The following is a conversation with Sonny Drinkwater, an entrepreneur and co-founder of WellEasy, which is a membership-based online platform that aims to make healthy living accessible and affordable for everybody. Sonny and the team at WellEasy have been on a mission over the last couple of years, organically growing their business from the ground up. Starting in a garage to being an online platform that now has over 10, 000 members. They've also started to manufacture and sell some of their own products. Sonny explained the journey throughout our conversation today, all the various ups and downs associated with building a business, and also gave us some real insights into his vision, which is to improve the health of the nation through his business. I loved speaking to Sonny as a mission-led founder. I learned a lot about supermarkets in the UK, the food industry as a whole, and his approach to healthy living as a founder. Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:02:55 Eating real vs processed foods 00:03:16 Starting WellEasy 00:07:49 Poor food choices in the UK 00:09:49 Food product testing 00:12:39 Defining ultra-processed foods 00:15:39 Changing how we look at food 00:17:30 Balancing food, life and relationships 00:21:28 Are some supermarkets better than others? 00:23:37 Managing life as an entrepreneur 00:27:00 Biohacking 00:31:22 Supply chain issues 00:33:15 Eating healthily at work 00:35:10 More about starting WellEasy 00:38:14 WellEasy’s membership scheme 00:44:28 Challenges of eating healthily 00:56:09 “Healthy” snacks for kids 00:59:03 Political involvement in healthy eating 01:01:28 Vision for WellEasy 01:03:09 Prebiotic fibre

In this Biome Bite, Dr James McIlroy chats about the progress of the Inside Matters Podcast. Hey guys, it's James here for another episode of Biome Bites. In these episodes, it's just me and you, the listener. So today we're going to be celebrating the fact that we've achieved some important milestones on the podcast and wanted to give a flavour of what's coming next and what we've learned so far. On the journey through inside matters, so a couple of really key metrics that I'm excited about. One is that we surpassed 10, 000 downloads a couple of weeks ago. We've also dug into the analytics associated with where people are based, where they're tuning in from and general engagement on an episode-to-episode basis. So I thought it'd be quite interesting to share that with the listener base. There are a couple of trends that are quite humbling and get me quite excited and motivated to continue doing what I'm doing here. with the podcast. And we set out with the vision of trying to create the best microbiome content on the planet. As a microbiome and gut health fanatic myself, and as someone who loves long-form podcast content, I spend five, sometimes 10 hours a week plus listening to long-form content. I was frustrated that I couldn't get any gut health microbiome content in that format. After probably around six months of searching and thinking, we decided that we were just going to start one ourselves. And I guess that's the entrepreneur in me. I see an opportunity and if I'm excited about it, just go for it and think glass half full. And if the glass isn't half full, then fill it up and have a kind of impossible, as-nothing type of mindset. And the name Inside Matters came to me early in the morning, one weekend when I was brainstorming with my friend and colleague, Ian Whalley, who helps with all the website and the graphics design. We essentially have been fulfilling the vision since we launched the first podcast episode. And on a month-to-month basis, there's been a steady cadence of increasing engagement. And we're seeing what I think are really quite remarkable metrics for a podcast that's really got quite a niche offering in terms of what we're talking about. Now whilst the microbiome is all-encompassing and there are microbiomes in the soil, there are microbiomes in your ear, there's a microbiome in your nose, there's a microbiome in your gut, there's a microbiome on your desk, and you could go as far as saying the whole world is a microbiome. of sorts. It is still a topic that doesn't get as mainstream attention as something like AI. And our listening is not as easy listening for the most part as some other podcasts that are really popular. Our aim is not to try and capture the attention of as many listeners as possible because if we wanted to do that we would change our content slightly and we would talk about subjects that are really accessible and of interest to the whole population like weight loss and muscle gain and tell stories because stories get a lot of engagement. We want to stay true to our vision at Inside Matters and that is to really create an absolute best-in-class podcast. So for anybody who's interested in microbiome, whether they want to scratch the surface. and get a bit of microbiome gut health 101. Although I want to go super deep and listen to world experts talking to me at the deepest kind of level, there should be content on our podcast platform website and newsletter for you. It takes a lot of time, graft and grind and determination to create something from nothing and consistency is key. So we will continue to record even if life gets really busy and work gets really busy. We do have great guests lined up now for the next three months or so, and we're doing recordings in London. We're doing recordings in San Diego. We're doing some remote recordings as well. And of course, we're doing recordings in our HQ here in Scotland. And we're diversifying a little bit. So we're speaking to entrepreneurs, speaking to academics, we're speaking to doctors, we're speaking to executives we'll speak to dietitians, nutritionists, and the aim is to try and get as broad a picture as possible of how the field is progressing and different views, opinions, and expertise, frankly. And I have learned so much from going a little bit outside my comfort zone. So if you've listened to the episode with Aaron The amazing nutritionist who's the founder of a business called Nutrition Rewired. I learned so much in that episode because I was engaging with her as an expert nutritionist and that's not typically someone I would speak to on a day-to-day basis. I speak to academics, I speak to clinicians, speak to potential investors, pharmaceutical partners and so on. So that was a really eye-opening episode for me. The aim is to get that breadth of experience and expertise on the podcast. We'll continue to ask and discuss a broad range of topics, try and answer the hard questions, but also give easily accessible information for you as a listener. The Biome Bites do get a good engagement, but what we've found is that the podcasts with guests get the best engagement in terms of numbers and downloads and stuff. So we'll continue to try and get people onto the podcast as, as best as we possibly can. We're seeing hundreds and hundreds of downloads of every episode. Some of the more popular ones get 700-plus downloads, which are unique. So that's 700 people downloading and listening to the episode.  We don't really have a strategy to try and blow the podcast up and become viral sensations and to make me and the podcast famous. In fact, that's not our desire at all. We don't want to do that. We just want to be known for the best content relating to gut health and microbiome on the planet. And that is our niche. We will stick to our niche and we're going to try and get better and better as each episode comes out. For those of you who have supported the podcast so far and been with us since day one, thank you so much. We can see and tell that there's a consistency in the listener base, which means that you must be enjoying it because you're spending a couple of hours once every two weeks, sometimes more listening to episodes. We know that some people have listened to every single episode as well. So there's quite a loyal and very engaged fan base, which is quite humbling for me and very exciting. It means that a lot of people have learned a lot about the microbiome over the course of this journey. And I also know that some people have had positive health benefits. Now, of course, the podcast is not medical advice. It can't be and never will be. But some people have taken actionable steps themselves to try and improve their diet and improve some of the symptomatology that they've been having. So that's great. Now, if you've got any suggestions for what you want to hear, or what you'd discussed, just send them in. We've got a broad range of topics coming up. We're talking about the microbiome and the immune system. We have the founder of an awesome company who has made healthy food more accessible coming onto the podcast in a few weeks. We have how the microbiome influences responses to cancer treatment, a world expert coming on talking about their pioneering work in FMT. And we've got environmental microbiology. And other people who are involved in microbiome testing coming on. So real breadth of expertise and experience hopefully produce awesome content for you, the listener. Now, for those of you who haven't yet, I would very kindly ask that you like, subscribe and give us a five-star review on the platforms that do help push us up the algorithm. It allows us to connect with people who've liked similar podcasts, which means they're probably interested in their health and gut health more generally. So that is very much appreciated. We can also see just another fact that people are listening from all over the world. It's not confined to the UK, US, or Europe. It genuinely is an international listener base, which excites me, too, because it means that there is information getting out there around the world. And everybody, no matter where they are in the world, can take control of their health through improving their body health. diet and prioritizing their gut microbiome. So I'll leave it there for this episode, an important milestone for us celebration of sorts, but I just want to emphasize that it's just the start of this journey and we're motivated to continue producing great content and to keep this going and to grow the podcast into the absolute best in class platform for microbiome and gut health information. Thanks to those who've written in and also those who've approached me at different events. It has happened. Some people I've never met before have come up saying they're enjoying the content and that really makes it all worthwhile. Now the next podcast will be a solo episode again announcing some very exciting news at EnteroBiotix.

The following is a conversation with Dr. Petra Lewis, Senior Research Fellow at the Rowett Institute for Nutrition and Health at the University of Aberdeen. We entertained various subjects in a fun, but also quite serious manner. We got into some nitty gritty fun topics with regards to diets, supplements, fibre, and all the things that we've talked about before in the podcast, but going into quite some significant detail.

The following is a conversation with Erin Kenney, the CEO of Nutrition Rewired. Erin is a registered dietitian with a Master's in nutritional science. She's done an amazing job in building a business that helps people take control of their lives through modulating their diet, improving their gut health and ultimately looking after the gut microbiome. Today's conversation was far-reaching. We talked about fibre, We talked about gums, we talked about artificial sweeteners, carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and supplements. This was pretty much an A to Z of what to do to look after your gut health, what works and what doesn't.  I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of the listeners and supporters of the podcast for everything you've done to help us build the name, and the brand, and to get the message out there around microbiome being critically important and gut health being important for wider body health. Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:19 How Erin became interested in gut health 00:04:32 Biggest impacts on Erin’s health 00:06:09 Stress and gut health 00:09:22 Does caffeine give us energy? 00:14:46 Bone broth instead of coffee 00:16:06 Coffee and our liver 00:16:48 Taking control of gut health 00:18:42 The role of a good breakfast 00:21:55 Lean muscle mass and women 00:23:07 Importance of protein 00:26:32 Role of supplements 00:29:35 Creating an optimal regime 00:32:33 Ketogenic diets 00:38:34 SIBO 00:46:24 Microbiome testing 00:49:00 Vitamin D 00:51:51 Green powder supplements 00:55:19 Heavy metals 01:01:38 Artificial sweeteners 01:05:58 Gum instead of gluten 01:10:18 Palm oil 01:12:20 Nutrition Rewired   Full Transcript: [00:00:00] JAMES: The following is a conversation with Erin Kenny, the CEO of Nutrition Rewired. Erin is a registered dietitian with a master's in nutritional science. She's done an amazing job in building a business up that helps people take control of their lives through modulating their diet, improving their gut health and ultimately looking after the gut microbiome. [00:00:24] JAMES: Today's conversation was far reaching. We talked about fiber, We talked about gums, we talked about artificial sweeteners, carbohydrates, fats, proteins, supplements. This was pretty much a A to Z of what to do to look after your gut health, what works and what doesn't. I really appreciated how simply Erin put lots of complicated topics for the listener. [00:00:49] JAMES: She podcast so that might explain why she was such a good guest. This is an amazing episode for anyone who's wanting to enter into this field, but we also digged into some [00:01:00] technical aspects, and I learned a lot over the course of the conversation. This is Inside Matters. My name is Dr. James McIlroy. I hope you enjoy it. [00:01:16] JAMES: So how did you get interested then in gut health? [00:01:19] ERIN: It was a very selfish Journey for me, I, from a very young age, struggled with digestive issues. They had to take me off of being breastfed when I was a baby and got on to formula fed. And, you know, I was struggling with a ton of digestive issues. And basically they just slapped me with a diagnosis of lactose intolerance. [00:01:42] ERIN: And basically what most of my childhood, struggling with horrible pain, horrible bowel movement. I will honestly say that a majority of my childhood was spent in the bathroom because Of how bad things were with my gut and [00:02:00] I really didn't have much help, you know, it was kind of just, you know, let's watch out for dairy and let's watch out for, you know, triggers and things like that, but it was kind of just, you know, take elodium and, and hope for the best. [00:02:13] ERIN: So, fast forward, you know, as I started to get older, I was a full time athlete, I was, you know, in high school, and really wanted to start taking care of myself. I struggled with mental health issues, I lost my father to his battle with mental health struggles, and it started to connect with me that on the days when my stomach was at its worst, my mental health was also at its worst. [00:02:42] ERIN: And so I was starting to make these connections and, you know, learn and, Spent a lot of time on Google, which, you know, we all know is not a reputable source of information. But nonetheless, I was, I was interested in, in seeking alternative ways to help [00:03:00] support my body. And when I went to college, I didn't really know what I wanted to major in. [00:03:05] ERIN: And I thought, you know, nutrition sounds like something that I could use some support with, considering everything that I'm going through and. You know, the things that I've read online and from there on out, it was just about healing myself. I learned, you know, after being on a decade of medications from birth control to fix the hormone imbalance, from PPI's to address the chronic acid reflux, you know, it was just being thrown medication after medication because doctors were just treating symptoms. [00:03:40] ERIN: So I, I've dedicated all my time to researching about, you know, the gut microbiome and nutrition. And then I was in school for nutrition. And I started following people in the field who were talking about these things, talking about the gut microbiome, talking about how nutrition impacts mental health. I [00:04:00] just lit up, you know, it was, it was like, for the first time in my life, someone was speaking to me and, you know, I felt validated too, for so many years, it's like, oh, it's just all in your head, you just gotta, you know, stop eating dairy, and I have now, Basically built a business on helping individuals get to the root cause of their digestive issues and imbalances because of everything that I went through. [00:04:25] ERIN: So I'm incredibly passionate about what I do and I'm just really excited to chat with you today. [00:04:32] JAMES: So what were some of the key things then as you went along your own journey that made the biggest impact to your own health? [00:04:39] ERIN: I will highlight a very important one that I think a lot of people don't consider and that's stress. [00:04:45] ERIN: It's Uh, you know, there was a lot of stress in my life and I was kind of putting that on the back burner as something that, yeah, you know, I'm stressed, I'm, you know, working out intensely and doing all this stuff, but that [00:05:00] can't, you know, that's not going to make a huge difference. So I really had to prioritize stress as one of them. [00:05:06] ERIN: Diet, as we all know, you know, is incredibly important. My diet was Not supportive of what I needed for my body. I played around with a plant based diet, and I have no shame for anybody who is, who loves their plant based diet, but for me it was not the right fit. I needed a plant forward diet, but I also needed protein. [00:05:30] ERIN: I needed to really hone in on, like, focusing on diversity of what I was eating. I was eating a lot of the same things over and over again. I think a lot of us can get into a rut pretty easily with that. And then I learned, you know, how much diversity our gut needs in terms of the microbiome. So stress, diet was huge. [00:05:50] ERIN: And then I had to address imbalances. I had small intestinal bacterial overgrowth because I was On proton pump inhibitors long term, I had yeast [00:06:00] overgrowth. Uh, so a lot of these things I learned from stool testing and I was able to Going [00:06:09] JAMES: back to the stress then. So how do people identify if their stress levels are too high? [00:06:15] JAMES: And you mentioned exercise, maybe exercise is a double edged sword. If you do too much, it might be actually a big stress on your body. So what are your tools and tips then for stress management? I guess a little bit is good for you, right? But too much is detrimental. [00:06:31] ERIN: Sure. Yeah, we call that eustress, right? [00:06:33] ERIN: It's that, that, that period where you're kind of in that Goldilocks sweet spot where stress is, is beneficial. It helps us grow. It's good for inflammation. But in terms of my own journey, I, I would love to say that I had this like, you know, lovely revelation of your stress and you need to pull back. It was. [00:06:53] ERIN: One of those moments, I say this to clients all the time, it's if you listen to your body when it whispers, you don't have to hear [00:07:00] it when it screams. And I was at the screaming point where I was running seven to ten miles a day and You know, I got to a point where I couldn't barely even walk because I was just like so obsessed with how exercise made me feel, how good it was for my mental health. [00:07:16] ERIN: So I was basically forced in to loving yoga. It wasn't love at first. It was a, it was, it was not love at first. It was a rocky relationship to begin with, but I thought this is the only thing I can do. Yoga is the only thing that I physically can do that's going to support my mental health and I just fell in love with it. [00:07:37] ERIN: And to this day has always been an incredible stress management technique for me because not only do I get to move my body, but I'm doing it in a way that's not inflammatory. I'm doing it in a way where I'm, I'm like feeling everything of what's going on in my muscles and how tight I am and breath, right? [00:07:57] ERIN: I'm breathing. So a lot of times [00:08:00] people will say, I'm just not good at meditation. And I'll say, well, have you tried yoga? Have you tried walking or yoga? Like those are also forms of meditation because you have to focus on your breath. If you're in a down dog position and you're sweating and you're tired, the only way you're going to get through that pose is that you're going to breathe. [00:08:20] ERIN: So meditation has been, meditation and yoga have been incredible assets to my healing journey, but also just the way that I Manage my stress now and also just the awareness of what is my threshold for stress and what are some of the signs that come up for me when I know I've hit my breaking point and become more irritable towards the people that I love. [00:08:45] ERIN: My sleep starts to suffer. My digestion starts to go off a little bit. So these are kind of my. Red flags of, Hey, Aaron, let's check in with yourself. You might be doing a little too much. So are those [00:08:59] JAMES: [00:09:00] the sort of whispers then before the screams, the irritability, the sleep? Yeah. [00:09:05] ERIN: And for females to even males, people think, yeah, changes in hormones, like you'd notice changes in your menstrual cycle or your libido, like those types of things can, can also take a hit when you're dealing with chronic stress. [00:09:22] JAMES: Cause I guess a lot of people think, Oh, well. You know, I'm a little bit tired today. I'll just drink more coffee or I'm a little bit sore today. I'm just gonna train more But what you're saying is maybe you need to just slow down to perform [00:09:34] ERIN: better. Exactly. And I also love to talk to clients about how caffeine actually works. [00:09:41] ERIN: Caffeine doesn't give us energy. It actually blocks these adenosine receptors in our brain. And these adenosine receptors are like those little whispers of us hearing the signal that we're tired. And once that caffeine wears off, those [00:10:00] adenosine receptors don't go away. They're still there to then tell our brain, hey, we're really tired. [00:10:07] ERIN: So I always Tell people that, that you're not giving yourself more energy by loading up on caffeine, you're decreasing your perception of how tired you are, which is allowing you to push through something, whether it's a workout or a long, you know, night at work. And over time, especially your body is going to shut down. [00:10:33] JAMES: As an avid coffee drinker, I'm sort of running through my head, am I drinking? I'm not listening to the whispers, but have you got recommendations then for your clients around coffee and caffeine, like some rules or suggestions in terms of when to drink, how much to drink? Cause that could be really interesting for the listeners on Inside Matters. [00:10:52] ERIN: My number one tip is that, and I say this to clients, you have to eat a full breakfast before you have your [00:11:00] cup of coffee. And when we do this experiment, sometimes my clients will say, after I had, [00:11:10] ERIN: they'll say, I didn't, I didn't even want my cup of coffee after I had my breakfast. And it's because we're not using artificial fuel, right? We're eating. Some nice eggs with, you know, some sweet potatoes and avocado and, you know, we're energized and now we don't have this craving for a stimulant. And I'm not shaming caffeine completely, especially coffee. [00:11:36] ERIN: There's numerous health benefits in addition to the microbiome, but it's, it's evaluating that relationship with it. And so. So I always say, no coffee until you've had a, a, a full breakfast. Coffee does not count as breakfast. I tell them no caffeine after noon. Uh, the researcher, Michael, is it, oh, Matthew Walker. [00:11:58] ERIN: He talks about [00:12:00] metabolism of caffeine and, you know, the half life and how long that caffeine can stay in your system. And You could be laying in bed at night if you had your cup of coffee at 3 p. m., and you're still metabolizing it in the middle of the night, impacting your quality of sleep, and then the cycle just starts again, right? [00:12:18] ERIN: You wake up, you're exhausted, you're groggy, and that's because That's You know, that the later in the day that can impact your sleep. [00:12:27] JAMES: So someone maybe like me who wakes up in the morning and finds a way over to the coffee. I know myself. It just, it's like part of the routine and I kind of love it to be honest, but so someone's addicted to that morning routine and they come to you and they become a client. [00:12:45] JAMES: How do you get them to break that cycle and get into the routine of. I don't know, maybe cold shower and then they come in, they've had their breakfast, then they have their coffee. Is it a slow process or do you just say, right, that's it, cold turkey. [00:12:58] ERIN: I'm never, [00:13:00] I'm never militant with my clients ever because I'm also human and the I also understand that, you know, when we make changes, that they don't need to happen overnight and it certainly doesn't usually feel good to our nervous system or mental health wise when someone says, just cut it out. [00:13:17] ERIN: And now, don't get me wrong, I've got clients that are all or nothing and they just, when I tell them generally what I've just told you, they'll say, forget it, I'm cutting it out. I want to do this, I want to do it perfectly, that's type of person. Right. So when we, when we start, you know, I, I get to know what their relationship is like. [00:13:36] ERIN: I had a client one time and she had this, you know, whole setup in her house. The whole side of the wall was dedicated to coffee. So for the client like that, we're going to say, okay, you know, let's. Maybe switch to a decaf or switch to, you know, less of a serving and put more, you know, almond milk in it to just cut down on the, on the portion. [00:13:56] ERIN: And then we, we work our way towards, uh, maybe after [00:14:00] breakfast, but there's lots of alternative things that you can do to still have that routine. So I'll, I'll just give my example. I drink a bone broth, hot chocolate in the morning and that bone broth, hot chocolate. It doesn't, you know, contain loads of caffeine. [00:14:16] ERIN: It's still got the gut health benefits. It's still bitter because of the cacao. And so I drink that it's got 20 grams of protein and it's warm and it's, it still gives me that so people can find, you know, there's all these like, you know, medicinal mushroom type of blends and things like that. So if you can find something that you like. [00:14:36] ERIN: That isn't that, you know, bursts of caffeine and acidity to your stomach on an empty stomach, then that might help the transition be a little bit easier. Thank [00:14:46] JAMES: you so much for that example. Mark, who's one of the hosts here at the podcast studio has bone broth and cayenne pepper. Okay. There you go. In the morning. [00:14:56] JAMES: Yep. And bizarrely, I was speaking to him on Tuesday because we're [00:15:00] planning for the week and we're talking about you. Um, and I said, cause he was drinking in the same type of Yeti coffee mug as me. And I was like, Oh, nice mug. Like you're one of the good guys. Um, is that a coffee? He explained that no, it was just his bone broth and it's part of his routine to get, you know, great nutrition and in the morning and it's still warm. [00:15:18] JAMES: And as you say, it sort of feels like a coffee, but it's not really a coffee. So. Um, I'm going to go for it. I'm going to start my day with some bone broth. [00:15:27] ERIN: I expect a report back. I'd love to hear from you. [00:15:31] JAMES: I'll give you a report. I can't promise to stop the coffee. That's not the goal. I might go from two shots to one shot. [00:15:39] JAMES: I think two shots to one shot. That's success. You know, you mentioned the health benefits of coffee. It's really interesting. I've had several people come on. So one of them was Professor Debbie Shawcross, who's like a leading authority on, on liver health, basically saying drink more coffee because for some reason it's protective [00:16:00] against, um, cirrhosis and, uh, non alcoholic fatty changes. [00:16:05] JAMES: So there's, there's something in there, isn't there? [00:16:06] ERIN: This, I think there's so many, there's so many asks. Aspects of it. I think, you know, you and I are big into gut health, right? So we're probably gonna always look at it from a gut health lens. And, you know, my scientific brain goes to, well, you know, coffee helps people have a bowel movement, right? [00:16:22] ERIN: It stimulates the liver and digestion. And if we're having regular bowel movements and, and stimulating that process, that's great for the liver, right? We don't want, that's good. You know, sluggish digestion. So just one of the many, I mean, there's, there's antioxidants in there, there's. The polyphenols that feed beneficial bacteria and you know, the liver and the gut are most certainly connected. [00:16:48] JAMES: So could you maybe walk the listeners through some of the other things you try and help your clients with? So you mentioned stress, diet, maybe we can unpack diet a little bit more because that must be huge. We hear. In terms [00:17:00] of. You know, taking control of your health and your microbiome and your gut. [00:17:04] ERIN: Sure. Yeah. As a dietician, you know, people expect that we just focus on food and we, we often do. There's not usually one client that comes in that there's not something diet related that we're talking about and everyone's starting at different ends of the spectrum, right? Some people have no knowledge that. [00:17:23] ERIN: You know, they're not even getting nearly enough protein. They're not eating any vegetables, you know, that, that kind of standard American diet where a lot of processed foods, you know, a lot of refined grains that aren't providing any fiber or nutrition. So there's so many different ends of the spectrum of things that we work on. [00:17:41] ERIN: And then you have, you know, clients who have overgrowth or SIBO, like SIBO, for example, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, and they're eating super clean. You know, air quote clean, where they're not touching your processed food. They're loading up on fiber because they've been told, [00:18:00] fiber, fiber, fiber, if you want better gut health, eat more fiber. [00:18:04] ERIN: And that's making them feel worse. So there's that end of the spectrum where we have to. obviously address the underlying root cause, but we need to simplify their diet, make it easy for them to break things down a little bit, give their gut some rest. And then there's the other spectrum where, you know, I have a woman come to me and she's eating one egg for breakfast. [00:18:25] ERIN: And I'm saying, where's your protein? She said, well, I haven't had an egg for breakfast. I said, well, one egg is six grams of protein. We need 25 or 30 grams of protein to start our day. Right? So there's, there's all these missing links. [00:18:42] JAMES: We've talked about breakfast quite a lot then because as you know, within the sort of wellness health sphere, there's this debate around intermittent fasting and it sounds like you're very much in favor of, you should have a really great nutritious breakfast with macronutrients to set you up [00:19:00] for the day. [00:19:01] JAMES: Is that the case? So you're big, big on breakfast for you and your clients. [00:19:06] ERIN: So for me, yes, I, I've always tried to adopt that my philosophy on my own nutrition and what I think makes me feel best is not going to determine what I think is best for a client. And I think that's really important. I think a lot of, you know, health professionals, it's, you know, they find something that works for them or works for some of their clients and then everyone should do it. [00:19:28] ERIN: Now. Do I often, would I recommend intermittent fasting to people? No, it wouldn't be my first recommendation for the majority of people that I work with. I have worked with clients and most of those clients end up being males who do really well with intermittent fasting. Maybe it's males or oftentimes it's women who are post menopause and they have specific goals, maybe related to body composition and hormone balance. [00:19:55] ERIN: And they found that these practices of intermittent fasting in whatever [00:20:00] fashion make them feel really good. A lot of these are CEOs of companies that like, they love the focus aspect of it during the day. And, you know, so I'm just going to come in and I'm going to work with them and say, Well, if this works for you and you're not, Uh, binge eating at night and feeling like you're deprived during the day and you're getting good nutrition and you're fast, you're feeding window, then I'll work with you. [00:20:23] ERIN: We'll work with where you're at. But the majority of my clients, you know, especially those that are female and they're still cycling, this can really disrupt their hormones. It can disrupt their ability to work out during the day. And so we have to really personalize that if it's going to be part of the protocol and, and the research that I've seen, my biggest concern is the body composition. [00:20:46] ERIN: I've seen the loss of muscle mass be a potential and I think that's a huge issue for a lot of people, right? We all need nice lean muscle mass and if fasting, you know, if we continue to see research that [00:21:00] fasting negatively impacts our lean muscle tissue, I don't love [00:21:04] JAMES: that. Yeah. I mean, intuitively it makes sense, right? [00:21:08] JAMES: You stop consuming calories, you've got no protein intake, therefore there's no amino acids moving around. So it kind of makes sense that your body is going to look for energy. Yeah. And I guess muscle is, is, is a target is probably less desirable than, than fat and certainly your glycogen stores kind of make sense that it forms part of that source of energy that we need. [00:21:32] JAMES: Our bodies are incredible. I'm just on the muscle mass thing. Oh yeah, absolutely. And on the muscle mass thing then, you know, I guess maybe some women listeners might think. It doesn't really apply to me. You know, that's for men that lift and train and work out, but that's not the case, is it? It's, it's just as important, maybe even more important. [00:21:54] JAMES: I, [00:21:55] ERIN: I'm a, I'm not a buff woman. Okay. I, I [00:22:00] get, you know, up to 130 grams of protein per day. And I'm not, you know, what, what people, a lot of women would think I would turn into by eating as much protein as I do. But I will tell you. Some things about me is that I'm very strong, very strong in the gym. I have a good lean body mass My hormones are balanced. [00:22:20] ERIN: I don't have cravings for sugar throughout the day. Those are the things that protein does for us. And so I think we need to understand that from a, you know, biochemical aspect, protein is essential. It is protective. It increases our metabolism. It's the only macronutrient that has a higher thermic effect of food like that. [00:22:41] ERIN: That's incredible. So we, you know, just old school recommendations that always seem to sneak their way into further generation. [00:22:50] JAMES: So, um, how does someone know, I mean, if they're not got the benefit of working with an expert dietitian like you, how do they know if they're on the right track for protein? And in [00:23:00] addition to like the actual macronutrient gram per day recommendations, how important is the source of protein for people? [00:23:07] ERIN: Hmm, that's a great question. So we have two different types of protein. We have a complete protein, which is basically a protein that combines all of the essential amino acids, which amino acids are the little building blocks of what protein is. And essential, meaning our body needs them to survive and to produce the daily functions and live optimally. [00:23:30] ERIN: So that's, that's an essential amino acid. That's a, that's a complete protein. Those Food sources are things like meat, fish, eggs. These are animal proteins. And then you have the incomplete side where we have incomplete, and these are going to be plant based foods. There are a few plant based foods that are complete proteins, but the majority, things like beans and lentils, these are not complete proteins. [00:23:55] ERIN: So they're just missing a few of those amino acids that we need for [00:24:00] essential daily living. Now, this doesn't mean that non complete proteins are not beneficial, but the requirement of how much you would need per day slightly goes up because the digestibility, how able we are to digest these proteins, is not as efficient, you know, if you were to eat eggs or a piece of fish, for example. [00:24:24] ERIN: So my approach is try to get some really good quality complete proteins in your diet and also get some incomplete protein sources in your diet, like lentils and beans and nuts and seeds, if that's something that works with, you know, your individualized physiology. But this idea that everything has to be a complete protein, I think is also, you know, too far left because, you know, bone broth isn't a complete protein, but it's still an excellent source of protein. [00:24:53] ERIN: And I'm still going to have, you know, salmon for dinner, and I'm going to hit my Total, you know, amino acid needs for [00:25:00] the day, if you will, [00:25:01] JAMES: and the total amino acid needs for the day. How does one calculate what they may or may not need? [00:25:07] ERIN: That's a great question. So the amino acids themselves, you could use something like I think chronometer might do this on a very, you know, specific level. [00:25:17] ERIN: I don't know if it goes that into detail, but we look at the total grams of protein as a dietitian, you know, so we're looking for Usually around 1.2, up to two kilograms, sorry, grams per kilogram per day of protein for each person. So the minimum, like the USDA requirements for protein, we're talking 0.8 grams per kilogram per day for a person. [00:25:43] ERIN: Uh, however you need to convert that, but it's what 0. 8 is not a recommendation I use for any of my clients. We're always going above that, especially when my clients are more active or they're looking to optimize their body composition. We're looking closer to like, uh, up to one [00:26:00] to two grams per kilogram. [00:26:03] ERIN: So that's your, that's your goal is to really figure out like what is that number for you based on your body weight and then how can you spread that throughout the day. You know, you don't have to completely spread it evenly, but I usually just tell people to make it easier. Get 25 to 30 grams at each meal and then adjust, you know, add to that to meet your needs and then add snacks where appropriate. [00:26:27] ERIN: But that's a good baseline if they're kind of starting from ground zero. [00:26:32] JAMES: That's an amazing summary of protein. Thank you so much. How do supplements fit into that? And I'm asking you in the context of this minimally processed versus like ultra processed food debate we have all the time. So some people say, Oh yeah, whey protein supplement contains the essential amino acids. [00:26:50] JAMES: Go for it. But other people say, Whoa, it's so processed you shouldn't have it. So what are your thoughts then, um, on supplements and How do [00:27:00] they fit in? [00:27:01] ERIN: I think supplements can be great. I think they have a time and a place and you know, a lot of the time is convenience is, is a big reason, you know, for somebody that has a protein goal of 180 grams per day. [00:27:15] ERIN: You know, meeting that might be really challenging if they're not throwing in some whey protein into a smoothie or a shake. Whey protein is excellent. Yes, it's processed, but so is your oatmeal and your brown rice and your ground meat. Like everything is processed. And if you choose grass fed, you know, protein powder, a whey protein powder with minimal ingredients that maybe just has whey, maybe some, you know, sweetener and something to Add some salt or whatnot. [00:27:43] ERIN: But if you have like a three ingredient protein powder, it's high quality grass fed, and you add that to your smoothie, you're doing wonderful things for your body. So I think it, it really comes into when you see these, you know, those, you know, body building companies always start these protein [00:28:00] powders and it's , you know, strawberry cheesecake or cookie dough. [00:28:03] ERIN: Yeah. And. I used to eat these. I'm not, I'm not saying I've never tried them. They do taste good. They do. They taste just like they say they do, or at least when you're, you know, eating healthy, they do. And, you know, that's when we get into the long list of ingredients. We see, you know, binders and gums and artificial sweeteners. [00:28:24] ERIN: And we see, you know, things that can really not make us feel good, especially from a gut health perspective. So a good quality You know, one that's been maybe tested for heavy metals, things like lead that can be common in plant based protein powders, arsenic. If we get a good quality protein powder, minimal ingredients, uh, high quality testing, ask for the certificate of analysis from the company. [00:28:51] ERIN: Then, you know, you're, you're, you're gonna help yourself out if you're struggling to get your protein intake. Thank you for [00:28:57] JAMES: that. I've, I've got so many things written down to ask, you know, I'm [00:29:00] actually not even sure where to start. Fibers, gum, sweeteners, heavy, heavy metals, other macronutrients. Before I jump into sort of more supplements and sweeteners and the heavy metals, I'd kind of like to. [00:29:16] JAMES: Round off the diet piece with you more generally. So maybe talk a little bit about fiber, um, fruit and veg, talk about carbs and fats. Yes. You know, when you're working with all your clients and for yourself as well, how do you build like an optimal diet? Big question. [00:29:35] ERIN: Yes. No, it's, it's a great one. How do you create like an optimal regime? [00:29:38] ERIN: Absolutely. So we start with again, base, like we kind of find this base for people to start. And that's where the three meals per day comes in. You know, if someone's not used to eating breakfast, we're going to try to get them to start eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner, or we can call it meal one, meal two, meal three, whatever your schedule is like. [00:29:56] ERIN: And at that meal, we're aiming to get again, that 25 to 30 grams of [00:30:00] protein. We want to hit. half a plate of vegetables that are colorful, usually like darker leafy greens tend to be an area that a lot of people struggle. So we try to look for those dark pigments. And then the other portion of that, usually I say like a fist of carbohydrates minimum at your meal. [00:30:18] ERIN: And we try to choose carbohydrates every meal and we try to choose carbohydrates that are more complex. So things like. higher fiber carbs. So if you're looking at a label, you're going to see fiber there. But if you're just in the produce section and you're looking at carbohydrate sources, potatoes have fiber, both sweet and white potatoes. [00:30:37] ERIN: Uh, things like quinoa, plantains, bananas. These are all sources of carbohydrates that are very nutrient dense. If a client's more active, those carbohydrates Intakes might go up. We might be consuming more carbohydrates per day. Um, and then fat is, is incorporated into those meals. We, we try to focus on healthy fats, particularly omega [00:31:00] 3 fats. [00:31:00] ERIN: So things like wild caught salmon, we're looking at things like mackerel, sardines, herring. These are omega 3 rich fats that we have to get two to three servings per week. So we've got three meals per day, protein, vegetable, carbohydrate, healthy fats included. And then, then we kind of go from there. We say, okay, are you working out? [00:31:22] ERIN: Okay, well, we need a pre workout, post workout routine. And how can we adjust there? Um, you know, you're training for a marathon. Okay, your carbohydrate needs go up significantly. We're going to have to adjust that. But once we have that base, you know, and, and You don't have to focus so much on the grams of fiber, although we are aiming for about 25 to 35 grams per day, if you're choosing complex carbs, if you're choosing half your plate of vegetables, then you're likely going to hit your fiber needs for the most part. [00:31:53] JAMES: It's going to happen, right? It's going to happen just by default, you know, because it's quite difficult to [00:32:00] find the fiber on the foods and to figure out. [00:32:04] ERIN: Yeah. And if you're focusing on it, we're [00:32:08] JAMES: sorry, there's a bit of a, a bit of a, a like you. Please continue, please. [00:32:13] ERIN: No, no. I was just going to say, so if you're focusing on getting the majority of your foods from less processed foods, then you're again, likely to hit those fiber goals because you're going to be choosing those types of fruits and vegetables and things like that that just naturally come with, you know, the, the benefit of the fiber. [00:32:33] JAMES: Absolutely. I'm going to just push you a little bit, um, on. Ketogenic diets and people even go more extreme and they have these um, carnivore diets. They're great. And you've been quite clear in your recommendation around you should have some carbohydrate with each meal. So, could we just unpack that a little bit and what some of the, you know, why is that part of your recommendation versus, you know, just eat meat and [00:33:00] veg, for example? [00:33:01] ERIN: Mm hmm. So, the, the main focus there is blood sugar balance and this is something that people think this is a discussion just reserved for people who have, say, diabetes. You know, oh, well, you know, they gotta watch their blood sugar and, you know, gotta make sure they don't eat too many carbohydrates. But the reality is, is we all should care about blood sugar. [00:33:22] ERIN: Blood sugar impacts our cardiovascular system. It impacts our mental health, it impacts our hormones, it impacts our muscle growth and maintenance. So having stable blood sugar throughout the day is absolutely key to optimal performance, energy, all those things that we're talking about. And so being able to get a steady adequate amount consistent throughout the day is going to allow that blood sugar to just kind of have this nice little up and down throughout the day. [00:33:52] ERIN: And we're going to stay within this nice range that the body likes to stay in for optimal health. When you go get your blood work done and you get your [00:34:00] hemoglobin A1C tested, that's your report card of how well you've been managing That blood sugar over the past three months, how well you've been staying within that range. [00:34:10] ERIN: And when you don't eat carbs for breakfast, and you don't eat carbs for lunch, and then you have a carb dinner, you're more likely to see a larger spike in those blood glucose levels. Again, this isn't the case for everybody. If somebody has been on a low carb diet, and they've maintained that, and their blood sugar is great, and they're feeling awesome, I'm so happy for them, and I would support them in that way. [00:34:34] ERIN: But for the majority of us, We have these habits where our carbs are not distributed properly. We're not eating the right amount. We're either eating too much in one sitting, not enough at one sitting, and we're wondering why we're craving sugar all the time, and why we're tired all the time. And if we just got high quality carbohydrates at every meal in adequate amounts, not overdoing it, not underdoing it, [00:35:00] we might find a really healthy balance. [00:35:02] ERIN: And not to mention, the trouble with those low carb diets is the number one symptom is constipation. Because These carbohydrates feed our beneficial bacteria. I probably see 10 to 15 stool tests per week, and any time I see someone come in with a carnivore, keto, low carb diet, they have very low beneficial bacteria. [00:35:30] ERIN: And it is pretty much

The following is a conversation with Mollie Hughes, a British alpinist, world record holder, company director, and entrepreneur. This podcast will appeal to anybody and everybody. It's very easy to listen to Mollie speak and you can kind of get a sense of what it takes to summit Everest and go to the South Pole. She broke the world record for becoming the youngest woman to climb both sides of Mount Everest and the youngest woman to ski solo to the South Pole. And now she's building an amazing adventure business, going around the world talking about her endeavours, and writing a book. We explore how Mollie developed her mindset both before and during her incredible quests, she explains what it’s like to be caught in an 8-day whiteout on the South Pole and how affirmations helped keep her skis moving. Everyone can get something practical from this conversation, especially when it comes to developing a mindset to enable you to achieve your goals and deal with adversity along the way. Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:33 Mollie’s background 00:05:00 Tackling extreme activities 00:08:59 Controlling fear 00:10:46 Deciding to climb Everest 00:11:34 Fitness to climb Everest 00:15:00 Costs to climb Everest 00:17:47 Kit required to climb Everest 00:20:14 Mollie’s first climb of Everest 00:23:29 Everest’s death zone 00:26:22 Hillary’s Step 00:32:51 Communication and food on Everest 00:35:06 Climbing north face of Everest 00:44:59 Human landmarks on Everest 00:52:31 Skiing to the South Pole 00:58:58 Dealing with isolation 01:07:16 Silence of the South Pole 01:09:20 Joining Ocean Vertical

The following is a conversation with Dr. Alan Walker, a senior lecturer at the Rowett Institute for Nutrition and Health at the University of Aberdeen. Dr Walker has worked in the microbiome field for the last 20 years. Throughout this episode, he shared with us some of his insights into how the field has developed, and how new technologies have improved our understanding of the microbiome. We also spent a lot of time Having some fun debates about the pros and cons, some of the benefits associated with microbiome modulating therapy, and where some myths and misconceptions lie. For the generalist who wants to learn more about the microbiome, I think this is an excellent episode. We also get pretty deep and pretty technical in some areas, like, for example, microbiome sequencing, next-generation probiotics, and whether the microbiome causes obesity or contributes to obesity. There are tons in here and we go right the way across the microbiome field talking about diagnostics, at-home microbiome testing, the use of faecal microbiota transplantation, and what is a healthy microbiome. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of the listeners and supporters of the podcast for everything you've done to help us build the name, and the brand, and to get the message out there around microbiome being critically important and gut health being really important for wider body health. Timestamps: 00:00:00 Intro 00:02:39 Microbiome research 30 years ago 00:05:17 Why is the microbiome important? 00:10:08 How does the microbiome develop? 00:12:52 Do we have a core microbiome? 00:14:51 What is a healthy microbiome? 00:20:22 Health and poor microbiome diversity 00:22:55 Technology shifts in microbiome research 00:31:13 Microbiome human database 00:33:54 AI helping us understand the microbiome? 00:38:27 Convincing others of the importance of the microbiome 00:40:18 Importance of fibre 00:45:27 Microbiome and obesity 00:49:31 How to improve microbiome 00:56:03 Probiotics 01:02:29 Differences in animal and human microbiome 01:04:00 Genetics and genomic diversity 01:05:38 Phabe bacteria 01:06:17 Where is the field going? 01:08:35 FMT 01:12:39 Processed foods

In this Biome Bite, Dr James McIlroy discusses the differences between food supplements and drugs, including their regulations and pricing. He suggests that some food supplements may be better than drugs for certain uses and indications, despite the higher standards and stringency for drugs. What are the differences between a food supplement and a drug? There are some key differences in the regulations. And those regulations govern how they're manufactured, how they're tested, the levels of quality assurance, and also the level of evidence. that has to be generated for them to be able to be put on the market. So drugs are regulated by competent authorities. In the UK, it's the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency. Food supplements are regulated by food standards agencies. In the US, interestingly, they're both governed and regulated by the same group, the FDA, Food and Drug Administration, but they're separate divisions within that very large organization that create the standards that the companies and the organizations that are manufacturing, distributing, and marketing have to adhere to. Now, classically, there are significant price differences between drugs and food supplements, and that's driven by the level of evidence that the companies have to generate to put the products on the market. And there's much higher stringency and standards in drugs rather than foods. Drugs often fail in clinical development as well because the standards are so high. Therefore, the drugs that are on the market are priced by the companies to be able to recoup losses from a company-wide perspective, associated with failed drugs, and also to make a significant return, typically within a patent life. of an approved drug. Back to the topic. Food supplements could be better than a drug for certain indications, and certain uses. Timestamps: 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:46 Key differences between supplement and drug 00:03:14 Lysine 00:09:54 Quercetin 00:15:19 Melatonin TRANSCRIPT: Biome Bites #11   Hi everyone, it's your host Dr. James McElroy here today for another Biome Bites. This is a solo episode so you have me and only me for the entirety of this episode. Today we're going to be speaking about three food supplements that could be better than drugs. Or rather, in a parallel universe, may in fact be regulated and distributed, marketed, and prescribed as drugs. So what are the differences between a food supplement and a drug? There are some key differences in relation to the regulations. And those regulations govern how they're manufactured, how they're tested, the levels of quality assurance, and also the level of evidence. that has to be generated for them to be able to be put on the market. So drugs are regulated by competent authorities. In the UK, it's the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency. Food supplements are regulated by food standards agencies. In the US, interestingly, they're both governed and regulated by the same group, the FDA, Food and Drug Administration, but they're separate divisions within that very large organization that create the standards that the companies and the organizations that are manufacturing, distributing, and marketing have to adhere to. Now, classically, there are significant price differences between drugs and food supplements, and that's driven by the level of evidence that the companies have to generate to put the products on the market. And there's much higher stringency and standards in drugs rather than foods. Drugs often fail in clinical development as well because the standards are so high. Therefore, the drugs that are on the market are priced by the companies to be able to recoup losses from a company-wide perspective, associated with failed drugs, and also to make a significant return, typically within a patent life. of an approved drug. Back to the topic. Food supplements could be better than a drug for certain indications, and certain uses. I'm going to start with something called Lysine, also known as L Lysine. Lysine is an essential amino acid. Now, there are nine essential amino acids that we're aware of for the human body. That means that they cannot be synthesized by the human body and have to be consumed, have to be generated by your diet, so you have to consume them, you have to find them through some sort of intake, whether it's through food or a supplement. High protein foods are rich sources of all the essential amino acids, red meat, poultry, fish, pork, nut, legumes, and soy products from a plant perspective, also contain a wide variety of amino acids. Typically they don't. contain the complete sets of amino acids in the case of plants. And interestingly, from a protein bioavailability perspective, animal proteins are typically more bioavailable than plant proteins. What are we talking about now in the context of lysine? We're not talking about muscle hypertrophy. We're talking about cold sores, which are generated by the herpes simplex virus. And there are two that we typically discuss, HSV1, and HSV2. Typically there are cold sores on the face, but of course, there are also cold sores that can happen elsewhere in the body, most typically the genitals, HSV 1. Impacts the face, and HSV2s typically impact the genitals, although I think there can be some vice versa in there. Now, classically, when treating a cold sore, the medical community would prescribe an antiviral medication that can be topical. Ciclovir, commonly known as Zovarax, now is an over-the-counter medication. We can get into the differences between over-the-counter medications and prescription medications a different times and on a different podcast. But it would be typically an antiviral medication, topically, or systemic. Lysine has antiviral properties, which have been most classically demonstrated in what we call in vitro experiments. So these are experiments. In a test tube, essentially, where there's no living organism or living thing like a mouse or a rat or some other different species. Now, Interestingly, there is quite a good bit of evidence for lysine as a supplement for the prevention and treatment of cold sores in particular. I think there is some evidence as well for genital herpes, but the majority of the evidence exists for oral herpes, which is essentially synonymous with the term cold sore. So what does the evidence show? The evidence shows, fascinatingly, across a range of studies, for the most part, that lysine supplementation can prevent or reduce the severity, and by severity, we're talking about how many are there across a particular defined part of the body, in this case, the face, the severity beyond just how many there are, so how deep are they, how sore are they, there are other mechanisms. and predetermined parameters that clinicians and people working in this field use. And how long are the outbreaks? So what people have found is that daily supplementation with lysine in people who are prone to cold sores can, as I said, prevent and reduce the severity. Increased use of lysine during a cold sore outbreak can accelerate the time frame in which you have cold sores, so reduce the time frame that you have cold sores and indeed make the outbreaks less severe. That's fascinating, right? Now in terms of dose typically one to three grams a day for the treatment. That's one thousand to three thousand milligrams per day for as long as you've got a cold sore. If you can feel a sort of what we call prodromal type syndrome coming on where you've got a bit of a tingle. Some people know if they're about to get one things feel a bit strange in their face or elsewhere in their body. And that would be a good opportunity to load up and from a preventative point of view, it would typically be 500 milligrams. That's 0. 5 of a gram taken every day. Wide variety of sources available. It's quite a cheap supplement. So you can get a tub of 30. Excuse me, I was just taking a drink. You can get a tub of 30 for between 5 and 15 pounds depending on the source. Now, you can take a lot more lysine than that. I had a look for the LD50, which is a pharmaceutical, clinical phrase used to describe what the lethal dose is of a medicine, and the LD50 was at an insanely high level. That means you can probably take more than three grams a day. You could maybe load up to five or 10, see how that works for you. I've certainly done that. You can also get lysine as a topical formulation. Typically in the US, it's hard to find in the UK, so if you wanted a double whammy approach, you could take lysine systemically and you could also apply it topically around your lips. It doesn't seem to interfere or cause pain. In the formulation that I've seen, it's more of an ointment rather than a gel. Or a powder. It just makes your lips a little bit shiny. Now, what about the evidence? The evidence is quite strong in some respects, but it's also mixed. The studies are not ideal insofar as they're not very large for the most part, and typically they're conducted in compliance with standards that you'd associate with a food supplement rather than a drug. As I said at the start of this podcast, the Stringency, the level of regulation and rigour in the clinical studies is less for a food supplement than it is for a drug. So you might be wondering why has the pharmaceutical industry not jumped all over this. And I have to say anecdotally, i. e. based on personal experience, but also other people's personal experiences outside the confines of a robust clinical study. The evidence for lysine is pretty awesome. Some people swear by this, absolutely swear by it. I am prone to cold sores around my lips when I'm stressed. It runs in the family. Interestingly, my dad never gets them, and has never had one, but my mum is prone to them. So there are obviously some genetic predeterminants there around how bad your outbreaks are. But I, I've been taking lysine every day for years now. I was put onto the evidence by a former colleague called Dr Michael Butler. So shout out to you, Mike. If you're listening, I'm still listening to your advice. And here we are on Inside Matters talking about it in front of other people. So if you're prone to cold sores, I would recommend you give lysine a try. In a later episode, we're going to be talking about how to select a good quality supplement so if you want to wait before buying until that episode it'll be coming out within the next week or two. So that's supplement number one, Lysine. Supplement number two is Quercetin. Quercetin spelled q u e r c e t i n and we'll have some post-show notes as well. It's a type of flavonoid Flavonoids form part of a broader category called polyphenols and if you've been listening to this podcast You will have heard of the three P's prebiotics probiotics polyphenols again and again and if you want to take care of your microbiome the broad principles are, eat real food and focus on prebiotics, probiotics, polyphenols There's a plant pigment that's found in many fruits and vegetables this is quercetin I'm talking about now. It has antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory properties, some people even say it has anti-carcinogenic properties, i.e. anti cancer. What kind of fruits and sources in the diet is it found in? Onions, apples, vegetables, grapes, tea, and Red wine. But we've talked about red wine in the past in the podcast as well. And if you want to get quercetin in high doses, I would recommend you look at a supplement. So the one key benefit, I believe, from quercetin in the context of this supplement versus drug discussion is that it has antihistamine properties. So the histamine pathways are heavily implicated in allergy and allergic reactions. And these can range from what we call atopy, so a very mild type reaction, where you maybe get some inflammation in your skin, to anaphylaxis, where you have a total. almost catastrophic systemic, so total body reaction to an allergen. Now Quercetin has antihistamine-type properties. There's a variety of evidence available to suggest that it can reduce the severity of allergy and atopy including hay fever. So for some reason, it stabilizes histamines from certain cells. I'm not 100% sure what the pathways are that can reduce allergy symptoms. Typical doses range between 250 milligrams, and 600 milligrams per day, taken in divided doses throughout the day so you're not just getting a big dump of quercetin at some point in time. Now more studies are required for a definitive conclusion. And we go back to the lysine discussion. Why are the pharmaceutical industry not all over this? They exist as food supplements already. It's hard to get a strong intellectual property position based on the studies that already exist, based on the fact that it's already ubiquitous as a food supplement. And typically the pharmaceutical industry is only interested if it can have a defined intellectual property patent position. Ideally, sometimes they're okay with know-how, but basically, they're trying to stop people from copying and eating into market share. Reversing out now, from quercetin specifically, into flavonoids, bioflavonoids more generally, forming part of the bigger polyphenol complex. The human body doesn't efficiently absorb all the flavonoids because of the complex structure that these compounds take. and the microbiota. through a series of bacterial enzymatic reactions, i.e. enzymes contained within the metabolism of bacteria can break down the bioflavonoids into smaller, more bioavailable compounds. Now, this is one of these, we feed the microbes, they feed us, type discussions. And the things they feed us are classically beneficial. So The flavonoids themselves through the actions of the microbiota have several anti-inflammatory, potentially anti-carcinogenic properties. They may strengthen gut barrier function as well and we've talked about epithelial integrity a lot on this podcast. Gut barrier integrity aka leaky gut. If you want more listen to the episode with Dr. Laura Craven on that. So there's some evidence to suggest that the flavonoids found in foods including quercetin, which is one of the best-studied flavonoids, can impact cardiovascular disease risk factors, certain cancers, and obesity-related complications, and part of that must be through their interaction with microbiota. One final point. I believe that flavonoids are synergistic with fibre. Fibre, we talk on this podcast a lot. All prebiotics are fibres, but not all fibres are prebiotics, right? Prebiotic is a type of fibre that promotes the growth of beneficial bacteria within the gut and there is absolute synergy between fibres and flavonoids. The good news is that the flavonoids that come from plants can have high fibre. There's a synergy there. So if you're eating colourful plants, You classically have a lot of flavonoids and you have a fibre content there as well in the form of cellulose, but also other prebiotic substances like, for example, pectin and inulin. So that's quercetin. If you're struggling with allergies, you're allergic to a cat, you're allergic to a dog, or you have hay fever. Maybe give quercetin a try. Also personally, based on anecdotes, based on what I've seen, and based on the people I've spoken to, quercetin can also have an impact on systemic inflammation. So if you've got achy joints, quercetin has been reported to be beneficial in some people, much like turmeric potentially has some benefits as well. Cercumin potentially has some benefits too. Now, number three on this list, and we're getting to the end of the podcast now, melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone produced by the pineal gland in the brain. The pineal gland sits close to the pituitary gland if you're more familiar with that. And it helps regulate the body's sleep-wake cycle. Just as a brief aside, I like to go a little bit off-piece sometimes. The pineal gland is also thought to be the source of something called dimethyltryptamine, also known as DMT, which has very strong psychedelic properties. Some people believe large amounts of DMT are released by the body in Death, which is why people who have near-death experiences report similar experiences to people who've taken DMT recreationally. Okay, back now to the drug versus food debate. Melatonin is not found in foods. It's quite hard to find hormones in foods. Classically to do with the stability of the compounds metabolized by whatever it is where you're getting the source from. So if it's a slice of meat, then it would not find its way into the meat that you're eating. Now melatonin potentially because it's part of what we call circadian rhythm, i. e. your sleep-wake cycle could have beneficial effects in helping you get to sleep. There's some evidence to suggest that for people who have jet lag, so people who work in shift patterns, melatonin can be a good way to reestablish a normal circadian rhythm. Now, the evidence is a little bit mixed. Some evidence suggests that it can improve sleep quality. And reducing the time taken to fall asleep. Others say that it doesn't improve sleep quality, as measured through your sleep cycles, but may indeed reduce the time that it takes to get to sleep. This is another one of these anecdotal ones, where you have to try yourself, I think, to really understand how it affects you. Anecdotally, some people who take melatonin can feel groggy in the morning, they can feel slow, they can have brain fog, they can also feel a little bit nauseous, whereas other people, it gives them an amazingly deep sleep. And our recent episode with Andy Scott, the bodybuilder, revealed that he's very big on melatonin. He takes a big dose. Classically, the recommended doses are 0. 5 to 5 milligrams. Andy was taking 10 milligrams. That's a lot, but he's also a very big guy. So if you're having trouble falling asleep. If you're doing a lot of international travelling, you should consider melatonin. I would prefer melatonin to some of the other drugs that are available for sleep. Zopiclone is a classic one, but Zopiclone has an impact on REM sleep and other sedatives like GABA, and Agonist. So for example, the Azepam. are not things you want to be taking regularly at all because they have a high risk of developing dependency and a sort of rebound withdrawal effect can occur quite easily with limited use. Interestingly with melatonin, there doesn't seem to be what they call this rebound insomnia, i. e. you stop taking it, you can't get sleep, that doesn't seem to exist based on what I've seen. And there are some people, classically people who describe themselves as naturopaths swear by melatonin for infections too. I've not done much research on this. I'd encourage you to look at it yourself, but it might be an additional benefit. Melatonin as an antioxidant across the blood-brain barrier may be effective in delaying, preventing, and being involved with the development of some neurodegenerative diseases, most notably Alzheimer's. So we're coming to the end now of this podcast. I just wanted to emphasize that none of what I've said today constitutes a practice of medicine. It does not equal the giving of medical advice. You should consult with your healthcare professional before embarking on a supplement routine.

The following is a conversation with Jordan Haworth, a gut health physiologist working at the Functional Gut Clinic who are based in Manchester and London. In this conversation, we covered probably, possibly the widest range of gut health-related topics in the history of Inside Matters, so this could become a reference episode for all things gut health in the future. Jordan is a fountain of knowledge relating to basically all things to do with the gastrointestinal tract, prebiotics, probiotics, polyphenols, everything. We covered what to eat for your microbiome, what not to eat for your microbiome, what IBS is, including how to potentially classify it in a way that's not currently widely accepted amongst the broad range of medical community specialists that currently focus on IBS. We talked about antibiotics, in particular an antibiotic called rifaximin, which counterintuitively may actually be good for gut health in specific situations. We also talked about food sweeteners, emulsifiers, and some of the really exciting research that Jordan and the team at the Functional Gut Clinic are focused on. I absolutely love this episode. I've learned a heck of a lot. I'm absolutely sure you will as well. Timestamps: 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:26 IBS: what is it? 00:03:29 Bloating 00:04:30 IBD causes & diagnosis 00:09:38 What is bile? 00:11:54 Different categories of IBS 00:18:18 Coffee a laxative? 00:19:18 What is gut health? 00:21:38 What aren’t normal gut responses? 00:23:23 Most common symptoms 00:28:53 Mr Gut Health’s journey 00:32:51 Stool sampling 00:35:46 Functional Gut Clinic 00:37:18 Definition of probiotic 00:43:46 Probiotics: what to look for 00:48:14 Tummy MOT 00:53:15 Microbiome is an orchestra 00:55:30 More on Tummy MOT 00:57:00 Prebiotics: what are they? 01:01:04 Partially hydrolyzed guar gum 01:03:59 FODMAP diet 01:07:27 Best food for microbiome 01:10:49 How to improve microbiome 01:12:52 ChatGTP for gut health tips 01:15:17 Fermented foods 01:22:08 What’s bad for the microbiome? 01:26:30 Artificial sweeteners 01:30:15 Gluten intolerance 01:34:22 Cutting out dairy for the gut 01:41:33 Testing for SIBO on the NHS 01:49:47 TikTok gut health trends 01:53:20 Things to avoid for a healthy gut 02:00:53 Colonic irrigations

Learn more about this episode's guests and the topics discussed - https://insidematters.health/ The following is a conversation with Professor Konstantinos Yerasmididis, a professor in clinical nutrition at the University of Glasgow, who has a special interest in the gut microbiome and dietary interventions to treat disease. We also had Dr Richard Hansen, consultant paediatric gastroenterologist, who was on episode number one of the podcast. This is the first time I had two guests participating in the Inside Matters podcast at the same time. It was an absolute pleasure. Given that Costas and Richard are experts in inflammatory bowel disease and that they've collaborated on several different research initiatives, we spent a lot of time talking about inflammatory bowel disease. We spoke about their work which is focused on using nutrition and personalized dietary therapy in the context of Crohn's disease in particular. So they've been involved in a program called CD-TREAT where they've tried to mimic the effects of something called exclusive internal nutrition, essentially an entirely liquid diet with a diet that contained real food. Why is that important?  Well, for four out of five children with newly diagnosed Crohn's disease, a form of inflammatory bowel disease, this exclusively liquid diet has a profound impact on Crohn's disease. So four out of five of them go into what we call remission. i. e. no clinical symptoms. However, there are challenges associated with EEN. Most notably, it's very restrictive. You can't eat any food for six to eight weeks. So what Costas and Richard have been trying to do is, can we give children and potentially even adults a diet that contains the same components? as a liquid diet. It allows people to eat real food without having to have an exclusively liquid diet. We also talked about some common myths and misconceptions associated with the microbiome. We asked the question, does the microbiota cause obesity? We also spoke about the microbiome field more generally and how it's progressed over time. and some of the challenges that both the field and the academic researchers have faced over the last decade. This is a really interesting conversation that I think should be accessible to most of the listeners. We did go quite deep on some areas but we always brought it back to well, what does that mean for the listener and what can a listener take away from it? I believe that you will particularly enjoy this podcast if you're someone with inflammatory bowel disease or if you know somebody suffering from inflammatory bowel disease. You will also enjoy this podcast if you're interested in diet, nutrition, and how the diet interplays with the microbiome and how the microbiome interplays with the rest of the body. Timestamps 00:00:00 Intro 00:04:00 Welcome to the guests 00:04:48 What is a healthy microbiome? 00:09:24 Microbial therapeutics 00:14:00 Intersection between disease and diversity in the biome 00:17:41 Insights from research 00:22:36 Should we drink milk 00:31:47 CDG 00:34:39 Mediterranean diet pt1 00:40:51 Carnivore diet 00:47:52 Personalised dietary intervention pt1 00:50:22 Microbiome testing 00:55:14 Personalised dietary intervention pt2 01:02:23 Measuring inflammatory cytokines 01:08:55 Mediterranean diet pt2 01:14:40 Fermented foods 01:18:59 Plant-based diet 01:22:10 Microbiome and obesity 01:26:50 Do the scientists take supplements? 01:30:12 Composition of microbiome 01:37:43 Treating IBD 01:43:28 Training gastroenterologists 01:47:16 Importance of hydration to the guy 01:47:57 Obesity and the gut microbiome 01:56:31 What’s next? 02:00:12 The future of research and treatment

With a wrap-up of 2023, Dr James McIlroy reflects on his journey hosting the Inside Matters Podcast so far. I have to say that I've thoroughly enjoyed the first year and a bit of the Inside Matters podcast. I'm thrilled actually that I took that step to start it. And there was an element of not sure what I'm getting into here. Can I produce content once every two weeks? And are people going to want to come on and talk to me? But fast forward to December 2023 and we've had genuinely some of the best minds in the microbiome space on the podcast. And we've got a loyal listener base who listened to most episodes. Some every single episode, there's a group of people who write into the podcast and say they're enjoying it. They've learned a lot. Some people have taken action themselves on their health and some people are reporting amazing benefits. I feel better. Some people have had an impact on their disease and that just makes me happy. Because, fundamentally, I believe that the microbiome is extremely important. I believe that gut health contributes to wider body health in a way that's currently underappreciated by the general medical community. And even specialist medical doctors who, for some reason, even with all the evidence that's available now, don't think it's as important as it is. So what it's about on Inside Matters is connecting with people on a really deep level and helping them live a better, longer, healthier life through taking steps to improve their microbiota and microbiome, in doing so improving their gut health, in doing so improving their wider body health. And this is just the start, you know, we're, we're just at the start of this journey, which is why I'm excited. And we're starting to build good traction, you know, 35 5-star reviews on Spotify, I think it's 17 or 18 on Apple podcasts, people commenting on the videos, people writing it on Instagram, stopped once on the subway in Glasgow, which is a bit of a claim to fame. And it sounds very egotistical, but it was pretty damn cool. And that just motivates me to keep going and to create. Even better content on a week-to-week basis for the listeners. None of it would have been possible without the team at the Podcast Studio Glasgow who've gone above and beyond to help build this because they believed, and believe in me as the founder and the host. They believe in the vision and the mission of the podcast and Without them, we wouldn't have built the brand. We wouldn't have been able to get it going in the way that we have, and I've learned a huge amount from Mark and more laterally cam about podcasting and creating great content and this new world of education. 21st century year education. I wanted to take this opportunity on, on record to thank Mark and Cam for their belief in the partnership that we've established. And I'm looking forward to 2024. What have you got to look forward to in 2024 as a listener? More great content. A couple of really high-profile people actually in this space booked in for the first couple of quarters in 2024, which I'm excited about. We're going to continue with the content once every two weeks. We're going to have more solo episodes where I'm talking about topics that are probably more easily accessible to the general population. Why is that? Well, we've had great top minds coming on this podcast and we get deep, really deep actually probably deeper than any other platform on the internet for microbiome. And for some people that's gold dust.

In episode 24 we once again meet up with IFBB bodybuilder Andy Scott. Hopefully, you can see for those of you who are watching the video Andy is massive. He's 130kg and there are just slabs of muscle on his body. So he knows a thing or two about how to gain muscle. If you're interested in how to gain muscle, lose fat, and get in shape, this is a podcast episode that you’ll want to listen to. You can watch this episode on YouTube. https://youtu.be/IViPBxJ8ZFE For those of you who want to connect with Andy and learn more or perhaps have him as your personal trainer, I would highly recommend him because he blasts you and teaches you the true meaning of training to failure. If you think you're training to failure, and you've not been trained by Andy Scott or someone similar, you probably actually haven't trained to failure and doing so is worthwhile to get maximum gains. Reach out to Andy on Instagram. I'm very grateful to all of you. the listener for the support that you've been giving us so far. The best way you can support the podcast is by liking, subscribing and very kindly giving us a five-star review. People are messaging that I don't know and even bumped into someone recently who I didn't know who said they were listening to the podcast, which was frankly awesome. We started this podcast over a year ago to produce high-quality gut health content for people all over the world and we've been delivering that content every second Thursday. If you know someone who’d benefit from the conversations on the Inside Matters Podcast, I’d encourage you to share the podcast with them.   Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:02:06 How Andy got started 00:03:23 Socks and Crocs? 00:06:18 Are we in a simulation? 00:07:31 Switching rugby for bodybuilding 00:10:17 Being introduced to testosterone 00:11:58 Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary 00:13:03 Andy’s first competitive show 00:14:49 Show prepping as a living 00:17:49 The realities of pro bodybuilder physique 00:19:39 Magnesium dosing 00:21:16 Psilocybin dosing 00:23:15 Treating cachexia with CBD 00:24:47 Parkinson’s disease 00:32:52 Dealing with injuries 00:36:17 Dorian Yates and training to failure 00:43:23 TRT cycles and contest prep 00:53:51 Victor Black 00:55:01 Optimal recovery 00:56:57 Trenbolone 00:58:54 Focus on overall health 01:03:56 Drugs don’t make mass 01:08:25 Getting a pro card 01:14:44 If you’re considering a steroid cycle 01:16:50 Women aren’t interested in bodybuilders 01:22:46 Longevity 01:26:32 Creating programs for clients 01:29:20 Do women want to bulk? 01:35:35 Avoiding crash diets 01:39:01 Supplements 01:42:51 Swimming for fitness 01:47:52 Conclusion

In episode 23 we chat with Dr. Simon Baunwall, a medical doctor and scientific researcher focused on fecal microbiota transplantation, also known as FMT. Dr. Baunwall is based at Arras University Hospital in Denmark. This conversation centred around the establishment of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) as a therapy in Denmark. Simon talked to us about his work which centres around establishing FMT as a standardised, scalable approach using a blood banking type model, is fascinating. We talked about his perspectives on how the field might evolve looking forward, the next indication after recurring C-difficile infection, and the progression of FMT delivered by colonoscopy to delivery by capsules. And we had some interesting philosophical discussions around what is the mechanism of action and how do you define a dose. This is important, as historically what researchers have used is the wet mass of starting material, in other words, stool, that goes into the process. But what we discussed is actually, that's probably not a good definition or metric for dose! Additionally, we talked about the regulations, which Simon's been very heavily involved with. I particularly enjoyed this episode because Simon is a self-confessed lover of the Inside Matters podcast. In fact, he has listened to pretty much all the episodes. So it was amazing to have a loyal listener on the podcast to talk about their fantastic work in the microbiome and FMT space.   Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:02:38 How Simon got involved in the microbiome 00:04:01 We can do better 00:05:47 Low tech 00:09:21 Patient improvement 00:12:33 The metabolite perspective 00:14:18 How the process is evolving 00:19:31 Universally perfect donor? 00:23:29 Are we doing too much? 00:25:25 Likelihood of false-positives 00:30:18 Undergoing repeated screenings 00:42:02 Preparing for it going wrong 00:44:51 Safety issues 00:50:29 What is your vision? 00:57:31 Is it actually safe? 01:01:48 Building in scale 01:05:20 Accessing screening as a private company 01:10:43 Two different donor types 01:20:09 The struggle to get enough donors 01:24:15 Limitations of diet studies 01:28:07 Dr Mark Hyman 01:30:39 Regulating FMT 01:34:50 Presenting stool as a “drug”

Following is a conversation with Dr Indrani Mukhopadhyay, a lecturer at the Institute of Medical Sciences Microbiology and Immunology Group at the University of Aberdeen. Over the last ten years, we’ve started to understand more and more about why the virome is important in both health and disease. Indrani is an expert in the viral and has been involved in some of the seminal research to characterise profiles and help us understand why the virus is important. So if you're interested in that, this is a great episode for you. We also spoke about probiotics and what a next-generation probiotic might be in terms of its composition, structure and function. We spoke about Indrani's career progression. She's been all over the world involved in exciting research and setting up her new lab recently here in Aberdeen. So we covered a range of topics.  Finally, we spoke about inflammatory bowel disease, how the viral elements of the microbiome might be important and how specific depletions of bacteria might be important too.  As always, I wanted to thank you, the listener, for tuning in and for supporting the podcast. It's fantastic to get the feedback we've been getting about people enjoying it and if you are enjoying it and haven't yet liked and subscribed, please do that. Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:52 - How did you get into the field of the microbiome? 00:06:32 - Research into developing vaccines 00:12:58 - Effectiveness of vaccines 00:14:24 - Complexity of the rotavirus 00:16:28 - Seasonal flu 00:20:01 - Viruses in our gut 00:24:17 - Viral metagenomics 00:33:06 - Knowledge of viruses greater than of bacteria 00:35:53 - What’s the most important part of the microbiome? 00:37:06 - Bacteriophages 00:40:15 - Enteric viruses 00:41:29 - Fungus in the gut 00:42:39 - Viruses keep bacteria in check 00:43:07 - Most exciting development in microbiome research 00:46:10 - Women in science 00:47:00 - Immunomodulator’s effects on gut viruses. 00:49:23 - Next-generation probiotics 00:52:20 - Taking probiotic supplements 00:54:28 - Manufacturing bacteria to treat patients 00:55:39 - Benefits of single strain vs consortia 00:56:34 - Universally beneficial probiotic? 01:00:25 - Thanks and conclusion

In episode 21 we chat with Professor Karen Scott of the Rowett Institute at the University of Aberdeen. Watch the podcast on YouTube. Professor Scott is one of the world's leading researchers for gut health, gut microbiome and all things microbial.  We had a fascinating and at times humourous chat about all things microbiome and bacterium. We cover questions such as; Does Professor Scott take probiotics? What are some of the limitations of current microbiome research? What is a healthy microbiome and how can you make yours healthier through diet, nutrition and potentially supplements? We also cover the role of fibre in our diet and whether we really need to be eating 5 pieces of fruit and veg a day to get our fibre intake, or whether we can find good sources of fibre in other foods. And we chat about where Professor Scott sees the research into the gut microbiome heading in the next 5 years. You can listen to this episode as a professor with a keen interest in the subject matter of the gut microbiome and still learn things. Likewise, this could be your first ever Inside Masters podcast and you'll learn a lot. 00:00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:47:09 - Getting into the field of the microbiome 00:06:38:08 - Detriments to bacteria transfer 00:11:17:05 - The problem of antimicrobial resistance 00:18:23:01 - Restoring the microbiome post-antibiotics 00:20:53:10 - Illegal to refer to “probiotics”? 00:21:51:23 - Is it a viral or bacterial infection? 00:25:21:07 - Discussion on vancomycin 00:30:29:02 - Does the microbiome change from when people are born and as they get older? 00:32:17:23 - Understanding how bacteria “use us” 00:34:58:13 - Why fibre is so important to the gut 00:40:30:01 - The risks of too much protein 00:41:48:08 - Are some fibres better than others? 00:48:40:04 - Does our gut make us “crave” certain foods? 00:50:17:14 - What is a “healthy” gut microbiome? 00:53:02:17 - Bacteria and inflammation 01:01:59:08 - Advancements in culturing bacteria 01:06:42:13 - Taking probiotics 01:08:42:09 - Thoughts on FMT 01:12:31:07 - The importance of feeding our gut bacteria 01:15:33:08 - Where is the field heading? And conclusion

In episode 20 we chat with Kristina Campbell, microbiome science communicator, educator and author. In this episode, I had a fascinating chat with Kristina Campbell, a science writer who specialises in tiny things. In other words, all the microorganisms that live on and inside of our bodies. It was our first remote podcast with a guest, and I'm really grateful for Kristina joining me and helping me produce such amazing content for all of our listeners. We talked about what makes a good probiotic “good” and what makes a bad one “bad”. If you're somebody who consumes probiotics or is thinking about taking probiotics, you should tune into this episode because we really dig into where the field is and what are some of the key quality criteria that you should be looking for if you want to embark on a probiotics journey. We also talked about where we see the field going in the next five years and even further on from that talked about some of the recent drug approvals as well, which we're all really excited about, plus some tips for parents who want their children to health a gut-healthy diet. This was the first remote recording that we did and it went really well. As always, I would encourage you, if you're enjoying this podcast, to like and subscribe, the best thing you can possibly do to support Inside Matters is to hover your finger over the five-star reviews and kindly give us five stars. This helps bump us up the algorithm, helping the podcast reach more people who will ultimately benefit from the no-cost scientific information that we're delivering to you, the listener. Timestamps: 00:00:00:00 - Intro   00:02:01:20 - Kristina introduces herself and outlines her background   00:05:13:09 - Kristina shares some of her own health journey   00:07:18:06 - Why the interest in probiotics?   00:11:32:01 - What to look for when considering a probiotic   00:14:33:24 - Probiotics vs life beneficial microbes   00:23:09:21 - Role of microorganisms and our digestion   00:32:24:02 - Microorganisms and new drug developments   00:35:13:01 - Fecal transplantation derivatives   00:37:24:09 - Developing bugs as drugs   00:40:10:22 - Should everyone take a probiotic?   00:43:00:18 - Kristina’s books   00:47:50:08 - What about prebiotics?   00:51:58:01 - Can a dead microorganism confer a health benefit   00:53:06:15 - The future of microorganism therapeutics   00:58:15:23 - Pioneers of the microbiome space   01:01:30:15 - Distilling the best information   01:08:31:21 - What’s next for Kristina?   01:11:30:15 - Tips for parents

In this Biome Bite, Dr James McIlroy examines the findings of studies that show the potential role of microorganisms to treat cancer along with looking at the question of whether FMT can play a part. Be sure to get the Inside Matters Podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts, and as always please leave a positive review. As always, you can get in touch with Dr McIlroy via insidematters.health, and it would be appreciated if you could leave a positive review wherever you listen to the podcast if you're enjoying it. If you're enjoying the podcast, please consider leaving a 5-star review wherever you listen to it.

In episode 19 we chat with Dr Megan Eldred, Senior Policy Advisor and Dementia Mission Lead at the Office for Life Sciences. Megan walked us through her journey from PhD and potential academia, to transition into the UK Civil Service and the work she does with the Office for Life Sciences. She told us about her journey to becoming the senior policy adviser and dementia mission lead on everything that entails. More generally, the Mission aims to develop novel precision medicine tools that help boost the number and speed of clinical trials in dementia neurodegeneration. This is a much-needed and highly impactful endeavour. We all know somebody who is suffering from or who has suffered from dementia. It is devastating and still has massive unmet clinical needs and is a huge cost and burden to society that is a burden that is getting bigger because of an ageing population. Megan talked about some interesting scientific and commercial developments in this field, including the approval of two drugs to slow the progression of dementia. We spoke about cures for Alzheimer's disease and how close and how far away we are. We also spoke about psychedelics, exercise, the mind-body connection and burnout. As always, I would encourage you, if you're enjoying this podcast, to like and subscribe, the best thing you can possibly do to support Inside Matters is to hover your finger over the five star reviews and to kindly give us five stars. This helps bump us up the algorithm, helping the podcast reach more people that will ultimately benefit from the no-cost scientific information that we're delivering to you, the listener. Timestamps: 00:00:00:00 -Intro   00:01:51:04 - Dr McIlroy’s neurodegenerative family history   00:04:01:20 - Dutch care home designed for dementia   00:04:43:02 - Japanese robotic seal   00:06:35:06 - Pet dogs and our microbiome   00:07:41:10 - Link between microbiome and depression   00:09:17:07 - Mice research   00:11:44:02 - Can the microbiome cure depression longterm?   00:13:30:01 - How habits are formed   00:15:22:27 - Addictions and their cure   00:19:15:28 - Fight or flight responses   00:25:41:01 - Building resilience   00:27:57:24 - Choosing a career path   00:30:36:20 - Undertaking a physiology degree   00:33:03:02 - Unknown unknowns   00:35:50:08 - The cell fate in the retina   00:37:55:24 - Intelligent design?   00:41:55:10 - Micro-dosing   00:49:33:11 - Understanding the retina   00:55:10:29 - Starting a career in the civil service   00:59:13:24 - Scientists working for the government   01:04:59:23 - Centre for Science and Policy   01:08:59:15 - Role as lead at Office for Life Sciences   01:14:46:09 - Focus on biomarkers   01:17:52:04 - Drugs approval for treating dimensia   01:20:10:10 - Understanding the disease pathway   01:24:51:08 - Funding research   01:26:44:21 - Our Future Health   01:34:28:01 - Sharing IP with competitors   01:39:45:24 - CSF testing   01:41:51:12 - Inflammation and the disease pathway   01:43:13:15 - Vaccine for cognitive disease?   01:46:19:27 - Conclusion

In episode 9 of Inside Matters, Biome Bites Dr James McIlroy dives into the huge world of dietary supplements. He tackles whether, if your diet is good enough, supplements are really needed, and highlights some instances where supplementing our diet could be essential for good health. He also points out some caveats and helps us understand how to plan a supplement regimen based on our health and lifestyle goals, and how to identify supplements that will actually work. As always, you can get in touch with Dr McIlroy via insidematters.health, and it would be appreciated if you could leave a positive review wherever you listen to the podcast if you're enjoying it.

What are the potential gut health benefits of drinking red wine? Is it recommended to start drinking red wine based on studies that propose gut health benefits? In this episode of Inside Matter's Biome Bites, Dr. James McIlroy references a study from lead author Professor Tim Spector, which states: "This is one of the largest ever studies to explore the effects of red wine in the guts of nearly three thousand people in three different countries and provides insights that the high levels of polyphenols in the grape skin could be responsible for much of the controversial health benefits when used in moderation." But if alcohol is often considered a toxin, where does the balance lie between the potential benefits of red wine in particular for a healthy gut? If you're enjoying the podcast, please consider leaving a 5-star review wherever you listen to it.

Learn more about this episode's guest and the topics discussed - https://insidematters.health/ As it’s been a few weeks since the last episode of the podcast, Dr James McIlroy gets in front of the microphone again to explain what he’s been up to with EnteroBiotix and what the plans are for the podcast in the coming months, including some inside into the exciting guests who’ll be joining him to discuss all things gut health, fitness and personal improvement.