Dr. Diego Bohórquez: The Science of Your Gut Sense & the Gut-Brain Axis
welcome to the huberman Lab podcast
where we discuss science and
science-based tools for everyday
[Music]
life I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a
professor of neurobiology and
Opthalmology at Stanford School of
Medicine my guest today is Dr Diego
borquez Dr Diego borquez is a professor
of medicine and neurobiology at Duke
University he did his training in
gastrointestinal physiology and
nutrition and later neuroscience and by
combining that unique training and EXP
expertise he is considered a Pioneer and
leader in so-called gut sensing or the
gut brain axis now when most people hear
the words gut brain axis they
immediately think of the so-called
microbiome which is extremely important
but that is not the topic of Dr borquez
expertise Dr borz focuses on the actual
sensing that occurs within one's gut
just as one would sense light with their
eyes or sound waves with their ears for
hearing our gut contains receptors that
respond to specific components of food
including amino acids fats sugars and
other aspects of food including
temperature acidity and other
micronutrients that are contained in
food that give our gut the clear picture
of what is happening at the level of the
types and qualities of food that we
ingest and then communicate that below
our conscious detection to our brain in
order to drive specific patterns of
thinking emotion and behavior and of
course everybody has heard of our
so-called gut sense or our ability to
believe or feel certain things based on
perceptions that are below or somehow
different from conventional language
today Dr borquez teaches us about all
aspects of gut sensing how it occurs at
the level of specific neurons and neural
circuits how the brain responds to that
how specific foods and components of
food impact not just our feeling of
digestion or feeling good or bad about
what we ate but indeed how we feel
overall how safe we feel how excited we
feel whether or not we feel depressed or
sad angry or happy today's discussion I
promise you is unique among all
discussions of neuroscience at least
that I've heard previously in that it
combines two seemingly disparate Fields
nutrition and Neuroscience indeed
today's discussion gets into how
different foods and food combinations
impact how we feel and what We crave and
what we tend to avoid we also get to
hear the absolutely extraordinary story
of Dr borz upbringing in the Amazon
jungle and how his knowledge and
intuition about plants has influenced
His science and how the incredible
science that his laboratory is doing
relates to all of us and our ability to
better tap into our gut sense before we
begin I'd like to emphasize that this
podcast is separate from my teaching and
research roles at Stanford it is however
part of my desire and effort to bring
zero cost to Consumer information about
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Dr Diego borz Dr Diego
borquez great to have you here thank you
for uh having me
Andrew I am super excited to learn from
you today as I know everyone else is and
if they don't realize why soon they will
which is that you work on one of the
more fascinating aspects of us which is
our gut our gut
sensing the gut brain axis which I think
most people don't realize is nearby but
separate from the so-called
microbiome so we're not talking about
the microbiome a very interesting and
important topic of
course but we are going to talk about
this thing that we call our gut sense
and how it impacts everything from our
Cravings to our brain health and our
cognition
so once again welcome and I'll just want
to kick things off by asking you to
educate us explain you know what is this
gut brain axis that we hear about and
what's going on in our gut besides
digestion well uh Andrew thank you so
much for having me here uh thrilled to
be here I knew that since we met a few
years ago uh that we will have this
ongoing conversation and a great
conversation um the gut and the Brain
you know people call it an axis because
traditionally thought to be an IM
imaginary line that was connected
through hormones so since 1902 when uh
the first hormone secretion was uh a
reported by Bailey and Sterling uh
um it was known that uh when we eat then
hormones these molecules in the gut are
released and then they will enter the
bloodstream and then eventually will
have a cause in distant
organs uh and for the next 100 or so
years the the the the field focus on the
on the hormones and as a consequence
there was no direct line of
communication between the gut and the
Brain but as often I I say you don't you
don't say or we don't say the nose brain
axis right like or the eye brain axis
right uh and all of the organs are in
sync working in sync so H in the gut
there are also some sensory cells that
are able to detect the outside world
ER and then quickly communicate that
information to the brain and I say the
outside world because the gut is the
only organ that passes throughout our
body but it is still exposed to the
outside if you think about it uh if you
will swallow a marble it still has the
chance to get out um please don't do
that
anybody but uh but is still exposed to
the surface you're right I never thought
about the gut as the organ that is in
contact with the outside world unlike
our heart which is not in direct contact
with the outside world or our liver or
our pancreas but the gut is the gut is
uh and if you think about it it's just
separated by uh some compartments that
have all of these VVS you the epiglottis
the uh gastropa gel Junction the pylorus
The ilocal Junction the rectum so these
are the the sequences of valves of
Chambers with valves between them that
food passes through air passes through
and within each as I understand it there
are different functions related to
digestion but I think where you're
taking us is that there are different
modes of sensing what's coming through
and signaling to the brain and other
organs what's going on in the outside
world by what's sensed coming through
that passage is that correct that's
correct and uh if we think about it uh
um
the when we swallow something literally
we have to trust our gut perhaps that's
why we use this phrase trust your gut
right because after that there's not
much that you can do at least in uh
regular humans that you can do
consciously
to uh expel something that perhaps is
poisonous or toxic right um it is the
gut that has to make that distinction
and then usually accommodate things for
abortion or let them pass uh through
digestion and then ultimately they will
be secreted right so if you could
describe for us the architecture that is
the cells that respond to things in the
gut and where they send that information
and how they send that information what
what is this thing that we call Gut
sensing made up of what what's the parts
list so the parts uh list uh has been
evolving recently
and while some of the elements we have
known for for a while uh but in in
general what we're talking about because
is an external surface it is lined by a
single layer of cells that are called
epithelial cells and essentially these
cells are exposed to the outside world
but they also are like attached in like
a little membrane and they are the ones
that interface with the inside of the
body so in the stomach we have an try
toi a epithelium for instance that is uh
thicker so it can survive digestion
chemicals and other things like harsh
environment and in the intestine we have
a little bit more of a um uh more
delicate uh epithelia layer and within
this epithelia layer there are several
different cell types and one of those is
the so-called enteroendocrine cell to
put it in more simple terms is a gut
endocrine cell or a gut cell that
releases hormones the term was coined in
1938 by a German uh physician uh his
name was Frederick
fer and at that time it was a major
advancement in our understanding of
physiology because he came up with the
idea that the organs were not only
communicating to organs in fact there
were cells within the organs that were
communicating to other organs through
the release of some of these endocrine
factors these neuromodulators or these
neuropep that we know as hormones and uh
so he named uh the diffus endocrine
system of the gut and then he came up
with his word enteroendocrine cell and
these cells are dispar at a ratio of
roughly speaking like 1 to 1,000
epithelial uh cells throughout the
digestive
tract and we thought for the longest
time that these cells were not
connecting directly to the nervous
system that they will release these
neuromodulators and the neuromodulators
through diffusion will act on receptors
into some of the nerve Terminals and
that is true that is a very well
established uh system uh but in 2015 we
made an observation that some of these
cells anywhere from 1/3 to 2/3 of these
cells it depends on like the type of a
systems that you use to identify they
were contacting directly the nervous
system and that brought up a a a new
dimension of how it is that the gut
could be could be communicating to the
brain because as you know in the brain
the synapses are the ones that are most
predominant however there there is a lot
of neurom modulation from endocrine uh
functions in the brain too so in the gut
uh this was not well described there had
been historically uh a few examples that
these cells may be making synaptic
contacts but they had not been
studied and perhaps one of the main
reasons why they hadn't being studied is
because the the tools were not there and
if you recall in in the um in 1990s uh
with the advancement of green
fluorescence protein as uh one of the
main uh molecules to tag cells now all
of a sudden there was a revolution in
biology because you could identify the
cells you can take them out you can do a
a transcriptomic analysis to see what
genes they express uh you could
co-culture them you can modify their
genome and then you can start to
interrogate what is their contribution
to the entire body I'll just interrupt
you for a second just to make sure that
I never else is on board so if I
understand
correctly it's long been known that
there are cells that are in these layers
of the gut in the intestine and it's
long been appreciated that as food
passes through these cells somehow can
sense the chemical constituents of the
of the food as it gets broken down and
then release hormones into the
bloodstream that could influence the
brain those hormones could travel and
influence things far away in fact um for
those that don't know endocrine
generally mean signaling at a distance
between cells so between gut and brain
or gut and liver it can also mean local
effects so uh hormones endocrine effects
can also be local
but if I also understand you correctly
it was only about 15 years ago when you
mentioned green fluorescent protein we
should probably just tell the Tale in a
few sentences this is an amazing story
in biology where if you've ever seen
fluorescing
jellyfish that's because they express a
gene for so called Green fluorescent
protein and biologists have hijacked
that Gene sequence and put it into mice
and now actually other organisms as well
which allows you to see individual cells
and cell types so these cells release
hormones the hormones influence the
brain and other organs and now I think
you're going to tell us that they also
are able to make direct communication
lines with other organs as well
correct uh so maybe here is feeling how
it is that I I got into a starting the
system and uh as you know between the
90s and the early 2000s there was an
explosion in tools to study uh the brain
and neural circuitry and the connection
of neurons and each one of the neurons
because up until the 1980s um the the
tools were were limited
electrophysiology you know
Behavior Uh but then not only we had a
green fluorescence protein we we had
optogenetics
we had uh a rabies modified to be able
to
trace how it is the the neurons connect
at one synapse which was a it was a
dream I think that in fact that was the
dream of Francis Creek when he was at
the Suk he he talked about that having
the way to control for those who don't
know Crick one uh was a co-recipient to
the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the
structured DNA but then later in his
career developed an obsession for
neuroscience and yeah he daydreamed out
loud about having tools to visualize
individual Connections in the nervous
system and as uh Diego is pointing out
scientists have hijacked the rabies
virus which hops between neurons labeled
the rabies virus with Things That Glow
fluorescent and in doing so we now
understand a lot about what Crick
dreamed for which was the ability to see
different specific Connections in the
nervous system yes uh so then you could
isolate the cells and then you could do
sequencing technology to see like what
are the genes that the cells are
expressing and then you can start to
understand the makeup of the cells uh in
2009 uh h cers a scientist u in the
Netherlands uh did a beautiful
experiment like he he discovered these
factors that will trigger a receptor of
the stem cells in the intestinal
epithelium and will form literally a
mini gut in a in a dish you know these
cells will be all lined up and then they
will have alumin and I remember like
seeing some of these papers coming out
uh when I was a PhD student and and I
was already studying the gut so it was
inspiring to see like all of the things
that all of a sudden you could do right
so when I began studying the cells um
immediately by isolating the cells and
simply observing the cells in the native
tissue of these um m
models it quickly became evident that
some of the cells had a very peculiar
Anatomy uh some of them had these very
prominent arms at the base like like
literally like um in the 16 Chapel uh
Adam reaching out to to God right like
with a hand uh the cells will have that
type of anatomical H features and even
ending with a little hand at the end of
that arm uh and obviously I I
immediately thought like why would a
cell that it is supposed to react to
food and release hormones into the
bloodstream or just in the vicinity will
invest so much energy into developing an
arm right so then I started to look well
perhaps it is because it's providing a
bridge directly into the vasculature
into the vessels to put the the hormones
into the bloodstream right uh grown you
know like a I couldn't find that that
direct connection uh so then I started
to study perhaps they were associated
with nervous system and that's how uh we
made some of the first observations that
some of them uh with the arm uh or
without the arm they will have a more
intimate
relationship with nerve
fibers and that of course open up um a
bunch of new
questions and but the first things that
the first thing that we had to do it was
to come up with a name for this foot and
it kind of became organic and I want to
highlight this because I think that as
we go through the discovery uh
trajectory we don't realize the need to
also engineer
language how we go about language is we
start to attach a words that we already
knew and we start to put them together
to describe something that new that
we're observing right and I say this
because at the very beginning uh with my
mentor we will start to call these
little feet first we call them axon
which is like uh the for like the long
extending branches of the neurons the
main branches of the neurons so we will
call them axon like because they look
like a a baby
axon but then we called them also like
Pudo po because it was like a pot but it
was
Pudo uh and at some point we and it was
coming from like some cells in the in
the kidneys that they are called uh po
podia or something like that so it was
axon like pseudo like basal process to
describe that it was on the base so at
some point it became so long that we
couldn't fit it in an abstract right so
a bit of a mouthful so we began thinking
about it and then eventually I came up
with a term I thought like ah
neurot um and I remember pitching it to
my mentor and I said like let me let me
think about the weekend and then on the
on a Monday he came in and he said like
you know it has a ring to it I think
that we should use it but but
essentially the the the thought was that
if these cells are contacting then
perhaps they are passing information
directly onto the nervous system and
that is very different than just
spewing a
neuromodulators in the vicinity and
hoping that some of those catch the
nervous system right and like I said
while that is still exist and I think
that is just like matter of space and
time like they they modulate these
terminals in a different space and time
the hormones but the transmission uh the
neurotransmission is directly and more
precise in space and time could I just
um interrupt for a moment please so
hormone signaling endocrine signaling
generally is slower than the forms of
communication directly between neurons
right um could be on the order of
seconds sure but typically on the orders
of minutes or hours uh whereas neural
communication on the order of
milliseconds correct so if I understand
correctly these what you decide to
called neurop pod cells and thank you
for shortening the name um from the
other description um line the gut are we
talking about everything from esophagus
down to the stomach to the intestine or
is it just at the level of the stomach
and intestine where where do they this
is uh this is where the conversation
becomes expansive because uh these
neopods or cins of these neurop pods so
these neurop pods are simply a
specialized neuro epithelial cells
meaning that are electrically excitable
that they can discharge electricity but
they are this type of cells are in every
single epithelial cell epithelial layer
of the body because that's how the body
creates a representation of the world
through sensor cells that are equipped
to detect the outside world meaning that
they can be exposed to fluctuations in
temperature fluctuations in PH
fluctuations in concentrations and then
they quickly can generate a chemo
electrical coat that they pass it onto
the nervous system and then ultimately
the brain integrates that and says like
oh my belly is feeling good but I'm
feeling cold in the skin right and that
is thanks to all of these
neuroepithelial cells that they are even
in um tasting so to speak the uh the
seru spinal fluid inside of the spinal
cord and the ventricles they are inside
of the the inner ears The Taste uh The
Taste SPS so it is and in fact there's a
beautiful book from the 70s uh from some
Japanese scientists uh fuet Canon
Kobayashi who uh called the cells Paran
neurons and their whole concept is that
there was not such a discrete
distinction between an entire a neuron
that lives inside of the brain or the
central nervous system and a A
neuroepithelial or a neuroendocrine cell
that leaves exposed to the outside
simply that there is a continuum of
adaptation so the the organism can bring
the information from outside inside into
the uh body to be able to process it and
then process it and then guide Behavior
So based on the way you describe it we
have these neurop pod cells that line
our gut and we also have these similar
cell types in the other organs of the
body and these cells are responding to
the chemical constituents of what we eat
as the food is broken down
also to the temperature of the
environment to the
pH the that is how relatively basic or
acidic something is that we ate and
presumably to other features in our
environment as well and all of that
information is activating these cells to
some degree or another and then we're
releasing hormones into our body as a
consequence but also there's a direct
line to the brain and we're not
necessarily aware of all of this
happening right I mean until you
describe it I think most of us are have
not been aware that this is happening
and we probably shouldn't be aware you
know like as I often say like um if you
and I are having a conversation we
probably shouldn't be aware of the
macras and the spleen that is chasing
this bacterium that got inside of the
lettuce that we swallowed in at launch
right like just do your thing so we can
keep communicating right except maybe
don't eat more of that lettuce right
which is
the okay so you discovered these
neuropodial to selectively label them
what did that reveal about their
connectivity with you're referring to it
as the nervous system which I love
because a resounding theme on this
podcast as I always say you know brain
and spinal cord and all the connections
to the body and back again is the
nervous system but what what did you
discover in terms of the connections
with the brain proper here is where the
tools started to make a a big difference
you know all of the sudden you could see
the resolution of a receptor inside of a
cell using certain type of microscopes
right so I remember that one of the
first questions that I will always get
drill on you know how these uh laugh
meetings can get intense right like when
I will bring data and showing just very
simple um imunohistochemistry meaning
labeling to see how the cells were
interacting with uh the nervous
system um as and I will show some of the
images then uh the other scientists will
say well you know yeah those are nice
images but remember that contact does
not mean connection you know and I went
thinking about that like at the very
beginning I thought that it was silly
semantics you know um but I I
specifically remember that there was one
time I was running and I was thinking
like how do you demonstrate connection
between two cells and then I thought
that since we had the ability to
identify the cells by fluorescence we
could isolate them based on their
fluorescence and what will happen if we
put them in front of a sensory neuron
and then just record them inside of a
microscope right over
time and I thought maybe they will get
close to each other and then we can go
and do some more labeling and show that
they are H contacting or connecting but
much to our surprise we actually saw
that in real time they when you isolate
them from the mouth and you put them in
a dish they both look like these round
circles but after a few hours not only
they get close to each other but they
recapitulate the circuitry in the dish
literally they form like two brains in a
dish right like it's the gut and the
Brain in a dish amazing uh yeah and that
that was an eye opener you know I still
remember it was somewhere I think it was
like June 27 2012 when I saw that
experiment because um it opened my my
eyes to so many different things one was
that this cells are not
static because since we have been seeing
them for decades just in as slices or
fixed tissue and we have lost the notion
that this thing is constantly moving
right the cells are actually moving the
cells are actually moving so these cells
line the gut meaning they're along the
walls of the gut an intestine yeah the
intestine they reach a hand into the gut
to sense whatever chemicals are there
yeah they have Little Celia little hair
or micr that is literally like little
hair that is exposed to the Lumen M you
know so the Lumen folks is the the
cavity the empty cavity of the gut not
empty but you know the the the internal
part and so they're sensing the
chemicals there and you're saying they
can move okay and they're sending a
process by the way folks anytime you
don't know whether or not something is a
dendrite or an axon just call it a
process you you'll get it right uh a
process up to the brain underneath that
will connect to the nervous system I see
so through a series of of of stations
yeah okay um amazing so what we're
talking about here is Diego's discovery
of a pathway from the gut to the brain
that essentially allows sensing of
what's happening in the gut to inform
feelings decision correct yeah so that
that was uh the first experiment like
showing H in addition right the next
experiment was well does it happen in
the in the mouse and then through a
series of I have a friend neuroscientist
that she calls this Ravis gymnastics
because you have to put in some genes
and make things work then we
demonstrated that these uh
cells that the virus will be capable of
infecting these cells specifically
instead of infecting the other
epithelial cells it will infect these
new epithelial cells because ravies
likes
neurons and then it will jump from that
cell into a nerve
fiber and these ravies can only jump one
connection right and what it was uh
surprising is that the fluoresence from
that rabies will show up in the brain
stem and in the bodies of the cells that
are in the noos ganglia which is this
cluster where the cell bodies of the um
neurons of the begos nerve are located
right underneath the the
neck meaning that there was just one
stop between the surface of the
intestine
and the brain stem the two cells were
connecting that
um that space you know so obviously the
information that was the anatomical
basis for the information to travel very
rapidly up into the brain and rapidly in
the subconscious right like we're not
necessarily aware of it although uh I've
read that there are some instances in
which people become more aware of it
either in uh a ag
typical uh fashion or with meditation
and other things that people can become
aware yes people definitely can become
more aware of their so-called
interoception what's going on at the
level of their heartbeat frequency or
their gut sensing if they spend time on
it some people as you mentioned develop
an almost pathologic sense of
interception such that they have trouble
navigating normal life because they're
so aware of what's going on inside their
body this is actually an interesting
issue in the field of Psychiatry my
colleagues in Psychiatry at Stanford
tell me that um some people with a lot
of anxiety for instance are so aware of
their heartbeat that it becomes um
disruptive and distracting to them so
it's not always the case that it's
better to become more aware of your
internal processing sometimes it can be
um dilus other times it can be good for
us um some people are very unaware of
what's happening in their body and they
need to develop more awareness of that I
feel like as long as we're talking about
rabies we should have a little bit of
fun and explain to people something
about rabies viruses because what we've
been talking about is the use of viruses
as uh experimental Tools in order to you
know take a
virus basically attach or put something
in so that whatever cell is infected by
it glows a certain color so you can see
the cells and visualize the circuitry
but as long as we're talking about
rabies I feel like it's such a uh a word
that has such salience the rabies virus
which exists in nature um is amazing
because it's um I don't know if it has a
Consciousness but it essentially
propagates between animals by way of the
animals that have it bite they they
become more
aggressive they bite a um a Target
animal the virus gets in it's picked up
by the nerve Terminals and is carried
back from one ner cell to the next
across synaptic connections right
synapses the G little gaps between
neurons and what Dr Diego Boris has been
telling us is that scientists have
engineered the rabies virus so that it
only jumps one station and then stops
you can do this by modifying the coat
protein there's a bunch of fun virology
that can be done uh to do that but what
I find amazing about rabies virus and
there's a great book by the way called
rabid which is a a essentially a history
of the of the study of rabies um is that
once it travels from the S of the bite
up to the brain what does it do it
changes the brain to make the now
infected animal or person more
aggressive so that then they go bite
somebody else um so I mean in some ways
that the viruses have a sort kind of
unconscious genius to them right what's
the best way to get from one animal to
the next well there are a number of
different ways but one way is to just
make that animal more aggressive so it
goes and bites things yeah make wild
make the animal work for you right make
the animal work for you right it's it's
it's almost exploitive right it exploits
certain circuit in the nervous system
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so you uh identified these you said
described but you I'll say discovered
because um that's what happened you
discover these these cells you label
their connections you see that there's
just two Stations between these cells or
one station really between these cells
and the brain and so now these cells can
sense chemicals in the gut that are the
consequence of the breakdown of food and
send that information directly to the
brain what does the brain do with that
information all so here comes uh the key
experiment and this was building
obviously on the work of other
scientists that had already described
that the gut had some uh receptors for
uh sugars for specifically for glucose
for other nutrients around this area in
the early 2000s when we were starting to
be able to identify some of these cells
then uh it quickly became uh obvious
that uh these cells these
enteroendocrine cells throughout the
lining of the stomach intestine colon
they had multiple receptors for multiple
nutrients you know like we have the
macronutrients for instance sugars fats
proteins but within them we have you
know a repertoire of molecules you know
multiple uh lipids multiple types of
sugars and so on and so forth and these
cells depending on their location they
will Express a different type of
receptors or a combination of those
receptors and I said depending on the
location because when we're eating let's
say an apple you know the apple is going
to be partially undigested by the time
that it enters intestine but by the time
that it gets to the the colon most of
those nutrients have being absorbed and
perhaps only fibers are surviving to
feed off most of the microbes that live
in the colon right so the gut has
evolved to mirror and to become a velro
to the molecules that will be in that in
that specific space so it will detect so
um it will detect sugars more in the
proximal intestine but fibers or uh
fermented by products more in the distal
intestine or in the colon like shin
fatty acids beate prop propionate um and
so on and so forth you know what other
kinds of nutrients do these neurop pod
cells detect from food so you mentioned
sugars you mentioned ferment
fermentation so um presumably short and
longchain fatty acids yes the short
answer is that uh I think that in due
time we are going to realize that they
detect just about every single thing
that we put on our mouths every day you
know uh that they have some either an a
specific receptor that is dedicated to
it or a combination of receptors to be
able to detect um some of these
compounds and not only the chemical
compounds but also an area that I think
that is going to be fascinating in the
future is the mechanical distension plus
uh the the adjustment in temperature
as the Kim starts to flow
from the mouth into the colon like for
instance I I I heard this from a
bioengineer not long ago that was
engineering a artificial gut on a
stomach and he uh shared with me um a
piece of information that I was not
aware of that uh the esophagus has to
adjust the temperature of the food very
rapidly within seconds into
physiological temperature of the inside
of the the body like so we are having
hot coffee within couple of seconds it
has to be at the physiological
temperature of the body by the time that
it gets into the stomach right and all
of that happens in very rapidly amazing
suff right so if I understand correctly
these neurop pod cells have a variety of
different receptors depending on where
they are located along the trajectory
from the mouth to the rectum that's
correct and some are sensing sugar some
are sensing temperature some are sensing
pH so relative acidity some are
sensing amino acids presumably I mean
I've heard it said and I believe there's
a a researcher down in Australia who's
been very bullish on the theory that we
are not exclusively but we are
predominantly amino acid foraging
machines because we need amino acids for
all sorts of important biological
processes um and these cells are
essentially evaluating how how much
sugar how much Lucine how much um uh
short chain fatty acid how much um you
know essential fatty acids of different
kinds and then making changes to the gut
itself but then presumably signaling
that information elsewhere in in the
body so um here I'm going to give you a
something that will get your gut
churning so to speak so these cells have
to make sense not only of the molecule
that had been ingested meaning the
chemistry of the molecule let's say it's
glucose it has to make sense a little
bit of The Taste is it sweet right is it
bitter then it has to take into account
how much of the molecule is absorbed
inside of the cell right so that's the
second layer of integration then once
the cell has eaten that molecule so to
speak then that molecule will be
digested inside of the cell to release
ATP or some other uh compound ATP is for
energy for instance that has also have
to be taken into account for instance in
the in the in glucose glucose activates
the tas1 R3 which is a sweet taste
receptor then the glucose is absorbed by
some of the sodium glucose Transporters
which are active Transporters and these
Transporters uh depolarize the cell and
then once glucose gets inside of the
cell glucose enters the TCA cycle is
catabolized and then produces ATP and
the ATP further activates another uh
voltage gated Channel
further depolarizing the cell and then
the cell releases in turn a transmitter
for instance glutamate that very rapidly
tells the vus nerve within milliseconds
you know I got sugar uh and it tells it
in two phases because that glutamate
will activate two different type of
receptors ionotropic which are very fast
and metabotropic which are a little bit
more you know more delayed uh but then
the metabolism of that glucose that
produces the ATP and farther polarizes
the cell we believe that um it will
cause the release of the hormone of the
neuropeptide so then the neuropeptide
comes on top of that and gives you that
full experience of what it means to uh
consume sugar right um so that happens
at the level of one cell and at the
level of one molecule so imagine like
all of the computation that the gut has
to be making for each one of the
molecules throughout the digestive
tract so if I stand back from the
picture um what I get is there are very
interesting cell types that line our gut
that are
evaluating all of the not just
macronutrients proteins fats and
carbohydrates but micronutrients within
the food we eat as well as some of the
other qualitative features temperature
for instance maybe even quality of the
amino acids or the sugars you know
simple versus complex sugars
Etc if we could just further zoom out
for a moment and take a human
perspective on this at the level of
experience I once heard you tell a story
about um someone you knew who changed
their gut
radically and that changed their entire
perceptual experience of food including
certain Cravings would you mind sharing
that story yes uh thank you for uh
bringing that story Andrew that story is
very personal to me I of often say when
I get on stage that we are constantly
influenced by two things in life the
food that we eat and the people that we
meet you know like now I uh we have
known each other but now we meet in
person and we are knowing other people
right and I remember that when I was uh
starting my PhD in nutrition at North
Carolina State University I was uh so I
didn't grow up in the United States I uh
grew up in Ecuador and uh I was invited
to my first Thanksgiving celebration so
I sat at dinner and you know as we began
chatting with uh the people that were
next to each other uh all of a sudden I
was uh enthrall in this conversation of
a woman telling me this story about her
experience with gastric bipass surgery
for treating obesity so gastric bass
surgery uh was begun to be um developed
by surgeons uh in the 60s and by the 90s
it had become a mainstream uh type of
surgery for the treatment of uh chronic
obesity so she told me that there were
primarily three things that happened she
said well within uh six months of the
surgery I had lost about 40% of body
weight you know she said like I was
about 300 pounds you do the math you
know so it was a it was a significant
amount significant amount she said
within one week of the surgery my
diabetes was gone she said I did not
need more insulin shots so I had the
same reaction that that you're having I
was like that you know I don't know much
about diabetes but I know that is is a
major health uh burden
right but the thing that really caught
my eye was when she said but since
you're studying nutrition I want you to
answer this to me she said why is it
that before the surgery I could not even
look at sunic Side Up XG she said uh
just looking at the Yoke will make me
quizy you know but after the surgery no
not only I can eat sonide up eggs I
actually have a craving for the yolk she
said every time we go on Saturday to a
restaurant for breakfast I will take the
toast and will actually clean the plate
uh of the Yol so how is it that rewiring
the the gut uh alter my perception of uh
of flavor alter my my cravings and my
mind to to get the the Yol she said and
even inverted her sense of what was
aversive versus repetitive and and I
guess for those of us that don't know
meaning me um I understand the gastric
bypass surgery involves the removal of a
portion of the of the gut um how much
gut tissue do they actually take is it
centimeters inches I mean the guts a
long distance so what what what do they
do for gastri in in in simple terms the
most
um the classic surgery is called uh ruin
y gastric bypass surgery which involves
a a reduction of the stomach and short
cutting the uh connection of the stomach
to the intestine so you will cut you
know 1/3 which will be the dadum uh one
third of that will be uh cut and then
that portion will be reconnected to the
stomach meaning that you're short
circuiting the the gut and the whole
idea was at the very beginning was like
well if we reduce the surface that is
exposed to food then we can reduce body
weight by the simp L um reduction of
surface that is exposed to the food that
is absorbed right and uh what it became
very clear is that well before the body
weight uh changes got taken place uh
there was already like some dramatic
changes in physiology like like the
hormones the neuropeptides that we
release from uh the intestine in
response to nutrients you know will
change very rapidly then as I mentioned
the food choices will change diabetes
will be resolved um so then it became
obvious that it was not necessarily just
the the uh reduction in the surface of
of the gut so that's one of the main uh
surgeries the other one um as I
understand is vertical isaf gastrectomy
and this vertical s gastrectomy is
simply a a reduction in the size of the
stomach so is now the stomach is very
tiny and the idea is that will
accumulate uh less it could hold less
food and then the food will go very
rapid rapidly into the intestine and
what is very is becoming very obvious is
that there is a rapid change in the
sensory function of the gastrointestinal
tract so the gut seems to rapidly shift
perhaps become more so to speak in
general terms more sensitive to the
presence of nutrients right interesting
so this woman that you met at
Thanksgiving had G gastric bypass
surgery and presumably I think it's fair
to assume a good number of these neurop
hot cells that sense different nutrients
were removed and as a consequence she
completely shifted her craving of a
particular food and is there any sense
whether or not no pun intended the lack
of sensing of what was in uh you know
Sunnyside egg yolks was somehow related
to a shift in appetite or something else
or is it merely a a a um a qualitative
albeit a dramatic qualitative sh in in
what she craved so two uh contextual
pieces of information uh so I remember
leaving that dinner and I was like wow
this is Major you know like I'm sure
that people have green about this or
don't research um and I realized that it
was very little was known even
gastroenterologists knew very little
about this the first clinical report
that um the alteration in food choices
was common in these patients uh came out
I believe in
2011 uh and then later on scientist
replicated that even in rats or in mice
uh we have done it in the laboratory and
consistently they they change their food
preferences their their um food choices
so er in in recent years we have been we
have been uh studying that that system
um and I will tell you that in
2022 this is another important
contextual piece that we have gotten
have not gotten to it so after we
uh found and we describe that these
cells were connecting to the nervous
system and that they were sending
information up to the brain very rapidly
the challenge was well if this is a
sense what behavior is affecting right
like how is it that is affecting the the
responses of the organism and that took
a little bit of a a technical hdle and
here is where optogenetics uh comes in
yeah please um explain for people what
optogenetics is in at least at a top
Contour level yeah so optogenetics uh
205
uh Professor Carl daero Ed boen and
other scientists had been able to make
this this dream of an experiment which
was uh isolate the the genes that encode
for these opsins that are sensitive to
specific wavelengths of light and put
them into neurons and now by turning
that light they could make the neuron
activate and then ultimately then later
on they went on to describe that that
could be used to control a specific
cells that are regulating behavior and
then by that Define what cells are
orchestrating certain type of behaviors
like movement food intake thirst anxiety
so on and so forth so in 2014 we we
began H trying to adapt that technology
to the
gut very quickly
we realized that the way that was that
light was brought into the brain was
through a fiber optic cable that was
rigid and uh and in the brain you know
it it helps that it's actually rigid but
in the gut it doesn't help because the
gut is constantly moving and so on and
so forth so it's not compatible for
running those experiments and here's
where I usually say like you know we
really don't know what is going on
because some some forces like move
around us and in 2017 uh Professor
Paulina Nika from MIT came to give a
talk at Duke and uh she reached out to
me and literally she came and as we were
chatting she said like Diego I see that
you're you're working between uh in this
interface of the gut and the brain and I
have this fiber optic that is flexible
you know would you have any use for it
so with that H fiber optic that made a
big difference to study interrogate the
function of these cells to
behavior so when we were able to put
those opsins the light sensitive uh
proteins inside of these neurop pods and
now when we turn the light on to shut
off these cells very
rapidly we found something very
interesting so normally animals when you
give them the choice between a suer
which is the void of caloric value so
like a like a aspartame or or Stevia or
something y uh and you give them
sugar table sugar the animal invariably
will go to Sugar they prefer sugar they
prefer sugar you know uh if they have
never seen sugar it will take them a
little bit more time but regularly um by
the second day is within 90 seconds that
they detect what is sugar so they're
drinking out of one tube they get some
water with stevia they drink out of
another tube water with sugar and they
invariably prefer the water with sugar
that's correct and uh people have
described this um this phenomenon for a
while and in fact in 2007 There Was An
Elegant experiment done by Professor Ian
Deo at Duke University in which the uh
sweet taste receptors were or the The
Taste uh receptors were genetically
erased and the animals um were not
capable of distinguishing the sugar the
sweetener from the water but they could
still distinguish sugar from uh water
meaning that there was something else
that was detecting that that sugar so
just to make sure people are on
board an experiment where sensing of
sweet taste at the level of the mouth is
eliminated does not disrupt the
preference for sugar water correct which
means that there's something going on
below the depth of
Consciousness that
causes mammals presumably us included to
prefer things that have
sugar yes and uh then uh Professor ton
clani he had been studying these uh
these behaviors and he went in so far to
suggest that perhaps the sodium glucose
Transporters are some of the ones that
are detecting the the sugar as it enters
the intestine and that's what is causing
the
behavior um so we began working on the
system and we we Wonder Could these
cells
be the ones that are guiding that
Behavior Uh and around the time that uh
we published this work uh Professor uh
Charles zuker at uh Colombia also
further uh Advanced that that area by uh
building on the on the previous work and
demonstrated that um there were a
population of neurons in the brain stem
that were integrating this information
from the gut uh and by that the gut and
the Brain were guiding this this
Behavior so and it is true that from the
earliest of Ages We crave sugar or at
least if we are exposed to the taste of
sugar it tends to drive seeking of more
sugar you can see that in babies even
correct and as I usually say um I call
it instinctively because our mother
doesn't have to teach us hey uh Diego
that is glucose you know uh it may
present Us in some ways but uh at the
end of the day I have to go and get my
glucose get my am acids right because
eating is very simple we're just trying
to solve this issue of getting our
carbons getting our nitrogen getting our
phosphorus our potassium our sodium and
our chloride in so many different ways
shape or forms right so I went back to
the experiment the key experiment so
when we were able to put these opsins
and bring the light and shut off these
cells very rapidly when we had presented
the animal with the choice of sweetener
over sugar
then all of a sudden the animal became
blind to the solutions it couldn't
discern between the the the stevia so to
speak or the sweetener from the actual
sugar and the entire manipulation the
experimental manipulation that is is
occurring at the level of the gut the
intestine that's right right after the
stomach it's like just a small portion
of the intestine so if we make an
attempt to transfer this to the human
Real World Experience um um if
I have some ice cream it tastes sweet I
like it and now I'm thinking about it
and I'm craving it just a little bit I
don't have a huge craving for sweets but
um I do like some of them so eating ice
cream it tastes sweet the tendency is to
crave more that's correct right you have
to eat a lot of ice cream before you're
truly full yeah um and most people
self-regulate or their parents regulate
for them
um by limiting the number of Scoops or
something um
and that sweet taste is part of the
motivator but what you're saying is that
as the ice cream enters the gut there
are neurop pod cells there that are also
sensing the sugar and signaling to the
brain and the brain is responding to
pursue more of that sweet containing
substance that's correct and it's
happening below our awareness it is
independent from the Sweet Taste of the
ice cream correct the the conscious
sweet taste the conscious sweet taste
which if you think about it it's not
fully conscious right you know as a what
we detect of the world it's just a very
tiny little portion right even sight you
know like we think we are looking for
light but I don't know what is happening
behind my my back I trust that
everything is going okay right so um so
when we shut off uh the
cells uh the animal and as I usually say
like became blind to the sugars because
it's kind of like uh a keing to having
turn off the cells that are able to
detect light the wav length of light for
us to be able to discern color right and
it's not that the animal is losing its
memory because then you if you remove
the light and now the the cells are
functional again then the animal again
is able to distinguish one solution over
over the
other uh and then we did a couple more
experiments in there and what happens uh
if we do the reverse if we turn on the
cells
now and the fascinating thing is that
when we turn on the cells now the uh the
mouse will eat the sweetener as if it
will be sugar interesting so the
activation of these
cells makes them crave non-caloric
sweetener or low calorie sweetener as if
it were
sugar but is it blinding them to the
difference between sugar and low calorie
sweetener so here's another piece of
information if we will offer them water
and we will turn on the cells the animal
will drink the water as if it will be
sugar like it will be appetizing even
though it's just plain water yes and
what is becoming very obvious is that uh
the gut has this sense at the most basic
level
what the senses are uh doing is
calculating a couple of things one is um
in the salience of the stimulus is like
how intense is the stimulus and the
other one is the veilance of the
stimulus is a pleasurable or painful so
to speak in like broad terms and I say
this because on the on the pain side
um uh Professor David Julius professor
hly in
uh jinra at UCSF they have done some
beautiful work demonstrating that there
are these serotonin releasing
cells specifically in the colon they
have focus in the colon that they couple
two a nerve fibers of the spinal cord
and when they are activated now all of a
sudden they drive what we call in the
clinical uh realm visceral hypers
sensitivity so they are responsible for
triggering the hypers sensitivity of the
nerve fibers the colonic nerve fibers
because they detect no noxious stimuli
and then ultimately they gate that
noxious stimulate and pass it on to the
nerve fiber as a in Broad terms as a
painful stimulus so is this irritable
bowel syndrome it is we could call it as
the biological basis of what could
degenerate into irritable bow syndrome
and so on and so forth or these
chronical GI uh they call them uh
disorders of gut brain interactions in
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huberman to get 10% off as a
neuroscientist I was trained to think
about the neural retina the light
sensing tissue at the back of the eye
the ca the essentially mechanos sensory
cells in the inner ear that respond to
sound waves not directly but through a
number of different transducers and this
kind of thing and then of course Where
You Are all familiar with the skin and
that it responds to pressure light touch
tickle itch
Etc what I'm understanding based on what
you're telling me is that all along the
pathway from our mouth to our rectum we
have sensory cells that are evaluating
the chemical constituents of the foods
that we
eat emitting broad kind of maybe even
crude slow signals in the form of
hormones to change our appetite our
feelings of well-being maybe our
feelings of not
wellbeing um but also sending direct
signals to the brain to drive certain
types of thinking emotions and behavior
what sorts of thoughts emotions and
behaviors are foods known to evoke
through this pathway from the gut
because the story about the your friend
that had the gastric bypass and then
changed the relationship completely to
the craving of or the aversion to uh
Sunnyside eggs indicates that it's a
pretty crude as I'm describing a system
to begin with but It ultimately
converges on pretty fine scale
decision-making you order this and you
avoid that um you really like this and
you really are almost nauseous at the
thought of something else that's pretty
high level decisions it might not seem
like it to most but um you know it's
impacting you know significant be
Behavior or impacting Behavior at a
significant level that's correct um and
and uh when I think about that specific
example uh is
that after there has been this rewiring
of uh of the
intestine then now the intestine is very
sensitive so to speak to the stimuli and
when those lipids from the Yoke start to
enter the intestine if that sensitivity
has changed meaning it could have change
in how fast it reacts to the stimulus or
how fast it communicates to the stimulus
and how s sensitive it is to the
saliency or like the the the strength of
the stimulus it could communicate that o
what it used to be repulsive with a tiny
little bit of amount now it is actually
pleasurable with a tiny little uh bit of
amount and here's a a clear example so
it has been very well um I will say that
it has been documented uh in the clinic
that patients that undergone gastric
Bass surgery they're actually more prone
I think that the the the it goes from
like two to Sevenfold uh the likelihood
that they become and they they will they
will develop
alcoholism really yes uh because now the
way that they describe it is like well
you know either before I didn't like
wine um and then now I you know after a
few months of a surgery I'll have one
glass of wine and then all of a sudden I
found myself going to 2 three four you
know and then they will become either
more sensitive is still not known the
entire biology but they will become
either not only more sensitive but more
more attracted to that type of stimulus
I can't help but ask about OIC monjaro
and glp1 glucagon like
peptide one um analogues which are
really out of all the rage right now at
least for discussion but many many many
millions of people are now taking this
for treatment of diabetes and for weight
loss um my understanding is that glp1
acts at the level of the brain the
hypothalamus to reduce hunger but also
at the level of the gut to give the
sensation of more gastric distension is
there any knowledge of whether or not
glp1 interacts with the neurop Pod cells
and this pathway that you're describing
given what these neuropodia
complimentary question and uh in fact
when I got into uh studying in this
field uh 15 years ago uh the study among
scientists in this area uh glucagon like
peptide was already very uh popular uh
in the study in fact in this area it was
people were very focused on on the study
of this peptide and they were very
focused on the study of this peptide
because it was one of the most potent um
stimulators of insulin release in the
pancreas uh after gastric bass surgery
it will actually increase its amount in
uh circulating levels uh and there were
already like uh some uh studies
suggesting that the the effect of this
gluc glucagon like peptide it was
actually not through the
circulation but more in a localized uh
action onto nerve fibers especially of
the vus nerve so there was already like
someone going um discussion about this
uh and certainly some of these
enteroendocrine cells these um
neuroendocrine cells particularly at
least in uh in animals I think it's more
distal and uh in the digestive tract
that they do release this glucagon like
peptide um one in response to primarily
like all of the macronutrients but
primarily
sugar and then
these glucagon Li peptide one will act
on specific receptors of the nerve
Terminals and then will trigger some of
the behaviors is also thought that uh it
acts at the level of the uh the brain
stem and what it will uh potentiate is
the reduction of uh
appetite so I say that this is a
complimentary question because what is
happening in the first few milliseconds
is the actual choice and the actual
feeling of how you feel about food and
what is happening in the minutes two
hours later is the amount how much you
can eat right and when you should stop
because after four hours you're going to
come back and feel again the tickling of
the gut because the gut starts uh to
churn again and it starts to call for
food remember it has to fit uh two giant
organisms the host itself but also the
microbes that are inside right so it has
to H keep uh so to speak that that
hunger going every 4 hours or so right
so that's why the hormones are more
acting on the
cyclical uh
circadian way but the transmitters are
acting in this very fast uh responsive
way of uh the precise stimul stimuli in
a specific uh regions of the
gastrointestinal
tract so these neuroendocrine cells are
releasing glp1 or responding to glp1
they're releasing uh glp1 they're
releasing glp1 to shut down transiently
shut down hunger and probably there is
some interaction between the cells that
they are they are having you know the
technical term is autoc cring or they
are having like power cring between the
cells you know neuromodulation but
primarily let's say they respond to the
stimulus and release gp1 onto the nerve
fiber right I have a theory uh for which
I have no direct data but I'd like your
thoughts on um having spoken to a lot of
people that work on nutrition but also
gut bra brain axis today and U
microbiome in previous episodes that one
of the key things that a human
learns somewhat unconsciously but also
consciously is the relationship between
a given food which macronutrients it
contains the ratios of you know
carbohydrate protein and fat the taste
of that
food the amount of that food translated
into to calories but also physical
volume and then the
micronutrients why do I say this well
there are a growing number of studies
showing that the ingestion of Highly
processed food leads to the intake of
excess calories or more calories than if
one consumes Foods in their more natural
form single ingredient Foods or two
ingredient foods are very different than
a food that has a bunch of different
things in it and it seems to me that if
we were to look back into our Evolution
um sure people were making stews soups
and things for a long time um presumably
the sandwich came about through a either
desire for convenience or taste or both
uh you know putting Meats protein in
between two pieces of bread something of
that sort um by definition of a
sandwich maybe some vegetables in there
as well some cheese but that what this
whole pathway along the gut is trying to
do it seems is to
deconstruct what's coming in what's here
and shaping choices as you mentioned
about food Choice including the amount
of food to further consume and whether
or not to return to that food or to
avoid it and at the extremes it seems
pretty
straightforward and this is a very
classically described case right you you
go and you have the um you know the
kungpow shrimp or you have the lentil
soup at a given place and a few hours
later you don't feel right start some
sweating some gastric distress and you
develop a pretty broad aversion to that
food or maybe the entire meal maybe the
restaurant maybe even that entire type
of Cuisine depending on how um how much
of a lumper or versus a splitter you are
as we say in science right how much you
you make uh kind of large large bin
decisions or fine bin decisions um this
is nerd speak for saying you know do you
do you go back to the same restaurant
but order something different or do you
just decide to never go back again but
that's a pretty extreme case right the
other extreme would be you eat a food
it's delicious you feel wonderful the
the restaurant the people it's wonderful
and you crave more of that food okay
there's all the contextual stuff too but
what we really are talking about here is
how one navigates this whole landscape
of what to put into one's body in terms
of nutrition and trying to understand
how that's impacting everything from how
we feel right away how it tastes whether
or not we conceive it as good or bad for
us whether or not we think it's
impacting our body composition and
health
in ways that we want or don't want I
mean it's pretty complex stuff right
this is at least as complex as going to
the Metropolitan Museum of Art and
looking at a painting and trying to
evaluate whether or not you really like
that painting or not in fact it's
probably much more complicated than that
but it's what we do and I'm beginning to
get the the asense again no pun intended
that this pathway that we call the gut
brain axis is really
it's a six sense of a very elaborate
kind so you just touch on a on an entire
realm of a topic which is one of my
favorite topics because at some point
you know uh we as scientists we travel
we travel the world and it started to
become very obvious to me that wherever
I
went we solve this issue of food in a
very similar way whether it's a tortilla
or two pieces of bread which is another
way of a
tortilla uh you have your
carbs and then you add a little bit of
meat or a mushroom and now you have your
protein or fish or chicken or fish your
chicken the the carnivores will say
Mushrooms not a protein the vegans will
say mushroom beans lentil great protein
we're not here to to resolve that debate
um do as you choose and then you add the
lettuce
or the
vegetables and here's the first stop in
that com the first uh stop in that in
that discussion because this is
fascinating there is some recent work
showing that if you remove the protein
from a diet the animal swallows that
that that
meal ER the gut evaluates that there is
no protein in there and it stops eating
that meal wow so this is like um
ordering the vegetarian Taco yeah or
burrito or sandwich and then avoiding
that particular taco or sandwich
thereafter because it lacks protein
because it lacks protein okay so foods
that lack animal-based proteins are tend
to be avoided going forward so here's
the second part of that no and in fact
if the protein is low
not completely absent if the protein is
low the animal consumes more of the diet
because it's trying to compensate for
the lack of protein and obviously if it
has sugars or fats that are more
pleasurable it keeps eating that that
that meal right I see if the protein is
completely absent the animal
avoids that diet
unless unless the diet is very rich in
uh dietary fibers
and the study that uh that I saw uh
which I thought it was fascinating is
that because somehow the microorganisms
in the digestive tract if they have
enough highly digestible fiber now they
turn on the ability to synthesize
essential amino acids really yes
so our gut meaning the neurons in our
gut are essentially waiting for hoping
we give them a
Consciousness proteins from animal
sources that's
correct if those animal proteins arrive
in the form of meat fish eggs Etc the
cells signal to the brain craving more
of those Foods until satiety is reached
but in the absence of that protein the
animal quickly learns the person quickly
learns to avoid that particular food
unless there's fiber in it in which case
these gut cells are able to now
synthesize the essential amino acids
microorganisms excuse me the
microorganisms of the gut here we're
talking about the microbiome now can
synthesize the essential amino acids
that ordinarily would come from the meat
chicken fish or eggs that's right so wow
so I'm I'm an omnivore I love meat high
quality meat but I also love vegetables
fruits and starches of certain kinds
but I have friends who are vegetarian
vegan many of them eat a vegetarian
vegan diet that includes a lot of fiber
and you're saying that the fiber itself
can trigger the gut microbiome to
synthesize the essential amino acids
that ordinarily would come from meat but
you also said if I recall that if
there's a small amount of
protein so not zero protein but a small
amount of protein in there then We crave
more of that food in order to try and
get compens protein very interesting
because this is the first thing that to
me squares the argument based on the
observation that or the hypothesis that
we are essentially amino acid foraging
machines and that complete proteins in
the form of meat fish chicken eggs Etc
you know there are those that argue
those are the quote unquote best forms
of protein right the most complete forms
but there are many vegetarians and
vegans who seem to thrive on a
vegetarian vegan diet and you're telling
me that perhaps their body is their gut
microbiome is compensating for the lack
of whole animal protein that's right but
the people who are trying to limit their
meat intake are what hungrier in general
so you're better off either indulging it
or avoiding it but not having a small
amount of it is that the idea the the
idea is that uh the the the body or the
gut will be able to detect that and then
we'll try to compensate right I see and
this I I actually learned um recently
from a friend Laura dubal at Colombia
who works uh does some beautiful work on
mosquitoes and how it is that they they
feed on uh blood she came for the
gastronauts uh uh series is she from
Leslie V Vel yeah and what I learned is
that when the mosquitoes are not
reproducing they can leave off ATP which
is the energy molecule right uh but they
cannot lay X
they need the protein in order to be
able to lay
eggs otherwise the mosquitoes cannot lay
the egg you know so this leaves us with
a picture of the gut sensing cells these
neurop pod cells as
exquisitely sensitive to amino acid
content in our Foods um which makes
perfect sense and it has not been
published or demonstrated yet sure we're
now in the realm of of new incoming data
we want to highlight this bracket it
bold face and underline it as we're now
at The Cutting Edge of what's may be
coming um that's right right observation
um but nonetheless very interesting but
there is this fairly long-standing
hypothesis that we are foraging for
essential amino acids because they are
the building blocks of so many important
things in the brain and body and in fact
there is evidence on that and Professor
Steven Simpson in Australia uh in uh the
uh in nutrition uh Research Institute at
Sydney University he is uh main
proponent of these protein leverage
hypothesis you know that and in fact
protein is the most assing uh
macronutrient so that that has been
established and that's why uh normally
we have focused on sugars and fats but
we have neglected a little bit of on the
protein because it's not as pleasurable
as the sugars or fats but what is
fascinating is that is the most suting
um nutrient and as you know it's like
the most limiting and also like even
commercially is the most expensive right
yeah I certainly have had the experience
of um at one time in my life really
enjoying and even craving sweet Foods
desserts and sugars and things of that
sort and I noticed that over time if I
eat sufficient amounts of meat chicken
eggs fish and which is not to say that I
consume excess amounts of them that my
sugar Cravings go way way down that's
just my personal experience but I know
it's an experience that family members
of mine and others share as well but I
promise you that this was a a fun um a
fun topic right I couldn't uh we
couldn't stop at like just layer number
one layer number two is that in
agriculture we have this instinct to
plant plants that a complement each
other like for instance a classic um
especially native among native
communities is called like the three
Marys uh I believe is a a um pumpkins or
some type of fibers with corn
carbohydrates and Bings so in purely
plant-based diets there's an effort to
get the fiber the sugar and the amino
acids that's right and I grew up uh in a
in a farm my my parents had farms and I
remember when they will plant they will
also like throw in there the the beans
and the beans will wrap around the the
corn and it just seem like so natural
and that's what you will do because that
what you learn to do but if you think
about it's an instin that we have
developed even agriculturally probably
in the subconscious to cultivate them in
such a way or perhaps the plants taught
us how to cultivate cultivate them in
such a way that now when we put them in
the
plate it just makes
sense ER at the nutritional level
because if you think about it every time
that we go to eat how is it that we
arrange that plate right there is some
rice which is very deficient in in some
essential amino acids but is rich in
carbohydrates right it has some beans
right uh and then there's some lettuce
you know and sometimes we have like for
omnivores people will put meat or you
will put other types of protein in there
right and certainly it varies by culture
time of year food availability and
things of that sort as long as we're
talking about um your upbringing um you
have a fascinating story um so maybe we
could could discuss that for a few
minutes uh where were you born uh I was
born in the Amazonia of Ecuador a small
town called el Cho in Ecuador uh is on
the slopes of um the Eastern slopes of
uh the Andes on the way to the
Amazonia uh in the Napo Province uh
coincidentally was like through the path
from where uh Francisco the Orana in uh
1542 march on its way to the discovery
of the the Amazon actually passed
through a a trail that later on reading
I realized that uh Native people had all
of these Trails between the Amazonia and
the Andes and the coastal line for
thousands of years so you grew up in a
very rural yes uh the uh oil had been
detected in the 1920s in Ecuador uh it
was first explorer in
1964 in uh the first uh ER oil um um
well was uh in a town called lag Wago
which now is only like three or four
hours from the town where I grew up but
at that time it was like eight hours the
roads were not good and the first road
passed through it uh in uh
1974 uh I was born in 1983 but I
remember that we used to have like a a
giant um diesel T engine that will give
us a light electricity only from uh 7 to
900 p.m. you know uh I remember when my
father bought the the first uh a um
color television in the in the town and
then neighbors will come to the our
living room and then we will watch
movies wow and this was in the 80s that
was in the 80s right um such an
interesting upbringing so um did you eat
a purely vegetarian diet or you ate
Meats as well where did those meats come
from if you did primarily from a cattle
uh goats ship so how do you go from the
Amazon to a study of nutrition and
ultimately Neuroscience um yeah uh
that's the question right like the
deeper I go the more I question I used
to think that oh it was very simple you
know like when I was um uh specifically
when I was 11 years old
uh my father he was born in
1932 uh by
19 he lost uh his father my grandfather
when he was six years old then he was
given away and he had to go and like
build his his his life uh he was a very
successful entrepreneur but in the
process he had made a lot of uh a lot of
friends and acquaintances so when I was
11 years old I remember specifically
that a friend of of his who was in the
Special Forces stopped by uh our home
because that was the main road that we
go into the Amazon jungle where the uh
folks in the special forces in the in
the military will will be trained and he
stopped by and said like hey roio like
what are you going to do with Diego you
know like I think that is about time
that you know I think that you should
send him to the military school and I
remember in a matter of like literally a
couple of weeks or three weeks I had
given the taken the tests and um I was
accepted into the military school and
then uh I ended up in a military school
and this was the at that time it was the
premier uh military school in the in the
country that alone it was uh with years
you start to understand the context in
which you you developed uh because it
was a a it was a very interesting
context for for a child like just to
give you an idea uh these these uh this
school had the first and the only zoo in
the country so from my uh classroom I
would literally look at the at the at
the Lions and then I think that was by
the second year that I was in the school
second or third year that became that
because the the the city start to grow
and then the the military school is
wrong and then they separated the higher
education for Military Officers they
separated them and they put them in a
different place but that Zoo actually
became the first zoo of the capital of
Kiton wait so you had a zoo with lions
at your school yes and you said you
could could see the lions from your
classroom and they could see you
presumably probably know yeah well I
assume they could see you uh lion vision
is pretty good I don't know what the
resolution is but I'm guessing that
their Vision yeah they they definitely
use their old faction but they are uh
sight sight based Hunters as well so but
I I have a specifically uh one memory
like climbing up I think was like from
the because we had an Olympic pool and
we had all of these events um they they
they the the soccer field uh was the the
field where the uh national team will go
and train on because they didn't have
their own their own um H training
grounds later on they had their own
training grounds so but that was
something that you just grow into it
right like but you it was with the years
and now especially like that I get to
reflect on it I was extremely fortunate
uh through that experience and that
education and now I'm I'm I'm here
sharing some of the story and hopefully
uh through that inspiring some people uh
especially young people that would like
to go and chase their dreams you know so
you you went to military school in
Ecuador yeah you graduated and you
decided to go to to uh yeah so I was
allowed to become
a so in the military school they will
select uh the top uh Cadets um like I
think was the top 10% and they will
select them and they will put them
through a special training um so you
have essentially didn't have like what
was a normal summer vacation you know I
will go into a military
training uh ER so for me it was going to
be very not easy but relatively
straightforward to transition into
officers Academy right like do four more
years like West Point here and then like
become an officer right in fact I I had
a reserves officer degree when I
graduated but two years before
graduating a friend man who uh he prefer
other types of uh careers he said like
you're not going to become a military
right you're not going to go into the
military and he said you should probably
study something that will help your
parents and then I said what will that
be and he said like uh perhaps
agriculture uh and I didn't think at
that time it didn't dawn on me uh that
uh you know people can study for
agriculture and agriculture is like the
base of food um er for all of us right
and then I said where and then he
mentioned for the first time this
University in zamorano which was founded
with some uh uh some funds that were
donated by um the founder of the
Standard fruit company which eventually
became I think chikita banana Zam
zamurai and that is an oasis that is in
Honduras outside of tusi Alpa so it's a
boarding school you wear uniform so it
was kind of like military it's very
strict uh you cannot accumulate more
than uh 12 de merits otherwise uh they
will send you home how do you get a Dem
Merit um hey you show up uh two minutes
late to uh work in the morning at 6:00
a.m. in the field and then you just get
to two minutes late one De Mer 12 of
those you're out two demerits two
demerits you're out yeah you get a we
used to get a um they they will check
your room so for instance a guest like
you if you will go there like they will
give you a every Wednesday they they had
at seven M they will check your room but
like very meticulously right and if they
found a little bit of a dust on the
window or something to the merits um and
you're going home if you accumulate
enough you will go home right wow um so
it really forms character right and then
do you do that with your kids no I think
that I have become do they make their
beds they do make their beds yeah okay
but that's that was the context and it
was then where I learned about two
things one is where this idea of getting
a PhD because I noticed that most of the
leaders will have a PhD most of the
leaders in the university and I realized
in the United States is one of the
training runs main training runs for
phds and the other one was nutrition I
was a little bit more King on perhaps
going into a Veterinary um uh
school and then uh I had an experience
in a a dairy farm in uh California where
I learned the value of uh nutrition
there was more prophylactic rather than
uh a paliative or like treating the the
cow right um and that kind of convinced
me like to look for a uh training in
nutrition and then a friend of mine uh
the late uh AEL gnat he was able to
connect me with um some uh some friends
and my mentor at uh North Carolina State
University and that's where I ended up
doing my PhD nutrition you know and
that's where like the career be became
and then maybe another detailing there
is that that I uh I was so excited about
taking uh that's where I took my first
physiology class and all of a sudden I
realized that in a way the body was like
a machine right like obviously is a
limited way of thinking but the body was
like a machine and one of the professors
was um a
neuroscientist uh and I took two
physiologies two human physiologies with
uh with him and I was just thrilled by
when he will explain how is it that in
the synaptic terminal there were these
vesicles that had like these proteins
that will walk that vesicle in the
preoptic active Zone and that's how we
make movement you know or something like
that um and I guess I kept that in the
background of my head and when I had the
opportunity to work in the gut uh I
applied that so you were Enchanted by
the nervous system yes yeah as as I was
too I I'm um nothing to me is more um
spectacular than the realization that we
are made up of these little tiny cells
many different types but that the
neurons essentially govern our entire
experience of life it's just amazing um
well that's quite a journey from uh the
Amazon to uh well this table and and
much and much more of course um thank
you for sharing that uh so you grew up
in a uh let's call it a plr environment
the Amazon at least from the pictures
I've seen very um let's talk about plant
Botanicals and um the idea that maybe
plants for lack of a better way to put
it have a certain intelligence or a
composition that is not random with
respect to our interactions with them
right uh you described how agriculture
in some places has evolved to include
and ensure the different macronutrients
and essential amino acid intake even in
the absence of animal proteins you said
the pumpkin or the squash the corn and
the beans um what are your thoughts on
Plants perhaps from the Amazon but
elsewhere um too and their capacity to
have things in them um chemicals that
can be uh good for us at the level of
the gut but perhaps at the level of the
the brain or other organs as well yeah
how do you think about plants these days
so the first thing you you you mentioned
there like uh intelligence right I mean
I don't know like if that exact
terminology applies but I I do like this
word wisdom because it's reflected uh
experience right and I said reflected
experience because somehow we are uh
going over the
experience and plants have been many
more Millions years of age on Earth than
any other animal right therefore they
have had way more time to actually
experience the ground so to think that
they they don't know what is going on um
I think it's a little bit uh perhaps
naive is the word I went to um the the
the main Court of the
uh these Mayan um ruins of kopan at the
junction between Honduras and uh
Guatemala uh this was a very special
city of the of the Mayans and in the
main Court you see like all of the EST
Stellas which are like the main uh
stones of the of the kings of several
dynasties and at the top of one of the
uh the the the stairs of on these
pyramids there is this giant uh
SAA uh tree which is like 650 years
old something like that so that tree was
there before the spers uh landed in
there when the um Mayans perhaps were
still celebrating things or perhaps
right after right so imagine how much
information that a organism has in there
and we will be able to just tap somehow
into that information like
climate uh
fluxuations organisms interactions
movements I mean like so many different
things right like that right now I don't
think that we even have the the language
of being able to understand at the
organismic uh level of how much
information that is stor in one single
one of those organisms but then think
about uh a um uh a chloroplast for
instance or like one of the
photosynthetic uh organel inside of the
the the cells uh how is it that they
have been shaped for hundreds of years
in those organisms right um and I think
that perhaps in the
future uh this is more of a Sci-Fi right
now but perhaps in the future we we will
be able to harvest that type of wisdom
we will be able to understand a lot
about the uh about the the place or the
Earth that we live in that's Point
number one uh Point number
two is that this plants have been
interacting and we have been interacting
with plants for hundreds of years right
and obviously we are a consequence of
the environment right like here driving
in in La uh or driving in a major uh
City uh for some of us is just like
second nature right but if you go into a
jungle then all of a sudden it will not
be the same thing right but for somebody
that has been in the jungle for hundreds
of years now all of a sudden they are
able to describe with such a sensitivity
of like how it is that the the the
jungle is uh the makeup of the Jungle is
in there I've seen uh Native people
walking through the jungle without shoes
and right before for stepping on a leaf
stopping and then pointing out like look
underneath that leaf and then like
lifting it out and then a tarantula
right there like how do you even uh make
sense of that like I don't have the
sensory acuity or the wisdom to be able
to figure that out uh but they do right
and certainly that is a is is just a
level of um sensory perception that uh I
am not equipped with uh but I do think
that there's quite a bit of that
interaction in there to learn and then
of course not only for food but also for
medicine for textiles uh and for many
other uh
functions uh these plants have been part
of the ecosystem of how these people
navigate uh their world all the way from
making a canoe to uh making a backpack
to carry a fish from the river into the
house right so how do you think we
evolved food choices and flavor
preferences I imagine humans you know um
that existed long before
us being hungry the gut starts rumbling
and there are all these plants
everywhere and some nuts and some
berries and things and so they had
presumably no choice but to consume them
and decide at the level of the the mouth
like that's bitter no that's not good
maybe eventually cook those and see if
that changes the relationship yeah I'm
thinking raw Acorn versus cooked Acorn
you know yeah um but that ultimately
there was a lot of trial and error and
that these neurop pod cells which surely
existed for a very long time prior to us
played a key role in Discerning what's
in these plants barks Roots nuts berries
we're setting aside Meats for the moment
and other animal proteins and making
decisions about what's nutritious what
is safe what is not safe and that's a
pretty complex process given that some
things might taste okay go down okay but
then you run into serious trouble later
but given the critical importance of
ingesting sufficient amounts of
macronutrients and the need for
micronutrients to survive on a
day-to-day basis much less reproduce
propagate one imagines that you know
this is like almost as essential as
breathing you know and that and that
this
path of in our nervous system of the
neurop Pod cells to the brain for sake
of decision making of yum yuck or
me is perhaps one of the most important
core functions of the nervous system
once you get past the elements that
control breathing heart rate um you know
temperature regulation things of that
sort I see it is some among the senses
it's at least as important as vision and
perhaps more in terms of making sure
that we survive from dayto day that's
correct and uh here's where I think that
is a large vacuum in
biology uh if I will be with my
biological my training in biology if I
would put my my hat of the training in
biology I wouldn't be able to explain
much of like how is it that we figure it
out because uh even if you just go to a
Botanical Garden here uh in you know in
the city I will be really hard to figure
out um you know what plant is for what
right yeah what safe to e what safe to
eat not you know uh maybe like the Coti
you are able to figure that out by touch
right so from the biological perspective
I think that there is quite a bit in
there to explore and to learn there is
some very interesting work from the
anthropological perspective so
anthropologists and ER
ER botanists that were studying the
plants um were exploring the jungles not
only the Amazon uh but Borneo Sri Lanka
and so on and so forth and studying the
interaction of native people with the
plants and if uh going through the
literature that
literature there is a pattern that
emerges and like uh the native people
they talk about how it is that they
actually learned from the plants that
the plants were the ones that were uh
teach them you know so that's why I said
from the biological perspective like how
can we make reconcile that uh I think
that there is still quite a bit of uh to
learn what does that mean to to learn
from the plants I mean there's something
that intuitively makes sense uh and when
you say that I've heard about um you
know looking at plants as teachers about
the local environment you know when
they're open right they're light sensing
when they're closed um but you know in
terms of trans ating some of that to you
know how humans have learned to navigate
given environments navigate meaning you
sort of thrive in those environments um
how do we go about that does it mean
taking plants grinding them up and
figuring out the constituent parts or is
that too reductionist is that going to
leave us with a parts list that doesn't
mean anything sort of like if I split
out all the pieces of a a car or an
airplane um in front of us it doesn't
really tell us anything about that
except what parts make up the thing that
flies yes and that's why I said like
this is more on the anthropological um
studies that have uh you know especially
from scientists that have gone there
learned the language leave with the
natives as natives you know and then
start to understand the dynamic of uh
their culture and their
interactions um then that's when like
for instance uh how it is that they
classify uh plants the way that they
classify plants is like several levels
more richer than our classification our
our scientific classification by um the
two name system or the variety right
like for instance they take into account
not only the the flavor but also the
shape uh the
location uh how they uh interact over
the year how they react over the year uh
for instance there's this beautiful
plant that
um people call it a the lips plant I
don't know if you have a very if you
Google it you will see it uh it's like
lips literally like lips it has like
these red beautiful lips like uh the the
the plant just looks like lips um and
then people use it for uh pain for some
rashes skin rashes and also like in some
rituals and like most of these plants um
the the way that the natives interact
with the plants is in a sacred uh level
you know there is this respect for the
plant right um
so yeah I think that uh biologically I
think that there is quite a bit in there
to um understand and explore and Define
I do agree with you that like just
thinking about grinding it up and like
just putting it in a in a t perhaps is
to uh reductionist it could be a
beginning of a understanding but it is
reductionist seems like nowadays in the
field of bioed research and clinical
research that there's a lot of interest
in uh plant-based
psychedelics um you know LSD from Urgot
and
psilocybin
mushroom um and so on and so forth
iasa iboga um so it seems like science
and plants have merged at that level in
terms of clinical implications of course
there are entire fields of plant biology
that are extremely important I think
most people probably don't realize this
but a lot of what we understand about
circadian rhythms
grew nope pun intended out of our
understanding of plant circadian rhythms
first and then it was translated to
mammals your beautiful work by Steve Kay
and and others um seeing the circadian
rhythms in leaf opening and orientation
of the whole plant and and other
features of plants that are mirrored by
the changes in um arousal level in in
mammals including us which is why I'm
always telling people to get sunlight in
their eyes early in the day and to avoid
bright light um in the evening and night
time um so what are your thoughts on
Plants as a source of medicine
psychedelic or
otherwise I think that uh well
traditionally that's where medicine was
um developed from I was at uh the Oxford
uh botanical gardens uh last year with
the family and uh we went into the
gardens and they have a beautiful garden
was established in 1621 I think was the
first uh Botanical Gardens in England
and they have a beautiful uh medicinal
plant collection and there was this very
humble uh a um uh what little sign with
a description in there uh that said in
there that about 80% of medicine it
still comes straight from Plants really
yes uh and if you think about it uh it
kind of makes sense right like because
you know when we think about like the
the medicines that we have been able to
develop which have been phenomenal for
especially for certain chronic
diseases uh but we don't have like a
broad uh repertoire uh of it right um so
I think that has
been obviously a great Advance um in in
our society that we have been able to
identify the molecules uh synthesize the
molecules package the molecules render
them by available in a specific sites uh
and I think that when we are able to
couple that with the rest of the
molecules that the plants through their
I keep saying their wisdom because
somehow they develop their ability to
have not only one molecule but like a
combination of other things that will
provide the full experience of of the
plant right uh for instance uh Gera
mattive you know it's not only caffeine
right because it's very different than a
shot of espresso you know if you take
the whole thing uh it not only gives you
energy but it gives you a full range of
experience that is specific to the
yamatic which is a is a leaf right yeah
it's a distinctly different um sub
subjective experience than coffee and I
I enjoy both coffee and espresso and yum
mate you um were the one who introduced
me to gu guayusa which is a is a causing
of jate because jate is parensis WUSA is
elix WUSA and it's not as bitter as mate
but it has uh almost as much caffeine as
coffee and it has antioxidants and other
uh compounds um which give you this very
smooth uh experience so natives in the
in the in the Amazon they take uh a
drink of a WUSA every morning uh around
4:00 a.m. between 4 and 6:00 a.m. they
they wake up early they actually call it
yes like Joo willink early yeah some
people understand that joke he wakes up
every morning3 A.M he post a picture of
his of his Casio watch yep and he's
already training 4:30 so no no guay Uso
required for
Joo and
uh they call it the WIA opina
Ura the hour of the WUSA and is a
ritualistic uh drinking of the WUSA in
the morning and where they talk as a
family of the issues that they have had
the the days before or the week before
like either with other communities
within the family if they have to
reprehend or repr uh one of the children
or talk to them about like some mistakes
that they're making and then they plan
the the full day of activities uh by
drinking uh
WUSA and uh around 5:30 because they
will boil the W USA right and they keep
boiling the W USA and they just keep
adding uh water to it uh and then around
5 5:30 then they will have what is
called um the is a bowl of um
CH and Cha is this
H Palm date uh very rich in lipids and
fibers uh so they will have the WUSA
because the W USA they say that gives
them energy it heals uh any any pain uh
it shuts down appetite so they will eat
at like 3 p.m. you know shuts down or
modulates appetite as does your brma
those one of the more potent effects
actually of of mate and guayusa is a
mild to moderate appetite suppression
and then if you combine that to Cha
which gives you the lipids and then it's
like a full meal for until 3 p.m. and
then you they go on a work in the in the
fields interesting so they're
essentially starting the day with
hydration caffeine and then they what in
some circles they call Fat fasting
meaning consuming lipids in order to
Stave off hunger I mean so highest
density source of of of calories among
the macro macronutrients and is a
vegetable um based diet I guess right uh
are they a healthy culture do they live
a long time uh I am not
uh and I should probably do more reading
that I'm not well educated in what are
the um studies that have follow up uh on
the ER you know and the healthy status
of the community but what I can tell you
is that uh at least colloquially I will
say that the diabetes those type of
issues are not as prevalent but they do
have obviously through like social
exposure they have other things you know
yeah fascinating um this morning ritual
of um conversation about family and
culture and what's needed planning the
day um we had on this podcast as a guest
Dr sain Panda who is um at the sulk
Institute for biological studies often
known for his work on intermittent
fasting Tim restricted feeding but also
um has done beautiful circadian biology
and he talked about um the use of
Fireside Chats um not the sord on stage
but you know uh gathering around fire at
night um is something that has existed
in many cultures where people reflect on
the previous day and discuss issues
social and work issues and sort of
dissect what's happened and talk and um
it's about um building and repairing
relationships um sounds like in this is
it a what is this group is it a rural is
this a yeah native Native Community
because there are like about 70 or so
communities that have been uh documented
in uh in the Amazonia with their own
language with their own traditions and
uh many of them share the same uh type
of traditions and if you think about it
like a podcast is a one way of an
evolution of that conversation right
like where we can have this extended
conversation and get this uh the more
primordial things the ones that we have
them in the prefrontal cortex right away
and like discuss about like well you
know this discovers this identifications
but then we get to the the part of like
what does it mean for the whole
Community yeah there's um doing there's
reflecting and then there's um resting
and recovering right and there is
something about like leaving that for
the next uh generation right you know
yeah passing on of lessons better learn
from the mistakes and success of others
if you can as you go forward very
interesting um if we could I'd like to
now return to the biology the nervous
system absolutely um and thank you for
that Voyage Through uh some of your
background um in Ecuador fascinating I
um doe for a mug of guayusa um sometimes
I'll mix the two the loose leaf yerba
mate and the guayusa um and as you said
what's how does he feel I really like it
um most of the time it's loose leaf
yamate or cobu yamate um it's um but
sometimes I'll mix in the GU guayusa
leaves um and what I do like as you
mentioned is you can continue to pour
water over them for many hours and it
tastes different as the time goes on and
my guess is you're extracting different
things from it in different
concentrations as time goes on I realize
it's not a precise science you know it's
it's interesting today we're talking
about very precise neurons and methods
of tracing neurons and spe sensing of
specific Amino acids and lipids at the
level of the gut then we're also going
to um more
macroscopic uh View kind of a broader
scale view of the plants having many
things that um need to coexist in um in
certain ratios that the plants have
evolved to create for us um so we're
sort of straddling both both ends of the
of the Continuum and if I could fit in
their story I not long ago I visited a a
friend a native friend in um a in a
nearby by town and he produces some of
the best uh chocolate uh what I say in
the planet you know because actually um
uh the plants of theobroma cacao it was
recently documented there was a paper in
science not long ago that it was
domesticated in Ecuador in near uh where
I grew up uh and uh they have done some
tracing and genetic tracing and um so he
produces some of the the best chocolate
like literally like he harvested in
there and then he roasted grinded and
then he prepared uh for us in there and
he the Swiss are saying well the
belgians right are claim the best
chocolate but now we know e Ecuador is
the place for the best chocolate I think
I just got a lot of Swiss and belgians
angry at me for saying that but um it is
do they have a very dark variety I like
the extreme dark varieties you know 95%
even even 100% chocolate if it comes
from a really quality Source can be
absolutely delicious it's like milk
straight from the cow right like and
what he did is like he said like uh
Diego you you have to try it um with
WUSA and he mix uh the chocolate with
WUSA as a as a drink a like as a drink
boy like that will give you wings you
know guayusa hot chocolate yes and
uh and it's a very smooth experience
right like you're mixing this tea which
is for energy with uh chocolate you know
of the best quality so we're not talking
about eating chocolate and drinking tea
we're talking about about melting the
the chocolate in the in the GU in the
guayusa it was something like Wonder
hour kind yeah know of course I couldn't
sleep until like 3:00 a.m. I think right
there's something to do maybe this is
why these um these groups drink the
guayusa so early in the day that's right
yeah and I have to imagine I would need
caffeine at 4:00 a.m. 5 a.m. otherwise
I'd be falling back asleep so yeah um so
back in the gut and nervous system um in
particular within the brain we haven't
talked about the brain so much so the
information from the gut is is sent via
these neurop pod cells up to you you
mentioned the noo ganglion such a a cool
name for a brain um an a ganglion in
this instance is an aggregate of neurons
so it's a like a batch of neurons that
then send a connection into the brain
what what brain areas do they send to um
and maybe we could describe these by
name but also by function what what they
generally resp are responsible for and
uh probably should be prefaced with
ultimately will go to the entire brain
right everything ultimately connects to
everything it's like Google Maps
everything connects to everything but
but what are some of the primary uh
recipients of that information the
um first hubs into of sensor integration
are in the brain stem you know um
and for instance the nucleus tractus
solitarius is in a specific region
within the the brain the Cal is one area
and and NTS for those that don't know is
involved in regulating hunger and
appetite that's correct um other
functions perhaps but like for instance
um that seems to be an area of sensory
integration for nutrients and when we
say drives hunger or appetite sensory
integration for nutrients I mean what
would be great is if you know people
could understand you know the the
language of the nervous system is
chemical and electrical so when these
neurons are active um we tend to Crave
certain foods you know seek them
literally go to the
refrigerator among the different choices
go to that thing and select that and put
it into our mouth so so presumably it's
driving um reward systems motor systems
I mean it um what we call hunger and
appetite is really a kind of a a domino
effect of a lot of different brain
circuits do we know whether or not the
um uh nucleus tractus solitus um
projects to the areas of the brain
involved in dopamine release and craving
uh yes uh and there has been some
elegant work uh from several different
uh neuroscientists in this area like
tracking the the
circuitry uh from there onto many other
uh different areas the hypothalamus for
instance very basic behavioral fun
functions um and the the stum where
there is dopam dopamine release and then
there is this pleasurable sensation and
reward uh there is several other areas
in there that are involved in this uh
sensory
integration uh there is quite a bit of
work still to be done from specifically
from uh the neurop pods there is like
some evidence that they are connecting
directly to um or there are if you put
two papers together is obvious that
there connecting to like some of these
areas of dopamine release uh basal
ganglia in the in the in the brain um
and that's why they're causing this
reinforcing uh effect like in the
lateral hypothalamus and uh other other
areas I do think that
ultimately um there is quite a bit of a
gap in like different regions of the
digestive tract like we today we just
talk about the esophagus right like the
esophagus I think that is still
there is a little bit of work uh perhaps
I think that Steve liberis has worked in
that in that area another great neuros
scientist uh doing some uh very fine
detailed work in sensory biology uh in
esophagus uh there is quite a bit of
Mis lack of uh precise biology in how it
is that the esophagus specific cells of
the esophagus are inated or like making
sense of the environment and same thing
for the stomach and how it is that
ultimately each one of those regions are
fitting into different regions of uh the
brain uh even then how each one of these
valves I'm fascinated by the each one of
the valves that we talked earli on like
um the gastroesophagal uh sphincter or
the pyos or the oscal junction yeah we
should um illustrate for people I'm not
an expert in the gut by by any means but
what Dr borquez is referring to is that
you know the gut as it extends from the
mouth to the rectum is not just a series
of tubes of different uh diameters uh
but rather they have valves Chambers and
these sphincters that cut off you know
everyone hears the word sphincter and
they always think oh you know anal
sphincter and then they ah you know it's
like you know Elementary School uh
Middle School humor but but sphincters
are they they literally can close and
open to varying extent um in order to
allow um passage or prohibit passage
from one compartment to the next such
that the um certain things can take
place over time in one one region like
the esophagus or within the stomach or
you know before passing to other um
other Chambers and so I hear you saying
that critical processing is happening at
each of these Chambers the sphincters
are determining how long that processing
occurs and that distinct sets of neurop
pod cells are likely detecting distinct
of qualities and quantities within the
food chemical qualities and quantities
within the food and relaying that to the
brain that's correct and here's
something that since we're getting into
the future of uh of this
area uh and while there is not direct
published evidence yet I think that is
going to be a a fun
area um so the gut as the brain also
generates these electrical patterns
those electrical patterns um change
depending on fasting versus feeding and
circadian rhythms probably can realize
jetl the God is asking you for a burger
at 3:00 a.m. and your brain is telling
the God you know can you please go to
sleep
right um so these electrical patterns
these electrical waves that are going
into um that are uh being propagated by
the gastrointestinal tract there are
like several different cells like the
ENT neurons are coordinating these these
cells there are also these uh in
interstitial cells of
kahal so uh Santiago ramoni kahal uh the
greatest neurobiologist of all time
that's right it was named after after
him he actually has I think it's like in
the second volume of his classic uh book
on the uh histology of the nervous
system one of the last figures talks
about like the inovation of the v in the
in the intestine so I'm beautiful for
those that don't know kahal um shared
the Nobel Prize with Camilo Gogi in 1906
they together um developed tools and and
mapped the uh structure of the nervous
system and and it's fair to say that
kahal had Supernatural levels of insight
into the nervous system he looked at the
nervous systems of so many different
animals um in dead specimens the the um
the the joke even though it's not funny
is that many animal species entered his
laboratory very few walked out um but by
looking at fixed specimens under the
microscope and then drawing them in you
know select elements within them
essentially came up with most of the
major hypotheses about how the nervous
system works not just its structure but
neuroplasticity the failure of of
mamalian central nervous system neurons
to regenerate this is why after
traumatic brain injury or stroke there's
often loss of function that doesn't
recover sometimes it recovers but um and
that people who have injuries younger
and can recover certain functions
everything from the direction of
electrical flow through the nervous
system all from looking at tissue that
was not alive no electrophysiology no
behavioral experiments just just raw but
incredible Supernatural seemingly levels
of intuition and insight amazing yes
there is a some quote in uh one of his
books that when he got invited to uh one
of of his friends to England I I don't
remember remember he was a he was a
famous neuroscientist at the time in the
late 1800s that who had helped him to
expose um his work to other audiences
you know and invited him to to England
so he said in there that it took like
three months to go to that podcast right
like it was a three-month trip trip so
he said that he brought his
um microscope with him with him and in
the in the room he will be able to do
some of these uh uh observations yeah
peculiar guy also known for carrying a
very heavy iron umbrella in order to do
physical exercise on the way to the lab
he was a he was a very very fit physical
specimen also um reportedly reportedly I
don't know which uh pick it pick which
one um a pretty Gruff person not
terribly Pleasant uh to be around ran a
tight ship um but in any event um so the
cells of the gut are named after some of
them are named after kahal interstitial
cells ofal there you just got a a waltz
into um uh into some Neuroscience
history but critical history so they
they have this emanating uh electricity
right and uh so far these uh and it
seems like the the sprinters modulate
the emanation of this electricity oh
like a like an instrument it it's um and
you probably think like that because the
intestine and maybe here we get a little
bit even deeper into this and I uh read
some work from a
philosopher uh in the UK who was and I'm
going to paraphrase it very largely you
know so please don't quote me but it's
some something along the lines that uh
if we are what we eat the place where
food becomes us and we become food is
should be the intestine right because
that is where food is actually absorbed
right so that is a is a very fascinating
Point number two is that the food enters
us at a
frequency that it will modulate the
entire body
right therefore like the the body H
through these electricity these
electrical waves should be in sync with
also the electricity of the entire uh
nervous system so I think that here's
where in the future I think that there's
going to be a fascinating realm of
understanding how it is that these waves
of the body and the Brain uh are
synchronized with each other uh because
as we know like for instance sometimes
um when we don't uh we're hungry we
become hungry you know like uh we become
irritated by the fact that we don't uh
have food and perhaps is this dissonance
in the emanation of the electrical waves
between the digestive tract and uh the
nervous system so I think that that is
that's just like one of the one of the
Realms um of
how it is that the brain is connected to
the gut at a more uh organ to organ
level to be able to make us function
ultimately right because um that's how
we are integrating the outside world the
food into our entire system so we can
maintain the entire organism well
certainly our level of alertness is
linked to our level of anticipation and
a lot of our food anticipation
um impacts our levels of arousal AKA
alertness so as you mentioned in the
we're di we're a dial species so in the
middle of the night it's unusual to get
hungry right A lot of these pathways are
shut down digestion is happening at
different rates and um typically our
appetite is greater during the day than
it is in the middle of the night that's
right um but in addition to that you
know it makes good sense to me that what
is going on at the level of our gut is
going to tell the brain did we get
enough nutrients from the previous day
are we in a place of abundance um
there's also the psychological aspect of
gut sensing um and we haven't really
touched on that what are your thoughts
as both a scientist and a human with a
with a gut brain axis on this notion of
a kind of gut intuition you meet certain
people and it sort of relaxes and warms
you and you want to get to know them
more other people for whatever reason um
you just feel like I don't know
something doesn't feel quite right that
we can sense things at the level of the
body that inform our brain um and no one
really understands that process yet but
we do know that the vagus nerve which is
a you know multi- uh pronged pathway big
pathway it's probably its own major
branch of the nervous system really um
is is sending bidirectional
communication between brain and body and
presumably when we're around somebody or
something that doesn't quote unquote
feel right
the Vegas is
involved um a few interesting things in
in that area uh I mean in the work of uh
Carl Yun talks talks about it about the
subconscious and how it is that we're
accumulating all of these experiences
that we have been uh passing through in
life is not that they are not a store
anymore it's just that they are back in
the subconscious right and then
ultimately they become part of this
so-called intuition right like we have
this G
feeling that uh and
[Music]
um if we analyze um some of the
languages I think that I've in past
people have told me in so many different
languages that uh there is this phrase
for God feelings in so many like for
instance in I think Portuguese is fre of
the barriga you know like cold in the in
the in the stomach you get a cold uh in
Spanish we call it a pre sentimento like
a
preeing you know or pre yeah pre
sensation or feeling it will be more
feeling if you translate that as if it
arrives first yes before you're able to
articulate it right so uh there is this
storage in the entire body that gives
you like a depending on the context it
gives you a certain type of uh feeling
right and that's why we talk about uh
intuition
uh there's also like this this other
aspect of
um how it is that
food
synchronizes that
intuition uh it seems to synchronize
that intuition among two or more people
because if you think about it we have
this ritualistic way of uh serving
something when we we we commonly say or
colloquially say let's go for a cup of
coffee and often what we mean is let's
go and talk about business the future
resolve an any issue but we're talking
about the cup of coffee and we have to
share and people I think that there are
some psychologist that have run some of
these uh studies in which they say that
if um the food that that we eat is more
alike we are more likely to to connect
at least on the moment right so there is
this aspect and that's why we share you
know the food interesting so is the idea
that it's the actual chemical
constituents of the food that's creating
a a common experience that then allows
people to bond more readily or is it
that the um the specific constituents of
the food are actually driving bonding
per se I mean it yeah and we go back to
if we are what we eat then if we eat the
same thing we should be more alike to
each other right that's why you know
like in communities uh you share the
food in fact uh in like if you go into
certain uh specific uh communities you
pass around uh the food you pass around
the the drinks you know and is a it's
very common to share right yeah and
certainly in romantic bonding um there
are many factors of course but um the
kind of uh more basic functions of food
sex and sleep represent the common
places of
bonding initially right and conversation
of course and values Etc right not to
dismiss any of those they're essential
as well but in terms of you know um
feelings of safety that's right feelings
of um communing with somebody right the
these very basic biological functions
yeah and in business too right like
people there has been a studying like
behavioral uh Economist they talk about
how it is that business are more likely
to happen when they are like made over a
food or launch or things like that right
like there's this synchronicity in the
decision making
and here is a a third uh dimension on
this area that it has not been uh well
explored but I suspected in the near
future it will begin to be explored I
read a while ago a very elegant paper
from uh Walter
Canon uh so you may want to expand on uh
who Walter Canon was but uh one of the
uh found figures of the study of
physiology yeah autonomic phy physiology
right uh chair of physiology at Harvard
uh 1920s
1930s
uh author of the wisdom of the body you
know uh he has a paper or he published a
paper I believe in the
1930s it's called voodo
death um Voodoo death and I remember
when I found that title I was like oh
this is something to sit down and
dissect you know yeah good title good
title if you want somebody to read it
good title and he essentially the gist
of it let me see if I can uh if I can do
a little bit of justice but obviously I
will chop most of the details but um the
um the gist of the paper is that in some
observations in some native tries I I
believe it was in in Africa
that if uh a young people especially
young
youngsters uh if they were uh
frightened by a shaman that they will
not perform a certain thing a certain
task right uh they enter a level of
psychosis so to speak that could cause
death like the cast an spell right um
and uh that's why called Buu death what
Canon goes and describes is there is an
activation of uh the vus nerve and the
peripheral nervous system that is a
hyperactivation that is going through
the subal level of Consciousness and
that in some of these tribes uh that's
what at least that's what he explains
that is happening and I believe that he
did some experiments in um in some
animals but what he was saying is that
there is a hypertonic activation of the
peripheral nervous system when there are
these uh spells that are casted by a
member of the tribe that is in a higher
or more Superior more influential uh
position that if the other a uh member
uh especially if it is pair with
something right like if you say like if
you go outside and don't listen to what
I just told you and you see a black cat
those two things uh match together and
now you're hyperactivated right and
become superstitious about it but it is
what Walter Canon goes to explain is
there is a hyperactivation of the
peripheral nervous system obviously
there is probably more details in there
uh but the the the the paper um really
highlights an area of exploration that
we don't know about is a a threshold of
subconsciousness of the nervous system
how it is driving us to have
Superstition to uh Drive instinctively
to go and consume certain things things
or behave in certain uh in certain ways
right yeah so it's um it sounds like
it's par Association learning through
statements cognition but that's enacted
through the Vegas in order to control
the organs of their periphery that's
nerd speak for um if we hear and believe
that certain events will cause certain
changes in our
physiology they can in some instances
become capable of that eat this food on
this at this location and you'll get
sick eat this food at this location
you'll feel better cor and it's learned
Association there's not and ultimately
it's physiological but um it sounds like
it's subject to a lot of learning
effects as long as we're talking about
the Vegas I think it's a great
opportunity um to just mention that a
lot of people um understandably think
that the Vegas nerve activation is
always about calming of the nervous
system and indeed it's the N the Vegas
is um placed under the umbrella of a
parasympathetic um pathway but I think
it's very important for people to know
that both experimentally and clinically
if the vagus nerve is stimulated you get
exactly the opposite effect you get
arousal effects this is um commonly
known in Labs that do uh physiology of
different kinds um it's in the clinical
context people with depression are
sometimes treated with vagal nerve
stimulators and it certainly isn't
driving more sedation more depression of
the nervous system it drives alertness
and arousal so we have to I think make
sure that we looked at the Vega system
and describe the vagal pathway as one
that can both induce states of calm of
ease rest and digest as it's sometimes
called but also states of arousal and
alertness even fear and so I think of
the Vegas as a super highway of a bunch
of different Pathways with lots of
inputs and outputs that's highly subject
to learning and um indeed the Vegas can
slow heart rate you know down through
numbered things like long exhale
breathing earlier we were talking about
stress modulation something my labs
worked on extend your exhales that's
that's the most basic way um
physiological size two inhales followed
by a full exhale to lungs empty um these
are core physiological mechanisms known
to activate the Vegas and lead to
calming but the Vegas I I look at the
Vegas as kind of a uh including both an
accelerator of sorts accelerator based
Pathways in terms of arousal and and
breaks um and it and probably our basil
level of vagal activation reflects sort
of the RPM of our system how much are we
are we calm or are we humming at a
higher level of activity such an
interesting pathway such an interesting
area of the nervous system and we don't
really understand yet um even the the
major branches and pathways are just now
finally beginning to be understood it's
it's we're we're we're on um we're on
Virgin beaches yes and right now that I
I hear you uh bringing up the coming for
instance there is a branch of the vus
that inates the ear the inner ear you
know and that's why uh it is belief and
I think there is a little bit of
evidence out there that how a certain
music at a certain frequency will calm
you down because it is immediately like
brings uh the it starts to make the Vos
vibrate at a certain frequency yeah and
huming um has been linked to vasod
dilation which is associated with a
calming effect whereas activation of the
sympathetic arm of the autonomic nervous
system or the kind of what sometimes is
referred to as fight or flight but it's
involved in other things causes phasal
constriction and if you think about it
like in several uh religious practices
there is the humming right uh there is
the uh singing there is the sound the
sound plays a big role in running there
is a certain frequency that makes you
run uh make calms you more and makes you
run better you know is that right yeah
uh there is some evidence at least among
Runners that they prefer a certain type
of uh frequency for for the running
right so a certain uh pace of running or
breathing and the and the sound the
specifically the sound the sound of
their feet yeah no the sound of uh the
music like if you if you play a certain
uh certain music right and probably the
sound of their feet too right like it's
just that it has not been explored right
it's fascinating and you know so much of
what I think about when I think about
the nervous system is the fine grain
processing of you know of color of light
or what but when it comes to our
feelings of well-being our levels of
arousal sleep Etc it's the rather um I
don't want to call them crude because
they're really sophisticated they evolve
to be sophisticated but these um kind of
macroscopic signals like light coming in
in the morning has these you know long
wavelength and short wavelength contrast
that's what tells our brain it's morning
that's right it's the orange red blue
contrast even if there's cloud cover
it's the it's the difference between
those to um different qualities of light
that says it's morning and when the sun
is overhead you don't see that yellow
blue or orange blue red blue contrast
but you see it again at Sunset and it
informs so um it sounds like the
combination of specific chemicals in the
gut tell us this is good pursue more of
this and maybe even the place where you
found it is is a good place um as
opposed to and the opposite is probably
also true yes like that's an entire new
domain of uh the the Digest
the sensory system in the digestive
tract that we haven't even be to uh um
articulate it memory how do we remember
like what was that first meal like in
the ratat uh
movie from when we were children right
like it was very different like uh I
still remember like some of the very
simple humble meals that my mother will
make but it's just Priceless for me
right uh I whenever I go home and it's
like I I spec without asking sometimes
my mother uh will prepare those for me
and it's like it just brings you back
when you were that age right yeah the
memory system is tightly linked to taste
and smell there's no question about it
and then like the how it is that the gut
triggers that uh those Sensations or
further reinforces those Sensations we
haven't even begin to articulate and
when I said articulate because we don't
even have the language to refer to these
things you know that's why at the very
beginning we were talking of the in our
conversation about the axis you know and
uh that we don't say like the nose brain
the nose brain axis right like we just
went for what we had at that time and I
do think that the language will continue
to evolve for us to be able to
articulate more precisely more richly
more elegant more you know in so many
different uh ways how it is that um a
the organs communicate with each other
to make us who we are and in there um in
one of our papers uh we quoted uh these
uh beautiful passages from uh the book
Memoirs of by
stomach uh it was greeting in
1853 by a French by person by what it
says in the first page by the minister
of interior
because all of those who eat May read or
something like that and then on page 21
it goes to describe the dialogue between
the gut and the brain and it says like
that how it is that the gut communicates
to the brain with a
rapidity uh through uh these two sets of
electrical wires that communicate uh the
arrivals of the day as we may eat uh
with the Precision and rapidity to the
brain uh so the brain will make its own
uh feelings and um
Impressions and then he said that uh
when he talking from the perspective of
the stomach it says like when I grew a
morose like meaning I'm not working in
digestion then the brain also grew
irritable and petulant you angry angry
it's so interesting to look at Human
Experience from the directionality of
gut to brain rather than brain to gut um
that's right and and you know as I do
from time to time you know pay attention
to what's happening in the landscape of
wellness and mental health and physical
health a lot of what um you see out
there in terms of you know Highly
Educated people um who have thought very
deeply about how to navigate
decisionmaking and lots of different
domains of life and to do it in a way
that really honors the our own
individual preferences and needs needs
um people like Martha Beck I don't know
if you've heard of her but she exists in
the she has triple degreed from Harvard
um but has uh talked a lot about um
learning to sense one's way into and
through decisions through intuition that
is more of the body and is more of
particular brain circuits than our
analytic like you know pros and cons
lists um you know because pros and cons
lists and obviously important metrics
like OB Ive metrics like oh is this the
right salary the right location the
right you know dem you know all the all
the things that matter for decision-
making and we're trained in that in in
school in in the United States and in
many many areas of the world as well of
course um and that's critical but that
there's this other training there's this
other learning of self that can be
extremely useful and it almost always
comes back to body first then to
cognition and decision-making and I feel
like uh modern humans are are trying to
learn how to um run the the analysis of
Life decision-making through uh this I
guess more ancient axis so the again the
intelligence of these what used to be
called more primitive systems but I
don't think they're primitive at all and
talking with you today it's clear to me
that these are highly sophisticated
systems just as sophisticated as any
forbrain pathway involved in um
analyzing say like probability or
something and that's why I like to
highlight uh um
the example of having a nice meal and
having a nice conversation at the at the
at the same time you know if you go to a
nice restaurant and you have a nice meal
while you're having a nice conversation
and you pay attention to it then it
brings humility to your body to know
like how much your body is doing for you
to be able to just Express a tiny little
bit and having like some sort of like
highly intellectual sophisticated
conversation while you're able to put in
the precise amount of lettuce inside of
your mouth and chew it in the right way
and like adjust it with a little bit of
water and maybe a little bit of wine and
understand what is cleansing your pette
and like you know putting down the the
napkin and so on and so forth uh without
going to the restroom every time that
you feel like going to it right there is
an entire sophistication of of the body
just to have something like as simple as
a catchup convers ation you know do you
think that our ability to sense into gut
sensing more um to really hear and
respond to the signals from the gut is
something that we can learn even as
adults simply by paying more
attention yes and I think that here's
the the concept that I usually uh you
know that uh when we talk about topics
like meditation you know is that
self-care and that self self-care is
listening to your own uh body right how
it is that the body is feeling like uh I
don't know you know I grew up in a my
mother will tell me like or you know
family will tell you if you feel like
going to the restroom uh and uh to pee
for a bio break uh don't hold it for too
long because it might be bad right like
and I think that just learning that part
of like listening to to the body is an
essential aspect it's just that we're
not constantly doing it over learning
about how we are moving our career
forward yeah so much of what we're
taught in order to um be high achieving
and forward moving in life um in modern
culture is about learning to override
the signals from the body but it seems
that um learning to listen to the
signals from the body is is key to being
a healthy human being yes and here I
have an example uh years ago I used to
run quite a bit um and I remember that
after I had ran a marathon uh I took a a
break for like a few weeks and then I
got back on the on the trail and I began
running and I was like you know I don't
need to warm up for three or four weeks
up to like get back into speed right and
I remember that I started to feel like
um that my right uh the soul of my right
food was a little bit like bothering me
like but like almost imperceptible and I
was like no you know you just can't you
just have to keep going you know and my
wife elain told me like H you know you
should pay attention take a break you
know and I just kept running and I
remember specifically that one time I
went to run and say like I can put I can
put in 80 miles that I think that I was
running at like 7 Minutes 7:15 a mile or
something like that and uh I began
running it and I I after a mile I was
feeling pumped you know uh two miles
three miles I was like and then I
usually will go and do four miles and
then turn around and come back I got a
mile mile four and I fell crack and I
couldn't not walk anymore uh there was a
hair fracture that is almost
imperceptible in an x-ray but Bo that
you cannot move your foot anymore I had
to limp for four miles all the way back
to the car uh because I didn't even have
my phone and I H never forgot that uh
for next time um you got to pay
attention to your body you know your
body is simply telling you like uh
something is a little bit off just don't
keep pushing it you know and I I
specifically remember because I kept
running and and I couldn't I had to
literally limp all the way back to the
car you know well Diego um I must say
that among the many things that you've
shared with us today and taught us about
the gut and its ability to influence the
brain um and the incredible things that
are happening at the level of biology
and physiology of the gut um Chief among
them is the message that we should all
pay more attention to our sensing at the
level of our gut and nowadays we hear so
much about the gut microbiome such that
fortunately I think most people are
starting to appreciate that the gut
microbiome is vital for all aspects of
health and that there are things that we
can do to feed that microbiome fiber
intake fermented food intake and so
forth but clearly based on what you've
told us today that even just paying a
little bit more attention to what our
gut is telling us at the level of
feeling Good Feeling less good because
the signs and signals are subtle I
realize can really help us make better
decisions and help us um decide not just
what foods to eat or not eat how much to
eat or not eat but um also how to
navigate higher order decisions if you
will um about who to spend time with
what to do what not to do moving along
the decision tree of life and along
those lines I I want to thank you for
making the decision to come here here
today uh I certainly um am happy that we
decided to do it it's something that's
been a long time coming I really see you
as one of the true Pioneers in this area
of trying to dissect the understanding
of the gut brain axis heal the brain
through the gut understand and modulate
our emotions uh at the level of gut
sensing and while there are other
researchers in this area um I refer to
you as a Pioneer because you've really
undergone this incredible trajectory
from the Amazon through nutrition
science into neuroscience and now we're
getting a little bit into psychological
science and I'm excited for what comes
next I only ask uh one thing which is
that as you make these discoveries that
you come back and talk to us about them
uh so that uh we can learn more about
your incredible work so Andrew I want to
say h a few things the first thing is
that I I feel deeply honored by uh your
invitation and thank you so much for uh
the opportunity I I am just simply uh
representative of uh the people that uh
work uh with me and uh work uh with us
you know I'm just an an ambassador and
they get the majority of the credit for
their dedication to help us understand a
little bit more uh of uh the body and
how it is help us to navigate the world
that we live in so I want to thank uh
you for the opportunity I want to thank
uh the people that have made this
possible also like um the people that
are along the way or the institutions
that are along the way uh have a help
fund this um Endeavor you know my home
institution at du I'm deeply grateful
because my career has developed there uh
and uh some of my mentors Roger little
Andrew mure and the people that have
helped me along the way and then finally
I want to thank uh you
uh and your your team uh and
congratulate you for uh the work that
you do and that you have created this uh
window for uh us to come and share with
the public uh some of the a little bit
of the the work that we do uh perhaps uh
some of that is uh is obviously is based
on uh evidence uh some portion of that
is thinking about the future uh but I do
think that through maintaining the
dialogue with the public uh that we can
continue to understand the world that we
live in and for that I I have to thank
you for uh having creating this platform
well it's a labor of love and I'm uh
honored to uh be able to do it and um in
no small part because I get to sit down
and have uh beautiful intimate
conversations about biology and life
with you so thank you so much thank you
thank you for joining me for today's
discussion about sensing with the gut
and the gut brain axis with Dr Diego B
to learn more about Dr bz's research and
also to see a link to his fabulous
podcast called the gastronauts please
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