Episode 02

Hello and welcome to The Better Biome Podcast, where we explore the universe within. There is a complex and mysterious community of microorganisms that lives in, on and around us, that has an impact on every part of our health. These communities are called you biomes, and we’re here to explore all the different biomes to help you and your family be the healthiest you can be. We’re your hosts, Dr. Nicole Beurkens —

And Kiran Krishnan, and we’re here in this lovely setting in downtown Chicago with an amazing view on the 20th floor, right? We can see the lake, we're surrounded by all kinds of wonderful biomes and we're here to lay down the foundation of why it is so important to understand and even maybe modulate the biomes around us.

You and I have been talking about this project for a long time and wanting to get this podcast out there, because while most people at this point are familiar with the idea of the gut microbiome, right? I mean people talk about that everywhere. You've been on a ton of shows and podcasts, talking about that. I have too. People don’t really have an awareness of things beyond the gut microbiome, and even when it comes to the gut microbiome. We feel like there is a lot of confusion out there of “What does that really mean, what do I need to be doing?” So, it’s really exciting that we’re doing this.

It is, and we’ve had a lot of awesome conversations just sitting at lunch together, for example, right? And I know in many of those instances, we were like, “Ugh, I wish we were recording this!” Because there are so many gems or “Biome Bombs”, as we call it, that we drop during these conversations. But ultimately, me being on the research and you being on the clinical side, I think there are two really interesting perspectives here. More and more we're coming to find out from the research side how intimate we are with the various biomes around us. And like you said, the gut microbiome is getting some good awareness but people don't really understand that the skin microbiome is completely different and the skin and the gut microbiome, of course influence one another, right? The oral biome is different. Your pet’s biome has an impact on the household, on your outcomes, on your mood, on your immune system. Of course, the biomes outside, the biomes in your garden, in your car, in your office — so we're going to address all of these things.

Some of it may even be controversial. It may break some molds, right? There are lots of things that I have come to discover and I've talked about on other podcasts that are kind of blowing people away like coconut oil, and how coconut oil may not be the best thing for your biome, right? So we're going to make those discoveries, I think, together. We’re going to illuminate all these things.

Well, and I think it's great because we're going to bring in some of the most world-renowned researchers and practitioners who are doing work around the microbiome and not only share with our listeners the science behind that, which is really important: You and I are both passionate about research, about the science piece, but also the practical piece because it's cool for people to understand what’s being done in the research realm, but I think what we're all looking for is how to apply that to our everyday lives. What do I do with that information? And so we’re really wanting to bring the science, but also the pieces of “Here is what you can take from this information and apply it for your health.”

Yeah, and what I love about the conversations we’ve had even personally is you’re practicing all this everyday, right? I mean you're treating children, you're treating children with difficult conditions and you are one of the few psychologists that actually focuses on nutrition and the biome. So it seems like you've had some really great success where other psychologists who may not have any focus on the biome wouldn't have had or didn't have that kind of success.

Well, I think we’re on the forefront of things shifting in medicine in general, whether we're talking about the physical aspects of medicine, the mental health aspects — which is still silly that we have that division, right? Thinking about physical health is being from here down, and then mental health being from here up and it’s really pretty ridiculous when you think about the fact that we know that we’re all connected. The brain and the body are totally connected. So, as a traditionally trained clinical psychologist, I was trained in things that were more going on in the mind and the brain part of it, and I've been doing that work now for over 20 years, primarily with children, teens, young adults, but also with adults and certainly with families. All the tools that I had in my toolbox for doing that kind of work certainly got good results with people.

But I began to see that there were all these missing pieces and one of those pieces was — well, wait a second, a lot of these patients who are coming in have physical health problems, particularly gut issues. You know, chronic constipation, diarrhea, migraines, blood pressure issues — all these different kinds of things and I just realized that — you know, this stuff seems to be really connected. It's not just a coincidence that all of these patients are having these things, which really led me down the path of exploring more about the connection between the brain and the body in terms of health, as well as how nutrition plays into that — not only looking at that for my patients but also for things that were coming up with my own kids. You know, I’m a mom of four and various challenges that we were facing there at home and looking at the role of nutrition, which really got me interested in the gut microbiome and how food and all of the things that we do from a lifestyle perspective influence the gut microbiome. So really many years ago now began implementing that, not just from a personal standpoint, but also looking at how that can help patients, which led me then to go get an additional degree in nutrition and integrative health.

But I think this is the new frontier of medicine in general, and particularly when we think about mental health — so much of what we've done in mental health has not been real effective for many of the challenges that face people today: Anxiety, depression, autism, ADHD — you name it. They’re all on the rise and we clearly need new tools and new ways of thinking about this and to me, the microbiome is the new frontier of helping us understand all of that and giving us tools for implementing that, so that's the stuff that I get really passionate and excited about as a clinician and that’s why I'm so excited that we're having the opportunity to share this with so many more people.

Yeah, and we can connect all the dots now, right? Because let's take autism, for example. That was thought of to be predominantly an issue of the mind, something is wrong with the development of the brain. But now we know that there is an autism gut. There is a very specific type of gut and dysbiosis within the autism spectrum condition. And then the autism gut can actually be tied in a correlative sense to environmental changes: What’s used in the environment where people are undergoing development or where people are having babies and so on. So, we can tie back all of these ecological changes to the ultimate phenotype or the expression of those changes, which is Autism Spectrum Disorder. So things are far more complex than we thought. It's not, “Well, you've got this condition. It’s this gene that's messed up and you’ve passed down this gene from mother to child or father to child and it’s because of that gene now that we’ve got this condition.”

There is an ecology involved in everything that’s happening to us. And what I like people to really understand, I’ve talked about this in a lot of other podcasts that I’ve talked about is this term called the holobiome. We have to rethink how we understand the human system. We had this very engineering-like perspective of the human body, right? We had all these mechanical components. We had the heart, the lungs, the brain, connected by soft tissue and neurons and muscle and skeletal system holding it all together, when really what we are, in essence, is a walking, talking rainforest, right? We've got this amazing, complex ecology inside us, on us, all around us. And we can trace back most chronic illnesses to some dysfunction in that ecology. I'd love talking to clinicians who have kind of understood that and are incorporating that into their practice. And through this series, we're going to talk to a lot more clinicians who do that, and it’s quite surprising, the kind of outcomes they have over just standard practice where you ignore the ecology and the biome.

Right. We’re understanding so much more about that now, and the cool thing is there really are — when we drill down to the nitty gritty of it, some pretty simple and basic things that we can do for ourselves and that we can do for our patients that make a tremendous difference in health outcomes. So while sometimes we may feel like the research is complicated or those kinds of things, getting down to it, there are some really simple things we can do, and I know that that's one of the things that you and I are really hoping to be able to share with people through this podcast, it’s the simple things they can do.

Yeah, and it’s simple things around the house, it's simple things with the things you keep at home, simple practices, simple food changes, simple dietary modulations that can have huge implications, right? And just through our conversations alone, we've come up with all of these things and we're just eager to share it with people because just a simple switch in one practice everyday can have a long-lasting impact. And with that in mind, maybe we should delve a little bit into the microbiome itself because maybe some of the listeners don't even really understand what the microbiome is to begin with, right?

I think that would be great, and I’d love to have you tie in there, sort of sharing a little bit about your journey with microbiome research and how you came to be doing what you're doing and how that surrounds the microbiome, you want to share with people about that?

That makes total sense. The microbiome itself is the totality of microbes and all of their genetic elements. So that’s an important thing that we might often ignore is the genetic elements that all of the microbes bring to our system. Because as it turns out, we’re not as cool as we thought we were, right? We always think of us as humans, we’ve created all of this amazing technology. We’re so evolved and we love classical music and fancy food — and look at those lower order animals out there eating dirt and doing primitive things. And yet, when you look at our genetics, we’ve got about 22,000 functional genes and although that might sound like a lot, to somebody who’s not familiar with it, an earthworm has about 38,000 functional genes. A rice plant has about 40,000 functional genes. So imagine that we are, from our genetic material, less sophisticated than the earthworm or rice plant is. That always blows people’s minds when they hear about it because then they go, “Well how is it that we do all the amazing things that we do?”

Well, as it turns out, we've got about 3 and a half million microbial genes in our system, and we use bacterial DNA to function as a human. So some of the estimates are that more than 90% of all our metabolic activity is coded for by the bacteria around us and not by ourselves. So we became the top species on the planet by incorporating microbes from our environment into our systems and creating this holobiome, this super organism. This walking, talking rainforest, if you will. Because of that sophistication in this ecology, we are human today. And if we want to continue to be human, we want to continue to function like a human, we have to respect, understand and of course preserve these amazing ecologies. So the way I got into it, actually, I knew I was going to be in medicine or health or wellness somehow. My mom is a medical doctor, I grew up in India and Malaysia where we get loads of biome exposure from everything around us. Wild animals running around and lots and lots of dirt and very little sanitation, but that’s good for you in many ways, right? So she had a few different clinics, and I used to always go in her clinics and watch her do things like stitch people up or fix broken arms, and I was really fascinated by everything she did and I was fascinated by the idea that she had all of this knowledge of how the body worked and how to fix it when it’s broken. And I was always that kid that never took anything for granted. I wanted to know how things functioned.

When I first moved to the U.S, I was about 14, and everyone was using this thing called a microwave, which was space age technology for a kid from India. I would always ask my friends, “How is that thing making your food hot in like 30 seconds?” Nobody knew, nor did they care. You just put it in, pushed a button and it’s hot. Nobody thought about it. I was like, “I’ve got to figure out how this works.” So that's the kind of stuff that I always got into, it was understanding the world around me. So I knew I was going to go into science, I got to college, I didn't know what I was going to study in particular, and thank goodness for Hollywood or we wouldn't be here today. So the first week in the dorms, there was that movie Outbreak with Morgan Freeman and Dustin Hoffman, and there was some Simian monkey virus that affected some town and people are dying, there are all these people in spacesuits running around, chasing this virus, trying to figure out a cure, and I was like, “That’s what I want to do. I want to track down Ebola and find a cure for it.”

So that's when I went in and I applied for the school of microbiology and fell in love with it, because I started to understand that there is this microscopic world we cannot see, we rarely are aware that it’s around us, but it controls everything. The invisibility of it and the fact that we ignore it for the most part, yet it controls everything. We think we’re too cool, but here comes a plague that can knock out 6 million people in a short period of time, if we look through the course of history. So I had this profound respect for microbes because of that understanding.

So my initial career was all about the bad microbes and finding cures for diseases and finding ways of testing and combating them. Then when The Human Microbiome Project started coming out with studies, you come to understand that we’re actually loaded with good microbes and they're really important for our health and function. So then I kind of switched themes, almost, in a way. Realizing that between 1 and 0.1% of the microbes ever discovered since the documented history of this, are actually harmful. So 99.9% of the microbes discovered are actually beneficial or benign. So the bad ones get so much attention but all of the vast majority of good ones that are doing important things for us everyday, they hardly get any limelight at all. I also sort of started to understand that the best way to control that 0.1-1% that’s bad is allowing the 99% to flourish. They do it better than we ever could. So then, it was both feet first for me into the whole microbiome world.

How did you start thinking about the microbiome and gut and all of that? I mean, you're classically trained as a psychologist, and even in the nutrition world, for most of nutrition training, I don't think they touch on the microbiome much, right? This is outside of your training.

Well, absolutely, and I think it was really through dealing with some health problems with my kids. Things like Eczema, some behavioral challenges, trying to connect the dots on my own by looking at the research and looking at what was going on, and then looking at certain sets of patients in the clinic too. You know I mentioned seeing kids and adults with not only certainly behavioral or mental health symptoms that they had in common, but also certain physical symptoms in going “Yeah, I don't really think that’s a coincidence that these people are presenting with these things.” And it really led me down the path of looking into the research and going, oh, there is this whole world of things that I had never received any training in that got a little bit of mention, certainly, in some of my nutrition courses, but we didn’t go in-depth with it.

And really realizing, wow, this is a profound part of who we are and yet nobody is talking about this. We don’t receive training in this and patients aren’t being given information. Seeing what a difference basic changes made, even in my own children, in my own family members. Things that had not responded well, or that we had kind of put a band-aid on with more traditional approaches, eczema, things like that, and realizing: Wow, when we address this from the microbiome perspective, things are shifting rather quickly and are staying better. So I think it was really a lot of trial and error, and it was on my own delving into the research and starting to listen to some people, even 10 years ago who were starting to talk about this. We kind of take it for granted, like, “Oh, the gut microbiome, everyone knows about that. It really has not been that long that this has been on the radar. 5 years ago, these kinds of terms that we're throwing around were really sort of like, “What is that, now?" Certainly, we're seeing more of a shift even in mainstream medicine, including mental health. Some papers are starting to show up in the research literature where this idea is being accepted and looked at, and those of us who have been looking at it for a while are like, oh, it’s about time that’s starting to catch up with what we know. So I think, for me, it's been sort of a combination of a personal and professional journey to understanding this. But I find it so fascinating. And as I mentioned, I really think this is the cutting edge. This is where we’re going in all aspects of health and wellness and medicine because it just makes sense.

It does. And in fact, here is another reason why it has to be the cutting edge, right? Because when we look at medicine and science and research — let's go all the way back to the days of Hippocrates in 400 B.C, he was considered to be the father of modern medicine. Whenever a doctor graduates from medical school, they take the Hippocratic oath with the idea of using the Hippocrates principles for modern medicine. Since that time, and all of the research that has been done. We're talking about trillions upon trillions of dollars invested into understanding our bodies, our disease states, how to combat it, what the causes are and all of that. All of that time we've been studying less than 10% of who we are, because more than 90% of all our metabolic function is coded for by bacteria. So we have just recently started tapping into that. All of these years of clinical research and scientific research and all of that, it's been focused on 10% of the human system. We’re finally getting into the other 90% and we’ve got a long way to go.

But even what we’ve discovered so far, which is by any estimation is the tip of the iceberg, is already so fascinating and is already so powerful. We have episodes coming up that are going to be about skin and the gut microbiome, right? Things on ACNE and rosacea and all of these inflammatory conditions of the skin, and it's kind of mind-blowing how simple some of this can be, right? On the vaginal microbiome, on nutrition and the microbiome, perspectives from gastroenterologists who are now looking at things like inflammatory conditions of the bowel from a microbiome perspective, and I think people are going to be blown away by what they're going to learn in terms of the effect that the biome has on our outcomes. And we can not overstate it.

No, and I think it's really profound that some of the health-related issues that have been the most complicated to resolve, things like MRSA and C. Difficile, some of the things that we hear about in the medical world that it's like these are becoming more and more prevalent and bigger and bigger problem and we don't have tools to resolve these. our antibiotics aren't working anymore like they used to. We're seeing the shift towards understanding the microbiome in that context and having some new tools, then, to treat these things that have been considered really profoundly difficult things to treat. It's all coming back to understanding that ecology within and around us and having a respect for that and understanding how we can come at that in a different way.

I love what you said, that the focus has really been on that very, very small percentage of bad microbes. I think from a practical standpoint, this is really a shift for our listeners and for people in the general population to make. We’ve been so indoctrinated into the idea that bacteria are bad, these microorganisms are bad, right? Bleach all the surfaces in your house and sanitize your hands! That's how we've been raised, that’s our culture, at least here in the western world, to keep everything really clean. You don’t want these microorganisms around, and yet what we’re really talking about is — Whoa, wait a second. We actually do. And we need to have a respect for the good and the bad and the balance of those, and a much broader understanding than just making sure that these things don’t exist anywhere in or around us.

Yeah, and actually, you brought up a really, really important word, that word “Balance”. I think when it comes to any kind of ecology, whether it's your garden or whether it’s the forest outside, or even in society, as a human society — balance is the key. And we’re coming to find more and more balance within the microbiome and all of the biomes is critical. Pathogens are normal inhabitants of our gut microbiome. Pathogens are normal inhabitants of our skin microbiome. We know that they exist and they are there. And in fact, it turns out they play very important roles when they are in balance. The moment that they are allowed to go out of balance, oftentimes, it’s because of things we do. Things that we don't even realize we're doing. Things we expose ourselves to, things we eat, things we put on our bodies, things we use in our house. We’re creating imbalance that allows them to take over and cause disease and problems, whereas, if we put ourselves in a homeostatic situation, if we understand what influences our various biomes and we maintain balance or re-establish balance, then so many profound conditions actually can be under control, and the simplicity is almost unbelievable in some cases.

I know that one of the things that we'll talk about as we move forward with the episodes is also some of the mistakes or misconceptions that we see out there about the microbiomes, about how we address those, how we get to that balance. They're sort of, as with anything, I guess you get a little information and everybody jumps on certain bandwagons, right? So the gut microbiome has been out there. A lot about that now. So we've got shelves now at the health food stores and on the internet lined with every probiotic under the sun.

And more is better!

That's right. All of these things, and yet we’re going to explore the facts behind all of that. What is helpful, what may not be helpful, why more may not be better — because I think in our quest to kind of grasp onto something and go, “Okay, what do we do about that?” Something like probiotics, it's like, "Oh, good. Okay. So this is an issue. I'm going to take all these probiotics all the time.” And while we certainly can appreciate where that comes from, we want to dig into that a little more, right? Just the misconceptions, the misunderstandings and really help our listeners to get a more factual research-based understanding of that and to just have a lot broader options for supporting balance of their various biomes beyond just probiotics or some of those types of things.

Yeah, and I think we addressed this in one of our times that we were sitting down and needing out about this stuff. There is a lot of misinformation out there, unfortunately. That’s the age of the internet, right? Anybody can get up there on the web and put up any kind of information, and unfortunately, if they do it in a really clever way with great hooks and all of that, we all just start reading it, following it, re-sharing it — so then it becomes the gospel of the time. And I think our focus is purely on the science. What does the science say? Where do we have research on things that make sense? Where are things not researched? I think one of the things we talk about is how frustrating it can be for people to not have a really solid source of objective, scientifically-validated information on the microbiome. Bandwagons are a million out there, and every opportunity that lots of entrepreneurs can get to make a few bucks on something new and exciting, they will do that. But many of those things aren't ready for its limelight yet. So we’re here at the better biome podcast to deconstruct all of that and show you where the science is, show you what is effective, what is validated, and what you should be wary of that really isn’t supported by science. So we want to establish ourselves between the research of my world, the clinical side of your world and bridging those gaps to begin with, but we want to establish ourselves as a place where people can come and get the real, objective, scientifically validated information.

We’re not going to talk about anything on here that doesn't have scientific backing. We wouldn’t make any recommendations, we wouldn't promote anything — this is really people getting a peak behind the curtain on the research and the clinical world of the microbiome and all the biomes around us, of course.

Right, and there is a lot of emerging research, some really cool areas where we’re starting to understand more. Might not be ready for primetime yet in terms of knowing exactly what to do with that, but we're going to talk about those exciting cutting-edge things and certainly share with our listeners as more information comes out about that. So yes, for people to really view this show as a place where they can get the information they need on what's established in the research, cool things that are coming next, and most importantly, just what we can all do.

Yeah, absolutely. And speaking of that. Maybe even in this first episode, maybe we can each give our listeners one tidbit that they can start maybe tomorrow. From your perspective and what you’ve seen work, what you think is an important things, and I can give them one tidbit that is supported by science that can affect their microbiome in a positive way, so that even with this very first episode, they can walk away with something that's going to have an impact, a positive impact on their life, and their outcome. Do you want to go first?

Absolutely. I think that's a great idea. One of the things I talk about a lot in my work with families is the importance of nourishing your body with good, healthy food. Our diet has changed so much over the last couple of generations, specifically, but certainly the food and the diet that we eat now is very different than our ancestors 100 or more years ago. While people tend to think about food as being related to their weight, you know, “I don't want to be overweight.” The reality is that food is information for our body in every way. It really determines so much about how we feel and how we function. We know that the food that we eat is related to our mood, how much anxiety and stress we have, how well we’re able to manage that, our sleep for our kids, their hyperactivity level, their impulsivity, all of those things. And when we're talking about the gut microbiome and health, food plays such a huge role. The food that we put in our bodies is not just feeding us. It's feeding the microorganisms in our body as well. So one thing that I think is really an important takeaways for people, is to think about that the food we're eating is nourishing not just us, but it's nourishing our microbiome, and not just our gut microbiome, but every biome on us and in us. To take that into consideration and think about the food that we're eating in that way.

So right now, people tend to eat a lot of processed foods, a lot of the families that I see coming into the clinic, children in particular, but adults too, eating a lot of packaged things, that when you look at the ingredient list, it's really long with a lot of words that you can't pronounce or understand. Not things you cook with in your own kitchen. Those are heavily processed foods, and we know that the chemicals and the kinds of not nutrient-dense ingredients in those types of foods, not only are not great for us in general, but they’re not good for nourishing our gut microbiome. So one of the simplest things that I think people can start doing is shifting towards what we would call more whole foods. So things that you purchase and cook and eat in the way that they actually are grown or on the earth. So fish and meats, nuts and seeds, fruits and vegetables and wholegrains in more of their natural form, as opposed to these heavily processed, packaged foods. When we do that, even if we make small shifts with that, I don't recommend — the starting point is not going into your cupboards and into your kitchen and taking everything out, especially if you have kids, don’t try to do that right away. But just to start to make a shift and to say, “How can we, as a family, start to incorporate more of these whole foods, these nutrient-dense foods? Because the fibers in those foods, the nutrients in those foods, they nourish not only us, but our microbiome, and help to create more of that balance that you were talking about. So to me, food is a critical starting point, and anything, any decision that our listeners can make to shift from even one or two processed foods that are standard in their diet to a more whole-food version of that is going to be a great starting point.

Yeah, and I love that idea and recommendation because the thing that influences the microbiome the most is what you're putting into the microbiome, right? The food, as you said. I think one thing you said that's really important for people to start wrapping their head around and kind of reframing their mind, is that we always thought about food and diet and all of that and being healthy from the weight perspective. And so, we might try to eat “healthy”. We try to eat healthier foods that we think are low-calorie and all that that won’t add to our waistline, but those foods aren’t necessarily feeding our microbiome very well. And that’s especially important with kids. I am even guilty of this myself, because when we’re thinking about ourselves as we get older, weight comes on easier, faster, so we become more conscious about not eating the processed stuff ourselves. But for the kids, they’re not struggling with weight for the most part, so they're running around, they're active, they don't really put on weight like adults do. So we're not as conscious about the processed stuff that they're eating because we think they can get away with it better from the weight perspective. But in reality, we’re causing damage to their microbiome, which has long-term implications. So that's a really, really, great tip.

So mine is also related to food, but on the other end of it, where actually, as it turns out, having a good portion of the day where you're not feeding the microbiome is also equally important, right? So when you are feeding the microbiome, giving it the right stuff — but we need some time throughout the day. Typically, at least 12 hours where we're not feeding the microbiome anything. That period of fasting is a very natural pattern in human physiology, and as it turns out, the microbiome has a fasting clock as well. It’s what we call a diurnal system. It’s got a 24-hour clock. and when we don't eat, there are actually microbes that proliferate in that environment, and increase diversity. They help us turn on genes that are called autophagy and mitophagy genes that go out and send clean up cells throughout the body. They clean up messed up mitochondria, they clean up messed up cells, messed up DNA, and they basically reset your system for you. That housekeeping kind of procedure can only occur when you’re not eating. So when you are eating, picking the right foods, less processed like you said, but also giving yourself enough time throughout the day where you're not eating. I personally fast about 14-16 hours everyday, and it has done wonders for me and it really improves the microbiome.

So two simple tips here for people to start thinking about, right? Try to figure out how you can add in a 12-14 hour fast. A lot of it can be done overnight, so it's not that hard. You could do 8pm to 8am, or go 8pm to maybe 10am and push it a little bit. I go around 8-9pm to about noon. But giving yourself that period of fasting actually really helps the microbiome, helps your overall health, your metabolic health and so on.

Yeah, and for children, they have a longer — or should, if they are sleeping the way they should be, which is a problem for a lot of kids, I mean if they're sleeping the amount that they should be, they have a nice, longer period of fasting because they're sleeping for longer periods of time. Younger kids and even up to 13-14 hours at night, and as they get older, 10 hours — hopefully at least 8! Our teenagers need that. So even though they are in those fast-growing stages, they're getting that fasting period if they're getting this nice stretch of sleep that they should be getting.

Absolutely. And I am just as guilty of this, we try to impose food on kids a lot because we've got these social structures of how we should be eating, right? “Have a snack, quickly!” Yeah! When my son wakes up — he's going to be 9 years old in a couple of months, he has boundless energy, there's no shortage of that. His brain obviously is working because he’s sassy, he’s “all get out”, as they would say. So he sleeps 9, 10 hours, and then he wakes up in the morning and we’re like, “Oh, do you want breakfast?” And more often than not, he doesn't. He’s like, “I’m not hungry, I don’t need to eat.” But you know, because of psychology and societal norms and others — we go, “You have to eat before you go to school!” Then we start to realize, wait a minute. His system is working so beautifully, we haven’t corrupted it to a point yet, where he eats when he’s hungry and when his body needs food. Other than that, he doesn’t eat. Even if it's stuff that he really likes. You could offer him a cupcake in the morning and he would go, “Nah, not really hungry.”

So we have to respect and understand that. In a couple of the episodes, we will really dig into this eating side of things. But those are two very simple things that people can do right off the bat.

And I think those are the kinds of things that we will be sharing throughout each episode, some take-aways. So while we're going to get into the research and we’re going to nerd out on that and have fun talking with our guests about that, we also are going to make sure that our listeners have these take-aways because that's really what we want for people, is to be able to take this and put it in action in their own lives, because we want people to be getting better and feeling better, and for their families to be feeling better as a result of this.

Totally! And we want everybody that's listening, our audience to become the beacons of hope in their communities. We want you to take all of this stuff that you're learning from The Better Biome podcast and make really fun dinner party conversations. Make really fun social conversations and teach your friends and family about the biome, and you will change their lives too. So everything that we’re going to tell you, there's going to be this practical component, like Nicole said. Those things, you're going to be able to go and share with the people around you, and they're going to love you for all of the things that you come and share with them that are going to impact their lives in a positive way.

Absolutely. I’m really looking forward to having these weekly conversations with you and with all of our guests. Absolutely.

Same here.

So thanks to all of you for joining us for this very first episode of The better Biome Podcast. Tune in next week to continue with us as we journey through the universe within.