00:00:10
Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mum and Me podcast.
00:00:13
Speaker 2: Mama Mayer acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on Hello and welcome to Well your Full Body check Up. I'm Grace Rubray and I am doctor Mariam and today we are still in your guts. Have you ever wondered what your genes may have to do with your gut and even how things taste for you? We are talking to doctor Emma Beckett, who has researched exactly this. Is there a universal food that's loved in your family like that maybe has something to do with your genes.
00:00:45
Speaker 3: Universally loved food in my Lebanese family, all of it, every single thing my mom or my theater which is Arabic for grandmother has put on the table. You eat or you answer to your Lebanese mother. And honestly that the second option is scarier. But if I had to pick one, it would be homeless. Like I'm a massive fan of my theft that's Homas specifically, and I've always believed that the reason it tastes better than everyone else is not just the recipe, it's something deeper than that actually runs in us and it turns out that that's actually true because taste perception is generally influenced by your genes.
00:01:19
Speaker 2: So there's a.
00:01:20
Speaker 3: Gene called TAS two R three H and that determines how intensely you experience bitter tastes. So super tastes find certain foods overwhelmingly intense, and non tastes barely register them. So same food, completely different experience. So the kid refusing the broccoli, that's my kids might generally be tasting something the rest of the table.
00:01:44
Speaker 2: Don't tell them it's the genes, don't give them that out. Well, one thing that Emma's going to talk about, Doctor EMM. Beckett is going to talk about is the coriander thing. To have those different I actually.
00:01:56
Speaker 3: Want to look up because I didn't like coriander pre babies, and now post babies, I can.
00:02:03
Speaker 2: I can eat it. So maybe it's linked to genes and hormonees.
00:02:06
Speaker 3: Yes, And there should be a possibility about them research that because I think that's true, and it does go beyond taste, because genes also influence your microbiome, how you metabolize food, and even your appetite signals. So two people eating the exact same meal can have a completely different experience, which is why the one size fits all nutrition advice drives me a little bit crazy because biologically just does not exist. So yes, the homus thing scientifically valid, and my theater's is the best.
00:02:35
Speaker 2: Where she rest in peace. As we go further into gut health, I think we are proving the theory that everything does come back to your gut.
00:02:41
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:02:41
Speaker 2: But first, and my theater, First, did you know that IV drips, normally for sick people, are surging in popularity. We're going to med school.
00:02:51
Speaker 3: Let's go.
00:02:54
Speaker 2: Welcome to med school, Mariam. I am so excited to ask you about this because IV drips, as far as I know, they treat dehydration. There's something that exists in a hospital only they're for malabsorption or they're clinically diagnosed because of nutrient deficiencies. But they've also been used to treat hangovers. Madam, can you explain what is in an IV drip and what is happening in these recently opened standalone ivy clinics.
00:03:19
Speaker 3: Okay, So there's like typically a cocktail of things, so like vitamins and minerals, the things like vitamin C, vitamin B, magnesium, zinc or delivered directly into your bloodstream vira canula, which goes right into your vein and it bypasses your gut entirely. They're being marketed for everything from hangovers, too jet lag, too anti aging, to clearer thinking. Wouldn't that be amazing. They've got a lot of celebrity backings and endorsements, so we've all seen Kendall, Jenna, Haley Bieber. They've absolutely fueled the demand. Of course they have, right because everyone wants to be like them. I mean included now IV therapy in a genuine clinical context, yes, it can be life savings. I think of things like, you've gastrointritis, you're not able to keep any fluids down, You've got severe dehydration absorption conditions where you're not able to get anything through patients who generally cannot absorb nutrients through their gut. There is evidence based medicine for that, and I have zero argument with people who need it for these conditions. But a hangover a wellness bursts different conversation entirely because a hangover is dehydration. There's a bit of inflammation, blood sugars are off, and your livers processing a toxinc byproduct of alcohol called acetyl aldehyde. It's a multisystem event. And yes, ivy fluids get into your bloodstream a little faster than drinking water. That part is technically true. But your gut the morning after a big night, it still works perfectly fine. So there's no malabsorption happening. Have some water, have some electrolytes, have some food, and a bit of time get you to the same place. You're essentially playing north of five hundred dollars to make very expensive. You're and faster, so.
00:05:06
Speaker 2: That it should be the tag, Yeah, we make you p fast, ap faster.
00:05:10
Speaker 3: An APPRA, which is the regulation body, has worn the wellness industry to stop inappropriately marketing these, saying the science has not kept up with the marketing.
00:05:20
Speaker 2: So in centers like this, yeah, it doesn't have to be managed by a doctor like a medical representative, like what's the red tape or the green tape? So I don't know.
00:05:28
Speaker 3: So a lot of them will have nurses administering the cannilas. But there are risks, right, so infection, so you're literally putting a needle into a vessel. There's risk of allergic reaction. They're high doses of these vitamins being injected. So there's potential toxic doses of certing vitamins being administered too quickly. These aren't trivial when someone is putting a needle directly into your vein outside of a regulated clinical setting. I'm not here to shame anyone who has done it, and a lot of people do it. I generally understand their pill, but please ask the questions like who is administering this, what is their clinical training, what happens if something goes wrong? But yeah, my advice is save your mind. You just drink the water.
00:06:10
Speaker 2: Just on one of those points that you made. Yeah, if people don't have that nutrient deficiency, say it's magnesium. If they're putting IV drip in and they're giving themselves more magnesium, is there a risk at having too much of a vitamin that they could be doing damage? Yeah, outside course, so.
00:06:26
Speaker 3: That there's a saying that everything is a poison. It's just the amount that you take, right, So having too much water can cause your sodium levels to drop them that can cause issues. So yeah, too much magnesium, too much vitamin B. Like we're seeing peripheral neuropathy because people are taking too much vitamin B six supplements. So yes, everything in moderation. You can get an appropriate amount of magnesium in your diet. You don't need it going straight into your bloodstream.
00:06:51
Speaker 2: Again, the advice is boring of like, you don't need this stuff. You don't need it.
00:06:55
Speaker 3: You know what all you need to do is eat well, sleep a good amount of hours, exercise, and have.
00:07:02
Speaker 2: Adequate water, move your body, drink water.
00:07:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know most people aren't doing those those things, and they're like, if I just go out into this wellness stream and do all these other things and that will make up it won't just focus on those foundations first, and you will see the change, I promise you.
00:07:18
Speaker 2: Well, coming up, we're going to talk to Dr Emma Beckett and learn about our gut in relation to our genes.
00:07:23
Speaker 3: Let's do it.
00:07:37
Speaker 2: Our feeds are flooded with gut health hacks like quick fixes for ad hoc healing. Gut health has become a billion dollar buzzword, but there is a complex biological world we are only just beginning to understand.
00:07:51
Speaker 1: We often think that our area can save the world and change everything, But gut health is not just nutrition. It's sleep and it's stress, and it's exercise, and it's how we live and exist in the world. All of that's connected. So I think we've given ourselves a fo sense of control and a false sense of which targets we're chasing.
00:08:13
Speaker 2: Today, we're cutting through that noise. We have the answers to which probiotic is right, why your Greek yoga it might be tricking you, and why your genes not just your lunch decide how you feel. We're joined by food and nutrition scientist doctor Emma Beckett to find out what gut health actually is and why the unsexy advice might be the only thing that works. To understand the gut, we first have to define the terms. We hear microbiome and microbiota used interchangeably, but doctor Beckett says there's a nuance that matters.
00:08:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, So microbiome technically means the sum of the genetic material of all of the microbes that live in our gastro intestinal tract. So we have microbiomes all over our body and we detect them through testing genes. But microbiota, which would be the more technically correct word, is the mass of microbes that we have. So that's going to be bacteria. It can be viruses, fungi, parasites, even but when we talk about beneficial ones, we're mostly talking about bacteria, and bacteria are the ones that have been most well studied.
00:09:21
Speaker 2: And while we often think of this as an internal battle between good and bad bacteria, doctor Beckett argues it's a massive oversimplification. It's led us to believe we can magically manipulate our internal systems.
00:09:33
Speaker 1: We've hyper focused on this idea of good bacteria and bad bacteria, and people now have the impression that they can manipulate their bacteria in this very magical way. And the idea that any bacteria is just good or just bad is definitely oversimplified, and it's got us maybe chasing some inappropriate spaces. But I also think we've oversimplified it in just making it about nutrition, and that probably sounds strange coming from the nutrition scientist, but we often think that our area can save the world and change everything. But gut health is not just nutrition. It's sleep, and its stress, and it's exercise, and it's how we live and exist in the world. All of that's connected, and.
00:10:18
Speaker 2: Of course, one of the biggest gut health claims that the gut connects to every organ in the body, So does a healthy gut actually mean a healthy brain?
00:10:27
Speaker 1: In my scientific career, we've learned so much more about what the gut actually does, and it is not just a hub for absorbing nutrients and sending them off to the body. It's making a bunch of signaling molecules that literally go to every other organ and every other cell in the body. And so that is part of our overarching pathways of signaling health and disease and causing different processes in the body that then cause different health and disease. So, whether it's brain or hair or anything else, what happens in the gut is always going to be part of that pathway that's starting point to what good or poor health looks like.
00:11:04
Speaker 2: However, doctor Beckett warns that the link to mental health, specifically serotonin, is often overstated. Well, most of your serotonin is made in the gut. It doesn't actually travel to the brain. It's a complex chain of signals, not a direct pipeline. Doctor Beckett, let's get practical. What is a probiotic actually doing. They might be doing nothing interesting.
00:11:28
Speaker 1: They could be absolutely useless, because if you're adding a probiotic, which is the definition of a probiotic, is a bacteria that's going to reach the gut, still alive and in the amounts that you need it. If you don't need that microbe, there's no point adding it if you're not missing it. And a lot of the research is about microbiome diversity and all the different things we have in there, so adding one extra thing might not be useful at all, and worst case scenario, it could be distracting us from all kinds of other healthy things that we could be doing. Because once we have that sash, e we tick that box.
00:12:07
Speaker 2: Can we talk about what some of these probiotics are. This yogurt, for example, is that the best thing you can do for your gut.
00:12:12
Speaker 1: So yoga is great. Do not get me wrong with what I say next, But most of us are assuming that every yogurt that we get in the supermarket is a probiotic, because all yogurts where what we call the health halo of the probiotic yogurts. Not every yogurt is probiotic. All yogurt is made with bacteria that ferments the milk and turns it into the yogurt, but not all of them have beneficial bacteria that's going to stay alive, to get down to the gut and do the good things that we want it to do. There's some Greek yogurts that are probiotic, there's some Greek yogurts that are not probiotic. There's some flavored yogurts that are probiotic. There's some flavored yogurts that aren't. So it's really about how much of those cultures are being added, what kinds of cultures, how the bacteri area is being treated, how the yogurt's being processed, and so you really want to if you want a probiotic yogurt for gut health, definitely check the label. It will say the word probiotic, or it will say the phrase live cultures. If it doesn't say that, it's not a probiotic yogurt, and you might be tricking yourself.
00:13:12
Speaker 2: It's not just what we put in though, it's about how we're built. You've mentioned that our genes are our jumping off point. How does that play out with something like lactose intolerance, for example?
00:13:23
Speaker 1: It does definitely, it's called lactose persistence, and so it kind of wears off with age for a lot of people. But then we actually sometimes make it worse because if we quit dairy in response to finding that we have more challenges digesting dairy, we actually get worse at digesting dairy in response, and so it's a little self fulfilling prophecy. This is really tricky because everything is shaped a little bit by genetics or even a lot by genetics, but then what we do in our diet and our lifestyle and our environment that's all modifiable on top of that. So I'm really interested in the genetics because it will tell us, you know, which people are at risk or which people do which action to get which benefit. But then sometimes when you talk about the genetics, it stresses people out because they're then thinking about the bits they can't change. And so for me, it's really interesting to understand that a lot of our gut health, a lot of our health responses in general, will be dictated by our genetics, or our genetics will give us our jumping off point. But for me, that's not about, you know, being defeatist. It's about saying what we will all respond differently so we can give ourselves a bit of a break. If what happens to me doesn't happen to you in the same way. And the example I'd love to use would be lactose intolerance. We all understand lactose intolerance, right that some of us can digest milk better than others, But that's true for just about everything. And we've got you know, you might have different numbers of copies of genes that make the enzyme that digest carbohydrates, and so some of us just break down starches better and faster than other people, and some of us will break down fats better and faster than other people. And so even if we're putting the same things down there, it is definitely going to have different responses in our individual guts.
00:15:14
Speaker 2: One of the most fascinating things you've researched is taste. And we think of taste as it being on the tongue, but you say, we have taste receptors in our gut too. Why on earth are they down there? And what are they doing?
00:15:27
Speaker 1: They're all over our mouth and they're changing how we experience food. Therefore changes what we want to eat, therefore changes what goes into our gut. But our taste receptors actually all down our gut all through our body and they're sampling that environment all the time, and so that interaction doesn't just stop once we finish eating it. Even if it bypasses our tongue, we're still tasting that environment and having reactions to it. But the taste receptors in the gut are probably really important for making sure, for example, that we don't eat a poison. So if you drank a whole bunch of poison and it got past those taste buds, because part of the bitter taste is to tell us not to eat poisons, but made it down that you do still want to have those signals there to say, oops, get this out of the body. It makes sense completely and you know, detecting how many nutrients are there. From an evolutionary perspective, it makes really good sense, but we often don't think about it once it leaves the mouth.
00:16:22
Speaker 2: Now, one of the things that you research is how genes change how things taste. Can you explain how it is that genes change the experience that we're and we're having with food.
00:16:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the taste buds are the little units that are the structural units that assemble our taste receptors. And then for each of our basic tastes, we have receptors that detect those compounds in food or in the environment, and each of those can have their own genetic code, their own slight little differences. And so if you think of them kind of like locks and keys, where the receptor is the lock and the chemical the compound in the food. That's the key. Because we all end up with slightly different genetic codes, we end up with slightly different locks. We interact with those keys differently, and so the same compound in food can hit a different person's taste bud, a different person's receptor, and completely change their experience with that food.
00:17:19
Speaker 2: Is this the coriander philosophy.
00:17:22
Speaker 1: So the coreander is a good example of that. That's an olfactory receptor, So that's a flavor. So flavor is taste combined with smell. So if you hold your nose, you will you'll cut off all of the smell. And so if you hold your nose while you're eating coriander, you'll only get the kind of bitter undertones of the coriander. But it's exactly the same thing where we have a different gene, a different shape, and because coriander is almost the same shape molecularly, the little volatile compound in coriander that gives it the corianderus almost the same shape molecularly is the same volatile compound that gives us soap as a flavor. That's why some people they confuse those two keys because their lock is a similar shape, and really unlucky people, it taste like dirt. So yeah, it can be even worse than the soap.
00:18:06
Speaker 2: So some people say that everything starts in your gut. Do you believe that or is there science behind that?
00:18:13
Speaker 1: So there is a lot of research on gut and mental health, and some of it is a little bit confused and a little bit overstated. So people talk about, you know, the gut is where most of your serotonin is made, which is true, but that serotonin doesn't get up to the brain, for example. So just because it's the same molecule doesn't mean it's doing the same thing. But just because it's not going directly to the brain doesn't mean it's not doing anything, because it could signal through you know, six other different steps and then have an effect on the brain. So there's definitely a link. We I think it's very established there's a link. I think what is less established is how we actually use food and diet proactively to benefit that. And I think mental health is another one of those ones where we get tunnel vision on it and we say, if you ate better, your mental health would be better and yet cool. But if my mental health is poor, I'm not necessarily in a position to be eating well to start with. So if we don't break those cycles from an interactions level, a society level, it doesn't matter how much we know about the science of what's going on with the molecules. We actually need to make that practical for people to access.
00:19:25
Speaker 2: The takeaway seems to be that while the science of microbiome is incredibly complex, the solution for most of us is remarkably simple. Diversity on the plate and a bit of grace for our individual genetics.
00:19:44
Speaker 1: The doctor will see you now, Just through here to consort room.
00:19:47
Speaker 2: One quick consult time. This is from Rebecca.
00:19:51
Speaker 4: She has asked does suggestions slow down as we age. I'm a mid fifties woman and I exercise every day, eat well, plenty of vegetables, drink plenty of water, up to about three liters a day. Yet when I go to the toilet. It's sporadic can be up to three days.
00:20:10
Speaker 3: So to answer the question, so it does slow down. Digestion does slow down. As we age the muscles in our bow, the lining, they start to lose tone. Peristalsis is the contractions along the bough that move the pool across. That becomes less efficient and the transit time increases. The transit time is the time it takes from the food to travel from your mouth all the way throughout the other end. In a healthy gut, that's roughly twenty four to seventy two hours. But when it slows, food sits longer, more water gets absorbed into your gut, and then that makes your stools a little bit harder, a low constipation, right, and then made fifty is average age of menopause in Australia is fifty one, so she's likely postmenopausal.
00:20:53
Speaker 1: And this is so underappreciated.
00:20:55
Speaker 2: Right.
00:20:55
Speaker 3: We have estrogen receptors everywhere and they're also in your gastrow intestinal tract. So when your estrogen drops, the bow transit also slows full stop. So many women notice is changed and nobody kind of connects the dots for them. But three between movements sits right at the threshold for constipation. And here's what I really want her to hear. Constipation is not always just constipation. It can be a side effect of medications. It can be a sign of thyroid dysfunction, diabetes, pelvic floor issues, or something structural in the bow. A change in bow habits in your fifties that is worsening needs a proper workup, not just diet tweaks. So I would say she needs a thorough assessment. And if she hasn't felt heard, a second opinion is always completely reasonable. Sometimes we need a third opinion as well, which is really sad. She probably needs a referral to a gaserentrologist for a possible colonoscopy to exclude anything structural. And if she hasn't completed her national Bower cancer screening, which is now from the age of forty five, everybody reminder no longer fifties forty five, that is the first conversation to have. And on water, three leaders is actually more than the general recommendation of about two leaders for most women. And on fiber, important note its type as much as quantity, so soluble fiber I think of things like oats, fruit, insoluble fibers like vegetables. That adds box. So you need both to be working together. And yeah, she deserves a proper answer, So please advocate for yourself. Get that second opinion. Hopefully you don't need that third one.
00:22:26
Speaker 2: I've got us in terms of like bows not moving, yeah, very well, and you're saying that it does as you age. Yeah, that contraction movement.
00:22:34
Speaker 1: The first man two weeks or first.
00:22:36
Speaker 2: Month when of postpartum. Yeah, and your bow movements, Yeah, what is going on?
00:22:41
Speaker 3: That is a big part of it is hormonal? Okay, okay, So a big part of it is like you're getting the protester and istrogen drop and so I don't know for you, but for me, I had like the first week postpartum, I had like so this might be tam I, but like diarrhea, Like I had massive diarrhes, Like my body was just getting rid of all the fluid that I had in my system. And then I started getting constipated.
00:23:04
Speaker 2: Ah. I was like a week postpartum and called my midwife at midnight because I so constipated. I thought it was an emergency. Oh it felt it can't be an emergency. Yeah, they were met stages before the impaction. Yeah, that you had to do. But I did the sachets, the colossule and I had to use the suppository. But if that didn't work, I had had to have done impaction.
00:23:25
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, when I had hyperamess during my pregnancy, I was so constipated because I was hardly eating anything. Yeah, I almost had to have a feecal disempaction, which is where they stick their finger and try to get the shit out, and I was like, please God, and then I got a hamorrhoid as well.
00:23:40
Speaker 1: It was like the gift that keeps giving.
00:23:43
Speaker 3: Yes, baby, I hope you know everything we've done is still going.
00:23:47
Speaker 2: Through again, poor women. We end each episode with poor women and tore that they go through. But thank you so much for listening to this episode of Well. You can check us out on Socials or you can even give.
00:23:57
Speaker 3: Us a five star review. Come on nothing less guy.
00:24:02
Speaker 2: We will be back in your ears next week. By bye.
Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mum and Me podcast.
00:00:13
Speaker 2: Mama Mayer acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on Hello and welcome to Well your Full Body check Up. I'm Grace Rubray and I am doctor Mariam and today we are still in your guts. Have you ever wondered what your genes may have to do with your gut and even how things taste for you? We are talking to doctor Emma Beckett, who has researched exactly this. Is there a universal food that's loved in your family like that maybe has something to do with your genes.
00:00:45
Speaker 3: Universally loved food in my Lebanese family, all of it, every single thing my mom or my theater which is Arabic for grandmother has put on the table. You eat or you answer to your Lebanese mother. And honestly that the second option is scarier. But if I had to pick one, it would be homeless. Like I'm a massive fan of my theft that's Homas specifically, and I've always believed that the reason it tastes better than everyone else is not just the recipe, it's something deeper than that actually runs in us and it turns out that that's actually true because taste perception is generally influenced by your genes.
00:01:19
Speaker 2: So there's a.
00:01:20
Speaker 3: Gene called TAS two R three H and that determines how intensely you experience bitter tastes. So super tastes find certain foods overwhelmingly intense, and non tastes barely register them. So same food, completely different experience. So the kid refusing the broccoli, that's my kids might generally be tasting something the rest of the table.
00:01:44
Speaker 2: Don't tell them it's the genes, don't give them that out. Well, one thing that Emma's going to talk about, Doctor EMM. Beckett is going to talk about is the coriander thing. To have those different I actually.
00:01:56
Speaker 3: Want to look up because I didn't like coriander pre babies, and now post babies, I can.
00:02:03
Speaker 2: I can eat it. So maybe it's linked to genes and hormonees.
00:02:06
Speaker 3: Yes, And there should be a possibility about them research that because I think that's true, and it does go beyond taste, because genes also influence your microbiome, how you metabolize food, and even your appetite signals. So two people eating the exact same meal can have a completely different experience, which is why the one size fits all nutrition advice drives me a little bit crazy because biologically just does not exist. So yes, the homus thing scientifically valid, and my theater's is the best.
00:02:35
Speaker 2: Where she rest in peace. As we go further into gut health, I think we are proving the theory that everything does come back to your gut.
00:02:41
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:02:41
Speaker 2: But first, and my theater, First, did you know that IV drips, normally for sick people, are surging in popularity. We're going to med school.
00:02:51
Speaker 3: Let's go.
00:02:54
Speaker 2: Welcome to med school, Mariam. I am so excited to ask you about this because IV drips, as far as I know, they treat dehydration. There's something that exists in a hospital only they're for malabsorption or they're clinically diagnosed because of nutrient deficiencies. But they've also been used to treat hangovers. Madam, can you explain what is in an IV drip and what is happening in these recently opened standalone ivy clinics.
00:03:19
Speaker 3: Okay, So there's like typically a cocktail of things, so like vitamins and minerals, the things like vitamin C, vitamin B, magnesium, zinc or delivered directly into your bloodstream vira canula, which goes right into your vein and it bypasses your gut entirely. They're being marketed for everything from hangovers, too jet lag, too anti aging, to clearer thinking. Wouldn't that be amazing. They've got a lot of celebrity backings and endorsements, so we've all seen Kendall, Jenna, Haley Bieber. They've absolutely fueled the demand. Of course they have, right because everyone wants to be like them. I mean included now IV therapy in a genuine clinical context, yes, it can be life savings. I think of things like, you've gastrointritis, you're not able to keep any fluids down, You've got severe dehydration absorption conditions where you're not able to get anything through patients who generally cannot absorb nutrients through their gut. There is evidence based medicine for that, and I have zero argument with people who need it for these conditions. But a hangover a wellness bursts different conversation entirely because a hangover is dehydration. There's a bit of inflammation, blood sugars are off, and your livers processing a toxinc byproduct of alcohol called acetyl aldehyde. It's a multisystem event. And yes, ivy fluids get into your bloodstream a little faster than drinking water. That part is technically true. But your gut the morning after a big night, it still works perfectly fine. So there's no malabsorption happening. Have some water, have some electrolytes, have some food, and a bit of time get you to the same place. You're essentially playing north of five hundred dollars to make very expensive. You're and faster, so.
00:05:06
Speaker 2: That it should be the tag, Yeah, we make you p fast, ap faster.
00:05:10
Speaker 3: An APPRA, which is the regulation body, has worn the wellness industry to stop inappropriately marketing these, saying the science has not kept up with the marketing.
00:05:20
Speaker 2: So in centers like this, yeah, it doesn't have to be managed by a doctor like a medical representative, like what's the red tape or the green tape? So I don't know.
00:05:28
Speaker 3: So a lot of them will have nurses administering the cannilas. But there are risks, right, so infection, so you're literally putting a needle into a vessel. There's risk of allergic reaction. They're high doses of these vitamins being injected. So there's potential toxic doses of certing vitamins being administered too quickly. These aren't trivial when someone is putting a needle directly into your vein outside of a regulated clinical setting. I'm not here to shame anyone who has done it, and a lot of people do it. I generally understand their pill, but please ask the questions like who is administering this, what is their clinical training, what happens if something goes wrong? But yeah, my advice is save your mind. You just drink the water.
00:06:10
Speaker 2: Just on one of those points that you made. Yeah, if people don't have that nutrient deficiency, say it's magnesium. If they're putting IV drip in and they're giving themselves more magnesium, is there a risk at having too much of a vitamin that they could be doing damage? Yeah, outside course, so.
00:06:26
Speaker 3: That there's a saying that everything is a poison. It's just the amount that you take, right, So having too much water can cause your sodium levels to drop them that can cause issues. So yeah, too much magnesium, too much vitamin B. Like we're seeing peripheral neuropathy because people are taking too much vitamin B six supplements. So yes, everything in moderation. You can get an appropriate amount of magnesium in your diet. You don't need it going straight into your bloodstream.
00:06:51
Speaker 2: Again, the advice is boring of like, you don't need this stuff. You don't need it.
00:06:55
Speaker 3: You know what all you need to do is eat well, sleep a good amount of hours, exercise, and have.
00:07:02
Speaker 2: Adequate water, move your body, drink water.
00:07:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know most people aren't doing those those things, and they're like, if I just go out into this wellness stream and do all these other things and that will make up it won't just focus on those foundations first, and you will see the change, I promise you.
00:07:18
Speaker 2: Well, coming up, we're going to talk to Dr Emma Beckett and learn about our gut in relation to our genes.
00:07:23
Speaker 3: Let's do it.
00:07:37
Speaker 2: Our feeds are flooded with gut health hacks like quick fixes for ad hoc healing. Gut health has become a billion dollar buzzword, but there is a complex biological world we are only just beginning to understand.
00:07:51
Speaker 1: We often think that our area can save the world and change everything, But gut health is not just nutrition. It's sleep and it's stress, and it's exercise, and it's how we live and exist in the world. All of that's connected. So I think we've given ourselves a fo sense of control and a false sense of which targets we're chasing.
00:08:13
Speaker 2: Today, we're cutting through that noise. We have the answers to which probiotic is right, why your Greek yoga it might be tricking you, and why your genes not just your lunch decide how you feel. We're joined by food and nutrition scientist doctor Emma Beckett to find out what gut health actually is and why the unsexy advice might be the only thing that works. To understand the gut, we first have to define the terms. We hear microbiome and microbiota used interchangeably, but doctor Beckett says there's a nuance that matters.
00:08:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, So microbiome technically means the sum of the genetic material of all of the microbes that live in our gastro intestinal tract. So we have microbiomes all over our body and we detect them through testing genes. But microbiota, which would be the more technically correct word, is the mass of microbes that we have. So that's going to be bacteria. It can be viruses, fungi, parasites, even but when we talk about beneficial ones, we're mostly talking about bacteria, and bacteria are the ones that have been most well studied.
00:09:21
Speaker 2: And while we often think of this as an internal battle between good and bad bacteria, doctor Beckett argues it's a massive oversimplification. It's led us to believe we can magically manipulate our internal systems.
00:09:33
Speaker 1: We've hyper focused on this idea of good bacteria and bad bacteria, and people now have the impression that they can manipulate their bacteria in this very magical way. And the idea that any bacteria is just good or just bad is definitely oversimplified, and it's got us maybe chasing some inappropriate spaces. But I also think we've oversimplified it in just making it about nutrition, and that probably sounds strange coming from the nutrition scientist, but we often think that our area can save the world and change everything. But gut health is not just nutrition. It's sleep, and its stress, and it's exercise, and it's how we live and exist in the world. All of that's connected, and.
00:10:18
Speaker 2: Of course, one of the biggest gut health claims that the gut connects to every organ in the body, So does a healthy gut actually mean a healthy brain?
00:10:27
Speaker 1: In my scientific career, we've learned so much more about what the gut actually does, and it is not just a hub for absorbing nutrients and sending them off to the body. It's making a bunch of signaling molecules that literally go to every other organ and every other cell in the body. And so that is part of our overarching pathways of signaling health and disease and causing different processes in the body that then cause different health and disease. So, whether it's brain or hair or anything else, what happens in the gut is always going to be part of that pathway that's starting point to what good or poor health looks like.
00:11:04
Speaker 2: However, doctor Beckett warns that the link to mental health, specifically serotonin, is often overstated. Well, most of your serotonin is made in the gut. It doesn't actually travel to the brain. It's a complex chain of signals, not a direct pipeline. Doctor Beckett, let's get practical. What is a probiotic actually doing. They might be doing nothing interesting.
00:11:28
Speaker 1: They could be absolutely useless, because if you're adding a probiotic, which is the definition of a probiotic, is a bacteria that's going to reach the gut, still alive and in the amounts that you need it. If you don't need that microbe, there's no point adding it if you're not missing it. And a lot of the research is about microbiome diversity and all the different things we have in there, so adding one extra thing might not be useful at all, and worst case scenario, it could be distracting us from all kinds of other healthy things that we could be doing. Because once we have that sash, e we tick that box.
00:12:07
Speaker 2: Can we talk about what some of these probiotics are. This yogurt, for example, is that the best thing you can do for your gut.
00:12:12
Speaker 1: So yoga is great. Do not get me wrong with what I say next, But most of us are assuming that every yogurt that we get in the supermarket is a probiotic, because all yogurts where what we call the health halo of the probiotic yogurts. Not every yogurt is probiotic. All yogurt is made with bacteria that ferments the milk and turns it into the yogurt, but not all of them have beneficial bacteria that's going to stay alive, to get down to the gut and do the good things that we want it to do. There's some Greek yogurts that are probiotic, there's some Greek yogurts that are not probiotic. There's some flavored yogurts that are probiotic. There's some flavored yogurts that aren't. So it's really about how much of those cultures are being added, what kinds of cultures, how the bacteri area is being treated, how the yogurt's being processed, and so you really want to if you want a probiotic yogurt for gut health, definitely check the label. It will say the word probiotic, or it will say the phrase live cultures. If it doesn't say that, it's not a probiotic yogurt, and you might be tricking yourself.
00:13:12
Speaker 2: It's not just what we put in though, it's about how we're built. You've mentioned that our genes are our jumping off point. How does that play out with something like lactose intolerance, for example?
00:13:23
Speaker 1: It does definitely, it's called lactose persistence, and so it kind of wears off with age for a lot of people. But then we actually sometimes make it worse because if we quit dairy in response to finding that we have more challenges digesting dairy, we actually get worse at digesting dairy in response, and so it's a little self fulfilling prophecy. This is really tricky because everything is shaped a little bit by genetics or even a lot by genetics, but then what we do in our diet and our lifestyle and our environment that's all modifiable on top of that. So I'm really interested in the genetics because it will tell us, you know, which people are at risk or which people do which action to get which benefit. But then sometimes when you talk about the genetics, it stresses people out because they're then thinking about the bits they can't change. And so for me, it's really interesting to understand that a lot of our gut health, a lot of our health responses in general, will be dictated by our genetics, or our genetics will give us our jumping off point. But for me, that's not about, you know, being defeatist. It's about saying what we will all respond differently so we can give ourselves a bit of a break. If what happens to me doesn't happen to you in the same way. And the example I'd love to use would be lactose intolerance. We all understand lactose intolerance, right that some of us can digest milk better than others, But that's true for just about everything. And we've got you know, you might have different numbers of copies of genes that make the enzyme that digest carbohydrates, and so some of us just break down starches better and faster than other people, and some of us will break down fats better and faster than other people. And so even if we're putting the same things down there, it is definitely going to have different responses in our individual guts.
00:15:14
Speaker 2: One of the most fascinating things you've researched is taste. And we think of taste as it being on the tongue, but you say, we have taste receptors in our gut too. Why on earth are they down there? And what are they doing?
00:15:27
Speaker 1: They're all over our mouth and they're changing how we experience food. Therefore changes what we want to eat, therefore changes what goes into our gut. But our taste receptors actually all down our gut all through our body and they're sampling that environment all the time, and so that interaction doesn't just stop once we finish eating it. Even if it bypasses our tongue, we're still tasting that environment and having reactions to it. But the taste receptors in the gut are probably really important for making sure, for example, that we don't eat a poison. So if you drank a whole bunch of poison and it got past those taste buds, because part of the bitter taste is to tell us not to eat poisons, but made it down that you do still want to have those signals there to say, oops, get this out of the body. It makes sense completely and you know, detecting how many nutrients are there. From an evolutionary perspective, it makes really good sense, but we often don't think about it once it leaves the mouth.
00:16:22
Speaker 2: Now, one of the things that you research is how genes change how things taste. Can you explain how it is that genes change the experience that we're and we're having with food.
00:16:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the taste buds are the little units that are the structural units that assemble our taste receptors. And then for each of our basic tastes, we have receptors that detect those compounds in food or in the environment, and each of those can have their own genetic code, their own slight little differences. And so if you think of them kind of like locks and keys, where the receptor is the lock and the chemical the compound in the food. That's the key. Because we all end up with slightly different genetic codes, we end up with slightly different locks. We interact with those keys differently, and so the same compound in food can hit a different person's taste bud, a different person's receptor, and completely change their experience with that food.
00:17:19
Speaker 2: Is this the coriander philosophy.
00:17:22
Speaker 1: So the coreander is a good example of that. That's an olfactory receptor, So that's a flavor. So flavor is taste combined with smell. So if you hold your nose, you will you'll cut off all of the smell. And so if you hold your nose while you're eating coriander, you'll only get the kind of bitter undertones of the coriander. But it's exactly the same thing where we have a different gene, a different shape, and because coriander is almost the same shape molecularly, the little volatile compound in coriander that gives it the corianderus almost the same shape molecularly is the same volatile compound that gives us soap as a flavor. That's why some people they confuse those two keys because their lock is a similar shape, and really unlucky people, it taste like dirt. So yeah, it can be even worse than the soap.
00:18:06
Speaker 2: So some people say that everything starts in your gut. Do you believe that or is there science behind that?
00:18:13
Speaker 1: So there is a lot of research on gut and mental health, and some of it is a little bit confused and a little bit overstated. So people talk about, you know, the gut is where most of your serotonin is made, which is true, but that serotonin doesn't get up to the brain, for example. So just because it's the same molecule doesn't mean it's doing the same thing. But just because it's not going directly to the brain doesn't mean it's not doing anything, because it could signal through you know, six other different steps and then have an effect on the brain. So there's definitely a link. We I think it's very established there's a link. I think what is less established is how we actually use food and diet proactively to benefit that. And I think mental health is another one of those ones where we get tunnel vision on it and we say, if you ate better, your mental health would be better and yet cool. But if my mental health is poor, I'm not necessarily in a position to be eating well to start with. So if we don't break those cycles from an interactions level, a society level, it doesn't matter how much we know about the science of what's going on with the molecules. We actually need to make that practical for people to access.
00:19:25
Speaker 2: The takeaway seems to be that while the science of microbiome is incredibly complex, the solution for most of us is remarkably simple. Diversity on the plate and a bit of grace for our individual genetics.
00:19:44
Speaker 1: The doctor will see you now, Just through here to consort room.
00:19:47
Speaker 2: One quick consult time. This is from Rebecca.
00:19:51
Speaker 4: She has asked does suggestions slow down as we age. I'm a mid fifties woman and I exercise every day, eat well, plenty of vegetables, drink plenty of water, up to about three liters a day. Yet when I go to the toilet. It's sporadic can be up to three days.
00:20:10
Speaker 3: So to answer the question, so it does slow down. Digestion does slow down. As we age the muscles in our bow, the lining, they start to lose tone. Peristalsis is the contractions along the bough that move the pool across. That becomes less efficient and the transit time increases. The transit time is the time it takes from the food to travel from your mouth all the way throughout the other end. In a healthy gut, that's roughly twenty four to seventy two hours. But when it slows, food sits longer, more water gets absorbed into your gut, and then that makes your stools a little bit harder, a low constipation, right, and then made fifty is average age of menopause in Australia is fifty one, so she's likely postmenopausal.
00:20:53
Speaker 1: And this is so underappreciated.
00:20:55
Speaker 2: Right.
00:20:55
Speaker 3: We have estrogen receptors everywhere and they're also in your gastrow intestinal tract. So when your estrogen drops, the bow transit also slows full stop. So many women notice is changed and nobody kind of connects the dots for them. But three between movements sits right at the threshold for constipation. And here's what I really want her to hear. Constipation is not always just constipation. It can be a side effect of medications. It can be a sign of thyroid dysfunction, diabetes, pelvic floor issues, or something structural in the bow. A change in bow habits in your fifties that is worsening needs a proper workup, not just diet tweaks. So I would say she needs a thorough assessment. And if she hasn't felt heard, a second opinion is always completely reasonable. Sometimes we need a third opinion as well, which is really sad. She probably needs a referral to a gaserentrologist for a possible colonoscopy to exclude anything structural. And if she hasn't completed her national Bower cancer screening, which is now from the age of forty five, everybody reminder no longer fifties forty five, that is the first conversation to have. And on water, three leaders is actually more than the general recommendation of about two leaders for most women. And on fiber, important note its type as much as quantity, so soluble fiber I think of things like oats, fruit, insoluble fibers like vegetables. That adds box. So you need both to be working together. And yeah, she deserves a proper answer, So please advocate for yourself. Get that second opinion. Hopefully you don't need that third one.
00:22:26
Speaker 2: I've got us in terms of like bows not moving, yeah, very well, and you're saying that it does as you age. Yeah, that contraction movement.
00:22:34
Speaker 1: The first man two weeks or first.
00:22:36
Speaker 2: Month when of postpartum. Yeah, and your bow movements, Yeah, what is going on?
00:22:41
Speaker 3: That is a big part of it is hormonal? Okay, okay, So a big part of it is like you're getting the protester and istrogen drop and so I don't know for you, but for me, I had like the first week postpartum, I had like so this might be tam I, but like diarrhea, Like I had massive diarrhes, Like my body was just getting rid of all the fluid that I had in my system. And then I started getting constipated.
00:23:04
Speaker 2: Ah. I was like a week postpartum and called my midwife at midnight because I so constipated. I thought it was an emergency. Oh it felt it can't be an emergency. Yeah, they were met stages before the impaction. Yeah, that you had to do. But I did the sachets, the colossule and I had to use the suppository. But if that didn't work, I had had to have done impaction.
00:23:25
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, when I had hyperamess during my pregnancy, I was so constipated because I was hardly eating anything. Yeah, I almost had to have a feecal disempaction, which is where they stick their finger and try to get the shit out, and I was like, please God, and then I got a hamorrhoid as well.
00:23:40
Speaker 1: It was like the gift that keeps giving.
00:23:43
Speaker 3: Yes, baby, I hope you know everything we've done is still going.
00:23:47
Speaker 2: Through again, poor women. We end each episode with poor women and tore that they go through. But thank you so much for listening to this episode of Well. You can check us out on Socials or you can even give.
00:23:57
Speaker 3: Us a five star review. Come on nothing less guy.
00:24:02
Speaker 2: We will be back in your ears next week. By bye.
