August 29, 2025 • 18 mins
I’ve personally struggled with insomnia for years, unable to sleep more than a few hours at a time, experiencing frequent awakenings, sometimes awakening at 3 or 4 in the morning and unable to get back to sleep. And I tried almost everything short of prescription sedatives: tryptophan, 5-HTP, megadose melatonin, GABA, theanine, the antihistamine diphenhydramine, self-hypnosis, YouTube videos that claim to help you sleep within minutes. The few that worked left me feeling drugged the next day and, if they did not work, I was often left irritable and fatigued.
All this changed when I began experimenting with microbiome strategies. It’s become clear that the gut microbiome plays a major role in determining the quality, length, and content of your sleep. An outsized role is played, however, by the phenomenon of endotoxemia, the entry of bacterial breakdown products into the bloodstream and that is the topic I’d like to focus on in this episode of the Defiant Health podcast. The experience is so preliminary that it has not yet been validated in clinical studies. But if the solution is as easy, inexpensive, and accessible as something that looks and smells like yogurt (it’s NOT yogurt, of course), then why not give it a try? You may be among the roughly 50% of people who experience dramatic improvements in the duration and quality of your sleep.
YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@WilliamDavisMD
Blog: WilliamDavisMD.com
Membership website for two-way Zoom group meetings: InnerCircle.DrDavisInfiniteHealth.com
Books:
Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
William Davis, MD (00:07):
I have personally struggled with
insomnia for years, unable tosleep more than a few hours at a
time, experiencing frequentawakenings, sometimes awakening
at 3 or 4 in the morning andunable to get back to sleep.
And I tried almost everythingshort of prescription sedatives,
tryptophan, 5-htp, megadose,melatonin, gaba, theanine, the
(00:31):
antihistamine diphenhydramine,self-hypnosis, youtube videos
that claim to help you sleepwithin minutes.
The few that worked left mefeeling drugged the next day,
and if they didn't work, I wasoften left irritable and
fatigued.
All this changed when I beganexperimenting with microbiome
strategies.
It's become clear that the gutmicrobiome plays a major role in
(00:56):
determining the quality, lengthand content of your sleep.
An outsized role is played,however, by the phenomenon of
endotoxemia, the entry ofbacterial breakdown products
into the bloodstream, and thatis the topic I'd like to discuss
on this episode of the DefiantHealth Podcast.
The experience is preliminaryin that it has not yet been
(01:19):
fully validated in clinicalstudies in clinical studies, but
if the solution is as easy,inexpensive and accessible as
something that looks and smellslike yogurt it's not yogurt, of
course then why not give it atry?
You may be among the roughly50% of people who experience
dramatic improvements in theduration and quality of your
(01:40):
sleep.
Over the last several years,we've learned a lot of new
lessons on the relationship ofthe gut microbiome and sleep.
We'll recall that, of course,sleep is a brain function that
determines whether you getsleepy at the appropriate time,
whether your brain will proceedthrough the expected four phases
(02:03):
of non-REM and REM sleep,whether you'll sleep a full
night or be interrupted byfrequent awakenings, whether
you'll wake at an inappropriatetime, like 3 am, and not be able
to fall back asleep and dreamcontent, of course, and so it's
clear that, while the brain isin the primary control of sleep
phases and sleep content andduration, it's the
(02:25):
gastrointestinal microbiome thathas a heavy and profound
influence over the brain and itscapacity to conduct sleep.
One of the lessons we'velearned, for instance and this
has never even been borne out inany human clinical study, we've
learned it by anecdote andexperience is that when we
ferment microbes likeLactobacillus roteri or
(02:45):
Lactobacillus casei the Shirotastrain that you can obtain as
the Yakult product, perhapsLactobacillus fermentum and
perhaps Bacillus subtilis theseare microbes that a lot of us
who are making these yogurts andusing my method of prolonged
fermentation typically 36 hoursat human body temperature we get
(03:06):
these huge counts of microbes,typically in the hundreds of
billions, and many of us not allof us, but many of us
experience deep, profound sleep.
Now, that was important for mepersonally, because for decades
I've been a chronic insomniac.
I think it was made worse bymedical education and training
where you were forced to stay upall night many times, sometimes
(03:27):
several times a week, or yoursleep came in fits and starts,
where you're allowed to sleepmaybe an hour or two and then
have to go back to the emergencyroom or back to the floors
resuscitate somebody.
That's what much of my life waslike, and while maybe I started
with some bad sleep habits tobegin with, it was made far
worse by 30 years of disruptedsleep in training and in
(03:51):
practice.
So I start this process withthe yogurt.
It's not yogurt, of courseright, it looks and smells like
yogurt.
It's a fermented dairy.
Product or other fermented foodDoesn't have to be dairy, of
course.
Product or other fermented foodDoesn't have to be dairy, of
course.
But we consume it, and Ipersonally was converted from a
chronic insomniac, sleeping infits and starts, frequent
awakenings, having difficultysleeping more than a few hours,
(04:14):
to long, deep sleep, often sevenand a half, eight hours, filled
with vivid dreams.
Now a lot of us I have not donethis, but a lot of my followers
have they wear these so-calledactigraphic devices.
These are things like the AuraRing or Fitbit or Apple Watch
(04:34):
that record sleep phases.
Now they're indirectmeasurements of sleep phases.
In other words, the truemeasurement of sleep phases
requires multiple EEG electrodeson the brain, right on the head
, and that's how you identifyall the various phases of sleep.
These actigraphic devices wornon the wrist or finger right,
(04:57):
like the ring, don't directlymeasure EEG phases of sleep.
They measure it indirectlyusing algorithms that
incorporate indirect measureslike heart rate, changes in
heart rate variation, heart ratevariability, respiratory
patterns, movement, temperature,and they extrapolate to EEG
(05:19):
sleep phases.
Now I've asked some of thesecompanies for their algorithms.
They won't share them becausethey're proprietary, but the
existing evidence suggests that,even though they're indirect,
these actigraphic devices ingeneral it's hard to speak for
each and every device becausethe algorithms used are
different 80 to 90 percentaccurate, that is.
(05:49):
If you compare duration ofsleep phases using one of these
actigraphic devices against aformal EEG test, you see about
80 to 90 percent correspondence.
So they're pretty good and oneof the things that my followers
have been telling me when theyrestore these microbes, but
especially lactobacillus roteri,is a lengthening of REM sleep,
often on the order of about 25%,which is really interesting.
(06:09):
I'd like to see that formallydocumented.
I don't know if we have thefunding or time to do that form
of clinical study, but if true,it potentially means extended
REM, means better mental health.
It means better, deeper sleep,more restorative sleep, because
it's REM where a lot ofconsolidative memory, a lot of
other psychologicallyadvantageous phenomena occur.
(06:31):
So it could potentially be areally interesting thing to
formally document.
But in the meantime you don'thave to have it formally
documented.
You can measure it yourself oryou can just enjoy the benefits
of having better sleep.
That may include extended REMperiods.
But all that said, one of thegreat lessons to learn about
(06:54):
sleep is the influence, theoutsized and important and
profound influence ofendotoxemia.
Now, if you've been followingmy conversations, you recognize
what that means, but if you'venot, if you're new to this
conversation, I invite you toreview my many other YouTube
channel videos or my DefiantHealth podcast and my thousands
(07:14):
of blog posts on mywilliamdavismdcom blog or, of
course, my books, most recentlythe Super Gut book.
So endotoxemia is a situationwhere Bacterial byproducts break
down and are released into theintestines and then absorbed
into the bloodstream.
So the primary toxic compoundreleased is endotoxin,
(07:38):
lipopolysaccharide, endotoxin.
This is a component of the cellwalls of mostly fecal microbes,
proteobacteria.
These are species that maysound familiar, like E coli and
salmonella, campylobacter,pseudomonas, also causes of
infections, but they residethey're supposed to reside in
(08:01):
your colon where they can behappy and quiet and don't bother
you until something happenslike you take an antibiotic and
an antibiotic kills off numerousbeneficial or we say commensal
species that were keeping thosefecal proteobacteria at bay,
keeping them suppressed andpresent at limited numbers.
(08:23):
When you lose those suppressive, beneficial bacteria, those
fecal microbes over-proliferateand, even more remarkably, come
to ascend into 24 feet of smallintestine.
The small intestine is verypoorly equipped to deal with a
flood of fecal microbial species.
They are themselvesinflammatory.
(08:45):
They inflame the smallintestinal wall.
Small intestine is permeable tobegin with because that's where
you're supposed to absorb allthe nutrients from your diet,
like amino acids and fatty acids, vitamins and minerals.
So the already permeable smallintestine is made more permeable
by the release of theseendotoxins and the presence of
(09:08):
these fecal microbes in thesmall intestine.
That means you have an opendoor to the release of those
endotoxins, thelipopolysaccharide endotoxin,
and you have a flood oflipopolysaccharide endotoxin
entering the bloodstream, firstinto the portal venous
circulation that drains to theliver and then into the systemic
(09:29):
circulation where they obtainaccess to your brain and thereby
can exert effects on sleep.
So there is emerging evidenceto tell us that people who have
colonic dysbiosis, disruptedmicrobiome composition confined
to the colon, but even more soSIBO, small intestinal bacterial
(09:50):
overgrowth where those fecalmicrobes have invaded and
colonized the small intestine,very permeable small intestine.
That flood of endotoxemia hasmajor effects on sleep,
disrupting sleep, causinginsomnia, causing fragmented
sleep, causing early awakenings,abbreviating sleep, making you
(10:12):
restless.
So endotoxemia a major player.
Another factor is the vagusnerve.
So when you have colonicdysbiosis, and more so with SIBO
, you also send disorderedsignals via the vagus nerve.
Now this is combined if youlost lactobacillus reuteri, for
instance, a major player invagal signaling to the brain,
(10:35):
made worse now by endotoxin andSIBO, we send disordered signals
to the vagus nerve.
That also adds to sleepdisruption Because it's the
vagus nerve that's responsiblefor the parasympathetic or
relaxation response If you havefactors like SIBO and
endotoxemia and loss of rotarycausing a reduction in the
(10:58):
relaxation response mediated bythe vagal nerve and an
activation of the sympatheticfight or flight response.
That is also disruptive oversleep.
You know we see this play outin many situations that is also
disruptive over sleep.
We see this play out in manysituations that is disrupted
gastrointestinal microbiome,colon, small intestine,
endotoxemia, loss of keystonemicrobes that mediate vagal
(11:20):
nerve tone.
We see this in people, forinstance, with irritable bowel
syndrome.
Even though it's an issue thatis unique to the bowels, it
frequently is associated withmajor sleep disruption.
Likewise, fibromyalgia, muscleaches, joint aches and pains.
We also know that people withfibromyalgia also have a high
(11:43):
level of endotoxemia anddisrupted sleep.
There's one very interestingstudy performed by Dr Mark
Pimentel at UCLA in Los Angeles.
He's done a lot of the basicwork on SIBO very good work and
he showed in one study, forinstance, that people with IBS
irritable bowel syndrome who aretested for the presence of SIBO
(12:03):
using hydrogen gas detection asa mapping device, he showed
that 84% in his study of peoplewith irritable bowel syndrome
test positive for SIBO.
Even more remarkably, in thepeople who had fibromyalgia,
100% tested positive for SIBOand tested positive to a severe
(12:24):
degree.
And all these people havedisruptions of sleep.
We also know that a lot ofdepression is driven by
endotoxemia.
There are some very interestingstudies being generated, mostly
out of Germany, where they'vetaken very oddly they've taken
lipopolysaccharide endotoxinpurified and isolated from
bacteria and then injected itinto normal non-depressed
(12:48):
volunteers.
Which is kind of iffy becauseif you miscalculate even by a
little bit we're talking aboutmillions of a gram kind of
dosing If you miscalculate by alittle bit, you actually hurt
somebody really bad, maybe evenkill them.
Nonetheless, this study hasbeen done several times where
they inject normal non-depressedpeople with lipopolysaccharide
(13:10):
endotoxin to mimic the situationof endotoxemia that occurs with
SIBO and colonic dysbiosis andthese normal non-depressed
people become depressed,clinically depressed, within
about three hours.
Mri scans of the brain show allthe hallmarks of depression.
So the science is evolving butpointing towards this idea that
(13:32):
a disrupted gastrointestinalmicrobiome, but specifically
SIBO and endotoxemia, can bemajor drivers not just of
fibromyalgia or irritable bowelsyndrome or other conditions,
but also insomnia, other formsof sleep disruption.
You can appreciate that.
Giving you a sedative ortelling you to do things like
(13:55):
count sheep or take deep breaths, that may be helpful.
But if you don't address thegastrointestinal microbiome,
especially seabone endotoxemia,you're destined to have only
limited success.
In other words, you can do allthose things, you can use all
those sleep aids, even takemelatonin or other sleep aids,
(14:16):
but if you don't address thedisrupted gastrointestinal
microbiome, not only will youhave only partial success at
best, if any success at all, inmanaging sleep, but you're going
to have other health problems.
For instance, the consequence,the long-term consequences of
unaddressed, uncorrected SIBOcan include weight gain,
(14:39):
abdominal fat expansion, higherblood sugars, type 2 diabetes,
hypertension, depression,anxiety, cognitive impairment,
depression, anxiety, cognitiveimpairment, parkinson's disease,
rosacea, psoriasis, go way downthe line, almost all the modern
common chronic diseases ofhumans.
(15:05):
No-transcript process.
So we address the microbiome.
How do we do that?
Well, my way of doing it is torestore some of the lost
microbes, but specificallymicrobes that we know colonize
both the small intestine and thecolon, because that's where all
this occurs, right, both smallintestine and colon and choose
(15:27):
microbes that producebacteriocins, natural peptide
antibiotics effective in killingthose fecal microbes, as well
as some of the other species ofSIBO and colonic dysbiosis.
That are species likeStaphylococcus, streptococcus,
enterococcus.
So we're going to choosemicrobes that colonize the small
(15:48):
intestine, produce bacteriocinsand also are able to survive
the rigors, the demands, thetoxicity of stomach acid and
bile acid.
So I choose three.
I choose a strain oflactobacillus roteri, a strain
of lactobacillus gasseri, and mymost recent recipe has
substituted bacillus coagulansfor bacillus subtilis only
(16:11):
because we found that thecoagulans was not that reliable
in generating high numbers.
We want high numbers toovercome the invading fecal
microbes, so I switched out thebacillus coagulans Still a very
interesting microbe, by the wayfor other reasons, for bacillus
subtilis.
Subtilis is easy to ferment.
You can ferment it in sure.
It's 24 hours rather than 36hours.
(16:32):
You can also ferment a littlelower temperature, like 90 to 95
degrees fahrenheit, and it'salso a great producer of
bactericins.
It's a huge producer ofbactericins.
Put all those three together.
I call it SIBO yogurt.
It's not yogurt, of course, hasnothing to do with the stuff in
the store, it's completelydifferent.
It just happens to look andsmell like yogurt and the
(16:53):
process of making it is similarNot identical, but similar.
We're going to use prolongedfermentation.
Lactobacillus roteri, forinstance, doubles every three
hours at human body temperature.
So we're going to ferment itfor 36 hours.
12 doublings at human bodytemperature hours, 12 doublings
at human body temperature,around 100 degrees Fahrenheit,
37 degrees Celsius, and if weferment Roteri.
(17:17):
By itself we get something like300 billion microbes per half
cup or 120 milliliters serving.
You have a choice Ferment eachmicrobe individually.
That's how you get the biggestnumbers of all.
And if you really want a wallopof an effect, that's how you do
it.
Or you can co-ferment all three.
You won't get as high a number,so it's not quite as potent,
but it still has worked for manypeople Probably want to start
from scratch every severalbatches only because one thing
(17:38):
we don't know is when youco-ferment those three microbes,
what's the relative shift innumbers over time as you make
subsequent batches?
So if you get to I don't knowfifth batch or so, start from
scratch.
We have not yet performed theDNA sequencing required to tell
us what's the composition, say,at the fifth batch, what
(18:01):
percentage is rotary, whatpercentage is gas right?
What percentage is bacillussubtilis?
We don't know.
Someday down the road we'll dothat, but right now, because we
don't know, start from scratch.
Another way to do this is tomake your first batch with all
three co-ferment and reservesome of that first batch and
make subsequent batches, notfrom some of a prior batch but
(18:24):
from the original batch.
That way you more or lesspreserve the third, third, third
that we presume to be thecomposition of the SIBO yogurt.
But no, you have anexceptionally wonderful,
accessible thing you can do.
You can make in the comfort ofyour kitchen, easily, safely,
inexpensively.
That has the potential to pushback all those sources of
(18:49):
endotoxemia, as well asrestoring some of the microbes
that may contribute to sleep.
I have personally struggled with
insomnia for years, unable tosleep more than a few hours at a
time, experiencing frequentawakenings, sometimes awakening
at 3 or 4 in the morning andunable to get back to sleep.
And I tried almost everythingshort of prescription sedatives,
tryptophan, 5-htp, megadose,melatonin, gaba, theanine, the
(00:31):
antihistamine diphenhydramine,self-hypnosis, youtube videos
that claim to help you sleepwithin minutes.
The few that worked left mefeeling drugged the next day,
and if they didn't work, I wasoften left irritable and
fatigued.
All this changed when I beganexperimenting with microbiome
strategies.
It's become clear that the gutmicrobiome plays a major role in
(00:56):
determining the quality, lengthand content of your sleep.
An outsized role is played,however, by the phenomenon of
endotoxemia, the entry ofbacterial breakdown products
into the bloodstream, and thatis the topic I'd like to discuss
on this episode of the DefiantHealth Podcast.
The experience is preliminaryin that it has not yet been
(01:19):
fully validated in clinicalstudies in clinical studies, but
if the solution is as easy,inexpensive and accessible as
something that looks and smellslike yogurt it's not yogurt, of
course then why not give it atry?
You may be among the roughly50% of people who experience
dramatic improvements in theduration and quality of your
(01:40):
sleep.
Over the last several years,we've learned a lot of new
lessons on the relationship ofthe gut microbiome and sleep.
We'll recall that, of course,sleep is a brain function that
determines whether you getsleepy at the appropriate time,
whether your brain will proceedthrough the expected four phases
(02:03):
of non-REM and REM sleep,whether you'll sleep a full
night or be interrupted byfrequent awakenings, whether
you'll wake at an inappropriatetime, like 3 am, and not be able
to fall back asleep and dreamcontent, of course, and so it's
clear that, while the brain isin the primary control of sleep
phases and sleep content andduration, it's the
(02:25):
gastrointestinal microbiome thathas a heavy and profound
influence over the brain and itscapacity to conduct sleep.
One of the lessons we'velearned, for instance and this
has never even been borne out inany human clinical study, we've
learned it by anecdote andexperience is that when we
ferment microbes likeLactobacillus roteri or
(02:45):
Lactobacillus casei the Shirotastrain that you can obtain as
the Yakult product, perhapsLactobacillus fermentum and
perhaps Bacillus subtilis theseare microbes that a lot of us
who are making these yogurts andusing my method of prolonged
fermentation typically 36 hoursat human body temperature we get
(03:06):
these huge counts of microbes,typically in the hundreds of
billions, and many of us not allof us, but many of us
experience deep, profound sleep.
Now, that was important for mepersonally, because for decades
I've been a chronic insomniac.
I think it was made worse bymedical education and training
where you were forced to stay upall night many times, sometimes
(03:27):
several times a week, or yoursleep came in fits and starts,
where you're allowed to sleepmaybe an hour or two and then
have to go back to the emergencyroom or back to the floors
resuscitate somebody.
That's what much of my life waslike, and while maybe I started
with some bad sleep habits tobegin with, it was made far
worse by 30 years of disruptedsleep in training and in
(03:51):
practice.
So I start this process withthe yogurt.
It's not yogurt, of courseright, it looks and smells like
yogurt.
It's a fermented dairy.
Product or other fermented foodDoesn't have to be dairy, of
course.
Product or other fermented foodDoesn't have to be dairy, of
course.
But we consume it, and Ipersonally was converted from a
chronic insomniac, sleeping infits and starts, frequent
awakenings, having difficultysleeping more than a few hours,
(04:14):
to long, deep sleep, often sevenand a half, eight hours, filled
with vivid dreams.
Now a lot of us I have not donethis, but a lot of my followers
have they wear these so-calledactigraphic devices.
These are things like the AuraRing or Fitbit or Apple Watch
(04:34):
that record sleep phases.
Now they're indirectmeasurements of sleep phases.
In other words, the truemeasurement of sleep phases
requires multiple EEG electrodeson the brain, right on the head
, and that's how you identifyall the various phases of sleep.
These actigraphic devices wornon the wrist or finger right,
(04:57):
like the ring, don't directlymeasure EEG phases of sleep.
They measure it indirectlyusing algorithms that
incorporate indirect measureslike heart rate, changes in
heart rate variation, heart ratevariability, respiratory
patterns, movement, temperature,and they extrapolate to EEG
(05:19):
sleep phases.
Now I've asked some of thesecompanies for their algorithms.
They won't share them becausethey're proprietary, but the
existing evidence suggests that,even though they're indirect,
these actigraphic devices ingeneral it's hard to speak for
each and every device becausethe algorithms used are
different 80 to 90 percentaccurate, that is.
(05:49):
If you compare duration ofsleep phases using one of these
actigraphic devices against aformal EEG test, you see about
80 to 90 percent correspondence.
So they're pretty good and oneof the things that my followers
have been telling me when theyrestore these microbes, but
especially lactobacillus roteri,is a lengthening of REM sleep,
often on the order of about 25%,which is really interesting.
(06:09):
I'd like to see that formallydocumented.
I don't know if we have thefunding or time to do that form
of clinical study, but if true,it potentially means extended
REM, means better mental health.
It means better, deeper sleep,more restorative sleep, because
it's REM where a lot ofconsolidative memory, a lot of
other psychologicallyadvantageous phenomena occur.
(06:31):
So it could potentially be areally interesting thing to
formally document.
But in the meantime you don'thave to have it formally
documented.
You can measure it yourself oryou can just enjoy the benefits
of having better sleep.
That may include extended REMperiods.
But all that said, one of thegreat lessons to learn about
(06:54):
sleep is the influence, theoutsized and important and
profound influence ofendotoxemia.
Now, if you've been followingmy conversations, you recognize
what that means, but if you'venot, if you're new to this
conversation, I invite you toreview my many other YouTube
channel videos or my DefiantHealth podcast and my thousands
(07:14):
of blog posts on mywilliamdavismdcom blog or, of
course, my books, most recentlythe Super Gut book.
So endotoxemia is a situationwhere Bacterial byproducts break
down and are released into theintestines and then absorbed
into the bloodstream.
So the primary toxic compoundreleased is endotoxin,
(07:38):
lipopolysaccharide, endotoxin.
This is a component of the cellwalls of mostly fecal microbes,
proteobacteria.
These are species that maysound familiar, like E coli and
salmonella, campylobacter,pseudomonas, also causes of
infections, but they residethey're supposed to reside in
(08:01):
your colon where they can behappy and quiet and don't bother
you until something happenslike you take an antibiotic and
an antibiotic kills off numerousbeneficial or we say commensal
species that were keeping thosefecal proteobacteria at bay,
keeping them suppressed andpresent at limited numbers.
(08:23):
When you lose those suppressive, beneficial bacteria, those
fecal microbes over-proliferateand, even more remarkably, come
to ascend into 24 feet of smallintestine.
The small intestine is verypoorly equipped to deal with a
flood of fecal microbial species.
They are themselvesinflammatory.
(08:45):
They inflame the smallintestinal wall.
Small intestine is permeable tobegin with because that's where
you're supposed to absorb allthe nutrients from your diet,
like amino acids and fatty acids, vitamins and minerals.
So the already permeable smallintestine is made more permeable
by the release of theseendotoxins and the presence of
(09:08):
these fecal microbes in thesmall intestine.
That means you have an opendoor to the release of those
endotoxins, thelipopolysaccharide endotoxin,
and you have a flood oflipopolysaccharide endotoxin
entering the bloodstream, firstinto the portal venous
circulation that drains to theliver and then into the systemic
(09:29):
circulation where they obtainaccess to your brain and thereby
can exert effects on sleep.
So there is emerging evidenceto tell us that people who have
colonic dysbiosis, disruptedmicrobiome composition confined
to the colon, but even more soSIBO, small intestinal bacterial
(09:50):
overgrowth where those fecalmicrobes have invaded and
colonized the small intestine,very permeable small intestine.
That flood of endotoxemia hasmajor effects on sleep,
disrupting sleep, causinginsomnia, causing fragmented
sleep, causing early awakenings,abbreviating sleep, making you
(10:12):
restless.
So endotoxemia a major player.
Another factor is the vagusnerve.
So when you have colonicdysbiosis, and more so with SIBO
, you also send disorderedsignals via the vagus nerve.
Now this is combined if youlost lactobacillus reuteri, for
instance, a major player invagal signaling to the brain,
(10:35):
made worse now by endotoxin andSIBO, we send disordered signals
to the vagus nerve.
That also adds to sleepdisruption Because it's the
vagus nerve that's responsiblefor the parasympathetic or
relaxation response If you havefactors like SIBO and
endotoxemia and loss of rotarycausing a reduction in the
(10:58):
relaxation response mediated bythe vagal nerve and an
activation of the sympatheticfight or flight response.
That is also disruptive oversleep.
You know we see this play outin many situations that is also
disruptive over sleep.
We see this play out in manysituations that is disrupted
gastrointestinal microbiome,colon, small intestine,
endotoxemia, loss of keystonemicrobes that mediate vagal
(11:20):
nerve tone.
We see this in people, forinstance, with irritable bowel
syndrome.
Even though it's an issue thatis unique to the bowels, it
frequently is associated withmajor sleep disruption.
Likewise, fibromyalgia, muscleaches, joint aches and pains.
We also know that people withfibromyalgia also have a high
(11:43):
level of endotoxemia anddisrupted sleep.
There's one very interestingstudy performed by Dr Mark
Pimentel at UCLA in Los Angeles.
He's done a lot of the basicwork on SIBO very good work and
he showed in one study, forinstance, that people with IBS
irritable bowel syndrome who aretested for the presence of SIBO
(12:03):
using hydrogen gas detection asa mapping device, he showed
that 84% in his study of peoplewith irritable bowel syndrome
test positive for SIBO.
Even more remarkably, in thepeople who had fibromyalgia,
100% tested positive for SIBOand tested positive to a severe
(12:24):
degree.
And all these people havedisruptions of sleep.
We also know that a lot ofdepression is driven by
endotoxemia.
There are some very interestingstudies being generated, mostly
out of Germany, where they'vetaken very oddly they've taken
lipopolysaccharide endotoxinpurified and isolated from
bacteria and then injected itinto normal non-depressed
(12:48):
volunteers.
Which is kind of iffy becauseif you miscalculate even by a
little bit we're talking aboutmillions of a gram kind of
dosing If you miscalculate by alittle bit, you actually hurt
somebody really bad, maybe evenkill them.
Nonetheless, this study hasbeen done several times where
they inject normal non-depressedpeople with lipopolysaccharide
(13:10):
endotoxin to mimic the situationof endotoxemia that occurs with
SIBO and colonic dysbiosis andthese normal non-depressed
people become depressed,clinically depressed, within
about three hours.
Mri scans of the brain show allthe hallmarks of depression.
So the science is evolving butpointing towards this idea that
(13:32):
a disrupted gastrointestinalmicrobiome, but specifically
SIBO and endotoxemia, can bemajor drivers not just of
fibromyalgia or irritable bowelsyndrome or other conditions,
but also insomnia, other formsof sleep disruption.
You can appreciate that.
Giving you a sedative ortelling you to do things like
(13:55):
count sheep or take deep breaths, that may be helpful.
But if you don't address thegastrointestinal microbiome,
especially seabone endotoxemia,you're destined to have only
limited success.
In other words, you can do allthose things, you can use all
those sleep aids, even takemelatonin or other sleep aids,
(14:16):
but if you don't address thedisrupted gastrointestinal
microbiome, not only will youhave only partial success at
best, if any success at all, inmanaging sleep, but you're going
to have other health problems.
For instance, the consequence,the long-term consequences of
unaddressed, uncorrected SIBOcan include weight gain,
(14:39):
abdominal fat expansion, higherblood sugars, type 2 diabetes,
hypertension, depression,anxiety, cognitive impairment,
depression, anxiety, cognitiveimpairment, parkinson's disease,
rosacea, psoriasis, go way downthe line, almost all the modern
common chronic diseases ofhumans.
(15:05):
No-transcript process.
So we address the microbiome.
How do we do that?
Well, my way of doing it is torestore some of the lost
microbes, but specificallymicrobes that we know colonize
both the small intestine and thecolon, because that's where all
this occurs, right, both smallintestine and colon and choose
(15:27):
microbes that producebacteriocins, natural peptide
antibiotics effective in killingthose fecal microbes, as well
as some of the other species ofSIBO and colonic dysbiosis.
That are species likeStaphylococcus, streptococcus,
enterococcus.
So we're going to choosemicrobes that colonize the small
(15:48):
intestine, produce bacteriocinsand also are able to survive
the rigors, the demands, thetoxicity of stomach acid and
bile acid.
So I choose three.
I choose a strain oflactobacillus roteri, a strain
of lactobacillus gasseri, and mymost recent recipe has
substituted bacillus coagulansfor bacillus subtilis only
(16:11):
because we found that thecoagulans was not that reliable
in generating high numbers.
We want high numbers toovercome the invading fecal
microbes, so I switched out thebacillus coagulans Still a very
interesting microbe, by the wayfor other reasons, for bacillus
subtilis.
Subtilis is easy to ferment.
You can ferment it in sure.
It's 24 hours rather than 36hours.
(16:32):
You can also ferment a littlelower temperature, like 90 to 95
degrees fahrenheit, and it'salso a great producer of
bactericins.
It's a huge producer ofbactericins.
Put all those three together.
I call it SIBO yogurt.
It's not yogurt, of course, hasnothing to do with the stuff in
the store, it's completelydifferent.
It just happens to look andsmell like yogurt and the
(16:53):
process of making it is similarNot identical, but similar.
We're going to use prolongedfermentation.
Lactobacillus roteri, forinstance, doubles every three
hours at human body temperature.
So we're going to ferment itfor 36 hours.
12 doublings at human bodytemperature hours, 12 doublings
at human body temperature,around 100 degrees Fahrenheit,
37 degrees Celsius, and if weferment Roteri.
(17:17):
By itself we get something like300 billion microbes per half
cup or 120 milliliters serving.
You have a choice Ferment eachmicrobe individually.
That's how you get the biggestnumbers of all.
And if you really want a wallopof an effect, that's how you do
it.
Or you can co-ferment all three.
You won't get as high a number,so it's not quite as potent,
but it still has worked for manypeople Probably want to start
from scratch every severalbatches only because one thing
(17:38):
we don't know is when youco-ferment those three microbes,
what's the relative shift innumbers over time as you make
subsequent batches?
So if you get to I don't knowfifth batch or so, start from
scratch.
We have not yet performed theDNA sequencing required to tell
us what's the composition, say,at the fifth batch, what
(18:01):
percentage is rotary, whatpercentage is gas right?
What percentage is bacillussubtilis?
We don't know.
Someday down the road we'll dothat, but right now, because we
don't know, start from scratch.
Another way to do this is tomake your first batch with all
three co-ferment and reservesome of that first batch and
make subsequent batches, notfrom some of a prior batch but
(18:24):
from the original batch.
That way you more or lesspreserve the third, third, third
that we presume to be thecomposition of the SIBO yogurt.
But no, you have anexceptionally wonderful,
accessible thing you can do.
You can make in the comfort ofyour kitchen, easily, safely,
inexpensively.
That has the potential to pushback all those sources of
(18:49):
endotoxemia, as well asrestoring some of the microbes
that may contribute to sleep.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.