The Exchanges

Q Are there better foods for gut health? Like, what would those be? Like, what are the best foods for gut health?

A It is individual for some people because gut microbes are individual. Some people might have gut microbes that when they eat beans, it's wonderful, they got all their fiber, they do all the nice things. Some other people have gut microbes where they are horribly bloated when they eat beans, and this relies on your gut microbes. So I would say, look at the different vegetables and fruit. You, if you want to, then go ahead and look for their fiber content. You will always have two types of fiber. One is water soluble. The other is water non-soluble. What does that mean? That means, for example, cereal or the skin of an apple, for example. It has fiber that are not able to fully dilute into something gel-like when they're mixed with water. They'll just stay a bit like sturdy, fibery stuff. And those can mostly not be digested by the microbes because they're tough to really crack up. And they will just form Bulk. And this bulk is good because it will knock on the walls of the gut and be like, and the gut is very clear, so it bounces back, and this propels, like, digestion. This is really what gets you a regular bowel movement, so it's good to have. But this other type of fiber, the water-soluble one, is usually what makes up the fruity flesh of the apple, for example. And in asparagus, or when you just have carbs like rice and noodles and so on, if you cook them once, let them cool…

AI assessment note: “look at the different vegetables and fruit. You, if you want to, then go ahead and look for their fiber content.”

Q Is that like the heart of our immune system?

A I mean, the immune system has different locations where it's being trained, but the gut is a very large and a very central one, because especially there's all these exchange happening with the outside world. When you look at us from the outside, you would almost think the skin is the biggest surface to the outside world, but the gut is a huge one, where you have all these substance skins coming in, crossing the wall into the blood of ours, so that's a quite intense process. And of course, the immune cells will be there to You should just see what's going on and really be sure that there's nothing, you know, wrong happening. And then they'll also learn tolerance. Usually in unhealthy gut, that's the training boot camp of tolerance. They'll be like, some peanut came, but it was all right. Our cells are still doing fine. And then all these immune cells are gathering and saying, oh, this is peanut. It's, it seems to be quite okay because we're still doing fine. And it sounds like a really funny process, but it's happening. Every day, all the time, they're just training this tolerance. And of course, then, when your gut cells aren't doing so well, there's maybe little wounds, or it's been stressed, so the protective mucus layer is down, then the immune cells might be wondering, hmm, maybe the peanut is not so good for us, because the cells aren't looking so good, so should I be watc…

AI assessment note: “the immune system has different locations... but the gut is a very large and a very central one”

Q You became famous partly for making people think differently about poop, including myself. What are we still getting wrong about poop?

A Well, I think the thing to get wrong is just to ignore it, really. In Germany, you have two different kinds of toilets. We have one toilet where it goes into the water, which is, I think, the American and Canadian type that you know of as well. And then we have this toilet which is, has a presenter. So you will just have it presented there, and from here you can flush it then with water, but you will really see, and also, not to go into too much detail, but you will smell it a bit more too. So there, it's really hard to ignore. Um, but I mean, you can also look at it in, in other ways. There's, for example, the behavior it has when it's floating. When there's no air bubbles in it at all, that means bacteria haven't really done their work or their job there, so it sinks to the bottom immediately without sometimes swimming a little bit. So that's a sign that you're not digesting properly, for example, can be a sign. Then if you have lots of fats in your stool still, it's a sign that maybe you're not digesting fats really well, and you might even get that checked out if it's very prominently there. Then, of course, you have just things like structure and color where you can get some hints from, um, as I said, a really black color or blood reddish color, that's always a warning signal. There's also things like, um, it being a bit more to the greener side or yellowish or something, …

AI assessment note: “Well, I think the thing to get wrong is just to ignore it, really.”

Q How long does that take? If I stop consuming, let's say I move from a diet of highly ultra-processed foods to more natural, how long does it take for my body to adjust and start to show signs of progress?

A Some effects you'll see after three days. Some it might take, you know, one, two, or three weeks, but that's really the amount of time. You hardly ever take more than that in the The Department of the Microbiome to reach all these really nice, good changes, because, you know, they eat every day, so if different foods comes in, they adjust every day. And then, of course, you have more, um, more long-term things, metabolically speaking, your cholesterol, for example, um, also just, um, your overall immune function or stress hormones. These things can indirectly be influenced, and those will take a little bit longer, because you still have all this storage. Fat, for example, when we talk about blood lipids, Um, or also just feeling better when your immune system is maybe not so angered by some additives or food processes or just a sensitive, um, gut wall. This is, I think, a bit more individual and could take a bit longer.

AI assessment note: “Some effects you'll see after three days. Some it might take, you know, one, two, or three weeks”

Q If someone wanted to improve their gut health, what should they eat more of?

A I would say, eat more of things that you really like, but that are luckily also healthy. That's always the first step. Because what I see oftentimes in clinic was that people would eat these things because they heard they were healthy, but they hated them, and then they would just stuff their face with the stupid kale that, ugh, you know. And then always I said, oh, no, that's not good. Let's look at, like, all these vegetables and fruit there are. Which ones of those do you like? Because there'll be one or two that you like, and it's often way easier to go from there, and then starting having just a bit more of that healthy stuff. Some people really like asparagus, others will not mind having an onion or more, you know, putting it in your sauce when you have, like, some ready-made sauce. Like, just things you don't mind, or that you really like the taste of, and then have a little bit more of them. And I think that's always the starting point, because Drastically changing the diet, also putting way more fiber in all of a sudden, will just make you gassy or bloated, because your gut is not used to that, and your microbes suddenly get all these foods. It's like a forest, and then you just dump some fertilizer on it. What's that gonna do, you know? Slowly change your diet, but with the things you like and the microbes like. That's a good compromise.

AI assessment note: “eat more of things that you really like, but that are luckily also healthy.”

Q How did you get interested in the body?

A I think it all started in my teen age years when I suddenly got a skin disease, um, and I realized that I know nothing about my body. I'll be hanging around in this body, you know, for another 70 years or so, and I just don't know how to, like, understand all these processes where this is suddenly coming from, and I have to go to a doctor who tells me then, I'll just put this on it, helps a little bit, then comes back, and I realized, oh, I just have to, like, do what he says, because I have no idea, and Then I started reading, and I started, like, being surprised, understanding so much more, also realizing that it gives you quite a friendly kind of power when you know more about the body.

AI assessment note: “started in my teen age years when I suddenly got a skin disease”

Q What causes the inflammation inside of us that you mentioned?

A For example, a very simple link is sugar. When you look at sugar, it is high energy, and immune cells will realize that they have now this budget of energy to spend. And of course, they are pro safety. And of course, they say, oh, I'd rather have some more safety guards and some unnecessary inflammation than too little. So this is a little bit the tendency they're leaning towards. Well, because when you look at Our history, thousands of years, it's always better to have this additional safety, but we rarely ever had enough energy for that. Our energy budget was always limited, cut off at the very, you know, necessary things, and suddenly we have all this energy to spend, and then the immune system, as we see, is a bit switched on by sugar. It goes a bit more into the aggressive direction because it can, you know, and this is one process that sugar will tip off, and we see, for example, people drinking soft drinks high in sugar for 1020 years, They have a significant elevated risk of, like, inflammatory diseases. And this isn't always the one cause why someone has an inflammatory disease. It's different other possibilities. Pollution in our environment, making the immune cells irritated and aggressive, genetic predisposition where there's less calming signals, you know, in an immune system, for example. All these other things. But for example, Sugar is one of them, and it can ti…

AI assessment note: “For example, a very simple link is sugar.”

Q What are the warning signs that someone should see a doctor instead of trying to fix it themselves?

A Well, the typical warning signs are just like heavy, like extreme, like really pain that you don't usually have or don't know. Then we always have the black or the bloody stools that you should get checked out of. Weight loss, night sweats, those are like the really severe common ones. But also things like if you have a tendency towards diarrhea and it lasts more than three, four days, then I would also think of having That checked. And then if you have a really bad constipation, for example, um, that can be something that you already know, you've had it since you were a child, or you've had it for a long time, then I would always say it's not an act of immediate attention, but it can always be improved. So it makes sense to go somewhere and check some things out, but if it's suddenly starting, that suddenly you're constipated, and you don't even know why it didn't used to be like that, that's something you should also have Checked out pretty soonish, yeah.

AI assessment note: “black or bloody stools that you should get checked out of. Weight loss, night sweats”

Q How do we rebuild our gut after a dose of antibiotics?

A People in different life stages are more susceptible to the, like, disadvantages changes antibiotics induce. So we see especially small kids and, um, seniors, um, in studies that they have a harder time going back to their microbiome after a round of antibiotics. Then we have all the adults in the middle area of this. For them, it's like fifty-fifty. Some of them will actually go back quite well. And others will never replenish the microbes they've lost. And some of them might have been even like some nice family and inheritance pieces, so to say, that they will not get back and that used to protect them of certain diseases or things before. So it is not with an easy hand that you should administer antibiotics just for every cold you have. And especially in the United States, I have to say, um, we see that this is a problem that is maybe responsible for the High number of people having problems with their gut. So that being said, what can you do? Of course, you can have probiotics, especially when you start having diarrhea while you're being on antibiotics. We've seen studies that probiotics help with antibiotic-induced diarrhea. So especially for children also, and the elderly, as I said, but also with grownups experiencing diarrhea, that is an indicator probiotics could be helpful. Then we see that when you take probiotics after a round of antibiotics, there is Two effects. O…

AI assessment note: “So that being said, what can you do? Of course, you can have probiotics”

Q Is one way to think about food when you're in the grocery store just to look at the ingredient list and, and a good sort of like heuristic is the fewer ingredients, the better?

A Yes, and I do this all the time, and sometimes I'm really surprised is what I find when I look on the ingredients lists. Something's marketed as super healthy, um, and then you look at, like, this, uh, nice, uh, it has all these fruits and all this fiber, and you look, and it has, like, 40% sugar. That is like, what? Or some drinks, they are, oh, it's super healthy, wonderful juice, blah, blah, blah, and it has more sugar than Coca-Cola has. I'm a bit, like, drawn to doing this now, and I buy these ready-made foods, and I have them as well. I think it's really difficult to cut them out entirely. Whatever half God is able to do that, applaud to you, but I think if you have a good, like, eighty-twenty ratio, you're good. So, 20% processed foods or stuff from the supermarket, fine, and then if you manage to get, you know, to the 80% of, like, real foods that come like that from the soil or the tree, Good balance. But yeah, check out the ingredients list. And I check for, um, MCM. This is the methyl cellulose and the polysorbate AT, so PSAT, and carogens. It's really sometimes almost horrible to look at what substances are in these products. So really go for the companies that look out for your health as well, you know.

AI assessment note: “Yes, and I do this all the time, and sometimes I'm really surprised”

Q grab a free eight count sample pack with any purchase at drinkelement.com slash TKP. That's drinkelement.com slash TKP. It seems like a lot of the Knowledge that we've had over the years, the low fat, less sugar, Also led to more processed foods. So in order to reduce fat, we came up with substitutes for fat. In order to reduce sugar, we came up with substitutes too. Is that true?

A Yeah, that's true, especially when you talk about the low fat, there were all these processes to remove, to have, um, that. But I think what is actually a bit more the culprit here is the dopamine. And we have a lot of processed foods because we make it more Appealing to our dopamine-releasing cells, when they realize that you have a very high caloric density, they reward it, because it means you ate just something very little, but it gave you a lot of energy. So, little investment, lot of turnout, and that is what those cells are about, and they reward it, not knowing what it does in the long term sometimes. And unconsciously oftentimes, but nowadays also targeted and very consciously, food industry has seen, ok, this is my target audience, those are the cells that rave when something It comes in and they will motivate you to buy it again and again and have some more of it even. So I think, um, it's not really only the mistake or the wrongdoing of these, uh, hypotheses nutrient wise or health wise, but really also a dopamine system that screens out for reward louder and louder these days. And it understandably does though, because it's being like, how do you say wrenched by social media, by processes that are not So fulfilling by time, sometimes getting a bit tougher. People want a good feeling and food is a way to get it.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, that's true, especially when you talk about the low fat”

Q Your work is about listening to the body. What does it mean to listen to an organ?

A It, I think, means in the first place, um, and that's an easy place to start, to not cut it out of the picture, to not ignore it. We will now have people, for example, breathing dysfunctionally. So people at workplace might have this phenomena where it's called e-mail apnea, where they hold their breath when they hear the sound or they see a new e-mail coming in repeatedly over the course of a day, or breathe really fast and too, too deep or something, Which really heightens their level of stress hormones, makes their muscles in the back clench up, sometimes give them cold hands and feet, feeling really stressed. Their workplace really can also stress them, of course, but there's an aspect of the body that we overlook, and we don't use to our advantage just because we don't know of it. Or other things like the gut influencing depressive symptoms, like all these physical, like, influences on our life, on our feelings, on our performance. If we just Would know them to a degree that we don't ignore them anymore. Then we can use them. Then we can have breath techniques, like, for one minute at 12 and four o'clock during the workday. And it really takes off some of these symptoms. You'd be surprised for some people. We will have people realizing they're noise sensitive when they travel. This is part of where their stress comes from. We will have students realizing the type of learne…

AI assessment note: “means in the first place, um, and that's an easy place to start, to not cut it out”