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The Dr. Gabrielle Lyon Show
Food, Memory & Metabolomics: How Your Diet—Starting in Childhood—Shapes Your Brain | Dr. Alexis Wood
01:10:48
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- [00:00]
A
Alzheimer's doesn't start with memory loss. It starts silently, decades earlier in places you'd never expect. Today's guest might completely change how you think about your brain, your food, and your future. Dr. Alexis Wood is a leading researcher at Baylor College of Medicine. She studies how your genetics and your diet interact to shape your brain from the moment you're born to the. To the moment it starts to fade. We're diving into some big questions today. What is it that we know about childhood nutrition? Can we affect ADHD just by nutrition alone? What role does the current science information landscape have to tell us about how we can feed our children? This conversation doesn't just focus on what's going wrong. It's about what you can do to protect yourself and your loved ones.
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B
What.
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A
What to eat, what to look for and how to fight back. Because the earlier you understand this, the better the chance you have of changing your brain's future. And it starts with changing our children's present. Where are we in the landscape of childhood nutrition and genetics? I want to really hear and focus in on the research that you're doing and the questions that you're asking.
- [01:25]
B
Okay. So I think we have basically nothing in children, in child nutrition and genetics at all, bringing those together. I would say that even in child nutrition, it has been overlooked, in fact, the history. So you know, every five years, as you well know, the USDA can't wait.
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A
For some major changes.
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B
Right? You're lost.
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A
Just still waiting.
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B
Sure. Talked about it.
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A
Still waiting.
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B
Produces the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which changes slightly each iteration, how the purpose is stated, but it's essentially how to make dietary choices that will keep you healthy or reduce your risk of chronic disease. And it was only in the last.
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A
Iteration they included advice, I know, for.
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B
Two to three year olds. And if you read it, I understand. No one wants to read. Right in the weeds. They're very honest, very transparent, and they spell it out. We had no research on foods and their effects on cognitive and social health. You know, anthropometrics, fat, height, weight. We've got. I mean, we need more, but we're there. This piece, we had nothing. So we're sort of inferring from other populations, older kids, and we don't even have great things there. So it's really a black hole. I feel for children, and I feel confident saying that because when I speak to people at the usda, they agree. They're very excited by the idea of creating a cohort of children that we can study the effects of diet on more Social, cognitive, developmental outcomes. So that's a black hole. And we're doing everything from what we know in adults. And I think we actually know a lot in the science field as adults. But now as scientists were up against the wider world and how people interpret it, what they choose to make into a news story and so on, and that's bringing a lot of issues to our door. That feels a bit like a step back.
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A
Do you think that it's always been that way. And when I say always been that way, meaning issues to your door, because there is more information out there than ever before. I think we are all struggling with what to trust, what not to trust, who to trust, how to understand the science, and then also children. Again, there is nothing, I mean even for protein recommendations, we don't really know for kids, we don't biopsy kids. How do you see your work helping and what is it that you're working on now specifically?
- [04:01]
B
I've started a study, so we won't be analyzing the data, we won't be drawing conclusions, but we are looking at establishing a longitudinal cohort of children from 12 months, assessing their diet, taking blood samples to look at both biomarkers of dietary day. Because it's so hard to assess diet in everyone, children add another layer, right?
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A
You mean they don't listen and they're not going to do food frequency.
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B
They're also not going to tell you what they're eating. And parents may not be with their child all the time. They, they may be divorced, they may have daycare, they may go to a friend's house. So capturing is challenging. So we're looking at some biomarkers in the blood, but we also want to use the blood to try to capture when that food is being digested and processed and absorbed, how does it change the body Then we take those changes and say, can we look at what those might do for health now and long term?
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A
That's fascinating. Are you able to share any of the biomarkers or meaningful metabolites? No.
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B
So we haven't done anything in kids yet. We did find that red meat was associated with an anti inflammatory metabolite. Most of that actually was. This was in adults, was actually confounded by the association at a population level of eating red meat and high bmi. Which is not to say that eating red meat leads to the high bmi, it's just they are conflated. And we did find an unknown molecule associated with avocado intake too.
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A
Oh really?
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B
And we track the effects of those molecules on health outcomes. Which is really interesting.
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A
Where do you think the landscape is right now for kids? So the information. Yeah, the information that, you know, I know that you feel very passionately about childhood nutrition and brain function. I'm assuming all of these things.
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B
Yes. So scientifically, I think it's an emerging field. Okay. I think for parents, I don't think they know that. I think a lot of. Even scientists were shocked to, like, when the USDA produced their guidelines. They pull a lot of experts together to do the literature review. And I've heard anecdotally from people in the room that people were like, I didn't have any studies. You didn't have. What do you mean? They're out. Go get them. Go find them. Yeah, they're not there. So that was very surprising to scientists. They'd be even more shocking to parents. Right. And caregivers of children in terms of the landscape. I think the good thing is we have a lot of parents now. At least I meet and I think I see out there that are very interested in the importance of nutrition for children that believe it has health effects and it can help them now and help their developmental trajectory. And that is a wonderful place to start because I feel like from the point of view of chronic disease, 30 years ago, I'm drawing a random decade. It was an uphill battle to persuade people and even some clinicians that what you eat could affect your diabetes risk and so on.
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A
I totally agree with that.
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B
So we're starting from a better place. I think the flip side is it's overwhelming and confusing.
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A
I couldn't agree with you more, and probably more so now than ever with the increase in TikTok and media and the damage that can potentially do, which I think is really profound. You studied adhd, right? Hyperactivity disorder. Are we seeing more of that now? And do you think that there is a genetic versus an environmental influence?
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B
We are seeing more numbers of diagnosed cases. I find it hard to believe we are seeing a change in the children's presentation of the behavior. I do believe it's very possible that as expectations. As school landscapes change, school expectations, setups, classrooms, and so on, the behavioral response is one that is labeled attention deficit hyperactivity. And it's actually, to me, ADHD is. Is a diagnosis of certain behaviors, and then impairment is a key part. And if it's impairing. Yes, then. Then it's there. I'm not sort of super interested in a debate of is this real or not. So we are seeing more cases. It definitely has strong genetic elements I did a lot of heritability studies.
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A
Yeah, I know there's a. I think you worked also with twins.
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B
With twins we used monozygotic MZ and dizygotic DZ twins who have different amounts of genetic sharing but they each within a twin pair, the two share the same amount of their common environment, give or take. We were able to use just that information. So no actual genes or genetic variants to take traits and take the overlap between behaviors and say how much of this is genetic and environment. And ADHD came out as one of the most heritable traits. I think there's some mathematical issues in there, but it is heritable and I think it's also one of the childhood conditions. We have found the most robust evidence for which genes are playing into it tiny portion. But that makes me feel even more confident there's a genetic element.
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A
What about the nutrition aspect in terms of adhd? There's a lot of information out there that for example, as a parent listening and I've heard parents at my children's school say I don't want to, to let my child have, I don't know, Gatorade because of the red dye or various food additives. Have you heard those?
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B
I have heard those. I hear those. I'm lucky enough that people trust me to ask questions when I meet them in my daily life. Right. So that's super lucky. And I actually had someone text me and say hey, my kid has adhd. The medication is not working. My son has adhd. He also has lactose intolerance. And that parent had put those two together and said, is it. Do you have him off lactose? Because she knows when she's kind enough to bring treats into class. Sam's dairy free. Do you keep him off dairy because of his adhd? And I was like, no. That is actually a very separate issue. So I'm very aware of those. Feel strongly scientists are interested in that. They can see a mechanism for that, a rationale for thinking that. I've never known a study get very far with showing that. I think we have failed to find evidence that diet can significantly impact symptoms of adhd.
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- [11:56]
B
That being said, I don't want to take away. I do hear parents say, well, I took my child off this and they are doing fabulously. And I'm very respectful of that. And if you could do that and that works for you, I'm not gonna say that's wrong. I'm not gonna say you didn't get that right. I will say at a population level, if we wanted to shift that diagnostic percentage we're at, or we wanted to shift the classroom environment, we have failed to find evidence that changing diet will do that.
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Do you think that we've looked. Do you think that we have good enough clinical evidence? Have we been able to look at it in a meaningful way? Potentially, I think it's.
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No, I don't think we have. I think we've struggled to do it in adults. I think we have to. We have to also remember adults have been studied much, much longer. Much of the criticism about how we've devised our evidence was done on studies in adults. We also have to remember that ADHD is relatively new. An interest in children and understanding that what happens in childhood may impact outcomes is also relatively new.
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A
What do you mean, what happens in childhood?
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B
Well, I think there was a sort of sense of. I mean, obviously not among pediatricians and pediatric scientists, but childhood is sort of a discrete category. Right. And we didn't assess the diet. You know, they just need to eat healthily and grow and it'll be fine. And, you know, they're not getting diabetes, they're not getting heart disease. It's not so important. And in fact, in the uk, Kate Middleton picked this up as her interest and had a campaign for a focus on the early years and a focus on the importance of those which arose out of a concern that the country, as she saw it, was not focusing on those important years. So I think it's safe to say it has been overlooked. So there is a lot of potential to find things, find exciting things, really figure out how to help kids.
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A
When you're looking at nutrition in your lab and nutrition, genetics, what are some. So you had mentioned that you were working on the study now looking at metabolites in children. Yes. You will be. Are there certain diets that you believe or feel that there's enough evidence for that? We can say, okay, this is a good choice for kids.
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B
If you're prepared to make the leap that we can generalize from adults to children, which I think is reasonable, except that we don't study brain development in adults right at the end, we might just study the decline. So that is a, to me, huge. Okay. It's pretty consistent across the literature that a Mediterranean diet does well.
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A
And how would you define Mediterranean diet?
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Oh, my goodness. I'm gonna go back to my coding of how I code it. So we are going to say high in pulses and whole grains, high in low fat dairy, high in white meat, fish, fruits and vegetables, moderate in alcohol, which I don't think, sadly for me, is going to stick. That is not. That is, we've pretty much unpicked that. And I find it interesting that that never really made the headlines from the scientists or the media. I was like, I don't really like that. Yeah, I would not advise alcohol. I do drink alcohol. So fair play. I think that will go into the. No, no. Into added sugars and it's really whole foods, nothing crazy. Yeah, it seems it's, I think, the focus of the Mediterranean diet, which we do not assess well in our studies from the tools we use was the olive oil and the fats and the oils. And we have really not been able to look at that well, except in one intervention as a whole. I mean, there are some smaller randomized controlled trials. So under that caveat, I sort of look at it and I'm like, yeah. I mean, if I take someone with just sort of a little bit of interest and say, well, the best diet is high in fish and white meat and pulses and whole grains and fruits and vegetables, they'll be like, well, tell me something I don't know.
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Right?
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And I'm like, it might be that simple. It's very hard to do for multiple reasons, but that might be 90% of your variance in what nutrition can do for an adult across your lifespan. If you're not a bodybuilder or an athlete or facing a condition.
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A
You know, I think it's an interesting thought in terms of the Mediterranean diet, because I've seen different Mediterranean style diets and we know that in terms of, for example, iron deficiency in children, young adults, that certainly is of concern. And I know that the iron content and say white meat is a bit lower than red meat.
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B
And I really don't think any of our studies in which we can really draw these conclusions have got at a little bit of my soapbox the immense amount of privilege that goes into being able to choose a diet like that. To choose, yes, Obtain, consume and stop. I mean, all of that. It really bothers me sometimes when I, you know, talk to people and I see people feel like I'm failing my child because I can't do this. And I'm like, I mean, come on, you're not failing. There's multiple other things. You're doing an amazing job to be here asking these questions. And so the study I mentioned one of my second metabolomic study, really looking at the effects I got into because I said I have. It just doesn't make sense to me that we demonize red meat. And we continue to do it. We just continue to do it.
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It is such a privilege to have it right. Other countries.
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And also though for some people, some forms of unprocessed meat can be affordable, they're palatable, they don't. Everyone gets to. I didn't like my dinner, I get another one, you know.
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Yeah.
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And I'll tell you a story. I presented the findings. I went to the American Society of Nutrition two years ago and I presented the study and I said basically we didn't.
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A
What was the study?
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The study was to use just self reported red meat intake, divide it into unprocessed and processed red meat, quantify their intake, identify biomarkers in the blood that correlated with that and see what the health effects of those might be. And it was to look at whether red meat increased inflammation, which is a risk for cardiovascular disease.
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A
Is the metabolites link intake of a healthy diet. Is that the one to better insulate?
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No, that's the MILES one. It's a red meat metabolomic study of red meat untargeted metabolomic study of red meat intake, something like that. In American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2024.
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A
Okay.
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And essentially I went into it because I was like, this should be a pretty healthy food, like all things in moderation. Right. And I don't see the evidence we see in epidemiological studies playing out in controlled trials. Now, that might happen for various reasons. So let's take a look. Let's take a look. Sort of fascinating. Like, imagine eating like the way we assess it, we get some idea of the fat content and so on. Like fairly low fat, unprocessed protein and the rates, the amount people were consuming. These are slightly old data was not super high. We're not having seven steaks for breakfast. Imagine showing that really affect your health. I'd be surprised. Let's look into this. And we didn't find any association. We didn't never even go into analyses to say it was healthy. We just said we did not find this association with increased inflammation. And we can tell you why, because we did some extra. Other studies. Some studies might. And I presented it at the asm and I'm like. And it was a bloodbath. That is the only word I can use.
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A
Wow.
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B
The audience got so angry at me. Someone stood up and criticized it for being a cross sectional study, which is very fair. But all the other studies that session had been cross sectional. Someone else just settle this stuff and finish with, I'm gonna dedicate my career to proving you wrong. And I was like, this is very happy.
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A
Where does that come from?
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B
And I think that brought home to me the effect of misinformation, the bias and how it may not even when I'm day to day being a scientist, just be out there as like, okay, we should communicate more. We have a duty, we are funded by Texas to communicate more. But I do see my job as largely producing these results here. And so it's like, okay, the misinformation causing problems down the line. And I was like, wow. It's like, it's, it's around me, it's. It's pervasive. It was really shocking. But then what I was getting around to is the, the moderator actually helped me out and called it off and was like, we're gonna, we're just gonna end now and move on.
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A
And you were surprised?
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B
I was like, what? I am so unprepared. Like, I had no concept.
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A
And this is an academic meeting. This is asn.
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B
It is, Yeah. I mean, I can't. Not everyone is 100%.
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A
But for the most part, yes. You pay a lot of them going, it used to be experimental biology and ASN combined, right?
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It was, it was, yes. And so I had people come up after me and really thank me for sharing that various reasons. And one that stuck with me, sadly. I was getting in a cab for dinner so I couldn't talk to her. She said, I'm a dietitian and I have a lot of people come through my practice. The best recommendation I can give them for what they will do and what is achievable for them is to increase their red meat. And I'm not allowed to say it.
- [21:50]
A
I don't know about you, but I stopped breastfeeding a long time ago. And I'm not talking about my kids, I'm talking about me and Colostrum which is in the first of mother's milk. This is where good health starts. And that's why I've added Amra Colostrum to my diet and I use it in my iced coffee. It is a whole food supplement packed with 400 bioactive nutrients like prebiotics, peptides. These compounds are amazing. They support digestion, optimize performance, help with all kinds of things. And Amra uses a unique technology to preserve these nutrients in their purest form. So you know what you are getting is actually what is on the label. This is one of the finest products that I have seen. I also love that they are third party tested. You can trust it. And we've got a special offer for you. So if you are struggling with, with your gut health or you want something extra and you don't want to breastfeed as an adult, get 15% off your first order@tryamra.com that's T R Y A R M R A.com DrLion and use the code dryne at checkout.
- [22:55]
B
And I need this research. Would it be my top food if I could pick any food? Not necessarily. Who knows but for these people they can do that and I can't. And so I can't remember how we got back round to like what do.
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A
We know or yeah, you know, foods that you think are valuable for people, what we actually know, what is the best diet for individuals and oh, you.
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Brought up the like white meat and the red meat. We have not because we've really demonized red meat.
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A
And again I, at the end of the day I don't care what people eat. I care that they're healthy. There's a million different ways to get there.
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B
Wait, but it's.
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A
If we are going to push in one direction and push a narrative that says go more plant based then we have to have science to back that up and we don't have that Right. And what I think that the science, if I felt comfortable saying what a recommendation would be that would be a diet of both fruits and vegetables. We are not Consuming enough fruits and vegetables, the RDA for protein is very low. We need more nutrient dense foods. The RDA is probably even the wrong number.
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B
Right.
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A
It's probably an irrelevant number. And unfortunately, because of media, we are confused as a country, as a world. And so that's why I think it's important. And that's actually why I started the podcast, is I wanted to have transparent conversations.
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B
Right.
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A
We need scientists like you, who you're a career scientist and you're getting up in front of asn, which is, you know. Yeah, some maybe non scientists, but the majority of them are academics.
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B
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
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A
And that's to move into a landscape where there are. A good scientist knows their bias.
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B
Right.
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A
And they can put that aside to answer a question.
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B
And, you know, also a good scientist should know one study does not a recommendation make. Right. Like it was one study to say, hey, I think I might be able to explain this. We gotta replicate. We'd have to do a trial. We'd have to do all this stuff multiple times. And to see that response is pretty shocking. Yeah.
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A
Did that, did that change the way you thought about doing research in the future? I mean, it had to be kind of in the back of your mind, like, oh, do I want to? Well, I mean, you're a pretty strong personality, so maybe you were like, you know what? I'm gonna do more on that.
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B
I pretty much did. I got a little angry.
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A
Yeah.
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And again, you know, I can step back and say, you don't need to get angry at individuals. Maybe I can channel this feeling into productive science. But I would talk to people, and I talked to the Cattleman's association, who will fund research if it's good. And they're quite unbiased. I know how to extend this. We gotta do it again. I'm interested. It did make me a little. It's hard not to take it also personally when you go up in good faith and just say, I am reporting data. And people are like. And you're like, I mean, I didn't even generate the data. I used someone else's.
- [25:50]
A
It happens. All but it happens. It does, it does. People get very angry. You know, we did an episode talking about cycle syncing and the data behind that and whether someone wants to train around their menstrual cycles is total. I can appreciate feeling more fatigue, all of these things, but we don't have the data to say that that is what is necessary. And maybe eventually we will, but we don't have it at that time. And so. And I think it was important what.
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B
You said if people want to change around them. And I heard you say that in some of your clips and you know, so I used to be a bodybuilder.
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A
I think we're now just new best friends.
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B
That's it. I was going to compete when I got pregnant with my son. Wanted but was quick. So great. I mean by design. And so I was going to compete pregnant. I thought that'd be really cool. Don't have to win, just the experience. But I couldn't keep protein down. I was vomiting a lot. A lot. Same a lot, Same a lot. So I didn't lift. And then I now do it. I now do it recreationally. I prioritize other things more than I would like to than heavy lifting. But I looked at the menstrual cycle and the training because if I'm really limited in my abilities and I was like, ah, the data are not there. And I was like, but you know what? Right before I am a little feel I definitely have lower ability. A number of reps I can do because I track it religiously right around my cycle. There's no data to say that's any different. Right. You should always, if in the style of lifting I do go to failure, pretty much have your rest, do your rep and then if you can do more, you're not doing it right. So. And so I was like, you know what though? I'm kind of tired and right before I don't really want to push myself back and that's fine.
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A
Right?
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Right. Very. As a good choice to make. Right. So decoupling that need for data to say something we want, we don't have to. We can want and recognize other constraints or other pressures or other drivers of our lifestyle and say, you know what? I'm going into that.
- [27:59]
A
I feel tired and it doesn't have to be data driven. It doesn't have to be data driven.
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B
There's a problem that we feel like now it has to get it sooner.
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A
So I think that that's right. On your work on brain function. So there was one you've actually published quite a bit. But this one study, this was in obesity. This was obesity society. Cognitive performance and BMI in childhood. The shared genetic influences between reaction time but not response inhibition. Can you share a little bit about this study and I can just provide a background is that this study provides. This was the first direct evidence of shared genetic factors between slower reaction time and higher BMI in children.
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B
Okay. Yeah. And the great thing is we replicated that study in an independent sample. So, you know, so we do see that cognitive abilities associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. So I think the best way to explain it, that's also scientific, is challenges with self regulation. You know, my PhD did a lot of looking at how cognitive self regulation actually gave rise to what we see as hyperactivity impulsivity. People at the center of the time were pushing forward research that has really stood the test of time that children with ADHD don't necessarily have a lower performance, it's just much more variable. We have this concept of self regulation and cognitive regulation. How you regulate your attention, how consistent can you pay attention, can you plan, can you organize those sorts of facets of cognition? And we do find that children with obesity also have lower scores in those. And I was fascinated. Why can we show this and demonstrate it? And then what does that mean? Either for the etiology of obesity, maybe they're having trouble self regulating their food take, or maybe it's a consequence of obesity, in which case perhaps they're a population we can give more support to. Maybe it's both. It's probably both. Right. But the problem is correlating those two even longitudinally. You cannot dramatically increase a child to obesity and see what happens their cognitive development. There's not a lot we have learned how to do to meaningfully and stably change people's cognitive self regulation yet.
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A
And that's, and that is largely genetic. Or is it both?
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B
Probably you have a good genetic potential, but the environment can be huge. I always tell people that one of the most heritable child cognitive abilities is reading ability. Bring a child up without books, they're not going to be able to read. So you can knock that right out the water with the environment right now. That's extreme. But so you know, I really wanted to look at because the correlation between those abilities and increased bmi. Or it's an invest correlation. Right. Lower abilities, higher bmi, the lower cognitive ability. Yeah. The lower ability to self regulate.
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A
Yeah. So you know, I, I, that was a project that I worked on in my postdoc at WashU. Yeah, we never ended up, we never ended up publishing it. But we looked at body composition, brain function under fmri.
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B
There you go.
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A
We saw the higher the BMI and actually the higher the waistline, the lower the brain volume and the lower the cognitive restraints and various markers from the Stroop test, things like that.
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B
I think that is a beautiful example of what I was trying to do too, which is okay, if we see an association or an Inverse association. Can we provide a little bit harder evidence that it's not just they didn't test so well and so you use brain imaging? I didn't have that option. I used genetics. If I can find genes driving me.
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A
I mean that's pretty together. It's probably even more valuable honestly, or the combination of all of it.
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B
So that's what we found is that this association, these two domains, the bmi, that might call that the physical domain and the mental domain, the cognitive domain, share genetics. And what I took from that is they really are interlinked, they are meaningful for each other. It's not an artifact.
- [32:13]
A
And this is the meaningful relationship is BMI and is it fair to say cognitive performance?
- [32:19]
B
Yes, yes, that would be very accurate on specific tests that we give. And so the reaction time is just the precise metric of a broader self regulation test given to the children.
- [32:31]
A
Also, there was one finding here again, this may have been in the discussion that this might help explain why disorders like ADHD are linked to obesity. Is that true?
- [32:39]
B
It is true. Hmm.
- [32:42]
A
Which would. Is there a, you know, it's interesting. Is it a bi directional relationship? Does adhd. So would obesity drive ADHD and vice versa?
- [32:55]
B
My understanding, we've never studied that specifically is that obesity can impact behavior in the ADHD direction. It can, you know, lower suffering. I don't think it could push it over the threshold. It does seem that ADHD can push over into the threshold of obesity, which I think is probably linked to it occurring over time. But there's really interesting study designs that provide strong evidence that ADHD increases the risk for obesity.
- [33:25]
A
One of the sponsors of the show, our place is a key to that. Now many of us still use nonstick cookware and if I come to your house, I guarantee I will be raiding your cabinets to throw them out. Because nonstick contains harmful chemicals like Teflon, beef, pfas. We've all heard about this. They leach into food and if I could go back in time, I would change out my cookware. But it's never too late to start to make better choices now. And in our house we use our place, which is a toxin free, high performance cookware and appliances designed for safer, simpler use. And by the way, they don't kill your aesthetic of your home. They look amazing. None of the cookware has forever chemicals in it. It is worth it if you change one thing, change your cookware. And if you're wondering, all right doc, what should I try first? Well, they have a four piece cookware set which saves you 150 bucks. You can start there throughout the rest. Stop cooking with toxic cookware and upgrade to our place today. Visit from our place. That's F R O M O u r p l-a c e.com DrLion use the code DrLion for 10% off site wide and you have a free hundred day risk free trial free shipping and returns so you can experience quality cookware. How young is then too young to think about brain health?
- [34:51]
B
Never too young before. Conception is not too young.
- [34:57]
A
I think that's, that's, that's right on. And then what about this idea of reversal of cognitive decline or watching cognitive decline throughout through lifestyle changes? Do you think that there is an influence there?
- [35:11]
B
I think we would like there to be. We are keen to study and find out if that can be done. We haven't shown that yet. I do think there is enough to say that lifestyle changes could certainly delay onset. It could certainly, if there is onset in a healthier body which can get a lot more things functioning better. I think what we're talking about here is I think diet and lifestyle maybe could prevent cognitive. Once that process is starting, I'm not sure we know, but I think I see no reason to say we can't slow it. I really don't. And what is actually cognitive decline versus at the brain level versus someone functioning in the real world? They're actually quite different. Right?
- [36:04]
A
Yeah. What do you mean by that? That's fascinating.
- [36:06]
B
Coordination, not falling, let's say you said to me, well we have looked and we can actually trace that. Alzheimer's. We are tracing the biomarkers in the brain that accumulate like tau and so on. But cognitive decline, if we could map it physiologically and I can tell you that exercise doesn't change those, I would say, but it can do else. It can give you social support, it can give you structure, it can increase your function. Right. It can give you coordination, it can prevent falls, it can prevent failty like frailty. Sorry. So I think it's a little simplistic to say it has to operate almost at the disease level to say it's not going to help and enhance the lives of people that we're trying to help and improve. Maybe the cognitive. Maybe you can't reverse the biology of cognitive decline. I think there's a good chance you can, but if you can't, I wouldn't give up on lifestyle yet.
- [36:57]
A
Yeah, of course not. Because then you are just doing nothing. You're letting life happen to you. And we know when health is not maintained or at least there's not attention to it. Then we know where that, that goes. Yeah, you look at groups, so you do the research. You don't do clinical practice.
- [37:19]
B
Right.
- [37:19]
A
And I think it's important to, I don't know, mention that individuals that are interpreting the science, say someone who is a science communicator or an influencer or something like that might take a study and say, okay, well this is what this study showed and then this is how we can apply it. Do you want to just mention a little bit about how we can think about studies and then the interpretation of data and how that can direct or not direct or influence our choices?
- [37:54]
B
Sure. I think the biggest take home is if you're reading science communication, reading the media, never go off one study ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. Okay. I can show you studies that say smoking does not cause lung cancer. Now for all sorts of reasons. The one being that we, one of the reasons we study a lot of people and we have probability statistics is you can get the wrong finding by chance. Right. So when you think about that, that I could show you that, you know, I could show you as, you know, probably studies that say parenting doesn't matter, which just common sense. We're not going to go there. Don't ever go off one study. And that's where I think we go wrong. You really need. And it's, I'm not saying people have the time to go out and do this. It's a body of evidence and there will be it leaning in one direction. But I can tell you that even some of the most strong findings we have, every so often a scientist is like, I'm going to see if I can. Maybe we got it wrong. Yeah, like, and it's harder to get that fund. We don't want lots of just repetitive stuff. But it is that strong. So don't go off one. I'm sure all listeners know it does make sense. Looking at biases. You can be a very good scientist and have something to sell. Right? Absolutely, that's right. But that is, that's again, I wouldn't go off one facet from any one article. Well, this is, you know, it's sunk. Just know that it's, it's always more complicated. And when you said we like to have conversations, I wanted to say, yes, it sucks for public health, but it's a conversation. It is, yeah, it's a conversation.
- [39:40]
A
You know, this idea of precision, nutrition, the metabolomics conversation is very interesting. Can you share a little bit about the idea of diet and Nutrition and the metabolomics in the body just to explain to people what that is, what that breaks down to be.
- [39:57]
B
So, you know, we eat our food, it goes into our stomach, it gets broken down or in our intestines, as it's broken down into smaller molecules, those are absorbed. And that's really the first time that the food is getting into our bodies like a drug. Right. That might affect our health. So I don't think the process of taking an aspirin for a headache is different than eating an apple. Right. So we know what we can picture an aspirin being broken down and getting into our bloodstream, same with our food. And so what I use metabolomics for is try to pick that's up what has just passed through. You won't see an apple in there. What will you see? And the most striking finding is that if the associations between food X and health Y are there, the association between the metabolite that comes from food X and outcome Y are just unbelievably stronger.
- [40:56]
A
And that is what I think is so fascinating. Do people have the same metabolomics? If I eat an apple and you eat an apple, do the metabolomics from what we know, do they show up the same. In my mind, these are the bioactive compounds and obviously, please correct me where I'm wrong, but in my mind this is the food matrix that then we eat protein, carbohydrates, fats, we have vitamins and minerals, but there are compounds that these then become, whether it's in the gut, microbiome or in the bloodstream, however, and that they are different for me, that they are for you, even if we're eating the same food.
- [41:35]
B
So there are some, I don't think there will ever be anything that's 100% universal. Right? I mean, we find people genuine allergy to water, right? Like there's, there's anomalies, right. We cannot count on human physiology. There are some that are probably all, but dammit, you know, universal. We probably will see people having different amounts after the same food intake rate, which makes sense.
- [42:03]
A
That would make a lot of sense.
- [42:05]
B
And I do have some early evidence that there are some molecules that some people who report eating the same foods based on, in this case, whether they have diabetes or not, we just don't see an association between that molecule in that food. So I think there is early evidence that while it's a lot universal with some differing levels of association, there may be some unique associations there.
- [42:30]
A
So for example, in my mind, if I were to think about an example, I eat a pomegranate and through the process of digestion, it creates a postbiotic urolithin. A 30% of people can make that while the rest of us can't.
- [42:45]
B
Right.
- [42:46]
A
Would that be an example of something like a metabolite or measurement?
- [42:52]
B
Absolutely. And those examples are more common than we think. There's a certain set of genes that metabolize linoleic acid and people with a certain variance on a lot of these cluster of genes don't make certain saturated fatty acids. So we see that. And you know, that's such a much better example. I'm going to use that. The example I give is sometime in my 20s and I'd moved out of home and before I realized I was fructose intolerant. Although this should have DNA signs.
- [43:20]
A
Oh, that's interesting. Fructose intolerance. Are you sure?
- [43:24]
B
Oh, I had the.
- [43:25]
A
But what if you have small intestinal bacteria overgrowth?
- [43:29]
B
Well, that's possible, but I haven't had fruit. I don't have any other symptoms. I don't have any bloating, I don't.
- [43:36]
A
Vegetables or anything.
- [43:37]
B
Nope.
- [43:38]
A
Okay.
- [43:39]
B
My wife's pretty rock star on that front. But I, you know, so I had eaten watermelon delish and gone to the bathroom and it had come out whole, let's put it that way. And I was like, I'm dying. This is. I am dying for my mother. Like, mother, I don't know how to tell you this. I don't even want to. She's like, oh, no, fruit's always gone straight through you. Like, we never heard of fruit. Right? Like, and she's like, oh, yeah, no. And what's funny is I mentioned it years later to my then ex fiance and he was like, oh, yeah, you could never eat strawberries. I'm like, what do you mean I can never eat strawberries? I was always eating them. And he was like, you're always uncomfortable and so on and put it together. But what I would say is, pretty sure my buddy did not get any metabolite. I mean, it was just going straight through.
- [44:31]
A
That's a good, I mean, that's a good example with this is the interpersonal variability. Would that mean that certain foods would be better for certain people? Do you think that? I mean, that would be extraordinary if we could say. All right, here is your metabolomic profile. You need X, Y and Z. And I mean, I don't know if we'll ever get there because of the breakdown of whatever URL A. Yeah, I Think it impact mitochondria probably most likely.
- [44:59]
B
Will look at like a clinical profile and say because of this, you need these foods. And it was metabolites that told us that. And because, you know, this group do not get this metabolite, this group do this get more or less that kind of thing. But that is one of the passion projects that like, unbelievably, it sounds to me so dang obvious. Like when you ask the question, can you just explain what is the link between diet and metabolites? And I'm telling you on my grants, I get that all the time. And it just sort of foxes me. And I might, it might be an English expression confuses me because I'm like, it's very obvious to me. And it seems very obvious that they're is right there. Precision Health. Now it doesn't seem obvious to me that following that for Precision Health will lead to clinical level changes in health outcomes. I think it could very likely, but we haven't shown that right. But the idea that actually between people and sometimes within a person at different points in their life, maybe even different points of the day, maybe what else they've eaten, what is arising in their body after their intake can differ.
- [46:16]
A
One of the most overlooked aspects of health is addressing mitochondrial health. And that's really where all the energy starts. And that's, frankly, I believe where aging starts. And mitochondria in skeletal muscle is, I think, really a focal point. And this is why I love and have been using Mitopure forever. They also just released their gummies, which are amazing. You might see me just like throwing them in my mouth. But here's why. Mitopure is actually a postbiotic. It's a postbiotic urolithin A. And it works by promoting essential cellular cleanup. It clears out old dysfunctional mitochondria, which is really everywhere. Mitochondria is everywhere in the body and it is critical to maintain the way that you feel. Just in general. And from my perspective, although I focus on muscle health, Mitopure and urolithin A affects the body in all aspects, from brain to joint health, from immune health. We're going to start to see more. One of the tremendous things about Timeline, this company, which I really, really believe in, is that they focus on the evidence first. There's a lot of different choices for supplements out there, but I will say that Timeline does it differently than anybody else. And timeline is offering 10% off your order of Mitopure. Go to timeline.com lion that's T-I M E L I N E.com lion if you want to have more energy, more endurance, better brain function, better immunity and better mitochondria.
- [47:49]
B
I'm just amazed that's not like obvious.
- [47:52]
A
Yeah, I, I think it's a, it's just a really great perspective. You had mentioned something that I think is fascinating. Are there certain groups that don't show various metabolites?
- [48:03]
B
Not that I know of.
- [48:03]
A
For example, if you have obesity, then you might be again, I don't want to say deficient because we don't even know what they're recommend. We don't know what a baseline need for a metabolite is, do we?
- [48:13]
B
Right, right. No, we don't even know. Are they transient, how much they stick around? They may not be a good. You don't have this metabolite and that it may be like the metabolite may indicate you're not getting what you need on that pathway. Right. That starts with your genetics and your lifestyle. And then you put the food in and you come out at a health outcome. They're like the mediating picture. They're like the, the brain mri. Between the BMI and the cognitive performance.
- [48:43]
A
In your study, do you think there could become clinical targets? Because the MILES study. Do you want to share a little bit about the MILES study?
- [48:52]
B
Sure. So we, we had about 300 US participants. We excluded people with type 2 diabetes because we were looking at progression to diabetes in the study. And they also had to do an oral glucose tolerance test three times. The worst. I would tell any woman who's had a kid like, you're putting this in your study. And they're like, no, don't do it. So part of that study, which was really to look at how the microbiome influences conversion or may prevent conversion of prediabetes type 2 diabetes. We did collect a lot of information on what they ate. We gave them a pretty validated food frequency questionnaire. They're horrible. I know.
- [49:34]
A
Yes. Dave Kleurfeld was just on here talking about how terrible they were.
- [49:39]
B
My director will just sometimes randomly rant at me about them and I'm like, you know what? You want to give me enough money to do 24 hour recall and objective measures of a. Bring it on, I'd love it. I also, slight segue here. He was once like trying to educate me very passionately and I was like, danny, I don't disagree, but there are some things we know. I think we know whole grains, you need protein. And they're all substantiated by a Very vast number of studies that use like nutrition epidemiology for all its sins. And like, a study shouldn't be taken in isolation, a method should not be taken in isolation. We've got pretty far. We know some stuff. And he looked at me and he went, you know, lechi, there are some remarkably concordant and effective findings. I'm just nervous of how we get there. And I'm like, that is fair. That is fair. So we gave him a food frequency questionnaire, assessed their metabolites, correlated the pattern of metabolites with their dietary patterns. Spoiler alert. All the healthy dietary patterns were good. None was better than the other. And then we looked at did those metabolites influence ability to control your blood sugar on the oral glucose tolerance test?
- [51:07]
A
But did you guys control for everything? Diet before exercise.
- [51:11]
B
Well, so we assess their habitual diet and then they came in and we had a fasted metabolome panel and we got their glucose at the fasting immediate after two hours and so on.
- [51:22]
A
And we found that, yeah, all good diet.
- [51:27]
B
If you eat a Mediterranean, the higher you are adhering to the recommended Mediterranean style diet. The USDA guidelines plug for my plug from my center of employers there. It was also the dash diet, the dietary approaches to hypertension. The metabolites associated with that adherence are strongly associated with better glucose control, suggesting they may reduce diabetes risk.
- [51:53]
A
Do you think that. Do we know if processed foods have. I love the face.
- [52:01]
B
I sang so hard.
- [52:02]
A
I love the face. Which means I'm asking a good question. Can you share a little bit about your thoughts on processed foods and maybe how that is impacting? Well, why don't you just start with your thoughts on processed foods just because you made that face. So that means that. This is a good question.
- [52:19]
B
This is terrible. My thoughts on processed foods are that they are typically affordable, available and palatable. And we have to start from that point.
- [52:30]
A
We have an entire nation to feed.
- [52:32]
B
If they are unhealthy, that doesn't mean we shouldn't find that. We need to know. But we have to couch it in those terms about dissemination. I think it depends on how you define processed foods. And I don't mean that. I know I review a lot of studies. People have come up with definitions. It's this milling and we've got certain stages. But the concept of a processed food, food is so diverse. Right. If I make spaghetti bolognese by hand, or maybe I pick something like lentil bolognese. I would never eat lentils. I don't like them. But, you know, is it processed. Right. I've ordered it. I mix things, I've added things. I reluctantly admit. There is emerging consistency to evidence that processed foods may not be the best for health.
- [53:29]
A
Or is it the amount?
- [53:31]
B
The amount? Oh, it's like everything is the amount. Right. Like there's a side of bacteria and so on. There's nothing you eat that's going to kill you tomorrow. Right. I'm going to give you diabetes tomorrow.
- [53:46]
A
Which I think is the problem. Right. I mean.
- [53:48]
B
Right.
- [53:48]
A
Think about it. There's. There's so much flexibility in what we're eating and how our lifestyles are. For example, sarcopenia doesn't happen in a day.
- [53:56]
B
Right. None of it does. And you've got to maintain it, which was my interest in self regulation. If your goal directed behavior is 50 years in the future, how do you go towards that? And weight loss and weight maintenance are very different things. Right. Because of that.
- [54:12]
A
Yes, they are. That's what Jim Hill was talking about. He was amazing.
- [54:15]
B
Right. Are you going for a goal or not? And what's your feedback and what's the psychology around that?
- [54:19]
A
I did find very interesting. You described this metabolite summary score as a more biological, meaningful tool. Do you feel comfortable? I mean, that was just so interesting. So basically, the work in metabolites that you're doing, it's really fascinating. And again, I think it's kind of the way of the future because now we're looking beyond just proteins, carbohydrates and fats, but we're looking at, okay, so you eat this carb, but then the breakdown is what actually. And what is the gut microbiome doing within and how is that affecting? That is novel. I don't know if novel. It's just very thoughtful. So what is this mss?
- [55:05]
B
Actually, it's just basically if I took those bioactive compounds associated with a certain dietary intake and I summed them up, you've got a score because looking at, you know, we found hundreds of metabolites associated with the dietary pattern, which one would expect from a very complex dietary pattern. Right. Looking at them individually does not give us a clear direction to follow.
- [55:30]
A
Yeah, that's actually. That's a really good point. And maybe do you think it's a reductionist way of saying, okay, so eat this apple because the apple's going to be good. But is it the interplay between, I don't know, fruits, vegetables, fibers, proteins?
- [55:43]
B
I think so. I think the metabolomic profile you get from eating your food depends what you eat it with. I mean, I did look for really strong evidence of that and didn't find it. But we do know you can change the glycemic load of a meal, right. By changing what you eat with certain foods. Add some fat to your sugar, it will be digested slowly and you'll have a different insulin response. That's just the same really different biological systems as the metabolites. So I think they do interact. And I think that's a really complicated piece of looking at nutrition is we need to know what individual foods might have the potential to do or not do. But it depends kind of how they're eaten and maybe how they're prepared. Which brings in the processed issue.
- [56:32]
A
What are you most excited about that you're working on right now?
- [56:35]
B
I would be. Well, I'm very excited about the ability to maybe characterize the metabolome of people with prediabetes. I happen to be right. Right. In some deep analyses. And we have maybe been way more successful than I ever hoped at being able to discriminate without knowing what their status is discriminate between them. Maybe taking that forward. I'm just really fascinated by what changes the effects of food on your body. So maybe day to night does. Right. In that sense, I'm like, didn't we all go out drinking alcohol when we were 19, go to bed at 2am wake up at 7 and hit those glasses? Now that is not happening. Something physiological has drive that behavioral response or that feeling response to alcohol. So we can change within ourselves too. And I think even just I'm probably less at the implementation end of going, okay, now I'm going to figure out morning and night. I'm more of the like. Can I demonstrate that convincingly that we need to be thinking about groups of people responding differently and the same person responding differently perhaps across their lifestyle, perhaps on whether they develop diabetes or not, perhaps time of day, circadian rhythm. Can I demonstrate that robustly and repeatedly in a compelling way that other scientists could really take that forward for public.
- [58:04]
A
Health, which is really meaningful work. And you think about these early life behaviors. Do you think that there is a relationship between early life behaviors that track with aging?
- [58:20]
B
This is a really good question. Had a heads up this might come up and I thought about it. We do see the tracking of some behaviors across the lifespan. I just don't believe anything is immutable. And on the 2am drunken IHOP conversations, it always comes out like you're so optimistic. Everyone has worth and value. Sort of the same thing. Not that what we eat and whether we exercise is linked to our weather value at all. But I. I do. Every moment you put your body in a healthy physiological state is better than every moment it's receiving a health. I'm hesitant to use the word insult. Right. We will always have. We ate the cake, whatever we want, drank the margarita, and I think never did that. I don't believe you anymore. I think we have a sense that it's that repeatedly rate over time and the physical state. And so, of course, childhood is part of that. Children are. You know, I worked in infant cognition for a while as well, because I wanted to demonstrate how complex infants are with their. How much they can do and see and understand. I believe it's fundamentally important to. To treat an infant like. With the respect you would treat an adult. Right. So unless you're saving their life. I was not a big fan of just moving kids who are in the way. Right. I'm like, you'd never do that to an ad. I mean.
- [59:59]
A
I mean, that's a good point.
- [60:00]
B
You push me out the way, we're gonna have words, right?
- [60:02]
A
Like, yeah, do not cross her. That's right.
- [60:05]
B
And so in a framework of like, this time is really important. You may also. It's a great time to set up some behaviors and some trajectories. And you. The nice thing about childhood as a caregiver, whatever that is, is you've got a wonderful, enriched opportunity in which they're all eyes and all ears to share something. Right? Share something you think is helpful and beneficial. I don't think we know fully how far that carries, but it's most unethical not to do that. Right. I believe that what the things I care about in parenting my children, keeps them healthy now, will set them up for success and impact their health trajectory. Can I show you a convincing study on that?
- [60:51]
A
No, not. Not yet.
- [60:52]
B
Not yet. Not yet.
- [60:53]
A
Do you think that you looked at the increase in screen time? Have you been looking at that and see if there's some kind of influence on brain development?
- [61:03]
B
Yes. We have someone at the Children's Tradition Research center who's developed more objective measures of screen time, and they've tested and validated it. Then they wanted to write some studies around that. I lead with two other wonderful colleagues a study that looks at. It looks at ostensibly the amount of screen time, self regulation and bmi. And does screen time decrease self regulation and increase bmi? And is that one of the pathways by which screen time may be associated with increased obesity risk? My personal interest is can we alter that?
- [61:39]
A
Which Part.
- [61:42]
B
There is definitely an association between screen time and lower self regulation and higher bmi. Is it causal? We don't know that association is there. Can we alter it? I'm very interested. I think about back from my developmental psychology parenting rate and the model we give parents for the ideal general parenting. Set boundaries, model good behavior, maintain those boundaries, flexibly responding to the needs of the child and in a club of term, be respectful, you know, so don't coerce them. A colleague of mine, Cheryl Hughes, took that framework and applied it to food parenting and said to date that just about seems to be our best population advice. Set up a healthy food environment, model good food behaviors, set boundaries for your children and help them stay within those boundaries in a flexible and responsive way. I as a parent realized I did exactly the opposite with screens. Right. I think we all understand food should not be used as a reward or a punishment, right? How often do we say, well if I probably said yesterday, if you read for an hour, you can have 20 minutes screen time. And I'm like, maybe the parenting around screen time is part of the problem. Like and I think about when we look about parenting around emotions and emotions, self regulation, you want to give your child a safe space to express those emotions and your role as a parent is to help shape or what they do with them. How do they downregulate an unpleasant emotion without hitting something or you know, the tantrum that we see. Elliot, very developmentally appropriate.
- [63:27]
A
My kids don't.
- [63:28]
B
So what did I used to say to my kids? I once so 1 is 12, 1 is 8. When the 8 year old was come up to 3 and was allowed an iPad. My goodness, I can't remember that. She went to cry when her time was up and I was like Sam, what happens if you cry over electronics? And he parroted, if you cry over electronics you don't get them for a week. And he was quite happy with it. But I was like, man, that is horrible parenting. Like you're like blunting their emotional response and not allowing them to deal with it. And it got me thinking like, but.
- [63:59]
A
Maybe he was dealing with it.
- [64:01]
B
Well, I don't know. I mean, you know, it was like don't cry in front of me.
- [64:04]
A
I see, go away.
- [64:06]
B
Who knows if they're dealing with it healthily or if they're, you know, it's not about talking about it and saying we have these, how do you down regulate this healthy. I was like, I don't want to hear it. And I also then, you know, when we talk about fostering good self regulation in the home and good cognitive development. It's a lot of like asking kids about their day, doing things with them, helping them problem solve in a way that is not. That is autonomy promoting, you know, that kind of thing. Like, that's a lovely brick house you built. Do you think it would look nice with a chimney? What else could you add to it? All that stuff. Right.
- [64:40]
A
Because you did earn your PhD in part in psychiatry.
- [64:43]
B
Right? Developmental psychology.
- [64:45]
A
Yes. Yeah.
- [64:45]
B
Yeah.
- [64:46]
A
I mean, that is a lot of study.
- [64:48]
B
I have two very different lines of research that I'm trying to bring together with child nutrition metabolomics and cognitive development. Right. Bring that in.
- [64:57]
A
Do you think there is a unifying statement that. And again, I understand as a scientist, you probably don't like unifying statements in terms of. I mean, because good scientists always say, well, potentially we might see this, but.
- [65:12]
B
Which is so fun at parties. Great.
- [65:14]
A
I actually have a feeling you're very popular at parties, but had nothing to do with the margarita or the burpees before. But what do you feel comfortable. And maybe it isn't proven yet, but are there a few things that you truly believe are related to, say, the positive development of our children?
- [65:36]
B
Sure, I do. I believe modeling good behavior, which can be really hard, definitely even sometimes over modeling it and talking about it. So when I'm very upset, I'll say I am upset. I don't know. I don't know how to. I don't know how to do this emotion, which I wouldn't say to an adult. Right. So the kids can see that. Right. Good modeling. I think again, setting boundaries.
- [66:03]
A
How would you define setting boundaries?
- [66:05]
B
Oh, I mean, it could be bedtime. Is this time right? It could be. We don't speak to people like that. It could be. You always say please, you know, you always say thank you when you hand. Someone has something to you. So still in my preteen, I will hand something. And if he doesn't say thank you, I just hold on to it, you know, and he'll laugh, say, thanks, Mom. So setting those. They're called boundaries, but I guess you could call them goals, you could call them behaviors, and consistently modeling them and adhering to them. But being responsive and flexible, you know, the child has changing needs. Maybe those behaviors and boundaries need to change. Maybe the extent you hold them to that standard needs to change. I think that is really key. And I also think treating children like adults and talking to them and explaining they can understand. They can understand, you know, and if.
- [67:05]
A
They don't, they'll get there.
- [67:06]
B
They'll get there. They'll get, they'll take. I mean the human. You study child cognition and cognitive development. I am blown away by the complexity and I want to say the word adaptivity, how adaptive it is. Children will take what they need and they'll take it in and just get rid of the rest. I mean we're all struggling with information overload. We struggle going back to tiktokers and nutrition because what I don't know what to believe which is a reasonable concern. Children aside of that are faced with this information overload and they are so good at like I'm gonna take this thing. This is what I need right now. I'm gonna build on it. It's phenomenal.
- [67:43]
A
I think, you know, the future is obviously this younger generation and if we can get it right for them in terms of nutrition behaviors modeling. And I definitely believe that all of that starts. I'm not a professional child rearer but I do have two. The things that you're saying make a lot of sense and if I were to take away from all of the things that you talked about, it is good modeling an appropriate diet could be different for everybody whether you can afford luxury foods or not. But really thinking about how do we pattern a Mediterranean style diet which makes tons of sense and that there's this level of inter individual variability from a metabolomic standpoint. And don't get your information off TikTok.
- [68:31]
B
But you know one other thing what I find kids really respond well to because I often I go into schools, you know the things is telling them at the food level what your values are and why. Why you believe in a healthy diet and almost letting them make their own. I mean you can't just let them make their interest if they're going.
- [68:50]
A
We do that actually.
- [68:50]
B
Right?
- [68:51]
A
We. We do that.
- [68:52]
B
And I talk to my kids a lot about why I eat a healthy diet and what it can do and. And it's more I set the value up here. Now my partner is very different. He's very focused on the behavior and we've had the good coming together of like hey, there's a middle. They are little. Let's not let him make too many health mistakes. He did when my daughter was three and I was like serve a healthy meal. We don't serve anything else. But it is their choice if they eat it because I wouldn't force an adult to eat. And then there's healthy food else wise. And he said lechi, your three year old has had candy for dinner. For three nights straight.
- [69:25]
A
And I was like, yeah, that maybe that's a little. We need to like too much self regulation.
- [69:31]
B
But yes, I would say absolutely all of that and watch this space because I feel, I would like to think we are on the brink of being able to at least quantify and demonstrate the importance and the power of precision nutrition.
- [69:48]
A
That would be extraordinary.
- [69:49]
B
That'd be amazing to be able to say. I mean, I would do it at a population level, but there's no reason. If we did it well and you had the time, you couldn't go have a diet, feed you stuff. They'll look at it in your own clinic and figure it out on that level, which is just huge.
- [70:04]
A
Yes.
- [70:05]
B
Like super exciting.
- [70:06]
A
Well, Dr. Alexis Wood, I'm sorry. Lecky. Lecky Wood, you are a joy. Unusual for a scientist. Very robust to come back again. Robust and very fun and extremely well educated and you're doing tremendous work. I am so grateful that you are willing to spend the time with me. Thank you so much.
- [70:27]
B
Well, thank you so much. That's really kind. Thank you.
- [70:29]
A
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