BITESIZE | 3 Simple Dietary Tips to Improve Your Gut Health, Boost Your Energy & Reduce Inflammation | Dr Emily Leeming #575

Twenty years ago, very few scientists even knew about something called the gut microbiome. Now, with over 70,000 research papers published on the subject, this complex ecosystem, home to trillions of microorganisms, is recognised as a key factor in our physical and mental wellbeing. Feel Better Live More Bitesize is my weekly podcast for your mind, body, and heart. Each week I’ll be featuring inspirational stories and practical tips from some of my former guests. Today’s clip is from episode 508 of the podcast with microbiome scientist and researcher at King’s College London, Dr Emily Leeming. We now know that our gut health plays a crucial role in everything from our immune system and our ability to respond to stress, to our skin and even our mental wellbeing. In this clip, Emily shares some of the latest science along with some simple, practical tips for building more gut-friendly foods into your diet. Emily is someone who is highly knowledgeable and passionate about helping us all improve the health of our guts. Her message is clear: nurturing our gut microbiome is not about following rigid rules – it’s about understanding this remarkable ecosystem and working with it, not against it. Thanks to our sponsor ⁠https://drinkag1.com/livemore⁠ Show notes and the full podcast are available at https://drchatterjee.com/508 Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts ⁠⁠https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore⁠⁠ For other podcast platforms go to ⁠⁠https://fblm.supercast.com. DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rangan Chatterjee?

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• 0:41Rangan Chatterjee?

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• 1:20Rangan Chatterjee?

  See all details at drinkag1.com/livemore. Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 508 of the podcast with gut health expert and microbiome scientist Dr Emily Leeming. We now know that our gut health plays a crucial role in everything from our immune system and our ability to respond to stress, to our skin and even our mental wellbeing.

• 2:02Rangan Chatterjee?

  In this clip, Emily shares some of the latest science along with some simple, practical tips for building more gut-friendly foods into your diet.

• 2:13Rangan Chatterjee?

  Why should someone care about the health of their guts?

• 2:18Speaker 01

  I think this gut microbiome is seen as a forgotten organ. It's not just helping with our digestion. It's influencing the rest of our body and very much having a really big impact on our health, but in a way that's really useful for us to be able to understand because we can't change our genes, but we can influence and change our gut microbiome, giving us another tool to influence our health. So think about how you feel in the here and now, and that's really, you know, is it your mood, your energy, your cognition, you know, that is what your health is giving you. And I think we've got to recognize that your gut microbiome is playing a key role in that. Of course, it's one piece of the puzzle, but the beauty of the gut microbiome is that

• 3:01Speaker 01

  we're able to change it and therefore we can improve our health by making changes to support our gut microbiome. 20 years ago, most of us, including many scientists, didn't even know that the gut microbiome existed. Now, 20 years later, we, you know, we've had this evolution, this tsunami of research papers coming out. And a lot of that is due to the fact that we've had the technology to be able to understand not only who's there, sort of these tiny living organisms that live in our gut, but also now what are they doing and how are they impacting our health? So effectively, you've got 100 trillion microorganisms. So these are tiny living organisms that live in your gut.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  They are made of bacteria, viruses, yeast, fungi. You've got a whole collection of different communities in there. These communities are not just helping with your digestion by breaking down food, but they're also producing special molecules that can travel across your body. They can cross your gut barrier lining into your body, cross through your bloodstream to different organs and influencing your health. So this is a live ecosystem that's living in your gut, that is directly responding to you and you're responding back to it.

• 4:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  Now, the interesting thing for me about gut health, for want of a better term, is that It seemingly sits at the heart of multiple different states in the body, multiple different diseases. So as a medical doctor, I've always been fascinated by root causes. Okay, so let's say inflammation, for example, we know that chronic unresolved inflammation underpins in some way, at least, many of the chronic diseases that we see, whether it be some cases of depression, heart disease, autoimmune illness, dementia. Although seemingly separate diseases, when you go back up the chain and look at root

• 5:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  causes, we see that chronic unresolved inflammation is one of those root cause drivers. Yes, I know inflammation and gut health are strongly linked, but I think we can look at gut health in a similar way, right? That it actually lies at the heart of multiple different conditions.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I mean, it's really considered to be, you know, this new cornerstone of health. And I think when we, you know, talk about the fact that we've got these kind of tiny, you know, organisms invisible to the naked eye, you know, how can they be really that impactful for our health? I get asked that, you know, quite often. And I kind of laugh and I say, yes, it does seem quite fantastical. But I think we've got to think about looking at it from an evolutionary perspective. So actually, if we go back in time before humans even existed on this planet, this world was dominated and owned by microbes. Microbes are on every single living surface. They continue to be today. And effectively, we've then co-evolved with these microbes to the point that we have as many microbial

• 6:05Speaker 01

  cells as we have human cells. So just showing that, we know throughout evolution, we have then relied on them and they've relied on us. And therefore, that is why they have such an influential effect on our health and not just helping with our digestion, and therefore influencing all these different disease states, but also things in health as well, like your energy, your mood and your cognition. There's also this very powerful connection between your gut and your brain, so much so that we call your guts your second brain because they're physically connected through a long wandering nerve called your vagus nerve. Now, there's multiple different ways that your gut microbiome is talking to your brain

• 6:50Speaker 01

  and influencing your brain. Again, this is really exciting kind of early research that we've only really started to kind of tap into in the last couple of years. What we're seeing is that, yes, we've got this communication, the most direct communication is through the vagus nerve. We think about that, that's like picking up the telephone to have a direct call. And then we've got the molecules, those metabolites that are produced by your gut microbes. They can also influence your brain. A great example of those are short chain fatty acids. Only your gut microbes can make these short chain fatty acids. Your body is not able to make it themselves. They make them by feeding on fibre from the food you eat. And these short chain fatty acids have an anti-inflammatory effect, but they're also really important for your blood-brain barrier.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  This is a protective fortress around your brain that effectively has gateways in it that stop anything that's problematic, like toxins or kind of harmful molecules from getting in. But they also need to stay strong and healthy to let in those nutrients that your brain needs. So that's an example of metabolites. Your microbes are also in tune with your immune system and signaling to your brain through immune cells as well. So that might be changing shape and different formats, perhaps like sending a letter in the post where you give it to the postman and then it maybe goes to a few different sorting offices and then ends up at your door. That is also another pathway that your gut microbes are signaling to your brain.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  And then last but not least, we see this relationship with neurotransmitters. And your gut microbes, early signs that they're helping to supply your brain with the building blocks that your brain needs to make things like serotonin, your happy hormone, and also dopamine, which is your kind of, ooh, I like it, do it again neurotransmitter. And I think when we, you know, the fact we go back to our microbes making up, you know, 50% of our cells, you know, they are heavily influencing pretty much every aspect of our body. But not there by accident. They're not there by accident. They're playing a role.

• 8:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  Let's get some of your practical advice. You've got some really cool mnemonics that I've read about in your book, I've seen you talk about in some of your videos. If someone wants to say, "Hey, Emily, listen, okay, I get it. You know, the gut microbiome is important for many aspects of my health. What can I do to improve my own gut microbiome?" With the acknowledgement that we're all unique and we have to personalize things for us, if you could maybe walk us through some of your mnemonics to help us take away a bit of practical advice, that would be useful, I think.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Absolutely. So I think the real key piece, as you say, depending on what works best for you, but fibre is something that we're drastically missing in the UK diet. So we're missing about 40% of that recommended 30 grams of fibre that we need a day. This is forgotten nutrient that we need to be paying attention to. Now, what happens with fibre and your gut microbiome is that fibre feeds your gut microbiome specifically to specific types of fibre called prebiotic fibres. Now, these are fibres that are found in beans, onions, garlic, leeks, asparagus, lots of different other foods. And when your gut

• 10:13Speaker 01

  microbes feed on this fibre, they're able to make those short-chain fatty acids, which have an anti-inflammatory effect and able to signal to your brain, and lots of other healthy molecules as well, which support the health of your gut barrier lining and also are able to then travel into your bloodstream and going across your body to your different organs. So fibre is something that I really feel quite strongly that it's had this kind of boring reputation of just something that just kind of helps you go to the loo, helps you do a poo. It is so much more than that.

• 10:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  So it needs new PR, basically?

• 10:49Speaker 01

  It needs new PR, absolutely. You know, it helps with your heart health, it helps to soak up bad cholesterol for that to be removed from your body as waste. It helps to balance your blood sugar levels, giving you longer-lasting energy. So it's not only just helping with your gut microbiome, it's having many other benefits in your body, too. And when I talk about fibre, the key foods that I really want to talk about are what I call the BGBGs. So BG, BG, S. That's beans, greens, berries, grains and nuts and seeds. And in particular, what might surprise people is actually the highest fibre foods are whole

• 11:30Speaker 01

  grains, nuts and seeds and beans, much more so than most fruits and vegetables, which I think is quite counterintuitive for some people. I think, oh, well, actually, you know, lettuce, you know, I need to be eating salad for days. Actually lettuce contains about 1.8 grams of fibre per 100 grams. In comparison, chickpeas has about five times, six times more than that. Something like the nuts and seeds, for example, let's compare that to flaxseeds or chia seeds. That's about 25 to 30 grams of fibre per 100 grams. So really, really big jump. And what I really want to highlight with that is that it shouldn't feel stressful to add more fibre

• 12:09Speaker 01

  into your diet. It's about making these BGBGs and everyday, or most day foods, I really say, it doesn't have to be everyday, but kind of adding them to your essential shopping list. And that just gives you kind of an easy kind of fibre boost on a daily basis to feed your gut microbes and look after the health of your gut, because a healthy gut also supports a gut microbiome.

• 12:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  Why don't you, you share with us your five favourite high fibre foods?

• 12:36Speaker 01

  So I want to share the surprising ones, actually, because I think that's always quite fun. So avocado, I think we associate with being kind of this gorgeous, rich, kind of, you know, really good of healthy fats. One avocado contains about eight grams of fibre.

• 12:51Rangan Chatterjee?

  Okay.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  And then dark chocolate is a great one. That's about 11 grams of fibre per 100 grams. So I usually go for something, you know, ideally 70 above, in an ideal optimal world, kind of 65%.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  I am a huge fan of rye pump nickel bread, which is affordable. You can get it from the supermarket and effectively it's that really flat bread that contains a lot of seeds in it quite often as well. And I really like that because one slice of that is seven grams of fibre. So you know already that if you're having that for breakfast with some eggs with your avocado, that you're hitting probably about 10 grams, a third.

• 13:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  At breakfast.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  At breakfast already, a third of your fibre. So those three foods are kind of surprising. I do think some really great ones to have are nuts and seeds. Again, I just want to kind of highlight the chia seeds, flax seeds, even something like dried coconut flakes, again, really high in fibre. What I like to do is have a jar of them by the kettle. And that means that I can see it, it's going to prompt me. If I'm making a cup of tea, I can have them as a snack. But also they're really great to sprinkle on to your breakfast in the morning or perhaps toast them, put them into a salad.

• 14:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, I love that. And just to circle back to something I said before, I think it's really, really relevant here.

• 14:15Rangan Chatterjee?

  Over the course of my career, Emily, I have seen people thrive on a variety of different diets. Yes, there are some common principles, minimally process as much as possible, whole food as close to natural form, trying to not have excess added sugar. All those things for sure, like broad framework principles. But within that, I've seen all kinds of different things. So I've seen some patients thrive on a whole food plant based diet, but I've also seen patients thrive depending on their state of health on a low carb diet. And so therefore I look back and go, okay, Ranga, what's going on here? Well, maybe there is no one perfect human diet that works for every single person.

• 14:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  Maybe there are some principles to follow, but we have to personalise those principles for any individual. And fibre comes in a variety of different places. Right, so I was telling you about someone I know very well, a good friend of mine, who is absolutely thriving on a very, very low carb diet. Sure, if you saw her as a patient, you'd be like.

• 15:28Rangan Chatterjee?

  Why would you change anything when you're functioning like this and your blood tests look like that, right? Now, I'm now thinking through to her diet from what I know. And although it's very low carb, she does have a lot of nuts, okay? She does have quite a bit of black coffee. She does have tomatoes often with some herbs, right? She has olive oil, a few times which will have some sweet potatoes. She has an avocado every morning.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  There we go.

• 16:05Rangan Chatterjee?

  Do you know what I mean? So that's low carb, but it's high fibre.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:09Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right, so what I'm saying is that we have a perception of what high fibre foods are. Just from what I've said to you there, without knowing this lady's history and everything about her, although on the face of it, it's quite a low carb diet and it is. I guess there's probably not as much fibre there as you might want someone to have, but there is some fibre there and there are some plant foods that will be helping her microbiome. Is that fair to say?

• 16:40Speaker 01

  I think the science actually probably is having more fibre than we think because I think we associate fibre with being just like, you know, boring brown bread. We're able to list off high protein foods, you know, off the go. I say I can ask anybody, you know, tell me three high protein foods. They know, they can say, you know, meat, fish, eggs, straight away. When I say the same for fibre, you know, people draw a blank and I really think we need to change that and really recognise that, you know, fibre is found in lots of different other, you know, so many different plants, you know, fruits, vegetables, beans, legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains. And then I think we've outsourced from our intuition far too much and I think that then becomes problematic.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  And when I talk about your intuition, it's really listening to how's your body feel, but also things like your hunger and your fullness levels. You know, your body has a lot of wisdom and really being able to tap into that is really just a key pathway to understand what is right for you. There are definitely kind of guiding principles, I think, for most people in terms of, yes, we want to be eating kind of more fruits and vegetables and more whole grains. When it comes to our gut microbiome, you know, really thinking about foods that are kind of high in fibre, but very much starting from a place that is right for you and really thinking about where you're at in the here and now, and then thinking, okay, what are

• 18:03Speaker 01

  the things that I can incorporate that are making me feel great? And I think a lot of the time with advice, it becomes too black and white. Actually, the most impactful thing you could be doing is just making a small, regular change that you can keep up, that you think tastes great, that you enjoy, that's equally important. And that is incredibly practical. As you say, if you're finding a way of eating that works for you, that you feel healthy, your metrics are all healthy, you know, realistically, there's no perfect one diet for everyone, as you say. It's about finding the diet that you can stick to, that has those healthy principles. And I think we have so much kind of warring between all these different diets, saying, oh, this one's best, this one's best. And like, the

• 18:47Speaker 01

  one that's best for you is the one that you can stick to. That is what the best one is, and that you feel great on.

• 18:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, no, I love that. I'm, you know, a huge fan of small changes done consistently. Start where you're at. See what is the right approach for you at this moment in time. It may change in the future. Okay, so fibre is one of these big things that you want to encourage people to think about.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, there's other compounds that we can also think about when it comes to our health and for the health of our gut microbiome too, particularly talking about compounds called polyphenols. So, polyphenols are these kind of compounds that give fruits and vegetables a lot of their pigment and colour. So, that could be, for example, the, the deep purple of an aubergine, and then kind of comparing that to kind of another fruit and vegetable of a different colour. And what these different groups of polyphenols tend to do different things for our health. So, this is why we want this rainbow of foods. We want this variety of different colours for our health. What happens with our gut microbes, that they feed on these polyphenols in a similar

• 19:49Speaker 01

  way to fibre, so that helps to also support the health of our gut microbiome. In the UK, most of our polyphenols come from coffee and tea. So coffee and tea are, you know, great sources in themselves, but, you know, in comparison to herbs and spices, they're pretty low on the list. Other surprising foods that are really rich in polyphenols and incredibly affordable are things like beans, particularly black beans. And I like to say this because I think quite often when we think about kind of polyphenol-rich foods, you know, somebody might say, oh, I need to go and buy some wild blueberries, which cost, you know, an absolute fortune. But actually, things like black beans contain about eight times more polyphenols than wild

• 20:34Speaker 01

  blueberries. And, you know, you're then getting something that is affordable, that's doing great for your health. And yes, you can still have those blueberries, but you don't feel like you have to go and spend, you know, three times as much to be doing it.

• 20:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, and I think that's one of the plus sides of thinking about a lot of these foods that we think are supporting a healthy microbiome, like the prebiotic fibre foods you were mentioning before, you know, onions, garlic. These are relatively cheap foods. You know, I appreciate everyone's got different income levels and different levels of access, but they're not the most expensive foods, which I think is, is quite encouraging if people are trying to make small changes to have an impact on their health. It's like, well, you could start there and you're going to start to see a difference.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I think we've, you know, overcomplicated gut health far too much. You know, it's been made out to seem that we need to have this supplement or kind of that latest new thing that's come out. And actually, it's those core key principles are doing the best things for your gut. And that is just, you know, maybe it's adding in some onions and garlic to, you know, if you're making a stew or a soup, perhaps it's sprinkling on some extra herbs or some nuts and seeds next time, you know, you have your lunch. Like really simple, practical things, those are the things that are actually making the biggest impact for your health.

• 21:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. Do spread the love by sharing this episode with your friends and family. And if you want more, why not go back and listen to the original full conversation with my guest? If you enjoyed this episode, I think you will really enjoy my bite-sized Friday email. It's called the Friday Five, and each week I share things that I do not share on social media. It contains five short doses of positivity, articles of books that I'm reading, quotes that I'm thinking about, exciting research I've come across, and so much more. I really think you're going to love it. The goal is for it to be a small, yet powerful dose of feel-good to get you ready for the weekend.

• 22:41Rangan Chatterjee?

  You can sign up for it free of charge at drchatity.com/fridayfive. Hope you have a wonderful weekend. Make sure you have pressed subscribe and I'll be back next week with my long-form conversational Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.