In this conversation, Dr James McIlroy and Emma Storey-Gordon discuss common myths and misconceptions surrounding health, fitness, and nutrition. They explore the law of diminishing returns in exercise, the latest science in nutrition including fasting and protein consumption, and the importance of meal timing and insulin sensitivity. Emma shares practical advice on setting nutrition targets, the gradual increase of fibre intake for gut health, and the role of supplements. They also touch on the individualized approach needed for training during menopause and the importance of community in building a successful health and fitness business. Takeaways Just do something, just move. The law of diminishing returns applies to exercise. Meal timing can impact insulin sensitivity. Setting realistic nutrition targets is crucial. Gradually increase fibre intake to avoid discomfort. Personalized nutrition is often marketed but not always practical. Exercise has profound effects on mental health. Community and environment play a key role in business success. You need to treat individuals as unique cases in health. Start slow but keep it engaging to avoid boredom. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Health Myths and Misconceptions 03:01 The Law of Diminishing Returns in Exercise 05:56 Nutrition Science: Fasting and Protein Consumption 09:08 The Importance of Meal Timing and Insulin Sensitivity 11:58 Practical Nutrition: Setting Targets for Protein and Veggies 14:52 Gut Health: Building Up Fiber Intake Gradually 17:52 The Role of Supplements and Personalized Nutrition 20:59 The Impact of Exercise on Mental and Physical Health 23:44 Menopause: Individualized Approaches to Training 27:01 Building a Business in Health and Fitness 29:53 The Importance of Community and Environment in Business 32:47 Final Thoughts on Health, Nutrition, and Business  

In the latest episode of Biome Bites, Dr James McIlroy returns after a hiatus to share valuable insights into gut health.   Learn about the significant role of polyphenol-rich foods such as dark chocolate, green tea, and berries, and how incorporating them can benefit your gut microbiome. The episode also delves into the importance of meal spacing for digestive health and introduces the diaphragmatic breathing technique, which can reduce stress and improve gut function. Tune in to discover practical tips to enhance your gut health and overall well-being.   00:00 Welcome Back to Inside Matters 00:18 Introduction to Gut Health 00:33 Tip 1: Incorporate Polyphenol Rich Foods 02:09 Key polyphenol-rich Foods 04:51 Tip 2: Space Out Your Meals 07:35 Tip 3: Engage in Belly Breathing 10:01 Conclusion and Recap   Welcome Back to Inside Matters: Boost Your Gut Health with These Three Essential Tips Hello to all our Inside Matters listeners! After a brief hiatus, I'm excited to return and dive into one of our favorite topics: gut health. Today, I'm sharing three essential gut health tips, rooted in personal experience and backed by science, to help you enhance your overall wellness. #### Tip 1: Incorporate Polyphenol-Rich Foods Polyphenols have been a recurring topic on our podcast, and for good reason. As one of the three Ps—prebiotics, probiotics, and polyphenols—they play a critical role in promoting gut health. Polyphenols are powerful antioxidants found in many plant-based foods. They encourage the growth of beneficial gut bacteria while suppressing harmful varieties. **The Science Behind Polyphenols** Animal studies and human observational evidence demonstrate that polyphenols can significantly impact the microbiome. Notably, blue zones—regions of the world with high concentrations of centenarians—feature diets rich in polyphenols. When polyphenols reach the colon, gut bacteria metabolize them into bioactive compounds, fostering a symbiotic relationship that leads to numerous health benefits. **Key Polyphenol-Rich Foods** 1. **Dark Chocolate**: High-cacao, low-sugar dark chocolate is not only delicious but also loaded with flavonoids, a type of polyphenol that supports gut bacteria diversity. 2. **Green Tea**: Rich in catechins, green tea can positively influence gut bacteria and reduce inflammation. It's also associated with a broad array of health benefits. 3. **Berries**: My personal favourites—blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries—are packed with anthocyanins that benefit gut health. These berries are true superfoods, rich in vitamins and minerals. For optimal health, integrate these foods into your daily routine. For instance, enjoy a piece of dark chocolate post-exercise or start your day with a punnet of blueberries and raspberries. 4. **Olive Oil**: Rich in various polyphenols, including oleuropein, olive oil nourishes gut bacteria and protects against oxidative stress. Use it as your primary cooking fat and for salad dressings, ensuring you choose high-quality, extra virgin olive oil from reputable sources. Tip 2: Consider Spacing Out Your Meals Frequent eating and constant snacking can disrupt the migrating motor complex (MMC)—a recurring pattern that occurs in the stomach and small intestine during fasting periods. This "cleansing wave" moves undigested food and bacteria through the digestive tract, preventing the buildup of harmful substances. **Why Spacing Meals Matters** Allowing time between meals helps avoid issues like bloating, gas, and digestive discomfort. The classic advice is to wait three to four hours between meals. Personally, I have a large breakfast or brunch post-exercise, a healthy snack like a high-quality protein bar, and a substantial dinner. This eating pattern supports my nutritional needs and ensures I'm not feeling hungry before bed. Tip 3: Engage in Belly Breathing Diaphragmatic breathing, or belly breathing, is a simple yet powerful technique that stimulates the vagus nerve, connecting the gut to the brain. This type of breathing promotes deep relaxation and has significant benefits for gut health. **How to Practice Belly Breathing** 1. Sit or lie in a comfortable position. 2. Place one hand on your chest and one on your abdomen. 3. Inhale slowly through your nose, allowing your abdomen to rise. 4. Exhale slowly through your mouth, feeling your abdomen fall. Aim to practice this for five to ten minutes daily. Belly breathing can reduce stress—a major trigger for gut issues like IBS—and improve symptoms such as bloating, constipation, and abdominal pain. --- In summary, incorporating polyphenol-rich foods, spacing out your meals, and engaging in diaphragmatic breathing can profoundly benefit your gut health. I hope you've enjoyed this return episode of Inside Matters. Recording this podcast is intellectually stimulating, and the positive feedback from you, our listeners, makes it all worthwhile. Remember, gut health is health. Feel free to reach out with suggestions for future content. Thank you for listening! Stay healthy, James

In this Biome Bite, Dr James McIlroy 3 myths and misconceptions about the gut microbiome. Timecodes: 00:00:00 Intro 00:00:56 Weight of the microbiome 00:04:39 We’re more microbial than human 00:07:00 Microbiota is inherited from our mothers  What we're talking about today on this Biome Bite is microbiome myths and misconceptions. We're going to cover 3. There's this lovely article written by Professor Alan Walker, who's been on the podcast, highly recommend you watch and listen to that episode, and Professor Leslie Hoyles and it's in Nature Microbiology, so really nice high-impact scientific journal, and they go through a lot of the things which you hear within this space, be it in social media, be it in when you're speaking to someone who's just generally taking an interest in the microbiome, even in scientific papers, this still comes up, even though it's been refuted and proven to be untrue. Arming Our Listeners With Facts About the Microbiome So we're going to arm you as the listeners to Inside Matters with this knowledge so that you can truly start to become an expert and you've got your finger on the pulse of the field. And if you hear it, you go, I heard on inside matters. That's not true.  So the first one is the human microbiota weighs one to two kg. You hear this a lot, several kilograms, almost like a weight plate at the gym. Wow, that's a lot.  Now although it's mentioned many times in literature, although you hear people talking about it, people say it weighs as much as a grapefruit.  And what the professors do in their papers, they explain that. The majority of the microorganisms reside within the colon,  i. e. the large intestine. And if you've listened to the previous Biome Bites episode, we walk through the digestive tract, the gut, what the gut is, what the digestive system is, how it all links together and how the microbiota fits into all of that.  And in that episode, if you've not listened to it, what we say is that the vast majority of the microbiota, i.e. the microorganisms, particularly bacteria that reside within the body live in the large intestine.  And what's interesting is when you take a stool sample, or we can just use the other word, a poo the microorganisms typically account for roughly 50% of the weight of the faecal solid mass.  This has been published, but also we've done a lot of stool collection and stool analysis in EnteroBiotix. In fact, we may collect more stool regularly and analyze stool in a more in-depth manner than anyone else in the world at the moment.  So we know a fair bit about it. How Heavy is the Microbiome? The size, shape, mass, and composition of stool can vary within an individual and also differ among various people. According to the paper, an average human stool typically weighs less than 200 grams when wet. However, in our experience, we have observed significant variations, which makes it a likely accurate statement. And when you're running a donor program like EnteroBiotix, you actually want to target people who donate larger amounts, but also who have a good ratio of microorganisms versus solids. And that's driven by fibre and fibre content.  Now, they say a really interesting paper in patients or people, unfortunately, who have had a sudden death. The human microbiota, particularly the gut microbiota, plays a crucial role in maintaining our health. The weight of these microorganisms has been the subject of many studies, and recent findings suggest that the total weight is likely to be less than previously thought. In sudden death cases, post-mortem assessments of the total colonic contents have shown a range between 83 to 421 grams. This data challenges earlier estimates that placed the weight of the human microbiota in the range of one to two kilograms. Researchers concluded that barring unusual instances of severe constipation, where an individual's colon is compacted with a large amount of faecal matter, the total weight of the gut microbiota is more likely to be under 500 grams. This new understanding shifts the narrative about the microbiota's mass and provides a more accurate picture of human physiology. It also emphasizes the importance of considering bodily variations and conditions when making generalizations about biological metrics. These findings have significant implications for medical science and nutrition. A more precise understanding of the microbiota's weight can impact how we approach digestive health, the development of probiotics, and the treatment of gastrointestinal diseases. It underscores the importance of continual research and reassessment in the scientific field to ensure our knowledge remains as accurate and useful as possible. The human microbiota, particularly the gut microbiota, plays a crucial role in maintaining our health. The weight of these microorganisms has been the subject of many studies, and recent findings suggest that the total weight is likely to be less than previously thought. In sudden death cases, post-mortem assessments of the total colonic contents have shown a range between 83 to 421 grams. This data challenges earlier estimates that placed the weight of the human microbiota in the range of one to two kilograms. Researchers concluded that barring unusual instances of severe constipation, where an individual's colon is compacted with a large amount of faecal matter, the total weight of the gut microbiota is more likely to be under 500 grams. This new understanding shifts the narrative about the microbiota's mass and provides a more accurate picture of human physiology. It also emphasizes the importance of considering bodily variations and conditions when making generalizations about biological metrics. These findings have significant implications for medical science and nutrition. A more precise understanding of the microbiota's weight can impact how we approach digestive health, the development of probiotics, and the treatment of gastrointestinal diseases. It underscores the importance of continual research and reassessment in the scientific field to ensure our knowledge remains as accurate and useful as possible. And that's based on the average weight of human stool. And the study shows that the average wasn't backed up by lots of wet research and scientific logs and books, it's just the back of an envelope.  And since then there's been a lot more detailed analysis. and the true figure is probably more like one-to-one. Now that's still really impressive. That is a lot of microorganisms.  And the interesting thing is, just to bring it back to the last point about the number of microorganisms in a stool sample,  whether you're more microbial than human or more human than microbial based on the number of microbial cells on the inside of you versus human cells depends on perhaps when you've been to the toilet.  Because if 50% of your stool which is a sum product of the colonic contents is a microorganism then if you've just been to the loo you may be more human than microbial and vice versa. So a bit of trivia there for you.  The other point to note which is highlighted in the paper is that it probably varies as well depending on where in the world you are. So if you're in a hyper-clean environment, you have less than someone who's living in an environment where there's no soap and no antibiotics like somebody in the jungle somewhere. So pretty interesting stuff.  Now, the last one then,  is that the microbiota is inherited from the mother at birth.  And you hear this one a lot and it usually ties into how someone's been born. So people say things like if you've been born by C-section, you're more likely to have autism or you're more likely to have metabolic syndrome. You're more likely to be obese, all of which are potentially true based on population-based studies, i.e. they take large cohorts of people who have something, in some cases autism, metabolic syndrome, or obesity, and they ask the question, how were you born? And if more people cluster towards a particular birth method than when you take a healthy control group,  then it's possible that this particular factor contributes to the development of the disease or the syndrome or whatever we're talking about here.  The more this is replicated in different parts, the larger the sample size, and the more robust it is. And there have been very large population studies where we've looked at the association between how you've been born and the development of obesity, autism, and certain things like that. And there are indeed correlations, for sure. But it doesn't necessarily mean causation,  it's still interesting though. Bringing it back to this particular point in terms of the microbiota being inherited from the mother.  The other point to this is that if you're being born through the normal route, then the first microorganisms that you come into contact with, the normal being through the vagina are the microorganisms of your mother and the vaginal tract in a natural way.  The alternative approach is if you're born through a C-section, then the first microorganisms you come into contact with.  are the microorganisms from the skin and microorganisms from the surgical room. Some of these are multi-drug resistant and they're not ones you would typically expect to find within the intestinal tract.  How Unique is Your Microbiome? That said, it's not the case that they stay there forever, guaranteed. And the most important years of life are the early years of life, particularly when you've weaned off breast milk or however you've been fed at the time to more solid foods.  And there's a dramatic increase in the diversity of the microbiota over the first couple of years. And I could point you in the direction of a nice book called Dark Matter by someone called Dr James Kinross, whom I hope to have on the podcast, where he talks about just how important those formative years are that said, every adult ends up with a very unique microbiota composition. It's as unique as a fingerprint. How do we know that? We can assess the microbiome in identical twins who have the same genotype,  who've been in the same house, sometimes most of their life, or certainly up until the point of testing, and they have distinct microbiota. So it's the sum of everything you've eaten and everything you've done up until the point of testing.  And there can be dramatic changes, but as you get older, it starts to get a bit more stable.  So although Microbiota assembly from birth is not yet fully understood. We do think that the adult communities are predominantly shaped by the early years of lives and factors such as diet, antibiotic therapy, and host genetics, rather than just being purely inherited from the mother.  So there are three microbiome myths and misconceptions debunked. I hope you've enjoyed it. Thank you so much for supporting the podcast, and for taking an interest in your gut health and your microbiome. I'm open to feedback and we do the five-star reviews. Please keep them coming because it lifts and elevates the podcast across all the channels.

In this episode of Biome Bites, we go back to basics to cover the overall importance of gut health while addressing some common misconceptions and myths. 00:00:00 Intro 00:00:44 Importance of gut microbiome 00:02:22 Misinformation addressed 00:04:21 Gut health is more than the stomach 00:08:12 Different bacteria in the gut 00:10:31 Functions of the gut 00:13:08 Microbial metabolism 00:14:04 Traditional wisdom  

The following is a conversation with Dr. Momo Vuyisich, co-founder and chief scientific officer at Viome. Viome is a life sciences company that analyses the activities in your oral microbiome, gut microbiome, and blood using RNA, essentially measuring gene expression. This gives the company the ability to be able to assess what the microbiome in these various areas of the body is doing and gives insights into potentially how that links to diseases, which gives you personalised recommendations for how to improve your microbiomes through your environment. So basically your diet. Their vision is that in the future, through the analysis of all of this data, they're able to make predictive bets on who is at higher risk of developing particular diseases and issues due to the composition and function of the microbiome. Momo is an amazing communicator. You'll learn about. the microbiome and its importance in gut health. You'll hear about his own story in terms of how he managed to cure chronic disease through his own diet. You'll hear about his vision for Viome, how the pharma industry works in his opinion, and how things are going to improve over the coming decades. Fascinating discussion, I enjoyed it. I wanted to thank Momo for coming on as such a busy person. Now, with the introduction done, I wanted to say thank you to all of our listeners for supporting the podcast. Some of you are listening to every single episode and sending feedback about the episode, what you liked, what you didn't like, and what you learned. We've been going now for a year and a half. And we're loving every single moment and the feedback from listeners makes it all worthwhile. So if you're enjoying it and you haven't yet liked and subscribed, please hover your finger over that button and give us a five-star review. 00:00:00 Intro 00:05:27 Momo’s vision 00:08:08 Is science improving human health? 00:15:58 Applying science to big health problems 00:18:11 Human genome 00:27:46 Vaccines with probiotics? 00:36:27 Is the microbiome undervalued? 00:45:59 Next gen RNA sequencing 00:52:37 Building Viome 00:58:34 Preventing all disease through diet 01:00:41 Sialic acids 01:11:16 Food industry 01:14:24 Importance of sleep

The following is a conversation with Professor Jack Gilbert, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, along with his many other very interesting titles and job roles. This includes the co-founder of the Earth Microbiome Project, the American Gut Project, and also featured in the very popular recent Netflix documentary, Hack Your Health. He is a master of the microbiome. We covered all aspects of the microbiome, the ocean, the soil, how it could impact climate change, and gut health, responses to drugs. 00:00:00 Intro 00:03:19 Human Microbiome Project 00:09:29 Carnivore diet 00:12:49 Impact of the microbiome 00:24:09 Hack Your Health 00:27:40 MOA & biological signals 00:33:42 Understanding the microbial system 00:42:20 Solution in a pill? 00:46:52 Leaving England 00:54:48 Research technology 00:59:30 GutLab 01:04:22 What does the future hold? 01:06:40 Importance of microbiome diversity 01:08:13 Kumeyaay tribe 01:12:05 Ocean acidification 01:19:42 AI 01:26:59 Immune system and morphology

Learn more about this episode's guest and the topics discussed - https://insidematters.health/ The following is a conversation with Mads Friis, high-performance coach, author, educator, and all-round wellness expert.] Mads is also an entrepreneur, having built businesses and was a competitive athlete when he was younger. I met Mads probably around five years ago now when we were both at the start of an entrepreneurial competition in Denmark, and at the time I was captivated by his positive energy, his outlook on life. Mads is also something of a bio-hacker, with an interest in longevity. And as you know, as a listener to the Inside Masters podcast, I'm really passionate about it as well. How do we optimize our life to maximize what we get from life? How do we be as healthy as possible, as happy as possible? We discuss a toolkit in this episode, and you can expect to learn all about the fundamentals associated with health if you listen to this episode. We talked about sleep, we talked about alcohol, we talked about exercise, we talked about mindset, we talked about burnout. We also talked about some of the more cutting-edge things, supplements, what to do, and what not to do to improve your overall health. So you'll enjoy this episode if you're interested in taking control of your health, and what you can do to live a longer, healthier, happier life. You must not rely on the information in this video as an alternative to medical advice from your doctor or other professional healthcare provider. If you have any specific questions about any medical matter you should consult your doctor or other professional healthcare provider. If you think you may be suffering from any medical condition you should seek immediate medical attention. You should never delay seeking medical advice, disregard medical advice, or discontinue medical treatment because of the information in this video.

The following is a conversation with Dr. Jenna Macciochi, an immunologist, twice-published author, TEDx speaker, public speaker, and all-around immune system expert.  It was an absolute pleasure and honour to have her in the studio today to talk about all things immune system. gut health, the microbiome, and even things like how do we improve the health of society more generally. Jenna truly is an expert. She's amazing at communicating and breaking down complicated concepts so that they're easy to understand for the listener. I learned an absolute ton over the course of this conversation and I'm sure you will too. If you have an interest in the immune system, why you catch a cold, what you can do to maybe prevent you from getting a cold, how to keep your immune system in top shape, how it changes as you age, and just more generally how to live a longer, healthier, happier life, you're going to get something out of today's conversation.

The following is a conversation with Dr Saman Maleki, associate professor at Western University with a special focus on oncology, immuno oncology, microbiology, and everything to do with the immune system and the microbiome. Dr Maleki is a pioneer and a world leader in the field of sensitising tumours to immunotherapy through modulating the microbiome. During this conversation, we talked about the state of the art associated with the microbiome and cancer. So if you're interested in how cancer impacts the microbiome and how the microbiome impacts cancer you should listen to this episode. We delved into what the latest evidence is for the use of FMT in making a particular type of cancer therapy called immunotherapy better for treating particular cancers. We talked about the journey from doing the first trials to the area where they are now, which is raising funds to do much larger trials that should definitively prove that changing the microbiome can massively improve response rates to cancer therapies. Even as someone who's got their finger on the pulse of this field, I left the conversation enthusiastic and excited about the potential in the future for developing efficient microbiome treatments to tackle cancer. 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:38 First interest in the microbiome 00:05:46 FMT for C-Diff patients 00:09:11 Using the immune system to treat cancer 00:19:03 Microbiome research for oncology 00:23:46 Journey from first study 00:27:30 Stimulating immune system with FMT 00:39:09 Chemotherapy, pancreatic cancer and the microbiome 00:48:29 Novel cell therapy and chemotherapy 00:49:02 Future of immunotherapy 00:52:32 Immune therapy response in cancer treatment 00:55:41 Antibiotics and cancer treatment

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 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 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

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”

In episode 23 we chat with Dr. Simon Bownwell, a medical doctor and scientific researcher focused on fecal microbiota transplantation, also known as FMT. Dr. Bownwell 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 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. Now, the podcast has actually been starting to get some really decent traction and I'm. pretty excited to be honest with you. We started the Inside Matters podcast about a year ago with the aim of giving high-quality gut health content to all of the listeners and that's what we're doing. We've done over 20 episodes, we're pushing 35 5-star reviews on Spotify, similar traction on other podcast apps like Apple, we wouldn't be doing what we're doing if it wasn't for you, the listener. So thank you for supporting the podcast. Please keep engaging with us. 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 to 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 Rowatt 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.

Listen to Inside Matters: https://insidematters.health/biome-bites In this episode, Dr James McIlroy discusses diet tips to improve and fortify the gut microbiome. Touching upon topics such as the controversial argument surrounding artificial sugars, fermented foods and whole foods, and why some researchers believe that red wine can help to promote a healthy gut microbiome. Just as a garden can be populated with weeds if the right conditions exist, so too can your gut microbiome with unhelpful habits and cravings. The broader picture goes back to: - Reducing the number of harmful organisms in your system. - Replacing lost microorganisms that are beneficial to your microbiome. - And continuing to nourish the microbiome with a minimally processed diverse diet. Timestamps - 00:00:00 Intro 00:00:46 What is the microbiome? 00:02:18 Key Points on Why Diet is Important for Microbiome Diversity 00:04:51 The Broader Picture When it comes to Gut Microbiome and Diet 00:05:40 Avoiding Artificial Sweeteners 00:07:45 Reducing Alcohol Intake 00:10:24 The Gut-Liver Connection 00:11:31 The Impact of Smoking on the Gut Microbiome 00:12:48 Episode Recap and Important Takeaway Points

In this episode of Biome Bites, Dr James McIlroy explores some practical tips for improving your microbiome based on 3 specific areas: Probiotics: what they are, where to find them and whether you should spend money on supplements or not Prebiotics: what they are, where to find them and how to include them as part of your daily dietary intake Polyphenols James delves into how microbial imbalances occur within our bodies and what we can do to address these through diet and lifestyle. James references David Sinclair’s podcast “Lifespan”, which you can learn more about here - https://www.lifespanpodcast.com/ and also Dr Hyman’s podcast “The Doctor’s Farmacy”, which you can find here - https://drhyman.com/blog/category/podcasts/ 00:00:00 Intro 00:00:43 What is the microbiome? 00:01:54 You’re more microbial than human 00:02:12 Body’s microbial composition 00:02:41 How microbial imbalance occurs 00:03:23 How to achieve a healthy microbiome 00:04:56 Role of probiotics 00:05:57 Importance of probiotic foods 00:07:09 Role of prebiotics 00:10:10 You must stay hydrated! 00:10:32 The role of polyphenols

Dr James McIlroy shares some tips and tricks that keep him consistently productive throughout the day. Stacking up small wins, like pre-booking dentist appointments and haircuts months in advance to reduce stress. Investing in pill boxes for supplements and dried greens for on-the-go. With daily exercise, and the benefits this has on concentration and health that this naturally brings.   00:00:00 Introduction and welcome 00:00:21 - Batch Booking and Scheduling 00:01:53 - Buying the Essentials in Bulk 00:02:50 - Systems for Supplements 00:04:04 - Investing in a Pill Pack 00:05:00 - Sachets of Dried Greens 00:05:49 - Exercising Everday 00:08:08 - Episode Recap and Outro

Dr Laura Craven is Lead Research & Development Scientist at EnteroBiotix and has a  PhD in Microbiology and Immunology, specialising in gut microbiome modulation. Dr Craven’s studies include research into the gut's role in auto-immune diseases like MS. In this episode, Dr Craven joins James to discuss her journey from completing her PhD in Canada and the impact the NEMJ’s paper on Duodenal Infusion of Donor Feces for Recurrent Clostridium difficile” had on her science career, along with her own personal health diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes. They chat about the difference between FMT and IMT, leaky gut syndrome and the factors, including stress, which play a part in us developing this challenging condition. And they broach the topics of probiotics, improving gut permeability, and whether having a morning coffee is actually a good idea. Timestamps: 00:00:00 intro 00:00:29 getting into the field of the microbiome? 00:01:45 impact of the NEMJ  paper 00:03:10 what was Dr Craven’s PhD on? 00:05:33 what’s the difference between “FMT” & “IMT”? 00:08:51 treating NAFLD with FMT 00:14:23 Enterobiotix and staff dietary provisions 00:16:18 Dr Craven discusses leaky gut syndrome 00:18:06 Wim Hof being injected with bacterial endotoxins 00:20:35 more discussion on leaky gut 00:21:22 getting a strong gut rather than a leaky one 00:22:26 How do doctors diagnose leaky gut? 00:24:06 how does FMT/IMT have an impact on leaky gut? 00:26:22 Dr Craven's study findings in relation to treating NAFLD 00:27:32 discussion around endogenous alcohol production 00:31:12 how has the public’s perception of FMT/IMT changed 00:34:14 gut permeability can be improved via FMT 00:37:41 treating MS with FMT/IMT 00:38:51 what factors cause leaky guy and what's the role of stress? 00:41:48 the connection between leaky guy and autoimmune diseases 00:44:10 what is a probiotic? 00:47:15 Dr Craven's move from Canada to Scotland 00:54:45 living with Type 1 diabetes 00:57:58 how do I improve my gut health? 01:10:32 hopes for diabetes and the role of FMT/IMT 01:20:04 is having a morning coffee a good idea? 01:21:18 where is the microbiome field heading in the future? 01:25:57 interaction between the microbiome and the host 01:26:54 what is engraftment? 01:32:13 what's FMT/IMT going to be used for next? 01:35:08 dietary challenges upon moving to Scotland 01:37:38 other scientific interests outside of the microbiome 01:39:14 the potential role of AI for health management

Professor Harry Flint is a world leader in gut microbiome science and Professor Emeritus at the Rowett Institute at the University of Aberdeen. He's known for his book, "Why Gut Microbes Matter" and has two species of gut bacteria named after him: 'HarryFlintia' and 'Flintibacter'. As part of a research collaboration, Professor Flint helped to identify a combination of six naturally occurring bacteria that work to eradicate a highly contagious form of Clostridium difficile (C. diff). The results of this research illustrated the effectiveness of utilising a mix of bacteria naturally found in the gut to displace C. diff and supershedder microbiota. The research helped develop a standardised mixture treatment for FMT. Professor Flint began studying ecology at university before switching to genetics, completing his PhD in this field. He then worked as a lecturer for 6 years and then came back to Edinburgh to start a training fellowship to learn molecular biology in 1982. His career began at the Rowett Institute in 1985, with a focus on the rumen of animals due to the complexity of the microbiology of that system of digestion. He joins James in this episode of Inside Matters, the Gut Health Podcast, to chat about his career as he nears retirement, and the ground-breaking research into the complex universe of the gut microbiome. They cover a variety of topics including the importance of the digestive system of rumens, symbiosis in living organisms and dive into the different levels founds in the gut's microbiome.   TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 Intro 00:00:26 How did you get into the field of the microbiome 00:04:07 What was known of the rumen in the 80s 00:08:20 The discovery of key gut bacteria 00:10:07 What's the story with termites? 00:12:23 Does every living thing have symbiosis? 00:14:31 How diverse is the rumen? 00:17:00 Transition into human gut research 00:19:29 In the 90s what was known of the gut biome? 00:22:07 The different levels of the gut microbiome 00:26:19 The importance of starch for the microbiome 00:30:08 What is a keystone species and how many? 00:35:11 What is an enterotype? 00:37:56 What is prevotella? 00:41:12 Should everyone have a fibre supplement? 00:44:58 Does going plant-based improve overall health? 00:47:29 Why are the microbes in our gut in the first place? 00:51:08 The uniqueness of each human's microbiome 00:56:27 10 functional groups found in human stool? 00:59:11 Are there disease states with all functional groups? 01:02:45 Breast-fed babies with less biome diversity? 01:07:39 Important metabolites from the biome 01:11:16 What determines ph balance in the biome? 01:13:29 What still needs to be characterised in the biome? 01:18:51 Do gut bacteria have a form of consciousness? 01:24:23 Will AI help gut biome research advance? 01:28:03 What about fungi in the gut? 01:29:38 What should a healthy microbiome look like?  

Dr James McIlroy breaks down the terminology and science surrounding the wonderful world of your gut microbiome, including explaining terms like "microbiota" and how your gut interacts with your immune system, and the ongoing research into the role your microorganisms in your gut with health and well-being. Watch the video on YouTube - https://youtu.be/_g3QGjHLC98 00:00:00 Introduction and welcome 00:00:26 What does the term “microbiome” mean? 00:01:34 Is the microbiome just limited to our guts? 00:02:27 What’s the scale and scope of our gut’s microbiome? 00:03:36 The role of genes in the microbiome and the role they can play in our health 00:04:32 What is the microbiota? 00:05:16 What is the composition of microorganisms in the microbiome? 00:06:46 Tools and techniques for understanding the components of the microbiome are improving 00:08:18 What does the microbiome actually do in terms of health? 00:09:30 How changing the microbiome may positively impact IBS 00:09:53 How might the microbes in the gut communicate with the brain? 00:10:39 Does lack of gut microbiome diversity lead to negative health outcomes? 00:12:07 How can you change your gut microbiome?

Learn more about Inside Matters - https://insidematters.health/ Professor Simon Carding is Group Leader at the Quadram Institute and is a Professor of Mucosal Immunology at the University of East Anglia. Professor Carding's research covers a broad area of gut biology including epithelial cell physiology, mucus and glycobiology, mucosal immunology, commensal microbiology, foodborne bacterial pathogens, and mathematical modelling and bioinformatics. The success of this programme has led to the establishment of the Gut Microbes and Health research programme that is integral to the research agenda of The Quadram Institute. In this episode, Dr McIlory chats with Professor Carding about his journey into the field of the gut microbiome and they discuss some of the ground-breaking ways his research is revealing the connection between gut health and debilitating conditions such as Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimer's and ME. They also cover the topics of how to ensure good gut health while debunking some popular myths on the topic.

Learn more about Inside Matters - https://insidematters.health/ In this week’s episode, James has a lively discussion with Dominic Falcão about science, new technologies, starting and securing funding for tech companies and their personal philosophies and outlooks when it comes to development. Dominic is a co-founder of Deep Science Ventures (DSV), a company that focuses on four key outcomes: restorative cultivation, scaling intelligence, reversing global heating and curative therapeutics. He previously led Imperial College London’s science startup programme: worked with over 200 student companies, and supported a fraction of these to raise over £25m in funding within 3 years. Dom admits to being obsessed with building new companies to solve the climate crisis, from carbon-neutral fuels and negative emissions technologies to market-side interventions to funnel more finance profitably into climate solutions. Via DSV, they are championing the diversity of background and vocation of focus in STEM education, starting with a global, diversity-led venture-focused science PhD programme.

In episode two of Biome Bites James provides an overview of how to master your microbiome. Often asked how you can improve your microbiome diversity and gut health, James covers a wide range of topics including microbiome-friendly eating and how the food you eat is processed by the gut, probiotics, mindset and easy lifestyle changes you can make to improve your microbiome.

Learn more about this episode's guest and the topics discussed - https://insidematters.health/   Dr Mapstone is co-founder and CEO at BoobyBiome, a biotechnology company developing live biotherapeutic products to improve and protect infant health. BoobyBiome are seeking to achieve this by rationally designing microbial therapeutics from the beast milk microbiome. Dr Mapstone holds a PhD in Synthetic Biology from UCL.

Learn more about the podcast - https://insidematters.health/   Sean Lazzerini is a professional boxer and 2022 Commonwealth Games gold medalist. He started boxing at the age of 12 and quickly started to win fights. He took a short break for a couple of years during his mid-teens while at school but restarted at age 17 and progressed from there. He became a professional boxer towards the end of 2022 in the light heavyweight category following on from his success at the Commonwealth Games. Sean trains six days a week. He has built a great team around him that includes Ricky Burns, three-time world champion. On four out of the six days, he trains twice a day, and on two of the six days, he trains three times a day. His training is predominantly boxing-specific but also includes running and weight training. Sean also undertakes hot and cold therapy using a sauna and a plunge pool most days of the week. He sees this is a fundamental aspect of his recovery programme. Sean has had setbacks including injuries and losses. One example that was discussed was a hand injury that prevented Sean from going to the Olympics. Being able to overcome adversity successfully is a key trait of a champion. Over the course of the podcast, Sean and James dug deep into the world of being a professional athlete and boxing. Topics included: the mindset of a champion, what happens before and after a fight, making weight, drugs and alcohol, sports in Scotland and creating a good diet. To learn more about Sean and/or to follow his journey see https://www.instagram.com/lazzaboy_beastmode/

Learn more about the podcast here - https://insidematters.health/episodes/dr-andrew-morgan   Dr Andrew Morgan is the former Chief Scientist of DuPont Nutrition & Health. He has forty years of experience in biosciences innovation in major global science-based companies spanning nutrition, health and agri-food. He is actively involved in supporting microbiome innovators and researchers as well as the wider industry through his role as Chair of the Innovate UK KTN Microbiome Innovation Network Advisory Board. He also serves as a Royal Society Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Exeter.

In this episode, James provides an overview of a medical procedure called intestinal microbiota transfer (IMT), also known as a ‘stool transplant’ or ‘faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT)’ amongst other descriptive nomenclature. IMT involves the transfer of microorganisms into the intestinal tract of a recipient with the intention of modulating the microbiome in the recipient in a positive manner, and in turn, influencing disease processes and health in a positive manner. James describes a brief history of IMT, the various forms of IMT and how the procedure has evolved over time. Transcript: 00:00:00:03 - 00:21:05:48 Hello, everybody. It's James here. And this is the first Biome Bite. The Biome Bites are shorter. Podcasts hosted by me and in Biome Bites, I’m the only guest, so essentially it's just me talking to you as the listener.   Today's episode will focus on something we've talked about a lot on the podcast, something called fecal microbiota transplantation, also known as FMT.   You may have heard of it referred to as stool transplantation, poo transplantation. Intestinal microbiota transfer, intestinal microbiome transplantation and potentially even other things I may not be aware of. And you've probably thought, what is that? You may have heard of it before and you want it and want more information.   So in today's Biome Bite we're going to give an overview of FMT, also known as IMT. If you refer to it as intestinal microbiota transfer, which is my preference and I'll get on to that in this episode. In subsequent Biome Bites relating to FMT, IMT, I'll dig deeper and talk through the latest evidence as well as how the industry is developing. So let's start with the basics of the basics.   What is FMT IMT?   FMT, and I'll just refer to it from now on in this episode as FMT is a medical procedure in which microorganisms are moved into the intestinal tract of a recipient with the intention of preventing treating, curing a disease or a condition.   Now, where do the microbes come from?   The microbes come from the stool, hence the name fecal microbiota transplantation. And that stool can either be derived from the person who's receiving the FMT, as in it's coming from themselves and going into themselves. And that's called an autologous FMT.   Or it can come from a related, unrelated, healthy, some cases even unhealthy. And I'll get to that in a later episode, the donor and in this case, when it's not come from the person who's receiving the microorganisms which are derived from the stool, it's called allogeneic. And you can look up the definitions of those words, but essentially they relate to the source of the material that's been moved in to someone else.   We also see in the case of allogeneic, it can come from more than one donor, so it can be mixed. I've seen in the medical literature it coming from up to seven donors in a trial in which they administered FMT to patients suffering from ulcerative colitis, a form of inflammatory bowel disease.   So I think it's important to understand that it's a procedure and it's not a medicinal product in itself. What's medicinal about FMT is the microorganisms that are being administered as part of the procedure.   Now we can ask ourselves, when did FMT first originate? Who was the first person to do it?   And the answer to that question is, is not actually that clear. And it's probably much older than you might think. So in 2022, we're doing FMT routinely for patients suffering from nasty infections associated with a bacterium called C difficile, also known as Cdif.   There's also been a large number of clinical trials in other disease areas like ulcerative colitis, as   I just mentioned, but also irritable bowel syndrome, IBS. And patients suffering from various different types of cancer as a means of improving how they respond to cancer drugs. And that's just a very, very small segment of all the possible indications in clinical trials.   So actually, the first recorded cases of FMT seem to originate back to ancient China, probably fourth or fifth century. And they prescribed this suspension of microorganism called yellow dragon soup.   In other areas of medicine, such as the veterinary world, FMT is performed reasonably routinely as a means to treat mastitis, for example, and colitis in horses and cows. And you may also be aware of the fact that some animals perform something called coprophagia. Essentially the consumption of feces as just part of being themselves.   Why do they do that?   I think there's lots of different theories, but what I'm trying to say is it's not totally unprecedented for mammalian species, i.e. humans and others, to essentially get microbes from other sources to potentiate or improve their health and well-being. And it might be that we've actually evolved to benefit from the consumption of microorganisms in this manner.   So you might be wondering how do the microorganisms get into the patient? How is it administered? How is it prepared, so and so on?   And I'll give a high-level overview of all of that now and in later. Biome Bites will cut out sections of the whole process of finding a donor and administering the microorganisms and what happens after cut it up and then do deeper dives into each individual area so, a donor provides a stool sample.   And that donor, typically, if they're not related to the patient, would undergo a series of screening tests to make sure that they're free of disease. And there if they're related to the patient, some people, some clinicians, whoever is providing the FMT or at least providing the material that's used to manufacture and ultimately produce the microbes that are used in FMT, take the view that if they're related to the recipient, then there's less of a need to screen because they live together.   And as a result of that, they are probably carrying the same bugs. Now, that said, the more and more we understand about FMT the more and more realize that donor screening is fundamental and extremely important in the context of making sure that what's being administered is safe. And even if donors are relatives now typically they're screened in the same way as an unrelated person would be.   So what does this screening involve?   Well, it's trying to reduce the risk as far as practically possible of an objectionable organism, also known as a pathogen being present within the stool donation and reducing the risk as far as possible of the kind of global microbial community profile being pro-inflammatory or being conducive to the development of a microbiome mediated disease.   What do I mean by that? And what I mean by that is that we have observed that the microbiome changes in large numbers of patients with diseases?   I'll just name a few. Multiple sclerosis, obesity, type two diabetes. And it may be that these changes that we've observed are actually driving the disease processes. Therefore, you probably wouldn't want to transfer microorganisms from someone suffering from type two diabetes into someone suffering from something else, because you might then trigger processes that could ultimately lead to type two diabetes.   If you see what I mean and there's no easy way of characterizing that other than making sure that the donor doesn't have type two diabetes.   So there's a whole raft of questionnaire-based screening procedures and questions that exist to reduce the theoretical risk of the transfer of microbiome-mediated disease through the microorganisms that are administered as part of FMT.   The other elements relate to objectionable organisms, pathogens. And what we do is we ask people if they've traveled. We ask about their sexual history. We ask if they currently have an infection or the feeling well fit and healthy on the day of donation. So and so on. We also extensively screen their blood and extensively screen their stool.   And you might be thinking some of that sounds quite familiar. It sounds a little bit like blood transfusions and what I've done or what I've heard people do as they go to donate blood. And there's a lot of parallels actually, between donors for FMT and Donors for blood transfusion. Now, the purpose of this Biome Bite is to give a high level overview.   So I'm going to kind of stop there and not go any deeper into what kind of pathogens we look for, what kind of tests we do, how frequently do we do it. That will form the basis of a much more detailed discussion at a later date. So we've tried to make sure that the microorganisms are safe.   We've talked about it coming from a patient in the form of an autologous procedure or a donor or multiple donors in the form of an allogeneic procedure. The benefits of an allogeneic procedure, for example, over an autologous is that you might be trying to change the microbiome in a particular kind of way that possibly couldn't be achieved if you're just giving yourself your own microorganisms back.   Now, how are the microorganisms manufactured? Do they just sort of take a stool sample and do one or two things and then trying to get it into the patient? Or do we do a large number of different manipulations and processes?   So historically, we had a rather unsophisticated, quite crude methodology, and it was really just about getting the stool sample into suspension. Now you might be thinking, Well, if it's just into suspension, why do not just get runny sort of diarrhoea type stools? Well, the reason we don't do that and we have cut offs is related to something called the Bristol Stool score or the Bristol stool chart.   And the cutoffs really relate to is this person is potentially constipated or does this person have diarrhoea. And we wouldn't accept either, because constipation and diarrhoea can be proxies for infections or problems within the gut that might make the microorganisms essentially unsafe in the context of FMT.   So historically, it used to just be about creating a suspension   What we now try and do is try and remove the non-microbial components, so basically fibres from the stool sample and try to basically distil down to the microorganisms only. The stool is actually quite a complicated substance that includes undigested foods, a variety of microorganisms, bacteria, viruses, fungi and small viruses that infect bacteria called bacteriophage, as well as other components that you may have ingested. For example, in smokers, sometimes you can find ash in stools and things like mucus and antibodies, colonocytes, which are elements of the inner lining of the intestine, so and so on.   So the purpose of the processing is to try and distil down or maybe distil is the wrong word.   But what we're trying to do is remove the microbes and the microbial elements from the non-microbial elements, because it's the microbial elements that we're most particularly interested in the context of FMT, because we're trying to change the recipient's microbiome.   So how do we do that? We do a series of processing steps under typically controlled conditions. We want to, as best as possible, replicate the intestinal environment, which is anaerobic, so oxygen-free. And interestingly, we want to protect the microorganisms that have been donated as much as possible and keep them alive, which is very different to a traditional pharmaceutical manufacturing process where you don't want there to be any bacteria in there at all. Sometimes you want it to be completely sterile if you're injecting it, for example, in someone's vein.   So what we want to do is not only keep the microorganisms alive, but we also want to make sure that no microorganisms from the environment can enter into the sample. So it's quite complicated and quite challenging.   The suspension of microorganisms then goes through subsequent processing steps and typically these days is either stored frozen as a suspension or is taken through some sort of drying process where the aqueous component is removed. And we produce a powder.   Historically, and it doesn't really happen so much anymore, Processing would happen essentially on the day of donation and recipients would get the FMT the same day. And that's typically described as being fresh versus frozen. I'm not so keen on the fresh nomenclature, but you kind of get the picture.   It's done on the day and it's not stored, frozen or banked  Earlier on in the field of FMT we did a lot more on-the-day type processing rather than storing anything and then giving it at a later date. So instead of creating a bank or an inventory of processed material that could be administered, it was typically done on the day. And that's because no one had really compared to see if a frozen sample is less effective or more effective than a fresh one.   And typically what was seen in the scientific literature and research was that Frozen was pretty much as good as fresh in the context of a C difficile infection or prevention of recurrence of C difficile infection. So based on that, people started to do frozen a lot more and we started to move away from relatives to anonymous type donors. There's also benefits associated with anonymous donors as well.   What happens after we've managed to distill the microorganisms and either produce the frozen suspension or produce the powder?   Typically the powder is encapsulated and FMT as a procedure is associated with a number of medical procedures, like a colonoscopy, which is a tube that goes up the back passage like a nasal gastric nasal duodenal.   The first part of the small intestine or nasal mid-part the small intestine tubes, which go up the nose through the stomach and into these parts of the intestine. And the microorganisms are essentially pushed into the patient through these tubes. And they arrive at some point in the intestinal tract where if it's going up the back passage, it's going into the colon, the large bowl, if it's going from top to bottom, it typically goes into the bottom part of the stomach or to the small intestine.   And there's been a variety of research over the last ten years comparing upper GI delivery versus lower GI delivery. What's more effective? What's less effective? So and so on. Typically, the evolution has been from an enema or nasal duodenal through to a capsule, which is typically what we're doing now    Some clinicians prefer colonoscopy because you can also visualize the colon at the same time, and that's quite useful. In things like C difficile infection or colitis, where visualizing the inner aspect of the colon gives you an indication of how severe the patient's condition disease infection actually is.   That's the most established use case. Interestingly, in terms of history, I think that the first recorded case of FMT in modern medicine, which was published in 1958 by a gentleman called Mr. Ben Eiseman, the chief surgeon at Denver General Hospital. He administered FMT probably for patients suffering from C Diff although it wasn't really known as C Diff at the time.   And there was a little bit in the in the literature following on from that in patients with ulcerative colitis. But we didn't really see that much FMT until 2013 when there was a landmark randomised controlled clinical trial, the gold standard of medical evidence which essentially showed that FMT plus antibiotics in these patients who had an overgrowth of C difficile, a nasty hospital acquired bug. typically hospital acquired bug did much better than patients who just received antibiotics alone.   And it kind of broke the cycle of patients who were getting recurrence. So what was happening with these patients as there were too many bad bugs in the case of C difficile, too little good bugs. So there was like too many weeds in the garden. Those bad bugs were producing toxins. The toxins were inducing inflammation. Sometimes the patients were going on to die and if they were treated with antibiotics, they got the FMT, after which replenished the garden with all the healthy, with all the healthy plants. And as a result, the weeds couldn't grow and out-compete and take up all those biological niches.   So that trial spurred a huge wave of interest in FMT. It catalysed lots of funding, company formation. And since then we've seen hundreds of clinical trials, hundreds of publications and many companies and patents filed following on from them.   Okay, so why would somebody need an FMT? Why would someone benefit from an FMT? Why is it done really for anything?   So each of us has something called a microbiome, a term used to describe communities of microorganisms, their collective genomic potential through all of their genes and their theatre of functional activity and essentially what we now know is that changes to the microbiome in terms of composition and function are associated with likely contribute to and in some cases are probably the cause of development of disease, some of which are really underserved in terms of treatment options.   So the theory, the thinking is that in patients with microbiome perturbance the change and disease linked to changes to the microbiome, if we can change their microbiome back to a healthy state, then we might be able to alleviate symptoms and ideally cure the disease, which is currently incurable based on currently available medical therapies. And there's a variety of different ways we can change our microbiome.   But FMT represents one such avenue that is quite dramatic. We're taking something communities from a healthy person or from someone before they've had a disease or change in the case of autologous FMT and giving it back to them. So it's a rapid sudden change to their microbiome reversion, hopefully back to something that's healthy. The human colon is an incredibly efficient fermentor system, and within each stool that we produce, roughly 50% of it is microbial. One times 10 to the 12 bacteria.   Think about how many zeros that is per stool donation. So it's it is a really incredible, well, efficient way to capture large numbers of potentially therapeutically active bacteria before instilling them into someone else. So what have we talked about?   We've talked about what FMT is, we've talked about how the microorganisms instilled through FMT are typically prepared and stored.   We've talked about how the microorganisms are administered and we've also talked about essentially the most well-established indication for FMT in the form of C Difficile infection. We've also brushed on some of the history, which is really extremely interesting, and I think that's probably a good overview for now.   And in later Biome Bites, we're going to dig deeper in each of these key areas. I hope you've enjoyed this brief overview of what is FMT. If you have questions, please feel free to send them to me. or tweet, connect with me on social media. I'd be very happy to try and answer them on a subsequent podcast.

Emma is a fitness coach, sports scientist and researcher with a large following on social media and multiple successful online businesses.  Through structured programmes and coaching, Emma has helped thousands of people lose weight and improve their body composition. She understands the science underpinning successful diets and uses her knowledge to help other personal trainers and coaches help their respective clients. To find out more about Emma’s products and businesses, check out: https://esgfitness.co.uk This episode is full of recommendations and knowledge relating to how to improve your physique and live a longer, healthier and happier life. When asked to distil her top recommendations, Emma came up with the following advice:    Eat in accordance with your energy demands   Eat primarily whole foods, limit processed foods  Reduce snacking to a minimum  To give context to the above, Emma noted that it was challenging to figure out exactly what your energy demands are. No calorie calculator / energy demand calculator is going to be entirely accurate. Emma suggests tracking your food and body weight for a period of time and using this as a basis to make adjustments. Daily fluctuations in weight are not important due to water fluctuation and varying food intake. Weekly / monthly fluctuations in weight are important.   The concept of eating minimally processed foods has been discussed several times on Inside Matters and is sound advice for someone wanting to improve their body composition and the composition of their microbiome.  On the subject of snacking, Emma’s view is that this is one of the primary reasons for people being unable to lose weight or a reason for putting on weight. Snacking can be mindless and instinctive e.g a biscuit with coffee in the office or finishing a plate of food for the sake of finishing a plate of food and not being wasteful.  Beyond her big three tips, a lot of Emma’s advice centred around what she calls ‘showing up’, essentially, how you approach a task or your day. How you show up dictates how you perform and how others respond to your actions. Exercise helps Emma show up at her best, and the benefits of exercise for her extend beyond physical health and into performance at work and in life.  Her morning routine is as follows: Wake up at 05:45, put the kettle on Undertake 10 pull-ups and push-upsTry not to open emails until 7 - be mindful 07:30 gym 09:00 start work  On supplements, Emma recommends fish oil, vitamin D, creatine and B12. Creatine is particularly beneficial for people that do not eat animal products - most notably red meat. 

Visit our podcast's website to learn more - https://insidematters.health/ Watch the podcast on YouTube.   Expect the unexpected in space microbiology! There are microorganisms that have adapted to survive in the most extreme environments. These microbiomes are being analysed to figure out what might be happening in space, especially with those that have been found to survive up to 3 years. What would happen if a human came into contact with them on another planet?