Microbiome: Gut Bugs and You | Warren Peters | TEDxLaSierraUniversity

Transcriber: Rhonda Jacobs Reviewer: Peter van de Ven When I was just a little boy, when I used the bathroom, my mother taught me how to wash my hands, and when I flushed the toilet and looked at what was happening, she said, Boy, I better wash your hands, you know? And he had this little puppy, you know, this little dog, and when he saw what was coming out of his body, and if it went into him, he said, boy, I better wash my hands. And my mother taught me all about germs and how bad they were, and you should always wash your hands, and I believed her.

And then I grew up and went to medical school and we had the microscope. And we looked at these bacteria, and we heard these stories about how they caused these epidemics, and people dying everywhere, and then antibiotics came along, and now we were able to eradicate these epidemics of these bad germs. And then all of a sudden I started hearing about good

bugs

and I said, "What is that?" And when we started looking at actual genetics, this was the breakthrough that allowed us to really understand our

microbiome

, particularly in our gastrointestinal tract, because when you looked at them through a microscope, it was very limiting.

You could only see certain types, but now that we can actually look at this genetically - this all started about ten years ago, and many of you are familiar with this - when you started looking at the genetics of the human being, what are the genes? How many genes? What are the genes we have? Through incredible research, it became clear that we actually had about 26,000 genes. And I thought, wow, that's really cool, and everyone was studying the genes and this was really wonderful, until they started studying the genes of a rice plant. The rice plant had 46,000 genes.

What's that?! You know, I mean, we're only 26... and they're 46?! And it was very humiliating to say that the rice plant was more sophisticated than humans. So, about five years ago, everyone got to work and started creating the genome of the bacteria that resides inside our bodies. Guess how many genes there are. 100,000 genes. And then we start looking at, what are these errors? Who are these? What are these? So there are like 100 billion of them. When we think about the cells in our body, our biome describes 90 percent of all cells. We are only ten percent. So we just heard how wonderful it is to look at astronomy and feel humbled.

I would suggest that we probably just need to look within ourselves and be really humble because "the other" is so much beyond this. So these genes are incredible: there are about 1,000 different varieties, and then when we look at the species and things like that, it's amazing how diverse this whole environment is, this whole biome, and it just resides in some humble you and me. Well, okay, let's team up with our mistakes. So we are 26,000 and they are 100,000. Wow, now we can outrun the rice plant (Laughter), so we better stick together with them. So we started asking: what does this biome actually do for us?

So first we think about fermentation: we're talking about a microbrewery, you know, right here in our right colon, right here, these

bugs

are actually fermenting because this does a lot of good things and they produce about the equivalent of a can of beer. every day. And yes, that is true. (laughs) And then, of course, we handled it pretty well and so on, we didn't get so drunk with it. And so, in this fermentation process some very important things are created; They are called short chain fatty acids. These short chain fatty acids are essential for our immune system.

So if you raise a little mouse that has no biome, this little creature is very vulnerable to infections, etc. In many ways this is quite dramatic and we wonder: where does this biome come from? Because the little human, when he's inside the womb, doesn't have many bugs - this has been being questioned here, right now - but until now, we've always thought he's kind. of sterile inside there. But when this little child passes through the birth canal and is breastfed, that's where the

microbiome

begins. This is critical for this child's life, and for our C-section babies and for our non-breastfed babies, this is very difficult, so now, in modern places and hospitals that understand this, if the toddler has to be Born by cesarean section, a vaginal swab is actually taken and placed in the child's face and mouth so that they can become a myrobiome-positive creature;

Otherwise, the immune system would not develop. This is very, very vital, and that is the positive side of fermentation. But there's a downside to this, and this is where - remember all these cells, these thousands of different types of bacteria - like most of life, it's about a balance, and when they're not balanced, we call it dysbiosis. When that starts to happen, we find that it starts to cause disease. Do you know the word "irritable bowel syndrome"? Some of you may have it, you know, diarrhea, constipation, abdominal cramps, all these kinds of things. You know about colitis, you have heard of people who have colitis.

This type of thing happens when there is a dysbiosis, there is an imbalance between the good bugs and the bad bugs. Also, we're starting to understand that a lot of so-called autoimmune diseases, like rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis, these kinds of things can be associated with an imbalance in our microbiome. Another thing our insects do is collect calories. Now, if you're starving and you have to eat a lot of grasses and grains and things that have a lot of fiber, your body can only absorb a certain amount of calories and we can't absorb them. , normally, any calories from fiber.

The fiber just goes down into the biome, and the biome will actually harvest from the fiber, actually harvest an extra 10 to 15 percent of the calories from the foods that we've eaten. This is how humanity has survived very, very severe circumstances. But just as there is something positive, there is also something negative. And when we look at this whole area of ​​obesity, we find that there are overweight people. Does anyone have a calorie deficit? Lunch looked very good, didn't it? So we no longer live in a cave and we are not starving. So this good can turn into a bad thing, particularly if we tend to this particular type of insects, they're called Firmicutes - it's a big family group - and they collect extra calories, so when we really look at the biome of people who are overweight or people who have diabetes, tend to have a lot more of this Firmicutes family.

You are following me? Do you see where this is starting to lead? What would happen if we started changing the biome to a more balanced biome for overweight people? Ha! You already know how this is going to be, right? And the studies are already being done in mice (laughs), but you know, there are a lot of things in this. So this study came out about two years ago, it was a fascinating study, because they took these skinny little mice and they just gave them an artificial sweetener, and sure enough, the skinny little mice got fat and became diabetic.

So the obvious scientific question is: did the artificial sweetener change this little mouse's metabolism or did it change the microbiome? Guess what? So they did this fancy study - if you think fecal transplant is fancy - and they took other skinny little mice, and they just did a fecal transplant from the heavy mouse that had diabetes, with no artificial sweeteners, and that skinny little mouse became obese. , overweight and diabetic. Then you begin to see how this science is beginning to progress. And a third area that I think is very critical is what we call the gut-brain axis.

And when you look at animal studies, you can take, again, these little germ-free mice, and when they're born, they're kind of autistic. You know, they don't hang out with their puppy brothers and sisters, they don't eat well, they don't do things right, and they're kind of autistic. But if you then transplant a normal mouse biome into these little guys, they become normal, just hang out with each other and so on. You can see where this is going, right? (Laughter) And indeed, it is already happening. There are some beautiful studies being done in humans in Europe. Here in the United States, there are some people who are also giving probiotics, you know, probiotics contain the microbiome (probiotic enemas) to autistic children and they are actually seeing some development.

I haven't seen any good randomized controlled trials, but where there is a little smoke, there can definitely be some fire. Now, in human studies, one of the things we want to know is that we already know that the gut affects the brain, but we also want to know if the brain affects the gut. And sure enough, when we find people who are under a lot of stress - of course, no one here in the audience, I'm sure... high stress... you know... that must be somewhere else - but under high stress the biome really changes. And what we find is that there is a collapse.

So inside the intestine there is a small layer of mucus, so you have all these bacteria and here you have the intestinal wall, and then this first layer of mucus, there are no bacteria, it is a barrier. The next layer is another layer of mucus that does contain bacteria and under stress those layers of mucus begin to break down and the antigens from the bacteria actually penetrate the muscle wall and therefore into our circulation. Then this barrier is broken. And now there are many studies being done to even look at the microbiome and Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's is now called type 3 diabetes, because we know that those high levels of insulin, those high levels of sugar, all of these things may well be contributing.

So at first I thought, well, this is a little outlandish, but when I started to see that we have neuroscientists who have linked each other - 30 neuroscientists from Scientific American just published an editorial saying we need to take another look at Alzheimer's disease. in relation to the biome. So let's think about how we can feed this biome. What are the nutritional features we can do to help our own biome? So, first of all, we have refined carbohydrates and processed foods. You probably know that of the 600,000 foods manufactured in the United States today, 72 percent of them have added sugar.

That didn't happen by chance. Sugar is addictive. That processed food is starting to alter our biome to make us less and less healthy. So obviously I teach my patients to... when they go to a grocery store, shop on the periphery where they have real food... well, except the deli maybe... but real food, don't go in in that sinister central section. Unless you need toilet paper or something. But that's where the real food is. Eat real food, because that's what our body is prepared for. And then eat our vegetables, and a lot of the fermented vegetables, so kimchi, sauerkraut, kefir and yogurt, all these natural biome foods should be part of our daily diet.

And when we think about eating healthy fats like avocados and nuts and that kind of stuff, it's very important to create a healthy biome. And the biome needs protein, so good quality protein can be a very important feature. Well, I like to think about lifestyles other than nutrition that could help our biome. And believe it or not, our gut viruses have a circadian rhythm. They have a day and night rhythm just like us. And there are scientists who are investigating the circadian rhythms of bacteria. And when you don't sleep, your insects don't sleep and they need to sleep. (Laughs) So it's very important to have that kind of lifestyle where you can sleep.

And believe it or not, exercise also encourages a healthy microbiome balance. You're starting to see a trend here, right? So what I thought was just terrifying, horrible is that our use of antibiotics in America - 70 percent of all antibiotics used in America are used to feed the animals from which we get our eggs, milk and meat and so on: 70 percent. Why do they do that? Because you give an animal antibiotics and it fattens faster and goes to market faster. So, the 70 percent: Have you ever wondered why we are acquiring more resistance to bacteria? And think about all of you, you know, the first time you get a cold: "I have a cold.

Oh, I have to get rid of this. Oh, I better call my doctor and ask him for a Zipac." or something like that," you know. "Quick, a Zipac!" Any time you treat your viral infections with an antibiotic, like bacterial ones, it changes your biome. So if you need antibiotics, make sure you stick with your probiotics, your kefir, your sauerkraut, your kimchi, whatever you prefer. You have to repopulate your intestine if you have to use antibiotics. So, intestinal bug culture. (Laughter) You know, we should start an introduction to this, you know, there should be something like "Intestinal Bugs for Dummies" or something like that.

So, first and foremost, we have to respect them, you know, they're 90 percent of who we are: all of them.our cells; they are there. And we certainly want to take good care of them, we want to make sure they get enough sleep and get adequate exercise. And if you have happy insects, you will not be a healthy person. Thank you so much. (Applause)