E175 - Dr. Will Bulsiewicz: How Stress, Trauma, and Modern Life Break Your Gut & How To Restore Balance

In this episode, Dr. Will Bulsiewicz walks us through unseen forces shaping our health, energy, and emotional lives. From the chemicals in our food system to the hidden drivers of inflammation and burnout, we dive into why so many people today feel exhausted, misaligned, and disconnected from their true well-being. We examine how modern culture normalizes habits and environments that work against our biology, and why healing requires more than symptom management — it demands addressing the root causes, rebuilding alignment, and taking ownership of what we allow into our bodies and minds. 20% off Pique Life Tea (FREE glass beaker and frother!): https://www.piquelife.com/knowthyself Andrés Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list ___________ 00:00 Intro: Will Bulsiewicz 02:34 How much of our mood is controlled by our gut? 09:40 Two diseases: individualism and materialism 23:30 The intelligence that lives in our gut 35:31 Ad: Pique Life 36:46 What is immune intelligence? 48:01 Detoxing from environmental toxins 54:54 Why are chemical companies allowed to poison us? 57:39 A short horror story 1:02:45 Looking out for what to avoid 1:05:27 The effects of factory farming on our bodies 1:17:36 Humans are the microbes of the Earth 1:26:23 Conclusion: Changing the world ___________ Episode Resources: https://www.amazon.com/Plant-Powered-Plus-Activate-Inflammation/dp/0593418794 https://www.instagram.com/theguthealthmd/ https://theguthealthmd.com/ https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/ https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Three out of five people ultimately will die from inflammatory health conditions. So that means like we're playing a silly game when we're addressing symptoms without actually getting to the source of our problems. And it turns out that we're all a bit silly when we make it sound like nutrition is the only thing that matters because there's so much more. I have discovered that our mood is clearly impacted by our gut in several powerful ways.

• 0:23André Duqum?

  Where do you think is the most effective place to start to guard what's coming in? That way, we don't have to try to heal what could be prevented.

• 0:31Speaker 00

  Like, it's actually quite simple. Here's an example, and I did not know this. Eighty percent of the chemicals, and there's 10,000 of them now and climbing, have never had a feeding study on a human or an animal. So we're speculating that they're safe? Like, that's the extent of what we're doing here? So here's the interesting thing. We're gonna play a little game. I will list the ingredients in a commonly used product, and you will guess what it is. Here we go. Need I say more?

• 0:55André Duqum?

  It's insane.

• 0:56Speaker 00

  It's disturbing.

• 1:03André Duqum?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Know thyself Podcast. Our guest today is a leading gastroenterologist, a gut health expert, a New York Times bestselling author, somebody that I loved having a conversation with last time. His work has been mentioned over 5,000 times by other researchers, and it's by no wonder because he's an incredible articulator of very important messaging around gut health, around the immune system, and how to increase vitality as a human being in general. Dr. Will Bolswitz, thank you for coming back.

• 1:34Speaker 00

  Thank you, Andre. It's good to be here.

• 1:37André Duqum?

  If somebody who's listening to this episode right now is asking themselves, as they often may do, what is the most meaningful shift I could have by the end of this conversation? What can I look forward to? The promise of this conversation, why people should be tuning in?

• 1:52Speaker 00

  Honestly, I'm gonna say to you the exact same thing that I wrote in the very beginning of my brand new book, is an author's note. And I said that within these pages, there's this book that like I've written one book that's for everyone, right? But there's going to be something specific to you. So healing is very personal. What is the thing that we individually need? We can't define that ahead of time, right? Because that that depends on the individual person. But when you hear it, when you discover that you have that aha moment, you go, oh, my gosh, that's the thing that I've been missing. And it can be the thing that changes your life. So healing is possible, but I think it's important for us all to understand it comes in many forms and we have to find that thing for us.

• 2:36André Duqum?

  Let's start diving in then, shall we? There's a couple of unique angles I want to pull from that builds on our last conversation that are amazing themes in your new book, by the way, Plant Powered Plus. Congratulations on that.

• 2:47Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 2:49André Duqum?

  I believe in you and your message and how you share a lot. And so I'm excited to help get that out there. First thing I want to start with is how much of our mood is controlled by our gut?

• 2:59Speaker 00

  That's a good question. I think actually more than we realize. So and that's not that's not to say that we're like basically zombies who are just being controlled by our bacterial overlords. Like, that being said, our mood is clearly impacted by our gut in several powerful ways. If you take a look at people who have complex mood disorders, like major depression, for example, if you were to look under the hood, you would discover that their gut microbiome is unwell. It's struggling. And there's a specific pattern.

• 3:43Speaker 00

  And if I were to characterize it, it's an inflammatory pattern. And it's interesting to describe it that way because there's been a shift within the space of both neurology and psychiatry of understanding that there are mood disorders, there are cognitive disorders that are driven by neuroinflammation.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  So major depression being one of them, generalized anxiety disorder, but you don't need to qualify for these major health conditions in order to have the impact of like your mood being affected. So I think that like that really just demonstrates the way in which these gut microbes are connected to our brain. And, you know, we all, I don't really drink anymore. We can talk more about that if you want to. There was a period in my life where I drank, like it was not never out of control, but it was definitely there. And on the weekends, sometimes too much. And one of the things that I'm so glad I don't have to deal with anymore

• 4:58Speaker 00

  is just the mood fluctuations that happened. And, you know, the day after you just were so down. And kind of like in some ways, at least for me, kind of paranoid a little bit, like thinking things about friends, like, are they thinking this about me? Right? Just like way overthinking it. And I am now convinced that our gut microbes like are the reason why we end up with hangovers. And also why a person would be feeling that way within the context of like having drank too much alcohol.

• 5:34André Duqum?

  If our emotional states, preferences and cravings are all shaped by our microbes, what does that say about free will? I know you sort of jokingly mentioned these bacterial overlords that control us, but you just look at a few parameters in our gut that we shift and that our experience of self and the world radically changes. So I'm just curious as, as a, as a bit of an inquiry, yeah. What are you, what are your thoughts on that?

• 6:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. So this, the gut microbiome is an ecosystem that lives inside of us. And our superpower as humans is our ability to shape ecosystems. We can change our environment. And we also have the ability to change the environment inside of us. And so, and it's ultimately our choices. And that doesn't mean that there aren't compulsions or addictions or challenges that exist to that. But to frame it as if we don't have choice, right? That there is no free will, that basically the microbes are defining everything.

• 6:46Speaker 00

  It was hard for me to really understand that because ultimately they're the ones who are forced to adapt to whatever it is that we do, right? So I would actually argue that they're the ones that have the absence of free will. We're the ones that have choice and the choices that we make ultimately are reflected and imprinted within our microbiome.

• 7:06André Duqum?

  It's fascinating just to observe the interplay between both, right? How we shape our environment, how our environment shapes us and our microbes? How that influences our decisions, how our decisions influence them, right? So I just love the holistic approach you bring to the ecosystem that we are a part of. Because it's not as simple as, of course, just we have absolute free will or not. There's of course a cascade of different influences at any given moment.

• 7:32Speaker 00

  Andre, we, at least I'll speak for myself, that I felt for most of my life like, hey, we're human. We're the dominant creatures on this planet. We get to make all choices without repercussions. We can do whatever we want. I can, I can go out in my yard and change the whole thing, chop down a tree if I want to, right? You start to feel like you're untouchable.

• 8:04Speaker 00

  And where I'm at today and what's changed is that actually we are completely intertwined.

• 8:13Speaker 00

  With the world that surrounds us. And we can't actually separate ourselves from that. And the ways in which we impact that environment intentionally or unintentionally ultimately will reverberate back to us at some point. It's just a sort of a question of when. And I think you can look at this on so many levels, but actually they end up sort of converging in parallel. Because it could be a micro level, right? Where we talk about how our choices impact our gut microbes. And then, as you just mentioned, it's sort of like circular in nature, where you impact your gut microbes and then that impacts you and how you feel and your mood and your cravings and your motivations. And round and round we go in that circle.

• 8:57Speaker 00

  But I also think that there's like this broader conversation of like, okay, so we dumped plastic into the ocean. And now we have to deal with the fact that, like, are we able to consume products from the ocean safely anymore? Or are they all sort of laden with microplastics, nanoplastics in a way that we should actually be avoiding them? Or, and that's just like one example. You know, I think that the entire point is that we ultimately are a product of our environment. And yes, we can shape that environment. But sometimes we as humans, we think we're so smart and capable of like making everything perfect the way we want it. And then there's unintentional consequences that come back.

• 9:42Speaker 02

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• 10:11André Duqum?

  When you speak to how we are completely intertwined with our surroundings and through diving more into your work, I really appreciate all the different threads you pull of all the different influences we have, from the environmental toxins, from the diet and lifestyle interventions and the changes and how that affects so many things within our body and mind. To something that I feel inspired to bring up, because you mentioned sort of this. These two diseases of modern society, which are individualism and materialism.

• 10:45André Duqum?

  So in chapter eight of your book, you sort of dive into the mind-body connection, the emotional and aspects of trauma that affect our enteric nervous system. And so for people that don't know what that is, I would love to start to unpack the different influences of the psychological psychosomatic components and how that affects our gut.

• 11:06Speaker 00

  Okay, definitely. I think we have to build towards this.

• 11:07André Duqum?

  Let's do it.

• 11:08Speaker 00

  That's okay.

• 11:10Speaker 00

  And I think where that conversation starts, so ultimately, just for the listeners, where we're going to land is a conversation about culture and how we have normalized things that I actually don't think are working for us. In fact, they're working against us. But before we get there, we have to sort of start with the way in which our body works. So there are these things, Andre, that I think sometimes people think they're woo-woo and they dismiss them, right? And yet, I'm here to tell you that I can explain the physiology of what's actually happening in the body, so let's not pretend that it's not real.

• 11:47André Duqum?

  What's an example of what would be perceived as woo-woo that you'd like to break down?

• 11:51Speaker 00

  Well, I just think anytime we talk about mind-body.

• 11:53André Duqum?

  Uh huh. Gut feelings, like things that are like a bit more ethereal.

• 11:59Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 12:00André Duqum?

  Grounding it into the real physiology.

• 12:03Speaker 00

  Go and take, so in my book, in chapter eight, there's a list of interventions that activate your parasympathetic nervous system. And if you go and you review that list, I'm here to tell you that I have research to back every single thing up. But if you were to take that exact same list and go back to like the year 2005, you'd be like, that's a bunch of woo-woo crap, right? That's not real. I specifically remember, by the way, before we dive into this, when I was at the School of Public Health of the University of North Carolina, which is like... Either Harvard, Hopkins, Johns Hopkins, or University of North Carolina,

• 12:47Speaker 00

  those are the number one schools of public health. So they're training the best and the brightest. And I remember sitting there 15 years ago and they're just like acupuncture is BS. Like flat out acupuncture is BS. And you could put those needles wherever and it doesn't matter. And actually, I don't think it is. And I've seen things that indicate to me that actually what was BS is being close minded. So anyway, but where we have to start is understanding the physiology of how our body reacts and responds to the environment in non-conscious ways. And so what I mean by that is that you don't necessarily have the opportunity to have a thought and have your hands at the wheel controlling everything that your body is

• 13:32Speaker 00

  doing. There's times at which your body is reacting and responding to whatever's happening and because it thinks it knows what it needs. And we call this the autonomic nervous system. So and in a way, the autonomic nervous system is intended to like rise to the occasion when it's really necessary, or on the flip side, to slow it down and make it like nice and chill. And when it's rising to the occasion, which I make it sound so wonderful, I'll unpack that, that's our sympathetic nervous system. So that is like basically you get focused, your heart rate picks up, your blood pressure picks up. And like if in theory you were under attack, right?

• 14:13Speaker 00

  If we were living during cave people times and some other tribe was attacking us, you absolutely need that, right? Because you have to be prepared to defend yourself. So you need those enhancements. But the problem is that you don't get to do that without a trade off. There's always a trade off. And the trade off is you just compromised your gut. So your body will release a hormone called corticotropin-releasing hormone, CRH. This is your stress response. This is adrenaline getting basically activated. The adrenaline comes from your adrenal glands, but it's the CRH that sets off this cascade that affects your adrenal glands, your muscle, all these different tissues.

• 14:57Speaker 00

  And in the process, it disrupts your gut barrier.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  And when you disrupt the gut barrier, then you're going to allow things that are inside of your gut to leak across that aren't supposed to be there. And I may call that increased intestinal permeability, but like, common language for that would be leaky gut. And that's totally fair game. And if those things leak across, your immune system, 70% of your immune system is lining your gut, because that's where we interact with the outside world. And your immune system is there for a specific reason, which is that when there's a threat, the immune system responds. So the point is that in this moment where we activate the sympathetic nervous system,

• 15:47Speaker 00

  we actually are creating dysbiosis, leaky gut, and inflammation. And we, in the modern world, go through our days sympathetic overdrive. And it's just like nonstop. This is how we live. We move from one sympathetic thing to another sympathetic thing. Now, the counterpoint, sort of like the yin and yang, the counterpoint to sympathetic overdrive is activation of your parasympathetic nervous system. And this is mediated through the vagus nerves. So we have these paranerves that I find to be quite fascinating,

• 16:31Speaker 00

  because they actually are connected directly to your brain. And we have special holes in our skull that allow these nerves to pass through from your brain, through your neck, all the way down to involve your chest, your heart, and your gut. And within your gut, directly connected to millions of nerves. So, and when we activate the parasympathetic nervous system, we enter into a state of relaxation. And we feel comfortable. And within that context, we feel safe.

• 17:08Speaker 00

  And the body is able to heal and restore itself. The gut microbes, they get healthier. The gut barrier becomes secure. And when the gut barrier is secure, the immune system is safe and protected too. And so inflammation cools off and the immune cells are able to basically get reorganized and get more precise, more capable of doing their job, which is really to defend against the real threats, not, not just leaky gut. So, but in order to activate parasympathetic, we have to make choices that actually get us there. And that, those things are the woo woo things.

• 17:53Speaker 00

  And it's kind of interesting because when you start to take a look at them, I mean, some of them are things that we all know, like sauna or yoga or massage. But there's also things that are really more about human connection and how much we need each other. So examples would be holding hands or a hug or just feeling bonded to another person. And there's things also that are about spiritual connection and our need to understand our place in the universe and what our purpose is, why we're here.

• 18:28Speaker 00

  And so prayer or meditation or, or singing or dancing, like these are all different aspects, opportunities that we have. So, okay, now that we've established that there's physiology that sort of explains the human experience and that we are on sympathetic overdrive. We turn to culture and we have to understand where we came from.

• 19:03Speaker 00

  And now where we are today? And is it a fit for our biology? That's the question that we're gonna keep coming back to. So where we came from was we lived in tribes. And like if we were in a tribe, you and I together, I have my family, you have yours. And that is actually like the measure of wealth. Right? Because there is no money. There is no house. There is no showing off for others. There is, do you have enough people around you who love you, support you, that keep you alive? Regardless of what your needs are.

• 19:47Speaker 00

  And so the measure of wealth was always about human connection. And this is the reason why we feel safest when we are connected. But entering 21st century culture, I mean, it's not really just the 21st century. There's been a multi-gener- multi-century build to this. I mean, clearly, there were kings and castles back in the day. People became like interested in owning stuff. Right? But we redefined our priorities. And one of the things that's happened is we became obsessed with material wealth. And that so that materialism, it drives us. And in many ways, we define ourselves.

• 20:31Speaker 00

  We all are guilty of this. I'm guilty of this. We define ourselves to like, you know, how big is your house? What car do you drive? Right? What are the other things that you own that that make you important? And must mean that you matter? And that has unfortunately, that is not aligned with our need for human connection. So if your goal is wealth, and that's what you target, it can very, very quickly and easily result in you sacrificing your need for human connection.

• 21:13Speaker 00

  But if that human connection that is so deeply ingrained in the human experience and who we are and the way that we're wired is what you actually need in order to be happy.

• 21:25Speaker 00

  Then that's a mistake, right? And the other that you mentioned that's in chapter eight of my book is individualism. And this is the idea that Will is going to turn 18, leave the home, go out into the world, and I'm going to prove that I can do it. Because if I can't, then like I'm a loser, right? So, so the way that I do that is I basically go off, do my own thing, separate from my family. And at some point, like, yeah, I, you know, here I am, I'm 45, I'm married, I have four children. All right. But at the same time, like, my parents don't live with me. Right?

• 22:10Speaker 00

  I've completely separated from them. Do I call them? Yeah, is that the same as, is the same as being in the home together as a unit? No, it's not. And so this concept of individualism that's led us to a place where we like separate out and we have our own house and our own space and suffer from our parents. And we're not allowed to be together with them. Right? As opposed to the multi-generation home. That's where we came from. And so, so here we are. And Andre, there's an epidemic of loneliness out there. So, and the, the statistics are from before the pandemic. And I'm quite sure they're way worse now. And before the pandemic, there was 50% of people in America who felt that they were lonely.

• 22:55Speaker 00

  So it's a scary thing because that's not, that's not just like a trivial feeling. It's, it's actually not discussed often enough. We focus on like, you know, food and alcohol and tobacco and these other things. And, but we don't talk about this. Yet the guru, the sympathetic nervous system, when you are separated from those people, when you don't feel emotionally bonded to others and fully connected. Then you have sacrificed your parasympathetic nervous system and you have activated your sympathetic nervous

• 23:35Speaker 00

  system and you feel, you feel threatened and you feel unsafe. And the result of this is that it affects your health through those, through those physiologic mechanisms that I described. And, and so what they've shown is that loneliness is like on par with being a regular smoker in terms of the impact on your longevity and your risk of disease.

• 24:02Speaker 02

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• 24:31André Duqum?

  Most, most people are familiar with the central nervous system, the brain, the spinal cord. You're referring to in all of these different influences that aren't just purely like biological or diet based, that we will get into more of the physiology and biology of it all. But for those, those that don't know the vastness of how our vagus nerve connects through our enteric nervous system and the, the vast web of what, over 500 million neurons or something like that?

• 25:03Speaker 00

  There's about 500 million nerves that carpet our gut.

• 25:06André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 25:07Speaker 00

  Constantly feeling and sensing. Now to contextualize this, that's five times what you will find in your spinal cord. So it's the number two location in terms of nerves, other than your brain. Your brain truly has more. So in every moment of every day, as we sit here right now, those nerves are feeling and sensing and collecting information, 500 million of them, 500 million inputs or signals.

• 25:34Speaker 00

  And it gets consolidated into this pair of nerves that have run from your brain straight down to your gut. Think of it like the roots of a tree, right, that have spread out, fanned out, and all that information gets sent upstairs. So actually, eighty percent of the fibers within the vagus nerves are designed to receive information from the gut and send it up to the brain. And this is the idea of, like, for example, gut feelings. This is where we think it comes from, is like that gut feelings is not an exclusively gut thing, although it's kind of interesting how we appropriately describe it, right? It's not exclusively a gut thing. What it is, is we think it's

• 26:17Speaker 00

  the consolidation of information where your brain is listening to what is in your gut, thinking on some level consciously, but also tapping into your non-conscious mind, and basically, real quick, coming up with an answer when you need an answer. And it actually turns out that many times you're better off going with your gut feelings than you are thinking it through.

• 26:42André Duqum?

  It's fascinating, because as you spoke to, in the most individualistic and materialistic culture, our center of gravity has really kind of become in our head. Like, the intellect and logic and reason, all incredible faculties have largely become the most predominant form of interacting and knowing and deducing reality. Like I said, I, like many of us, at various times, fall into the overuse and over-identifying of that mode of knowing. But there are all these other forms of knowing, and where the ancient wisdom traditions talk about a level of knowing and wisdom that is born from more of the heart and more of the gut. And so I find it really fascinating to speak to the intelligence of these centers, because

• 27:26André Duqum?

  they're underutilized in the culture we live in, as you've been speaking to.

• 27:29Speaker 00

  You know, this word intelligence, I find to be fascinating, because I feel like we, even with the word intelligence, we use it in a modern sense to think about, like,

• 27:45Speaker 00

  The ability for the brain to process information, right? Logic, or like now we're shifting this to computers and the ability of computers, artificial intelligence, et cetera. But one of the things that I wrote about in the book is actually the intelligence of nature, which comes from a different place, but in some ways I actually think it's superior. Because intelligence, which is your ability to deduce and reason, you could be wrong. But nature provides through the intelligence of millions, billions of years of information

• 28:30Speaker 00

  basically being consolidated and being passed down through these lineages that exist that bring us all the way forward to today. And you and I received the benefit of everything that came before us to build us into who we are today. And there's so much intelligence that goes into that. And on the topic, by the way, of traditions outside of like allopathic medicine, I think there's the so clear to me that there's a ton of intelligence there. And what they were doing was not running randomized controlled trials and using complex computer algorithms, but instead they were basically consolidating their observations over thousands of years.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  So it's the same general concept of like information over time is intelligence and it allows us to land in a better place. And there are aspects to those traditions that have proven to be more right than our ability to be right using clinical trials and complex algorithms.

• 29:36André Duqum?

  To just dive a bit deeper into this notion of unlocking more of our full mind-body intelligence capacity, right? We're speaking to this difference between the intellect and a deeper sense of knowing that comes online. The Buddhists have this term "non-conceptual valid cognition," meaning cognition that is true, but it's non-conceptual. And so it's utilizing the vastness of our body, our gut feelings, our intuitions. And I'm curious for you to unpack a bit more about how the vast majority of serotonin and dopamine produced in the gut and how dysbiosis can directly affect or distort intuition potentially.

• 30:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's interesting. Well, so it turns out that, and we may have discussed this on our first episode together, that I didn't realize in medical school that there were so many neurotransmitters produced in the gut. So there's over 30 neurotransmitters. I can't name 30. I'm not even close to naming 30. I could probably name like six. So there's 30 neurotransmitters produced in the gut, 95% of serotonin, which is the happy hormone produced in the gut, and 50% of dopamine. The brain produces its own stores of serotonin and dopamine. They're not necessarily crossing over. But it's important to understand that you cannot, under any circumstances, separate the gut from the brain.

• 31:01Speaker 00

  They're completely interconnected. So whether the serotonin from the gut affects the mood directly, or whether actually the pathway is through short-chain fatty acids produced by the gut microbes, and also the vagus nerve, and the activity of the vagus nerve, it kind of doesn't matter, because at the end of the day, the message ends up being the same thing, which is that the gut has influence over what we experience in our brain. And so now, these hormones, they also, these neurotransmitters, they do turn out to be more interesting and sophisticated than you might realize.

• 31:45Speaker 00

  So here's an example, and I did not know this until I was preparing this book. It took me three years to write this book. I spent a lot of time in research. So I knew like 95% of serotonin is produced in the gut. Here's what I didn't know. I didn't know that serotonin is actually the precursor to melatonin.

• 32:05Speaker 00

  So the serotonin that we produce by day turns into melatonin at night. Melatonin is the sleepytime hormone. So many people in America have heard of melatonin as a supplement. And you think, oh, that's something that I take to sleep better. Your body produces melatonin on a daily basis. And that level of melatonin rises in darkness. And so in the evening, you were designed where your melatonin levels would rise. And if not for electricity, which is a very new thing, you would have no issue because that melatonin would rise and you would fall asleep.

• 32:48Speaker 00

  But here's, so here's the interesting thing. First of all, I have discovered that morning light exposure is one of the most powerful ways to address insomnia and to improve the quality of our sleep. And it, it seems like it's paradoxical, but it's not at all. Because in part, morning sunlight allows us to set the circadian rhythm so that your body will know when it's time to sleep. And part of what morning sunlight does is it produces serotonin. And it produces serotonin in the brain. This, by the way, is the reasons of why it produces serotonin in the brain.

• 33:32Speaker 00

  This is the reason why people get seasonal affective disorder, where in the wintertime, they get sad. And the treatment, which is very simple, highly effective, and has no downside, is the light exposure. So light creates serotonin in the brain. Light also has an effect on our gut and leads to the enhanced production of serotonin in our gut. And between the serotonin in our gut in the morning and cortisol, which is part of our circadian rhythm and within that synchronized context, is actually perfect. It's what we need in the morning.

• 34:11Speaker 00

  That is what restores gut motility in the morning, turns on our gut and allows us to have a good, healthy morning bowel movement. But I mentioned a moment ago that serotonin is the precursor to melatonin. And it turns out that if you get your morning light exposure, you can literally mark the clock and add 14 hours. And that's the time that you're going to notice you start feeling sleepy.

• 34:36André Duqum?

  So you wake up at seven, nine, 14 hours, 9:00 PM, 14 hours later.

• 34:40Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 34:41André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 34:41Speaker 00

  And you start to feel sleepy, right? Now, you could screw that up if you were like going to look at devices and bright lights and things like this. Artificial lights will suppress melatonin by 30%. But that morning light exposure turns into melatonin in the evening. So here's the interesting thing, Andre. The serotonin that we just talked about producing, both in the brain and in the gut, is going to turn into melatonin. It turns out that melatonin is 400 times higher in our gut than it is in our brain. So when I read that, I was like, what is that melatonin doing? I thought that was just for sleep.

• 35:22Speaker 00

  And it turns out that melatonin impacts our immune system. Actually, our immune system is nocturnal. Most people probably don't realize that, that we get more active in terms of our immune system at night. This is the reason why you get congested at night or you get that cough.

• 35:40André Duqum?

  Allergies flare up before bedtime or something?

• 35:42Speaker 00

  Allergies flare up. A lot of people that have like rheumatoid arthritis and might get worse at night. People that have Crohn's disease are all sort of colitis. They can notice it and it's worse at night. So your immune system activates at night. And then in the morning, we were talking about cortisol. Cortisol is a steroid, suppresses your immune system. This is the reason why you wake up, your nose was congested, and then an hour later it's clear. Because that morning cortisol response has basically cleared it out. So anyway, the melatonin at night that's in your gut is actually helping to restore your gut barrier. It plays a really important role in healing the gut barrier overnight so that whatever's happening in terms of inflammation, because your immune system becomes more active, whatever's happening at night from inflammation,

• 36:27Speaker 00

  the melatonin is ensuring that we have a enhanced gut barrier during that period of time, which is good for the gut microbes.

• 36:35André Duqum?

  Hey fam, I get asked all the time about what kind of tea I am drinking on the show. And honestly, not all tea is created equally. A lot of brands out there cut corners. Sometimes you're getting microplastics from the tea bags, or they're just low-quality tea leaves that are not doing your body any justice. That's why I've been drinking Peak Life's Pu'er tea nearly every day. What makes this tea different is that it's wild harvested from 250-year-old tea trees that are fermented, so you know you're getting living probiotics and prebiotics that help reset your gut microbiome. So that means better digestion, more stable energy, a boost for your metabolism, and even support for your skin. I love that it dissolves instantly in hot or cold water. There's no steeping, no mess, just pure, clean tea.

• 37:18André Duqum?

  Plus, every batch is triple-toxin screened, so you're not getting any weird pesticides or additives, just the good stuff. And because you're a part of this community, Peak is hooking you up with 20% off for life, plus a free rechargeable frother and glass beaker when you grab their Pu'er bundle. They even back it up with a 90-day money-back guarantee. You can try it totally risk-free. Just go to peaklife.com/nolaisel to grab yours now. That's peaklife.com/nolaisel. I hope you enjoy it. Back to the show.

• 37:48André Duqum?

  A lot of people think of gut health as digestion, which of course is an element. But the way you speak to immune intelligence, I think, is really important. So can you help break down exactly what our immune system and our immune intelligence is? And then I'd like to keep unpacking inflammation with you.

• 38:05Speaker 00

  Sure. So our immune system is intended to be basically our defense system. And you can think of it as your little military, right? Your army that can step up to protect you. I always thought of it as the first line of defense. I would imagine most people do, right? Anytime you get sick, it's your immune system that steps up and takes care of it. And within that context, that's exactly what you want. If you get exposed to some sort of pathogen, you want your immune system to take it out. If you hurt yourself, you cut yourself, you need to heal that wound. You need your immune system in order to heal that wound.

• 38:46Speaker 00

  But actually, what I've discovered is the immune system is actually your third layer of defense. So actually, your gut microbes are the first layer. And then the gut microbes are the stewards of the gut barrier. So our entire intestinal system is carpeted with a single layer of cells, held together by these proteins called tight junctions. And the tight junctions and that entire layer of cells are powered by butyrate. Butyrate is what we get from consuming fiber, produced by our gut microbes. And every three to five days, we actually completely replace our gut lining.

• 39:31Speaker 00

  So there's no other part of our body that turns over like that. But it's actually a very interesting thing about because to me, this is an organ. In fact, I would argue that the gut lining is like our most important immune organ. So when I say immune, I don't just mean the cells, like neutrophils and lymphocytes. And I'll talk about those in a second. But like to me, immune is referring to like our layers of protection. And the gut lining is the biggest, most vast, most important one from my perspective. And so, so it's a beautiful opportunity that we have, that like choices that we make over the next three to five days could lead to us having a healthier gut lining, stronger gut barrier.

• 40:14Speaker 00

  And the reason why that becomes so important is, and we touched on this briefly a little bit earlier, is that when it's intact, you are protecting the actual immune system. And the immune system is broken into two major parts. There is the innate immune system. And the innate immune system is actually what has developed through evolution. So when I mentioned a moment ago, the intelligence of nature is so perfectly defined in this, the innate immune system, because you and I have both received this. And it was present at birth. It was preloaded, ready to defend us. And it's not just the product of our lives, our parents' lives. No, no.

• 40:57Speaker 00

  It's not even just the product of human existence. I would, I would make the argument that our innate immune system started evolving a billion years ago.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  And it was the things that were occurring when this world was dominated by single cellular organisms and the things that started to occur when single cellular organisms started forming meatballs. And I guess in a literal sense, it was a meatball.

• 41:26André Duqum?

  Plants and yeah fungi and animal life that were emergent.

• 41:30Speaker 00

  For multicellular.

• 41:30André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 41:31Speaker 00

  Right. And those multicellular things continued to exist in a single cellular dominated world. We still live in a single cellular dominated world, by the way. Everything around us, unless humans have done something, is involving microbes. So, and it's through that evolution that our innate immune system started to understand what is a threat? What is dangerous to us as humans? And it identified a main thing, which is something called lipopolysaccharide. Lipopolysaccharide is the armor that coats specific types of bacteria that are

• 42:12Speaker 00

  pathogenic, that cause infections like E. coli, Salmonella, Shigella. If you've heard of these and you've heard of nasty infections, those are the lipopolysaccharide type bacteria. And so if that gut barrier is not intact, the ones that you naturally have that we all have, and they're part of the ecosystem. And they're fine when they're in balance with those microbes.

• 42:38Speaker 00

  But if the barrier breaks down, they can get through. And now your innate immune system was taught, that's the threat. So the minute you sense that, you got to attack. You got to kill it. That's inflammation. Inflammation is the activation of the immune system. Now, these little boogers, they are crafty. These little microbes, they're crafty. Our superpower, Andre, is that we can shape our environment. But we have a fatal flaw, which is that we're not adaptable, like at all. And the microbes, they are like fast, right? So they can adapt to their environment super quick because like they're, you know,

• 43:22Speaker 00

  us, it takes us 30 years to create a new generation, them 20 minutes.

• 43:26André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 43:26Speaker 00

  Right? So the, the scale of evolution for them, what happens during the course of a 24 hour day for them is like thousands of years for microbes, right? In terms of the evolutionary, evolutionary potential for them. And so they have the ability to work around the immune system to have like basically mutations that would allow them to sneak through the innate immune system. So we developed a second part to our immune system, the most powerful part, which is the adaptive immune system. And these are like antibodies and the adaptive immune system comes from specifically a group of cells called lymphocytes. So it takes you a couple of days to start to manufacture those antibodies, like three to five days.

• 44:10Speaker 00

  When there's a new threat, a new problem, you gotta create the antibodies, but once you do, they're going to destroy that thing. Like they are powerful.

• 44:21André Duqum?

  So would you then track the vast majority, nearly all of chronic disease to origins of some sort of inflammation in the body?

• 44:29Speaker 00

  Yes. So, and this is the, this is the central thesis of my new book because number one, we have an inflammation problem and it's massive. And I, and I don't think I can be hyperbolic because of how big this is. So breaking a couple of things down, I'm gonna start with the small numbers and build towards the big numbers. All right. Number one, 10% of Americans have an autoimmune disease. That's tens of millions of people. One in three people in the United States have been diagnosed with an allergic health condition. An allergic health condition is when your immune system is, is confused and is attacking things outside your body.

• 45:08Speaker 00

  So like asthma, seasonal allergies, food allergies, eczema, those are allergies. One in three people, that's 100 million people.

• 45:22Speaker 00

  We now have it where about 60% of people have been formally diagnosed with a chronic health condition. That has with clarity inflammation as at its core. That could be heart disease, that can be cancer, diabetes, and you go down the line and there's an entire laundry list. I actually think the 60% number is far too low. Because when I was researching this book, I asked a question. If I go on a podcast, how many health conditions can I identify? Where inflammation is clearly shown in a research study with that health condition? And I can back it up with studies to prove it.

• 46:07Speaker 00

  And I found over 130. So there's over 130 health conditions that I know with absolute clarity, inflammation is there. So and three out of five people ultimately will die from inflammatory health conditions. So that means like, chances are, this is what's going to get us.

• 46:30André Duqum?

  60%. If there's two of us, likely one of us.

• 46:33Speaker 00

  And then like, let's think about, let's talk about the symptoms of inflammation. Because it starts to sound like, oh, everyone's inflamed then. Yeah, maybe they are actually. Right? So if we think about this, starting, moving top to bottom, it could be your mood, it could be your ability to focus, right, ADHD. It could be headaches, migraine headaches. It could be brain fog, right? Those are all symptoms. Congestion in your nose, skin issues, breakouts.

• 47:12Speaker 00

  Joint issues, so joint discomfort, musculoskeletal discomfort, like just general soreness. In the gut, bloating, hormonal issues. So in women, fertility.

• 47:26Speaker 00

  Perimenopause, menopause. Okay. Like clearly, we've been talking about these things quite a bit recently. In men, erectile dysfunction. But if I were to characterize the number one symptom of inflammation and the one that I see is like, I'm not arguing that every single time that you feel this way, it must be inflammation. But what I am arguing is that when you have inflammation, you will feel this way. And it is fatigue. So feeling super tired, feeling like the wind just got taken out of your sails. And I know we've all experienced this when you have an infection. But what about like, like would Red Bull and Monster Energy be such a thing?

• 48:10Speaker 00

  If we didn't have an energy problem in the United States, right? And so I'm, I'm of the belief, Andre, that like, you think about all those symptoms. I think there's like two takeaways that I want people to hear. Number one, that's a lot of people. Number two, you go to your doctor and you sort of have this package of symptoms. And you could go to many different doctors for many different symptoms. But they're not necessarily going to turn to you and be like, you know, there's this one thing that's sort of tying it all together. And it's a single word and it's inflammation. And that's the story that like ultimately we have to get to because if that's the root, we need to address the root.

• 48:51Speaker 00

  And we're, we're playing, uh, we're playing a silly game. When we're addressing symptoms and doing whack a mole on that without actually getting to the source of our problems.

• 49:02André Duqum?

  Mm hmm.

• 49:04Speaker 02

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• 49:33André Duqum?

  It seems though, and you effectively make the case for how what has become normalized today is not, is very biologically abnormal for how we evolved. And there are a cascade of environmental toxins surrounding us in our homes that are becoming increasingly more difficult to avoid. And I always try to strike this balance of acknowledging how resilient we are as human beings, but this toxic overload is not something we want to ignore because of all the effects it's going to have on us psychologically, physiologically. And so I would love to actually just quickly run through some of the most detrimental environmental toxins to keep in mind because we need to detox more than ever in today's culture.

• 50:16André Duqum?

  But first line of defense would be preventative measures, you know? So, yeah, we can start with whichever is your favorite.

• 50:24Speaker 00

  Well, so I guess, you know, the way I would frame it is to say this. Like, I think that in order to have an effective book where you're going to have a real conversation with people, you have to go there.

• 50:34André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 50:34Speaker 00

  You have to talk about these things. But at the same time, I don't see my book as being about what you're taking away. I see my book as being about what you're going to add that's going to lift you up above these things, right? So, but I also want to have a real conversation. Like, I, I, I think there's a serious thing to talk about with glyphosate. So, and there, and this is a multifactorial conversation. Glyphosate, of course, is the active chemical found in Roundup. Roundup is not just glyphosate, but glyphosate is the dominant chemical. And you find it everywhere. And you don't just find it everywhere, you find it in us. If you measure our urine, if you measure our stool, if you check our blood, we have it.

• 51:19Speaker 00

  It's already there. And it has been accepted because the argument would be, well, people don't die when they're getting exposed to this. Like, if they did, then we would have to take it off the market. Okay. What if it's like a slow poisoning that does ultimately put us in this position of compromised health? And so, and the thing about glyphosate is that it, it blocks what's called the schikimot pathway. And so if you give that to a weed or a plant, it kills the plant.

• 51:59Speaker 00

  If you give that to a human, well, we have a workaround on the shikomat pathway. Here's the issue. We have these little microscopic 38 trillion microorganisms, bacteria and yeast, living inside of us. They don't have a workaround. And like, what is the toxic amount to destroy a microbe? I don't think it takes much. And the data have become increasingly clear that glyphosate has negative consequences within the microbiome, that it destroys the healthy bacteria.

• 52:40Speaker 00

  And actually, the ones that are the most tolerant or resistant to glyphosate are actually the pathogens. So you're, it's effectively a formula for an inflammatory gut. And it's interesting to think about this, just, I just want to put this out there, that I hear these people all the time, I'm sure you have too, that they say, I can't eat bread in the United States, but if I go to Italy, I'm totally fine.

• 53:07André Duqum?

  I'm one of those people.

• 53:08Speaker 00

  Are you?

• 53:09André Duqum?

  Yeah, I would say that when I go to Europe, I like have no process, no problem processing wheat or bread, but here I just don't do any gluten.

• 53:18Speaker 00

  Andre, have you ever made your own bread?

• 53:21André Duqum?

  I have not, and I would love to.

• 53:24Speaker 00

  Well, I'm not, I'm not saying that you need to, okay? My argument is not, like, I'm not so pro-bread that I would take a person who doesn't want bread and force this on them, right? But if you make your own bread, the bread goes bad within three days. Sour dough actually lasts a little bit longer because the microbes give us some beneficial things. But like, regular bread with baker's yeast is, is like, gonna turn moldy within just a couple of days. So how is it possible for it to sit there on our shelves? Who knows how long? Is it there for three weeks?

• 53:59Speaker 00

  So, and I think what's happening with the whole Europe thing, I can't argue that it's that it's gluten. I can't because they have gluten too. And, you know, acknowledge that like you could, you could, you know, sort of select certain crops.

• 54:17André Duqum?

  Yeah, the wheat is crops are very different.

• 54:19Speaker 00

  Very different. Yes, yes. And I accept that. But the problem is, if this was your immune system reacting to the protein, that's what gluten is, it's a protein. If this was your immune system reacting to the protein, the amount doesn't matter.

• 54:30André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 54:31Speaker 00

  Right? Any exposure, like an allergy, it would trigger. So I'm not convinced it's the gluten. I think that's not to put gluten totally off the hook, but I think that we need to look at what is really going on here. And I think it's the glyphosate.

• 54:49André Duqum?

  Which is being sprayed 280 million pounds per year across the states here. And in terms of the precursors for tryptophan and serotonin, why is that an important thing to reflect on?

• 55:01Speaker 00

  In terms of the glyphosate or what?

• 55:04André Duqum?

  Yeah. And how glyphosate affects the pathways that are precursor to tryptophan?

• 55:08Speaker 00

  Well, tryptophan, tryptophan is the precursor to serotonin.

• 55:11André Duqum?

  Right.

• 55:11Speaker 00

  Right. So that's, that's the issue that ultimately we can get ourselves into. And, and so then you sort of wonder if you're disrupting the system, we were just talking about the benefits of serotonin.

• 55:21André Duqum?

  Right.

• 55:21Speaker 00

  Right? And how they help us during the day, and they help us with our mood, and they help us with our focus, and they also help us to have a morning bowel movement. And then they also become melatonin, which heals our gut barrier at night and helps us to get a good restorative sleep at night. And, you know, yeah, and you're just sort of throwing that all out of whack. So there was a study that just came out, by the way, where they looked at 1,000 different chemicals that already exist in a combination of food or consumer goods. This just came out, it was like in the news. And they studied them in terms of what's happening with the microbiome. And basically what they found is that out

• 56:01Speaker 00

  of a little over 1,000, like it was like 1,060 or something like this, 168 clearly impacted the microbiome in a negative way.

• 56:13Speaker 00

  And so the argument that the authors made was, why are regulatory bodies not requiring microbiome testing? I mean, this is what we've been saying for a long time.

• 56:27André Duqum?

  Talk to me about the generally recognized as safe and all the various loopholes where the chemical industrial complex is allowed to infuse our foods and food products with chemicals. We're not sure what the long-term effects are and we don't have studies that show what's happening to humans when they ingest them.

• 56:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I am not going to go so far. People may feel differently than me. I'm not going to go so far as to say that this is nefarious and intentional harm. But what it is, is these are businesses. They're trying to make money and they're looking for shortcuts and opportunities to do that as much as possible.

• 57:10André Duqum?

  Follow the money.

• 57:11Speaker 00

  And yeah, and so when we came back from World War II, the world really, as we know it today, was so much defined by the World War II and the fallout of World War II. So we came back from World War II and the US government basically said, like within, you know, 10 or 15 years, they said, we need a way to like regulate food and, and, you know, in theory, protect our citizens. And so they said, but the problem is like you got things like vinegar and salt. And like, we, we don't need studies to prove that those are safe. We know those are generally recognized as safe. So they created this special law that allowed a loophole

• 57:56Speaker 00

  where things that are generally recognized as safe could pass through the process with very, very little effort. No requirement for human study, not even a requirement to feed animals.

• 58:09Speaker 00

  80% of the chemicals, and there's 10,000 of them now and climbing, 80% of them have never had a feeding study on a human or an animal.

• 58:19Speaker 00

  So we're speculating that they're safe? Like, that's the extent of what we're doing here, right? Let alone, Andre, this is one of my big contentions, is what about microbiome testing? And even more so than microbiome testing. We're gonna raise our kids on these foods and expect that they can continue to eat this way for 80 years and think that that's okay? So, and the problem is that disentangling the complexity of 10,000 things where it doesn't matter what you're eating today, because we would have to take into account what you ate yesterday and last year and the year before that and all the way back

• 59:00Speaker 00

  to your childhood and the complexity of trying to understand all of that, right? So, disentangling, when you're kind of exposed to all of them in varying proportions, it's impossible.

• 59:14Speaker 02

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• 59:43André Duqum?

  This is a snippet from your book. I would love for you to read some of the ingredients into what this product is and then share what the product is, because you mentioned how from a very young age, we're fed so many things, we don't know what the effects are.

• 1:00:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay. Let's pretend for, let's imagine for a moment that you're listening to the audiobook. I actually read the audiobook this time around, so, and I, for what it's worth, I highly recommend the audiobook because chapter eight was, yeah, it was a thing. All right, so, a horror novel in one paragraph. Eat your heart out, Stephen King. We're gonna play a little game. I will list the ingredients in a commonly used product and you will guess what it is as I read this to you line by line. Here we go. Nonfat milk, lactose, vegetable oil, including pomegranate, coconut, soy, and high oleic sunflower oils. Whey protein concentrate, galacto-oligosaccharides, poly-dextrose, more tirola, alpina oil.

• 1:00:51Speaker 00

  Cryptocodinium coni oil, calcium carbonate, potassium citrate, ferric sulfate, potassium chloride, magnesium oxide, sodium chloride, zinc sulfate, cupric sulfate, manganese sulfate, potassium iodide, sodium selenite, soy lecithin, choline chloride, ascorbic acid, niacinamide, calcium pantotinate, vitamin A pomitate, vitamin B12, vitamin D3, riboflavin, thiamine hydrochloride, vitamin B6 hydrochloride, folic acid, vitamin K, biotin, inositol, vitamin E acetate, nucleotides, including cytenine 5 monophosphate, disodium uridine 5 monophosphate,

• 1:01:36Speaker 00

  adenosine 5 monophosphate, disodium guanosine 5 monophosphate, as well as taurine, L-carnitine. What is it? This is the number one selling infant formula in the United States. Need I say more? Nope. It's disturbing.

• 1:01:59André Duqum?

  It's insane. What do you make of how that has become so normalized and subsidized? And a lot of these foods that since from a young age, like can't effectively pronounce half of the list. Yeah, I'm just curious what you make of, what do you make of all that?

• 1:02:21Speaker 00

  I mean, I think it's super disturbing. I was born in 1980 and I grew up on this kind of stuff. And I don't blame my parents because they just didn't know. Right? And like picture a world where you have a kid who is rejecting a lot of what you offer them in terms of food and they're difficult and challenging. And you have the ability to give them something that they will love, they will love you for it. They'll be so grateful that you provided it to them. It's not expensive. It can store for a very long time. And even for yourself, it tastes great and you enjoy it. Right? It sounds like a winning formula. I mean, it really does until you get into the trade offs.

• 1:03:05Speaker 00

  And so the problem is like, we didn't know those trade offs in the very beginning. But here we are, and we're looking back. And there is a pattern where these ultra-processed foods, which I discussed this in the book, that when I wrote Fiber Fueled in 2020, there were almost no books. I'm sorry, almost no studies about the harm of ultra-processed foods. That's wild. How can you be an academic and not ask this question? There's entire nutrition science departments and none of them, none of them, across the globe, were taking on the question of are ultra-processed foods healthy or unhealthy?

• 1:03:45Speaker 00

  And so I wrote about what was available back then in 2020. And now, fast forward, here we are, and it's, you know, like six years later. And there's actually dozens of studies. And in fact, there was a sort of a scoping review with a meta-analysis where they took a look at all the available data on, I believe it was 45 different health conditions. And what they discovered was, if I recall correctly, and I may be slightly off on this, but it's gonna be real darn close. I believe there were 36 different studies, 36 different health conditions out of 45, where consuming ultra-processed foods increased the risk. And that was statistically significant.

• 1:04:26Speaker 00

  But if you actually looked at the signal, meaning there are some things that don't yet reach statistical significance because you just don't have enough people in a study yet.

• 1:04:38Speaker 00

  But there's a trend. And if you looked at the trends, 42 out of 45 indicated that ultra-processed foods increased the risk of the disease.

• 1:04:49André Duqum?

  Going to read a short snippet also from your book. "Our modern choices have led us down a road of convenient, lab-altered, mass-produced foods and a chronically stressful lifestyle. The result is a toxic disconnect between our biology and our environment, one that weakens our gut microbes."

• 1:05:04Speaker 00

  100%.

• 1:05:05André Duqum?

  And we could spend three hours going through the list, right?

• 1:05:11André Duqum?

  There's from the microplastics and nanoplastics to what's been normalized in regards to alcohol and sugar, to the food dyes and the food ingredients that we can't even pronounce. Because it can become overwhelming, where do you think is the most effective place to start? To start to guard what's coming in? That way, we don't have to try to heal what could be prevented.

• 1:05:34Speaker 00

  So I would argue that if we got back to eating off, like, it's actually quite simple.

• 1:05:38André Duqum?

  Great.

• 1:05:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, in the sense that if you ate real food, you're in a good spot. And, you know, there's, uh, there is a strong argument for organic, for sure. But if you buy organic, you still absolutely should wash all of your fruits, vegetables, et cetera.

• 1:05:59Speaker 00

  But I would also argue that even if you can't buy organic, you're still better off eating those whole plant-based foods. Because all of these studies that we have on Dre that show us the benefits of eating those particular foods ultimately show us that people are healthier and those aren't just organic, plant-based foods. So, so generally speaking, I think, and this is not, I'm not trying actually to argue all or nothing. I'm not arguing for a 100% plant-based diet. What I'm arguing is that we have things that are missing. Fiber, polyphenols, healthy fats, fermented foods. We're missing those things.

• 1:06:42Speaker 00

  And if you take the things that you're missing, if your body needs them, I think there's such an overwhelming argument that our body does, our microbes do, for sure. And you restore those things, that's how you get healthy. So, so to me, it's really about eating real food. There's many variants on what constitutes a healthful diet. But if you take those four things, which in the book I characterize, I describe them as the four workhorses of nutrition, because they go to work for your health, to make you healthier. Fiber, polyphenols, healthy fats, and fermented food.

• 1:07:22Speaker 00

  If you, if you, if you build any diet and it's made up of those things, you're going to be in the right place.

• 1:07:30Speaker 02

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• 1:08:01André Duqum?

  So two quick notes before we go to the four workhorses. And we can, you know, I love the simplicity of eating real food. And also the reality is there are, there's a list of other guardrails that, from the filtration of water to being mindful of, one thing I'm curious your perspective on is the compounded negative effects on specifically factory farmed animal products because of the various chemicals that are in the crops they're eating, not alone, not to mention the pharmaceutical cacophony that they're fed, you know? So what, is there anything you want to mention there?

• 1:08:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, I do. I mean, I, so first of all, like, I am a medical doctor, my, my goal, and I think that if you follow my work, you will find that I'm 100% real about what my intentions are. My goal is to make people healthy. And I think there's many different paths to get there. So I don't come to make ethical arguments, but I also think that there is clearly an ethical argument when it comes to these concentrated feeding lots with these animals and what they're doing to them in there. And this does impact your health. Because if you, if you take highly unhealthy animals, you talk about being disconnected from our, from our nature and the way that we're intended to be.

• 1:09:24Speaker 00

  Taking a cow off the pasture and putting it into a tight little space with like hundreds or thousands of other livestock, right? And then feeding it an unnatural diet that it would never actually eat that way if it were allowed to freely roam in nature.

• 1:09:42André Duqum?

  Just heard a hawk screech twice. When you, I don't know if you heard that in the background, that was pretty cool.

• 1:09:46Speaker 00

  No. It agrees. The hawk is agreeing with me, right? That's a, that's a, that's a side right there. So, but like you, that's a setup for unhealthy animals.

• 1:09:56André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:57Speaker 00

  Right? And if you are, if all you care about is pounds of meat and there's nothing in between, that if the quality doesn't matter at all and you just want to produce pounds of meat, actually unhealthy animals, much like unhealthy humans, they gain weight faster. So you could give that animal antibiotics and by destroying the gut microbiome, you could, you could feed that animal the same number of calories and actually have a more obese, fattier animal that you're then going to serve to someone. And guess what? The antibiotics residues are found in the meat and it is contributing to antibiotic resistance. So, you know, one of the things that I mentioned several times, and I've said it here and

• 1:10:39Speaker 00

  I'll say it one more time, that if, if what we're eating is unhealthy, how can we ever be healthy? And I really think that that sort of, that system exemplifies that. So I personally don't eat meat, right? And there's ethical reasons for why I choose, and our family, we choose not to do that. I'm not trying to convince people of that specifically. I think, I overtly say, you can eat meat and be healthy, but that's a bunch of trash, for sure.

• 1:11:08André Duqum?

  The factory farm stuff, yeah.

• 1:11:09Speaker 00

  The factory farm stuff.

• 1:11:10André Duqum?

  For sure. Yeah. I, I appreciate the openness to like the diet diversity that works for various different people and not being so dogmatic about labels and whatnot and just recommending more of what really works for people. I'm, I eat in a similar way to you, like whole plant-based foods. It just feels great in my system and haven't been taking animal products for about a decade now. And, you know, it- I feel like, I feel healthy, I feel sharp, I feel great. And I know that people are at different points in their life, in different points in their journey, with different amounts of access.

• 1:11:52André Duqum?

  And some people, for different parts of their life, like feel, say they feel really good on, on animal products, or they feel, you know, for various reasons, they don't feel great on a plant-based diet. And of course, there's so many different factors to, one could try to track to different causes. But yeah, I, I like how you keep coming back to something that's additive and making this feel like you're moving towards a more abundant life with the choices you're making, instead of more restrictive.

• 1:12:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, 100%. Well, first of all, the data on restrictive diets, every single one of them, even, even ones that I might say are pretty healthy, they always impact your microbiome. Anytime you restrict, you are taking away nutrients from specific families of microbes that are, that are looking for that. And when they don't get it, they're gonna die off. So, but yeah, I think, like, to me, the word that you said, that's the most important word from my perspective, is journey. And we're on a journey, and there's, there's different aspects of our life that mature at different paces. So, for example, I happened to, like, really change my diet roughly around 2012, 2013, and it completely transformed my life.

• 1:13:02Speaker 00

  Prior to that, I had the most junk food diet out there, like, the worst, right? That being said, like, I have different aspects of my life that the maturation process has been slower. So, like, for example, coming into my own spirituality and having a stronger relationship with God is something that's happened a lot more recently for me. And so, so to me-

• 1:13:26André Duqum?

  Was there a cause of that?

• 1:13:30Speaker 00

  If I had to summarize, number one, having kids. And there's, so a few things there. I think that, like, um, sorry if I derailed you where you were going, but I just had to ask. No, it's a great question. So-

• 1:13:50Speaker 00

  There's so much that we can explain with science.

• 1:13:54Speaker 00

  There's so much more that we don't know. And the things that we don't know, you're gonna have to believe in something. And I'm not saying you have to believe there's a higher power.

• 1:14:09Speaker 00

  But

• 1:14:11Speaker 00

  when your first child is born, right? So my oldest is 11. And you hold this child.

• 1:14:19Speaker 00

  There's some really dramatic things that happen in that moment. Number one,

• 1:14:26Speaker 00

  there's a love that you feel

• 1:14:30Speaker 00

  that I can't explain because I don't think that's just evolution. How could holding a child for the first time give you that sense of love?

• 1:14:42Speaker 00

  When that child will not be big enough to protect you or help you for many years?

• 1:14:49Speaker 00

  It's pure.

• 1:14:52Speaker 00

  It's like the most powerful, beautiful thing. And your entire intent and purpose while you're here changes instantly. And you may not have known it was coming. And then it hits you.

• 1:15:04Speaker 00

  You're there for them. And you know, science can explain, as I said, a lot. But

• 1:15:13Speaker 00

  when you hold that child, you know that from someplace that I don't know where it is, there was a breath of life that came into this person. And they have a soul in the same way that you and I do. And that's not just neurotransmitters. Right? Like, there's a bigger story there. And it's like, to me, perhaps the most powerful proof of something bigger and greater. And I think you could expand that conversation, go a lot of different directions with the book. I stayed very,

• 1:15:52Speaker 00

  I don't want to say like agnostic, it's not agnostic. I'm recommending and encouraging people to open their heart to something bigger. As I sit here, there's many different ways to express that.

• 1:16:08Speaker 00

  You know, you think about every culture in human history. And they like could have easily just been like, well, look at the world. This is, this is, this is who we are. This is how we live, but they all ended up in the same conclusion. They're, they looked to the sky. They pointed up and they said, there's something there. And, you know, in within Buddhism tradition, it's not the same as it might be within a Judeo-Christian tradition. But I actually think they kind of are in some ways. And that to me is like quite interesting and powerful. So, so anyway, I guess the point from my perspective is that the, the birth of my daughter

• 1:16:51Speaker 00

  has helped me on this journey. And as I've, as, as time has passed, it's something that I've actually really wanted for myself. And I don't just do it for my kids. I'm doing this for myself, which by the way, is actually what I think like you're allowed to selfishly want a relationship with a higher power. And that's, that's, that's just for you. That's private and it can be really special. And for me, it has helped me, for example, in dealing with the death of my father to,

• 1:17:29Speaker 00

  to not see his death as the end, but instead to see his death as he's actually in a wonderful place and there will be a day where I will be with him and we'll continue. And the things that I didn't get to say to him while we're, while we're here on this planet. I know that I'll be able to say to him one day when we pick back up.

• 1:18:02André Duqum?

  It's very clear to me that there are two fundamental forces driving the vast majority of humans on the planet. One is they are being driven by something they feel absolutely called to. And the other is they're being dragged by previous conditioning, societal familial norms. And to me, it feels very clear with the work that you do, um, that you're. Answering what you feel called to in life. You're driven by love as opposed to fear. I can sense your, your passion and love for how the information and the work that you share is going to create a better world for your kids to live in one day. That is genuinely helping people that feel sick or all the various mental, you know,

• 1:18:47André Duqum?

  issues that are stemmed in the mental health pandemic that are rooted in physiological causes. And yeah, I just, I really appreciate the way that you speak to all of these things so holistically. So yeah, man, I just really appreciate the, the passion and love I feel that you, that you carry with your work.

• 1:19:03Speaker 00

  Well, first of all, I'm deeply honored that you said that. You know, if, if my orientation is to trying to help people get healthy, then there can't be any boundaries or restrictions on that. I have to be happy and willing to go wherever I think it takes. And I also think that we're all a bit silly when we make it sound like nutrition is the only thing that matters because there's so much more that matters. So I'm, I'm quite proud of the fact that in this book, through my maturation as, as an author, I can actually turn to these, you know, more complex topics and open up

• 1:19:47Speaker 00

  a conversation because as we said in the very beginning, healing comes in many forms. And for that individual person, you just need to find what is the thing that you should be focusing on in your life. And for me, part of it was changing my diet. What I didn't really talk about until this book is actually there was a lot more going on there and that's what I needed.

• 1:20:09André Duqum?

  And you've referred to how humans are the microbes of the earth, you know, like. To zoom out a bit and you see how we have our own microbial journey and environment that we get to protect and kind of steward. You zoom out and see humans as sort of the microbes of this growing planet, you know, and it's cool to see what happens when people truly discover their own purpose in Dharma and how they contribute and take that responsibility as sort of a privilege to be able to show up in the way that you can uniquely support the planet in. And, you know, right now, we see staggering statistics around mental health and suicide

• 1:20:50André Duqum?

  and chronic disease, and you could say that the microbial condition of the earth, so to speak, is in a pretty sad place.

• 1:20:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:59André Duqum?

  But I'm curious to hear into your optimism for what happens when we start to collectively, when we start to individually sort of wake up to our own calling and the way that you feel like you have and the way that I feel like I'm doing about in the show and my work. Any thoughts you have there on how humans are the microbes of the earth and the responsibility we carry?

• 1:21:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, first of all, I think that there's a lot that's there in terms of the parallelisms between humans and microbes, and it's like a micro macro conversation. And if you were, as you said, zoom out, if you're up on that airplane, you look down, you can't see people there. You trust that they're down there functioning, doing their job, doing the things that happen on a day to day basis. That's exactly the way it is with our microbiome. You can't see them unless you had a microscope, but you can trust that they're down there doing their job. And I think that when you live, so there are questions that I think all of us, at some point in our lives, we come to.

• 1:22:03Speaker 00

  I don't think this is like when you're a kid, and I also don't think it's probably when you're in your twenties, but as you move along, you start to ask like, who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? What does it all mean? When I'm gone, what will that mean?

• 1:22:24Speaker 00

  And these are sort of existential questions that need to be resolved. And I do think that like ways in which we answer those questions and feel satisfied, part of it is actually satisfying our need for human connection. Part of it is that, as we've been alluding to, there is, I believe, a, you know, there's a spot in our heart that is yearning for spiritual connection. And I think part of this is living life with intention and purpose. And that involves knowing who you are.

• 1:23:08Speaker 00

  And when you spend your time on those things, then you are in alignment. And a crisis occurs, whether it's conscious or non-conscious, a crisis occurs when your effort is being given to something that's misaligned. And we see this because, like in medicine right now, Andre, burnout rates are off the charts. And I want people to hear and understand, when I talk about burnout, I view this as this is a serious, life-changing health condition in a bad way. And it is not, hey, go take a break. It is not go sleep it off. Right?

• 1:23:51Speaker 00

  There's no amount of vacation time that will address that. Because what's happening is that doctors are having an existential crisis where they signed up to be a caregiver, to have relationships with patients, to provide to them. And they're getting sucked and pulled and stretched in directions that are actually forcing them to compromise on that. And that's why they're having a crisis. Because you can hate our healthcare system, you can hate it. I totally get it. You know what? I've had to deal with the healthcare system and I hate it too.

• 1:24:26Speaker 00

  But I'm of the belief that the vast majority of people who made the choice of all of the things that they could have done, right? Like, if you're pre-med and you're getting into a US medical school, you could have been a banker for sure. Or an attorney, or whatever the heck you want. And of all of those choices, they made a choice to basically go and enter into a hospital for like 12 years straight, sacrifice that period of time in their life, so that they could come out on the other side and provide care to others because they care, because they want to, because there's compassion in their heart. And so, you know, doctors become cynical, things can change. But we all started with that intention.

• 1:25:11Speaker 00

  And I think when you undermine that intention, you put people into a crisis.

• 1:25:18André Duqum?

  There is this, yeah, there's a bit of this paradox where like, people that have this genuine intention, for example, within the healthcare system to do well, are born into a system that many ways limits them in being able to do so effectively. And I think that a lot of us can relate in our own careers and the way that we show up in the world, that for various parts of our life, and largely like, we're in sort of a culture and a system that we're here to reinvent because it's not working to optimal capacity. It's not working in a way that allows us to really show up in the way that we want to. And so sometimes I think it's like, yeah, I feel like we're born into a world that we sometimes don't feel like we fit in with, but also that's like the reminder, we're here to help create a new one.

• 1:26:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's so true. And I, you know, part of the message in the book from my perspective is like, look, do I pray for like systemic change? Absolutely. I desperately want that.

• 1:26:19Speaker 00

  But unfortunately, like, we're, we're basically staring at the clock right now. Like, it's not happening, right? At least it's not happening the way that I was hoping that it would.

• 1:26:29André Duqum?

  At the speed and scale it needs to.

• 1:26:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, there's things, there's stories that exist, you know, that, why is the US government interested in protecting a chemical company? Right? Like, that makes no sense, other than unfortunately, there's financial interests that have strong influence, more so than our votes.

• 1:26:54Speaker 00

  And so, so the point from my perspective is that, of course, I want these things to change, of course, I want the environment to change, the food system to change, I want all these things, the healthcare, the healthcare system to be better and more accessible. But at the same time, I also know that there's only certain things that I have control over directly. I control my own body. I have control over many different facets of my home and how we organize those things. And I have, at least on some level, control over time, right? Perhaps not as much as I would like, but on some level. And within those things that I have control over, it's important that we create an environment

• 1:27:40Speaker 00

  that is a healing environment, because that's what propels your health for years to come. And I think that's like, sort of, part of the central message is that, i- if you look at sort of the way that the book plays out in the arc of the story, you know, we're gonna move through, yes, we're gonna talk about like, environmental toxicity and these things, and yes, we're gonna talk about what the solutions are, and there's like, gonna completely break down an explanation for all of that, right? But ultimately, what you come to is the, is the protocol that says, here are the tools,

• 1:28:14Speaker 00

  they're all evidence-based, we're putting them on the table and you get to choose. And if you take one of those tools, or more than one, and you apply it to your life, and you feel the difference.

• 1:28:31Speaker 00

  Number one, you've proven that it works. Number two, you should keep doing that. And then you can look to other things that you can add. And that to me is the opportunity that we have is that if you do something that's going to have a meaningful impact on your health, I fully expect you, it's not going to be a secret. You're not going to be sitting there wondering what's going on. You're going to know, you're going to feel the difference.

• 1:28:58André Duqum?

  It's an empowering perspective, one that I think I try to as much as I can with the show and you with yours is we have all these desires for people that are listening probably for changes we want to see in the world. And then like the realization is, okay, by tending to our own garden and taking responsibility for our own life, we become vessels, we become conscious agents of change more powerfully. And it's just that, that quote of like, when the pain of staying the same outweighs the pain of change, then you'll change. Unfortunately, there is a lot of pain and suffering that many of us have to face to realize that we need to change our lifestyle, we need to change our environment. And I have so much compassion and empathy, as I know you do, for how difficult that can feel at different times for people.

• 1:29:44André Duqum?

  But that's the way out, that's the way through.

• 1:29:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:29:48André Duqum?

  So.

• 1:29:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, and some of those, and some of those things are completely free.

• 1:29:52André Duqum?

  Yep.

• 1:29:53Speaker 00

  Totally accessible. And it's just quite simply a matter of like brainstorming, problem solving through within your own life, how do you apply the tool to make it work and make it possible?

• 1:30:07André Duqum?

  Yeah, and it can, I agree, it can feel very overwhelming with the amount of information and things we feel like we should do. We end up shitting all over ourselves. And the reality is like one small thing every single day, whether it's listening to a podcast, reading a book, making one small habit or lifestyle change compounds over time in a drastic way. So, yeah, I'd just love to wrap up by congratulating you on your new book. Thank you for coming back on the show and having an awesome conversation. I thoroughly really loved it and I love that it was very alive and you know, there is a A lot of information that we still could have covered that's both in your book and through your work from the four workhorses and helping people tighten up their diet and lifestyle and

• 1:30:48André Duqum?

  things that they can add like fermented foods and the polyphenols and a lot of those things that you mentioned earlier. And we covered a bit of that in our last conversation and I love the avenues that we did explore in this conversation. And so if people want to have a bit, just to leave people on, a bit of a kind of practical notion, you have some protocols, you have some very like grounded advice to build the foundation for a healthy system that people can dive more into your book, which we'll link down in the description below. But is there anything else you want to like hint at in terms of those simple protocols and changes that can be really effective?

• 1:31:26Speaker 00

  Building morning routine, in one hour, in one hour, if you build it properly, you could completely change your life. So, and to me, the most powerful lever, this is, this is tapping into your circadian rhythm. There's an entire chapter like describing and breaking down circadian rhythm, which includes time restricted eating and meal timings and sleep and all these things are important. But if I could just do one thing, it's to build that powerful morning routine where you get outside, you get exposure to morning sunlight, you get a touch of light exercise, not CrossFit style. You could do that if you want to. That's not a bad thing. But you also don't have to make it CrossFit style. It could be just a touch of

• 1:32:08Speaker 00

  light exercise. Morning light exposure increases cortisol by 50%. That is reinforcing your circadian rhythm. You will feel the difference on day one. More energy, better mental clarity, better focus and stamina, and you will sleep like a baby, as we've discussed during the show, 14 hours later. So get that morning sunlight, build that morning routine. I also want to advocate for like within that morning routine. Putting in some quiet time because like we talked during our conversation today about sympathetic versus parasympathetic. And so that quiet time is how we create some time to rest and digest.

• 1:32:55André Duqum?

  I love that, man. Those I've personally found that those things that you mentioned have been like some of the most effective in my own personal journey, like protecting my mornings and protecting my nights, like setting a bedtime so that I can actually wake up and get morning light. And like the, the, the morning starts the night before, which starts the morning and the night before. And so it's like building, building that healthy cascade or domino effect, right?

• 1:33:18Speaker 00

  A hundred percent. And like to me, I have found this to be so helpful myself that like it's become a non negotiable.

• 1:33:24André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:25Speaker 00

  So if it's, if it's, if it, if it proves to be, I would, I wouldn't have known to make it a non-negotiable five years ago when I wasn't doing this.

• 1:33:34Speaker 00

  The fact that I am doing this and it has helped me so much, you reach a point where you're like, I just got to rearrange and figure out how to make it possible.

• 1:33:42André Duqum?

  Yeah. Amazing, man. Thank you so much. I, like I said, this conversation was super nourishing and I feel like our community is gonna really resonate with it. Is there any last words you have where people could stay connected with you? Anything with the context of this conversation you want to end off on?

• 1:33:57Speaker 00

  I mean, there's, there's so much that we could dig into. I actually really loved the, the things that we covered and those were great questions that you asked. So I want to thank you for having me back on the show. For people who have enjoyed this conversation, number one, check out the first episode that we did together. I think that you'll enjoy that. Number two, my brand new book, Plant Powered Plus is out. And if you enjoyed the conversation, I'm sure you would love the book.

• 1:34:23Speaker 00

  And last but not least, my home base is thegutholdmd.com. So if you come to that place, you're going to find out all the different stuff that I'm involved with, the different opportunities that you have that are like, for example, completely free, such as my email newsletter. So I would encourage people, go there, check it out, sign up for the newsletter and, and I hope to continue this relationship.

• 1:34:42André Duqum?

  Yeah. Likewise, man. Thank you so much. And everybody, I appreciate you for coming in and tuning in and taking time out of your day to. Immerse yourself in information and conversations that are supporting you and therefore the world that you live in. I appreciate you and until next time, be well.