I have a gut feeling about this... | The Microbiome, Metabolism and Overall Health

And in my previous lectures, we talked about the role of the endocrine system.

So we talked about hyperinsulinemia, we talked about, uh, uh, the hormonal changes that result in metabolic syndrome.

So remember, metabolic syndrome is high sugar, high blood pressure, increased weight, low HDL, um, and, um, and increased abdominal girth with a lot of fat around the abdomen, and this leads to atherosclerosis.

So as a result, we talked about the dietary changes, we talked about the benefits of intermittent fasting, uh, time-restricted feeding, and we talked about how to eliminate all processed foods and refined products and mostly sugar.

And I've been doing this now for many years and I've seen drastic, dramatic responses in the office.

But I didn't fully understand the mechanism.

So today I want to share something new with you all, which I think is very important, that the upper part of the intestine deals with the calories that are absorbed into the body, the nutrients that are absorbed into the body, and then the colon, down, further down, was really felt to be just a depository of all the fiber.

And as I did more and more research, I found out that actually, why, why would we have such a large colon full of fiber and undigested matter? And I found out that it's not.

There's actually a ton of bacteria in there.

Bacteria.

So there's probably about eighty trillion bacteria in your colon, and there's ten trillion cells in your body.

So the question is, what are the bacteria doing there in the gut? Did they just happen to come there? Why are they there in the first place? How did they get there? And if they're in there, how come they're not getting into your bloodstream? And if they do get into your bloodstream, are you gonna get sick? Or maybe a little bit of it is getting into your bloodstream and making you sick and causing atherosclerosis and metabolic syndrome.

Could this be a problem? Could this be an answer? Do the gut bacteria have only one type? Why are there many types of bacteria in the gut? There's also viruses, by the way.

There's probably about thir- three hundred and eighty trillion viruses in there.

And of course, there's some fungi as well over there.

So what are they doing over there? And when I'm telling my patients, all of you, to change your diet, stop eating so frequently, stop eating processed foods, and start eating whole foods, w- w- what am I really doing to the bacteria down there? And maybe some of these benefits are because of the bacterial changes rather than just the hormonal changes occurring higher up with the absorption, because the fiber, as we know, decreases the absorption of sugar, so you get less of an insulin spike.

And because you get less insulin spike, you're not gonna get insulin resistance.

If you don't get insulin resistance, you're not gonna get a fatty liver, you're gonna lose weight, and you're gonna feel better.

And we've seen these results.

But I think there's more to it than meets the eye.

So the question is, what are the bacteria doing there, and what kinds of bacteria are there, and how many different varieties are there? And how is my bacteria different from an un- unhealthy person or an obese person or someone with metabolic syndrome or someone with chronic inflammatory bowel disease or autoimmune diseases? And I-