February 21, 2025 • 56 mins
Renowned heart transplant surgeon turned wellness advocate, Dr. Steven Gundry, joins us to unravel the intricate balance between our diet, gut health, and brain function. Dr. Gundry reveals insights from his latest book, "The Gut-Brain Paradox," explaining how our microbiome influences emotions, brain health, and even the choices we make daily. Discover why a diverse microbiome is crucial for your mental and physical well-being and how it might be more in control than you realize.
Exploring the profound connection between gut health and mental wellness, we dive into the concept of dysbiosis and its potential to disrupt your overall health. Dr. Gundry sheds light on how essential gut bacteria link gut health to mood regulation. Our discussion uncovers the importance of preserving gut health, emphasizing practical strategies like vitamin D maintenance, and the role of fermented foods in nurturing a resilient microbiome.
Listeners gain valuable insights into the surprising ways our diet interacts with the immune system, and effects physical health, mental health and can aid in addiction. Dr. Gundry offers guidance on steering clear of dietary pitfalls and nurturing your gut's resilience. Discover how you can enhance your health by fostering a robust gut-brain connection through Dr. Gundry's latest book, "The Gut-Brain Paradox". This is an episode you don't want to miss!
You can order your copy of Dr. Gundry’s “Gut-Brain Paradox” wherever books are sold, like Target, Barnes & Noble or Amazon.
Listen to the Dr. Gundry Podcast (Youtube channel): youtube.com/drgundry
To visit Dr. Gundry’s wellness brand: GundryMD.com
From the producers of PBS's American Health Journal and Innovations in Medicine. Thank you for listening to Better Wellness.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Janet Walker (00:03):
If you are someone that has an interest in how
diet can influence our physicaland mental health, chances are
you know our next guest expert.
We'll take a deep dive into hisnewest book, the Gut-Brain
Paradox.
So stay tuned for this veryspecial one-hour episode of
Better Wellness.
Welcome to Better Wellness.
(00:26):
I'm your host, janet Walker.
As executive producers of theAmerican Health Journal and
Innovations in Medicine for morethan 25 years, we've brought
you over 500 award-winninghealthcare television shows that
have aired nationally on PBSwith an audience of over 100
million viewers.
The Better Wellness Podcastexplores health topics to
(00:48):
reverse disease, keep your bodyhealthy and develop the mindset
and balance that preventsillness.
Our guests are experiencedexperts in the world of staying
healthy, young and well.
Our very special guest today isthe one and only Dr Steven
Gundry.
Dr Gundry is the director ofthe International Heart and Lung
(01:11):
Institute in Palm Springs andthe founder and director of the
Center for Restorative Medicinein Palm Springs and Santa
Barbara, California.
After a distinguished career asa heart transplant surgeon and
a professor and chairman ofcardiothoracic surgery at Loma
Linda University, dr Gundrychanged his focus to curing
modern diseases via dietarychanges.
(01:34):
His best-selling books includeGut Check, unlocking the Keto
Code, the Energy Paradox and thePlant Paradox.
The Energy Paradox and thePlant Paradox.
He has written more than 300articles, published in
peer-reviewed journals, on usingdiet and supplements to
eliminate disease, among them,heart disease, diabetes and
autoimmune diseases.
(01:55):
He is the host of thetop-ranked nutrition podcast,
the Dr Gundry Podcast, and thefounder of GundryMD, a wellness
brand.
Today, we're talking about hisnewest book, the Gut-Brain
Paradox.
Hello, dr Gundry, welcome toBetter Wellness.
We're so happy that you wereable to join us today and I'm
(02:17):
honored to talk to you aboutyour newest book.
Well, thanks for having me.
Great to be here.
Our mutual friend, wellnessexpert, david Delrahim, has
wonderful things to say aboutthe book, so I was really
looking forward to reading itand I'm so glad I did Now.
You've authored manybestselling books focused on
food-based health interventions.
(02:37):
What motivated you to writethis book and were there any
surprises when you wereresearching for it?
Steven Gundry MD (02:43):
There was a lot.
I try to write my next book asa follow-up to the previous book
, which was Gut Check and thisbook it was becoming abundantly
clear, particularly in gut check, about the incredible
(03:07):
sophisticated communicationsystem that we've been able to
decipher between the microbiomeor the holobiome as I call it,
and our emotions, our brain,health, our brain aging,
(03:28):
addiction, food choices.
And with each passing yearwe're getting more and more
nuanced in how muchcommunication there is between
the microbiome and our brain andhow much control is exerted on
(03:50):
our brain by the microbiome.
And so I said let's go downinto those rabbit holes.
And, like I write about in thebook, there were lots of
surprises that awaited me Anymore.
Not surprised by much, but lotsof surprises in this book,
(04:10):
particularly, I think, in termsof our personalities and our
food choices and, maybe mostimportantly, our addictive
behaviors and how muchassociation there is between the
gut microbiome and all of that.
Janet Walker (04:31):
So in your previous books you taught
readers how to reverse diseaseand improve health by preventing
or repairing leaky gut, and inthis book you go a step further
and delve into the role andimportance of the microbiome on
brain health.
So let's give our listeners abasic education about the
microbiome and leaky gut First.
(04:53):
What is it?
Steven Gundry MD (04:54):
starting with the microbiome is this
collection of organisms thatmost people associate with
bacteria that live in ourintestinal tract, and there's a
hundred trillion bacteria thatlive in our colon alone.
(05:19):
That's like eight times morebacteria in our colon than there
are trees on Earth.
Just to give you an idea of howmany that is.
Janet Walker (05:32):
That's a lot.
Steven Gundry MD (05:33):
That's a lot, and that doesn't even mention
the thousand species of bacteriathat live in our mouth, the 700
species of bacteria that livein our skin.
We even have a bacteria cloudaround us and so collectively,
these are all called theholobiome, but the microbiome.
(05:56):
Really, we didn't know howcomplex it was up until the
Human Microbiome Project wasstarted in 2006 and finished in
2017.
Figuring out who lives down,there was one thing.
Figuring out what those guyswere doing down, there was
(06:19):
another.
And what we now realize is thatthis is akin to a tropical
rainforest, and a tropicalrainforest obviously there's
lots of diverse animals, plants,insects, bugs, etc.
All knit together in anecological system and kind of.
(06:44):
Each member of this communityis dependent on multiple other
members for their survival, andwhat we now know is that we can
actually apply the sameecological principles to looking
at our microbiome, much like welook at a tropical rainforest.
And, simplistically, the morediverse our microbiome, the more
(07:11):
different members of ourmicrobiome good guys and bad
guys the healthier we are andthe healthier our brain is and
our thought processes are.
On the other hand, the morekind of desert wasteland rather
(07:32):
than a tropical rainforest wehave in our gut, the worse off
we are in terms of our guthealth and our mental health.
So that's a kind of startingpremise of understanding the
microbiome.
Janet Walker (07:48):
And so we learn from the book that it's not just
our bodies that are affected bythe microbiome.
How does it influence our brainfunction and mental?
Steven Gundry MD (07:56):
health.
It takes a while to wrap ourhead around the fact that sadly
or good news so much of ourthinking processes, so much of
(08:19):
our emotions, so much of ourdesires isn't actually coming
from here.
It's actually coming from thewants and needs of our
microbiome.
And that's hard for advancedcreatures like us who think, you
know, we're the smartestwhatever existed, but it's
amazing how these little onecell creatures can have such a
(08:44):
profound effect on us.
But let me put it this way,it's akin to who's actually
driving the bus the bus driversor the passengers.
And from a bacteria standpoint,this microbiome is actually our
largest organ that actuallyexists in us, and we're a
(09:04):
symbiotic community.
That means we do stuff for themand they do stuff for us.
And, as ourgreat-great-grandparents
probably knew, as I say, ourgreat-great-grandparents ate
whole and they ate those foodswhole.
(09:25):
And in eating whole foods whole, yeah, we got sugars out of it,
we got proteins out of it, wegot fats out of it, but there
was a lot left over and theseinclude prebiotic fiber and that
would, if you will, trickledown to our microbiome, who
(09:50):
needed those foods to flourishand eat.
And as long as they weregetting their part of the
bargain.
Everything was just fine.
Fast forward to now we havemostly processed and
ultra-processed foods.
We've removed pretty much allthe stuff that our microbiome
(10:15):
used to get, and so ourmicrobiome can hear us chewing
up there, they hear usswallowing, they know food's on
the way, and then nothingarrives and they go what the
heck?
You know, I know he's eating,you know, I can see, I can hear
food.
Nothing's coming down for me,and they literally send text
(10:43):
messages to the brain.
To number one I know you'reeating, but you're not eating
enough, because I'm clearly notgetting it and my ancestors used
to, so go eat more.
Number two I am not satisfiedwith the things you're eating
and I'm hangry if we all knowthat expression.
(11:06):
And so it actually totallychanges our outlook.
A lot of the book is spenttrying to convince people about
how real this is and how ourmicrobiome, depending on who's
down there and depending on whatwe give them to eat, has
profound effects on our weight,on depression, on anxiety and
(11:31):
even addictions.
And the good news, despite allthat bad news, is that we now
know what they're looking forand we now know how to give them
the good stuff to make us feelgood.
Janet Walker (11:46):
I'm going to ask you a little more about that in
just a minute.
But let's talk a little bitabout leaky gut, and I'm sure
many of our listeners have heardof it but don't really know
what it is and how it impactsour health.
So can you explain leaky gut?
What is it and what isdysbiosis?
Steven Gundry MD (12:14):
So again, if you have a functioning tropical
rainforest, you've got all thesemembers of the community that
are kind of dependent on eachother In dysbiosis.
It means basically that all thebalancing that goes on between
these different species isthrown off so that there's too
many bad guys and not enoughgood guys.
Now most people say, oh geez,we don't want any bad guys.
(12:37):
But that's actually not true.
You actually have to have abalance of good guys and bad
guys.
The example I like to use isYellowstone Park.
Many people may remember that afew years ago wolves in
Yellowstone Park were eradicated, because wolves are obviously
(12:57):
bad guys and we don't wantwolves running around eating elk
or whatever.
So wolves were eradicated inYellowstone Park.
Well, lo and behold, whathappened was that wolves predate
on elk.
Elk no longer had a naturalpredator, so elk good guys
(13:21):
overgrew and they got hungry andthey ate all the little
saplings.
And, interestingly enough,beavers have to have saplings to
build beaver dams, and sobeavers didn't have any saplings
, so beavers died off.
And without beaver dams youdidn't have fish in the ponds
(13:44):
and next thing we know we didn'thave raccoons that were eating
the fish, et cetera, et cetera.
So the ecosystem completely gotunbalanced by eliminating a bad
guy.
So when they reintroducedwolves back in Yellowstone Park,
it took a number of years tolevel out, but the bad guy was
(14:09):
necessary to keep everythingelse in balance.
And so it's the same way withour gut microbiome.
It's this balance, or what Icall in the book, the terroir or
terrain, that's the mostimportant, and as long as that
terrain is rich and balanced,we're in great shape.
(14:31):
So that's dysbiosis and sadly.
We can actually measure who'sin there.
We can do counts.
We can know what they make,what they don't make, what's
lacking.
We can know what they make,what they don't make, what's
lacking.
So to answer your first part ofyour question what the heck is
leaky gut?
It's tossed around.
(14:52):
First of all, it is notpseudoscience.
A professor who's now atHarvard, who's a pediatric
gastroenterologist, by the nameof Alessio Fasano, figured out
how leaky gut happens, how tomeasure it, and it's not
(15:15):
pseudoscience.
We measure it every day inblood tests.
Simplistically, the lining ofour gut from our mouth all the
way down to our rear end is thesame surface area.
If we laid it out flat as atennis court, probably two
tennis courts.
So when we're watching the BNPParibas Indian Wells tennis
(15:48):
tournament in a few weeks.
There's a tennis court insideof us, a surface area.
Now we have a design flaw.
The lining of our gut is onlyone cell thick, and so
everything we swallow, all thebacteria, are separated from us
by the rest of our body by onlyone cell, the rest of our body
by only one cell.
Now those cells are heldtogether with glue, if you will.
That are called tight junctions, and most of us are old enough
(16:16):
to remember a kid's game calledRed Rover, red Road.
Janet Walker (16:18):
I remember that one yeah.
Steven Gundry MD (16:20):
You know it's now illegal in school.
It's too dangerous.
Anyhow, remember we all lockedarms and the kids were running
across and we all squealed andright, your arms broke.
So think of these cells ashaving crossed arms, all locked
together.
So we now know that there are anumber of compounds, including
(16:42):
lectins, which I've written alot about, that want to attach
to the wall of the gut and theymake a chemical that actually
breaks that tight junction, ormultiple tight junction.
So now we've literally got agap.
Now.
So what?
Well, on the other side of thiswall, 80% of all of our white
(17:07):
blood cells are standing guardright there.
Why are they all there?
Because this is where mischiefcan come across and they want to
be ready for eating whatevercomes around.
That would happenintermittently in the past and
we had some really good systemsto make sure it didn't happen.
(17:30):
We had a great gut microbiome,we had a lot of mucus, etc.
Etc.
And if somebody got across, thewhite cell said, oops, that's a
bad guy, I'm going to eat him.
Let's patch the hole Now.
Because we don't have a greatgut microbiome, because a lot of
(17:51):
the microbiome are bad guys andnot a lot of good guys, this
leaky gut is happening literally24 hours a day, 365 days a year
.
So now our white blood cellsare basically overrun.
They're overwhelmed by all thistrouble coming across the gut.
(18:12):
So it's not just oh my gosh,you know we need more troops
down here.
These guys are getting past usand we're going to send messages
up to the brain to fortify yourcells.
All hands on deck, protect thisimportant structure.
(18:35):
There's an immune system in ourbrain that I talk about, called
the glial cells, which are thebrain's, the neuron's bodyguards
, which are the brain's, theneuron's bodyguards, and they
spring into action and theyactually believe it or not, kind
of pull up the drawbridges onthe castle because the hordes
are coming and they try toprotect the neuron at all costs.
(18:57):
In the process of doing that,they actually sever the
connections of one neurontalking to another.
They actually sever theconnections of one neuron
talking to another.
And no wonder we have brain fogand memory issues.
And the book details howAlzheimer's comes about,
parkinson's comes about andsimple memory loss, and it's all
(19:19):
related to what's actuallygoing down in the gut in the
first place.
Janet Walker (19:23):
Interesting related to what's actually going
down in the gut in the firstplace.
Interesting you just mentionedAlzheimer's and addiction.
Most people don't associate guthealth with mental health,
which is one reason the book isso enlightening.
What specific bacteria areassociated with depression and
how do they affectneurotransmitter levels?
Steven Gundry MD (19:44):
So that's a great question.
One of the things we've knownfor a long time that there is a
amino acid called tryptophanthat is actually manufactured by
gut bacteria, and gut bacteriathen use tryptophan to make a
(20:05):
lot of the feel-good hormoneslike.
We'll use serotonin, forexample.
And serotonin a lot of peoplehave heard about serotonin
because it's the feel-goodhormone, but also a lot of
people are on antidepressants,and most of these
antidepressants are what arecalled serotonin reuptake
(20:28):
inhibitors SSRIs and we'retaught that normally in our
brain we use serotonin as aneurotransmitter and then we
break it down when we don't needit anymore, and these compounds
supposedly work by stoppingthat breakdown.
(20:51):
So there's more serotonin leftin the brain and you feel
happier.
Well, if that is actually howthey work, then one would think
that I could swallow anantidepressant today and
tomorrow.
I'd be happy because I now haveplenty of serotonin, because
(21:14):
I'm not breaking it down.
As anyone who's taken theseantidepressants knows, that
isn't what happens.
It can take a month or more tonotice a change in depression.
So you go, what the heck?
Well, now we know that thesedrugs work by actually changing
(21:34):
the microbiome into a morediverse microbiome.
That in turn, makes moretryptophan and makes more
serotonin, and that doesn'thappen overnight.
It takes weeks to make thatchange.
So what we used to think wassomething that was happening up
(21:57):
here is now happening down here.
What's equally troublesome isthese particular bacteria are
incredibly sensitive to anherbicide that all of us have
heard of called Roundup, and itsactive ingredient is glyphosate
(22:17):
.
Called Roundup, and its activeingredient is glyphosate.
Now, glyphosate is worthknowing.
Glyphosate was patented as anantibiotic by Monsanto, not as a
weed killer, and glyphosateactually specifically kills off
the tryptophan pathway bacteria,but it spares other bad guys.
(22:44):
So every time we eatglyphosate-laden food and it's
in all of our brain products,and GMO has nothing to do with
it anymore Glyphosate is sprayedon all of our weed, all of our
corn, all of our oats, and we'reeating it every day, and so
(23:05):
we've literally killed off thosebacteria that make all the good
stuff in our guts.
Wow, yeah, so it's kind of adouble whammy.
Janet Walker (23:15):
Is that why eliminating those food items
from our diet is helpful to ourgut.
Not just that we're eliminatingthe wheat or oats, but actually
the chemicals that they wereprocessed with.
Steven Gundry MD (23:30):
Yeah, glyphosate Roundup was
introduced in the mid-1970s.
Glyphosate Roundup wasintroduced in the mid-1970s and
we are surrounded by glyphosatenow.
I mean, it's in Californiawines, for instance, it's in our
schoolyards, it's everywhere.
So one of the things that I'vebeen fascinated with through the
(24:03):
years is there's been a lot oflow-carb diets that have come
and go through the years theAtkins diet in the 70s, the
paleo diet, the carnivore dietis the latest iteration, the
high-protein diet.
And one of the things that wasinteresting in all of these
diets particularly like I usethe Atkins diet when Atkins took
away all your carbohydrates, ofcourse it was mostly grain
(24:24):
products and sugars like fruit,and then as the program
progressed, you usually addedthese things back in and
invariably people's weight wouldstart going back up, and even
wheat belly the same way.
And then what do you do?
Well, go back to phase one,take all these things away from
you.
You know it's the evil carbsthat we're doing.
(24:47):
Well, I have a lot of 80% of mypatients have autoimmune
diseases that end up seeing meand 94% of them go into
remission within nine months toa year.
And a lot of these people thenthey go on vacation to Europe
and they go to France or they goto Italy and they can't help
(25:08):
themselves.
They eat croissants andbaguettes and pizza and they
don't react.
Their stomachs feel great,their joints don't react, their
stomachs feel great, theirjoints don't hurt, their
psoriasis doesn't flare and theygo.
Wow, dr Gundry cured me.
This is great.
I can have all this stuff.
(25:29):
This is wonderful and I writeabout this in the book.
And they come back to the UnitedStates and they go I'm cured
and they start having our breadand they start having'm cured
and they start having our breadand they start having our pizza
and they start having our corn.
And all of a sudden, withinweeks, they're on the phone
going what the heck?
My psoriasis is back on myelbow.
(25:50):
What the heck?
My fingers just swelled up.
What the heck?
I thought you cured me.
No, you encountered ourglyphosate-laden food again and
you didn't have it over inEurope because it's mostly
banned and I write about this inthe book.
So just because you can havethese carbohydrates, these evil
(26:12):
things, over there, doesn't meanonce you're cured, you can
probably have them over here.
It's because of the presence ofglyphosate.
Janet Walker (26:21):
Wow, I wonder if our manufacturers will ever fix
that.
Steven Gundry MD (26:27):
Probably not right.
I doubt it.
Janet Walker (26:36):
I've said on other podcasts, unfortunately
sickness is really good forbusiness.
That's a shame, but true.
Let me ask you this Isdysbiosis and leaky gut forever,
or can diet and lifestylechanges help improve both
physical and mental health?
Steven Gundry MD (26:50):
Oh, it's not forever, and that's the whole
purpose of this book.
It is fixable Now.
If you had asked me 25 yearsago how fast you could fix leaky
gut, I was a little naive and Ithought you could do it in a
couple weeks.
It usually takes most peoplenine months to a year to fully
(27:15):
seal their gut.
Now we can see it improve.
We measure this every threemonths, but we can see it
improve each time we measurethese tests.
So it's not like you're stuckfor nine months or a year, but
the improvement is measurable.
We can watch it.
(27:36):
We can watch the gut microbiomechange from month to month, and
the exciting thing and I have alot of examples in the book is
that as this improves thedepression, lifts the
Parkinson's symptoms subside,the addictive behaviors subside,
(27:57):
and that's what is so exciting.
I still see patients six days aweek, on the weekends, saturday
and Sunday.
I see them, and the reason I dothat is usually not a day goes
by that I get to witness what 30years ago I would have called a
miracle, but now it's.
(28:20):
If I don't see it, we're notdoing something right, and so,
yeah, it's just.
It's really exciting to watchthis happen.
Janet Walker (28:33):
Yeah, and I think, in part thanks to all your
previous books and earlierresearch, a lot of the general
public understands that there isa gut health connection, but
for most people, I think, thisgut-brain connection is pretty
new.
Can understanding that lead tobetter treatment options for
(28:54):
mental health disorders?
Steven Gundry MD (28:56):
Well, again, I think that's one of the
exciting things that I'm excitedabout in this book in
particular.
Janet Walker (29:04):
One of the things.
Steven Gundry MD (29:05):
That's challenging in any mental health
condition, in addiction, isthat the recidivism rate is
horrible.
Positivism rate is horrible.
90% of addicts subside to theiraddiction again, despite
excellent treatment or treatmentover and over and over again.
(29:28):
And we talk about this in thebook and it's because we
actually, I think, are notaddressing the actual cause of
that and that's the gutmicrobiome driving this behavior
.
And to me, the exciting thingis I don't think we have to
blame the way we blame that.
(29:52):
This is not you know, oh,you're a bad person because you
can't stay away from thesethings.
Or you know, you'repsychologically impaired because
you can't do these things.
It's actually coming from theroot problem is down in the gut.
And again, the uplifting thingabout it is that these are
(30:15):
addressable issues, but we'vebeen addressing the wrong place.
We're trying to fix this and wehave to fix the gut.
Janet Walker (30:25):
In what ways does the communication between the
gut and the brain influencethings like our mood, cognition,
behavior, and what specificmechanisms are involved in this
interaction?
Steven Gundry MD (30:40):
Well, it's in two simple ways.
First of all, we now know thatthere are bacteria in the gut
that are associated with mood.
We've identified bacteria thatpredict a depressive personality
(31:04):
.
We've identified bacteria thatpredict an anxious personality.
You can take happy mice andfeed them stool from depressed
humans.
And how do you do that?
It turns out mice love to eatpoop.
It's just get over it and thesehappy mice will become
(31:26):
depressed.
And you can take depressed miceand feed them stool from happy
people and they'll become happy.
And that's just one example.
There's numerous other examplesof this.
For instance, we now know thata baby's personality has much to
(31:52):
do with the microbiome that isestablished at birth and in the
first one or two months of life,and so the good news for a
parent is, if you've got areally grouchy, colicky baby,
the odds are it's the microbiomethat's making that baby grouchy
(32:12):
and colicky and not a very goodbaby, rather than your baby's
just a bad baby.
Janet Walker (32:20):
Well, that explains why my two kids' babies
had such differentpersonalities.
One had a sensitive, colickystomach and one didn't.
Steven Gundry MD (32:29):
Yeah, it's really interesting.
And I have two daughters andthey're genetically very similar
but they're almost polaropposites in their mood and blah
, blah, blah and you go.
Well, she came out of the boxthat way.
She came out of the box and itturns out yeah, they came out
with that set of microbes andit's just fascinating that this
(32:53):
could occur.
Janet Walker (32:54):
Let me ask you a question that actually isn't on
my question list, but when youwere mentioning that the
poop-eating mice it brought itto mind In your book.
You talked a lot about fecaltransplants.
I've never heard that before.
Where is that performed and whogets that and how does that
help someone?
Steven Gundry MD (33:20):
does that help someone?
So fecal transplants they'renot allowed in the United States
because of the FDA, unlessunder certain conditions, but in
Europe, particularly they areused to treat C difficile.
They're used for a lot of otherthings, and I talk about fecal
transplants that have been usedin autistic kids and the results
are remarkable.
And there's even a study whereautistic children are given
(33:45):
fecal transplants in the form ofcapsules and they have a
hilarious name they're calledcrapsules, and they dramatically
alter the autism in these kids.
And so we now know that thesebacteria have far-reaching
(34:13):
effects on so many things thatwe thought had nothing to do
with the brain, like autism.
Janet Walker (34:17):
So do you think fecal transplants will ever be
FDA approved or part ofmainstream medicine in the
United States?
Steven Gundry MD (34:24):
The FDA for correct reasons.
You can't control everythingthat's coming in and at this
moment we don't know who all thebad guys are.
Are we bringing in viruses thatwe can't measure yet?
(34:46):
So I think at the moment it'llstill be investigational, but I
don't think we have to wait forthat.
We know now enough about whatthe good guys want to eat, what
the bad guys like, and the bookis okay.
We know all this now.
Here's how to not give the badguys what to eat, here's how to
(35:11):
give the good guys what to eat,and the rest of the book is.
But wait, it's not just givethese guys a bunch of prebiotics
and everything will be fine.
We now know that, to paraphraseHillary Clinton, it takes a
village and we may need an endproduct, like a short-chain
(35:31):
fatty acid called butyrate thata bunch of good guys make.
It's really important for us,but we didn't know that it would
take, like four other differentbacteria each making a product
that the next bacteria needed toeat, to make the next product
that the next bacteria needed toeat, to finally get to the
(35:51):
final guy who then makesbutyrate.
And we had no idea that it wasthat complex.
But again, it takes thisterrain, this tropical
rainforest, and we shouldn'thave been so naive.
And it's all in the book how torebuild your tropical
rainforest.
Janet Walker (36:12):
So what practical steps do you recommend for
restoring gut health, and howcan these interventions
potentially improve our physicalwell-being and our mental
well-being and cognitivefunction?
Steven Gundry MD (36:25):
Well, number one here in Southern California,
when my patients walk throughthe door, 80% of them are
vitamin D deficient.
And you go, wait a minute.
You know we're in SouthernCalifornia, you know there's sun
every day of the year.
How could that be?
(36:45):
Well, we use sunscreens andwe're so afraid of the sun we
cover up, we wear long sleeveshirts in the sun, we wear a hat
in the sun and we're just veryvitamin D deficient.
So what?
Two things?
Number one we know the higheryour vitamin D level, the more
(37:07):
diverse your microbiome is, thebetter that tropical rainforest
is.
I mean, it's directcorrelations.
Number two we now know thatvitamin D is essential to keep
that wall of the gut intact andto repair any breaks in the gut.
Number three, which may be themost important, is that vitamin
(37:31):
D tells our white blood cells,our immune system, to calm down.
Don't get so excitable, getyour finger off the trigger.
And so it's a three-prong.
And it's amazing, 100% of mypatients with leaky gut and
(37:53):
autoimmune disease have lowvitamin D levels 100%.
So that's number one.
Number two I tell people that,yeah, I can heal your leaky gut
and yes, it's going to take us awhile to do that.
But if you keep swallowingrazor blades, you're just going
to slice it right back open, andyou're just going to slice it
(38:16):
right back open.
So that's why, among otherthings, I talk about lectins,
which are plant defense proteinsthat literally act like
swallowing razor blades.
Their job is to make theirpredator, us, not feel very good
in so many different ways, andwe just don't pay attention.
(38:46):
So, removing these offenders,getting a high vitamin D and
then fostering a more diversemicrobiome by using not only
fermented foods, which give someof the precursors for building
butyrate, but also giving theseguys the raw materials of
(39:06):
prebiotic fiber, that's how todo it and it's outlined in the
book and it's actually easier todo than people think.
For instance, an easy-to-usefermented food is vinegar.
Vinegar is an amazing fermentedfood.
Kefir, goat and sheep yogurtsare a great way to do it and,
(39:30):
fun fact, a traditionallycultured sausage, even
prosciutto is a fermented foodand it's loaded with postbiotics
.
So great news.
You look at some of these superlong-lived societies in the
(39:53):
quote blue zones and theremarkable thing is these guys,
almost all of these societies,eat a lot of fermented foods in
the form of yogurts and in agedcheeses.
And, surprise, surprise,sausages and fermented meats
(40:14):
across the board and you go waita minute, those are all bad for
you, wait a minute, that's evil.
Well, it turns out that thesesocieties are eating fermented
animal products, and the thingthat was stunning to me is the
(40:34):
people with the longest lifespan, as a country usually surprises
people.
There's a little countrybetween Spain and France called
Andorra, and Andorrians have alifespan of like 90 years.
Yeah, pretty nice.
(40:56):
And what do they do?
Well, they're sheep and goatherders and all they basically
eat is sheep and goat yogurtsand cheeses and sausages.
They have sausages forbreakfast, lunch and dinner.
And you go.
How can they be the longestliving people?
You know they're eating badfood, bad food, the thing that
(41:16):
really shocked me.
Years ago, I presented a paperat a nutrition conference in
Toulouse, france.
Toulouse is famous for foiegras and famous for sausages.
Cassoulet is from Toulouse.
These guys eat what would seemto be the worst diet in the
(41:38):
world, if you wanted to designone.
And yet they have the lowestincidence of heart disease in
all of France.
And you go.
What the heck?
Well, remember, we have toquestion conventional wisdom.
We have to questionconventional wisdom.
And if conventional wisdom saysall these guys have heart
(42:01):
disease and they ought to diehorrible, painful, slow deaths,
how come they're doing this?
Well, it's this fermented foodthat they're eating, and I go
into that in detail in the book.
It's like son of a gun.
Here's why what we thoughtmight be bad for you is probably
pretty doggone good for you.
Janet Walker (42:23):
How interesting.
Now, the book is full ofwonderful research, clinical
studies and real patientexamples, but it also gives
readers two detailed options fordietary changes to restore
their gut and improve theirhealth.
Are these short-term protocolsto heal the gut or are they
(42:45):
long-term lifestyle changes?
Steven Gundry MD (42:48):
Well, of the two programs, the first one is
really what I use in my clinicsfor the vast majority of my
patients.
It's what was in the plantparadox and gut check and it
works for the vast majority ofpeople.
But I see some real hardcoretroubled people, particularly
(43:14):
suffering from addiction ormental illnesses or Alzheimer's
or Parkinson's, and these peopleI've found through the years
that their gut wall is such inbad shape that they're quite
intolerant to almost all plantcompounds, regardless how good
(43:38):
they might be for you or me.
And what I've done with thoseis many people accuse me of
being the father of thecarnivore diet, because if you
take my recommendations to thenth degree, then all plant
compounds wish you harm becauseyou're their predator and we
(44:02):
ought to get rid of all plantcompounds Not so fast.
But I found through the yearsthat these people seem to be far
more sensitive to plantcompounds in general.
And so in the last program inthe book called the Chicken and
the Sea, I basically have mypatients eliminate all plant
(44:28):
material, all fruits, andbasically use pastured chicken,
wild fish, wild shellfish andfermented primarily sheep and
goat milk, as well as fermentedmeats like prosciutto, for
example, or a true fermentedsausage and the turnaround in
(44:51):
these people using that isreally nothing short of
remarkable, and I profile a fewof these people in the book.
Do I think that's a long-termstrategy?
No, I think this is anintensive care to get the gut
wall healed and then let'sreintroduce some of these actual
(45:13):
beneficial plant compounds.
I'm a confirmed plant predator,but you got to know who your
friends are and you got to knowwho doesn't like you very much,
but it's been remarkable.
Now why not put them on anall-beef diet?
We really don't have the timeto do that today.
(45:33):
Beef, lamb, pork andnon-fermented milk have a really
mischievous sugar moleculethat's called NU5GC, capital G.
We have a sugar molecule thatwe share with fish and poultry
called NU5AC, capital A.
(45:55):
The molecules are virtuallyidentical except for one
molecule of oxygen.
When we eat NU5GC containingfoods, our immune system makes
aggressive antibodies to it.
We hate it.
System makes aggressiveantibodies to it.
(46:16):
We hate it.
Our brain hates NU5GC.
And one of the things we'velearned now is that when you eat
NU5GC, it causes leaky gut, itactivates your immune system and
it causes leaky brain and itleaks into the brain and causes
neuroinflammation.
And it leaks into the brain andcauses neuroinflammation.
So that's why I specificallywent for poultry and seafood or
(46:40):
fermented beef or pork orfermented milk product, Because
the fermentation process eatsthe sugar molecule NU5GC, so
it's not there anymore.
And, fun fact, prosciutto,which obviously comes from pigs,
has no NU5GC because thebacterial fermentation has eaten
(47:00):
it.
Janet Walker (47:00):
Interesting Now the book indicates that people
should avoid foods that cause animmune system reaction, which
isn't the same as foods they'reallergic to Correct.
So should people have IgG andIgA antibody tests to know which
foods they're sensitive to and,if so, where do they go for
(47:21):
that kind of testing?
Steven Gundry MD (47:23):
Well, we do that in all my patients their
blood tests Quite franklythrough the years.
Because I've done so many, Idon't think people have to do it
and I've listed in the booksome of the biggest
troublemakers to save you thetime and effort.
And some of them surprise a lotof people, for instance.
(47:46):
For instance, almond flour is abig mischief maker for so many
of my patients.
White mushrooms are a bigmischief maker for so many of my
patients.
Shockingly, lemons are a bigmischief maker.
(48:07):
Peaches are notorious and Ireally agonized putting that
down because I went to medicalschool in Georgia and Georgia is
a peach state for obviousreasons, but it's amazing how
many people are sensitive topeaches.
Cinnamon ranks really high and,surprisingly, ginger ranks
(48:29):
really high.
So those are just a fewexamples.
Janet Walker (48:32):
So things people think are very healthy actually
are not.
Steven Gundry MD (48:36):
May not be so Correct.
Janet Walker (48:38):
So the diet protocols look like something
that are livable day to day andthere's a long list of safe
foods, and people might evenfind it fun to incorporate some
of the items that they're notfamiliar with, like chicory or
tempeh or quince, Althoughremoving certain categories like
gluten, corn and dairy fromcows could prove a challenge to
(49:02):
people.
But what about the specialoccasion?
Is a slice of birthday cake, aspecial holiday meal or trying a
new food on vacation?
Okay, the occasional cheat day?
Or will that undo all theirhard work up to that point?
Steven Gundry MD (49:18):
The answer is it depends.
You can.
I have some people who wantexposure to their mischief
makers will kind of undoeverything they did.
The good news is that's nottrue for most people.
Once you repair leaky gut, youcan.
(49:38):
I don't want to say get awaywith murder, because that's not
what you want to do, but I'vetalked about this and I've
written about about in previousbooks, and let me give you an
example.
We do autoimmune testing on allof our patients because most of
them have an autoimmune disease,and we decided years ago to do
(49:59):
it on ourselves.
And so when we first got backmy autoimmune testing, my
administrator came in and saidDoc, you have lupus.
I said I don't have lupus.
Anti-nuclear antibody is amarker for lupus.
He said I don't have lupus.
She said, yeah, you're positivefor anti-nuclear antibody.
(50:19):
And I go well, that's kind ofinteresting because my father's
side of the family, my aunt andmy father, had severe psoriasis.
My father was on methotrexateand immunosuppressant for 51
years and I said well, okay, Ido have a family history, for
this Family history has a littlepiece of it and I'm always
(50:44):
experimenting with food, sothat's my job.
So I said you know, I'm goingto be perfect.
I'm going to follow the yeslist, I'm not going to do any of
the no for three weeks and I'llretest my blood.
Sure enough, I was negative foranti-nuclear antibody Good.
So here's the best part.
(51:05):
A few years ago, I was finishingediting one of my bestsellers,
the Longevity Paradox, in NewYork City, and we were supposed
to finish on a Friday afternoon.
We didn't finish and I saidwhat the heck?
I'll stay the weekend and we'llfinish Monday and I'll fly home
.
So I had the whole weekend andmy wife wasn't with me.
I said you know, I wonder if Ican activate anti-nuclear
(51:30):
antibody, my lupus.
So I cheated, I had bread, Ihad pasta, I had sliced tomatoes
, I had beans, I probably hadbirthday cake.
And I came back and testedmyself.
Sure enough, I was positive.
Positive for, and it wasactually pretty high and I went,
(51:50):
wow, that's really cool,believe it or not?
I said, I wonder how long it'lltake me to turn it off.
So I said, okay, we're gonnadraw my blood once a week until
it's gone.
And you know, I'm gonna, I'mgonna be perfect.
One week later it's negative.
Wow.
So what does that teach me?
Number one I can produce leakygut by going whole hog cheating
(52:17):
for a weekend.
But the good news is mymicrobiome is pretty doggone
good shape.
My wall of my gut yeah, it gotopened up.
My immune system says, oh geez,here we go again.
But I sealed it very quickly.
And now do I want to cheat on aweekend and do that?
(52:41):
No, I don't, but most peoplecan't do that, and so it's like
a professional.
You see, the car commercials,professional driver on closed
doors Do not attempt this athome.
So maybe that's a good way tofinish this off.
I'm a professional driver in aclosed door.
Janet Walker (53:00):
Well, that's a hopeful story, though.
For people it's not too late.
Steven Gundry MD (53:05):
No, it's never too late.
Yeah, one of the things thatwas really exciting to me in
writing this book is theaddiction story, and the thing
that is hopeful is we know that.
You know addiction is at anall-time high and we have lots
(53:26):
of reasons.
We can thank drug companies, wecan thank social media or
whatever, but in the end, allthese treatment programs for
whatever addiction you choose,fail miserably.
The recidivism rate, thefailure rate is about 90% and
(53:49):
you know this is despiteintensive counseling and these
people often end up going backand back and back and, yeah,
they clean up their act and thenthey fall right back off.
And what the exciting part ofthe book is we now know that
there is an addictive microbiomethat they want you to get these
(54:15):
substances, not to actuallybenefit them, and they use
primarily pain, sometimesdopamine, as a way of getting
you to seek more of this out.
And the more pain they createby causing leaky gut, the more
(54:38):
of this substance you willingest or inject and the more
they will get.
And the good news is and thishas been shown in experimental
animals, it's been shown inhumans that you can break that
cycle and get this addictivemicrobiome out of you stories in
(55:06):
the book about people who havefinally overcome this addiction
by working with food and theirgut rather than and don't get me
wrong.
All the psychological help isappreciated, but I actually now
have a big center in LA whowants to work with me because
they realize that this is not uphere, it's coming from down
(55:30):
here.
Janet Walker (55:31):
Oh, that's wonderful.
Steven Gundry MD (55:32):
Yeah.
Janet Walker (55:33):
Well, thank you so much for joining us today, dr
Gundry.
It was really such an honor tohave you here, and I know that
on my next trip to the grocerystore I'm going to be armed with
my list to start on one of theoutlined dietary protocols in
the book.
So thank you again.
So so much Thanks for having me.
I hope we can talk to you againsometime when you come out with
(55:54):
your next book perhaps.
Steven Gundry MD (55:56):
Absolutely.
We're going to start working onit very shortly.
Great, I can't stop.
Janet Walker (56:02):
And it's a good thing for the public that you
can't.
Thank you again so much to DrSteven Gundry for being with us
today.
You can get your copy of theGut-Brain Paradox by visiting
his website at drgundrycom.
That's d-r-g-u-n-d-r-y dot comor wherever books are sold.
(56:26):
Thank you so much for listeningto the award-winning Better
Wellness Podcast.
I'm your host, janet Walker,filling in for Roland Perez.
Better Wellness is brought toyou by Cocoon Wellness, a new
way to support your natural-bornability to be well.
You can find us on ApplePodcasts, google Podcasts,
iheartradio, spotify or whereveryou get your podcasts.
(56:50):
Be well and thanks forlistening.
If you are someone that has an interest in how
diet can influence our physicaland mental health, chances are
you know our next guest expert.
We'll take a deep dive into hisnewest book, the Gut-Brain
Paradox.
So stay tuned for this veryspecial one-hour episode of
Better Wellness.
Welcome to Better Wellness.
(00:26):
I'm your host, janet Walker.
As executive producers of theAmerican Health Journal and
Innovations in Medicine for morethan 25 years, we've brought
you over 500 award-winninghealthcare television shows that
have aired nationally on PBSwith an audience of over 100
million viewers.
The Better Wellness Podcastexplores health topics to
(00:48):
reverse disease, keep your bodyhealthy and develop the mindset
and balance that preventsillness.
Our guests are experiencedexperts in the world of staying
healthy, young and well.
Our very special guest today isthe one and only Dr Steven
Gundry.
Dr Gundry is the director ofthe International Heart and Lung
(01:11):
Institute in Palm Springs andthe founder and director of the
Center for Restorative Medicinein Palm Springs and Santa
Barbara, California.
After a distinguished career asa heart transplant surgeon and
a professor and chairman ofcardiothoracic surgery at Loma
Linda University, dr Gundrychanged his focus to curing
modern diseases via dietarychanges.
(01:34):
His best-selling books includeGut Check, unlocking the Keto
Code, the Energy Paradox and thePlant Paradox.
The Energy Paradox and thePlant Paradox.
He has written more than 300articles, published in
peer-reviewed journals, on usingdiet and supplements to
eliminate disease, among them,heart disease, diabetes and
autoimmune diseases.
(01:55):
He is the host of thetop-ranked nutrition podcast,
the Dr Gundry Podcast, and thefounder of GundryMD, a wellness
brand.
Today, we're talking about hisnewest book, the Gut-Brain
Paradox.
Hello, dr Gundry, welcome toBetter Wellness.
We're so happy that you wereable to join us today and I'm
(02:17):
honored to talk to you aboutyour newest book.
Well, thanks for having me.
Great to be here.
Our mutual friend, wellnessexpert, david Delrahim, has
wonderful things to say aboutthe book, so I was really
looking forward to reading itand I'm so glad I did Now.
You've authored manybestselling books focused on
food-based health interventions.
(02:37):
What motivated you to writethis book and were there any
surprises when you wereresearching for it?
Steven Gundry MD (02:43):
There was a lot.
I try to write my next book asa follow-up to the previous book
, which was Gut Check and thisbook it was becoming abundantly
clear, particularly in gut check, about the incredible
(03:07):
sophisticated communicationsystem that we've been able to
decipher between the microbiomeor the holobiome as I call it,
and our emotions, our brain,health, our brain aging,
(03:28):
addiction, food choices.
And with each passing yearwe're getting more and more
nuanced in how muchcommunication there is between
the microbiome and our brain andhow much control is exerted on
(03:50):
our brain by the microbiome.
And so I said let's go downinto those rabbit holes.
And, like I write about in thebook, there were lots of
surprises that awaited me Anymore.
Not surprised by much, but lotsof surprises in this book,
(04:10):
particularly, I think, in termsof our personalities and our
food choices and, maybe mostimportantly, our addictive
behaviors and how muchassociation there is between the
gut microbiome and all of that.
Janet Walker (04:31):
So in your previous books you taught
readers how to reverse diseaseand improve health by preventing
or repairing leaky gut, and inthis book you go a step further
and delve into the role andimportance of the microbiome on
brain health.
So let's give our listeners abasic education about the
microbiome and leaky gut First.
(04:53):
What is it?
Steven Gundry MD (04:54):
starting with the microbiome is this
collection of organisms thatmost people associate with
bacteria that live in ourintestinal tract, and there's a
hundred trillion bacteria thatlive in our colon alone.
(05:19):
That's like eight times morebacteria in our colon than there
are trees on Earth.
Just to give you an idea of howmany that is.
Janet Walker (05:32):
That's a lot.
Steven Gundry MD (05:33):
That's a lot, and that doesn't even mention
the thousand species of bacteriathat live in our mouth, the 700
species of bacteria that livein our skin.
We even have a bacteria cloudaround us and so collectively,
these are all called theholobiome, but the microbiome.
(05:56):
Really, we didn't know howcomplex it was up until the
Human Microbiome Project wasstarted in 2006 and finished in
2017.
Figuring out who lives down,there was one thing.
Figuring out what those guyswere doing down, there was
(06:19):
another.
And what we now realize is thatthis is akin to a tropical
rainforest, and a tropicalrainforest obviously there's
lots of diverse animals, plants,insects, bugs, etc.
All knit together in anecological system and kind of.
(06:44):
Each member of this communityis dependent on multiple other
members for their survival, andwhat we now know is that we can
actually apply the sameecological principles to looking
at our microbiome, much like welook at a tropical rainforest.
And, simplistically, the morediverse our microbiome, the more
(07:11):
different members of ourmicrobiome good guys and bad
guys the healthier we are andthe healthier our brain is and
our thought processes are.
On the other hand, the morekind of desert wasteland rather
(07:32):
than a tropical rainforest wehave in our gut, the worse off
we are in terms of our guthealth and our mental health.
So that's a kind of startingpremise of understanding the
microbiome.
Janet Walker (07:48):
And so we learn from the book that it's not just
our bodies that are affected bythe microbiome.
How does it influence our brainfunction and mental?
Steven Gundry MD (07:56):
health.
It takes a while to wrap ourhead around the fact that sadly
or good news so much of ourthinking processes, so much of
(08:19):
our emotions, so much of ourdesires isn't actually coming
from here.
It's actually coming from thewants and needs of our
microbiome.
And that's hard for advancedcreatures like us who think, you
know, we're the smartestwhatever existed, but it's
amazing how these little onecell creatures can have such a
(08:44):
profound effect on us.
But let me put it this way,it's akin to who's actually
driving the bus the bus driversor the passengers.
And from a bacteria standpoint,this microbiome is actually our
largest organ that actuallyexists in us, and we're a
(09:04):
symbiotic community.
That means we do stuff for themand they do stuff for us.
And, as ourgreat-great-grandparents
probably knew, as I say, ourgreat-great-grandparents ate
whole and they ate those foodswhole.
(09:25):
And in eating whole foods whole, yeah, we got sugars out of it,
we got proteins out of it, wegot fats out of it, but there
was a lot left over and theseinclude prebiotic fiber and that
would, if you will, trickledown to our microbiome, who
(09:50):
needed those foods to flourishand eat.
And as long as they weregetting their part of the
bargain.
Everything was just fine.
Fast forward to now we havemostly processed and
ultra-processed foods.
We've removed pretty much allthe stuff that our microbiome
(10:15):
used to get, and so ourmicrobiome can hear us chewing
up there, they hear usswallowing, they know food's on
the way, and then nothingarrives and they go what the
heck?
You know, I know he's eating,you know, I can see, I can hear
food.
Nothing's coming down for me,and they literally send text
(10:43):
messages to the brain.
To number one I know you'reeating, but you're not eating
enough, because I'm clearly notgetting it and my ancestors used
to, so go eat more.
Number two I am not satisfiedwith the things you're eating
and I'm hangry if we all knowthat expression.
(11:06):
And so it actually totallychanges our outlook.
A lot of the book is spenttrying to convince people about
how real this is and how ourmicrobiome, depending on who's
down there and depending on whatwe give them to eat, has
profound effects on our weight,on depression, on anxiety and
(11:31):
even addictions.
And the good news, despite allthat bad news, is that we now
know what they're looking forand we now know how to give them
the good stuff to make us feelgood.
Janet Walker (11:46):
I'm going to ask you a little more about that in
just a minute.
But let's talk a little bitabout leaky gut, and I'm sure
many of our listeners have heardof it but don't really know
what it is and how it impactsour health.
So can you explain leaky gut?
What is it and what isdysbiosis?
Steven Gundry MD (12:14):
So again, if you have a functioning tropical
rainforest, you've got all thesemembers of the community that
are kind of dependent on eachother In dysbiosis.
It means basically that all thebalancing that goes on between
these different species isthrown off so that there's too
many bad guys and not enoughgood guys.
Now most people say, oh geez,we don't want any bad guys.
(12:37):
But that's actually not true.
You actually have to have abalance of good guys and bad
guys.
The example I like to use isYellowstone Park.
Many people may remember that afew years ago wolves in
Yellowstone Park were eradicated, because wolves are obviously
(12:57):
bad guys and we don't wantwolves running around eating elk
or whatever.
So wolves were eradicated inYellowstone Park.
Well, lo and behold, whathappened was that wolves predate
on elk.
Elk no longer had a naturalpredator, so elk good guys
(13:21):
overgrew and they got hungry andthey ate all the little
saplings.
And, interestingly enough,beavers have to have saplings to
build beaver dams, and sobeavers didn't have any saplings
, so beavers died off.
And without beaver dams youdidn't have fish in the ponds
(13:44):
and next thing we know we didn'thave raccoons that were eating
the fish, et cetera, et cetera.
So the ecosystem completely gotunbalanced by eliminating a bad
guy.
So when they reintroducedwolves back in Yellowstone Park,
it took a number of years tolevel out, but the bad guy was
(14:09):
necessary to keep everythingelse in balance.
And so it's the same way withour gut microbiome.
It's this balance, or what Icall in the book, the terroir or
terrain, that's the mostimportant, and as long as that
terrain is rich and balanced,we're in great shape.
(14:31):
So that's dysbiosis and sadly.
We can actually measure who'sin there.
We can do counts.
We can know what they make,what they don't make, what's
lacking.
We can know what they make,what they don't make, what's
lacking.
So to answer your first part ofyour question what the heck is
leaky gut?
It's tossed around.
(14:52):
First of all, it is notpseudoscience.
A professor who's now atHarvard, who's a pediatric
gastroenterologist, by the nameof Alessio Fasano, figured out
how leaky gut happens, how tomeasure it, and it's not
(15:15):
pseudoscience.
We measure it every day inblood tests.
Simplistically, the lining ofour gut from our mouth all the
way down to our rear end is thesame surface area.
If we laid it out flat as atennis court, probably two
tennis courts.
So when we're watching the BNPParibas Indian Wells tennis
(15:48):
tournament in a few weeks.
There's a tennis court insideof us, a surface area.
Now we have a design flaw.
The lining of our gut is onlyone cell thick, and so
everything we swallow, all thebacteria, are separated from us
by the rest of our body by onlyone cell, the rest of our body
by only one cell.
Now those cells are heldtogether with glue, if you will.
That are called tight junctions, and most of us are old enough
(16:16):
to remember a kid's game calledRed Rover, red Road.
Janet Walker (16:18):
I remember that one yeah.
Steven Gundry MD (16:20):
You know it's now illegal in school.
It's too dangerous.
Anyhow, remember we all lockedarms and the kids were running
across and we all squealed andright, your arms broke.
So think of these cells ashaving crossed arms, all locked
together.
So we now know that there are anumber of compounds, including
(16:42):
lectins, which I've written alot about, that want to attach
to the wall of the gut and theymake a chemical that actually
breaks that tight junction, ormultiple tight junction.
So now we've literally got agap.
Now.
So what?
Well, on the other side of thiswall, 80% of all of our white
(17:07):
blood cells are standing guardright there.
Why are they all there?
Because this is where mischiefcan come across and they want to
be ready for eating whatevercomes around.
That would happenintermittently in the past and
we had some really good systemsto make sure it didn't happen.
(17:30):
We had a great gut microbiome,we had a lot of mucus, etc.
Etc.
And if somebody got across, thewhite cell said, oops, that's a
bad guy, I'm going to eat him.
Let's patch the hole Now.
Because we don't have a greatgut microbiome, because a lot of
(17:51):
the microbiome are bad guys andnot a lot of good guys, this
leaky gut is happening literally24 hours a day, 365 days a year
.
So now our white blood cellsare basically overrun.
They're overwhelmed by all thistrouble coming across the gut.
(18:12):
So it's not just oh my gosh,you know we need more troops
down here.
These guys are getting past usand we're going to send messages
up to the brain to fortify yourcells.
All hands on deck, protect thisimportant structure.
(18:35):
There's an immune system in ourbrain that I talk about, called
the glial cells, which are thebrain's, the neuron's bodyguards
, which are the brain's, theneuron's bodyguards, and they
spring into action and theyactually believe it or not, kind
of pull up the drawbridges onthe castle because the hordes
are coming and they try toprotect the neuron at all costs.
(18:57):
In the process of doing that,they actually sever the
connections of one neurontalking to another.
They actually sever theconnections of one neuron
talking to another.
And no wonder we have brain fogand memory issues.
And the book details howAlzheimer's comes about,
parkinson's comes about andsimple memory loss, and it's all
(19:19):
related to what's actuallygoing down in the gut in the
first place.
Janet Walker (19:23):
Interesting related to what's actually going
down in the gut in the firstplace.
Interesting you just mentionedAlzheimer's and addiction.
Most people don't associate guthealth with mental health,
which is one reason the book isso enlightening.
What specific bacteria areassociated with depression and
how do they affectneurotransmitter levels?
Steven Gundry MD (19:44):
So that's a great question.
One of the things we've knownfor a long time that there is a
amino acid called tryptophanthat is actually manufactured by
gut bacteria, and gut bacteriathen use tryptophan to make a
(20:05):
lot of the feel-good hormoneslike.
We'll use serotonin, forexample.
And serotonin a lot of peoplehave heard about serotonin
because it's the feel-goodhormone, but also a lot of
people are on antidepressants,and most of these
antidepressants are what arecalled serotonin reuptake
(20:28):
inhibitors SSRIs and we'retaught that normally in our
brain we use serotonin as aneurotransmitter and then we
break it down when we don't needit anymore, and these compounds
supposedly work by stoppingthat breakdown.
(20:51):
So there's more serotonin leftin the brain and you feel
happier.
Well, if that is actually howthey work, then one would think
that I could swallow anantidepressant today and
tomorrow.
I'd be happy because I now haveplenty of serotonin, because
(21:14):
I'm not breaking it down.
As anyone who's taken theseantidepressants knows, that
isn't what happens.
It can take a month or more tonotice a change in depression.
So you go, what the heck?
Well, now we know that thesedrugs work by actually changing
(21:34):
the microbiome into a morediverse microbiome.
That in turn, makes moretryptophan and makes more
serotonin, and that doesn'thappen overnight.
It takes weeks to make thatchange.
So what we used to think wassomething that was happening up
(21:57):
here is now happening down here.
What's equally troublesome isthese particular bacteria are
incredibly sensitive to anherbicide that all of us have
heard of called Roundup, and itsactive ingredient is glyphosate
(22:17):
.
Called Roundup, and its activeingredient is glyphosate.
Now, glyphosate is worthknowing.
Glyphosate was patented as anantibiotic by Monsanto, not as a
weed killer, and glyphosateactually specifically kills off
the tryptophan pathway bacteria,but it spares other bad guys.
(22:44):
So every time we eatglyphosate-laden food and it's
in all of our brain products,and GMO has nothing to do with
it anymore Glyphosate is sprayedon all of our weed, all of our
corn, all of our oats, and we'reeating it every day, and so
(23:05):
we've literally killed off thosebacteria that make all the good
stuff in our guts.
Wow, yeah, so it's kind of adouble whammy.
Janet Walker (23:15):
Is that why eliminating those food items
from our diet is helpful to ourgut.
Not just that we're eliminatingthe wheat or oats, but actually
the chemicals that they wereprocessed with.
Steven Gundry MD (23:30):
Yeah, glyphosate Roundup was
introduced in the mid-1970s.
Glyphosate Roundup wasintroduced in the mid-1970s and
we are surrounded by glyphosatenow.
I mean, it's in Californiawines, for instance, it's in our
schoolyards, it's everywhere.
So one of the things that I'vebeen fascinated with through the
(24:03):
years is there's been a lot oflow-carb diets that have come
and go through the years theAtkins diet in the 70s, the
paleo diet, the carnivore dietis the latest iteration, the
high-protein diet.
And one of the things that wasinteresting in all of these
diets particularly like I usethe Atkins diet when Atkins took
away all your carbohydrates, ofcourse it was mostly grain
(24:24):
products and sugars like fruit,and then as the program
progressed, you usually addedthese things back in and
invariably people's weight wouldstart going back up, and even
wheat belly the same way.
And then what do you do?
Well, go back to phase one,take all these things away from
you.
You know it's the evil carbsthat we're doing.
(24:47):
Well, I have a lot of 80% of mypatients have autoimmune
diseases that end up seeing meand 94% of them go into
remission within nine months toa year.
And a lot of these people thenthey go on vacation to Europe
and they go to France or they goto Italy and they can't help
(25:08):
themselves.
They eat croissants andbaguettes and pizza and they
don't react.
Their stomachs feel great,their joints don't react, their
stomachs feel great, theirjoints don't hurt, their
psoriasis doesn't flare and theygo.
Wow, dr Gundry cured me.
This is great.
I can have all this stuff.
(25:29):
This is wonderful and I writeabout this in the book.
And they come back to the UnitedStates and they go I'm cured
and they start having our breadand they start having'm cured
and they start having our breadand they start having our pizza
and they start having our corn.
And all of a sudden, withinweeks, they're on the phone
going what the heck?
My psoriasis is back on myelbow.
(25:50):
What the heck?
My fingers just swelled up.
What the heck?
I thought you cured me.
No, you encountered ourglyphosate-laden food again and
you didn't have it over inEurope because it's mostly
banned and I write about this inthe book.
So just because you can havethese carbohydrates, these evil
(26:12):
things, over there, doesn't meanonce you're cured, you can
probably have them over here.
It's because of the presence ofglyphosate.
Janet Walker (26:21):
Wow, I wonder if our manufacturers will ever fix
that.
Steven Gundry MD (26:27):
Probably not right.
I doubt it.
Janet Walker (26:36):
I've said on other podcasts, unfortunately
sickness is really good forbusiness.
That's a shame, but true.
Let me ask you this Isdysbiosis and leaky gut forever,
or can diet and lifestylechanges help improve both
physical and mental health?
Steven Gundry MD (26:50):
Oh, it's not forever, and that's the whole
purpose of this book.
It is fixable Now.
If you had asked me 25 yearsago how fast you could fix leaky
gut, I was a little naive and Ithought you could do it in a
couple weeks.
It usually takes most peoplenine months to a year to fully
(27:15):
seal their gut.
Now we can see it improve.
We measure this every threemonths, but we can see it
improve each time we measurethese tests.
So it's not like you're stuckfor nine months or a year, but
the improvement is measurable.
We can watch it.
(27:36):
We can watch the gut microbiomechange from month to month, and
the exciting thing and I have alot of examples in the book is
that as this improves thedepression, lifts the
Parkinson's symptoms subside,the addictive behaviors subside,
(27:57):
and that's what is so exciting.
I still see patients six days aweek, on the weekends, saturday
and Sunday.
I see them, and the reason I dothat is usually not a day goes
by that I get to witness what 30years ago I would have called a
miracle, but now it's.
(28:20):
If I don't see it, we're notdoing something right, and so,
yeah, it's just.
It's really exciting to watchthis happen.
Janet Walker (28:33):
Yeah, and I think, in part thanks to all your
previous books and earlierresearch, a lot of the general
public understands that there isa gut health connection, but
for most people, I think, thisgut-brain connection is pretty
new.
Can understanding that lead tobetter treatment options for
(28:54):
mental health disorders?
Steven Gundry MD (28:56):
Well, again, I think that's one of the
exciting things that I'm excitedabout in this book in
particular.
Janet Walker (29:04):
One of the things.
Steven Gundry MD (29:05):
That's challenging in any mental health
condition, in addiction, isthat the recidivism rate is
horrible.
Positivism rate is horrible.
90% of addicts subside to theiraddiction again, despite
excellent treatment or treatmentover and over and over again.
(29:28):
And we talk about this in thebook and it's because we
actually, I think, are notaddressing the actual cause of
that and that's the gutmicrobiome driving this behavior
.
And to me, the exciting thingis I don't think we have to
blame the way we blame that.
(29:52):
This is not you know, oh,you're a bad person because you
can't stay away from thesethings.
Or you know, you'repsychologically impaired because
you can't do these things.
It's actually coming from theroot problem is down in the gut.
And again, the uplifting thingabout it is that these are
(30:15):
addressable issues, but we'vebeen addressing the wrong place.
We're trying to fix this and wehave to fix the gut.
Janet Walker (30:25):
In what ways does the communication between the
gut and the brain influencethings like our mood, cognition,
behavior, and what specificmechanisms are involved in this
interaction?
Steven Gundry MD (30:40):
Well, it's in two simple ways.
First of all, we now know thatthere are bacteria in the gut
that are associated with mood.
We've identified bacteria thatpredict a depressive personality
(31:04):
.
We've identified bacteria thatpredict an anxious personality.
You can take happy mice andfeed them stool from depressed
humans.
And how do you do that?
It turns out mice love to eatpoop.
It's just get over it and thesehappy mice will become
(31:26):
depressed.
And you can take depressed miceand feed them stool from happy
people and they'll become happy.
And that's just one example.
There's numerous other examplesof this.
For instance, we now know thata baby's personality has much to
(31:52):
do with the microbiome that isestablished at birth and in the
first one or two months of life,and so the good news for a
parent is, if you've got areally grouchy, colicky baby,
the odds are it's the microbiomethat's making that baby grouchy
(32:12):
and colicky and not a very goodbaby, rather than your baby's
just a bad baby.
Janet Walker (32:20):
Well, that explains why my two kids' babies
had such differentpersonalities.
One had a sensitive, colickystomach and one didn't.
Steven Gundry MD (32:29):
Yeah, it's really interesting.
And I have two daughters andthey're genetically very similar
but they're almost polaropposites in their mood and blah
, blah, blah and you go.
Well, she came out of the boxthat way.
She came out of the box and itturns out yeah, they came out
with that set of microbes andit's just fascinating that this
(32:53):
could occur.
Janet Walker (32:54):
Let me ask you a question that actually isn't on
my question list, but when youwere mentioning that the
poop-eating mice it brought itto mind In your book.
You talked a lot about fecaltransplants.
I've never heard that before.
Where is that performed and whogets that and how does that
help someone?
Steven Gundry MD (33:20):
does that help someone?
So fecal transplants they'renot allowed in the United States
because of the FDA, unlessunder certain conditions, but in
Europe, particularly they areused to treat C difficile.
They're used for a lot of otherthings, and I talk about fecal
transplants that have been usedin autistic kids and the results
are remarkable.
And there's even a study whereautistic children are given
(33:45):
fecal transplants in the form ofcapsules and they have a
hilarious name they're calledcrapsules, and they dramatically
alter the autism in these kids.
And so we now know that thesebacteria have far-reaching
(34:13):
effects on so many things thatwe thought had nothing to do
with the brain, like autism.
Janet Walker (34:17):
So do you think fecal transplants will ever be
FDA approved or part ofmainstream medicine in the
United States?
Steven Gundry MD (34:24):
The FDA for correct reasons.
You can't control everythingthat's coming in and at this
moment we don't know who all thebad guys are.
Are we bringing in viruses thatwe can't measure yet?
(34:46):
So I think at the moment it'llstill be investigational, but I
don't think we have to wait forthat.
We know now enough about whatthe good guys want to eat, what
the bad guys like, and the bookis okay.
We know all this now.
Here's how to not give the badguys what to eat, here's how to
(35:11):
give the good guys what to eat,and the rest of the book is.
But wait, it's not just givethese guys a bunch of prebiotics
and everything will be fine.
We now know that, to paraphraseHillary Clinton, it takes a
village and we may need an endproduct, like a short-chain
(35:31):
fatty acid called butyrate thata bunch of good guys make.
It's really important for us,but we didn't know that it would
take, like four other differentbacteria each making a product
that the next bacteria needed toeat, to make the next product
that the next bacteria needed toeat, to finally get to the
(35:51):
final guy who then makesbutyrate.
And we had no idea that it wasthat complex.
But again, it takes thisterrain, this tropical
rainforest, and we shouldn'thave been so naive.
And it's all in the book how torebuild your tropical
rainforest.
Janet Walker (36:12):
So what practical steps do you recommend for
restoring gut health, and howcan these interventions
potentially improve our physicalwell-being and our mental
well-being and cognitivefunction?
Steven Gundry MD (36:25):
Well, number one here in Southern California,
when my patients walk throughthe door, 80% of them are
vitamin D deficient.
And you go, wait a minute.
You know we're in SouthernCalifornia, you know there's sun
every day of the year.
How could that be?
(36:45):
Well, we use sunscreens andwe're so afraid of the sun we
cover up, we wear long sleeveshirts in the sun, we wear a hat
in the sun and we're just veryvitamin D deficient.
So what?
Two things?
Number one we know the higheryour vitamin D level, the more
(37:07):
diverse your microbiome is, thebetter that tropical rainforest
is.
I mean, it's directcorrelations.
Number two we now know thatvitamin D is essential to keep
that wall of the gut intact andto repair any breaks in the gut.
Number three, which may be themost important, is that vitamin
(37:31):
D tells our white blood cells,our immune system, to calm down.
Don't get so excitable, getyour finger off the trigger.
And so it's a three-prong.
And it's amazing, 100% of mypatients with leaky gut and
(37:53):
autoimmune disease have lowvitamin D levels 100%.
So that's number one.
Number two I tell people that,yeah, I can heal your leaky gut
and yes, it's going to take us awhile to do that.
But if you keep swallowingrazor blades, you're just going
to slice it right back open, andyou're just going to slice it
(38:16):
right back open.
So that's why, among otherthings, I talk about lectins,
which are plant defense proteinsthat literally act like
swallowing razor blades.
Their job is to make theirpredator, us, not feel very good
in so many different ways, andwe just don't pay attention.
(38:46):
So, removing these offenders,getting a high vitamin D and
then fostering a more diversemicrobiome by using not only
fermented foods, which give someof the precursors for building
butyrate, but also giving theseguys the raw materials of
(39:06):
prebiotic fiber, that's how todo it and it's outlined in the
book and it's actually easier todo than people think.
For instance, an easy-to-usefermented food is vinegar.
Vinegar is an amazing fermentedfood.
Kefir, goat and sheep yogurtsare a great way to do it and,
(39:30):
fun fact, a traditionallycultured sausage, even
prosciutto is a fermented foodand it's loaded with postbiotics
.
So great news.
You look at some of these superlong-lived societies in the
(39:53):
quote blue zones and theremarkable thing is these guys,
almost all of these societies,eat a lot of fermented foods in
the form of yogurts and in agedcheeses.
And, surprise, surprise,sausages and fermented meats
(40:14):
across the board and you go waita minute, those are all bad for
you, wait a minute, that's evil.
Well, it turns out that thesesocieties are eating fermented
animal products, and the thingthat was stunning to me is the
(40:34):
people with the longest lifespan, as a country usually surprises
people.
There's a little countrybetween Spain and France called
Andorra, and Andorrians have alifespan of like 90 years.
Yeah, pretty nice.
(40:56):
And what do they do?
Well, they're sheep and goatherders and all they basically
eat is sheep and goat yogurtsand cheeses and sausages.
They have sausages forbreakfast, lunch and dinner.
And you go.
How can they be the longestliving people?
You know they're eating badfood, bad food, the thing that
(41:16):
really shocked me.
Years ago, I presented a paperat a nutrition conference in
Toulouse, france.
Toulouse is famous for foiegras and famous for sausages.
Cassoulet is from Toulouse.
These guys eat what would seemto be the worst diet in the
(41:38):
world, if you wanted to designone.
And yet they have the lowestincidence of heart disease in
all of France.
And you go.
What the heck?
Well, remember, we have toquestion conventional wisdom.
We have to questionconventional wisdom.
And if conventional wisdom saysall these guys have heart
(42:01):
disease and they ought to diehorrible, painful, slow deaths,
how come they're doing this?
Well, it's this fermented foodthat they're eating, and I go
into that in detail in the book.
It's like son of a gun.
Here's why what we thoughtmight be bad for you is probably
pretty doggone good for you.
Janet Walker (42:23):
How interesting.
Now, the book is full ofwonderful research, clinical
studies and real patientexamples, but it also gives
readers two detailed options fordietary changes to restore
their gut and improve theirhealth.
Are these short-term protocolsto heal the gut or are they
(42:45):
long-term lifestyle changes?
Steven Gundry MD (42:48):
Well, of the two programs, the first one is
really what I use in my clinicsfor the vast majority of my
patients.
It's what was in the plantparadox and gut check and it
works for the vast majority ofpeople.
But I see some real hardcoretroubled people, particularly
(43:14):
suffering from addiction ormental illnesses or Alzheimer's
or Parkinson's, and these peopleI've found through the years
that their gut wall is such inbad shape that they're quite
intolerant to almost all plantcompounds, regardless how good
(43:38):
they might be for you or me.
And what I've done with thoseis many people accuse me of
being the father of thecarnivore diet, because if you
take my recommendations to thenth degree, then all plant
compounds wish you harm becauseyou're their predator and we
(44:02):
ought to get rid of all plantcompounds Not so fast.
But I found through the yearsthat these people seem to be far
more sensitive to plantcompounds in general.
And so in the last program inthe book called the Chicken and
the Sea, I basically have mypatients eliminate all plant
(44:28):
material, all fruits, andbasically use pastured chicken,
wild fish, wild shellfish andfermented primarily sheep and
goat milk, as well as fermentedmeats like prosciutto, for
example, or a true fermentedsausage and the turnaround in
(44:51):
these people using that isreally nothing short of
remarkable, and I profile a fewof these people in the book.
Do I think that's a long-termstrategy?
No, I think this is anintensive care to get the gut
wall healed and then let'sreintroduce some of these actual
(45:13):
beneficial plant compounds.
I'm a confirmed plant predator,but you got to know who your
friends are and you got to knowwho doesn't like you very much,
but it's been remarkable.
Now why not put them on anall-beef diet?
We really don't have the timeto do that today.
(45:33):
Beef, lamb, pork andnon-fermented milk have a really
mischievous sugar moleculethat's called NU5GC, capital G.
We have a sugar molecule thatwe share with fish and poultry
called NU5AC, capital A.
(45:55):
The molecules are virtuallyidentical except for one
molecule of oxygen.
When we eat NU5GC containingfoods, our immune system makes
aggressive antibodies to it.
We hate it.
System makes aggressiveantibodies to it.
(46:16):
We hate it.
Our brain hates NU5GC.
And one of the things we'velearned now is that when you eat
NU5GC, it causes leaky gut, itactivates your immune system and
it causes leaky brain and itleaks into the brain and causes
neuroinflammation.
And it leaks into the brain andcauses neuroinflammation.
So that's why I specificallywent for poultry and seafood or
(46:40):
fermented beef or pork orfermented milk product, Because
the fermentation process eatsthe sugar molecule NU5GC, so
it's not there anymore.
And, fun fact, prosciutto,which obviously comes from pigs,
has no NU5GC because thebacterial fermentation has eaten
(47:00):
it.
Janet Walker (47:00):
Interesting Now the book indicates that people
should avoid foods that cause animmune system reaction, which
isn't the same as foods they'reallergic to Correct.
So should people have IgG andIgA antibody tests to know which
foods they're sensitive to and,if so, where do they go for
(47:21):
that kind of testing?
Steven Gundry MD (47:23):
Well, we do that in all my patients their
blood tests Quite franklythrough the years.
Because I've done so many, Idon't think people have to do it
and I've listed in the booksome of the biggest
troublemakers to save you thetime and effort.
And some of them surprise a lotof people, for instance.
(47:46):
For instance, almond flour is abig mischief maker for so many
of my patients.
White mushrooms are a bigmischief maker for so many of my
patients.
Shockingly, lemons are a bigmischief maker.
(48:07):
Peaches are notorious and Ireally agonized putting that
down because I went to medicalschool in Georgia and Georgia is
a peach state for obviousreasons, but it's amazing how
many people are sensitive topeaches.
Cinnamon ranks really high and,surprisingly, ginger ranks
(48:29):
really high.
So those are just a fewexamples.
Janet Walker (48:32):
So things people think are very healthy actually
are not.
Steven Gundry MD (48:36):
May not be so Correct.
Janet Walker (48:38):
So the diet protocols look like something
that are livable day to day andthere's a long list of safe
foods, and people might evenfind it fun to incorporate some
of the items that they're notfamiliar with, like chicory or
tempeh or quince, Althoughremoving certain categories like
gluten, corn and dairy fromcows could prove a challenge to
(49:02):
people.
But what about the specialoccasion?
Is a slice of birthday cake, aspecial holiday meal or trying a
new food on vacation?
Okay, the occasional cheat day?
Or will that undo all theirhard work up to that point?
Steven Gundry MD (49:18):
The answer is it depends.
You can.
I have some people who wantexposure to their mischief
makers will kind of undoeverything they did.
The good news is that's nottrue for most people.
Once you repair leaky gut, youcan.
(49:38):
I don't want to say get awaywith murder, because that's not
what you want to do, but I'vetalked about this and I've
written about about in previousbooks, and let me give you an
example.
We do autoimmune testing on allof our patients because most of
them have an autoimmune disease,and we decided years ago to do
(49:59):
it on ourselves.
And so when we first got backmy autoimmune testing, my
administrator came in and saidDoc, you have lupus.
I said I don't have lupus.
Anti-nuclear antibody is amarker for lupus.
He said I don't have lupus.
She said, yeah, you're positivefor anti-nuclear antibody.
(50:19):
And I go well, that's kind ofinteresting because my father's
side of the family, my aunt andmy father, had severe psoriasis.
My father was on methotrexateand immunosuppressant for 51
years and I said well, okay, Ido have a family history, for
this Family history has a littlepiece of it and I'm always
(50:44):
experimenting with food, sothat's my job.
So I said you know, I'm goingto be perfect.
I'm going to follow the yeslist, I'm not going to do any of
the no for three weeks and I'llretest my blood.
Sure enough, I was negative foranti-nuclear antibody Good.
So here's the best part.
(51:05):
A few years ago, I was finishingediting one of my bestsellers,
the Longevity Paradox, in NewYork City, and we were supposed
to finish on a Friday afternoon.
We didn't finish and I saidwhat the heck?
I'll stay the weekend and we'llfinish Monday and I'll fly home
.
So I had the whole weekend andmy wife wasn't with me.
I said you know, I wonder if Ican activate anti-nuclear
(51:30):
antibody, my lupus.
So I cheated, I had bread, Ihad pasta, I had sliced tomatoes
, I had beans, I probably hadbirthday cake.
And I came back and testedmyself.
Sure enough, I was positive.
Positive for, and it wasactually pretty high and I went,
(51:50):
wow, that's really cool,believe it or not?
I said, I wonder how long it'lltake me to turn it off.
So I said, okay, we're gonnadraw my blood once a week until
it's gone.
And you know, I'm gonna, I'mgonna be perfect.
One week later it's negative.
Wow.
So what does that teach me?
Number one I can produce leakygut by going whole hog cheating
(52:17):
for a weekend.
But the good news is mymicrobiome is pretty doggone
good shape.
My wall of my gut yeah, it gotopened up.
My immune system says, oh geez,here we go again.
But I sealed it very quickly.
And now do I want to cheat on aweekend and do that?
(52:41):
No, I don't, but most peoplecan't do that, and so it's like
a professional.
You see, the car commercials,professional driver on closed
doors Do not attempt this athome.
So maybe that's a good way tofinish this off.
I'm a professional driver in aclosed door.
Janet Walker (53:00):
Well, that's a hopeful story, though.
For people it's not too late.
Steven Gundry MD (53:05):
No, it's never too late.
Yeah, one of the things thatwas really exciting to me in
writing this book is theaddiction story, and the thing
that is hopeful is we know that.
You know addiction is at anall-time high and we have lots
(53:26):
of reasons.
We can thank drug companies, wecan thank social media or
whatever, but in the end, allthese treatment programs for
whatever addiction you choose,fail miserably.
The recidivism rate, thefailure rate is about 90% and
(53:49):
you know this is despiteintensive counseling and these
people often end up going backand back and back and, yeah,
they clean up their act and thenthey fall right back off.
And what the exciting part ofthe book is we now know that
there is an addictive microbiomethat they want you to get these
(54:15):
substances, not to actuallybenefit them, and they use
primarily pain, sometimesdopamine, as a way of getting
you to seek more of this out.
And the more pain they createby causing leaky gut, the more
(54:38):
of this substance you willingest or inject and the more
they will get.
And the good news is and thishas been shown in experimental
animals, it's been shown inhumans that you can break that
cycle and get this addictivemicrobiome out of you stories in
(55:06):
the book about people who havefinally overcome this addiction
by working with food and theirgut rather than and don't get me
wrong.
All the psychological help isappreciated, but I actually now
have a big center in LA whowants to work with me because
they realize that this is not uphere, it's coming from down
(55:30):
here.
Janet Walker (55:31):
Oh, that's wonderful.
Steven Gundry MD (55:32):
Yeah.
Janet Walker (55:33):
Well, thank you so much for joining us today, dr
Gundry.
It was really such an honor tohave you here, and I know that
on my next trip to the grocerystore I'm going to be armed with
my list to start on one of theoutlined dietary protocols in
the book.
So thank you again.
So so much Thanks for having me.
I hope we can talk to you againsometime when you come out with
(55:54):
your next book perhaps.
Steven Gundry MD (55:56):
Absolutely.
We're going to start working onit very shortly.
Great, I can't stop.
Janet Walker (56:02):
And it's a good thing for the public that you
can't.
Thank you again so much to DrSteven Gundry for being with us
today.
You can get your copy of theGut-Brain Paradox by visiting
his website at drgundrycom.
That's d-r-g-u-n-d-r-y dot comor wherever books are sold.
(56:26):
Thank you so much for listeningto the award-winning Better
Wellness Podcast.
I'm your host, janet Walker,filling in for Roland Perez.
Better Wellness is brought toyou by Cocoon Wellness, a new
way to support your natural-bornability to be well.
You can find us on ApplePodcasts, google Podcasts,
iheartradio, spotify or whereveryou get your podcasts.
(56:50):
Be well and thanks forlistening.
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