Health
Exploring Integrative Medicine and Holistic Health with Dr. Sandeep Gupta - Part One
In this episode, Dr. Sandeep Gupta shares his transformative journey from traditional medicine to integrative and holistic health practices. He discusses the importance of focusing on health span and ...
Exploring Integrative Medicine and Holistic Health with Dr. Sandeep Gupta - Part One
Health •
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Interactive Transcript
spk_0
Dr. Sandeep Gupta, welcome to the podcast.
spk_0
Thank you very much Paul, excited to be here and to chat to you.
spk_0
Yes, I'm excited as well.
spk_0
So you, you've had an interesting journey, right?
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You started off in the traditional GP,
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slice hospital environment and then you have focused more on an integrative,
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being an integrative GP and longevity and health span.
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Why the shift and when did that come in your career?
spk_0
The shift happened around about six years after graduating from medical school.
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And so as you say, initially I went down the more standard pathways of working in the hospital
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and doing emergency medicine, anesthetics and intensive care.
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And really any interest I had in holistic approaches to health
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were really beat out of me in my first couple of years of being a junior doctor.
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And it wasn't until I myself had a brush with health in 2005 that I started revisiting some of this.
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And so if you go back to my med school days, I used to, you know, I've had an interest in meditation for a long time.
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And I started getting interested in Ayurveda, which is, and I guess gets a Indian traditional medicine.
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And then also just holistic medicine in general.
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I remember I drove past a holistic medicine center one day.
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And I remember the thought came to my head, why wouldn't you do that?
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Like, you know, that, you know, that just makes so much sense to take that approach to health.
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But as I say, I went in a different path and it wasn't until I myself had to be a patient
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that my interest in a more holistic and comprehensive approach to health care came back up again.
spk_0
And when you say it was beat out of you as a junior doctor, I think I know what you mean,
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but just explain that to our listeners.
spk_0
Well, I guess you could say there's a certain narrative that's given to junior doctors by the more senior consultants.
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If you like, whether that be in emergency medicine or general medicine, general surgery, etc.
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And yeah, one of them is almost general practitioners are not very bright.
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Anyone who gets into anything slightly, slightly holistic is, is, you know, slightly less intelligent.
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And if you're an intelligent young doctor, the only option for you is to get into the most technological forms of medicine available.
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So whether that be, you know, cardiology, radiology,
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anything highly technological, ticks the boxes, but anything where you're starting to look at building blocks for health,
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doesn't tick the box at all. That's like, you know, they're people who just muck everything else up.
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And, you know, we were taught that naturopaths are generally people who, you know, just delay cases until they're not incurable.
spk_0
Right. It's interesting, isn't it? The, the general medical system tends to look down its nose on anything that is a bit more holistic and often slags its evidence base.
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And why do you, why do you think that is?
spk_0
Well, I try not to speculate, but you could say the history that I've been told by some slightly older doctors is that it used to be that in the early 80s, the late 70s and so on.
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Doctors used to get together in the hospital, in the tea rooms and do their journal club.
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Now, these journal clubs are totally independent. They would, each of them will put on pull an article and try to interpret that article for the mutual benefit of all the doctors there.
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Now, towards the late 80s and early 1990s, there were a group of super drugs that came out.
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Now, those were referred to, and this is Dr Andrew McIntyre, a colleague of mine here who's a gastroenterologist who shared this knowledge with me.
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And he said that these three class of drugs were ACE inhibitors, statins and proton pump inhibitors.
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These were, they're super drugs because they were huge sellers. They could, they were used on very large patient groups.
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There were massive studies which were run on them that showed benefit. And therefore the pharmaceutical sales escalated a lot at that time.
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And so at that same time, they started to approach doctors and say, you know, do you want to be sitting in this tea room at 7 a.m.?
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Or do you want to come to our fancy education sessions where we do all the work for you.
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You don't have to read those journals anymore at 6 a.m. in the morning.
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We'll do all the work for you. You come along and we'll, we'll tell you what to think. You don't have to, you know, you don't have to work so hard.
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You can come and drink wine and eat our beautiful food.
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And I have the, I have the jollies as well.
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My view that that I have formed over the years is that the medical system and inverted commas isn't the health care system.
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It's a sick care system.
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And that's correct.
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And what I mean by that is that the vast majority of spending and resources and focus is on treating disease, not on optimal health.
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And, and my personal experience both with my son who had cushing's disease and me who went through, which as you know, is pretty rare.
spk_0
But males who going through your open heart surgery last year, because I find I was born with a dodgy aortic valve.
spk_0
I was born with a bi-cuspid.
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No, no, no, no, no, it's all good. But, but the, the system was brilliant up until the time that we got released from the system.
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And then it was shithouse.
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And what I mean by shithouse, no focus on the optimal health on returning to optimal health.
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Basically, all the focus was, don't fuck us up and come back in.
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So completely conservative and really not focused on, on optimal health.
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So that then leads us nicely into this whole idea of medicine 3.0 or focusing on health span, focusing on life span.
spk_0
What's your particular bent? Do you focus on extending people's longevity?
spk_0
Or do you focus on extending their health span? Or have you got a little bit of a foot in both camps?
spk_0
Well, it depends on people's goals and their, their particular view on this.
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However, my personal view is it's all about having those, you know, those quality years of life.
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Which you can do the things in life that bring you passion and joy and meaning.
spk_0
And for me personally, it's not about the number of years of life.
spk_0
Yeah.
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However, if that came along as a side effect, sure.
spk_0
Yeah.
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And my suspicion is it probably will with any, with any really good longevity program.
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The number of years probably is going to increase as well.
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But the thing for me is that I want to be, you know, into my 80s and, and hopefully the 90s.
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I want to be functioning at a level where I'm doing the things that bring me joy and meaning and passion.
spk_0
Yeah. I agree. I want to go out and maybe play a bit of golf, catch up with me.
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It's catch up with family. Have a nice dinner. Go to sleep and never wake up.
spk_0
There you go. Yeah. That's, that's a good one.
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Not, not, not like the average Australian who lives the last 10 years of their life riddled with chronic disease, right?
spk_0
Exactly. Exactly.
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And that's the difference between health span and, and life span.
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So what, what are, let's dive into the sort of stuff that you do.
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So when somebody comes to see you, I know you have longevity programs.
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And what, what's the starting point? Is there, is there a, a number of different screens that you put people through initially to get a bit of an assessment of where they're currently at talk, talk through what that looks like?
spk_0
Yeah. Sure. So the first thing is just taking the history as with any other consultation.
spk_0
But I guess one of the big parts of that is just working out what, what's the client's goals?
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What do you want to be like? So if we're, if it's you, for instance, and you're telling me you want to be playing golf until the, you know, until the day you die pretty much.
spk_0
So you could make an estimation of that. You could say, OK, well, roughly you want to have a biological age of 60 when you're 90.
spk_0
Would that be, would that be a reasonable thing to say for you?
spk_0
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go for that. Let's go with that.
spk_0
OK. And then of course, we, you know, we need to delve into any medical problems you've had in the past, et cetera. And what could be getting in the way of your longevity family history, et cetera.
spk_0
So if you've got a really strong family history of something with most certainly got something there that we got to, we've got to look at and try and prevent.
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And then we generally go into a standard set of testing. So one of the big ones is the biological age testing with true age.
spk_0
OK, you use true age, true out diagnostics, which I had used with Dr Denise Furness.
spk_0
Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Come across Denise.
spk_0
We did a study recently that we published in Achnum where we took a bunch of people and reversed their biological age through the true age diagnostics.
spk_0
OK. OK. So we're kind of in the same field.
spk_0
OK. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
spk_0
Yeah. You just, you just do it more often than I do it. So, so when we're talking about that.
spk_0
So somebody comes in, we're looking at looking at the goals, you're looking at the family history and say they want to have a really good health span and a long life.
spk_0
And do you have a focus on reduce looking at the risk of the big chronic diseases and trying to minimize those as part of the entire program.
spk_0
And then I'd I think onto the kick so to speak or do you take a different approach.
spk_0
I think you need to. I don't think there's any getting away from that because let's say, let's say it's you again with the goal of being 60 at 90.
spk_0
Well, if you were to develop any of the major illnesses, whether it be heart disease, cancer, etc. Well, that's going to derail the whole process.
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So we need to make sure that in those 90 years, you don't develop one of the major illnesses, the major degenerative illnesses that that is going to derail the whole process and threaten your life expectancy as well.
spk_0
So there needs to be a cardio vascular is a really big one for me. Yeah, yeah, cardio vascular metabolic and cancer would be the biggest ones.
spk_0
I'm what about neurodegenerative because we're starting to see now. I mean, particularly if you look back at the at the history of the biggest killers.
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And let's just take Australia and you know, traditionally cardiovascular disease has been the biggest killer by by far and away.
spk_0
But I believe now that in women, it is neurodegenerative diseases that have just come out of nowhere.
spk_0
Yeah. And right up to the top. So do you focus on neurodegenerative diseases as well?
spk_0
Yeah, 100% and it does tie into cardiovascular and metabolic. Yes, there's a tie in with the different conditions.
spk_0
But yeah, 100% there's no use getting to 90 and you're incredibly fit.
spk_0
But you've got no, you've got no ability to recognize anyone around you. That's not going to work either. Right. So that doesn't fit with those goals either.
spk_0
And so yeah, that's that's extremely important. And you know, there's some very basic things you can do for people like, you know, to start off with having a look at the apoe gene typing and so on.
spk_0
You're seeing are they particularly at higher risk of Alzheimer's or other forms of neurodegeneration.
spk_0
So for instance, there's a very strong history of Parkinson's in my family. And so, you know, I would need to definitely embark on a prevention program for neurodegenerative disease.
spk_0
And maybe talk our listeners through the interactions between those diseases because as you very rightly pointed out, you know, you develop one and your risk of the others goes up significantly.
spk_0
So, so what are you seeing today? Like as the primary driver, is it dysregulated metabolism? Is it poor cardiovascular health?
spk_0
Or you know, what if you were to pick like what is what's coming first? And that's driving some of the others in general, what would you are thinking be?
spk_0
I think I think generally it's going to be metabolic. And so that's that's where we talk about insulin resistance syndrome.
spk_0
Yeah. I'm surprised how little talks on deep theories about metabolic syndrome these days. And and maybe just talk our listeners through metabolic syndrome. And this whole idea of your metabolism that when it starts to go awry,
spk_0
yes, it's just creates carnage at a system level at an ecosystem level.
spk_0
100% and I'll start off by saying that when I was working in intensive care at one point, we used to have often people in the 50s who would come into the hospital with pneumonia and other conditions like that where they'd often be in intensive care for weeks to months.
spk_0
And I remember I wrote in one of their chart one day, 53 year old Jennerpin, fit and healthy type two diabetes. And and so the the consultant at the time said to be something, look at this guy, do you think he's fit and healthy?
spk_0
Well, why are you writing that? And then that was actually a bit of an hour moment for me because we used to, it's almost like, you know, we felt like we had to just fill the chart in with something.
spk_0
And so if someone doesn't have a medical condition, so usually you'd write 52 year old gentleman with diabetes, but if they don't have that, you just write fit and healthy, had a car accident.
spk_0
And so it's almost like you're using that to fill in the lack of a diagnostic condition. You were not using that to actually evaluate whether they really were healthy.
spk_0
Well, that's an interesting little, a little sidetrack, but on that thought process, as I say, if you develop diabetes or you develop obesity or anything like that, you're risk of having major medical problems, even as you go into your 50s is very good increased.
spk_0
So what causes these conditions? So the condition is, as you said, metabolic syndrome, which is also known as insulin resistance syndrome.
spk_0
So the explanation I often give people is that let's say you would go have a can of coke, healthiest food on the planet or drink rather.
spk_0
So I think there's something like seven to eight teaspoons of sugar, like a can of that. It's huge. And that's the case for most soft drinks, by the way, if people aren't aware, it's absolutely part of that.
spk_0
And that's a, that's a 330 mil can, right? And then often people are drinking five, 600 mil bottles, right?
spk_0
With like 14 teaspoons of sugar in the body.
spk_0
Yes. Thank you for pointing that out. So what we're getting at here is the amount of sugar in the Western diet. It escalated somewhere around the 1940s to 1950s after World War II.
spk_0
And so if you were to drink a can of coke or a Pepsi or whatever it might be, then your blood sugar, so normal blood sugars around four to five, let's say.
spk_0
Okay. So if you have a huge, sorry, I think just for overseas listeners, and we're talking millimoles per liter here, right?
spk_0
So we do have some overseas listeners again. Just Google and do the translation.
spk_0
Thank you. I forget the conversion myself, but it's very different in your units. Yeah. So then what happens is your blood sugar might shoot up to 15 all of a sudden, or at least 10.
spk_0
And so, you know, which is, which is a very high level. So what happens is the pancreas, which is an organ, which is located behind the stomach, has to do something about the situation.
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And so the response is it shoots out a hormone called insulin. Now the insulin opens the doors in the cells, particularly in the liver, to accept that glucose or sugar and to store it as glycogen or to use it, you know, use it in a majority ways. It can also store it as fat.
spk_0
But the key thing is the blood sugar would then drop back to four to five again. And the crisis was averted. So it's a very effective hormone. And that's a very effective response.
spk_0
Now the problem is if the next day you come back and the next day after that, with another huge amount of sugar or refined carbohydrates of any type.
spk_0
So let's just include any white flour product into this. It doesn't have to be just sugar. It can be can be any type of refined carbohydrate.
spk_0
So in nature, carbohydrates are generally unrefined. And therefore they take a lot more time to break down into glucose.
spk_0
So any refined carbohydrate will shoot your blood sugar up. So then let's say you do it for the next 30 days on day 30, the same thing happens.
spk_0
Your blood sugar shoots up again. The pancreas releases insulin. But then the cells just like a child who is starts to become resistant to the parents or pestering him or her all the time.
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They start saying, hang on, hang on, stop shouting at me all the time. I don't want to listen to you anymore.
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So they become resistant. So what that means is that the effective insulin is nowhere near as powerful as it was before.
spk_0
So therefore, let's say the blood sugar only drops to half the pancreas then says, Oh, OK, I'm going to have to shoot another amount out to have the same same equal amount out to have the same effect as I previously had.
spk_0
OK, now that's all that I'm good, but the problem is if this problem keeps on going up or keeps on going, then the rising levels of insulin itself have problem creates problems.
spk_0
It inflames the arteries to some degree. So high blood pressure can start to develop. It starts to push metabolism towards formation of visceral fat.
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And that's one of the most harmful forms of fat. So often fatty liver, fatty pancreas, etc. will start to form the weight will start going up and that's not muscle.
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And finally, somewhere along this road, the pancreas cannot keep up with the needs of the blood sugar. And therefore the blood sugar rises and that's where you start getting pre diabetes and then finally diabetes.
spk_0
The key thing to know is there's many, many stages before you become overtly diabetic.
spk_0
Yeah, and people's metabolism is often under massive pressure before they get the diagnosis, right?
spk_0
It's not like you just wake up one day and there's a problem.
spk_0
No.
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The system is under pressure for many, many years before.
spk_0
Exactly.
spk_0
And then people think they're just going to be able to reverse it like that. Well, guess what?
spk_0
You took your 20 or 30 years to develop it. Yeah, they ain't going to get reversed super quick. Now this leads us in quite nicely because you were talking about diet, Sandeep.
spk_0
So I'm guessing from what you were talking about, that's kind of leading me a little bit to what sort of diets that you recommend from a longevity perspective.
spk_0
But what would be your preferred way of eating for most people?
spk_0
And then what nuances are there where you might steer someone down a different path?
spk_0
Yeah, so my belief is that there's no one diet for everyone, but there are some key principles.
spk_0
So glad that you said that. You know what I often say?
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Anybody who says there's one diet we should all be eating is either demented.
spk_0
They're trying to sell you something or they're a member of a cult.
spk_0
Okay, I'm glad I don't fit into those categories.
spk_0
Not yet.
spk_0
So there are definitely some nuances, but definitely the number one enemy for almost everyone is sugar and refined carbohydrates.
spk_0
So I don't think everyone needs to eat carnival or anything like that.
spk_0
And I don't think everyone needs to be vegan.
spk_0
I think everyone's somewhere in between needing to be a raw vegan and a carnival.
spk_0
That's a pretty wide scope there.
spk_0
That is a pretty wide scope.
spk_0
So if you're a, so in the metabolic typing system, they break it up into three categories, protein type, mixed type and veggie type.
spk_0
Let's say.
spk_0
And so 60% of people in Western society seem to be more in that protein type, where you're generally going to need the majority of your meal, or let's say at least 50% to be protein and fat and a smaller amount of carbohydrates.
spk_0
Again, we're not talking refined carbohydrates. We're talking about non-starchy vegetables in general.
spk_0
So everyone still needs some degree of protein and fat, either way, but it's about the proportion.
spk_0
So if you're what we call a veggie type, you may be able to get away with a higher amount of your plate being plant based.
spk_0
So, you know, quite a lot of veggies and salad on your plate.
spk_0
But we're not talking about grain still, a significant amount of grains.
spk_0
Maybe a little bit of quinoa or something like that, maybe doable for you, depending on your metabolic type.
spk_0
But you're going to still, everyone still needs to get a minimum of protein, which is probably somewhere around 60 or 70 grams.
spk_0
And on that, it's quite interesting, isn't it, the research coming around protein requirements, especially as we age.
spk_0
And I think it's important for people to understand that the old recommended daily alliances that that was done many decades ago, based on nitrogen balanced studies, and was not never meant to be optimal.
spk_0
It was what is the minimum that you need to not cause an issue.
spk_0
But I think since then, we've realized that as you get older, muscle protein synthesis, degrades, and you tend to need more protein as you age.
spk_0
And they're the people who often eat less protein as they start to age, isn't it?
spk_0
That's right. Yeah, exactly.
spk_0
If you look at elderly people's diets in general, there's a lot of biscuits being eaten.
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
And generally speaking, people aren't having really good quality food.
spk_0
So as we say, some people are saying more closer to the 1.5 to 2 grams per kilogram per day.
spk_0
I think I heard you say that in your lecture.
spk_0
Yeah, I'm a big fan of that, particularly as you're eaching, because I think some people just let people know, like psychopenia for me.
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
You know, obviously there's a direct effect of psychopenia in terms of falls.
spk_0
And if you fall and break a hip in your 60s, you got a 50% chance to be dead in the next five years.
spk_0
But for me, it's the thing that people aren't talking about is if you become psychopenic, if you're losing significant amounts of muscle, you know, losing bone,
spk_0
that that as a risk factor for other chronic diseases, especially metabolic disease, cardiovascular disease.
spk_0
Can you just educate our listeners a little bit on those indirect risks of becoming psychopenic as you teach?
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
And so inflammation is a common denominator between all degenerative disease.
spk_0
So there's going to be a greater risk of cardiovascular problems.
spk_0
There's going to be a greater risk of diabetes and other metabolic problems.
spk_0
Cancer, maybe a thing I haven't looked at the research at that just recently, but there is a, you know, it's something that's worth investigating.
spk_0
So really, yeah, as you say, Paul, you know, one of the really key goals of a longevity program is to maintain muscle mass.
spk_0
As you, well, first you've got to, first you've got to create a decent muscle mass.
spk_0
If you don't all have it.
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
And then you need to maintain it.
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
And until later years, that's very, very important.
spk_0
spk_0
And I think people need to realize that we, we naturally lose it as we, we tend to age.
spk_0
And, and it seems to be once you hit you into your 60s, it really starts to fall off a cliff.
spk_0
And, and that's where strength is.
spk_0
I think in your 40s and 50s is absolutely critical.
spk_0
And I always say that, you know, everybody should be lifting heavy shit.
spk_0
And the older you are, the more important that statement actually is.
spk_0
Yeah, I like that.
spk_0
And yeah, I think I heard Peter, I tear making the statement that when you hear you're only starting to get into your late 40s, that's really the time that you need to start putting a lot of effort into your health because.
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
You know, the, it's kind of like the higher you are, the better a state you reach.
spk_0
Before any kind of decline starts, the more likely you are to maintain a good level.
spk_0
I think that makes sense.
spk_0
Absolutely. It's about having a reserve, right?
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
Because I think the other thing people don't understand about muscle is that when you're using your muscle, you're producing a wide range of myocons.
spk_0
These, these messenger molecules that basically signal to all of our organs to be healthier.
spk_0
And, and for me, it's, it's nature's polyformacy, myocons.
spk_0
And so if you lose a lot of muscle, you're losing some of nature's best medicine.
spk_0
That's, that's really, I don't think people are thinking about that.
spk_0
Exactly. Yeah.
spk_0
It's kind of like, you know, these signaling molecules are signaling to your body that you are safe and you're healthy.
spk_0
And so you need to maintain a certain amount of muscle mass to be able to, to have that signaling, as Paul said, very good point.
spk_0
And, and let's bring this back to inflammation.
spk_0
So Sunday, as you rightly pointed out, you know, chronic systemic inflammation is the driver of, of, of pretty much all of the degenerative diseases.
spk_0
And, I mean, muscle is anti-inflammatory exercises anti-inflammatory.
spk_0
But for people who are concerned about inflammation, and is there in your longevity program certain foods that you would steer people towards and certain supplements that, that you have seen or used that, that can help to combat inflammation.
spk_0
100%. I think actually the top one I believe is vitamin D.
spk_0
That's, you know, in terms of, in terms of just the scope of studies.
spk_0
And the, the most ideal thing is to try and get your vitamin D from the sunlight, if you can.
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
Because then you're getting sulfated vitamin D, which is the ideal.
spk_0
But I'm not against using supplements, particularly if you're using vitamin K and other fat soluble vitamins at the same time.
spk_0
And magnesium, et cetera.
spk_0
And the key is you've got to be quite broad in your supplementation.
spk_0
You don't want to be just doing one thing like I'm going to have a heap of vitamin C and nothing else.
spk_0
Because that's when you can start developing oxalate problems.
spk_0
You know, same thing.
spk_0
So you don't want to, yeah, if you just have vitamin D and nothing else, again, you haven't got balance.
spk_0
You can start bringing calcium out of tissues and so on.
spk_0
So, so vitamin D is huge.
spk_0
I think vitamin, vitamin E is important for cardiovascular inflammation.
spk_0
And then there's many kind of what we call phenolic compounds, which are just natural plant compounds.
spk_0
And that's, that's where you talk about curcumin and resveratrol and green tea extract, broccoli sprouts.
spk_0
And interestingly, those same compounds turn out to be anti cancer as well.
spk_0
And curcumin is pretty interesting and and and you're a heritage.
spk_0
I presume is from India.
spk_0
And it's really interesting isn't it?
spk_0
The soaring rates of obesity and diabetes, but relatively low levels of Alzheimer's and dementia.
spk_0
Because often you would see with those high rates of diabetes like, you know, type three diabetes.
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
Alzheimer's disease often called type two diabetes.
spk_0
I've heard some people suggest that it could be the high amounts of of curcumin that's in the diet from the tumeric that's in the curry.
spk_0
Any commentary on that?
spk_0
It could well be.
spk_0
And there's many other, I mean, you could say in the Indian cooking system, there's many, many spices used.
spk_0
Like so the ginger is also useful.
spk_0
Coriander can be helpful with heavy metals, etc. etc.
spk_0
There's many, many compounds, the black peppers in there as well, which helps the tumeric, the curcumin from the tumeric to be better absorbed.
spk_0
So there's many, many compounds that are being used in the food, which are really making that food more medicinal.
spk_0
And that brings you back to earlier on when you were talking about polyphenols and flavonoids and all of these plant compounds that we are really only beginning to see what these things do.
spk_0
And I think that leads towards that we should be eating real food that has this stuff in higher amounts.
spk_0
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In a manner that's easily digestible by the human body.
spk_0
So my thing is we've been around for hundreds of thousands of years as our species and back in our lineage, millions of years interacting with these compounds that we now know play lots of roles in chemical reactions inside our bodies.
spk_0
So from that do you emphasize when people are on a diet? Are you emphasizing a broad range of foods so that they're getting a broad range of these things?
spk_0
Yes, 100% and particularly getting a broad range of colors means that you're getting a range of different phytochemicals in your food.
spk_0
So yeah, if you want to have a diverse microbiome, you have to have many, many different foods.
spk_0
Now, unfortunately, when people get unwell, quite often their diet becomes quite restricted because there's various foods they become intolerant to.
spk_0
But one of the big things I talk about Paul is that when you start recovering from a chronic illness, you shouldn't just relax and do nothing else.
spk_0
You should be thinking of then going into a longevity program because you probably have affected your longevity through that almost process.
spk_0
And so therefore, yeah, it's very important once you recover from an illness to then bring in a much greater diversity in the range of foods that you're eating and also then to start getting the exercise and the fitness going again, getting your strength training going, etc.
spk_0
That's not enough to just feel like you no longer have a specific condition.
spk_0
You really want to get to the stage where you're truly achieving health.
spk_0
That's going to be enduring health.
spk_0
Yeah, no, that's a very good point.
spk_0
So on the topic of the microbiome, are you a fan of microbiome testing or do you think that it's not yet at the point where
spk_0
getting the testing can lead you into tailored interventions, whether they're dietary or supplements to improve?
spk_0
Do we know enough about the microbiome yet to start to play pool with leavers?
spk_0
Yeah, I think it's a great question.
spk_0
And I think we are getting there.
spk_0
I think we are getting there. I guess what we don't have at this point is the studies which give us the, you know, the long time data on, you know, for instance,
spk_0
adjusting someone's microbiome with prebiotics and probiotics and etc.
spk_0
So we still, I still see it as being fairly early stage, but the technology is improving very greatly.
spk_0
And so you can quite easily find out, for instance, is someone low in those butarate producers that just keep the gut healthy.
spk_0
Do they have massive pathogens in the gut?
spk_0
Like I think those broad categories are significant for sure.
spk_0
And interestingly talking about pathogens, I remember we were talking the other day about our dogs and warming our dogs, right?
spk_0
And doing that regularly.
spk_0
And it brought me back to when I was a kid that we would regularly get warmed.
spk_0
And that seems to be something that has just gone.
spk_0
No, I don't even think of, you know, warming up my kids.
spk_0
Like what is that because there is less of those infections around today?
spk_0
Or is it something that was actually a good practice that we've just lost sight of?
spk_0
Yeah, great question. I haven't looked at the incidence specifically of worms in this generation since the last one.
spk_0
But in general, we're moving towards, you know, greater hygiene.
spk_0
And of course, that's had its benefits.
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But there's also the downsides of that.
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And you know, there's the whole hygiene hypothesis, which suggests that the shift towards allergic and autoimmune disease may be because of the lack of exposure.
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To certain microorganisms in young life.
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So there may be something to be said for that.
spk_0
The fact that we used to play in the dirt and, you know, an eat a little bit of dirt and etc.
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And have this wide array of different microorganisms that we were exposed to and developed immune, our immune systems from.
spk_0
Yeah, I think I think that is is pretty important.
spk_0
And we see it consistently, right? People who are born in farms have much more diverse microbiomes than people who are born in cities.
spk_0
And it's diversity seems to be pretty key, doesn't it?
spk_0
Having a wide, which is why, you know, often particularly in the fitness industry, Stanley, but I've been involved in the fitness industry for nearly 20 years over here.
spk_0
And there's a lot of people in the fitness industry who are very regimented, and they eat very healthily, but very narrowly.
spk_0
And they're eating pretty much the same food week on week.
spk_0
Right.
spk_0
Is that a potential problem in your view?
spk_0
Well, it's not going to, yeah, it's not going to encourage new bacteria and organisms to come in.
spk_0
So, you know, one of the advantages of that, and I have heard certain personal trainers recommend that one advantage of that is you know you're getting, you know, certain amount of protein and fat and carbohydrates, and you can regulate that by having the same meals.
spk_0
But yes, one of the downsides could be on the microbiome.
spk_0
And just the other thought I wanted to complete was that it's not just what you eat, though, it's also what you breathe in.
spk_0
And so you alluded to that by talking about the microbiome of those who are brought up on a farm.
spk_0
So one of the big things I wanted to talk about is going back to a life where we explore nature in various elements and not just through screens.
spk_0
So the move towards a much greater connection with the internet and social media and so on has meant that the average time a person spends in nature is much lower.
spk_0
Now, if you would, if I, if you were to ask me what's the first thing you could do for your microbiome, I would probably say, get your shoes off, go for a walk.
spk_0
In the grass and go out into a forest or some kind of natural environment and take do some deep breathing.
spk_0
Because we also breathe in.
spk_0
Very interesting.
spk_0
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Yeah, this is such interesting reason.
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I see a lot of chapters in this in my book.
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And you know, all the studies coming out about forest breathing.
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I think it's you know, you know, in Japan, where they're seeing when you spend time in a forest, there's lower levels of inflammation and and other things in your blood or change, but your microbiome actually improves because you are ingesting some of the microbiome from the forest, which just you know, kind of spin.
spk_0
And you own a little bit, doesn't it?
spk_0
Yeah, it does. It changes the way you think about it because I guess you could say the way we've been brought up to think is very narrow variables.
spk_0
It's like, okay, microbiome, it's about what we eat.
spk_0
Okay.
spk_0
Change this little variable and we should be fine, right?
spk_0
But actually, we probably need to be a lot more broad in the way we're thinking about it.
spk_0
And really it takes you to thinking about life in a different way, doesn't it?
spk_0
It's like, you know, it takes us back to this concept of health is connection.
spk_0
Health is about connection with the food we eat.
spk_0
So ideally, the most ideal way of getting your food is through farmers markets.
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And through local farmers who themselves produce that food.
spk_0
When you think about that, you're then only one step removed from being the person producing that food, which is, you know, of course, ancestrally, the way we used to do things.
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So you're developing much more of a connection to that food through taking out all of those intermediate steps.
spk_0
And then connection with the living planet.
spk_0
So again, not just walking on it with shoes on and, and you know, basically looking at things from a distance, but actually getting your shoes on and your shoes off rather and your feet on the ground.
spk_0
Well, firstly, that has a huge amount of benefits in terms of grounding and normalizing your circadian rhythms and discharging EMF or electromagnetic frequencies that we're being exposed to all day long, assuming you're in a normal urban environment through Wi-Fi and through mobile phone radiation.
spk_0
So if you don't send it, if you'd have asked me 10 years ago about grounding, I probably would have said it's fluffy bullshit, totally by the crystal waving, but I have completely changed my mind about it.
spk_0
Okay.
spk_0
Yeah, to the point where you're talking, because I dug into it and read lots of studies on it.
spk_0
And when you get your feet or your body surfaces in contact with the surfaces of the earth, as you said, whether it's grass or sand, you know, it has to be the earth and it has to be our contact.
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
There's the electrical charge in your body actually changes, doesn't it?
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
Yeah, we pull electrons from the earth and our positive charge, which comes from being in contact with electromagnetic radiation, is discharged into the earth.
spk_0
So there's an exchange that takes place and that's very beneficial for us.
spk_0
And we mentioned earlier on about inflammation. I've seen some studies showing that it can regularly, grinding can actually lower inflammation as well.
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
Which is pretty cool stuff.