Gut & Mental Health With Karen Jones

Nutritionist Karen Jones and I delve into the links between our gut and brain health and how our mood can be impacted by the foods we eat. If you meditate to lower stress — or as a respite for illness — or as a means to balance your nervous system and improve immunity, consider how improving your nutritional health might complement that. A must-listen for anyone interested in the mind-body connection who is looking for tangible solutions to implement today!

Transcript

Welcome to Finding Your Right Mind with me,

Vanessa Potter.

Today we are talking about nutrition and this is such a fascinating and huge topic.

We are just going to lightly brush the surface.

I am talking to Karen Jones about the gut brain,

Connection and so many links with our hormones and our microbiome.

And of course the vagus nerve which everybody is talking about at the moment,

This massive superhighway that flows through our body and connects everything.

And of course,

Finding Your Right Mind is all about the whole body,

The whole self,

How it all joins up.

And Karen and I discuss in great detail how it does connect,

How our mind,

How we feel,

Our meditation practice,

How all of this bleeds into and is totally connected with our gut and our nutrition and our views of nutrition and also how we can help ourselves.

So,

If you're interested in any of that,

Then listen on and we will tell you about how scientists are transferring fecal matter from one person into another.

Yes,

You heard that right.

If you don't know about this research,

It is utterly fascinating and we will be talking about all things food,

Nutrition,

Self-care and lots of brilliant things that you can do to help yourself.

Today I am talking to the wonderful Karen Jones.

So,

I think to kick us off,

Karen,

I'm going to just hand over to you and ask you to tell us all about yourself.

Oh,

Hello.

Hi Vanessa.

Well,

My name is Karen Jones.

I'm a registered nutritional therapist with BANT,

The British Association of Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine.

And I've been fascinated with natural health all my life.

And I've also been struggling with health challenges for a lot of my life.

I had a lot of health challenges as a child,

Took many,

Many antibiotics.

And as a result,

I struggled from gut issues and arthritic issues,

Energy issues in large parts of my life,

Especially after having children.

And then I had children who had eczema,

Had children who had asthma and going to just normal doctors,

Just given all the steroid medicines that they can give you.

And I thought there has to be another way.

So I started looking at natural medicine and visiting a natural therapist and actually cured both my children and cured myself.

And then I got really interested and thought,

Right,

I'm going to actually study this.

So the first thing I did was a degree in Ayurvedic medicine,

Which was the three year degree and also included some time in India in a clinic where I studied all the Ayurvedic medicine.

But it's quite hard to put that into practice in the UK,

And especially as a lot of the herbs that they use in Ayurveda,

Some of them you can't use them anymore.

So then I thought I'm going to study nutritional therapy.

And so I ended up doing another three year study into nutrition at a diploma level.

And then I did nine months just studying the microbiome with one of our lecturers.

And now I'm practicing as a nutritional therapist.

From my perspective,

I would always want to go and see someone who was actually experienced and knows the troubles and the problems that I'm bringing.

And we'll get to the microbiome and all that sort of fascinating area in a minute.

One of the reasons I wanted to do this self-care series was to approach the body holistically.

And that's why I wanted to talk to you because you get that.

So often we compartmentalize our whole selves and,

You know,

With meditators,

They just think about the mind.

I think it's so important that we look at our whole self and that's everything from,

Yes,

A meditation practice,

But it's also the yoga and movement practices.

It's the ethical framework we live in.

It's our support network.

And of course it's what we put inside our bodies because that dictates and informs so,

So much.

And I know we're going to talk about the gut-brain connection and that interests me.

And I know a lot of people because it joins up together,

Doesn't it?

Absolutely.

And I think that's where nutritional therapy is quite interesting because the tools of our trade are vitamins and minerals and food and lifestyle.

That's where we're,

That's where how we operate.

And if you just take something as simple as magnesium,

Magnesium is involved in 300 different enzyme reactions within your body.

And magnesium is going to affect the way your brain works.

It's going to affect the way your muscles work.

It's going to affect the way your digestion works.

And so we would give magnesium and see lots and lots of different changes in lots of different areas of the body because it's used all over the body.

And that's a perfect example of how it's a much more holistic way of looking at things.

Sorry,

Absolutely.

And I'm interested in nutrition.

I think it's something that we're all becoming a little bit more educated about.

If I think about what I knew about nutrition even five years ago,

Let alone 10,

It's so much,

And of course,

Mine's health informed.

In fact,

It's illness informed.

I had to use nutrition as one of those conduits to kind of heal myself.

So meditation was a major part of my practice,

But so was what my gut was doing.

I'm fascinated with this whole incredible period that the world has found itself in,

How that has affected your practice.

But in terms of the people coming to you,

The problems they're bringing is it,

I mean,

I'm wondering if it's more women or is it men?

And tell me what are the differences or the changes that you've seen over the last year?

Well,

I think more people are interested in nutritional therapy because more people are thinking about their health and becoming scared about their health.

Of course,

It's touched everyone.

Covid-19 has affected everybody and made everybody think about their health.

And of course,

If you're overweight,

You are now going to be a lot more scared.

If you're older,

You're going to be a lot more scared.

You're starting to see things in the press where the levels of vitamin D that you have in your body are being discussed in a sort of serious way.

And so people think,

Oh,

My goodness,

What is my level of vitamin D?

You know,

Should I check that?

And of course,

That's something that a nutritional therapist will do for you.

And so people are much more interested in optimizing their health.

And they know they everybody knows that what you put in your mouth affects your health.

But most people don't know how to personalize what they put in their mouth to optimize their health.

And that's what a nutritional therapist can do.

Absolutely.

And the vitamin D,

Tell us about that.

Well,

With the vitamin D,

What there's been quite a few studies now,

I'm not sure exactly how many but it's over 20 for sure,

Looking at the effects of vitamin D levels and Covid severity.

And there was one recent one done in Spain,

Where I think it was on it wasn't a massive group,

I think it was about 30 people,

But half the people that were had quite serious Covid,

They made sure they optimize the vitamin D levels,

And half of them they didn't.

And the half of the optimize it,

None of them ended up in the ICU,

Whereas in the other half,

Quite a few of them did.

And there's been another study recently that correlated the amount of UV light available in a daytime and Covid severity.

And that we saw that the upticks in autumn were completely linked to the amount of UV light within a day,

Which again,

Links to vitamin D,

Of course.

That's fascinating.

One of the downsides of lockdown is the locked in element.

And it's a battle I have daily with my children.

And in fact,

My husband,

You know,

Pushing,

Literally pushing them out of the door to get light.

And I keep saying light,

Light,

Light,

Light is everything to me.

It's not illumination of the day.

It has many more very profound sort of importance to me.

It's medicine.

So light is medicine to me.

I have a dose,

A fix,

I would use those words,

Of light.

Yes,

I mean,

As a nutritional therapist,

We're trying to optimize health.

And part of that is optimizing your circadian rhythm.

It's really important every single cell in your body,

Every organ,

Every everything about you has a circadian rhythm,

And you want to optimize that with the sun's light.

There are studies that show that if you work nights,

It has a detrimental effect on many,

Many aspects of your health.

And we think that's mediated through disrupting your circadian rhythm.

And one of the best ways to reset your circadian rhythm is to make sure you get natural daylight in your eyes in the morning.

That's interesting,

Because if you look at the school day,

My children are just screens,

All artificial light thrown at them.

And they don't have much choice in this until,

And I force them out at about three o'clock in the afternoon.

So that's a really note to me.

I'm thinking maybe in those little breaks,

I mean,

They get about 10 minutes,

I might just go and lock them,

Push them out the front door and lock them out for five minutes.

Yeah,

So I'm always telling my clients,

Well,

First of all,

Don't work hours and hours without a break.

And try and go and have a cup of tea outside before you start,

You know,

But even five minutes in the daylight in your garden or with your window open,

It's going to make a difference.

So yeah,

Put your children,

Get them outside for five minutes before they even start.

And it's doable.

Absolutely.

Go and throw snowballs at each other.

Go and find me three things from the garden.

There's lots of ways that we can orchestrate that.

Absolutely.

And little and often is another really useful one,

Because so many people have this idea that if they're going to go for a walk,

They've got to go for a long walk,

And they've got to go and do,

You know,

They've got to do this big thing.

No,

Just go around the block if that's all you can fit in.

That's still much better than not going around the block.

A lot of clients I'm having to change their mindsets to do,

Just do a little,

That's fine if you can't do a lot.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that everything is linked.

And in fact,

Whenever I do go outside,

And in fact,

I'm thinking back to the first and second,

Well,

The first summer lockdown,

I didn't have any of the same kind of discontent that I have and unease that I have this time around.

But I was outside.

I'm absolutely positive that it's a combination of factors.

Yes,

We're all fed up with it now.

But I'm not outside and I'm not in nature as well.

And I put a big store on that.

Absolutely.

Well,

There's studies to show that being in natural environments and looking at green,

It definitely brings down all your stress hormones.

It's called forest bathing.

I'm sure you've heard of that in Japan.

And they've done lots of studies that,

You know,

Completely show the link between forest bathing and health.

Wow,

That is so interesting.

So coming back to slightly more gut orientated,

In terms of nutrition and hormones,

I was really interested when I first started to learn.

And in fact,

I went to one of your talks that you gave for women on hormones and,

Oh my gosh,

The notes.

I wrote about six pages of notes that night.

It was a lot.

Could you give us kind of an overview,

A distilled?

I mean,

I know that's difficult,

But just give us a bit of some pointers.

Why should women care about hormones and nutrition?

Well,

Because what you eat absolutely affects the levels of your hormones and how you detoxify them.

And hormones,

What makes women feel really bad is when their hormones get out of balance.

And that's when you get into perimenopause and you have falling hormones.

One of the reasons why you feel so bad is because your progesterone levels are falling faster than your estrogen levels.

So your balance gets really out of whack and that's what makes you feel so bad.

So we want to optimize the number of hormones we have,

And we want to optimize the ratios that are there.

And we want to optimize the detoxing of those hormones so that those ratios stay correct.

And if you're lacking certain minimal or certain vitamins,

That can really affect how many hormones you produce and how you detoxify them.

And the gut,

The microbiome has a large part to play in this as well.

Yeah,

Many areas.

It's a big topic.

Just,

I'd like,

I'd just like a debunking,

A kind of like dummy's guide to estrogen,

Progesterone,

I can't even say it.

Can you take me through those hormones?

Because we all talk about hormones,

But do you know,

I quite like a dummy's guide to hormones.

Very difficult to do a dummy's guide to hormones because they are quite complicated.

So,

So estrogen is the hormone that will make you grow all the female characteristics that you have.

And you can sort of compare that to testosterone in men.

Progesterone,

The clue is in its name,

Is the supporter of having a,

Having a baby.

So pro-gestation,

That's where that name comes from,

Progesterone.

And so when your body starts increasing progesterone to get you ready to support pregnancy.

And so the first half of your cycle,

So let's say you've just had your period,

The first half of your cycle,

Your ovaries produce estrogen.

And then in the middle of your cycle,

Your body,

Your ovaries stop producing,

Release your egg,

And then they start producing progesterone.

So you get these two hormones playing a concert with each other and all sorts of things can go wrong with that.

For example,

Your egg will only start producing progesterone if the,

If it has released an egg,

Your,

Sorry,

Your ovary,

If it has released an egg.

So if you haven't released the egg properly,

You may not start producing enough progesterone.

As we get older,

We can't,

We stop producing as much estrogen.

And eventually we almost stop producing estrogen.

If we don't have enough vitamin C,

We find it hard to produce enough progesterone.

So there's so many things that feed into your hormones and your hormone balance.

Jo- Gosh,

That,

I mean,

Actually that was really helpful.

I don't think I even really quite understood that.

And so in terms of the,

What sort of signals,

Symptoms we might be kind of looking at that might be hormone imbalances,

Are we talking just feeling grumpy?

What won't we feel?

Jo- Oh gosh,

You can feel all sorts of things.

So if you have too much estrogen,

If your estrogen and progesterone ratio is right out,

And so you're holding too much estrogen in the body,

You can get things like really sensitive breasts.

You get fluid retention.

You can slow down your thyroid.

You can get things growing.

So estrogen will grow things.

So in that sense,

It can be dangerous in that it can grow cancers.

It can grow fibroids.

You can get cysts,

Growing cysts within your breasts.

You just feel heavy and moody,

Crying,

All sorts of things.

So yes,

It's not just feeling slightly grumpy.

No,

It can be much worse than that.

Jo- So nutrition is something we really need to be keeping tabs on.

Jo- Well,

And nutrition is absolutely,

I mean,

Obviously everything that happens in your body,

Everything that's built and every reaction that is happening in your body depends upon getting proteins and all the vitamins,

All the minerals,

Fats,

Carbohydrates,

All your energies produced from those things.

Everything is made from those things.

So nutrition is absolutely essential.

Yeah.

Jo- And also kind of bringing the S word here,

Sugar.

I think everybody has quite different views of what is nutrition,

What is a healthy diet.

And of course,

Given hormones and our unique individual footprints,

Our own DNA,

We all have different needs from what nutrition we would obviously have.

I'm wondering the sugar question,

Do you think as a whole,

We have too much?

Where are we with sugar these days?

Because we're a little bit more educated about it,

Aren't we?

Jo- Yes.

Sugar's got more complicated,

Actually.

Sugar used to just be sugar,

But now sugar is,

Or you've got coconut sugar,

You've got stevia,

You've got FODMAPs and fermentable,

All the different fermentable carbohydrates and all the sugars that ferment.

So sugar's got a bit more complicated.

But if you look at our consumption of sugar over say the last 100 or 200 years,

And it's,

It literally is an exponential curve upwards.

And so it's,

Yeah,

Sugar causes,

Too much sugar causes a lot of problems,

And it will lead to diabetes and obesity.

We've also got the problem of fructose and the use of fructose within,

Especially in processed foods.

And fructose is metabolized completely differently than sucrose in the body and can cause strains on the liver.

And we're seeing,

You know,

Exponential rises in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease,

Which is linked to sugar.

So sugar comes under this whole massive,

It's a massive area now.

It's not just a simple thing.

But in terms of the amount of sweet and the expectation of sweet,

I think we are now in quite a dangerous place and it's reflected in obesity and diabetes.

Yeah.

And I'm thinking as well with lockdown and people are,

Because you're at home and you,

You know,

You can see the fridge door.

So I think a lot of us are eating more.

I know so many friends that took to baking.

I walked with a friend the other day who said,

Oh gosh,

You know,

We're going to puddings.

We never ate puddings before.

Now we're eating puddings and everybody has their coping mechanisms and it's difficult,

Isn't it,

To stop doing that when you use these like puddings and sugary treats as comfort.

And I wonder,

What would you advise with people?

I mean,

How do you start to balance that?

Because obviously we don't want to,

You know,

You don't want to eat too many processed foods,

But can we make just a few small little tweaks and that helps us?

I think the most important thing you can ever do for your health is to start by learning to cook from whole foods.

That's the most important thing you can do for your health.

Processed foods cause problems and ultra-processed food cause disease.

There's just no argument with that.

So if you can learn to cook and that's what I try to,

With all the people I'm working with,

What I'm saying is use this lockdown to learn to cook from scratch as many things as you can and as many things as vegetables as you can.

As many exciting ways to eat vegetables as you can and that becomes a challenge and becomes something fun to do.

Problem is if you start adding in puddings and getting in use to having sweet tastes all the time,

It's just going to lead to obesity.

It will lead to weight gain and weight gain is dangerous and it's difficult,

Especially once you get to the middle age and your hormones aren't helping you,

It's very hard to lose it.

So I would say very much try to,

Yeah,

Try to experiment with food,

But experiment with vegetables.

Vegetables,

Pulses,

Those things.

My mind's ticking away and I'm going,

Well,

I know you can put quite a lot of vegetables in cakes actually.

I've made courgette cake before,

Carrot cake.

Yes,

Yes you can,

That's true.

And one of the things that actually I do,

I mean,

I've noticed with a lot of recipes that I get,

I half the sugar.

It's a joke in our house because the kids come and look at it,

They sniff the cake if I've made an apple cake.

And because I use our apples,

Which are sweet apples,

They're not cooking apple.

Yes.

I put a fraction of the sugar in for two reasons.

One,

You don't need it.

Also,

Like you say,

I don't want them to have an overtly sweet tooth.

So to knead the sugar.

And actually I have slightly conditioned them to get used to,

You know,

It's a sweet cake,

But it's not saccharine sweet.

Absolutely.

I suppose a lot of the people that come to see me are wishing to lose weight.

And actually it's hard to be moderate with sugar.

It's easier to cut as much as you can of it out.

If you're living on your own and you cook yourself a cake,

It's even if you half the sugar and put loads of vegetables in it,

Sitting there on the side,

You're going to eat it.

And so you're better off to not cook it in the first place.

Yeah.

So I can be quite hardcore like that.

I think if you're a family with children,

It's different,

But with most of the women I'm working for,

I'm trying to wean them off a lot of sweet because they're addicted.

Yeah.

This is really interesting,

Isn't it?

Because you could hear me kind of,

Kind of persuade you to tell me that it was okay.

Yes.

Because it brings in the whole mindset,

Doesn't it?

And I suppose it comes down to that choice.

We need to approach it with some honesty in ourselves.

And also,

You know,

A reality check because we don't want to be so terrified that we don't change anything.

It's all got to be achievable.

And I think the idea of learning to cook well,

Going to your market,

Doing the social distances,

But going and buying your vegetables outside,

There's lots of good reasons for doing that.

There's a local market that's completely sprung up in our local park and that's fantastic.

You can go and buy every single bit of produce you could need.

And then you can have the pleasure of making something with your family because you're all around.

Absolutely.

And you can teach the children to cook at the same time.

Yeah.

My children made,

I'm going to be proud of mum for a moment.

They made homemade ravioli from scratch.

Amazing.

And actually there was a real learning curve from that because they got this incredible sense of empowerment.

They completely controlled the whole evening because they were doing the food.

And also they learnt they don't necessarily have to go and buy shop bought process.

Absolutely.

And they can play,

You can play around with flavours.

You can say,

Right,

We're going to do,

Let's say we're going to do chicken three times this week and we're going to have all these,

All these different ways we could do it,

Different things that we could put with it and get them to taste them.

So,

You know,

To taste or smell rosemary,

Do they like that?

Or should we add some lemon?

Smell it,

Smell the peel,

Smell,

Taste the inside of it.

And so get the children involved with creating the flavour and then see,

Do they like it?

What,

What do you think we could add?

And before you know it,

They'll just be cooking for themselves.

Yes.

And of course they're learning so much,

You know,

What a palette is,

What,

What a variety of different flavours.

I mean,

They put spinach in it.

My daughter grating nutmeg over the spinach.

Fantastic.

It's a really good learning curve,

But also for us,

We,

There was something very satisfying about eating a really lovely,

Healthy meal.

And I think a lot of this is mindset.

Like you say,

It's been kind to yourself and seeing food as this nurturing medicine that will make you feel better and not giving yourself a hard time if you do lapse and have these moments where yes,

Okay,

You made an apple cake,

But perhaps to reign in and recognise and maybe do that kind of mindful thought just for a little while,

Just do a little beat and ask yourself,

Do you really want that?

And if we allow it,

The body will tell us what it wants.

Yes.

Relax,

Give ourselves a few minutes and then reapproach the fridge.

Yes.

As,

As Laura,

One of my friends who runs the market with me says,

Be kind to future you.

Yes.

I like that.

Gosh,

So we're onto the life practice that is life.

And I love that.

One of the things I wanted to ask you about,

Just because it's so fascinating and I think perhaps it might help you explain a little bit about the microbiome and the bacteria that lives in our gut.

I came across and I came across it several years ago.

So I know it's been around for a few years,

The fecal transfer.

Yeah.

So it's called fecal microbial transplants,

FMT in the literature.

And what it is,

Is where you're basically taking the,

The faeces from another person and putting it into,

Clearing out the colon and then replacing it with that other person's fecal matter.

And it's very effective in some areas.

So for example,

It's now a recognized treatment for C.

Difficile in nice,

They'll try all the antibiotics,

But some C.

Difficile is antibiotic resistant and someone is going to die unless something drastic is done.

And they'll often use the husband or wife's faeces,

Transplant it.

And 95% of the time you'll get a recovery.

So that's just how powerful this is.

The first sort of experiments that really showed how interesting this is,

Were on mice.

And they were done in Yale on some mice where they took,

They,

You get these things called germ-free mice,

Where they are bred in sterile conditions.

So they don't have a microbiome at all.

They have no bacteria at all in their bowel.

So then you can put bacterias and see what a particular bacteria does.

And if you put the faeces of a obese person into one of these germ-free mice,

That mice will become obese.

And if you put the faeces of a lean person,

The mice will stay lean.

So we now know that the microbiome is very involved in whether or not you,

You get a beast or not.

And now the fecal transplants are being tested in all sorts of different conditions.

So for example,

There was a recent review in the Lancet and they listed research in inflammatory bowel disease,

Bipolar,

Psoriasis,

Parkinson's,

Psorotic arthritis,

Autism,

IBS,

Metabolic syndrome,

Diabetes.

So,

I mean,

It's become an area,

A massive areas of research.

And in Australia,

They've taken this one step further now,

Where they're now putting the faecal maca into capsules and they call them crapsils.

I love that.

You've got to laugh.

FMT in pills.

That's the strap line.

And a recent study in Australia,

They used it on a very small group of people with Crohn's disease.

And they managed to get a number of patients into total remission using crapsils and antibiotics.

Absolutely amazing.

There is a clinic in the UK called the Tame Out Clinic in Herefordshire,

Where you can get this done and it's packed out all the time.

Well,

We'll put a note in the show notes about that.

If you're at the end of your tether,

And certainly I read a story online where a husband and wife,

The wife was absolutely at the end of her tether and yeah,

They just did it DIY.

They looked it up and actually they did it with guidance of their doctor.

And that was extraordinary,

The results that they had.

But I absolutely think if anybody is curious about this,

They should go see their own GP and follow some professional medical guidelines.

But it's such an interesting world.

And yet this has been actually around for thousands of years.

As horrible as it sounds,

There are practices that require practitioners to take in faecal matter.

So we've known about this for many,

Many,

Many hundreds of years.

It's only now,

I suppose,

That we have the opportunity to do scientific testing.

And so we can verify the efficacy of these.

So this is to do with the micro.

So do you want to explain why this works?

Why does it work taking bacteria from one person's gut into another?

Well,

The microbiome of course is a collection of bacteria,

Viruses,

Fungus,

Everything within your gut.

We have more bacteria on our body than we do our own cells.

And we have many,

Many more genes,

Bacterial genes than we do our own genes.

So for example,

In the mouth alone,

They've estimated it's something like 20 million genes.

And in the gut,

Even more,

Whereas we have between 20 and 25,

000 genes.

And we only just beginning to understand the microbiome because we've only just got the technology that's allowed us to measure it.

And the technology that's allowed us to do that is of course,

Genome testing.

We can't map the genome like we can't map a microbial genome like we mapped the human genome,

Because it is such variety and it's so much bigger.

But what we're starting to do is look for patterns in the microbiome.

So we can't even define what a healthy gut is.

Because there's lots of different varieties of a healthy gut.

But we are beginning to start to define what an unhealthy gut is.

And we're beginning to start to see patterns within a gut that you would find say in IBD or in Alzheimer's.

And these things are starting slowly to be defined.

We know that the balance within our gut affects the whole of our body.

And you can think of the microbiome as a factory.

From what we eat goes into our gut and goes into our microbiome.

And that will either it produces lots of things from it,

Metabolites,

Those either healthy,

Or they're unhealthy,

And very much determined by what we're putting into our mouth long term,

You want a healthy factory.

So that's one way of looking at it.

Another way of looking at it is like looking at it like a forest,

Because it's lots of different types of species.

And you've got like birds,

You've got animals,

You've got trees,

You've got bushes,

You've got flowers,

You've got lots of different types of families of living things all living happily together.

And if you think of antibiotics,

Like a fire,

So they come in and they burn the forest,

If they if you take a small dose,

They burn a bit of the forest.

And when it grows back,

It grows back slightly differently.

And if you start taking lots of that,

Then you're creating a lot of fires,

And you're having a lot of problems.

And if you think of processed food,

Like a rubbish lorry,

Coming and tipping rubbish into the forest,

Because that's what you're really doing when you're eating processed food.

Whereas if you think of good foods,

Good nutrition,

Meditation,

You can think of that of like,

Soft rain followed by sunshine.

I love that.

Fits with flora,

Our gut flora,

Just this wonderful kind of Eden,

If we can see our gut as this beautiful Eden that we need to protect.

And so that's quite a nice segue into,

In fact,

How that beautiful forest,

That flora feeds into the brain.

Because again,

I don't think this is always so obvious and so front of mind that actually,

This is affecting our mental health,

Let alone just from the disease perspective,

But how we actually feel.

Absolutely.

The connection,

The main interface between the gut and the brain is the nervous system.

And we have a nerve called the vagus nerve.

This nerve,

It's called the vagus nerve,

It's called the wandering nerve.

That's what vagus means,

Wandering.

And this one connects your brain to all the organs within your body and to the gut.

Now what's really interesting about the vagus nerve is that there are 10 times as many nerve signals going from the gut to the brain than there are from the brain to the gut.

So that takes a little while to take in,

10 times as many going up as there are coming down.

And so everything that's happening in our gut is being transmitted to our brain through the vagus nerve.

Now that's not the only way you get transmission to the brain.

You also,

Obviously you get things released into blood and that will go up to the brain,

Cross the blood brain barrier,

And they affect the brain that way.

And 80% of our neurotransmitters are produced within our gut.

It's another thing people don't know.

And many of those are then transferred through the blood,

Through the brain barrier,

And they contribute to the neurotransmitters that run your brain.

So the gut is hugely important in the functioning of your brain.

Another thing to note is that inflammation in the body often and usually starts in the gut and inflammation in the gut can very easily cause inflammation in the brain.

Inflammation in the brain causes all the things we don't want,

Depression,

Anxiety,

Bipolar,

Just feeling rotten,

Being manic,

All those things are caused by inflammation in the brain.

So the gut's hugely important in that.

That's for a starter.

It's quite fascinating,

Isn't it?

That if we go to see a nutritional therapist,

If we actually take a little bit more responsibility for our nutritional health,

That actually,

Aside from the kind of feeling better because we're maybe doing something proactive,

We're making change,

Perhaps if we've gained a little bit of weight in lockdown or we're feeling sluggish or we feel like we've maybe got some hormone imbalances,

We might level those things out.

But actually also,

There's this bonus that you might just feel,

If you feel a bit foggy,

Perhaps,

You know,

That might lift,

Might feel a little less tired.

And also your sense of self,

All of these things,

Just your mood may lift as well.

Have you got some real lovely success stories that we can feel very positive about?

There's so many really.

So I had a lady and her husband come to see me because they couldn't get pregnant.

And so I actually did it just on a history.

When you come to see a nutritional therapist,

The first thing they'll do is take a history and have a good look at your diet diary to see what you've got and to try and work out what's lacking in your diet.

And just through that I changed that out quite considerably.

I took out the inflammatory oils,

Which is something a lot of people don't realise that they really need to balance the fats that they're taking in to make sure they're not taking in too many inflammatory oils,

Which damage their cell membranes.

I made sure that I increased his zinc status.

I made sure I could balance her hormones.

Three months later,

She's pregnant.

And they're about to have their baby.

So that's lovely success story.

I've had people come to see me because they've just reached that their HbA1c,

Which shows their blood sugar balance over three months,

Has just gone into that pre diabetic or diabetic level and they want to,

They want to change that.

And that's not that hard to get that changed.

And suddenly they're not,

They're not going to have to go diabetes and medication anymore.

They've lost a whole load of weight.

They've got so much more energy and all their other symptoms going away.

They're going,

Oh,

Right.

And that can often be by getting rid of a lot of the sugar and just replacing it with more nutrient dense foods and whole foods.

I had another woman who came to see me because she wanted to lose weight,

But she had a frozen shoulder.

She had been having injections in her shoulder.

She couldn't do all her sport because of her shoulder.

That's one of the reasons she put on weight.

And she,

But she hadn't come to see me about that.

She'd come to lose weight and improve her diet.

And within two weeks of going on these supplement regime and diet,

I put her on her shoulder was improving so much.

She'd canceled her injections.

So it's just,

It's very powerful and it's a holistic,

You're going to improve lots of things.

You're not just working on one area,

Improve your gut.

You're going to improve your mind.

I mean,

They say leaky gut,

Leaky mind.

So if you've got brain fog,

You've possibly got a leaky gut that's causing inflammation,

Sort out your leaky gut,

And you're going to sort out your leaky brain.

And I've seen that happen so many times.

So I know what leaky gut means.

Do you want to just give us a sentence explaining?

Yes.

Well,

What's really amazing about your body is that separating your gut,

So what comes in,

You know,

What you eat every day and your fluids that are within your body or your internal body,

Is your gut lining.

And what's really amazing about this is it's actually only one cell thick,

And it's held together by what they call tight junctions that should all be very tight,

Holding it very carefully together.

So it only lets through what it wants to let through.

And it does that very cleverly.

But unfortunately,

Those systems can go wrong and they specially go wrong when we're putting lots of processed food into our body,

When our guts get out of balance,

And tight junctions start loosening up and things start getting through your gut lining that shouldn't really be getting through.

And quite often,

If things get through,

Proteins get through that shouldn't be getting through,

Your immune system sitting directly on the other side of that,

It will start reacting.

And if that happens over long periods of time,

That can develop into autoimmunity.

So leaky gut and also that immune reaction,

Of course,

Is inflammation.

So leaky gut can be a root of all sorts of symptoms.

And they'll be different for every person because the inflammation will start affecting the weakest part of your body.

So for one person,

It might be their head.

For another person,

It might be their joints.

So you're going to see different symptoms coming out of that.

Gosh,

So what I'm really taking from all of this is how everything,

Of course,

Is interlinked,

As we started off saying.

You're talking a lot about immunity,

Our nervous system.

And I'm thinking as well how many meditation practices,

Particularly mindfulness,

A lot of the research is on how this can improve your immune system and how you can help regulate your nervous system.

So I mean,

I already knew this,

But it really has reinforced and reminded me just how I cannot just sit and follow a meditation practice.

I have to follow all of this and I have to listen.

And actually,

One supports the other.

So if you're reinforcing and following a nutritional program that's bespoke and adapted for you and your needs and following a meditation practice that perhaps deals with maybe focuses on immune system,

Then you're really giving it big guns aren't you to help yourself?

Absolutely.

And actually,

If you think about it,

Many of the many of the things that you're improving are similar.

So one of the things that getting your nutrition right and getting your gut right,

It's going to improve your vagal tone.

And many of the things that meditation do is improve the vagal tone.

And so the vagus nerve is such an important thing and you can influence it in so many different ways.

But if your vagus nerve is healthy,

Then so much else of you is healthy,

Your inflammation levels low,

Your brain is much happier,

Your guts are much happier,

Your organs much happier,

You're digesting properly,

You're resting properly,

You're sleeping properly.

So I think the vagus nerve is the link here,

The vagus nerve in the gut.

It's the body's highway,

Isn't it?

It is,

Yes.

So that's fantastic.

So obviously,

Everybody is incredibly unique.

And I think you've really made that very clear.

But are there some maybe three great life hacks that you could give us that are pretty much universal for every person,

If they were to make a change like tomorrow on their shopping list or on a food choice that they make,

Or some small tweak that's from a nutritional perspective,

But other three things that you could just say,

Right,

Do that,

And you're doing something good for yourself?

I think the most important thing you can do for your health is to buy unprocessed natural produce and cook your own food.

And that's a repetition.

I know I've already said that.

But it's actually so important.

I think the second most important thing to do is to try and aim for having 30 different unprocessed plant fruits each week.

And this is what's recommended by Professor Tim Spector at King's College,

Who's done a lot of study on the microbiome and on the microbiome and on the microbiome of twins.

This is his recommendation.

And what that means is every herb,

Every spice,

Every different type of potato can be counted as something separate,

Every different type of cabbage,

But what you want is 30 different unprocessed plant foods.

That includes lentils and beans as well.

And that is shown to promote what's called diversity.

Diversity is the hallmark of health within the microbiome.

So you're looking for diversity.

The third thing I would say when it comes to food is to avoid processed seed oils,

Because they're very,

Very dangerous.

So things like corn oils.

So replace them with olive oil is extra virgin olive oil is it has got a lot of antioxidants,

A lot of health benefits.

So that's a good oil to use.

Some even some of those saturated fats,

As long as they're used in moderation,

Are much better than those processed seed oils.

And also avoid processed carbs like sugars process,

Even too much white bread,

Too much white pasta,

All that is linked to your blood sugar dysregulation,

Which drives so many problems,

Including inflammation in your body.

So those are the three food ones.

I have to add fourth,

Which is to prioritize your sleep,

As that affects everything else that you do,

Including your food choices.

And my fifth one,

Which I've already said,

Is make sure that you expose yourself to natural light in the mornings,

Preferably with a walk that will set your circadian rhythm.

So there we go.

Five.

That's an absolute brilliant and two added bonuses.

I love that.

What I also really love is if anybody listens to this,

They go common sense,

I know this.

And the thing is,

We do know it,

But sometimes we just need to keep on reminding ourselves.

And again,

I segue back to the meditation practice.

We know that sitting quietly and following a practice for 10 minutes a day will help.

It'll bleed into the rest of our lives and nutrition,

Daylight,

All exercise,

All of this is the same.

And I think if we look at it with,

You know,

A gentle mind and not go too crazy about it,

And just if we don't do it every day,

Fine,

That's okay as well.

Remember these things,

These markers,

They're markers of good health and that's the holistic full body health.

I particularly love the diversity with food.

Absolutely.

Because I can see that particularly with busyness and life as it is,

That we repeat meals over and over and you become very habitual.

And also as human beings,

We quite like routine.

We like things to be the same.

So shaking that up a little bit.

And again,

That's the curiosity of exploring foods,

Maybe not going to the supermarket to buy food,

Maybe going to a market and even just that experience and seeing foods in their natural state.

So you get carrots that are covered in soil.

They've got the big green stuff at the top.

If you've got children,

It's really good that they see that carrots come like that.

And I think having that much more natural relationship creates a different mindset about all of this.

Helps us see food as medicine.

And as one of the areas in our life that we do have control over,

We do have choice over actually,

A few healthy choices could improve us in so many more ways than just on the weighing scales.

And I think that's possibly the most important bit for me.

It's about all of it.

Brilliant.

Absolutely.

I think one thing I will say though,

Is that we are all individuals as well.

And we all have our own individual histories,

Which means that food can become difficult because it causes problems for people.

So you can have people who react to gluten,

Who are celiacs,

You can have people who are struggling to digest FODMAPs,

Which are all these fermentable carbohydrates.

You can have people who get histamine reactions when they eat histamine filled foods.

You can get people that even react to sulfur foods.

And it's really complicated to work out for yourself.

And so if you have got bloating,

And you are struggling,

And you don't know what it is that's causing all your problems,

It's really helpful to have people who understand that to help you identify what the problem is.

And often,

There are ways of then rebalancing the body so that you can tolerate those foods.

But a nutritional therapist,

What we want you to do is to eat as many whole foods as you possibly can,

Because we want the diversity,

We want immune tolerance,

As many foods as you can.

And we want to get as healthy a microbiome as we can.

And we want you to have as much energy as you can.

And so what we're trying to do is to reestablish immune tolerance for as many foods as we can get you to eat.

Well,

I'm feeling invigorated and positive,

As I always do when I talk with you.

And I love the passion that you bring to this subject.

And I think that really shines through in the work that you do.

So we'll put lots of details.

I think there's been a whole load of interesting references and links that I'll put on the show notes.

If anybody's curious,

They can go and look it all up.

But thank you for talking to me about this.

I could see about six of the conversations that we could.

Absolutely.

Thank you,

Karen.

It's been absolutely brilliant.

My pleasure.

Thank you for the sir.

Reviews

I really loved this interview. Very encouraging and informative. I’m ready to make some loving changes for myself. Thank you 🙏

Excellent! I’ve listened to this multiple times and learn something new each time.

Brilliant conversation and truly eye-opening. Very encouraged to revisit cooking. Thank you!

Excellent! Lots of helpful information! Thank you!