You've repeatedly talked about fiber and this thing you call short-chain fattyacids.
In your book you said you believe that they're the most healing nutrient in allnature.
I think that's actually true and I also would characterize them as the most anti-inflammatory molecule that I've ever comeacross.
Am I right inthinking? We eatfiber, the bacteria in our microbiome breaks down that fiber and it produces thisthing, these short-chain fattyacids.
Is thatit? The story is just going to start itthough.
The story is just going to start it because the issue is that that's the simplepart.
These magicians that live inside of us release these short-chain fatty acids forus.
By eating fiber or resistantstarches.
Then those short-chain fatty acids go to work and our immunecells, our human cells have receptors to receive these short-chain fatty acids and act upon the information that theyreceive.
You could think of them as a signaling molecule in the sense that your gut microbiome is not talking to your body and telling your body what it wants your body todo.
It's trainingit. It has the ability to flip genes off andon.
It has the ability to turn down your immunesystem.
As anexample, when I think about autoimmuneconditions.
If we were to get super into the details of autoimmuneconditions, what you would discover is that we need more short-chain fatty acids to empower these specific cells called T-regulatorycells.
Those T-regulatory cells would actually turn down our immune system and protectus.
It's not to say that autoimmune diseases are exclusively the result of a fiberdeficiency.
There is certainly a geneticcomponent.
But there was a genetic component 200 yearsago, 300 yearsago.
Yet, these conditions really weren't that much of a problem backthen.
Many of these conditions didn't have a name until the last 100years.
The emergence ofthem, many of them have increased500% in the last 50years.
Why would thatbe? It clearly is notgenetics.
It has to be related to our diet andlifestyle.
Andultimately, when we talk about our diet andlifestyle, we're talking about ourmicrobiome.
Andreally, one of the most important places tostart, as yousay, is with thefiber.
I thinkso. You said earlieron, we have to start slow and low withfiber.
Yeah. And that's because we've got to build up those microbes that respond to the fiber and tie it into the short-chain fattyacids,right?
Your gut is like amuscle.
This is the way that I want people to understandthis.
Your gut is like amuscle.
And a muscle is capable ofwork.
But it haslimitations.
And the more that the muscle has beentrained, the more capable of work itis.
So if you liftweights, you might start at 50kilos.
If we're doing a benchpress, you might start at 50kilos.
And then you go to 55kilos.
And then the 60kilos. And you work your wayup.
And that's the process of growingstrong.
And your gut works the exact sameway.
So if you expose your gut tofood, specifically a diverse mix of differentfoods, you are training yourgut.
And your gut will become more capable of consuming those foods overtime.
And then you can eventually get to a point where you don't have to then restrict based upon your capabilities because the capabilities arelimitless.
Now you can eat whatever youwant.
And is all fiber thesame?
No, not all fiber is thesame.
Fiber is a very genericword.
Fiber is like the wordprotein.
No one would claim that the protein in a fish is the same as a protein in abean.
Yet both of them containprotein.
Fiber is unique to individualplants.
There aremany, many different forms of fiber to the point that we don't even know how manyexist.
So what we know isthis. It's rather simplethough,right?
Given that despite thatcomplexity, it's rathersimple.
All plants containfiber.
Every single plant has unique forms offiber.
We do split it into two majortypes.
These are again umbrellaterms.
These are biglabels. Cylubal and insolublefiber.
The soluble fiber is the kind that dissolves in adrink.
It disappears you don't even know that it'sthere.
Yet typically the soluble fiber is feeding themicrobes.
That's the pre-boticfiber.
Insoluble fiber is the kind that's thegrit.
So like if you were to add it to adrink, it's notdissolving.
It's going to be there no matterwhat.
You could boil thedrink, but there's still be fiber init.
So insolublefiber, most of thetime, is not the pre-boticfiber, but it does still serve apurpose.
It helps in terms of your boweltransit, which affects your gutmicrobes.
It helps in terms of your bowelmovements, which affects your gutmicrobes.
It helps in terms of otherthings, such as your cholesterol and yourbody.
Your blood fatcontrol.
So both types offiber, both soluble and insoluble haveadvantages.
You don't need to worry about thoseindividually.
You just need to know that plants havefiber.
Every single plant has a unique form offiber, and every single plant will feed unique families of microbes as a result ofthis.
You have these F goals you talk about in the book when you're recommending diets that you think people shouldconsider.
And I think it's important because this word diet is quitestigmatized,right?
And it can lead to disordered eating and things likethat.
So I think it's important for us to talk about that a littlebit, but I do want to know what these F goalsare.
And when you use the worddiet, you're not saying something that's unsustainable in short in order to have a shortterm.
I'm saying actually theopposite.
Like I want people to haveabundance.
Infact, if you were to ask me what is the biggest misconception that exists in the gut healthspace, my answer to that question would be that people are very quick to restrict and less quick to addback.
So with regard to Fgoals, this is my generalframework.
It is not the onlything, but this is my general framework for how I remember to organize my day in terms of foods that I'm trying to seekout.
Each letter represents different categories offood.
SoF,fruit, I think fruit has been inappropriatelyvillainized.
I think fruits are amazingly good forus.
Infact, people that consume more fruit are less likely to havediabetes.
They also loseweight. Ffermented.
We've talked aboutfermented.
You can add more diversity to your microbiome by adding fermentedfood.
We needthis. G stands forgreens.
Greens have almost nocalories, yet tons ofnutrition.
That'sgood. Andgrains.
Bygrains, I don't mean refinedgrains.
I mean unrefinedgrains.
So like wholegrains. So good forus.
Those are gut microbiomefoods, high in fiber and resistantstarches.
O stands for omega-3supersedes.
So that's chia-flax hemp and alsowalnuts.
Those contain omega-3fats.
Those are healthy fats that we need moreof.
A stands foraromatics.
So that'sonions,garlic,shallots.
They'redelicious. They're also great for yourheart.
And protect you fromcancer.
L islegumes. So legumes includesbeans,peas, andlentils.
I would go back to saying like tome, this is the numberone.
The number onesuperfood.
Because they're gut health foods and they're longevityfoods.
And if we look at the evidence with heartdisease,cancer,stroke,diabetes, all across theboard, you're going to see these produce your likelihood of having thosediseases.
S, when I got toS, I kind of lost mymind.
Because I felt like I have more that I want tosay.
So let me just pack it allin.
So S stands forshrooms, meaningmushrooms.
Mushrooms technically are notplants.
They'refungi. But they contain fiber and are incredibly good forus.
So they are honoraryplants.
S also stands forseaweed.
So most cultures don't consumeseaweed, but like forexample, inJapan, theydo.
And they are incredibly healthy as a result ofthis.
It's another source of unique types of plants with unique sources offiber.
And the lastis, I'm goingto, in the book I saidsulfurophane, which refers to a cancer-fighting chemical that you will find in broccolisprouts.
But I want to rephrase this to saysprouts.
So sprouts to me aresuperfoods.
There's something magical thathappens.
What is asprout, by theway, for people who arewondering?
You could take anyseed.
And if you quite simply addwater, you will unlocknature.
Because basically that seed is waiting to germinate andgrow.
So when you enter this code of basically unlocking it withwater, it comes tolife.
It opens up and out shoots thisplant.
And that plant is thesprout.
And the sprout is tremendously high infiber,protein, but alsophytochemicals.
There's unique chemicals that you will find in theseplants.
And in a disproportionatelevel, comparedto, forexample, I mentioned broccolisprouts.
Broccoli sprouts have 50 to 100 times more cancer-fighting chemical than adult broccolihas.
So eating a pinch of broccoli sprouts can provide just as much benefit as eating a head ofbroccoli.
Sointeresting. So if you're a parent and you follow the F-goals diet that you lay out in yourbook, the interesting thing I found is if you're a mother and you're having achild, you're then going to pass on some of your microbiome to thatchild.
And also I was reading about that mice study conducted that shows how the Western diet induces a loss of microbial diversity that can compound over a series ofgenerations.
Yeah, those are just the Sonnenbergstudies.
So just the Sonnenberg is the guy that I'm a big fanof.
He's out in Stanford and he actually wrote a blurb on my firstbook, FaberField.
The issue is that we want to understand microbial loss that can occur overgenerations, because clearly our generation is different than ourgrandparents.
And it's hard to do with humans because it takesus, thesedays, 30 or more years to create a newgeneration.
But withmice, you can do this veryquickly.
So he basically started off withmice, with a certain level of microbialdiversity.
The diversity of the microbiome is a measure of the health of theirmicrobiome.
And then he saw what happened with a low fiberdiet.
And so basically what he saw is that if you put them on a low fiberdiet, that mouse will start to losediversity.
And then it will transfer that onto itsoffspring.
And then that offspring who's still on a low fiber diet continues to lose diversity and transfer that onto theiroffspring.
And soon. And what he found was that if during this process you intervene and you add back thefiber, you can actually restore on some level the diversity within themicrobiome.
You can wake him backup.
They can comeback. But the issue is you won't get all the way back to the startingpoint.
So there is a certain level of loss that has taken place as a result of those choices that were occurring overgenerations.
If your grandmother has 1,200 species ofmicrobes, in her gut as achild, but by the time your mother wasborn, she had900.
That's what your mothergot.
Then if your mother loses 300 species in hermicrobiome, now you start off with600, half of what your grandmother originallyhad.
Right. And at some point the loss of those species becomes problematic because each of those species is there with apurpose.
We evolved to havethem.
And when they'reabsent, they're not able to do theirjob.
And the other microbes may not be able to step up to actually do the job of what'smissing.
It's just such a great case that keeping ourselves healthy is keeping our children healthy aswell.
In manyrespects, we also live with ourchildren.
So we're creating an ecosystem in our homes of these microbes oneverything.
I think that's completelytrue.
And I also think that when we think about generational issues thatexist, so in many studies they'llsay, if your parents hadthis, then you're at risk forthis.
And we have assumed that these are geneticthings.
Yet much of the geneticresearch, much of which has been done by TimSpecter, mypartner, EdZoe, much of that has not played out to prove that it is in factgenetic.
I think what's happening is not just the transfer ofmicrobes, I think it's also the transfer oflifestyle.
And the lifestyle that gets transferred by generation is if it'sunhealthy, thenunfortunately, you're transferring along the problems that come withthat.
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