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Ed Mylett
So, hey guys, listen. We're all trying to get more productive and the question is, how do you find a way to get an edge? I'm a big believer that if you're getting mentoring or you're in an environment that causes growth, a growth based environment, that you're much more likely to grow and you're going to grow faster. And that's why I love Growth Day. Growth Day is an app that my friend Brendan Burchard has created that I'm a big fan of. Write this down. Growthday.com forward/ed. So if you want to be more productive, by the way, he's asked me, I post videos in there every single Monday that gets your day off to the right start. Got about $5,000, $10,000 worth of courses that are in there that come with the app. Also, some of the top influencers in the world are all posting content in there on a regular basis, like having the avengers of personal development and business in one app. And I'm honored that he asked me to be a part of it as well and contribute on a weekly basis. And I do. So go over there and get signed up. You're going to get a free tuition, free voucher to go to an event with Brendan and myself and a bunch of other influencers as well. So you get a free event out of it also. So go to growthday.com that's growthday.com Ed imagine what's possible when learning doesn't get in the way of life. At Capella University. Our game changing flexpath learning format lets you set your own deadline so you can learn at a time and pace that works for you. It's an education you can tailor to your schedule. That means you don't have to put your life on hold to pursue your professional goals. Instead, enjoy learning your way and earn your degree without missing a beat. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella. Edu. This is a message from sponsor Intuit. TurboTax Taxes was getting frustrated by your forms. Now taxes is uploading your forms with a Snap and a TurboTax expert will do your taxes for you. One who's backed by the latest tech which cross checks millions of data points for absolute accuracy. All of which makes it easy for you to get the most money back guaranteed. Get an expert now@turbotax.com, only available with TurboTax Live full service. Seek guaranteed details@turbotax.com guarantees.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
This is the Ed Miler Show.
Ed Mylett
Welcome back to the show Everybody. So today is going to be a really interesting journey. We're going to talk about, ironically, we're going to talk about your mental health, we're going to talk about cognition, but we're actually going to connect it through your microbiome, through the gut. And I've got a very special man I want to have on the show for a long time. He says a lot of interesting things that has gotten my attention over time. And he's a world renowned cardiothoracic surgeon who sort of shifted into a little bit more of this work. Right now he's got sold a couple million books, New York Times best selling author. And today we're going to talk about the Gut Brain paradox, which is the title of his new book. And this is interesting today because I got some tough questions for him. So Dr. Stephen Gundry, welcome to the show.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
Thanks a lot, Ed. Appreciate you having me on and looking forward to it.
Ed Mylett
So am I, very much. I wanted to talk with you for a long time, even in some of your other books. But it's interesting when I thought, well, we're gonna have him on to talk about the gut. I didn't know we were really going to spend a lot of our time on mental health, frankly, cognition and the brain and that connection. So everybody stay in here today because I think you're going to hear some things that you've never heard before. At least I had not heard before. So let's start out. Let's go a little bit bigger picture. A big topic on our show has been depression and mental health. And we've, we've covered it from all different types of angles, never from the gut. So how is the gut connected to depression or mental health overall?
Dr. Stephen Gundry
Well, where shall we start? Actually, one way I get people's attention is that many, many people take an antidepressant, an SSRI serotonin reuptake inhib, and they notice that it takes about a month to kick in. Right? That's typical. If these things worked by actually increasing serotonin up in the brain, then they ought to kick in within 24 hours. But they don't. So how in the heck are they working? Well, it turns out, and it's in the book, it's been published, that these antidepressants actually change the gut microbiome. And it's the change in the gut microbiome that quite frankly takes at least a month that actually causes the effect that they're looking for. It has nothing to do with the fact that they're SSRIs. And we now know that there is a specific dysbiotic gut microbiome that associates with depression. There's a specific dysbiotic gut microbiome that associates with anxiety, with adhd. Each of them have a specific imbalance. And you can even now spot the troublemakers and you can actually manipulate the gut microbiome to get a better balance. And that's actually what these drugs do.
Ed Mylett
What does dysbiosis mean? Just for everybody's edification, because I don't think about 90% of the people don't understand the term. I didn't before I started reading your work.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
So one of my favorite examples that I think resonates so in any ecology like a tropical rainforest, there are, you know, thousands and thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of different species that all cooperate to make that tropical rainforest balance. And one of my favorite examples is Yellowstone Park. A number of years ago it was decided that wolves are bad actors and wolves are evil and. And we really ought to get them out of Yellowstone Park. Now, it was mostly because the ranchers didn't like them. But anyhow, wolves were eradicated from Yellowstone Park. Imagine what happened was that wolves, of course, are an apex predator and wolves controlled the elk population. Without wolves, the elks. Elks overgrew and the elks ate a lot of the saplings. The saplings were actually used by beavers to build beaver dams. The beaver dams weren't there because there weren't any beavers. The fish population changed and the entire ecosystem collapsed when they realized that because of the balance of one bad actor, a wolf, when they reintroduced wolves back into Yellowstone, it took a few years, but lo and behold, the balance, the ecology of Yellowstone park returned. So dysbiosis means normally, as unbelievable as it sounds, we have at least 100 trillion bacteria in our gut. We have many more viruses in our gut, we have many lots of fungi in our gut, lots of molds in our gut. And I could go on and on, but at least 100 trillion bacteria, and there's probably the number goes up every year, about 10,000 different species. And these different species literally all communicate with each other. They're dependent on each other. They recognize bad guys. Some of the good guys, which I call keystone species, will actually make compounds to try and suppress the bad guys growth. But most of us in the United States at least have what's called a dysbiotic microbiome. This tropical rainforest, this balance, this interdependent of species, has been completely screwed up. In fact, you and I, off camera, we're talking about Palm Springs in the desert where I am right now. And you used to be. It's basically our tropical rainforest in our gut is now a desert wasteland. And so.
Ed Mylett
Good.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
So that's, that's dysbiosis.
Ed Mylett
Why I want to go back to the anti anxiety or antidepressant medication just for a second because I don't want everybody that's taking it to get off of it right away and go, I'm just going to start cleaning my gut and I'm going to be great. If that's accurate, what you said, then why is it that you need it for? Why is it that when people decide they're no longer going to stay on these medications that they're counsel to stage off of them over time? If it's just gut connected or are you saying the gut is contributory in addition to maybe a serotonin issue or those two are correlated. So I want to understand that just a little bit more.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
Yeah, there's, there's lots of pieces to this puzzle, right. One of them is there's a herbicide called Roundup that its active ingredient is glyphosate. And it turns out that we were taught that Roundup glyphosate is harmless to humans because it, it goes after a plant growing pathway called the shikamate pathway. I love that word, the shikamate pathway.
Ed Mylett
It's easy to remember.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
Yeah, easy to remember. And we were assured humans don't use the shikimate pathway so we could drink Roundup supposedly and be fine. Now, unfortunately, nobody bothered to mention that bacteria use the shikimate pathway to reproduce. And fun fact, Roundup was actually patented as an antibiotic. Fun fact, not as an herbicide. So Roundup glyphosate actually specifically targets the tryptophan bacterial pathway. And tryptophan is the precursor for the feel good hormones like serotonin. And so unwittingly, let's be nice, we have killed off much of our serotonin pathway bacteria just by eating foods that contain glyphosate. And sadly, almost all of our grain products are sprayed with glyphosate prior to harvesting. They're not. Glyphosate isn't used just on GMO crops and those foods we eat and they're fed to our animals. So glyphosate is just one of the best ways to knock off your feel good bacteria known to mankind. And isn't it interesting? Yes, social media contributes to all this, but isn't it interesting that the huge epidemic Started when Roundup began being increasingly used.
Ed Mylett
What do you do about it then? We're going to talk about antibiotics in a minute. You brought that up. But I mean we're setting up the stage here, you know, a little bit. I always like to kind of cut to the, cut to the end of the movie and then come back to the middle in a minute. But you know, I know everyone's listening to this going, you know what I, I, I'll, I, I believe that probably my gut has contributed to my mental health well being. I think over the next 10 years, whether what you said or not about, you know, ran uptake inhibitors or not, that's going to be interesting to, to see. But having said that, what would you someone says right now, hey, listen, I, I, I do struggle with my mental health. I have tried other things. It's not worked. Is there a test I should do to test certain bacteria in my gut? Is there a certain diet recommendation that you have? And obviously this is in the book, so they should get the book. But, but also since you're on the show, I'm supposed to ask you this, so what would your answer be to that?
Dr. Stephen Gundry
Well, interestingly enough, and I show a lot of examples in this book and in the previous books of most, most of these people with anxiety and depression have what we call leaky gut or intestinal permeability. Now if you had asked me 25 years ago when I first started in this area what I thought about leaky gut, I would have told you it was pseudoscience. And it's not. This has been well worked out in humans. A lot of it was spearheaded by a professor who's now now at Harvard, a pediatric gastroenterologist by the name of Alessio Fazano, originally from Italy, funny guy, been on a couple panels with him. Anyhow, he actually showed the mechanism where gluten and most people have heard of gluten, it's product part of wheat, rye, barley. Gluten is a lectin. My favorite subject, how gluten causes intestinal permeability, causes literal holes in the wall of the gut. And he and others showed how you could measure the presence of intestinal permeability, how you could actually grade it. And I've published numerous papers that over the period of about a year, nine months to a year, most people by following my program will seal their leaky gut. And I show in the book, among other things, that one of the consequences of doing this is that people are usually able to wean off their antidepressant medicines because they find they no longer need them. No. And you're right.
Ed Mylett
No.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
This. Everybody listening. No. Don't stop your antidepressant medicines and swallow a probiotic. That's not going to work, I can assure you.
Ed Mylett
Right, right. So, hey guys, I want to jump in here for a second and talk about change and growth. And you know, by the way, it's no secret how people get ahead in life or how they grow. And also taking a look at the future, if you want to change your future, you got to change the things you're doing. If you continue to do the same things, you're probably going to produce the same results. But if you get into a new environment where you're learning new things and you're around other people that are growth oriented, you're much more likely to do that yourself. And that's why I love Growth Day. Write this down for a second. Growth Day.com forward/ed my friend Brenda Burchard has created the most incredible personal development and business app that I've ever seen in my life. Everything from goal setting software to personal accountability, journaling courses, thousands of dollars worth of courses in there as well. I create content in there on Mondays where I contribute as do a whole bunch of other influencers like the avengers of influencers and business minds in there. It's the Netflix for high achievers or people that want to be high achievers. So go check it out. My friend Brennan's made it very affordable, very easy to get involved. Go to growthday.com ed that's growthday.com ed so I gotta be honest with you. Anything you see in my business life that forward faces the public somehow. Shopify has had their hand in and has been involved with now for about a decade. Shopify handles the entire interactive customer experience. They help track my metrics, by the way, at the register when people buy, they've upgraded. For most people, about 30% more buying at the point of contact, at the end of sale. It's smooth, it's professional, it makes you look like a pro. Small businesses with one or two people up to businesses with thousands of employees, all use Shopify for their checkout, their customer experience and even marketing now so you can do this as well. Upgrade your business to get the same checkout we use with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com mylet all lowercase go to shopify.com mylet to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com mylet what makes a leader? It's A tough question, but one thing's for sure, A true leader leads by example. And a true leader takes risks too. They plunge into life with determination. For those who lead by example and who approach life with a palpable passion, there's the Range Rover Sport. Each Range Rover Sport model offers a dynamic sophisticated take on sporting luxury. Range Rover Sport offers focused on road performance and world renowned off road capability with industry leading features like adaptive off road cruise control that monitors ground conditions and acclimates to the present terrain. Agility, control and composure are achieved with dynamic air suspension and adaptive dynamics. Reduces unwanted body movements to deliver smooth and composed handling. True sophistication and excellent maneuverability all on a seriously stylish package. Sophisticated refinement meets visceral power in the Range Rover Sport, a new dimension of sporting luxury. Build your Range Rover sport@Land RoverUSA.com. you know, I, when I was a little boy, I, I was very ill till I was about eight years old, I mean, on antibiotics constantly. And so I assume that's why even now I don't have a great immune system. So I speak and I travel and I shake hands, you know, 100 nights a here at least. I'm, I get sick a lot. And so I've been prescribed antibiotics more than about anybody that I know. I mean, I'm, I'm sure there are people far more sick than me, but I've had antibiotics most of my life and we have had other people on that have talked about the gut and how antibiotics can be very detrimental to your gut. So now I'm wondering, and I want, I'd like your opinion about this for people that have children that are getting antibiotics prescribed or even themselves, your overall viewpoint of antibiotics, how it impacts the gut and how that might impact our mental health, our cognition and other things because we're very quick to prescribe them, aren't we? I mean, it's just, it's the thing. And I'm wondering if you, you know, think there's a whole bunch of adverse consequences to doing that on a regular basis.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
Oh, absolutely. I'm old enough to have been in medical school when broad spectrum antibiotics were introduced in the mid-1970s. And we really thought they were miraculous because beforehand if we were lucky, we would culture a bacteria that was the troublemaker and then we'd find out what antibiotic. We test antibiotics against it over a couple more days to find out which antibiotic worked. Well. Now when broad spectrum antibiotics came out, it was instead of taking a.22 caliber rifle at the bacteria. Now we had a shotgun or an AK47 on automatic and we could mow down everything. We didn't do have to do a culture. We just said bam. And they were miraculous. I mean, they really were. I can remember it well, what we didn't know, we didn't know that these guys down in our gut even existed. It wasn't until the human microbiome project in the early 2000s to the mid 20, 2017 is when it was completed. We didn't even know those guys were there or how many of them were and what they did. So we, we have wiped out most of our flora. And it's, it's literally since I'm now in California and we love to have forest fires out here and fires. Imagine we have a forest fire and let's just think of our gut microbiome as a forest and we burn it to the ground. Now, we could plant all these little seedlings, but it would take 20 to 30 years to get that forest back to this incredible ecosystem. And there are papers, and some of them are referenced in my books, that you could take a round of antibiotics and it could take up to two years to begin to even re establish something that almost resembles a working ecosystem two years after a single round of antibiotics. The thing that we're also learning is, number one, these bacteria, and I talk a lot about it in the book, these guys actually have, are intelligent, sentient beings. No, they don't have a brain. No, they don't think like we do, but they, for instance, see. They don't see with their eyes, but they can count numbers of bacteria around them. They know who the bacteria are around them. They share information with each other. They educate our immune system and they do a great job of letting the immune system know who's the good guys and who's the bad guys. And in the good old days, they would tell the immune system, hey, we got your back. We're going to handle most everything that comes down the pike, whether it's a virus, whether it's a bacteria. We'll fight to the death against these guys. Immune system, you, you go handle anything that kind of gets past us. Not much is going to get past us. If you see something get past, be ready. So I use the example. I trained in London, England in children's heart surgery. And back in those dark ages, the police, the bobbies only carried a billy club. They had no weapons now. And now our immune system should basically have a belly club. Now, of course, we're getting no information from our gut bacteria about that'll take care of business. So now our immune system is got a Kevlar best, you know, two AK47s and their fingers on the trigger. And that's where our problem lies. And we've we're basically a very poorly trained militia now instead of a well organized.
Ed Mylett
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Dr. Stephen Gundry
The air is really, really thin up here.
Ed Mylett
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Dr. Stephen Gundry
Yeah, here's, here's one of the other, I think surprising things that I've written about in the last three books. Most people know probiotics, friendly bacteria probiotics have to eat something and the things they like to eat in general are long chain sugar molecules, starches, sometimes called resistant starches, sometimes called soluble fiber. What we didn't know is that when they eat these things, they make a communication system called postbiotics. And postbiotics are, believe it or not, gases that communicate. They're short chain fatty acids like butyrate. And there's a whole host of new postbiotic compounds called exosomes and extracellular vesicles, which are literally packets of information that bacteria pinch off, go through the wall of our gut, pass through any membrane even to our brain, and then deposit that information by latching on to, say, a neuron and telling the neuron literally what it wants the neuron to do. And it's really Star Wars. And I have the pleasure of attending these meetings and lecturing at these meetings. And the level of complexity that our microbiome exerts on just about any level you care to think about is, is just, it's, it's. And I talked about this before, we have very few human genes, believe it or not, a sand flea has more genes than a human. Bacteria have like tenfold more genes in our microbiome than we have. And they're constantly reproducing and they're constantly changing genes, exchanging genes. So I and others believe that we have decided to make decision making uploaded to our bacterial cloud. Much like there's not much happening in my computer right here, you and I are being uploaded to a cloud. And that because we are a symbiotic organism, we've left these sorts of decision making to this microbiome, to these bacteria. And we need to get over the fact that it might just be that the bus driver is not driving the bus, it's the passengers.
Ed Mylett
And he pointed to his head, guys, in the brain is what he's saying. And he's saying that.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
And it's probably, it's probably the passengers who are directing most of the things that happen to us.
Ed Mylett
So I'm going to push you on this again. So if I'm listening to this, I want to take an actionable step on this. I want to get the passengers cooperating with the driver or helping the driver with sense of direction. I love my art analogies today. Are there two or three nutrients I want to ingest or supplement? And are there two or three I don't want these are contributing to the passengers, the inmates running the asylum, so to speak.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
Yeah. So one of them, probably most, I, I think, at least for me, in my understanding, important paper, it was written a few years ago. There's a husband and wife microbiology team at Stanford by the name of the Sonnenbergs, and they took a bunch of Healthy volunteers. And they gave them a lot of prebiotic fiber. It's called inulin. It's, it's a nice fiber. And they looked at their gut microbiome diversity and a more diverse tropical rainforest, the better. And, and they looked at inflammation markers, okay, and they gave them all this prebiotic fiber because everybody knows that that's what the probiotics want to eat. Nothing happened there. There was no more. There wasn't extra diversity. There was still inflammation markers. And they went, let's try this. Let's give them the prebiotic fiber, but let's also give them fermented foods in the study, which, believe it or not, everybody thinks fermented foods, probiotics. No, fermented foods are postbiotics. And so let's give them fermented foods. And in this case, it was mostly yogurts and kefirs, but it could be vinegars, it could be kimchi, it could be sauerkraut, and also give them the inulin. And then see what happens. And lo and behold, with the addition of these postbiotic fermented foods, then the gut diversity began to get more diverse and then the inflammation markers went down. So I, to phrase Hillary Clinton, it takes a village. And what we're learning is that these really important bacteria that are going to make really important things for us, for our brain, like serotonin, like butyrate, there's got to be four or five other bacteria kind of on an assembly line. And bacteria one has to eat something to kind of poop out, produce what bacteria 2 needs to eat. Bacteria 2 needs to poop out what bacteria 3 needs to eat, and so on. And if you've got one guy missing or if you've got the component that's missing, then you're not going to finish up with a car on the end of the assembly line. And that's, again, discovering the incredible complexity of this ecosystem is mindboggling. But now that we are beginning to understand, and we beginning to understand what each of these guys need, then we can build, rebuild that assembly line and we can get this stuff back. So that's a long. Go ahead.
Ed Mylett
No, that's a great answer that I have to tell you. I've always kind of looked for, like, is there any overlapping? And so just for the audience, this idea of fermented foods, guys, and fermentation, I can tell you, has come up multiple times now with people that I've talked to about the gut and the brain and overall health as well. And it's just something you Know, we all talk about, hey, make sure you get your creatine or make sure you're getting your macros. All these fitness people. But this idea of fermentation and eating fermented foods is something that seems pretty consistent. And I have to tell everybody also this, I share this with you as well. You know, the good thing about having 800 episodes, I've had anti aging people on brain health, mental health experts, you know, muscle building, physical strength, cardio, all the. And one of the things that keeps coming up if you ask almost everybody what's the next frontier of health, of wellness, of strength, of mental outlook, of energy, of all of it, of anti aging is the gut microbiome. It is, this is the next frontier. And I have a, I have a feeling that over five, six, seven years this is going to be one of these like light speed evolutionary things that we learn more and more about. We're going to talk about personalities in just a second. But before we go there, we talk about eating fermented stuff is probably good for us. Is there something that the bad stuff feeds off of? Is it like sugar? Is there something don't put in your body? This is the thing don't put in it. If you put it in, you're screwing your gut up. What would that be?
Dr. Stephen Gundry
Well, you're right. Sugar is, is right up there. Easily digested carbohydrates.
Ed Mylett
Easily digested carbohydrates are bad for you.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
So for instance, a piece of bread has four teaspoons of sugar and it doesn't taste sweet. So it literally, it has a glycemic index above table sugar. But what, what we know is that there's, there's basically bad guys and good guys. And there's nothing wrong with bad guys as long as they're in balance with the good guys. The good guys, quite frankly, can't use simple sugars. And let me explain why.
Ed Mylett
Okay.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
Most of the good guys in our gut live down in our bowel, in our large intestine. We do have a microbiome in our small intestine. We even have, believe it or not, a microbiome in our stomach. We absolutely have an amazing microbiome in our mouth. The, yeah, the, the oral microbiome actually loves sugar, as any of us might guess. The bacteria down in our gut evolved to kind of take whatever was left after digestion, got all the simple sugars absorbed through the wall of our gut. And all that was left were these complex starches that were very difficult for our digestive system to break. Down. And they came rumbling down and they go, ho, ho, dinner. And that's what we want to ferment. We, we hear a lot about sibo, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. It turns out that first of all, it's not as rampant as people think. But. And we won't go there, but 2/3 of people who have small intestinal bacterial overgrowth have oral microbiome living down in their small intestines where they're not supposed to be. Now, why are they there? Because they can utilize simple sugars. And they're just sitting there going, okay, you know, we're, it's coming, it's coming down the pike and we're going to grab all that stuff because we can out compete for that food source. The second thing that's happened is none of us, because of processed foods and ultra processed foods are eating any soluble fiber that works its way down to the guys. And they're down there going, what the heck? You know, where's all this great stuff? I hear the mouth chewing. I know it's coming and it never shows up. And interestingly enough, so this, these bad bacteria, as I talk about in the book, they literally send text messages to your brain that say, go get some more of that stuff. That's what we want. And we basically, you know, get over it, folks. We command you to get what we want.
Ed Mylett
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Dr. Stephen Gundry
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Ed Mylett
Okay. This is really, this is really important. When you have food cravings, which almost everybody listening to this has a craving or something that's coming from your gut crate, is it craving it because it needs more of it, or is it craving it because the bad guys are like, give me more of this stuff that's bad for you. Which, which is it? But you are. It is dictating your appetite, correct? Oh, you think it's your thought. Okay.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
No, Your thoughts come from the bacteria in your gut and in the previous gut check. And let's, let's pause for a second and let me try to convince people how powerful these little critters are. Most people know about a parasite called toxoplasmosis. Pregnant women are told not to scoop the kitty litter of their cats because cats can be infected with toxoplasmosis and toxoplasmosis. And listeners bear with me because it's a, it's a wonderful story to tell. The power of one cell organisms. Toxoplasmosis has, like many parasites, has two life cycles, and it has to have an intermediate host to get to where it wants to go. And where it wants to go is, is a cat. Whether it's a cute little kitty cat or a tiger, it wants to get into a cat, but it's chosen as its intermediate host a rat. Now you would think that would be a really dumb decision because rats hate cats. In fact, rats are deathly afraid of the smell of cat urine and they will run the other direction. So how this happens is big cats with toxoplasmosis poop in the water or poop on the ground. And toxoplasmosis enters a rat by drinking water. The toxoplasmosis goes to the rat's brain and rewires the rat's brain using dopamine receptors to do two things. Number one, it makes the cat incredibly sexy. And it makes the smell of cat urine one of the best aphrodisiacs it has ever smelled. And it drives the rat number one to find a cat and then go run to the cat. Now, believe it or not, any animal that could be predated upon by cats would be useful to toxoplasmosis. So getting back to Yellowstone park, it turns out that wolves can carry Toxoplasmosis. And it just so happens that pack leaders of wolves are more infected with toxoplasmosis than anybody else. Why? It turns out that these guys take risk, they run to danger. Now, why would you infect a wolf? Because the other predator in Yellowstone park are mountain lions, and mountain lions are the only predator of wolves. And so that's what happens. Tigers in the jungle, chimpanzees are infected with toxoplasmosis, and chimpanzees are infected because the tiger is the major predator of chimps. And it just so happens that in the jungle, humans are one of the favorite predators of big cats. And so toxoplasmosis loves to infect humans. In fact, this was actually discovered by the US army, who at one point wanted to infect troops with toxoplasmosis so that they would run to danger. And it turns out that the vast majority of motorcycle fatalities are infected with toxoplasmosis.
Ed Mylett
That's amazing.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
So one little cell organism can completely rewire your behavior, and that's just one. And so now we know that these little organisms literally rewire our behavior to get what they're looking for. And that includes different foods and it also includes drugs, as that chapter probably blew your mind. It did.
Ed Mylett
Well, you're, you're going. Let me tell you why I wanted you on more than anything. Okay, we're going to meet in the middle here. And it's one of the most interesting questions I've ever been able to ask on the show. So I've been really contemplating how I wanted to phrase it. So I want to share something with you first. My audience, most know this, but this will be shared with people that aren't in my audience. My dad was an alcoholic and a drug addict who got sober. My dad was sober for 35 years, and it became kind of the work of his life. My dad wasn't. He was in a 12 step program, but I mean, he wasn't just in it. My dad did six meetings a week, all of his life, even through chemotherapy. My dad's life work, even though he was a banker, was really, he was fascinated with, and he helped thousands of people get sober. This issue of alcoholism, drug addiction, addiction in general, Forget alcohol or drugs, but addiction in general.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
Right.
Ed Mylett
So when my dad first got sober, it was just, you know, going through his steps. And then after a few years he said, you know, Eddie, I'm. I'm not so sure that, you know, we're starting to believe that I got the gene, they would say the gene, the alcohol gene, and that some people, once they start pouring this stuff in their body, want more of it. And then as he got my. He always said, if I could, if I ever opened up my own treatment center, I'd be going to work on this gene thing. And then as my dad got older and he had cancer and we would talk more about addiction in general, my dad said to me, and this is just a working layman, this is not a medical guy at all, right? But he said, eddie, I'm starting to wonder if these cravings don't come from my brain, but they come from my gut. And. And my dad passed away with that question lingering. And I'm. You talk about addiction in the book, but as you're talking about this, these, these bacteria begin to crave more of. Of what you're giving it or they want. Do you think that there's the prospect or the possibility that people would struggle with, let's say, chemical addiction in general, that that gene, my dad called it, may in fact not be a gene, but maybe some type of bacteria that when they put this stuff in their body, they crave more of it than someone who doesn't have the presence of that bacteria? I know we'd be speculating, but I'm fascinated by the prospect of that. When your thoughts about it.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
Yeah, I, I take care of a lot of addictions in my practice almost as a sidelight. But one of the things and I, I make, I think, at least a case that we should consider first of all, is your dad would tell you the recidivism rake of treatment. You know, it's 70 to 90% of people.
Ed Mylett
More like 90. And I have many friends who have been at a center right down the street from where you are many times in my family, that same place, which is the most famous place. And their recidivism rate is like 88%. So go ahead.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
But no, you're right. Betty Ford is about. Yes, 90%, you're correct.
Ed Mylett
Right.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
And so you. And, you know, God bless. You know, maybe, you know, maybe your mom beat you and whatever, but when you start looking at, well, why is it that all of these various therapies, it just isn't working, then what is in fact driving this? And what I make the case in the book is, well, if we know that, for instance, food cravings are driven by the gut microbiome, and there's. There's so many studies showing this both in animals and in humans, then, then you start looking at the Other addictions, whether it's nicotine, whether it's alcohol, whether it's, you know, hard drugs. And it turns out that there are bacteria that associate. You can name the bacteria that associate with that addiction. And one of the most amazing things is they get you to crave these things by manipulating your brain. Because the more of this you take, the more they grow and the more they consume, get what they want. I think the scariest part is with, you know, the opioids and fentanyl, is that they get what they want by causing pain. And pain is what seeks pain killers. And the more of these painkillers you take, the more they overgrow dysbiosis, the more you have leaky gut inflammation and the more you seek out pain. What's really scary is, and these are animal controlled experiments, you can addict an animal to heroin and they will become more, they will need more and more and more to achieve the same effect. You can give these animals antibiotics and wipe out their gut microbiome. Suddenly they just need a tiny pinch of heroin to have the same effect. And it's like, wow. Then you take the microbiome of these addicted animals and basically do a fecal transplant of this addicted microbiome back into these animals. And all of a sudden they're right back to having, they need a huge amount to have the same effect back. And you go, son of a gun. So I'm actually, there's a, a large group, a rehab group in downtown la who want to start working with me because they said, you know, we think you're right, that whatever we're doing isn't working, folks. And why, why don't we go to the gut and yeah, it's not going to hurt.
Ed Mylett
It's not gonna hurt. And I, and I, obviously I'm. You're a doctor, I'm not. And I'm just a child of a alcoholic, one that got sober. But, but they're all over my family. And sometimes I wonder, like, why is this hit certain families, is there some prevalence of something in their brain is what I used to think. And now if there's so much impact on the gut, on the brain, maybe we've been looking in the wrong place and maybe it's in their gut. And I, I just think it's fascinating research. If it's true that the gut, which it is, creates cravings, if it, you know, it's feeding off sugar, it wants more sugar, whatever it might be, then that's giving you the thought, then could that be true with whatever this alcohol is doing and, and man am I super interested in, in someone who could find the answer to that. And, and anybody with addiction, you know, you know, one of the things to start is whatever that program might be, but it also might be could it not hurt to start treating your gut health. I'm going to take a look there for whatever your addiction is, sugar, caffeine, a drug or alcohol, you're probably going to find that addiction, it sounds to me, in your gut and that's what's impacting your brain. Is there any way we know if we've got a healthy gut on the external? So take, and this isn't a pretty topic but like, is there something with elimination that we should know? Like this is indicating your gut's working. How many times you eliminate what it looks like, it's odor, anything like that that say, yeah, my gut is off or on at least a little bit.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
Yeah. You know, it's funny, I've become good friends through the years with Dr. Dale Bredesen who wrote the End of Alzheimer's and Dr. David Palmer who wrote Grain Brain Etc and they're both neurologists and I'm a heart surgeon and cardiologist. And we laugh because all we talk about is the gut. It's like, you know, why, you know, how in the world did all of us, you know, end up down there? Well, you know, Hippocrates, the father of medicine 2500 years ago said all disease begins in the gut. That's what he said. And you know, I'm just a slow learner I guess. But so getting back to poop, I, you may have seen some of my YouTube videos on poop. You know, it's like I keep catch myself laughing. I'm going heart surgeons talking about what your poop should look like. But I've been focused on the gut for 30 years now and I like, I'll give credit where credit is due. The Dr. Walls from Iowa, University of Iowa. Terry Walls basically cured herself of end stage Ms. She was wheelchair ridden by changing her diet. And I can say that she and I program are virtually identical. She started eating nine cups of vegetables a day and in doing so she and you don't have to, but God bless her, that's one way to do it. In doing so, she started saying you should look into the toilet and see a giant coiled snake looking back at you when you look in the toilet. Now when I wrote the Plant Paradox, which was my monster best solar 8 years ago now I wrote in the manuscript that you should look in the toilet and see an anaconda looking back up at you. And my editor at Harper Collins said, do you realize there's a movie there where an anaconda is coming out of the toilet? And I said, oh, yeah. She said, I don't think we want to use a visual of the anaconda. So we put in a giant coiled snake. And what people should realize, which I don't think people realize, I didn't know, is that most of what comes out your rear end is actually living and dead bacteria. It's not waste products. Honest. And so if we're trying to build a tropical rainforest, a diverse, wonderfully balanced ecological system, then quite frankly, a giant coiled snake is. There's a bunch of happy bacteria singing Kumbaya down in your toilet. And that's what you should be looking for.
Ed Mylett
Wow, that's so interesting. I, I. Such an interesting conversation. My gosh, it's just, if you think about it, really, these conversations, I mean, you were doing it, but these conversations about the gut, at least as far as I know, really in the mainstream, weren't taking place even a decade ago like this. It's almost like this is sort of a new frontier of, you know, preemptive medicine.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
Yeah, I mean, we, quite frankly, we really didn't know those guys were down there. I had former head of the FDA on my podcast a while back, and he and I are the same age, and we were reminiscing that when we were in medical school. You know, food went in, went down a pipe. Magic happened. You absorbed some of this stuff and whatever you didn't need went out the rear end. And that was kind of what we thought. That was it. And now, you know, now we, we actually can understand the magic. And, but it was, we were just naive. I'll give you an example. Dr. Mark Hyman is a friend of mine and we were off camera talking before I was on or he was on my podcaster, I was on his. And he has a daughter who's a third year medical student at a very prestigious university. And I won't mention it. As of her third year, she has yet to have a course on the microbiome. Seriously. And he and I are just shaking our heads going, holy cow. Yeah.
Ed Mylett
Now that is, that is interesting. It's still taught the same way, you know, in the book. I promise everybody I'd ask this question because this, this part was hard for me to get my head around. I get how it could affect your mental health. I, I think I get a little Bit of that I think I understand. Certainly cognition, brain fog, those other things that you talk about, I get that. But personality, it's a different leap for me a little bit. And so you stipulate that it, your gut's actually impacting who you actually are. Because as my friend Dr. Joe Dispenza says, your personal, your personality is your personal reality. And so this is now the filter in which you're actually processing the world. You're actually saying here, this is a lot for one episode. But how is it that you believe it impacts personality?
Dr. Stephen Gundry
Well, because you can actually identify species of bacteria that associate with, for instance, an outgoing personality. You can specify bacteria that make a very closed personality, an angry personality. And again, all I gotta please. If a little one cell organism can make me become a wild crazy guy looking for excitement, just one little organism in my brain, then imagine what coordinated effect of 100 trillion organisms could do. Yeah, so, and we just, you know, we have to get over the fact that, you know, we're, we're a symbiotic organism. And many of us think that the only reason really that we exist is to provide a decent home for these guys. Bacteria have been around forever and forever and number one, they're mad as hell at what we're doing to them. But that's another subject. But if we, you know, if, if Hippocrates was right, and I certainly think he was, then we ought to put our attention down there. In fact, I have, I have a Buddhist scholar who's a patient of mine and we're discussing this one day. He says, you know, the Buddha and Hypocrates were contemporaries. And he says, I'm, I a Sanskrit scholar. He said, I'm going to write you what I find out. And so he, he wrote me. He says, you're not going to believe this. The Buddha said that enlightenment begins in the intestines.
Ed Mylett
That is crazy. Is this getting good?
Dr. Stephen Gundry
You guys?
Ed Mylett
Like, you don't always hear a podcast like completely different than other stuff you've heard before. You're such an interesting man. The way you deliver the information is so interesting. You're really cut out for social media. That's why you've become so famous. Obviously you're a very smart man as well. Let me ask you one last question, by the way. I really enjoyed today. I really, I knew I would enjoy talking with you, but I've enjoyed it even more than I realized I would. It's like it just flew by. Sometimes I look up with a clock and I'm like, oh, my gosh. I got 40 more minutes to go today. I look up and I got five minutes left. And I've got a bunch of things I'd love to talk to you about still, so thank you. So here's the question, and then I'll give you the first answer for you.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
Oh, good.
Ed Mylett
If I were to say to you, okay, I. You got me interested in this whole gut thing here a little bit more. And if I even knew a lot about it, I've learned more today than I knew before. And so if someone asked you what is something I should do now, the first thing you would say is, go. Go get the Gut Brain Paradox book. That's one. I'll check that box for you.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
Thank you.
Ed Mylett
Look. Sold. What's the other thing? Go do this. I know that's hard to say in the medical world, but, like, hey, start doing this. It'll help your gut.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
So you gotta. I can. I can heal a leaky gut. It'll take me a while, but I can heal leaky gut. And I can even sell you supplements that will heal leaky gut. In fact, my number one, number two selling supplement, Gundry md, are leaky gut supplements. But as I tell all my patients, I'll heal your leaky gut, but if you keep swallowing razor blades, you will slice it right back open. So one of the things that I really urge people to do, 100% of my people with leaky gut, when they see me, we do sensitivity tests to lots of different foods. 100% of them are sensitive to gluten, to the components of wheat. 70% of them are sensitive to corn. A huge number are sensitive to the nightshade family of vegetables. Tomatoes, peppers, white potatoes, eggplant, even goji berries or nightshade. And just get those out of your diet. Beans that aren't pressure cooked are loaded with these razor blades. Get those out of your diet, and within nine months to a year, 100% of my patients are no longer sensitive to these compounds, which is really exciting now. Why is that? Because, number one, these compounds literally cause leaky gut. They are razor blades and they leak through the wall of the gut. And your immune system goes crazy. It goes, oh, my gosh, you know, these are bad actors. They shouldn't be over here. And number two, what's fascinating to me, and this kind of finishes back up with glyphosate. About 80% of my patients have autoimmune diseases. Often many of them, we get them to a point where their autoimmune disease resolves goes into remission, and about 94% of people do within a year. Not bad. Awesome. Not bad. So they go over to Europe on vacation and they eat baguettes and they eat croissants, and they eat pizzas, and they have tomatoes, and they don't react, and they do great. And they're going, oh, Dr. Gundry cured me. You know, I can have all this stuff. And they come back to the United States and they start eating our stuff and even the sourdough bread or whatever. And within a few weeks, they're on the phone going, what the heck? You know, my psoriasis popped up or my joints are hurting. I said, no, there wasn't any glyphosate in the food you ate over there. You came back and started eating our stuff. And I see it over and over and over again. Oh, okay.
Ed Mylett
I just made a note. What? Gosh darn it. This was a good conversation today. Thank you. I enjoyed this so much. We'll do this again. We'll do it again. I have. I. I know for sure this isn't gonna be your last book because you're cranking them out like crazy.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
I can't help myself.
Ed Mylett
Well, no, it's wonderful.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
You know, each book leads to a next, you know, finding. And I'm already working on. On the next one because I can't help myself. Yeah, I'm a kid in a candy store. Bad example. But it's.
Ed Mylett
Yeah. Stay away from the candy for your gut.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
Yeah.
Ed Mylett
Well, when it comes out, you're invited back on. This was great there. We'll do it in person next time, though, when I'm out in la. I would love that.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
All right. Yeah.
Ed Mylett
All right, everybody. Dr. Gundry was awesome today. And go get the Gut brain paradox and share this episode. This one. This will be a viral one. All right. God bless you, everybody. Max out.
Dr. Stephen Gundry
This is the Eddie show.
In-Depth Summary of "Your Gut Controls Your Mood, Cravings, and Even Personality" from The Ed Mylett Show Featuring Dr. Stephen Gundry
Release Date: February 18, 2025
In this compelling episode of The Ed Mylett Show, host Ed Mylett delves into the intricate relationship between the gut microbiome and mental health, exploring how the bacteria residing in our intestines can influence our mood, cravings, and even our personalities. Renowned cardiothoracic surgeon and New York Times bestselling author, Dr. Stephen Gundry, joins Ed to unravel the complexities of the gut-brain connection, shedding light on groundbreaking research and offering actionable insights for listeners eager to optimize their mental and physical well-being.
Ed Mylett opens the conversation by highlighting the often-overlooked link between gut health and mental well-being. He introduces Dr. Stephen Gundry, emphasizing his transition from a cardiothoracic surgeon to a leading authority on the microbiome.
Ed Mylett [02:11]: "We're all trying to get more productive... today, we're going to talk about... your microbiome, through the gut, and connect it to mental health and cognition."
Dr. Gundry challenges the conventional understanding of antidepressants, suggesting that their efficacy is less about serotonin reuptake inhibition and more about altering the gut microbiome.
Dr. Stephen Gundry [03:39]: "These antidepressants actually change the gut microbiome. It's the change in the gut microbiome that... causes the effect that they're looking for."
He explains that specific imbalances in the gut microbiome are associated with conditions like depression, anxiety, and ADHD. By manipulating these microbial populations, it's possible to restore mental equilibrium.
To illustrate dysbiosis—a disrupted microbial balance—Dr. Gundry uses the Yellowstone Park ecosystem as an analogy. The removal and subsequent reintroduction of wolves demonstrate how pivotal certain species are in maintaining ecological balance.
Dr. Stephen Gundry [05:31]: "Dysbiosis means... our tropical rainforest in our gut is now a desert wasteland."
He emphasizes that the American gut microbiome is severely imbalanced compared to its natural, diverse state, likening it to a fragile ecosystem disrupted by the absence of key species.
Dr. Gundry sheds light on the herbicide glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup) and its unintended consequences on human health. Contrary to prior beliefs, glyphosate doesn't just target plants; it acts as an antibiotic in humans by disrupting essential bacterial pathways.
Dr. Stephen Gundry [10:13]: "Glyphosate actually specifically targets the tryptophan bacterial pathway. And tryptophan is the precursor for the feel-good hormones like serotonin."
This disruption leads to a decrease in beneficial bacteria responsible for serotonin production, thereby contributing to mental health issues.
Ed Mylett shares his personal struggles with frequent antibiotic use during childhood, raising concerns about their long-term impact on gut health.
Ed Mylett [18:00]: "I've been prescribed antibiotics more than anybody I know."
Dr. Gundry elaborates on how broad-spectrum antibiotics indiscriminately wipe out gut flora, likening the gut to a forest devastated by fire. Rebuilding this ecosystem can take decades, and repeated antibiotic use exacerbates the problem.
Dr. Stephen Gundry [19:03]: "It's like a forest fire... it would take 20 to 30 years to get that forest back."
He underscores the crucial role of a healthy microbiome in training and regulating the immune system, preventing it from overreacting to benign threats.
Addressing those struggling with mental health issues, Dr. Gundry advocates for healing the gut as a foundational step. He introduces the concept of "leaky gut"—a condition where intestinal permeability allows harmful substances to enter the bloodstream, triggering immune responses.
Dr. Stephen Gundry [12:49]: "Most people with anxiety and depression have what we call leaky gut."
He recommends comprehensive dietary modifications, including eliminating gluten, corn, and nightshade vegetables, which are common culprits in disrupting gut integrity. Through his program, patients typically see significant improvements within nine months to a year.
Dr. Gundry emphasizes the importance of not just consuming probiotics (friendly bacteria) but also providing them with the right nutrients to thrive. He differentiates between prebiotics (fiber) and postbiotics (metabolic byproducts of bacteria).
Dr. Stephen Gundry [25:37]: "Postbiotics are... gases that communicate... first chain fatty acids like butyrate."
In a study he references, combining prebiotic fiber with fermented foods like yogurt and kefir significantly enhanced gut diversity and reduced inflammation, underscoring the symbiotic relationship between diet and microbiome health.
Touching on a deeply personal topic, Ed Mylett shares his family's battle with addiction, prompting Dr. Gundry to discuss how gut microbiota can influence addictive behaviors. He explains that certain bacteria can manipulate the brain to create cravings, perpetuating addiction cycles.
Dr. Stephen Gundry [45:52]: "There are bacteria that associate with addiction... they manipulate your brain because the more of this you take, the more they grow."
He points to studies where altering the microbiome in animals affected their addiction tendencies, suggesting that targeting gut health could be a novel approach to addiction treatment.
Concluding the discussion, Ed Mylett seeks practical advice for listeners eager to improve their gut health. Dr. Gundry offers the following recommendations:
Eliminate Trigger Foods: Remove gluten, corn, and nightshades from your diet to reduce gut permeability.
Incorporate Fermented Foods: Regularly consume fermented products like yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, and kimchi to support postbiotic production.
Supplement Wisely: Consider taking supplements designed to heal the gut, as recommended by healthcare professionals like Dr. Gundry.
Adopt a Prebiotic-Rich Diet: Consume foods rich in resistant starches and soluble fibers to nourish beneficial bacteria.
Dr. Stephen Gundry [59:37]: "I can heal your leaky gut... get those out of your diet, and within nine months to a year, 100% of my patients are no longer sensitive to these compounds."
This episode of The Ed Mylett Show provides a thought-provoking exploration into how our gut microbiome intricately influences not just our physical health but extends its reach to our mental well-being and personality traits. Dr. Stephen Gundry presents a paradigm shift in understanding mental health and addiction, advocating for a gut-centric approach to healing and optimization.
Listeners are encouraged to educate themselves further by reading Dr. Gundry's book, The Gut-Brain Paradox, and to consider comprehensive lifestyle changes to support a balanced and thriving microbiome. As research in this field continues to evolve, the potential for preemptive medicine rooted in gut health holds promising implications for the future of holistic health and personal development.
Notable Quotes:
Dr. Stephen Gundry [03:39]: "These antidepressants actually change the gut microbiome. It's the change in the gut microbiome that... causes the effect that they're looking for."
Dr. Stephen Gundry [05:31]: "Dysbiosis means... our tropical rainforest in our gut is now a desert wasteland."
Dr. Stephen Gundry [10:13]: "Glyphosate actually specifically targets the tryptophan bacterial pathway. And tryptophan is the precursor for the feel-good hormones like serotonin."
Dr. Stephen Gundry [12:49]: "Most people with anxiety and depression have what we call leaky gut."
Dr. Stephen Gundry [25:37]: "Postbiotics are... gases that communicate... first chain fatty acids like butyrate."
Dr. Stephen Gundry [45:52]: "There are bacteria that associate with addiction... they manipulate your brain because the more of this you take, the more they grow."
Dr. Stephen Gundry [59:37]: "I can heal your leaky gut... get those out of your diet, and within nine months to a year, 100% of my patients are no longer sensitive to these compounds."
This episode serves as a crucial reminder of the profound influence our internal ecosystems wield over our overall well-being. By prioritizing gut health, individuals can unlock new avenues for mental clarity, emotional stability, and personal growth.