Gut health has become front and center in the health community in recent years. For so long, we simply thought of the gut as our digestive system, but science is now finding that it is SO much more...
In fact gut health is linked to just about every other aspect of our health - from our immune system, to our brain and mental health, and even our oral health!
Gut issues have been implicated in everything from heart problems, to auto-immune diseases, to periodontal disease, and even addiction, depression, and other mental health disorders. With all of these implications, doesn't it make sense that we should do everything we can to improve our gut health?
Yet despite the attention that the gut (and it's accompanying microorganisms) has received recently, few people truly understand how to actually improve their overall gut health and support the all-important microbiome.
In this episode of The Doctor's Farmacy, Dr. Mark Hyman interviews Dr. Emeran Mayer, author of The Gut-Immune Connection and The Mind-Gut Connection, and founding director of the UCLA Brain Gut Microbiome Center, about how to nurture the microbiome to support your gut and overall health, and fight the modern epidemic of chronic disease.
In fact gut health is linked to just about every other aspect of our health - from our immune system, to our brain and mental health, and even our oral health!
Gut issues have been implicated in everything from heart problems, to auto-immune diseases, to periodontal disease, and even addiction, depression, and other mental health disorders. With all of these implications, doesn't it make sense that we should do everything we can to improve our gut health?
Yet despite the attention that the gut (and it's accompanying microorganisms) has received recently, few people truly understand how to actually improve their overall gut health and support the all-important microbiome.
In this episode of The Doctor's Farmacy, Dr. Mark Hyman interviews Dr. Emeran Mayer, author of The Gut-Immune Connection and The Mind-Gut Connection, and founding director of the UCLA Brain Gut Microbiome Center, about how to nurture the microbiome to support your gut and overall health, and fight the modern epidemic of chronic disease.
The health of the gut all comes down to the trillions of tiny microorganisms that live within us all. These little "bugs" make up what has come to be called our "microbiome." The efficiency and function of the gut is entirely dependent upon the balance of bacteria that make up this collection of microbes - and whether these microbes are predominately "good" (helpful to our bodily processes) or "bad" (unhelpful or even harmful).
To complicate matters further, some of these bacteria may be "good" in certain quantities, but act harmfully if not properly balanced by other microbes. For example Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), which has long been blamed for the occurrence of stomach ulcers, is harmless when present in smaller numbers, and some doctors speculate, may actually have a useful function within the digestive system when balanced by other specific types of microbes.
Unfortunately, bacterial imbalance in the gut is increasingly common. Industrial farming practices (including the use of pesticides and antibiotics on our foods), stress, pharmaceutical drugs, consumption of processed foods, and other factors can all impact the health of your gut bacteria, leading to imbalances in your beneficial bacteria, and the overgrowth of harmful competitors.
This eye-opening interview discusses how we got to where we are today, and what we can do to support our healthy gut flora and balance our microbiome. Check it out below! (You can also listen to the podcast here.)
To complicate matters further, some of these bacteria may be "good" in certain quantities, but act harmfully if not properly balanced by other microbes. For example Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), which has long been blamed for the occurrence of stomach ulcers, is harmless when present in smaller numbers, and some doctors speculate, may actually have a useful function within the digestive system when balanced by other specific types of microbes.
Unfortunately, bacterial imbalance in the gut is increasingly common. Industrial farming practices (including the use of pesticides and antibiotics on our foods), stress, pharmaceutical drugs, consumption of processed foods, and other factors can all impact the health of your gut bacteria, leading to imbalances in your beneficial bacteria, and the overgrowth of harmful competitors.
This eye-opening interview discusses how we got to where we are today, and what we can do to support our healthy gut flora and balance our microbiome. Check it out below! (You can also listen to the podcast here.)
Here's what you'll learn in this episode:
Understanding these important connections - not just within our bodies, but also between our bodies and the natural world and environment around us - I believe is key to our long-term health - not just as individuals, but also as a species.
Learning how to heal and nurture our microbiome is one of the most important ways to start honoring and preserving these connections within ourselves and the world around us.
To your health,
Rose.
- The most common denominator in the chronic disease epidemic (2:47)
- How Dr. Mayer came to take a systems approach to medicine (5:50)
- Rethinking disease through our evolving understanding of the gut microbiome (11:18)
- Metabolites produced in our gut influence our health, for better and worse (19:39)
- Our thoughts, feelings, emotions and stress affect our gut microbiome and full-body health, and vice versa
(25:01) - What will it take for conventional medicine to adopt a systems approach in patient treatment? (28:18)
- Treating neurodegenerative and cognitive issues through diet and lifestyle (35:57)
- Eating to support the gut microbiome and inequities in access to foods that strengthen microbiome health
(40:15) - Our gut microbiome interactions in our bodies mimic the soil microbiome’s relationship to plant root systems (49:19)
- How industrial agriculture has reduced the nutritional value of our food by damaging the soil (52:04)
Understanding these important connections - not just within our bodies, but also between our bodies and the natural world and environment around us - I believe is key to our long-term health - not just as individuals, but also as a species.
Learning how to heal and nurture our microbiome is one of the most important ways to start honoring and preserving these connections within ourselves and the world around us.
To your health,
Rose.
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