good for me.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
So there's a personal trainer that I follow and she
goes inside some of her clients' homes and opens up
their refrigerators and takes out certain foods. I was shocked
that she took out sour cream. Wow, said, what is
wrong with sour cream. I thought it had everything that
(04:05):
we needed or digestion or certain things. We're gonna definitely
get into some things. But since we're on this, if
you were to walk in someone's house, what and what
is one or two things that should not be in
their refrigerator?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
One or two things that should not be in the refrigerator, Well,
probably things like ketchup. I'm not a fan of ketchup.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
You know, it's kind of the waves, processed and everything.
You know. I like things that are fresh. I like,
you know, fresh milk, fresh orange juice. I like our crowd.
I like, you know, I'm not a fan of beans
and chickpeas. And you know, a gas I'm a gas
(04:56):
through algi just so you know, I get to see
people that are are very bloated, very gassy, and these
foods are not very good for those people. They tend
to make them very bloated and very gassy. But hummus
is made of chickpea, right, correct? And you know, for
that person that comes in and says, doctor, I'm so bloated,
and then you ask, well, what have you been eating?
(05:17):
And then they say, well, I've been eating some artichokes
and I've been eating some lentils, and I've been eating
some chickpeas, and right away I know why they're bloated.
I'm like, well, why don't we just stop all those foods?
And here's the thing. Maybe in the olden days those
foods were probably really good and a real good source
of protein, but unfortunately now there's so much that we're
(05:43):
putting on these vegetables, and we're putting in the soil.
You know. You know what I'm gonna say, glyfasates, you know, pesticides,
you know, that's all. It's all bad. I mean, like
here you have these bottles of pesticides that have a
skeleton on them and it says do not drink because
we'll kill you. And then we're putting it at all
(06:05):
our foods. And it's okay to eat the strawberry that's
been dumped like gallons of pesticides. No, it's not okay
to drink that, to eat that, so, you know, So
that's those are the things. The other things I'm not
a fan of is all those processed cheeses. You know, Okay,
I think they're good for like a person that basically
(06:26):
has a resilient microbiome that grew up in that. You know,
I always say Generation X pretty much can eat anything,
because you know, we were from that generation that we
ate like that grilled cheese with the processed cheese, and
we kind of became resilient to that, right, we could
tolerate it. But I think as we are going more
organic and as we're going more into the health food world,
(06:51):
probably not a good idea to go back to that
kind of you know, food that is processed.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So I loved up the grilled cheese sandwiches with a
certain brand, the American slices, and you got the plastic
and you and.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
You peel in that cheese off that film paper, put.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
It on two pieces of bread, butter them up real good,
put it in the skillet.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I think the skill it probably killed whatever was in there.
And then the butter that you put in probably killed
whatever was in there. So and then the acidity and
your stomach probably killed whatever was in there. So thank
God for the skillet, and thank God for the butter,
and thank God for the acid in your stomach because
it didn't affect you. Right. Yeah, But and there's a
(07:40):
butt there. If you're having the skille, it has a
different coating on it or you know, the butter has
you know is not so great, you know, and you
don't have as much acidity in your stomach. Then all
that can cause problems. So it actually leads to a reaction.
It's basically like a roller coaster. Right, you start with
(08:03):
one thing, you know, on its own, that process cheese
with the you know, it's probably not bad. But then
you add you know, the other problems. Your health deteriorates
from there. So as we're trying to build up our health.
You know, we've all gone through COVID, we've all taken
the you know, it was rough, rough with the virus,
(08:27):
rough with the media, rough with the division and all
the anger that was out there, and our microbiome took
a hit. You know, we got stressed, we got beaten up.
Now we got to heal, right, we got to like say, okay, kumbaya,
time to touch the grass, Time to heal my body. So, yes,
(08:49):
have to be careful of what we're putting in our
bodies to regrow those microbes that we've lost from the
whole you know, pandemic and all the stress. Yes, ma'am,
I've been hearing you say.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Microbiome can you tell the listeners what is microbiome?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Microbiome is really a fancy term for shit. That's why
I called it Let's talk shit because I didn't want
to call it Let's talk microbiome, because I wanted the
public to understand. You're poop that you're obsessed with. When
you go to the gastr entrologist and you're asking the gi, hey,
(09:27):
my stool's changed, you know, or they're floating or they're orange.
You're looking at your poop and you're looking for like
answers to your disease, and you go to your doctor
with that question. So poop becomes an obsession. You're we
can't when we tell people feces shit, people are grossed
(09:48):
out right away. Right, So, how do you sell in
a world where we're entering in pharma, we're entering fecal
material in capsules. How do you sell in a capsule
to a patient if not by changing the term microbiome. So,
microbiome is an accumulation of microbes, specifically for me that
(10:10):
are living in the gut. What I'm studying is the
microbiome of the intestines, But there's a microbiome everywhere in
the nose on your skin. In the air, we're surrounded
by microbes, and those microbes really determine dictate our health,
especially the microbes in the gut. Because it's kind of
like your transmission of a car. If you know, most
(10:32):
people don't realize that a transmission of a car is
eight hundred and eighty pieces. If one piece of the
transmission is broken, the whole transmission is broken. Your microbiome,
your poop in the toilet is trillions of microbes that
are all connected together to do something. It's your transmission.
(10:54):
If there's a group of microbes that have disappeared that
you've killed with whatever antibiotic you took or whatever drake
food that you took, then how do you restore that microbe?
You may be lucky and find it in a food.
But what fecal transplant is is really that you know
when you have again that transmission of a car. If
(11:17):
I take my transmission of a car and that piece
is broken, I can fix that piece of the transmission,
but then I might break another piece, so it's much
easier to change the whole transmission. Yeah, So it's the
same thing with like when you fix, when you break,
when you destroy a group of microbes in your microbiome.
(11:39):
How do you fix that? You almost have to start
off with a new microbiome to restore, which is the
process of fecal transplant. Essentially is taking stools from a
healthy person with a healthy transmission into a person that's
not healthy to give him a new transmission. Right, So
the trans again, the trans of the car. Am I
(12:01):
going to take a transmission of a Honda and put
it in a Mercedes? No, we're all different. We're all
different in our microbioms. Think about what you just said.
Before I was born in Morocco, went to Montreal, now
I'm in California. My microbiome adjusted, right. It went from
you know, living close to the deserts of Morocco, you know,
(12:23):
being in the sand and you know, diversity of microbes
that are in Morocco that probably allows for my hair
to be this way, right, and then going to Montreal
where it's a little bit more sterilized, you know, less
diversity of microbes in Calnia. So the microbiome changes and
(12:44):
then we adapt with that microbiome. But essentially, you know,
it does determine who we are and our health in
a way, and that's at least what my research is showing. Yes.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
And speaking of doctor Neil Stooneman told you that the
future of men medicine lies in the microbiome.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Yeah, so everything, This is so funny. My grandmother.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Used to after every bout movement, y'all, this is TMI.
But hey, she would come in the bathroom and look
at our poop like, what do you mar woman?
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, because she was looking is it healthy? Is are
you healthy? Are you of sound body and mind? Because
if you've got fragmented poop or it's floating, then there's
something going on with you and you're not telling her.
She was very smart. But you know, I was talking
(13:45):
to someone and I forget the country, but I was
giving a lecture. It was in Malaysia. I was giving
the lecture in Malaysia, and this woman comes into me
and she goes, you know, my grandmother used to take
the dirt from the sand from our front door and
put it in water and give it to us to drink.
(14:06):
And I thought, wow, well, what she was doing was
really giving her microbes that are outside in the sand
to replenish their guts, right, And that was a tradition
in her in her in her city. So you know,
everybody has different traditions, right. You look at the Amazon jungle,
how they survive in the jungle. What are their traditions
(14:28):
to do that? You look at Zimbabwe, the people that are,
you know, living with elephants in the middle of the
jungle and basically they're exposed to dungs of elephant. Do
you know that if you break a dung of an
elephant there's ticks that come flying out. How come those
people are exposed to dungs of elephant and they're camping
(14:49):
in the ground and everything, and they don't get line disease.
But yet somebody could be hiking in Malibu gets bitten
by a tick and gets line disease. Certainly about you
know that singer that basically has lime disease? Now, and yes,
a lot of celebrities have lime disease, right, So what
have we done that In Africa a guide can live
(15:11):
with the elephants or sleep on the ground with dongs
of elephant everywhere and ticks everywhere, and that guy doesn't
have to lime disease. And here in California, a celebrity
can have lime disease because we've killed the microbiome in
California that allowed us to be exposed to all those microbes.
(15:35):
So the more we kill, the more we lose microbes,
the more we lose our immunity, because immunity starts in
the gut. So doctor Neil Stallman was perfectly true when
he said everything begins in the gut to me and
said the future is in shit, and I didn't want
to believe it because I was like, please, don't make
(15:55):
me play with poop. I mean, like, you know, I
collected and at the big and I was really disgusted
by it. Yea, now it's like, you know, it's it's fine.
You know, it's like Plato to you at this it's
Plato at this point. You know, I'm actually I went
to Zimbabwe and I was collecting stools of the animals.
So everybody's with their cameras taking pictures of the animals.
(16:17):
I'm like, no, I got to collect the poop because
I want to know what's the difference between a lion
and an elephant in the microbiome.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Your research has for years helped people with cancer, OBCD,
even autism, and we've heard throughout the years that even
reading that disease begins in the gut. I can imagine
the pushback, the criticism, people thinking you are absolutely inappropriate.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
How do you keep going anyway? So my research is
basically stands on. You know, others that have done this
research way before me. I mean there's giants out there,
doctor Cidi Fine Goal, doctor Tom Barrode, Alex Krutz, Colleen Kelly.
I mean there's giants, you know, Gas trentrologists, scientists that
have done a lot of work on the microbiomes. So
(17:18):
I just kind of, you know, I just kind of
stepped into it literally when I saw a patient with
Alzheimer's improving after fecal transplant, and I asked the question,
what is changing in the microbiome? What are we doing
when we're changing the microbiome and giving him the wife's
(17:39):
microbiome to this patient with Alzheimer's, which, by the ways,
you know, taking your wife's shit to a different level, right,
because you know this is what's going to save you.
So always be nice to your better half because you
always when you're going to need their shit literally and figuratively.
Mm hmm. So that's the question for me was basically,
(18:01):
you know what happened when I changed the microbioma of
this patient with Alzheimer's and he improved from there. You know,
there was there was talk, you know, doctor Feineld, doctor Baroti,
We're talking about autism, how they could improve autism with
fecal transplant. I didn't really believe it at the beginning
because I didn't really know too much about autism. So
(18:22):
a kid came to my office seventeen years old, banging
his head on the wall, nonverbal, and I started to
do fecal transplant. In America, you have to have the
FDA give you an approval, so that means it's a
ton of paperwork. You have to write a protocol, you
have to write a consent, you have to submit that
to an IRB, which is a regulatory board, and then
(18:43):
you have to submit that to the FDA, and the
FDA has to give you a stamp of approval when
we submitted that en of one. So first of all,
I started with cancer where I had an N of
one in metastatic mesothelioma prior to COVID, and it took
twenty four hours for the FDA to turn around because
(19:04):
I had the family in my office and I said, frankly,
if I show this family what to do at home.
The FDA has nothing to do with that, and therefore,
you guys should allow me to do fecal transplant on
this woman with metastatic misothelioma. It turns out she was
losing weight had a low hemoglobin. After giving her her
(19:25):
grandson's poop, her appetite improved, her weight improved. She lived
on a lot longer than she should have lived on
from she was going to die within the week, so
she lived on a lot longer. I really feel I
needed to do more of it to sustain and we
needed to have the diagnostic tools to kind of help us.
(19:47):
Now we have the diagnostic tools a little bit better
and defined, so we can help a little bit better.
But this was the first case with the autism kid.
COVID got in the way, and it took three years
to get that case approved, you know, to the point
that I was so obsessed about getting this kid, you
(20:08):
know done, that my lab changed gears from autism and
fecal transplant and analyzing the microbiome to looking for COVID
in the stools, because in my mind, I said, well,
you know what, if I'm giving stools of a healthy
person that I think is healthy. Yeah, there's COVID in
that stool, and I'm giving it to a kid with autism.
(20:31):
Could I possibly hurt the kid? So my goal was
find COVID in the stools. My scientists said, it's going
to cost you, you know, hundreds of one hundred and
twenty five thousand to do this pipeline to find COVID
in the stools, and you may not find anything. It's
a waste of one hundred and twenty five thousand. And
by the way, when you start using money to analyze poop,
(20:54):
money has no more value. Okay, I'm going to just
say that because you know, I look at you know,
something at Gucci or Prada now and I go, I
could analyze those tools, yes, and save lives and save lives.
It's not worth it, okay, But I have to say,
you know, so it has a different view to me.
I don't really you know, I spend it to see
(21:16):
the truth, to see because it's kind of like being
Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom, except it's the
temple of poop and you find you discover all these things. Right,
So with this kid with COVID, we ended up being
the first lab to find COVID in the stools by
whole genome sequencing, which means the entire virus. And when
(21:38):
we saw that, we saw, hey, why is it that
different people have different viruses? And how can we vaccinate
against every different viruses when the virus continues to mutate? Right?
And this has always been you know, as scientists and
as doctors were always critical. You know, the reason medicine
(22:00):
there's so many unknown facts in medicine and there's so
many so much contradiction is because everybody's an artist in
their own way. You know. You talk to like the
doctor at Yale and he'll be like, ah, microbiome, No,
that's garbage. And then you'll talk to another doctor at
NYU and they'll say, oh, yeah, this is the future, right,
like lost microbes is all that there is. So everybody
(22:23):
has a different opinion and that's okay because we're all beautiful,
we're all different. We all need to have these different
opinions and come to the table and say, well I
saw this and I saw this, and then you come
together and you kind of make this beautiful you know, tapestry.
That's called science. I think the problem is that those
(22:44):
people that are so categorical about you know, oh this,
this is not right, and then the people that are
like this is right. This is what we lose medicine
and we lose science because we need to always be
you know, medicine chain. It evolves with the science with
the technology. Look, with AI, we're going to be going
(23:05):
to the next level of understanding that could not even
be possible because our brain can only go. I know,
everybody's like afraid of AI and it's going to take
over your job and all that. But it's not true
in my opinion. If you use AI properly and you
guide it, yes, you can expand what your brain capacity
(23:29):
is not capable of doing. Right, think of me and
the microbiome. I see these microbes, you know, I see
you know, different groups of microbes interacting. But imagine when
I put all that with an artificial intelligence that basically
looks at everything that's in the data, provided the AI
(23:51):
stays legit and presents everything, not just one side of
the narrative.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
I have found with AI. The I used to feel like,
oh my gosh, AI is gonna make me dumb or
but it's like I feel like AI.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Makes me research and study even more.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
When it kicks something back to me that either I
already knew or in a different way, or like you said,
it shows you something ten times better. Then I go
and research that which it has shown me so.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
And it all show moves. It also removes I find
the the cut that we don't like to do. You know,
I don't like to sit and look for articles and
put a publication together and put a paper or an
ID or a protocol together and sit down and like
is that the right word, the right sentence? So you
(24:42):
just like type in, write me a protocol where I
use this, this and that, and then it just gives
you the whole protocol.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
It's brilliant that way, where it removes all the stuff
that I don't like to do, that you don't like
to do. I guess you've been doing this so along,
doctor Hayes, and that you really if you can call
me anytime and have me do some research. I am
the girl who wants to go to the library, who
wants to use the Dewey decimal system still to.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Look through amazing. And I'm a girl that basically takes
all your research and goes, Okay, these are all my ingredients,
now cook the recipe. Yes, but that's that's you know,
we're all chefs in our kitchens, right, you know, when
you're a chef and we've all seen these shows, you
need to have the prep of the food. Now the
(25:35):
chef doesn't like to do the cutting of the carrots.
He needs to just use the cilantro and the carrots
and put it all together. Yes, we're all needed. We're
all needed. The idea that one that you know, one
human is going to figure out the microboom, one human
is gonna like get us to the to Mars is
just wrong. You know, under the person, there's always one
(25:57):
leader that kind of takes on that sad job because
really leadership is a sad job in a way because
it's you're you have all these people that are that
you're account that are counting on and you have to
kind of guide them and and there's a lot of
emotions there too, so you have to like move them all,
you know, simultaneously together. So it's not an easy task
(26:20):
to be at that ship position where you can just
kind of say, okay, you're doing this protocol, you're doing
this research, you're doing you know, the collection of tools.
So it's it's not easy.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Well, I'm going to come out to California one day soon.
I'm going to find you and.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Where we're going to do some work is trying to
figure out though do I want to necessarily, Well, you
wouldn't let me, but just to the poop, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
I'll stick to the paperwork. I'll stick to the paperwork. Yeah,
I mean, listen, you know, to me, I look at
this as microbes. Now, I look at exposure of microbes
like I'm getting little by little, you know. I mean
doctor Feineld, who worked with microbes. He lived at ninety
seven years old, you know. So I tend to think
playing with these microbes kept him alive and motivated. And
(27:15):
I think we all have to find what gets us passionate.
But you know, my I think passion is important. I
think once you find your passion, it allows you to
live a long time. Whether your passion is in music,
whether your passion is in writing, researching, you know, find
your passion and then go with it. I think for me,
(27:36):
my passion you know, of playing, of doing this research
stems from the fact that I have an incredible thirst
to understand life after we die, because I just think
that that question is just not death is not the
end of it. I think, you know, and and in
(27:58):
fact the micromoom shows that because as we the process
of dying, these microbes take over your body and put
you back in the ground where there's anis So these
microbes are still alive doing something. You know, So does
it and a deaf or does it continue with a
different you know, re recurrence or something you know. I
(28:23):
don't know. See now that's that me and you can
hang out right there. I am obsessed with so somehow
I get on this.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Before I joined Destiny's Child, I was at a crossroads.
I was supposed to shadow the County Corner or go
film the video for Say My Name, because I wanted
to go into forensic psychology, right, so I would have
probably been I don't know if necessarily working with poop,
well probably so, if or.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Something.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
So I definitely as far as my uncle saying, you know,
you're going to have to possibly go to some gruesome
crime scenes.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
You're gonna have to see bodies and you're gonna have to.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
So that that I'm kind of like with you on that,
Like what happens, what happens before the person transition, what
happens after? What's happening body wise to all these liquids?
Speaker 2 (29:19):
And like you said, it's a lot, and I'm not
gone there. Like you also wonder right, like why does
is a person born in a certain you know, time
and space, right? And why does that person in Africa
have that life and I have this life?
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Right?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
What happens there?
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Right?
Speaker 2 (29:43):
What's what's the formula that kind of got us to
where we are? Right? And if you look at microbes,
you know, the the transfer of these microbes, the passage
of these microbes, the going under the ground, that reaching
you know, the rude trees, et cetera. I think it's fascinating.
(30:06):
I think it gives a new dimension to look beyond
what we see as human beings, to say, hey, what
if we are just a reservoir of microbes and as
we die, these microbes, these intelligent you know, fragments of
DNA are doing something else, you know, shaping the planet. Look,
(30:30):
let's look at the bes, right, the function of that.
There was just research right now that showed that the
sting of the bee can actually help decrease breast cancer, right, so,
and we know that the whole purpose of bees is
basically to bring out fruits and to create this beautiful nature. Right,
(30:54):
and if the bees disappear, then we have no more humanity.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
But here's the other interesting thing. The honey has a power,
has a health power, right, has a benefit. The honey
itself is almost like an antibiotic. The poop of the
bee is the two are the two microbes that help
us absorb sugar and calcium. So when you look at
(31:20):
a simple little creature that's a bee that we're always
trying to swat away, yeah, they're doing so much for humanity,
you know, you kind of like say, wait, there's more
to that. And then look at how they fabricate, you know,
the the honeybee, the whole structures and everything of how
(31:42):
they create this beautiful honey that comes out of that
structure and how the whole you know, it's just amazing.
So of course we're complex, but human beings, animals, life
is complex. So the microbiome, to me, it's not just
about understanding autism Alzheimer's, it's really about understanding life. When
(32:06):
I went to Zimbabwe and I was really looking testing
the stools of the elephant versus the lion. It was
not because hey, this is a fun story to tell
on the podcast. It was really with the question of
why is the elephant, why does the elephant have the
body that it has, and why is the elephant in herbivore?
And is it in what he's what it's eating, and
(32:29):
is it in its microbiome versus a lion that's carnivore
and that is felt and basically only eat once a week.
It only eats once a week, right, So the difference
is between those two animals. And look how beautiful you
know the animal kingdom is that you do need a
(32:50):
lion and you need the elephant because it kind of
restores that balance.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Right.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
So, and by the way, elephants are amazing gardeners because
their dungs carry a lot of seeds of plants. So
when they travel through Africa and they have a they're
dung itself is the fertilizer, the seed, and that's what starts.
That's why you see these trees growing in the middle
of nowhere in Africa, you know, because of the elements
(33:19):
of the animal, the poop with the seed in it
that basically grows that tree. Same thing when you go
in the top of a mountain and you see a
tree in the middle of the mountain that's like out
of nowhere, you go, how did that tree just land there?
It's the poop of a bird that ates some seeds
that's in there, and that finds itself. So the microbiome
(33:43):
is not just about humans and disease. It's about everything
it does, from the poop of the bird to the
poop of the elephant to the lions. So it creates.
It can create beautiful landscapes, beautiful landscape without us doing
a thing. Yes, I'm really exciting, and thank you so
much for lending so much of your time. I wasn't
(34:05):
even sure how long I was gonna have you just
a couple more questions. I know you've heard the saying
you are what you eat. Yes, what do you say
to that? I agree, you are what you eat. If
you're going to eat junk food, then you're not. Your
mental status may not be perfect. So ye speak a
good food. You know it's a good food. Good food.
(34:28):
Know where your food comes from. Get involved in your
kitchen and your growing of plants. You know. Health is
not just a bill. Health is really what you do
to touch the soil to grow that food. The relationship
you have with the garden, you know, that's health to me.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
And probiotics. You can't just still eat what you want
and take a probiotic.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
So there's the problem with probotics is the majority of
probotics do not have what do not have what the
label says it has.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
So you may want to look at it and you say, well,
I'm on y'all's website right now in your store, yes, yes, so.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Have probiotics in there because we are constantly testing. The
whole problem with the probotics is one, the label does
not justify the probiotics one sometimes sixteen out of seventeen
probotics on the market do not have the probiotic that
says on the label. The second problem is that often
the acidity and the stomach kills that probiotic. The third
(35:34):
thing is is the microbe alive or dead by the
time you're eating it, and does it? And then the
fourth thing is does it implant where it's supposed to
implant it or does it open up in the small
bottle and therefore calls you bacterial overgrowth, which is then
another problem and a bigger problem, so you got to
be careful. And I also believe if you're healthy, do
(35:57):
not take probiotics, do not listen keeping what you're doing,
because what you're doing is the right way if you're healthy.
So yes, ma'am, thank you.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
I also want to just acknowledge at the point of
when you came into the specialty of being a gastro enterrologist,
it was male dominated. When you wanted to go to
medical school, people say, well, what if you get pregnant,
what's going to happen? You also face scrutiny that your
male colleagues did not. Now fast forward into twenty twenty five,
(36:31):
you still have that, you still have passion. I'm sure
that probably even drove you even more, and I just
want to say.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Thank you for still pushing through. I feel your passion.
I feel like I just want to come to California
and be your friend and help you do research. But
those years of chick is a boost. Every cake is
a boost. And we don't have it easy as women,
and we got to acknowledge that, and we've got to
keep pushing because well, we are smart and we are
(37:03):
more than capable, and we juggle so much between you know,
raising children and doing it all that. We are powerhouses
and we need to keep doing that. So every roadblock
has been a motivation for me to be a bigger hurricane.
And at the end of the day, that's what it's
all about. We are here for Mother Earth. We are
(37:25):
here for our children. We were given the ability to
have children because of that, you know, because of that
protection and who we are and our capabilities. Yeah, own
up to it, support each other and keep pushing. Thank you,
and I think I'm gonna in that here.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
You have given us a deep well of so much
knowledge today. I'm so excited for people to hear this
and we're going to continue continue studying this. My guess
for entroology is here in New York City is a woman,
and so it makes me appreciate it even more because
I don't know what she could possibly be facing here
(38:09):
in NYC. I had my colonoscopy. Everything is great, amazing, So.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Thank you doctor Hazen for your time today. Y'all.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
I'm excited to dive into her book, Let's talk shit, disease,
digestion and fecal transplants.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Thank you so much, Thank you so much, Michelle. We'll
see you again.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Okay, y'all have discovered that I am a nerd.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
I like to know things that you probably think.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Michelle, why do you want to know that? But I
bet you learned something today, didn't you. I know you did,
and I know you mad about ketchup.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Now.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
It's gonna be hard for me to get rid of
ketchup because I like ketchup on hot dogs. I like
ketchup on hamburgers, probably all the things that we should
not eat, so at least the hot dogs are kosher.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
All right, y'all, thanks for hanging out today.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
I really hope y'all enjoyed this interview with doctor Sabine Hazen.
She's brilliant, absolutely smart. Thank you, guys for going on
this journey with me, especially when you're realizing that what
you eat can also impact not only your physical health
but your mental health.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Again, I love y'all, Thank you for checking in.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Checking In with Michelle Williams is a production of iHeartRadio
and The Black Effect. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of
iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. Hey, everybody, welcome to another
episode of Checking In. The reason why I get so
excited about my podcast is because the amazing people that
(00:25):
we discover along the way for various topics, mental health, finance,
just your overall physical health, your mental health, and so
I'm just really.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Excited about today's episode. Doctor Sabine Hazen.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Now, I don't think Now I'm not saying y'all I'm perfect,
but I don't think y'all have ever y'all might have
heard me say a curse word once or twice throughout
the four to five seasons of this podcast. I'm so
excited because she is one of the authors of Let's
Talk Shit, Disease, Digestion and Fecal Transplant, one of the
(01:06):
first gastro entrology fellows at University of Florida.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
We're gonna get into all of.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
That, but I'm really honored and humble to have with
us today, doctor Sabine Hazen.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Thank you, Thank you for having me. Michelle. I'm excited. Absolutely.
How are you doing today, I'm doing good. It's a
beautiful day in California. So I'm doing good. I love
that for you.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I am in New York City and we seem to
have been having some of y'all's elemental situations going on
earthquakes within the past couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I'm so sorry. I've gone through enough in California to know. Yes.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
So I'm sitting here like, wait a minute, I thought
I'm in New York, not in the state of California.
But I'm really excited about our time today. I have
definitely been curious about the topic of gut health, especially
you know, when you're getting older, you're feeling like you
can't digest certain things that maybe you didn't care about
(02:10):
as a teenager. You had eight ice cream sandwiches in
a row. You didn't care that you were bloated, flatulence,
you didn't care about any of that. But those that
are listening, I definitely want you to let's start talking
about our gut health. I'm excited because I was reading
(02:30):
that you you were born in Morocco.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Let's moved to Canada. Yes, your whole.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Family are doctors. Correct, what are the holidays like?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Well, you know, it's funny because my parents are our
accountants and so we grew up hearing about you know,
accounts receivable and taxes and all that. So it kind
of became funny that we all ended up in the
medical field because now we're all talking about health and
they don't want to hear about it. You know, my
parents don't want to hear like, you know, this food
(03:06):
is bad for you and this food is good for you.
And I'm like, well, it's payback. You guys talked about
accounting our whole lives. We're talking health now.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yeah, well you got to tell them, hey, mom, in
order for us to you know, be able to live
a great quality of life and do things with this money.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
That we have, we got to eat right, be right. Well,
you know what eus is funny is the foods that
your parents thought were good for you as a kid.
You can kind of say, I'm sorry, show me the
data that this is good for me, because it's so
good for me.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
So there's a personal trainer that I follow and she
goes inside some of her clients' homes and opens up
their refrigerators and takes out certain foods. I was shocked
that she took out sour cream. Wow, said, what is
wrong with sour cream. I thought it had everything that
(04:05):
we needed or digestion or certain things. We're gonna definitely
get into some things. But since we're on this, if
you were to walk in someone's house, what and what
is one or two things that should not be in
their refrigerator?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
One or two things that should not be in the refrigerator, Well,
probably things like ketchup. I'm not a fan of ketchup.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
You know, it's kind of the waves, processed and everything.
You know. I like things that are fresh. I like,
you know, fresh milk, fresh orange juice. I like our crowd.
I like, you know, I'm not a fan of beans
and chickpeas. And you know, a gas I'm a gas
(04:56):
through algi just so you know, I get to see
people that are are very bloated, very gassy, and these
foods are not very good for those people. They tend
to make them very bloated and very gassy. But hummus
is made of chickpea, right, correct? And you know, for
that person that comes in and says, doctor, I'm so bloated,
and then you ask, well, what have you been eating?
(05:17):
And then they say, well, I've been eating some artichokes
and I've been eating some lentils, and I've been eating
some chickpeas, and right away I know why they're bloated.
I'm like, well, why don't we just stop all those foods?
And here's the thing. Maybe in the olden days those
foods were probably really good and a real good source
of protein, but unfortunately now there's so much that we're
(05:43):
putting on these vegetables, and we're putting in the soil.
You know. You know what I'm gonna say, glyfasates, you know, pesticides,
you know, that's all. It's all bad. I mean, like
here you have these bottles of pesticides that have a
skeleton on them and it says do not drink because
we'll kill you. And then we're putting it at all
(06:05):
our foods. And it's okay to eat the strawberry that's
been dumped like gallons of pesticides. No, it's not okay
to drink that, to eat that, so, you know, So
that's those are the things. The other things I'm not
a fan of is all those processed cheeses. You know, Okay,
I think they're good for like a person that basically
(06:26):
has a resilient microbiome that grew up in that. You know,
I always say Generation X pretty much can eat anything,
because you know, we were from that generation that we
ate like that grilled cheese with the processed cheese, and
we kind of became resilient to that, right, we could
tolerate it. But I think as we are going more
organic and as we're going more into the health food world,
(06:51):
probably not a good idea to go back to that
kind of you know, food that is processed.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So I loved up the grilled cheese sandwiches with a
certain brand, the American slices, and you got the plastic
and you and.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
You peel in that cheese off that film paper, put.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
It on two pieces of bread, butter them up real good,
put it in the skillet.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I think the skill it probably killed whatever was in there.
And then the butter that you put in probably killed
whatever was in there. So and then the acidity and
your stomach probably killed whatever was in there. So thank
God for the skillet, and thank God for the butter,
and thank God for the acid in your stomach because
it didn't affect you. Right. Yeah, But and there's a
(07:40):
butt there. If you're having the skille, it has a
different coating on it or you know, the butter has
you know is not so great, you know, and you
don't have as much acidity in your stomach. Then all
that can cause problems. So it actually leads to a reaction.
It's basically like a roller coaster. Right, you start with
(08:03):
one thing, you know, on its own, that process cheese
with the you know, it's probably not bad. But then
you add you know, the other problems. Your health deteriorates
from there. So as we're trying to build up our health.
You know, we've all gone through COVID, we've all taken
the you know, it was rough, rough with the virus,
(08:27):
rough with the media, rough with the division and all
the anger that was out there, and our microbiome took
a hit. You know, we got stressed, we got beaten up.
Now we got to heal, right, we got to like say, okay, kumbaya,
time to touch the grass, Time to heal my body. So, yes,
(08:49):
have to be careful of what we're putting in our
bodies to regrow those microbes that we've lost from the
whole you know, pandemic and all the stress. Yes, ma'am,
I've been hearing you say.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Microbiome can you tell the listeners what is microbiome?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Microbiome is really a fancy term for shit. That's why
I called it Let's talk shit because I didn't want
to call it Let's talk microbiome, because I wanted the
public to understand. You're poop that you're obsessed with. When
you go to the gastr entrologist and you're asking the gi, hey,
(09:27):
my stool's changed, you know, or they're floating or they're orange.
You're looking at your poop and you're looking for like
answers to your disease, and you go to your doctor
with that question. So poop becomes an obsession. You're we
can't when we tell people feces shit, people are grossed
(09:48):
out right away. Right, So, how do you sell in
a world where we're entering in pharma, we're entering fecal
material in capsules. How do you sell in a capsule
to a patient if not by changing the term microbiome. So,
microbiome is an accumulation of microbes, specifically for me that
(10:10):
are living in the gut. What I'm studying is the
microbiome of the intestines, But there's a microbiome everywhere in
the nose on your skin. In the air, we're surrounded
by microbes, and those microbes really determine dictate our health,
especially the microbes in the gut. Because it's kind of
like your transmission of a car. If you know, most
(10:32):
people don't realize that a transmission of a car is
eight hundred and eighty pieces. If one piece of the
transmission is broken, the whole transmission is broken. Your microbiome,
your poop in the toilet is trillions of microbes that
are all connected together to do something. It's your transmission.
(10:54):
If there's a group of microbes that have disappeared that
you've killed with whatever antibiotic you took or whatever drake
food that you took, then how do you restore that microbe?
You may be lucky and find it in a food.
But what fecal transplant is is really that you know
when you have again that transmission of a car. If
(11:17):
I take my transmission of a car and that piece
is broken, I can fix that piece of the transmission,
but then I might break another piece, so it's much
easier to change the whole transmission. Yeah, So it's the
same thing with like when you fix, when you break,
when you destroy a group of microbes in your microbiome.
(11:39):
How do you fix that? You almost have to start
off with a new microbiome to restore, which is the
process of fecal transplant. Essentially is taking stools from a
healthy person with a healthy transmission into a person that's
not healthy to give him a new transmission. Right, So
the trans again, the trans of the car. Am I
(12:01):
going to take a transmission of a Honda and put
it in a Mercedes? No, we're all different. We're all
different in our microbioms. Think about what you just said.
Before I was born in Morocco, went to Montreal, now
I'm in California. My microbiome adjusted, right. It went from
you know, living close to the deserts of Morocco, you know,
(12:23):
being in the sand and you know, diversity of microbes
that are in Morocco that probably allows for my hair
to be this way, right, and then going to Montreal
where it's a little bit more sterilized, you know, less
diversity of microbes in Calnia. So the microbiome changes and
(12:44):
then we adapt with that microbiome. But essentially, you know,
it does determine who we are and our health in
a way, and that's at least what my research is showing. Yes.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
And speaking of doctor Neil Stooneman told you that the
future of men medicine lies in the microbiome.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Yeah, so everything, This is so funny. My grandmother.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Used to after every bout movement, y'all, this is TMI.
But hey, she would come in the bathroom and look
at our poop like, what do you mar woman?
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, because she was looking is it healthy? Is are
you healthy? Are you of sound body and mind? Because
if you've got fragmented poop or it's floating, then there's
something going on with you and you're not telling her.
She was very smart. But you know, I was talking
(13:45):
to someone and I forget the country, but I was
giving a lecture. It was in Malaysia. I was giving
the lecture in Malaysia, and this woman comes into me
and she goes, you know, my grandmother used to take
the dirt from the sand from our front door and
put it in water and give it to us to drink.
(14:06):
And I thought, wow, well, what she was doing was
really giving her microbes that are outside in the sand
to replenish their guts, right, And that was a tradition
in her in her in her city. So you know,
everybody has different traditions, right. You look at the Amazon jungle,
how they survive in the jungle. What are their traditions
(14:28):
to do that? You look at Zimbabwe, the people that are,
you know, living with elephants in the middle of the
jungle and basically they're exposed to dungs of elephant. Do
you know that if you break a dung of an
elephant there's ticks that come flying out. How come those
people are exposed to dungs of elephant and they're camping
(14:49):
in the ground and everything, and they don't get line disease.
But yet somebody could be hiking in Malibu gets bitten
by a tick and gets line disease. Certainly about you
know that singer that basically has lime disease? Now, and yes,
a lot of celebrities have lime disease, right, So what
have we done that In Africa a guide can live
(15:11):
with the elephants or sleep on the ground with dongs
of elephant everywhere and ticks everywhere, and that guy doesn't
have to lime disease. And here in California, a celebrity
can have lime disease because we've killed the microbiome in
California that allowed us to be exposed to all those microbes.
(15:35):
So the more we kill, the more we lose microbes,
the more we lose our immunity, because immunity starts in
the gut. So doctor Neil Stallman was perfectly true when
he said everything begins in the gut to me and
said the future is in shit, and I didn't want
to believe it because I was like, please, don't make
(15:55):
me play with poop. I mean, like, you know, I
collected and at the big and I was really disgusted
by it. Yea, now it's like, you know, it's it's fine.
You know, it's like Plato to you at this it's
Plato at this point. You know, I'm actually I went
to Zimbabwe and I was collecting stools of the animals.
So everybody's with their cameras taking pictures of the animals.
(16:17):
I'm like, no, I got to collect the poop because
I want to know what's the difference between a lion
and an elephant in the microbiome.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Your research has for years helped people with cancer, OBCD,
even autism, and we've heard throughout the years that even
reading that disease begins in the gut. I can imagine
the pushback, the criticism, people thinking you are absolutely inappropriate.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
How do you keep going anyway? So my research is
basically stands on. You know, others that have done this
research way before me. I mean there's giants out there,
doctor Cidi Fine Goal, doctor Tom Barrode, Alex Krutz, Colleen Kelly.
I mean there's giants, you know, Gas trentrologists, scientists that
have done a lot of work on the microbiomes. So
(17:18):
I just kind of, you know, I just kind of
stepped into it literally when I saw a patient with
Alzheimer's improving after fecal transplant, and I asked the question,
what is changing in the microbiome? What are we doing
when we're changing the microbiome and giving him the wife's
(17:39):
microbiome to this patient with Alzheimer's, which, by the ways,
you know, taking your wife's shit to a different level, right,
because you know this is what's going to save you.
So always be nice to your better half because you
always when you're going to need their shit literally and figuratively.
Mm hmm. So that's the question for me was basically,
(18:01):
you know what happened when I changed the microbioma of
this patient with Alzheimer's and he improved from there. You know,
there was there was talk, you know, doctor Feineld, doctor Baroti,
We're talking about autism, how they could improve autism with
fecal transplant. I didn't really believe it at the beginning
because I didn't really know too much about autism. So
(18:22):
a kid came to my office seventeen years old, banging
his head on the wall, nonverbal, and I started to
do fecal transplant. In America, you have to have the
FDA give you an approval, so that means it's a
ton of paperwork. You have to write a protocol, you
have to write a consent, you have to submit that
to an IRB, which is a regulatory board, and then
(18:43):
you have to submit that to the FDA, and the
FDA has to give you a stamp of approval when
we submitted that en of one. So first of all,
I started with cancer where I had an N of
one in metastatic mesothelioma prior to COVID, and it took
twenty four hours for the FDA to turn around because
(19:04):
I had the family in my office and I said, frankly,
if I show this family what to do at home.
The FDA has nothing to do with that, and therefore,
you guys should allow me to do fecal transplant on
this woman with metastatic misothelioma. It turns out she was
losing weight had a low hemoglobin. After giving her her
(19:25):
grandson's poop, her appetite improved, her weight improved. She lived
on a lot longer than she should have lived on
from she was going to die within the week, so
she lived on a lot longer. I really feel I
needed to do more of it to sustain and we
needed to have the diagnostic tools to kind of help us.
(19:47):
Now we have the diagnostic tools a little bit better
and defined, so we can help a little bit better.
But this was the first case with the autism kid.
COVID got in the way, and it took three years
to get that case approved, you know, to the point
that I was so obsessed about getting this kid, you
(20:08):
know done, that my lab changed gears from autism and
fecal transplant and analyzing the microbiome to looking for COVID
in the stools, because in my mind, I said, well,
you know what, if I'm giving stools of a healthy
person that I think is healthy. Yeah, there's COVID in
that stool, and I'm giving it to a kid with autism.
(20:31):
Could I possibly hurt the kid? So my goal was
find COVID in the stools. My scientists said, it's going
to cost you, you know, hundreds of one hundred and
twenty five thousand to do this pipeline to find COVID
in the stools, and you may not find anything. It's
a waste of one hundred and twenty five thousand. And
by the way, when you start using money to analyze poop,
(20:54):
money has no more value. Okay, I'm going to just
say that because you know, I look at you know,
something at Gucci or Prada now and I go, I
could analyze those tools, yes, and save lives and save lives.
It's not worth it, okay, But I have to say,
you know, so it has a different view to me.
I don't really you know, I spend it to see
(21:16):
the truth, to see because it's kind of like being
Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom, except it's the
temple of poop and you find you discover all these things. Right,
So with this kid with COVID, we ended up being
the first lab to find COVID in the stools by
whole genome sequencing, which means the entire virus. And when
(21:38):
we saw that, we saw, hey, why is it that
different people have different viruses? And how can we vaccinate
against every different viruses when the virus continues to mutate? Right?
And this has always been you know, as scientists and
as doctors were always critical. You know, the reason medicine
(22:00):
there's so many unknown facts in medicine and there's so
many so much contradiction is because everybody's an artist in
their own way. You know. You talk to like the
doctor at Yale and he'll be like, ah, microbiome, No,
that's garbage. And then you'll talk to another doctor at
NYU and they'll say, oh, yeah, this is the future, right,
like lost microbes is all that there is. So everybody
(22:23):
has a different opinion and that's okay because we're all beautiful,
we're all different. We all need to have these different
opinions and come to the table and say, well I
saw this and I saw this, and then you come
together and you kind of make this beautiful you know, tapestry.
That's called science. I think the problem is that those
(22:44):
people that are so categorical about you know, oh this,
this is not right, and then the people that are
like this is right. This is what we lose medicine
and we lose science because we need to always be
you know, medicine chain. It evolves with the science with
the technology. Look, with AI, we're going to be going
(23:05):
to the next level of understanding that could not even
be possible because our brain can only go. I know,
everybody's like afraid of AI and it's going to take
over your job and all that. But it's not true
in my opinion. If you use AI properly and you
guide it, yes, you can expand what your brain capacity
(23:29):
is not capable of doing. Right, think of me and
the microbiome. I see these microbes, you know, I see
you know, different groups of microbes interacting. But imagine when
I put all that with an artificial intelligence that basically
looks at everything that's in the data, provided the AI
(23:51):
stays legit and presents everything, not just one side of
the narrative.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
I have found with AI. The I used to feel like,
oh my gosh, AI is gonna make me dumb or
but it's like I feel like AI.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Makes me research and study even more.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
When it kicks something back to me that either I
already knew or in a different way, or like you said,
it shows you something ten times better. Then I go
and research that which it has shown me so.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
And it all show moves. It also removes I find
the the cut that we don't like to do. You know,
I don't like to sit and look for articles and
put a publication together and put a paper or an
ID or a protocol together and sit down and like
is that the right word, the right sentence? So you
(24:42):
just like type in, write me a protocol where I
use this, this and that, and then it just gives
you the whole protocol.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
It's brilliant that way, where it removes all the stuff
that I don't like to do, that you don't like
to do. I guess you've been doing this so along,
doctor Hayes, and that you really if you can call
me anytime and have me do some research. I am
the girl who wants to go to the library, who
wants to use the Dewey decimal system still to.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Look through amazing. And I'm a girl that basically takes
all your research and goes, Okay, these are all my ingredients,
now cook the recipe. Yes, but that's that's you know,
we're all chefs in our kitchens, right, you know, when
you're a chef and we've all seen these shows, you
need to have the prep of the food. Now the
(25:35):
chef doesn't like to do the cutting of the carrots.
He needs to just use the cilantro and the carrots
and put it all together. Yes, we're all needed. We're
all needed. The idea that one that you know, one
human is going to figure out the microboom, one human
is gonna like get us to the to Mars is
just wrong. You know, under the person, there's always one
(25:57):
leader that kind of takes on that sad job because
really leadership is a sad job in a way because
it's you're you have all these people that are that
you're account that are counting on and you have to
kind of guide them and and there's a lot of
emotions there too, so you have to like move them all,
you know, simultaneously together. So it's not an easy task
(26:20):
to be at that ship position where you can just
kind of say, okay, you're doing this protocol, you're doing
this research, you're doing you know, the collection of tools.
So it's it's not easy.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Well, I'm going to come out to California one day soon.
I'm going to find you and.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Where we're going to do some work is trying to
figure out though do I want to necessarily, Well, you
wouldn't let me, but just to the poop, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
I'll stick to the paperwork. I'll stick to the paperwork. Yeah,
I mean, listen, you know, to me, I look at
this as microbes. Now, I look at exposure of microbes
like I'm getting little by little, you know. I mean
doctor Feineld, who worked with microbes. He lived at ninety
seven years old, you know. So I tend to think
playing with these microbes kept him alive and motivated. And
(27:15):
I think we all have to find what gets us passionate.
But you know, my I think passion is important. I
think once you find your passion, it allows you to
live a long time. Whether your passion is in music,
whether your passion is in writing, researching, you know, find
your passion and then go with it. I think for me,
(27:36):
my passion you know, of playing, of doing this research
stems from the fact that I have an incredible thirst
to understand life after we die, because I just think
that that question is just not death is not the
end of it. I think, you know, and and in
(27:58):
fact the micromoom shows that because as we the process
of dying, these microbes take over your body and put
you back in the ground where there's anis So these
microbes are still alive doing something. You know, So does
it and a deaf or does it continue with a
different you know, re recurrence or something you know. I
(28:23):
don't know. See now that's that me and you can
hang out right there. I am obsessed with so somehow
I get on this.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Before I joined Destiny's Child, I was at a crossroads.
I was supposed to shadow the County Corner or go
film the video for Say My Name, because I wanted
to go into forensic psychology, right, so I would have
probably been I don't know if necessarily working with poop,
well probably so, if or.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Something.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
So I definitely as far as my uncle saying, you know,
you're going to have to possibly go to some gruesome
crime scenes.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
You're gonna have to see bodies and you're gonna have to.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
So that that I'm kind of like with you on that,
Like what happens, what happens before the person transition, what
happens after? What's happening body wise to all these liquids?
Speaker 2 (29:19):
And like you said, it's a lot, and I'm not
gone there. Like you also wonder right, like why does
is a person born in a certain you know, time
and space, right? And why does that person in Africa
have that life and I have this life?
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Right?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
What happens there?
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Right?
Speaker 2 (29:43):
What's what's the formula that kind of got us to
where we are? Right? And if you look at microbes,
you know, the the transfer of these microbes, the passage
of these microbes, the going under the ground, that reaching
you know, the rude trees, et cetera. I think it's fascinating.
(30:06):
I think it gives a new dimension to look beyond
what we see as human beings, to say, hey, what
if we are just a reservoir of microbes and as
we die, these microbes, these intelligent you know, fragments of
DNA are doing something else, you know, shaping the planet. Look,
(30:30):
let's look at the bes, right, the function of that.
There was just research right now that showed that the
sting of the bee can actually help decrease breast cancer, right, so,
and we know that the whole purpose of bees is
basically to bring out fruits and to create this beautiful nature. Right,
(30:54):
and if the bees disappear, then we have no more humanity.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
But here's the other interesting thing. The honey has a power,
has a health power, right, has a benefit. The honey
itself is almost like an antibiotic. The poop of the
bee is the two are the two microbes that help
us absorb sugar and calcium. So when you look at
(31:20):
a simple little creature that's a bee that we're always
trying to swat away, yeah, they're doing so much for humanity,
you know, you kind of like say, wait, there's more
to that. And then look at how they fabricate, you know,
the the honeybee, the whole structures and everything of how
(31:42):
they create this beautiful honey that comes out of that
structure and how the whole you know, it's just amazing.
So of course we're complex, but human beings, animals, life
is complex. So the microbiome, to me, it's not just
about understanding autism Alzheimer's, it's really about understanding life. When
(32:06):
I went to Zimbabwe and I was really looking testing
the stools of the elephant versus the lion. It was
not because hey, this is a fun story to tell
on the podcast. It was really with the question of
why is the elephant, why does the elephant have the
body that it has, and why is the elephant in herbivore?
And is it in what he's what it's eating, and
(32:29):
is it in its microbiome versus a lion that's carnivore
and that is felt and basically only eat once a week.
It only eats once a week, right, So the difference
is between those two animals. And look how beautiful you
know the animal kingdom is that you do need a
(32:50):
lion and you need the elephant because it kind of
restores that balance.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Right.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
So, and by the way, elephants are amazing gardeners because
their dungs carry a lot of seeds of plants. So
when they travel through Africa and they have a they're
dung itself is the fertilizer, the seed, and that's what starts.
That's why you see these trees growing in the middle
of nowhere in Africa, you know, because of the elements
(33:19):
of the animal, the poop with the seed in it
that basically grows that tree. Same thing when you go
in the top of a mountain and you see a
tree in the middle of the mountain that's like out
of nowhere, you go, how did that tree just land there?
It's the poop of a bird that ates some seeds
that's in there, and that finds itself. So the microbiome
(33:43):
is not just about humans and disease. It's about everything
it does, from the poop of the bird to the
poop of the elephant to the lions. So it creates.
It can create beautiful landscapes, beautiful landscape without us doing
a thing. Yes, I'm really exciting, and thank you so
much for lending so much of your time. I wasn't
(34:05):
even sure how long I was gonna have you just
a couple more questions. I know you've heard the saying
you are what you eat. Yes, what do you say
to that? I agree, you are what you eat. If
you're going to eat junk food, then you're not. Your
mental status may not be perfect. So ye speak a
good food. You know it's a good food. Good food.
(34:28):
Know where your food comes from. Get involved in your
kitchen and your growing of plants. You know. Health is
not just a bill. Health is really what you do
to touch the soil to grow that food. The relationship
you have with the garden, you know, that's health to me.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
And probiotics. You can't just still eat what you want
and take a probiotic.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
So there's the problem with probotics is the majority of
probotics do not have what do not have what the
label says it has.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
So you may want to look at it and you say, well,
I'm on y'all's website right now in your store, yes, yes, so.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Have probiotics in there because we are constantly testing. The
whole problem with the probotics is one, the label does
not justify the probiotics one sometimes sixteen out of seventeen
probotics on the market do not have the probiotic that
says on the label. The second problem is that often
the acidity and the stomach kills that probiotic. The third
(35:34):
thing is is the microbe alive or dead by the
time you're eating it, and does it? And then the
fourth thing is does it implant where it's supposed to
implant it or does it open up in the small
bottle and therefore calls you bacterial overgrowth, which is then
another problem and a bigger problem, so you got to
be careful. And I also believe if you're healthy, do
(35:57):
not take probiotics, do not listen keeping what you're doing,
because what you're doing is the right way if you're healthy.
So yes, ma'am, thank you.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
I also want to just acknowledge at the point of
when you came into the specialty of being a gastro enterrologist,
it was male dominated. When you wanted to go to
medical school, people say, well, what if you get pregnant,
what's going to happen? You also face scrutiny that your
male colleagues did not. Now fast forward into twenty twenty five,
(36:31):
you still have that, you still have passion. I'm sure
that probably even drove you even more, and I just
want to say.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Thank you for still pushing through. I feel your passion.
I feel like I just want to come to California
and be your friend and help you do research. But
those years of chick is a boost. Every cake is
a boost. And we don't have it easy as women,
and we got to acknowledge that, and we've got to
keep pushing because well, we are smart and we are
(37:03):
more than capable, and we juggle so much between you know,
raising children and doing it all that. We are powerhouses
and we need to keep doing that. So every roadblock
has been a motivation for me to be a bigger hurricane.
And at the end of the day, that's what it's
all about. We are here for Mother Earth. We are
(37:25):
here for our children. We were given the ability to
have children because of that, you know, because of that
protection and who we are and our capabilities. Yeah, own
up to it, support each other and keep pushing. Thank you,
and I think I'm gonna in that here.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
You have given us a deep well of so much
knowledge today. I'm so excited for people to hear this
and we're going to continue continue studying this. My guess
for entroology is here in New York City is a woman,
and so it makes me appreciate it even more because
I don't know what she could possibly be facing here
(38:09):
in NYC. I had my colonoscopy. Everything is great, amazing, So.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Thank you doctor Hazen for your time today. Y'all.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
I'm excited to dive into her book, Let's talk shit, disease,
digestion and fecal transplants.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Thank you so much, Thank you so much, Michelle. We'll
see you again.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Okay, y'all have discovered that I am a nerd.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
I like to know things that you probably think.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Michelle, why do you want to know that? But I
bet you learned something today, didn't you. I know you did,
and I know you mad about ketchup.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Now.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
It's gonna be hard for me to get rid of
ketchup because I like ketchup on hot dogs. I like
ketchup on hamburgers, probably all the things that we should
not eat, so at least the hot dogs are kosher.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
All right, y'all, thanks for hanging out today.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
I really hope y'all enjoyed this interview with doctor Sabine Hazen.
She's brilliant, absolutely smart. Thank you, guys for going on
this journey with me, especially when you're realizing that what
you eat can also impact not only your physical health
but your mental health.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Again, I love y'all, Thank you for checking in.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Checking In with Michelle Williams is a production of iHeartRadio
and The Black Effect. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
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